Democracy and Pluralism in Muslim Eurasia (Cummings Center Series)

DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM IN MUSLIM EURASIA

TITLES IN THE CUMMINGS CENTER SERIES 1 SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY, 1917–1991 A Retrospective Edited by Gabriel Gorodetsky 2 JEWS AND JEWISH LIFE IN RUSSIA AND THE SOVIET UNION Edited by Yaacov Ro’i 3 MUSLIM EURASIA Conflicting Legacies Edited by Yaacov Ro’i 4 ENVOY TO MOSCOW Memoirs of an Israeli Ambassador, 1988–92 Aryeh Levin 5 EGYPT’S INCOMPLETE REVOLUTION Lutfi al-Khuli and Nasser’s Socialism in the 1960s Rami Ginat 6 RUSSIAN JEWS ON THREE CONTINENTS Migration and Resettlement Edited by Noah Lewin-Epstein, Yaacov Ro’i and Paul Ritterband 7 IN PURSUIT OF MILITARY EXCELLENCE The Evolution of Operational Theory Shimon Naveh 8 RUSSIA AT A CROSSROADS History, Memory and Political Practice Edited by Nurit Schleifman 9 POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN CENTRAL ASIA AND AZERBAIJAN Sources and Documents Edited by Vladimir Babak, Demian Vaisman and Aryeh Wasserman 11 THE 1956 WAR Collusion and Rivalry in the Middle East Edited by David Tal 13 DOCUMENTS ON ISRAELI–SOVIET RELATIONS, 1941–1953 Part I: 1941–May 1949; Part II: May 1949–1953 14 DOCUMENTS ON SOVIET JEWISH EMIGRATION Boris Morozov 15 DOCUMENTS ON UKRAINIAN JEWISH IDENTITY AND EMIGRATION, 1944–1990 Vladimir Khanin 16 LANGUAGE AND REVOLUTION Making Modern Political Identities Edited by Igal Halfin 17 STALIN AND THE INEVITABLE WAR, 1936–1941 Silvio Pons 18 RUSSIA BETWEEN EAST AND WEST Russian Foreign Policy on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century Edited by Gabriel Gorodetsky

The Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies The Cummings Center Series DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM IN MUSLIM EURASIA Edited by Yaacov Ro’i

THE CUMMINGS CENTER FOR RUSSIAN AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY The Cummings Center is Tel Aviv University’s main framework for research, study, documentation and publication relating to the history and current affairs of Russia, the former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe. The Center is committed to pursuing projects which make use of fresh archival sources and to promoting a dialogue with Russian academic circles through joint research, seminars and publications.

THE CUMMINGS CENTER SERIES The titles published in this series are the product of original research by the Center’s faculty, research staff and associated fellows. The Cummings Center Series also serves as a forum for publishing declassified Russian archival material of interest to scholars in the fields of history and political science.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Gabriel Gorodetsky

EDITORIAL BOARD Michael Confino Igal Halfin Yaacov Ro’i Nurit Schleifman

MANAGING EDITOR Deena Leventer

DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM IN

MUSLIM EURASIA

Edited by YAACOV RO’I

FRANK CASS LONDON • NEW YORK

First published in 2004 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by FRANK CASS 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005 “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Frank Cass is an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group Copyright © 2004 Cummings Center British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-203-00926-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-714-65225-3 (Print edition)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Contents

PREFACE

xi

GLOSSARY

xiii

INTRODUCTION

1

Yaacov Ro’i

PART I HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 1. The Democratic Tradition of Kazakhstan in Historical Context Zhanylzhan Dzhunusova

13

2. Elements of Democracy in Dagestan on the Eve of the Russian Conquest Moshe Gammer

31

3. The Challenge of Belonging: The Muslims of Late Imperial Russia and the Contested Terrain of Identity and Gender Azade-Ayse Rorlich

39

4. The Hidden Dialogue on Constitutionalism between the Russian Provisional Government and the Khivan Democracy in 1917 Dov Yaroshevski

53

PART II POTENTIAL PRESSURE POINTS 5. Aid and Ideas: The Impact of Western Economic Support on the Muslim Successor States Richard Pomfret 6. Islam in the FSU — An Inevitable Impediment to Democracy? Yaacov Ro’i

vii

77 101

DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM IN MUSLIM EURASIA

PART III MUSLIM SUCCESSOR STATES 7. Authoritarian Pathways in Central Asia: A Comparison of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan Neil J. Melvin

119

8. The Formation of Political Parties and Movements in Central Asia Vladimir Babak

143

9. The Price of Stability: Kazakhstani Control Mechanisms under Conditions of Cultural and Demographic Bipolarity 165 Pål Kolstø 10. Liberalization in Kyrgyzstan: ‘An Island of Democracy’ Leonid Levitin

187

11. Political Clans and Political Conflicts in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan Vladimir Khanin

215

12. Linguistic Policy and the Process of Democratization in Uzbekistan Vladimir Mesamed

233

13. Opposition in Tajikistan: Pro et Contra Saodat Olimova 14. Democracy and Civil Society Building in Independent Azerbaijan: Irrevocable Changes or Temporary Diversion? Farda Asadov

245

265

PART IV MUSLIM REGIONS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION 15. Post-Soviet Tatarstan: Democratic Strains in the Ideological Evolution of the Tatar National Movement Rafik Mukhametshin

287

16. Nation-Building and Minority Rights in Post-Soviet Russia: The Case of Bashkortostan Ildus G. Ilishev

307

17. The Political Process in Dagestan: Prospects for Democracy Enver E. Kisriev

viii

329

CONTENTS

18. Ethnic Relations and Democratic Transition in the North-Western Caucasus Svante E. Cornell

343

19. Democratic Values and Political Reality in Chechnya, 1991–1999 Alexei Kudriavtsev

359

AFTERWORD

375

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

381

INDEX

385

ix

Preface The authors of the chapters in this volume are in part Western academics and in part scholars from the Muslim countries and regions of the CIS. The guiding principle in determining this admixture and in selecting the contributions was to provide as authentic an analysis as possible of the problems that concern observers of a scene, which is simultaneously too loaded politically for most local scholars to treat with unalloyed objectivity and too complex for the outsider to totally comprehend. While the scope is not as broad as we would have liked owing to a variety of circumstances, the volume provides insights into the attempts and tendencies to institutionalize some form of democracy in the Muslim regions of the former Soviet Union despite constraints imposed by ethnic and religious factors. Surely, the processes discussed here are highly relevant to some of the challenges being faced today in efforts to establish democratic regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. *** The task of creating a system of unified transliteration and orthography in the compilation of this source book was highly problematic. The nations covered in this volume speak primarily Turkic and some Persian-based languages. However, they also contain ethnic sub-groups which represent a wide range of languages from a number of unrelated linguistic groups. All have been subjected over the years to alien linguistic influences. Their written alphabets have been replaced — sometimes two or three times — to accommodate the political aims of the ruling power. Thus the issue of rendering foreign terms, place names and names of persons was extremely complex. For example, the Turkish meclis (pronounced mejlis ) has been adopted in various linguistic forms as an appellation for a legislative assembly. In Kazakhstan one of the chambers of the Supreme Kenges is known as the Majlis; in Tajikistan the parliament is called the Majlisi Oli; in Turkmenistan it is the Mejlis. Thus, the orthography employed in this volume is not so much a system, as a series of compromises based on criteria of readability, consistency within the text and fidelity to the original language.

xi

Glossary adat

customary non-Islamic or tribal law

ail

Kyrgyz mountain settlement

akim (also hakim and hokim)

local or regional governor

aksakal

elder

aul

Kazakh migratory unit

biy

traditional Kazakh title acquired by merit, granting judicial, administrative and military authority

dehqan

peasant in traditionally sedentary parts of Central Asia

inorodets (pl. inorodtsy)

the term used in imperial Russia to denote subjects of non-Russian (more widely – non Slavic) ethnic origin

Jadidism

movement which surfaced in the 1880s and sought to merge Islam and Islamic culture with European modernism

jama‘at

rural community in the Northern Caucasus, sometimes consisting of a number of villages

kenesh

Kyrgyz term for an elected representative organ

madrasa

advanced Muslim religious school

maktab

elementary religious school

maslikhat

elected organ of local government

mejlis/mazhlis/majlis

from the Turkish meclis (pronounced mejlis) meaning assembly; term used in various linguistic forms for representative bodies

mulla

Muslim religious figure; often the senior clergyman in a mosque

nomenklatura

system by which appointments in the former USSR in government, the economic system and academia were xiii

DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM IN MUSLIM EURASIA

made by the CPSU; refers to all those in top levels of the party and those other hierarchies who were so appointed obkom

oblast party committee

qazi

judge in Shari‘a court

qurultay

assembly

Shari‘a

code of Muslim law and norms of behaviour

Sufism

an Islamic mystical discipline that guides the adept in his search for divine truth

ulus

large administrative unit comprising a specified number of clans and tribes headed by a Chingisid sultan

umma

the Muslim community the world over

Wahhabism

puritanical sectarianism, inimical to any deviation from Qur’anic precepts

zakat

tax to support the poor

zhuz

one of three hordes into which the nomadic Kazakhs were subdivided

xiv

Introduction Yaacov Ro’i The prospects of establishing democratic regimes in the Soviet Union’s successor states have been the focus of academic discussion and study since these states emerged on the world scene as independent entities in the latter half of 1991.1 Despite the initial euphoria in the West over the disintegration of the Soviet empire and the breakdown of the communist system, it quickly became apparent that while most of the successor states have at least a partial market economy, the dimensions and authenticity of political democracy actually implemented have been debatable. Moreover, as time passes, outside observers have grown more sceptical. True, the various governments and leaders in all fifteen countries have attested that their ultimate aim is the establishment of democracy, and many of their constitutions proclaim that democracy is the quintessence of their body politic. Yet, the gap between theory and practice is considerable, and even where the first version of a constitution was relatively liberal and promising, additions and amendments soon placed limitations on articles that appeared to the powers-that-be to overly constrain their authority. The reasons for this trend are in dispute. Some have attributed it to the legacy of Soviet administrative practice which has retained its grip on the new bureaucracies; others to the leadership, most of whose personnel received their ‘basic training’ within the apparatus of the CPSU; a third school to the traditionally authoritarian or autocratic heritage of most of the societies that comprised the Russian and Soviet empires. Other observers have tried to demonstrate that the trend of democratization is not always or necessarily linear, that the factors at play are variegated and sometimes even contradictory and that the level of democracy can not be judged by the same standards in all societies — that is, different models must be applied to those societies with large ethnic minorities. This book is devoted to an analysis of the status of democracy and the prospects for its evolution among the Muslim ethnicities of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), both those that acquired full independence and those remaining within the Russian Federation. Its purpose is to look at these nations’ traditions and present conduct in order to try to decide whether, being Muslim, they constitute a category unto themselves or whether their lot is simply characteristic of that of all the former Soviet peoples.2 This issue has not been addressed heretofore and is of major import given the interest in the West in these ethnicities, their present political environment and their future prospects. In view of the perception that has taken hold in the West, particularly in the wake of Samuel Huntington’s analysis of the inevitability of 1

DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM IN MUSLIM EURASIA

an enhanced polarity between Western civilization and the Muslim world,3 this is surely an issue which merits careful investigation. Certainly, one of the factors operating against the success of democracy in many Muslim countries, their association with the political system of previous colonial or imperial masters such as Britain or France, was not relevant to the countries studied here. On the contrary, in areas that had been subjected to the Russian and Soviet empires, where authoritarianism was the dominant order, democracy should a priori have had greater prospects. Another component significant to our discussion is the degree of identification of the peoples and societies concerned with the Russian/Soviet system of government, on the one hand, and with their ethnic political culture and tradition, on the other. In most cases, both these influences will operate against the chances of genuine democracy. Clearly, too, much depends on the characterization of democracy. For example, there is a tendency in the Muslim successor states, and perhaps in Russia as well, to identify democracy with instability.4 Accordingly, Ermuhamet Ertisbayev, advisor to Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has defined democracy as the rule of maximum consensus.5 How this consensus is achieved and maintained would seem to be irrelevant. Other views expressed by the academic establishment in Uzbekistan, in particular, stress that there are diverse forms of democracy and that inevitably the Central Asian states, insofar as they have undergone the transition to a market economy, must perforce undertake the transformation to democracy. One such source says: ‘The Uzbek region fits the authoritarian patterns which are moving towards democracy or “proto-democracy”. In this sense the political process in Uzbekistan might an be called democratic. The country has not yet got democracy, but is moving towards it.’6 Examining the interconnection between Islam and democracy, the head of the Centre for Analysis and Information of the Azerbaijani Musavat Party Hikmet Aji-zade, delves into the intricacies of the issues at stake. He discusses what appears to be the overlap between or compatibility of Islam and democracy, pointing out that Islamic sources, primarily the Qur’an and the Sunna, postulate freedom of choice, human dignity, religious and ethnic tolerance, social contract and the supremacy of law. He proceeds to insist that the failure of democracy to take hold in the Muslim world can not be explained by Islam’s antidemocratic nature, that the reason therefore is, rather, psychological (as in Latin America and in Communist countries), namely the desire to evade freedom and responsibility; the priority given by society to the collective over the individual; a disregard for human life; and an aspiration to avoid conflicts which defy peaceful resolution. At first, Islamic socialism and the nationalism that developed in Muslim countries appeared to be viable alternatives both to capitalism and individualism as well as to Bolshevism, but they failed in practice because of the economic and political crisis that overtook the states in 2

INTRODUCTION

question. Later, as of the 1970s, the peoples of the Muslim countries turned to Islam as the ‘sole authentic form of social life and state structure’. Yet, while it was out of the question to turn their backs on Islam, it could not be retained in an authoritarian form as this would stymie all hope of development. In consequence, Islamic intellectuals began to seek the Islamic roots of pluralistic democracy, to reconcile the unchanging text of the Qur’an with the changing circumstances of life. The state had to be religious (Islamic) and society pluralistic. They showed that the Qur’an and the Sunna did not indicate any political structure, ijtihad enabling the passing of any law that might be necessary to solve actual problems by an appropriate interpretation of these sources. The degree of progressiveness of the law depended solely on the level of social consciousness of those who enacted it.7 This total rejection of Huntington was representative of intellectual opinion in the CIS Muslim states; it did not necessarily reflect the view of statesmen and politicians, let alone of the citizenry at large, most of whom were not concerned by the issues raised here. *** The first four chapters of the book look at the past — the first two at more distant history, in the period prior to the Russian annexation, and the other two at examples from the late 19th and early 20th century, just prior to the Bolshevik takeover. The second part of the volume tries to assess the impact of general influences — innate ones such as Islam and external ones such as Western economic aid — that affect most of the states in question. The third part surveys the political evolution of the Muslim successor states (except Turkmenistan) where seemingly auspicious beginnings quickly proved to be deceptive, indicating, perhaps, that the much-touted democratic inclinations of leaders reflected the hopes of others rather than their own intentions. The final section dwells on the Muslim societies that have remained within the Russian Federation, which in many ways are even more variegated than the six independent states. The opening chapters by Zhanylzhan Dzhunusova and Moshe Gammer show the partially democratic practices and political structures of two Muslim societies, one in the Central Asian steppe, the other in the Caucasus. These flashbacks to earlier periods and experiments are significant when it comes to evaluating the prospects of democracy and pluralism in the post-Soviet period for two reasons: First, many leading political figures and thinkers endeavour to hark back to pre-Soviet and even pre-Russian imperial times as they seek to construct a new national identity and ethos and draw from them — somewhat eclectically — to show the continuity between the new independent successor states and their ‘national’ history. Second, they help the academic community envisage the possibilities that exist in fact for the Muslim societies of the CIS to shed some aspects of their authoritarianism at the turn of the 21st century. Indeed, the significance of these examples is that they 3

DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM IN MUSLIM EURASIA

demonstrate that some elements at least of democracy are not merely compatible with Islam but can develop in a Muslim surrounding.8 In other words, the Muslim character of certain Central Asian and Caucasian polities was irrelevant to these features of proto-democracy and co-existed without considering them threatening and often without affecting them meaningfully. The third and fourth chapters in this section relate to the changes that took place among Russia’s Muslims in the period prior to the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917. Azade-Ayse Rorlich seeks to assess the measure of pluralism that existed in the last decades of the tsarist empire, particularly after 1905, and its impact on, and implications for, the political development and awareness of Russia’s Muslim population, most notably of Muslim women. The voices that were beginning to be heard towards the close of the tsarist period indicate that the transformations occurring in Russian society did not escape the empire’s Muslims. Their leading intellectuals and political figures saw themselves as necessary beneficiaries of the new rights of citizens that the authorities had acknowledged for all, irrespective of race and religion. Dov Yaroshevski’s piece analyzes the attempt in 1917 to create a constitutional state in one of the Russian Empire’s two Central Asian protectorates. He shows how the give and take between representatives of the Russian liberal-democratic Provisional Government after February 1917 and the Khivan democrats, contemplated two forms of constraining autocratic rule in one of the country’s most conservative and despotic constituencies. The differences between them notwithstanding, both considered constitutionalism, whether based on formal law or on a parliament, adaptable to local conditions and customs. In addition to the influence of historical precedent on each of the Muslim societies in question and the Soviet legacy which they all share, other factors, too, have a potential bearing on their political evolution. Two of these are common to all the Muslim successor states and one of them also to the ethnic Muslim regions of the Russian Federation. The second part of this volume deals with these two aspects: the chapter by Yaacov Ro’i with Islam and its significance for the prospects of democracy and pluralism, while that of Richard Pomfret considers the question of foreign economic aid and the way it is designed to stimulate political developments. Rather surprisingly, the balance sheet of both these chapters is that neither the Islamic revival that has been noted in differing degrees among all the CIS’s Muslim populations nor Western economic leverage has had a meaningful impact on the level of democracy. The significance of Islam has been primarily in its repression; that is, since Islam has been perceived by the ruling élites as the main, if not the sole, threat to their rule, they have gone to extreme lengths to neutralize its social and organizational implications and in so doing have demonstrated here, more than in any other sphere, their own authoritarianism, if not outright dictatorial proclivities. Islam, for its part, has in some instances made alliances with democratic groups and in 4

INTRODUCTION

others has operated against them, but in neither instance was its motivation the result of support for or opposition to democracy per se. Islamic parties and leaders have demonstrated that their theological or doctrinal inclinations do not a priori dictate any specific view of democracy: in certain circumstances they can promote it and in others they are liable to seek to undermine it. Western economic assistance has been similarly pragmatic. Rather than exploiting the need of the polities in question for outside, first and foremost, Western, economic aid in order to apply political pressure, Western governments and financial institutions alike have restricted their vision to a purely economic plane. At most, lip service has been paid to human rights groups, who have pressured their governments to protest far-reaching violations of civil rights. It is not the task of this book to determine whether the West has missed important opportunities to influence the political development of these new states as they seek their new identities. It is, however, central to assert and prove that this has not been done. The third section is devoted to the experience of the six Muslim successor states, in some of which the early transition period sparked hopes for democracy. While there are significant differences among them, there are also major similarities and analogous situations. All six states have adamantly insisted that their orientation is — and from the point of view of the ruling regimes can only be — secular in its essence. All have paid lip service to democracy and then proceeded to flout its most fundamental principles and establish authoritarian political systems which show no comprehension for or interest in democracy as the term is commonly understood in the West. Neil Melvin, in the opening chapter of this section, compares attitudes to democracy in three of the states in question — Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. He dwells on the cultural and sociological differences between these three Central Asian polities and then analyzes how and why the latter two, where, at the outset, the commitment to pluralism appeared far more serious than in Uzbekistan, rather quickly reverted to authoritarianism. Melvin’s careful scrutiny of the scene in each country has led him to be pessimistic — for the short run, at least. Yet his bottom line is that since in all three states it is the president who sets the tone, and since all three presidents have built administrations founded on personal loyalties, democratic institutions and sentiments may experience a revival when these individuals depart the scene. The following chapter by Vladimir Babak looks at the evolution of political movements and parties in the five Central Asian states and shows that a veneer of pluralism does not necessarily reflect a democratic tendency, but that sometimes — where these political movements and parties were largely pro-government or actually governmentinspired — the precise contrary. In other cases, the plethora of political associations indicated the inefficacy of political activity on the part of small, politically inexperienced interest groups counterpoised to a highly centralized regime with a monopoly of both resources and 5

DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM IN MUSLIM EURASIA

power. In this way, paradoxically, their very number constrained the creation of anything resembling true democracy. Examining Kazakhstan, Pål Kolstø suggests that, among others, Nazarbayev owes his success in large measure to his adroit manipulation of a situation where, after independence, the Kazakhs were resolved to overturn the cultural and administrative dominance the Russians had achieved under the Soviet regime. According to Kolstø’s thesis, Nazarbayev was perceived by the Russians, in particular, and by the larger russophone community in general, as the sole force that could ensure the continued economic and political security that was a prerequisite for their remaining in Kazakhstan. At the same time, the Kazakhs saw in him a guarantee that they might peacefully turn the tables. The needs of both groups provided Nazarbayev with opportunities to enhance his power at the expense of the various institutions originally envisaged and established to create some sort of political equilibrium. The following two chapters look at Kyrgyzstan and explain how the promising start this state made on the path of establishing a democratic and pluralist body politic stalled. They seek, in effect, to address the question whether Kyrgyzstan’s democratic trappings in the early years were merely a façade or whether they represented a genuine endeavour that was simply aborted by circumstances. A former advisor to President Akayev, Leonid Levitin draws on his personal knowledge of the actions and activities of Kyrgyzstan’s president, as well as on a host of other sources, to show how the latter’s original intentions of creating a regime unlike that of the other states of the region were thwarted by various factors, some the concomitants of the economic crisis that accompanied the transition to a market economy and of far-reaching land reform, others a consequence of the social mores of the eponymous nationality. Indeed, the traditional political culture of the Kyrgyz is the theme of the second of these chapters. Its author, Vladimir Khanin, too, indicates that the combination of social mores and informal institutions, the needs of a viable modern economy and the material and political legacy of the Soviet regime created a system which had no common language with western-style democracy. However democratic its formal organization, the actual power structure operated independently. An essay on the language situation in Uzbekistan demonstrates how the treatment of this issue reflects the authoritarianism of the regime. Vladimir Mesamed argues that Karimov compensates the Uzbek population for his authoritarianism by endowing them with superior status visà-vis other ethnicities. In this way he gives them the sense that they too have a vested interest in perpetuating his rule and in promoting his policies. That Uzbeks, however, have no sense of security or freedom is evidenced by the fact that those, mostly academics, whom the author interviewed for his chapter and who gave him information that contradicted what the regime would have public opinion at home and the world at large believe, were unwilling for their names to be revealed. 6

INTRODUCTION

This is certainly all the truer for the country’s national minorities, against whom language policy manifestly discriminates. The last chapter on the Central Asian states addresses the situation in Tajikistan. Saodat Olimova suggests that the opportunities for the evolution of a democratic body politic are still considerable in this country over a decade after it became independent. Lacking either the strong leadership of a Karimov or a Nazarbayev, or the tribal traditions of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan has the potential for democratic development, if only it succeeds in overcoming the regional focus of its politics. In Olimova’s view, even Islamic forces, in this most Islamic of all the Muslim successor states, have learned to play according to the rules of the democratic game and will only resort to violence or ‘disloyal opposition’ if constrained upon to do so by the regime. The record of democratic development in Azerbaijan, the sole Muslim successor state not in Central Asia, is the topic of the last chapter in this section. Its author, Azerbaijani scholar Farda Asadov, contends that while the Aliyev regime is far from democratic9 the country has had some considerable success in institutionalizing a number of the basic components of a democratic system. The political scene in Azerbaijan is far more pluralistic than in the other countries that have been discussed, apart perhaps from Kyrgyzstan. Opposition parties have had a significant impact on politics; the media have been relatively free; a plethora of NGOs deal with a variety of tasks in society, links with the West exist on various levels, and election laws, at least on paper, are notably liberal. Here, too, then, the prospects for democracy in the short-term depend largely on the personality of Aliyev’s successor and how the succession is effected. The final section of the volume deals with Muslim ethnicities which have remained within the Russian Federation, two of them peoples inhabiting the Middle Volga region and three from the regions of the Caucasus. The opening chapter looks at the national movement of the largest of these nationalities, the Volga Tatars. Rafik Mukhametshin contends that after what seemed a flying start in the period of perestroika, the movement entered a period of crisis which seems well nigh insoluble, given the political situation in Tatarstan and that republic’s relations with the ‘imperial centre’, on the one hand, and the demography of the republic, on the other (the Tatars are not only a minority in their homeland, but most of them live beyond its borders). The difficulties resulting from these conditions have been highlighted by various abortive endeavours to find a platform that could unite them. The greatest dilemma has been faced by those who have sought to give the Tatar national movement a democratic character: granting rights and privileges to all Tatars and granting rights to all citizens of Tatarstan, seemed to be irreconcilable aims. The solution that one sector of the movement sought at the very close of the century — joining with other opposition elements in the population of Tatarstan — meant in effect abandoning the fundamental definition of a Tatar national movement. 7

DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM IN MUSLIM EURASIA

The turn towards Islam pursued by the more radical nationalists was, needless to say, politically inoperative in the circumstances where many, especially among the Tatar intelligentsia, were unable to identify with such an orientation. The following chapter by Ildus Ilishev examines the case of the republic where the second major Muslim nationality, the Bashkirs, constitute the eponymous nationality. It shows how Bashkortostan has grappled with Moscow in an ongoing endeavour to build a sovereign, albeit not an independent, nation-state by stressing the rights of a particular minority group within the Russian Federation. The author’s basic argument is composed of two parts. Ilishev, argues, first, that as long as minority rights are not guaranteed, Russia can not claim to be implementing democracy. Second, the federal foundation of Russia is such that it will do all in its power to prevent the fulfilment of the rights of ethnic minorities insofar as they are linked to administrative units (‘subjects’) within the federation. The centre, especially under Putin, seeks to curb these rights, seeing them as a threat to Moscow’s own authority. The first chapter on the Caucasian peoples and countries relates to Dagestan, the sole republic of the Russian Federation which has no titular ethnicity but a multiple ethnic base. The author, Dagestani sociologist Enver Kisriev, argues that contrary to the generally accepted image, Dagestan is not a country torn by ethnic strife, but rather one with historically built-in social institutions and frameworks which comprise the fulcrum for the actual political struggles in Dagestan, and mostly guarantee a carefully constructed equilibrium of forces. He further contends, again in contradiction to what has long been held, that while there is no sign of classic Western democracy prevailing in Dagestan, the system that predominates is a form of ‘consociational’ democracy. The author believes that Dagestan has significant mid- or long-term prospects for democratic development.10 A rather different picture is presented in the discussion of the northwest Caucasus, specifically the two republics with two titular ethnicities, Karachai-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria. Svante Cornell, who discusses this rather neglected area insists that not only has there been no democratic development of any hue, but that the demographic situation combined with ethnic tensions in two republics with traditionally hostile eponymous populations will probably require the promotion of democratic institutions with external assistance if a major crisis is to be averted. At the same time, the assistance to be proffered must be accompanied by a careful and thorough knowledge of the peculiar features of the region that will have to be taken into consideration if it is to be effective. The last chapter by Aleksei Kudriavtsev looks at the history of Chechnya since the fall of the Soviet Union. Here, indeed, was an instance where a regime that was originally designed, at least formally, to comply with democratic norms strayed significantly from the mark. 8

INTRODUCTION

True, these norms were embedded in traditional Chechen political culture, yet the institutional forms they entailed were irrelevant to the circumstances prevailing in the country at the end of the 20th century. Moreover, the social, political and economic forces at work propelled Chechnya into a situation of conflict with Russia, which necessitated strong rule and consolidation of the native population. The end result of these two conditions confronted the Chechen leadership with dilemmas which it was unable to resolve. The final stage saw the country driven into the arms of the islamists, who contended that only Shari‘a rule could save it, and of warlords who defied the authority of the central leadership and established a rule of crime and ultimate anarchy. The surveys in this volume do not, on the whole, give ground for optimism. Manifestly, however, the Muslim societies of the former Soviet Union have developed very differently, despite their common Muslim and Soviet heritage. Most of them are not homogeneous, including elements which prefer to hark back to various narratives of their ethnic history and forces which prefer to modernize, drawing eclectically from Russian, Western and other models. In other words, their confessional uniformity, the fact that they are all Muslim, and their presence in the same geographic space do not dictate the path they are likely to take. At the same time, a number of commonalties can be discerned — an ambiguous attitude towards Russia as a political entity and as a culture or civilization and towards the Russians who have remained in their midst; a general desire to relate to Islam without, however, allowing it too much weight in shaping the new nation states (even the ethnicities that have remained in the Russian Federation have some of the features of a state); and the realization that the present stage will be a critical one in the long-term formation of the new ethnic society and body politic, requiring a great deal of initiative in order to institutionalize the requisite transformations. These shared features, indeed, might well offer the basis for further research and analysis. NOTES 1.

2.

3. 4. 5.

See, for example, Richard D. Anderson, Jr., M. Steven Fish, Stephen E. Hanson and Philip G. Roeder, Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001); and Archie Brown (ed.), Contemporary Russian Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). The first three chapters in Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy address themselves specifically to the six Muslim successor states in their efforts to categorize the degree of democratization and tendencies toward authoritarianism throughout the CIS. They incline, however, to attribute the features of the regimes to characterstics of their political culture rather than to their Muslim heritage Samuel Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ Foreign Affairs, 3 (Summer 1993), pp. 22–8. For a more detailed discussion of Huntington’s views and position, see Farda Asadov’s chapter in this volume This is discussed in Neil Melvin’s chapter in this book Comments at the Conference on Democracy and Pluralism in the Muslim Areas of the Former Soviet Union, Tel Aviv University, 7–9 November 1999.

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DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM IN MUSLIM EURASIA

6. Farhad Tolipov, ‘Democracy, Nationalism and Regionalism in Central Asia,’ Central Asia and the Caucasus 4 (2000), p. 9. Tolipov is associate professor at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy in Tashkent. 7. Hikmet Haji-zade, ‘The Islamic World on the Threshold of Democratic Reforms,’ Tsentral’naia Aziia 6 (12), 1997, pp. 107–113 8. It is immaterial to our argument that some of these components came into being before one of the societies in question actually adopted Islam. 9. This is hardly surprising since of all the leading executives in the successor states (except Eduard Shevardnadze in neighbouring Georgia), he has the longest record of service in the Soviet establishment and held the most senior position in the Soviet bureaucracy. 10. Political developments in Dagestan in the first three years of the 21st century, including modifications of the electoral system, have somewhat dampened these rather sanguine expectations. See, for example, Robert Bruce Ware and Enver Kisriev, ‘Prospects for Political Stability and Economic development in Dagestan’, Central Asian Survey 2 ( June 2002), pp. 144–5 and 156.

10

I HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

1

The Democratic Tradition of Kazakhstan in Historical Context

ZHANYLZHAN DZHUNUSOVA The nomadic civilization of the Kazakh steppe in its primordial form combined collectivist and individualistic, etatistic and liberal features. While monopoly of power, corporativism, clan ties and patron-client relations were typical of oriental societies, Kazakh society did not adopt these political traditions in their classic versions. This can be explained by the fact that the state played a marginal role in Kazakh society. In fact, throughout most of Kazakh history, one cannot speak of the existence of a state in the Western sense. Kazakh society functioned mainly as a civil society, insofar as the behaviour of the common people was regulated by the rules of so-called steppe democracy, although power relations were determined by oriental traditions of state administration. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF POLITICAL STRUCTURES The evolution and development of Kazakh nomadic statehood were influenced by the interaction between nomadic and settled civilizations in the medieval period. The nomads of the steppe created their own political system. Their khanates had no administrative-territorial divisions, formal authority, fixed taxation system or written codes of law. At the same time, oral codes of law and loose boundaries of authority did exist, as did universal military conscription. The Kazakhs initially constituted a discrete segment of a large, farflung Uzbek community,1 their prehistory being connected with the history of the so-called nomadic Uzbeks2 of Dusht-i Kypchak.3 The reputed founder of the dynasty of the Kazakh khans, Urus-Khan, ruled before the Kazakhs were so named (1369–79). The foundation of the Kazakh Khanate was part of a struggle between two branches of the Zhuchids (Zhuchi Khan was a son of Chingiz/Genghis Khan) in the period of the dissolution of the Golden Horde.4 In the 15th century there were several uluses,5 the largest of 13

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which was that of Abulkhayr Khan. The struggle between Abulkhayr and the descendants of the rival branch of the Zhuchids continued without interruption throughout his rule, and his state was weakened significantly by this internecine strife.6 Finally, Girey Khan and Zhanibek Khan7 overcame the fragmentation and political divisions among the Kazakhs. According to the testimony of the thinker and historian Mirza Muhammad Khaydar (1499–1551), the author of Tarikh-i Rashidi, these two sultans, both descendants of Urus Khan, united around themselves in the second half of the 1450s a large number of Zhuchids of dependant clans and led them to Western Zhetisu, today south-eastern Kazakhstan. Migration was a typical expression of dissent or opposition in medieval nomadic society, and this migration comprised an important link in the chain of political development connected with the formation of the Kazakh Khanate in 1465–66 (according to Khaydar).8 In the period of the disturbances following Abulkhayr’s death more and more people joined the Kazakhs, so that both their numbers and their territory grew considerably.9 In reality the establishment of the khanate was not just the outcome of this act of migration. The dynastic ambitions of Girey and Zhanibek and their struggles for power in the steppe with other descendants of the Chingisid dynasty, were conditioned by the interests of different social groups, including both the tribal aristocracy and ordinary herdsmen and peasant farmers, which were also linked to the economic, social and political development of medieval Kazakhstan and the specifics of Kazakh ethnic history. In the latter half of the 15th and early part of the 16th century, the contemporary ethnic name Kazakh was adopted, reflecting the implicit desire of a consolidated ethnicity to constitute an independent body politic.10 In the first part of the 16th century the Kazakhs formed three zhuzes or hordes, the Kishi, Orta and Uly, known also as the Little, Middle and Great Hordes, respectively. Scholars do not concur as to the origins of these hordes. The Kazakh steppe divides naturally into three parts: Semirech’e, Western Kazakhstan (to the West of the Mugojar Mountains) and Eastern Kazakhstan (east of the Mugojar Mountains). Each zone was characterized by its own cultural and historical evolution. By the 17th century, the three hordes, each of which inhabited one of these regions, developed within ethno-territorial units of nomadic Kazakhs, differing in ethnogenesis, socio-economic features, way of life and culture.11 The social structure of Kazakh society in the period of the khanate — the latter part of the 15th to the early part of the 19th century — was based on two principles. The first was the inclusion of all Kazakh tribes and clans into one of the three hordes. The second was the subdivision into two basic social categories, known as White and Black Bone (aksuyek and kara-suyek), differing not so much in economic as in political and legal attributes. The former embraced the sultans, the male-line

14

THE DEMOCRATIC TRADITION OF KAZAKHSTAN

descendants of the Chingisid dynasty, and the religious élite, the sayyids (the reputed descendants of Muhammad), as well as khojas — (descendants of the Arabs who conquered and islamized Central Asia in the 8th century). All other strata made up the Black Bone. The division between White and Black Bone was observed rigorously throughout Kazakh history. The sultans of the Chingisid dynasty, including the khans who were chosen from their midst, comprised the supreme estate in the social hierarchy and represented the most influential political force. The male progeny of the Chingisids acquired the title of sultan by right of birth, and with it all the privileges pertaining to this social group, irrespective of economic circumstances or personal, moral, intellectual or physical qualities. One was simply born a sultan.12 The sultans had no duties except military ones. Their hereditary privileges included exemption from corporate punishment. Nor did they come under the jurisdiction of the court of the biys, clan and tribal leaders. Their political rights, exercised by them in corpore, comprised participation in central institutions, as well as in local government and administration of the ulus patrimony. The leading figure in the power hierarchy was the khan. Only a sultan could be proclaimed khan. According to steppe custom, the khan’s brother preceded his son in the hierarchy of succession. However, this practice was not consistently observed and power was sometimes transferred from father to son. Such exceptions were not deemed violations of tradition, since they were ratified by the aristocracy. Thus, Abulkhayr Khan (d. 1748) nominated his son Nuraly as his successor in his lifetime. In the absence of rigorous rules of succession to the throne, a struggle between sultans frequently occurred. Indeed, a khan’s death was almost invariably followed by internecine strife in the steppe. Often, too, a reigning khan would lose his title as a result of action on the part of the most powerful sultans. Sometimes, too, the supreme authority in the khanate passed in violation of genealogical tradition from the senior branch of the ruling dynasty into the hands of a representative of a junior branch. For instance, following the death of Abulmambet Khan (khan of the Middle Zhuz) in the second half of the 18th century, a representative of another sultanic dynasty, Abylai, became khan. In each instance, however, the election had to be confirmed by the qurultay. The enthronement of a khan was traditionally accompanied by the ancient ceremony of raising him on a large piece of white felt, which symbolized the purity of his intentions and of the origins and wealth of his clan. He was lifted three times by the most influential sultans and biys, who proclaimed ‘Khan, Khan, Khan’. After this, the felt, which served, as it were, as a throne, was torn into small pieces, which each participant tried to grab as a souvenir of his participation in the ceremony. The ceremony ended with long days of revelry.13 The ritual of

15

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raising the elected khan on the white felt as a symbol of his authority, in the presence of the people and with their express approval, was testimony to the Kazakhs’ political rights, proof that their political culture could not be reduced to patron-client relations but included elements of democracy. The power of the khan was vested in the person, not the office. In other words, the power of a particular khan was a reflection of his fitness to rule. Periods of Kazakh unity occurred sporadically — under Kasym (1511–18, or, according to some sources, to 1523), Hak Nazar (1538–80) and Khan Tauke (1680–1718) — because the khans of the other hordes acknowledged the military superiority of these individuals and were willing to defer to their authority. Tauke was the last Kazakh khan to hold sway over the territory of all three zhuzes. Within a short time of his death khans emerged in all three and from that time on, the zhuzes became independent khanates without special designations, the khan of each one simply being called the khan of the Ulu, of the Orta, or of the Kishi. The khan exerted control over relations between the clans and auls, the Kazakh migratory unit, comprising 5–15 yurts. He also took the principal decisions about declaring war and the zhuz’s defensive arrangements. In essence, his principal task was that of military leader and he would fight for the support of his campaigns by lesser authorities, undertaking to tax allied clans only in time of war when the livestock and food levied were needed to provision the troops. The khan also allocated pasturelands among the clans and decided when and where the horde would migrate. His decision would be closely linked to the horde’s military situation, for it depended upon which lands were securely under the khan’s control. Since the Kazakh khans did not receive regular tribute from their subject populations, had no legal proprietorship either of land or of the person of their subjects, they were not, technically speaking, feudal rulers.14 Furthermore, while the herds and flocks of the khans and sultans were considerably larger than those of the average Kazakh, their life-style was not very different. The khan or sultan lived in an aul, which, like all others, migrated in accordance with seasonal pasturelands. Although his aul might be somewhat larger than the norm, the only major distinction was that the khan or sultan lived in an ornate white felt yurt rather than in a simple black felt one. Each sultan retained a retinue including his immediate family, his aides and their families, and sometimes a ‘holy man’, a batyr or hero-warrior, and a few tulenguts or slaves. The last category was a hereditary class of slave warriors descended from captives taken on raids of non-Kazakh populations, mostly Turkmen or subjects of the khanates of Kokand and Khiva. Thus, the Kazakh Khanate was not a feudal society but a military democracy.15 The khan’s political authority was a projection of his military prowess. In general, Kazakh society appreciated military skills. 16

THE DEMOCRATIC TRADITION OF KAZAKHSTAN

Batyrs were invited to join the retinues of khans and sultans and were sometimes themselves elected khans. Proven military skill was a prerequisite for election as khan, since the khan had to lead his zhuz in military campaigns and routine plundering. Unlike the White Bone estate, representatives of the Black Bone estate consistently observed the subdivision into clans and tribes. Accordingly, the public status of any Black Bone representative, whether the hereditary head of a clan or an ordinary nomad herdsman, was determined by the degree of privilege, size, strength, antiquity and seniority of his clan or tribe. Among the Black Bone, only biys enjoyed special rights. Their title was not inherited, but acquired by virtue of personal traits. This was a clear case of meritocracy. One of the most influential biys in Kazakh history, Tole-biy (late 17th–early 18th century), came from the sharua, the poorest social group. This did not preclude his becoming a person whose opinion was of major import for khans and sultans. Biys of the Kazakh uluses enjoyed special rights: within the clans subordinate to them they were the only people besides the khans and sultans who possessed judicial, administrative and military authority. This authority endowed them with political importance. They participated together with the sultans in making nation-wide decisions, convening at the annually summoned qurultay.16 The most influential among them were also included in the khan’s council.17 The biys, then, were an important link in the chain of the khanate’s administrative system: they were military commanders, who led levies of their clans or tribes during military campaigns, administrators, judges and representatives of the steppe aristocracy. Whereas the Chingisid khans were, as it were, a ‘de-nationalized’ class, the biys constituted a national aristocracy, the elite of the Black Bone social group. Within the Kazakh community at large, clan and tribal leaders and biys had more influence than the khan. They allocated lands among the auls and families, just as the khan did among the clans, and — unlike the khan — had an unquestioned right of taxation, a right to part of each family’s livestock. In this way, the Kazakhs had a dual power structure: an aristocracy of khans and sultans super-imposed upon a clan-based power system. Traditional Kazakh society had a strictly hierarchical structure. As in Europe and Russia, the aristocracy remained distinct from the ordinary populace. The economic differentiation of the various estates was no less manifest, power generating definite property benefits. This did not, however, rule out the existence of either poor sultans or rich Black Bone. Material wealth unquestionably determined social prestige, yet affluence as such was not synonymous with special privileges. Only differentiation by estate underlined the position of each resident of the steppe within his clan and community, in the zhuz and in the nation, as well as in his life-style and, ultimately, his prospects. 17

ZHANYLZHAN DZHUNUSOVA

The division into White and Black Bone was a clear sign of an aristocratic, non-democratic social structure. The division into nobility and common people was common to any medieval or feudal society. Nevertheless, the Kazakh nobility had its own distinguishing features. Any sultan had the right to be a khan, but, obviously, not all became khans. A khan was elected with the support of the influential tribal heads, who thereupon became his subjects, and the criteria for election were not only noble origin but also reputation and personal traits such as valour and courage. The electoral procedure of the khan, as of the biy, was thus based on the principle of merit. An outstanding example was the election of Abulkhayr Khan (1710), who was famous for his personal qualities but had not a single khan predecessor in his clan, except for the founder of the Kazakh Khanate, Zhanibek, who was the ancestor of all the Kazakh khans. In the 16th century, the division into three hordes was ephemeral, depending first and foremost on land usage, but also on kinship within the horde. As Kazakh control of the steppe expanded during the 17th century, the zhuzes gradually evolved into three stable unions, each controlling rather well defined territories.18 Nonetheless, the Kazakhs remained one people with a common language, culture and economy Although primarily nomadic the Kazakhs also boasted settled and semi-settled agriculture and even some towns, particularly in the south and south-east. Under the Kazakh Khanate (15th–17th centuries), almost 50 urban centres developed. The most important of these were in the vicinity of the Syr Darya. The capital of the first Kazakh rulers was Sygnak, a trading port for eastern Dusht-i Kypchak. Yassy (later the town of Turkestan), which became the capital at the end of the 16th century, was a major commercial city that served a vast agricultural region, as well as being the main religious centre for the whole of Turkestan and the adjacent Kazakh steppe. Otrar was another large trade and handicraft centre. All three towns were situated on the Great Silk Road and minted their own coins, and each served a considerable hinterland, which had a developed irrigation system and produced large quantities of grain and other agricultural supplies.19 Sygnak, Yassy and Sairam developed an active trade with Central Asia, Eastern Turkestan and Russia. By the end of the 17th–early 18th century the towns of southern Kazakhstan, however, fell into decay. The spread of internecine warfare and raids from without dealt a heavy blow to the economy in general. When the Kazakh Khanate began to breakup at the beginning of the 18th century, after the death of Khan Tauke, the khan of each horde assumed the powers of a sovereign ruler within his own territory, including the right to negotiate treaties with foreign states. Yet, while the Russians conducted their contacts with the Kazakh hordes separately, it is clear from Kazakh legends and tales of their common ancestry dating from this period that the Kazakhs continued to view themselves as a single people. 18

THE DEMOCRATIC TRADITION OF KAZAKHSTAN

THE KAZAKH MENTALITY The mentality of the Kazakhs is another factor which must be taken into consideration, together with the unique character of their political structures, as having influenced the formation of a democratic tradition in Kazakh political history. Their mentality was formed by a nomadic life-style, a daily warrior existence and life-cycle festivities, tois, which sanctified the existing order and system, and provided a temporary release from hierarchical relations (White Bone versus Black Bone), dependence, prohibitions and norms. Although nomadic conditions of life and a rigorous climate encouraged the development of personal autonomy, the individual saw the meaning of life in clan service. The predominance of ancestral origin in the national mentality was an obstacle to free individual activity, the terms freedom, justice and equality having a special meaning for Kazakhs. The traditional Kazakh ethic was based on the notion of transparent boundaries between the world of the living and the world of the spirits and the unbroken bond between the past, present and future. The spirits of the departed influence the living, their fate, their successes, failures and misfortunes and could protect ‘us’ or punish ‘them’. In this way the cult of ancestors emerged. Reverence for the departed and respect for elders are integral features of the Kazakh mind-set. Worship of the sky or sky god, Tengri, stimulated a craving for the sublime, compelling a person to be proud and intransigent and to profess a philosophy incompatible with a slave mentality. Worship of Mother Earth, Umai, strengthened belief in the sanctity of one’s patrimony, or otan,20 and in the succour of good spirits. Tengrianism is a religion which advocates harmony and cooperation between conflicting groups.21 The nomads applied its precepts to their system of social relations. Belief in predestination — yet another ingrained characteristic of Kazakh mentality — also encouraged a tendency toward compromise. Many Kazakh tales and legends highlight the ability to acknowledge defeat, to opt for reconciliation, or to solve conflicts without resort to force, as indications of genuine humanism. In traditional Kazakh society, the khan combined the roles of administrator, judicial arbiter, military leader and employer. He secured people’s allegiance as a result of their personal dependence, based either on kinship or on his charisma, but not on any business partnership or collaboration. This patron-client relationship was also an important factor in formulating a very specific ethic of cooperation. The principles of compromise and cooperation that infiltrated the political sphere tended to operate as stabilizers of social and political relations and as a mechanism for equilibrium within the political system. They blocked abrupt political manoeuvring and compelled the participants in the political process to take the path of obedience and reconciliation. Over time, Islam consolidated this mentality of compromise as part of a system of political ritual and leverage. 19

ZHANYLZHAN DZHUNUSOVA

The dissemination of Islam throughout the territory of Kazakhstan was protracted over several centuries. Attempts to bring the nomadic Turks into the sphere of Islam were undertaken as early as the 8th century, but without significant results. Toward the end of the 10th century Islam became firmly established in the southern regions — Semirech’e and Syr-Darya — but on the whole the nomads remained faithful to their former gods. The development of economic and cultural relations between the Kazakhs and the sedentary Central Asian populations in the 16th–17th centuries, however, promoted the intensive dissemination and reinforcement of Islam. Central Asian Sufi figures, as well as the secular aristocracy — the khans and sultans — played an important role in this process. The islamization of Kazakh society promoted the reinforcement of supreme power, the further consolidation of the nation and an ideological alliance between the Kazakh secular nobility and the clergy and lay aristocracy of the Central Asian cities. As late as the end of the 18th/beginning of the 19th century, however, Islamic ideology played a generally insignificant role in the daily lives of the common people, among whom ancient pre-Islamic ideas and traditions continued to prevail. This is evident from the fact that economic, property and family relations among Kazakhs were regulated not by the norms of Muslim law, the Shari‘a, but preeminently by those of adat, or customary law. An indigenous Kazakh clergy began to form, for the most part, only in the middle of the 19th century. Prior to that period the Kazakh steppe knew only outsider mullas, although in some regions of Kazakhstan, notably in the south, a Kazakh clergy was already strengthening its position.22 CUSTOMARY LAW The rich experience of the development of human rights and liberties reinforced the democratic tradition in Kazakhstan’s political history. The Kazakhs did not distinguish between civil and criminal law. Until the 17th century, Kazakh customary law, was uncodified and was applied locally. The adat, non-scripta, sed nata lex,23 regulated the social and political relations of traditional Kazakh society and the early forms of Kazakh statehood.24 Customary law arose under the impact of the nomadic style of life. It expressed and preserved the values and ideals of nomadic culture and supported and served nomadic society. Precisely for this reason, insubordination to the norms of customary law was precluded and adherence was universal. Customary law perceived human rights without regard for a person’s estate or property status. Force of tradition and increasing awareness of the law among the people of the Kazakh steppe was demonstrated when Sultan Barak killed Abulkhayr Khan in 1748 and was convicted by the biys. This case highlighted one of the pillars of a law-governed state — that no person is above the jurisdiction of the law and everyone is equal before it. 20

THE DEMOCRATIC TRADITION OF KAZAKHSTAN

Traditional customary law upheld a person’s rights and liberties, not as an individual but as a member of a clan. The right of free expression for all was affirmed. The ordinary nomad–herdsman was legally a free person who possessed individual and property rights. The head of a family could bequeath property at his own discretion, testify and, as we have seen, participate in the annual people’s assembly — the qurultay.25 Protection of the personal and property rights of free nomads was provided not by state organs but exclusively by the solidarity of clan members. For example, a biy, as a representative of the authorities, granted the relatives of a murdered man the right to invoke the blood feud, and a person who had been robbed, the right to restitution. Thus, an individual was perceived only as part of a clan, the clan alone comprising a legal entity. This method of ensuring rights characterized nomadic society. A person who violated the law could be repudiated by the clan and become absolutely defenceless, remaining, in effect, outside the law. Until the 16th century adat requirements were transmitted orally. They were observed, added to and passed on from one generation to the next by competent and respected persons in Kazakh society — the biys, who, likewise, were the main guarantors of the observance of a person’s rights and liberties. With the formation of Kazakh statehood in the 16th century these legal norms were formalized in special regulations of the steppe named in honour of their initiators — Kasym Khan’s Regulations, Esim Khan’s Code, and the Seven Codes (Zhety zhargy) of Tauke Khan. The first two have not been preserved, but Tauke Khan’s were inscribed in the 1820s. (Until that time each khan interpreted the code to suit his own needs and preferences.) Tauke Khan has been compared to the Biblical figure King Solomon for the level of legality and order which he introduced into the social life of the Kazakh steppe. He made the first attempt to regulate Kazakh customary law by formalizing individual elements of Mongol, Russian and Muslim legal practices that were already in common use. The very existence of this collection of laws demonstrates the relatively developed sense of justice of Kazakh society. Tauke’s collection of laws encouraged the formalization of the legal process and created a single judicial authority in the form of the institution of the biy, who was known for his justice, objectivity, competence and rhetorical ability. The biys gathered annually for a month and a half at Tauke’s headquarters on a hill near Tashkent. These were in essence legislative and judicial meetings at which the most important social problems were raised and decided.26 Since the biys were charged with adjudicating disputes, the term biy had come by the end of the 18th century to be synonymous with judge. Each biy had his own court — usually a tent and a scribe — which he supported by appropriating 10 per cent of all fines levied. Kazakh justice was harsh and the principle of a life for a life was rigorously 21

ZHANYLZHAN DZHUNUSOVA

observed; crimes of theft and plunder were punishable by dismemberment or death. In cases of attacks or raids on an aul, the offending individual or community was forced to pay kun, or blood money. Among other issues under their jurisdiction, the biys adjudicated disputes involving inheritance and contractual agreements relating to remuneration, marriage and divorce. Tauke’s codex enumerated the rights and obligations of the individual in regard to his family and clan. The most important of these were the right of an individual to appeal to his relatives for assistance following the loss of livestock due to natural disasters, and the right to request unpaid labour by relatives in order to complete seasonal work. If these requests went unheeded, the offending individuals had to be brought before a biy or elder and forced to comply. Tauke Khan’s Seven Codes are characterized by the manifest inequality of women. A murderer, for example, could save his life by paying kun to the amount of 1,000 sheep for a male victim and 500 for a female victim. If a woman killed her husband, she was inevitably condemned to death, without the possibility of ransoming herself through kun unless her husband’s relatives pardoned her. In the reverse case, ransom was an option. Women, like slaves, were not permitted to bear witness. The position of women in nomadic society was determined by the nature of the patriarchal family. Women were charged with doing heavy physical work: they participated in pasturing the sheep and goats, put up and dismantled the yurt, milked the cattle, processed the produce of their animal husbandry, prepared the food and did other household jobs. They also took care of the children. Thus, the share of the women in everyday economic activity far surpassed that of the men. At the same time, nomads defended the honour and dignity of their womenfolk. A man who offended a woman had to apologize to her and if she refused to accept his apology, he would be considered a disgraced person. Rape was treated on a par with murder.27 The main innovation of the Seven Codes was the protection of private property. For the Kazakhs, land had no intrinsic value. They owned their livestock, but grazed their animals on common pasturelands, owned by the tribe, over which they had rights of usage. The basis of a man’s wealth was his herd, not his land. Kazakh customary law was designed to enhance the community’s stability and economic self-sufficiency, which were constantly under threat from without and from the harshness and unpredictability of nature. The reputed Kazakh ethnographer, educator and democrat Chokan Valikhanov (Chokan Vali Khan uli, 1835–65), emphasized the democratic basis of Kazakh customary law — its openness (glasnost’); clan solidarity; the simplicity and fairness of the judicial process for the parties involved; the resort to public opinion; and the absence of repressive measures such as imprisonment.28 22

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The efficacy of Kazakh customary law lay in its integration with socio-cultural processes and the existence of a ‘culture of shame’, where the fear of losing face before the entire clan constituted a strong disincentive to crime. INSTITUTIONALIZING DETERRENTS TO AUTHORITARIANISM The clan and the tribe as the main form of societal organization carried great social and political obligations in nomadic society. The general practice of electing office-holders in the various institutions of power, from the khan down enhanced the responsiveness of the élite to the requirements of the community at large and at the same time strengthened the adaptive capacities of the political system. As a result of the difficulty of ruling nomads in the vast expanses of the steppe, the khan’s power was never as strong as that of oriental despots in settled agricultural civilizations. Repression by, or conflict with, a khan was cause for a clan or tribe to migrate to another territory, as did the tribes headed by Girey and Zhanibek. The specific character of authority in Kazakh society lay in the fact that the khans were both elected and acknowledged. The sultans, biys and clan or family elders convened annually to ratify the khan’s leadership, to advise him and receive his instructions. At these annual assemblies the year’s migration was planned and each clan and aul allocated winter pastureland. The khan’s appointment was a judicial procedure legitimizing the special authority. At the same time, even after election he was not immune to disapprobation. Accepted forms of popular oral creativity, such as aitys (songs) and poetry contests, validated the right to express one’s opinion and direct impartial criticism at an unworthy leader.29 The object of criticism was not necessarily a khan; he might also be a batyr or wealthy person who had committed an improper deed.30 The principle of power being vested in a single person was preserved as long as the Kazakhs had khans. However, the assumption of the throne required the observation of the procedure of qurultay, a voluntary, unofficial assembly where the ritual of proclaiming the khan took place and where he took a ceremonial oath — an act analogous to inauguration. The festive nature of the convention of the qurultay notwithstanding, it was a key component in the development of Kazakh statehood because it demonstrated the establishment of an authority capable of uniting all the tribes. In addition to the khan of each zhuz and the elders of each clan, the presence of persons enjoying social prestige and influence upon public opinion — biys and batyrs — was obligatory. The task of the biy, as has been noted, was to resolve conflicts concerning violations of individual and collective rights. Each Kazakh aul had an elder or aksakal, an informal leader who was responsible for the protection of the aul’s pasturelands and inhabitants. The elders met to choose a biy to represent the extended family or clan in negotiations 23

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with other families, to arbitrate internal disputes, regulate migration and allocate pastureland. Although the title of biy often passed from father to son, the office was not hereditary and could be lost if the elders so chose. Biys had to be good speakers. All of them had Muslim education and some knew foreign languages. Chokan Valikhanov wrote that ‘only profound knowledge of legal custom combined with the art of oratory bestowed on Kazakhs this esteemed title. To obtain the title of biy, one had to demonstrate publicly and recurrently one’s legal knowledge and oratorical skills.’31 Personal qualities were the primary requisite for becoming a biy and it was irrelevant whether the aspirant was of common or noble origin. In addition to knowledge and skills of persuasion, to be elected biy one needed to possess a sense of justice. The biy’s reputation and significance were based on his personal authority, which was supported and disseminated by popular opinion. Loss of authority deprived him of his rank. Being a biy involved a political function, namely, coordinating the interests of the various power structures, the clan élite and different groups in society. In addition, he had a socio-legal function: the resolution of civil, property, territorial and other disputes between clans and tribes, on the one hand, and between members of a single clan or tribe, on the other.32 In general, the biy’s court commanded very high respect, so that no disciplinary measures were required to ensure the execution of its decisions. Valikhanov has vividly described the democratic character of the biy’s court as an institution specifically designed to protect human rights and liberties in traditional Kazakh society. Thus, were a biy suspected of partiality, both plaintiff and defendant had the right to choose another judge. They likewise had an unlimited right of appeal to another biy in the event of a contested verdict. In case of insufficient evidence against the accused, the biy could enlist honest relatives of repute, who, under oath, would either indict or vindicate the defendant. Trials were conducted orally and publicly and legal experts were permitted in every case.33 It was thus not surprising that the regulatory role of legal tradition was of such stature that judicial decisions were implemented by society itself without state interference. All this testifies both to the highly adaptive features of the political system of traditional Kazakh society, which, from the very start, formed its own mechanism for separation of powers. The specific character of Kazakh society was revealed in the existence of a system of checks and balances. While the khan had the de jure right to make final decisions, he had, in practice, to take into consideration the opinion of the majority during discussion of public issues at his council, where the interests of the common people were lobbied by the biys. Thus, traditional Kazakh society had some features of autocracy, alongside strongly proto-democratic ones. These included the election of the khan, the biy’s hearing of civil disputes and criminal cases, and 24

THE DEMOCRATIC TRADITION OF KAZAKHSTAN

the changing of an individual’s status on the basis of meritocracy. Traditional Kazakh society was based on both aristocratic and meritocratic principles of social stratification and mobility — meritocracy being one of the main traits of a democratic society. In the 1820s the Kazakh political system underwent major changes: the Russian tsarist administration abolished the authority and office of the khan and introduced a system of territorial administration. ‘Regulations concerning the Siberian Kirgiz’ written by the Russian political figure Mikhail Speranskii were adopted in 1822. They stipulated the organization of three new administrative levels: the okrug, the volost’ and the aul.34 Each okrug covered a specific territory based on the winter encampments of the nomads and their clan habitats. In accordance with the regulations, the oblast of the Siberian Kazakhs was established on the territory of the Middle Zhuz and on part of that of the Greater Zhuz. Although the new administrative structure, in contrast to the former division of society by clan, sought to determine distinct territories for the population based on their customary nomadic routes, the new boundaries did not necessarily coincide with these paths. This led to a more complex admixture of nomadic communities. The process of settlement according to okrug, volost’ and the new administrative aul, each having its own defined territory, restricted the migratory cycle and promoted the decline of nomadic cattle-breeding.35 Changes in the system of state administration had a progressive impact on the development of Kazakh society. The 1822 reform, designed to regulate the administration of the Kazakh steppe, limited the rights of the sultans and biys. It also extenuated the fragmentation of society. Simultaneously, it created conditions for economic development, promoting the growth of agriculture, trade and a settled way of life among the indigenous population. On the other hand, the reform served the strategic interest of the Russian Empire. It determined a course for the adaptation and reorganization of society and the political subordination of the population of this vast territory.36 The traditional electoral system was abolished and all office-holders from the aul starshina37 to the sultan were appointed by the governor-general of the steppe. Until the reform of 1867–6838 the post of sultan was retained, denoting the ruler of each volost’ and okrug, even though his election was strictly controlled and he became a servant of the Russian state; afterwards the post of volost’ administrator was introduced, which was filled by Kazakhs, but not Chingisids — that is, Kazakhs stood at the head of the volosti and uezdy, while the senior offices were held by Russians. In this way, between the 1820s and 1860s the Kazakhs lost their political independence. * * * Nomadic society had developed its own mechanisms for regulating social and individual disputes. The colonization of the Kazakh steppe 25

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by the tsarist regime in the 19th century and the introduction of a uniform imperial Russian legal system, which took many years to function effectively, seriously disrupted the traditional mechanism for protecting human rights and liberties. Beginning with the 1905 revolution, a movement against despotism and for democratizing society arose in the colonies of the Russian Empire. The ideologists of self-determination for the Turkic and Muslim nations drew inspiration from their own rich cultural and political heritage.39 In the course of the two revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War (1918–20), the leaders of the Muslim East, including the Kazakh democrats Alikhan Bukeykhanov, Ahmet Baytursynov, Myrzhakip Dulatov, Musafa Chokay and others, promoted the call for autonomy. When, in 1991, Kazakhstan finally achieved sovereignty, it had behind it a long democratic tradition. Independence was accomplished against the combined backdrop of the experience of the Kazakhs’ ancestors and the riots of December 1986.40 The relatively smooth social and political transformation of the first years of independence was the outcome of a synthesis of traditional and modern values. NOTES 1. In the 14th century the greater part of modern Kazakhstan was known as the Uzbek ulus (see following note and note 5). The rest was included in what Persian geographers called Mogolistan. In the 15th century the boundaries of the Uzbek ulus stretched from the Volga in the West to the River Irtysh in the East, the Syr-Darya Steppe in the south-west and the Tarbagatai Mountains and Lake Balkhash in the south-east. 2. The state of the nomadic Uzbeks, that of Abulkhayr Khan (1428–68), was traditionally called the Uzbek ulus, or the Uzbek Khanate, and was inhabited not only by nomadic Uzbeks, the future Central Asian Uzbek ethnicity, but predominantly by Kazakhs. Istoriia Kazakhstana s drevnikh vremen do nashikh dnei (Almaty: Atamura, 1997), Vol. 2, p. 153. 3. Dusht-i Kypchak, later called the Kazakh steppe, covers today what is now Central and Northern Kazakhstan. The territory of the Kazakh Khanate was located mainly within the area inhabited by the Kazakhs, from the Irtysh and Karatau to the Syr-Darya and the Ural (Yaik), and from the Altai and Tien-Shan Mountains to the Caspian and Aral Seas. Materialy po istorii kazakhskikh khanstv XV–XVIII vv.: Izvlecheniia iz persidskikh i tiurkskikh sochinenii (Alma-Ata, 1969), p. 497. 4. Initially, the term ‘horde’ was synonymous with the term ‘yurt’, that is, the khan’s yurt. Later it came to designate the khan’s, or any other ruler’s, headquarters or residence, and later still, a tent built on a wood frame and covered with felt. P.V. Iudin, ‘Ordy: belaia, siniaia, seraia i zolotaia’, in Chingiz-Name (Alma-Ata, 1992) pp. 116–17. 5. The ulus is a large administrative unit comprising a specified number of clans and tribes and was headed by a Chingisid sultan. 6. In 1468 Girey (Kirey) and Zhanibek (Janibek) overthrew the descendants of Abulkhayr and the Uzbek Khanate, or ulus, ceased to exist. See note 7. 7. Girey and Zhanibek, the first Kazakh khans, co-rulers in the 1450s to the 1470s, were close relatives. Materialy po istorii kazakhskikh khanstv, pp. 39–42. 8. M.Kh. Abuseitova, Kazakhstan i Tsentral’naia Aziia v XV–XVII vv.: istoriia, politika, diplomatiia (Almaty, 1998), pp. 78 and 80. 9. According to Abuseitova, Kazakhstan i Tsentral’naia Aziia, p. 80, their number reached 200,000. By the second decade of the 16th century, the Kazakhs are said to

26

THE DEMOCRATIC TRADITION OF KAZAKHSTAN

10.

11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

18.

19. 20. 21.

have numbered one million. Bakhytnur Otarbaeva, ‘A Brief History of the Kazak People’, Nationalities Papers 26 (1993), p. 425. Ethnic groups in the East, including in the Eurasian steppe, lived and developed for centuries without any general appelation. The formation of the Kazakh ethnos, in fact, preceded acceptance of the name Kazakh. The term appears in post-Mongol sources in the 13th century to designate a person who separated from his state, tribe or clan and was forced to fend for himself. According to Mirza Muhammad Khaydar, a group of Uzbeks, who moved from Dusht-i Kypchak to Semirech’e under the leadership of Girey and Zhanibek, adopted the epithet Kazakh, which became their ethnic name. Indeed, it was used for the first time as an ethnic name to refer to those who accompanied and associated with Girey and Zhanibek. Iudin, ‘Ordy: belaia, siniaia, seraia i zolotaia’, p. 52. S.D. Asfendiarov, Istoriia Kazakhstan s drevneishchikh vremen (Moscow/Alma Ata, 1935), Vol. 1, p. 82; Ordin, ‘Ordy: belaia, siniaia, seraia i zolotaia’, p. 52; Kh. Argynbayev, ‘Obrazovanie kazakhskikh zhuzov i ikh dal’neishaia etnopoliticheskaia sud’ba’, in Problemy etnogeneza i etnicheskoi istorii narodov Srednei Azii i Kazakhstana (Moscow, 1988), pp. 16–19; and N.E. Masanov, ‘Kazakhskaia politicheskaia i intellektual’naia elita: klanovaia prinadlezhnost’ i vnutrietnicheskoe sopernichestvo’, Vestnik Evrazii 1 (1996), p. 47. Relationship with the Chingisids through a female line delegated no rights or privileges to sons-in-law and the progeny of daughters were formally Black Bone. S.G. Kliashtornyi and T.I. Sultnov, Kazakhstan: Letopis’ trekh tysiachletii (Alma-Ata, 1992), p. 353. Martha Brill Olcott, The Kazakhs (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1987), p. 15. S.E. Tolybekov, Kochevoe obshchestvo kazakhov v XVII–nachale XX vv. (Alma-Ata, 1971), p. 235. A claimant to the post of khan needed to receive official recognition from the qurultay. No formal rules defined the assembly’s composition but in accordance with tradition only the aristocracy, as representatives of the clans, had a deciding vote in a khan’s election — all adult male nomads having the right to be present. Common people also attended the qurultay out of curiosity or as part of the personal retinue of sultans, biys, batyrs and other leading figures. When Abylai was proclaimed khan in 1772, as many as 70,000 were present. Besides the election of khans, the assembly’s main functions were resolution of issues of war and peace and of other questions of domestic and foreign policy, and the passing of the death sentence. S. Zimanov, Politicheskii stroi Kazakhstana kontsa XVIII i pervoi poloviny XIX vv. (Alma-Ata, 1960), p. 92. The council was a periodically convoked body whose precise competence was not defined in Kazakh customary law. Its influence depended on the correlation of political power. The council consisted of the sultans and the influential biys and batyrs from all three zhuzes, who both discussed and resolved the most important problems of domestic and foreign policy. Ibid. The tribes were composed of a large number of clans, which in turn would be constituted of dozens and sometimes more than one hundred auls. According to some estimates, in the second half of the 17th and first part of the 18th century, the three zhuzes combined, accounted for 112 clans. The system of zhuz/tribe/clan was based upon genealogical kinship. Under the conditions of political decentralization that prevailed in nomadic society, this system served as the basic mechanism for regulating social relationships. K.A. Akishev, K.M. Baypalov and L.B. Erzakovich, Pozdnesrednevekovyi Otrar (XVI–XVIII vv.) (Alma-Ata, 1981), pp. 157–74. Originally the otan was the territory of the clan or tribe; gradually, in the course of the 17th and 18th century the concept became associated with the territory of Kazakhstan. Tengrianism is an ancient religion based on the cult of a supreme deity, Tengri, the heavens. Sky worship became part of the world outlook of many Turkic peoples long before islamization. In the 15th–18th centuries the cult of Tengri was still competing

27

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22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34.

35.

36. 37.

38.

with Islam. Some scholars consider that the cult of Tengri facilitated the acceptance by the Kazakhs of the Islamic notion of one God. Istoriia Kazakhstana s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei, Vol. 2, p. 242. Zimanov, Politicheskoi stroi Kazakhstana kontsa XVIII i pervoi poloviny XIX vv., p. 97. Natural law was described by Cicero as law that is unwritten, but born (non scripta sed nata lex). I.E. Ergaliev, ‘Problema prav cheloveka v traditsiiakh kazakhskoi kul’tury’, in Stanovlenie grazhdanskogo obshchestva v stranakh Tsentral’noi Azii (Almaty, 1999), pp. 22–8. Abuseitova, Kazakhstan i Tsentral’naia Aziia v XV–XVII vv., pp. 71–112. Agyn Khairullovich Kazymzhanov and Keith Owen Tribble, ‘The Political Tradition of the Steppe’, Nationalities Papers 3 (1998), p. 462. See Kliashtornyi and Sultanov, Kazakhstan. Letopis’ trekh tysiacheletii, pp. 318–21. Problemy kazakhskogo obychnogo prava (Alma-Ata, 1989). Z.N. Sarsenbaeva, ‘Traditsionnaia etika kazakhov i stanovlenie grazhdanskoi pozitsii lichnosti’, in Stanovlenie grazhdanskogo obshchestva v stranakh Tsentral’noi Azii, p. 30. One of the outstanding representatives of free thought in Kazakhstan was Abay Kunanbayev (1845–1904). Continuing the tradition of the steppe poets, or akyns, he criticized the Muslim clergy as well as what he viewed as the arrogance of the rich. He was constantly concerned about the simple people, although he was no less disapproving of their idleness. Abay adhered to the philosophy of Enlightenment and called for education that would bring freedom, prosperity and dignity to the Kazakhs. See Abai, Kniga slov (Almaty, 1993), pp. 228, 249 and 319. Ch. Valikhanov, Sobranie sochinenii, Vol. 4 (Alma-Ata, 1985), p. 505. A. Orazbaeva, ‘Istoricheskaia rol’ i sotsial’noe znachenie instituta biistva v istorii kazakhskogo naroda’, Sayasat 5 (1997), p. 103. Valikhanov, Sobranie sochinenii, Vol. 4, p. 88. The regulations divided the territory of the Middle Zhuz into 8 okrugs, which in turn, were split into volost ’s. The volost’ was divided into auls headed by starshinas. In 1824 the khan’s power was liquidated in the Lesser Zhuz, as well. The territory of the zhuz was divided into three parts, each headed by a sultan. His power, however, and that of the biys and batyrs was substantially limited. Nomadic cattle-breeding had already begun to fall off before the reforms of the 1820s. After 1731, when the Lesser Zhuz took Russian citizenship, military fortresses were constructed around the territories of the Lesser and Middle Zhuz, the Kazakhs forfeiting the pasture lands occupied by these military settlements. Then, by a decree of 1756, Kazakhs were forbidden to roam on the right bank of the Yaik (Ural) River; the resultant loss of further pastureland was one of the reasons Kazakhs took part in the Pugachev peasant rebellion of 1773–1774. Zimanov, Politicheskii stroi Kazakhstana kontsa XVIII i pervoi poloviny XIX vv., pp. 144–69. With Kazakhstan’s entry into the Russian Empire, clan leaders were officially appointed by the authorities and named starshinas, the term used in Russia for the village chief on state lands in the 18th century. The starshina was a senior elder, who implemented overall regulating functions within the nomadic community. In the 1860s, the annexation of Kazakhstan to Russia was completed. In 1867–68 administrative reforms were passed by the krai administration. In 1867 Semirech’e and Syr-Darya Oblasts were created in the Turkestan General-Governorship. The following year saw the formation of the Uralsk and Turgay Oblasts in the Orenburg General-Governorship and the Akmola and Semipalatinsk Oblasts in the WesternSiberian (later Steppe) General-Governorship. A new system of administration was introduced on the basis of ‘temporary rule over the Steppe Oblasts’. Kazakhstan was divided into six oblasts, the oblasts divided into uezds, the uezds into volost’s and the volost’s into auls. The land became government property. On the territory of Kazakhstan the Russian judicial/legal system was imposed on a wide scale. Only insignificant affairs remained under the control of Islamic courts. Serfdom was

28

THE DEMOCRATIC TRADITION OF KAZAKHSTAN

abolished, rights of the Muslim clergy restricted, and the building of mosques and the opening of Muslim schools were forbidden. The aim of these reforms was to annex the territory of Kazakhstan to Russia permanently. (Bol’shaia Sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 2nd edition, Vol. 19, pp. 329–31; ibid. 3rd edition, Vol. 11, p. 150). 39. See the chapter by Azade-Ayse Rorlich in this volume. 40. See Vladimir Babak, Demian Vaisman and Aryeh Wasserman (eds), Political Organization in Central Asia and Azerbaijan: Sources and Documents (London: Frank Cass, 2003).

29

2 Elements of Democracy in Dagestan on the Eve of the Russian Conquest MOSHE GAMMER Elements of democracy may be found in many traditional societies before their encounter with modernity. Indeed, in many cases governments in the Soviet Union’s successor states (and in other parts of the world as well) have rejected demands for the democratization of their society along Western lines — that is, democratization imposed from without — on the grounds that it already was essentially democratic. The Caucasus are no exception. When Russia first reached this part of the world, it encountered a large number of societies with various social, political and ecological structures. One particular group of societies or communities in Chechnya and in the inner mountainous regions of Dagestan drew particular attention from Russian observers and officials because they differed on two counts from anything they had encountered in the Russian Empire: they did not acknowledge the authority of any neighbouring ruler; and, for the most part, they had no nobility and consisted of free and equal members — uzdens. Impressed by these characteristics, some Russian observers and scholars designated these communities ‘free societies’ (vol’nye obshchestva), ‘free republics’ or ‘democracies’. The founding fathers of Soviet historiography defined these societies as ‘democratic’, ‘progressive’ and even ‘proto-socialist’. Later retractions from this position in Soviet historiography have only served to validate this view among post-Soviet Chechen and Dagestani writers and scholars, who use this material to prove that their societies were ‘democratic’ (‘socialist’ has become a blasphemous term in the former Soviet Union) long before Russia and even the West.1 Democracy should be based, at least partly, on indigenous characteristics, and on elements or values that are compatible with them. This chapter seeks to look at some such elements or values in the socio-political structure of historic Dagestan, prior to the Russian conquest. It will do so through the prism of a number of characteristics common to all polities past and present that are considered to have been or to be democratic. These are: 31

MOSHE GAMMER

— Solidarity: Members share a strong sense of belonging and identification. This does not exclude more particularistic loyalties and divisions, but the bottom line is loyalty to the polity. — Equality: All members of the polity are equal politically and legally and each carries equal weight. — Supremacy of the law: All members are bound by the law and no individual or institution is above it. — Limited powers of the ruler: The ruler is contained by the law and by the will and consent of the members of the polity. — An elected ruler: The members of the polity elect the ruler from among themselves. It is true that practically none of these characteristics or combinations of them are unique to democracies. They can be found in other systems of government as well. But no true democratic system of government can exist without them. They thus constitute an essential, though not a sufficient prerequisite, for true democracy. On the eve of the Russian conquest, Dagestan and Chechnya were divided into about 100 rural communities (or obshchiny). In Dagestan they were referred to by different names in the various languages of the country, but were generally known by the Arabic term jama‘at.2 In many cases (though not always) a jama‘at consisted of a single village and its hamlets and was separated from its neighbours by ‘natural’ boundaries (mountain ridges, ravines, rivers). The size of such a community often varied in conformity with local topography and ecology. In the upper mountainous areas, where villages were small, a jama‘at might encompass more than 20 villages; one, at least, had as many as 27, which totalled 1,200 households.3 Among single village communities, large villages — up to 1,000 households — were divided into quarters (mehle or aval), and medium and small ones — into two ‘sides’ (rahs). Each jama‘at was completely self-governing and formed a separate polity. The sub-divisions of the jama‘at — quarters or separate villages — enjoyed a measure of self-administration, but did not form separate political entities. Neighbouring jama‘ats formed larger political unions — ‘societies’ (obshchestva). Some of these ‘societies’ were assembled around a central large village and were named after it.4 In one case there were two large rival villages.5 Another, decentralized example included seven jama‘ats, each comprising a number of small villages.6 Whatever the composition of a ‘society’, ‘the populace’ of each ‘considered itself a single people’.7 The loyalty of its members was to the community, as to a canton in Switzerland, and even though the jama‘ats constituting a society remained sovereign polities, each society was also ‘a distinct ethno-cultural entity’ with its own peculiar dialect.8 ‘Societies’ often formed larger confederacies, or ‘unions’. A great many of these were formed ad hoc, while others had a more permanent nature. Of the latter category the most stable, organized and enduring was the powerful union of Aqusha, known also as Darghi, which was 32

DEMOCRACY IN DAGESTAN

at the core of the coalition that defeated the Persian ruler Nadir Shah in 1744. The ‘societies’ participating in such a union remained sovereign and their participation in it was voluntary. About two-thirds of these ‘societies’ were ‘free’ (vol’nye obshchestva). The others — mainly in eastern Dagestan — were ruled by nobles and/or were connected to statelets (referred to in this chapter as khanates) headed by rulers with various titles: the shamkhal of Targhu (Tarki); the khans of Ghazi-Ghumuq (Kazi Kumukh), Avaristan (Avaria), Mekhtuli and Derbent; the ma’sum of Tabarsaran (Tabasaran); the ‘utsmi of Qaraqaytaq (Kaitag); and the sultan of Ilisu. Although, in principle, different from the ‘free societies’, the communities constituting these khanates had many features in common with them. All the elements enumerated above could be found in principle in the Dagestani (and Chechen) communities on the eve of the Russian conquest: Solidarity. The jama‘ats, unlike the larger political structures, proved to be a strong, vigorous form of communal organization and the primary focus of identification of their members. For the last two centuries they have successfully resisted and survived repeated attempts to eradicate them by centralized, authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. The Naqshbandi9 imams (leaders), who led the resistance to Russia between 1829 and 1859 and built a state based on the Shari‘a (Muslim religious law), had to reach a compromise with them in order to keep them under the sway of their state.10 The tsarist Russian authorities, in defiance of their own ideology, practice and self-image, had to take into consideration the will of the various jama‘ats. The Soviet government officially abolished the jama‘ats in the 1930s and tried to destroy them by rearranging the villages into kolkhozes. Many jama‘ats, however, proved resilient, and have survived to the present.11 jama‘at solidarity also endured both the migration (sometimes forced, sometimes persuaded) of the highlanders to the lowlands and urbanization. In the rural lowland areas highland settlers have remained in close contact with their communities of origin. In fact, in some cases they have continued to be part of their original jama‘at. In the cities (mainly the capital Makhachkala) the social, economic and even political activity of the greater part of the indigenous Dagestani population is organized according to place of origin. After the dissolution of the USSR the jama‘ats experienced a ‘revival’ and at least according to one senior Dagestani sociologist, the jama‘ats — not larger entities such as ethnic groups or the officially recognized ‘nationalities’12 — have come to form the basic unit of political loyalty.13 In fact, at least one conflict between the authorities and the so called Wahhabis in Dagestan in the latter half of the 1990s seems to have centred on a specific jama‘at — that of Karamakhi.14 Equality. In principle each member of the jama‘at — membership being limited to men able to bear arms — had, in principle, an equal 33

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say in the common affairs of the community. The clearest demonstration of this was in the participation of all members in the general gathering (rukkel, in Avar) of the community which convened from time to time to discuss and decide on matters of extraordinary importance, such as passing a new law or declaring war. In principle again, each member of the community was allowed to voice his opinion at these gatherings. In practice, however, the elders (heads of extended families) and older people in general had priority and such gatherings generally considered ‘for approval matters prepared and decided on in advance by the council of elders’.15 This equality held good in the khanates no less than in the ‘free societies’. True, the latter were socially stratified into beks (members of the nobility16), jankas (descendants of noble fathers and commoner mothers) and uzdens (commoners). While the beks and jankas enjoyed social and economic privileges, politically they were equal to the uzdens. An example of the strength of the notion of equality among the people is the fact that Shamil, the third and most successfu1 Naqshbandi imam (1834–59) went out of his way to demonstrate that common people were tried and treated no differently than functionaries in the courts. Equality, even if the principle is not stated explicitly, implies recognition of the individual person as an independent and free agent. Indeed, in a society, which even today places emphasis on family loyalty and obedience to its head, Dagestani men — like Caucasian men in general — are eager to demonstrate their complete independence of any outside authority. A commonly expressed refrain is: ‘I am a free man and obey no one’. When confronted with the fact that they obey fathers and elder brothers, the usual answer among Dagestanis is: ‘Yes, but of my own free will’. Supremacy of the law. Two systems of law existed in Dagestan before Russia finally conquered the country — the adat (customary law) and Islamic religious law, the Shari‘a. Both systems are comprehensive and egalitarian in that they cover all aspects of life and apply equally to each and every member of the community. In spite of the Naqshbandiyya’s attempts to eradicate the adat and replace it exclusively with the Shari‘a, the two systems continued to exist side by side. Jama‘ats generally endeavoured to preserve their own adat (in many cases by recording it in writing) and to enforce obedience to it. Litigation was brought before a divan (from the Arabic diwan), consisting of representatives of the rulers, members of the council of elders and a qadi (a judge of Shari‘a law). The number of divan members differed from one community to another. In principle they were chosen for their honesty and impartiality. The Naqshbandiyya’s insistence on the pre-eminence of the Shari‘a derived from the conception that it was a legal system which was divinely inspired, and therefore, in a Muslim society and state, superseded all other enactments. The imams — Shamil in particular — went out of their way to demonstrate the Shari‘a’s superiority, as well as the 34

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equality of all before it. By enforcing the Shari‘a, the Naqshbandiyya reinforced not only the notion of predominance of the Shari‘a over the adat, but of the predominance of the law in general. To what extent supremacy of Islamic law survived 70 years of Soviet rule is an open question. Limited powers of the ruler. Both the adat and the Shari‘a placed limits on the ruler’s powers, first and foremost, by binding and subjecting him to the law. The adats of certain communities limited the ruler’s powers further. He could not usually decide on important matters without the consent of members of his community, either through a general meeting or through the more common meetings of the council of elders, known also as jama‘at. If he made such decisions unilaterally, the community had the right to disobey, to disclaim his authority and even to replace him. As to the Shari‘a, it demanded of a ruler that he govern with the consent of, and in consultation (shura) with, the ruled. This was of particular importance because the branch of the Naqshbandiyya that led the resistance to Russia in the 19th century held that a Muslim ruler should be obeyed only if he fully observed and enforced the Shari‘a. Thus, the Naqshbandiyya seems to have strengthened in its imamate the principle of consensual government. The practice of approval of decisions by a council or a general assembly contained, in embryonic form, the principle that sovereignty rested with the people. Other limitations on the power of the rulers were their election for a fixed term of office and a separation of powers. Apart from the ch’uhibi (governors) there were the divanchi (members of the divan), the qadi (the judge according to the Shari‘a) and the tsevekhan (the military leader of the community). The greatest restriction on the power of government existed in the village of Aqusha, where the four shilakholote (village judges) were under the supervision of four jama‘atlakholote (people’s judges) who reported to the members of the community any misconduct of the former and had the authority to remove them from their position. The limits put on the heads of ‘societies’ and larger confederations were even more restrictive. Each decision had to be unanimous, otherwise jama‘ats opposing it were not committed to it. This applied also to the rulers of the various khanates. In fact, the khanates were federations of jama‘ats and ‘societies’ greatly resembling the ‘free societies’ and their ‘unions’.17 Furthermore, despite certain privileges, the ruler was always first among equals and had to demonstrate this by his equal treatment of all members of the community and by being accessible to every one. This applied also to the heads of larger political structures and to the rulers of the khanates. Elected Ruler. Practically all jama‘ats elected their leaders in one form or another. The electorate was either the rukkel, or more 35

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commonly the council of elders (jama‘at), which was the real governing body of the community. Membership of the council was restricted to men of over forty years of age and was for life. Members were invited by the jama‘at to join it and could retire by not attending meetings. The number of members differed from place to place, since they were representatives of the tukhums (clans) and/or of the subdivisions thereof, which were part of the community. The jama‘at’s authority was based on the authority of each of its members over the particular collective he represented (a tukhum or a subdivision thereof). All of the village functionaries were elected, the latter two from among members of the council. There were great differences in the numbers of those elected, the method of election and the term of office. Some villages had six governors;18 others had 12;19 one had 30 and another — 40.20 In many places their number corresponded either to the number of tukhums or to that of the village quarters. In most places the governors were elected for a limited period, usually one year. In other communities the governors remained in power until they either retired or were removed from office by the people. In some communities an effort was made to prevent the concentration of power in one family. The adat of one community explicitly barred a father and a son or two brothers from holding positions of power at one and the same time.21 In another community governors were elected exclusively from one tukhum.22 The rulers of the khanates, though not elected, needed the people’s approval for their accession to power. A ruler who did not receive such approval was regarded as a ‘usurper’ and enjoyed no authority at all. The ruler had thus to adhere to existing norms and cultivate the loyalty of his ‘subjects’ to himself as well as to his designated heir. An extreme case was that of Qaraqaytaq. The firstborn son of its ruler, the ‘Utsmi, passed during his first year of life among all the nursing mothers in the realm.23 In this way, all the boys his age became his ‘milk-brothers’ and their loyalty to him as the future ruler was assured. *** Of course, the existence of ‘democratic’ elements and principles in Dagestani and other Caucasian societies before the Russian conquest does not mean that they were ‘democratic’ by contemporary standards. These features from the past, nevertheless, may help to promote democracy in Dagestan in the present and the future. However, in order to assess their potential influence, the following questions must be answered: How widely and to what degree have these elements survived more than 150 years of successive centralized, autocratic and totalitarian rule? Can those traditions that have survived be applied to a common Dagestani identity rather than to individual jama‘ats? Last, but not least, are the authorities — republican as well as federal — willing to adopt democracy? 36

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While the answers to the first two questions are far from self-evident, the opinion of a Dagestani journalist, as expressed in the title of an article she published, provides a rather pessimistic answer to the third: ‘Dagestan: Willing to Sacrifice Democracy for Stability’.24 NOTES 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

One example out of many is Lema Usmanov, Nepokorennaia Chechnia (Moscow, 1997), pp. 60–5. The best study of these communities is Mamaikhan Aglarov, Sel’skaia obshchina v Nagornom Dagestane v XVII – nachalo XIX v. (Moscow: Nauka, 1988). For a short description in English, see Anna Zelkina, In Quest for God and Freedom. Sufi Responses to the Russian Advance in the Northern Caucasus (London: C. Hurst, 1999), pp. 14–20. Namely the jama‘at of Tash in Antl-Ratl (literally, ‘the Seven Lands’ — see note 6). For example, ‘Andi and Chirkah (Chirkei). Koysubu with the two villages of Gimrah (Gimry) and ‘Ansal (Untsukul). Antl-Ratl, named ‘Seven Lands’ after its seven constituent jama‘ats. Aglarov, Sel’skaia obshchina v Nagornom Dagestane, p. 168. Ibid. The Naqshbandiyya is one of the most widespread Sufi orders and a very strictly orthodox one. For details see, Hamid Algar, ‘A Brief History of the Naqshbandi Order’, in Marc Gaborieau, Alexandre Popovic and Thierry Zarcone (eds), Naqshbandis. Historical Development and Present Situation of a Muslim Mystical Order (Istanbul and Paris, 1990), pp. 3–44. See Moshe Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar. Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Dagestan (London: Frank Cass, 1994), pp. 244–7. See V.O. Bobrovnikov, ‘Evoliutsiia sotstial’nykh i pozemel’nykh traditsii khushtadinskogo dzhamaata v XIX-XX vekakh’, in Tamara Sivertseva, Mikhail Roshchin and Vladimir Bobrovnikov (eds), Dagestan: Selo Khushtada (Moscow: Institut vostokovedeniia Rossiiskoi Akademii nauk, 1995), pp. 47–62. Dagestan is inhabited by more than 30 native ethnic groups, which are incorporated within 10 (out of 14) officially recognized indigenous nationalities (the other four are Russians, Chechens, Azeris and Mountain Jews). Enver Kisriev ‘Societal Conflict-Generating Factors in Dagestan’, in Moshe Gammer (ed.). The Caspian Region (London: Frank Cass, 2003). Anna Zelkina, ‘The “Wahhabis” of the Northern Caucasus vis-à-vis State and Society: The Case of Dagestan’, in Gammer, The Caspian Region. Aglarov, Sel’skaia obshchina v Nagornom Dagestane, p. 173. In contrast to the ‘free societies’, the khanates had a nobility. The most obvious difference was the fact that the khanates were headed by de jure hereditary rulers. However, the leadership of some ‘free societies’ and their ‘unions’ displayed a ‘tendency for hereditary rule’ as well. Aglarov, Sel’skaia obshchina v Nagornom Dagestane, p. 187. Chokh and Bashli for example. E.g., Kubachi and Urkarakh. Char (Dzhary) and Akhdi (Akhty) respectively. The adats of the communities of Keleb, as cited in Aglarov, Sel’skaia obshchina v Nagornom Dagestane, p. 179. In Girgil (Gergebil). John F. Baddeley, The Rugged Flanks of the Caucasus (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1940), Vol. 2, p. 515. Zaira Abdullaeva, ‘Dagestan: Willing to Sacrifice Democracy for Stability’, Russian Regional Report, Vol. 6 No. 12 (2 April 2001).

37

3 The Challenge of Belonging: The Muslims of Late Imperial Russia and the Contested Terrain of Identity and Gender AZADE-AYSE RORLICH The specific issues that Russia and the Muslim regions face today with regard to the challenges of pluralism and democracy are new. However, the historical experience of imperial Russia was not entirely devoid of explorations in wider participatory politics and pluralism: the years following the 1905 Revolution saw the debut of parliamentary life that brought about profound changes in the very nature of the tsar’s autocratic regime. Hence, the years 1905–17 represent Russia’s brief, and at times agonizing, attempt at planting and acclimatizing the seeds of pluralism in the frozen soil of autocracy. For pluralism to take root and eventually prepare the ground for democracy, identity perceptions at the level of the individual and the imperial self had to change. This chapter discusses perceptions of pluralism on the contested terrain of identity of the Muslims of the European regions of the Russian empire at the close of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Late imperial Russia was the arena of competing and conflicting discourses of identity which mobilized both the colonizer and the colonized. Russians and non-Russians alike were engaged in a process of political, social and cultural self-definition that not only revealed the degree to which their identity constructions were mutually constitutive, but shaped the politics of representation in which the rhetoric of exoticism, victimization, civilizing — even messianic — mission and racial superiority, occupied a privileged position. The process of self-definition and the concept of self-identity, however, were intimately interwoven with the notion of ascribed identity and the process of imperial identity construction, in which the state and its bureaucratic institutions played a defining role. The religious, economic, social, ethno-linguistic and racial criteria, which, 39

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historically, were central to the construction of Russian imperial identity, were also the foundation on which the citizenship policy of the empire was shaped by the bureaucrats of the post-emancipation era. That definitions and practices of citizenship varied in the vast lands of a multi-racial empire should come as no surprise. What is surprising is the resilience of the racial marker of identity as a boundary of ‘otherness’ that, at times, could not be obliterated even by religious ‘oneness’. When in 1833 Russian imperial legislators divided the population of the empire into prirodnye obyvateli (natural inhabitants) and inorodtsy (those of a different race), they cast a disjunctive representation of the imperial social Self, whereby the concept of inorodets as a notion of identity based on negation of ancestral racial affinity with the Russians was at once exclusive and judgmental.1 These qualities were clearly reflected in the fact that, at times, even for Russian Christian religious scholars and missionaries, race superseded religion as the defining identity marker of non-Russians. This can be illustrated by numerous examples, but none perhaps as telling as the case of N.F. Katanov. A devout Christian, a graduate of St. Petersburg University and a respected Turcologist, Katanov ‘toiled day and night over translations of religious books into Siberian languages’, but never won the acceptance of either St. Petersburg academic circles or of the faculty at the Theological Academy of Kazan where he found employment in the Missionary Department. Katanov’s Christian belief and sincere devotion to missionary work was of little consequence to his colleagues at the Theological Academy who saw in him, first and foremost, a high-cheekboned Siberian Khakass and were scandalized by his appointment, some even complaining that ‘soon they will send barbarians amongst our midst’.2 The ambiguities that accompanied the identity construction of the inorodets are illustrated by those cases where racial and religious ‘otherness’ was not a hindrance to embracing civic ‘oneness’, as expressed in adherence to values embodied by the visions of public good articulated by the state. More often, the major hindrance to erasing the ‘otherness’ of the inorodets, however, was the inability of the colonizer to discard the notion of racial superiority in ascribing identities to the colonized, as illustrated by the case of Qazi Girey, a ‘son of the semi-wild Caucasus’ whose ‘saga’ is buried in the pages of early nineteenth century Russian literary history. In 1836, the first and second issues of the journal Sovremennik published in St. Petersburg, featured two stories by the previously unknown author Qazi Girey. The introductory remarks, penned by the editor of the journal, none other than Pushkin, the national poet of Russia himself, read: ‘This is indeed, an unexpected phenomenon in our literature. A son of the semi-wild Caucasus is entering the ranks of our writers.’3 The ‘son of the semi-wild Caucasus’ whom Pushkin could not regard as one of ‘his own’ was a sultan, one of the most prominent Nogay lords who had entered the service of the Russian tsar. He was a 40

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Muslim, and his race placed him among the Turkic subjects of the empire. Qazi Girey’s perception of Self had nothing in common with Pushkin’s sense of identity: the policy suggestions in the report the Nogay lord wrote to Prince Vorontsov, governor of the Caucasus, revealed him as a subject of the tsar devoted to the ‘common cause’, a characteristic synonymous with loyal service to the Russian state. A similar perception of the relationship between the Muslim subjects of the empire and the Russian state is reflected in the response of the Mufti of Samarkand to Turkestan Governor-General Konstantin Petrovich Kaufmann after the latter addressed the people of Samarkand in the aftermath of the military victory that transformed the emirate of Bukhara into a Russian Protectorate: ‘It is impossible that [in the future] we could commit unworthy or harmful deeds to the detriment of the [Russian] state… A just ruler will stay in power even if he is an infidel, while a cruel one will not be able to stay in power, even if he professes Islam.’4 The idea of the compatibility of one’s identity as Muslim with that of a loyal subject of the Russian state was also echoed by participants at the conference in Ufa organized in 1914 by the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly.5 Addressing the issue of education, they agreed that in addition to basic and religious literacy, the goals of Muslim schools should include the task of charting for their students ‘the road to achieving prosperity and contributing to the peace and stability of the state’.6 The voices that echoed from the various corners of the Russian empire, in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Volga-Ural region, were reminders of the diversity of cultural experiences and practices subsumed under the broad social label ‘Muslim’. Such diversity notwithstanding, it can be argued that particularly after the proclamation of the Decree on Religious Toleration on 17 April 1905, most Muslims found it less difficult to accept the compatibility of their racial/ethnic and religious identities with their civic identity. The promise of inclusiveness and pluralism which the legal, institutional changes of the last decade of the empire presented to the Muslims came at a time when the Muslim communities of Russia had already embarked on a critical evaluation of Self as a means of identifying those solutions that would end their economic backwardness and cultural stagnation. This critical inquiry gave birth to the multi-faceted reform movement, the Jadid awakening, which rested on the argument that Islam and modernity, and Islam and science were not only compatible but in harmony. In support of this main thesis, Muslim intellectuals produced essays and monographs and engaged in polemics in the newspapers and journals which proliferated after 1906.7 Their ideas were challenged by Russian missionaries, scholars, and government officials who seemed intent on proving that insurmountable barriers stood between Islam and modernity by drawing on racial, theological and civilizational arguments.8 Russian imperial government policies or policy proposals in 1905–7 which had aimed at socializing the Muslims through the promotion of 41

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secular education either in their own Jadid schools or in Russian ones, were now revised to limit their scope, or reversed altogether (particularly after 1907), bringing the position of the government closer to that of conservative Muslims who favoured the reassuring insularity of an exclusively religious education. Paradoxically, such a change of direction might initially suggest that in choosing to support the conservative Muslims, the imperial government considered their stand preferable to the integrationist position of the Jadids, who were claiming the right to a voice of their own in areas outside the communities which had previously been the exclusive domain of the Russians. That the government found comfort in the isolationist stand of Muslim conservatives, conducive as it was to the preservation of the status quo, and was alarmed by the harm that the Jadid awakening might cause to its stability, is evident in the speech that Tatar Duma deputy Sadri Maksudi delivered at a session of the Russian parliament on 13 March 1912, when he warned that the cultural advancement of the Muslims should not be perceived as ‘some sort of anti-government activity’.9 Against the background of the Jadid awakening, the wave of return to Islam which followed the 17 April 1905 Decree on Religious Toleration added a new dimension to the perennial (at least since the 16th century) ‘Muslim question’ that begged for immediate attention and policy consideration.10 Two events that took place in 1910 stand out as dramatic responses of the government to the perplexities of the ‘Muslim question’. The first was a conference in St. Petersburg that took place between 10 and 18 January, under the chairmanship of A.N. Kharuzin, head of the Department for the Religious Affairs of Foreign Confessions of the Ministry of Interior, which was attended by high-ranking government and church officials. Its very name, Special Conference for Drafting Measures to Counteract Tatar-Muslim Influence in the Volga Region, revealed the urgency of the task.11 Its recommendations revealed the persistence of an ideology among the governmental religious establishment that viewed civic fitness and loyalty to the state as qualities incompatible with Muslim identity; hence, the emphasis on strengthening Christian missionary work, imposing stricter controls over Muslim publishing and press activities and decentralizing the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly. The second event was the Missionary Congress held in Kazan between 13 and 26 June and presided over by Archbishop Nikanor.12 The importance assigned to the ‘Muslim question’ was revealed by the fact that of the seven working sections of the congress, three were devoted to Islam.13 Alarmed by the conversions of animists and even Christian Russians to Islam, church officials, missionary scholars and rank-and-file missionaries engaged in some soul-searching and surprisingly candid discussions of Muslim, as well as their own, strengths and weaknesses. While a thorough discussion of the issues debated at the congress is beyond the scope of this essay, two should 42

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be noted: one for its relevance to the racial conceptualization of identity in imperial Russia, the other for the insight it offers into the role of women in identity construction and preservation. Arrogance, argued Mikhail Andreevich Ostroumov, was a major hindrance in fulfilling Russian Orthodoxy’s mission among the inorodtsy. To document his point, he mentioned that when in 1898 the issue of mixed marriages was submitted to the attention of the secular authorities of Turkestan guberniia, it was summarily dismissed with the contention that ‘hardly anyone among self-respecting Russians will voluntarily decide to enter a marital union with an unattractive Sart or Kyrgyz woman, or would give his daughter in marriage to a Sart or Kyrgyz’.14 To compound the problem, the Russian clergy were ignorant of Islam — had they been more knowledgeable, they would have been better able to counteract Muslim dynamism. Nor did Russians represent a moral model the inorodtsy would wish to emulate to the point of considering conversion. In a speech dedicated to the means to combat Muslim influence, M. Platonov, one of the missionaries who addressed the congress, recalled a conversation with an animist who challenged him: ‘About those who observe your religion and whom I have known since childhood, I can say nothing good because they do not respect their parents, pay no attention to their elders and bear false witness.’15 The bishop of Mamadyzh, Andrei, who addressed the 17 June session of the congress, argued that the Muslim success in proselytizing was to a great extent due to the contribution of Muslim women. Referring to his visit to a Votiak village, Bishop Andrei recalled how its inhabitants had spoken of a Muslim woman who made regular visits to a neighbouring village where she engaged in ‘missionary’ work, converting the Votiaks to Islam and, all along, ‘praised Islam and derided Christianity’.16 Bishop Andrei’s observations were corroborated by Platonov, who noted that Muslim women were not only staunch observers of their religion, but had even ‘become diligent missionaries among the Christian inorodtsy’ whenever the opportunity presented itself.17 Moreover, Platonov did not attribute the missionary success of Muslim women to their ‘religious fanaticism’, even though such an essentializing civilizational label was still highly esteemed in the Russian discourse on Islam. Instead, he viewed the key to their success in the place that education occupied in the values and upbringing of Muslim women. According to him, not only did Muslim women, without exception, provide their daughters with at least the rudiments of literacy at home, but Muslim girls fared much better than their Russian counterparts in the task of acquiring a formal education. He noted that in the Kazan area, one Russian girl out of every 55 female Russian inhabitants attended school, whereas among the Muslim population the ratio was one to twelve; in addition, Muslim girls stayed in school longer.18 What is remarkable about Platonov’s observation is that it diverges dramatically from the cliché of the uneducated and 43

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downtrodden Muslim woman which inhabited the discourse justifying the civilizing mission of the Russian state and culture among the inorodtsy. This deviation notwithstanding, after 1905 the question of ‘the downtrodden Muslim woman’ became an even more fiercely contested ideological battleground, which mobilized, on the one side, such diverse voices as Russian imperial bureaucrats, scholars, missionaries and feminists, and on the other, Jadid reformers, Muslim conservatives and Muslim women themselves. The dynamics of the intersecting discourses which these constituencies generated eloquently revealed how the lives of Nicholas II’s subjects were both simultaneously structured and structuring.19 There was a cynical duality in the manner in which the imperial government approached gender issues. Anti-feminist in its policies concerning Russian women on issues ranging from education to family law and citizen franchise and deaf to the demands of Russian women for emancipation, the imperial government, backed by the might of its bureaucratic structures and scholarly establishment, adopted a ‘feminist’ stand in its dedication to the emancipation of Muslim women. Paradoxically, Russian women, conservatives and feminists alike, the latter setting aside their own want for liberation, joined the ‘emancipation project’ of the colonizer and assumed the role of critics and teachers of Muslim women, relying solely on the virtues of their racial, religious and ethnic affiliations as markers of civilizational superiority. Despite the cultural diversity resulting from the impact of kinship systems, social institutions, divergent paths of historical development, and alignment in the sectarian configuration of Islam, particularly after 1905, the Muslim communities of the Russian empire exhibited a broad collective will to become agents in shaping their own future. Against this background, differences emerged in the articulation of responses to the challenges that the culture and power structures of the colonizer posed to the Muslims of the empire in restructuring their identities. To some extent, the reaction of the Jadid reformers and that of conservative Muslims brings to mind the ‘zealot’ and ‘Herodian’ responses of the Jewish population of the Roman province of Syria to Hellenization, which were characterized respectively by isolationism and by receptiveness to cultural exchange.20 As ideologues of the compatibility of Islam and modernity, the ‘Herodian’ Jadids considered the empowerment of women as a precondition for that of the nation. For the ‘zealot’ conservatives, the best shield against the russification of the colonizer was the preservation of Islamic authenticity. For them, women and the family as the locus of this authenticity were also the focus of resistance to the world of the colonial ‘other’. Consequently, they viewed the immutability of the position of women as an essential precondition for the preservation of Muslim culture. Ironically, when they justified the confinement of Muslim women to the private space of home and family using exegetical arguments which emphasized the divinely ordained 44

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inequality of men and women, Muslim conservatives provided the Russian colonizers with additional arguments to illustrate their thesis concerning the inferiority of Islam (compared to Christianity), even referring to it as a doctrine of false teachings (izuchenie).21 Russian Turcology and Islamic studies owe their birth and proliferation to the cross-fertilization of expansionist colonial designs and missionary zeal. A prominent figure in this field was Nikolai Petrovich Ostroumov. A leading missionary trained at the Kazan Theological Academy, and for several years a member of the faculty of its missionary anti-Muslim department (Missionerskoe protivomusul’manskoe otdelenie pri Kazanskoi Dukhovnoi Akademii), Ostroumov continued to be involved in the activities and concerns of his Alma Mater even after moving to Tashkent, where he became the director of the teachers’ seminary for inorodtsy. Of Ostroumov’s many contributions to the scholarship and debates on Islam, including the opinions he presented at the missionary congress, none stand as unequivocally in the contested terrain of ‘the question of women in Islam’, as his work ‘The Legal Position of Women in Islam Today’, published in 1912.22 Like other missionaries before him, Ostroumov focused on the institution of marriage to build his argument about the civilizing mission Christianity could play in reforming the sexual mores and family traditions of Muslims.23 Ostroumov took issue with Jadid reformers such as Ahmet Agaev, who blamed cultural practices and male hegemony for the deterioration of the situation of Muslim women and stressed the civilizing role of the moral order sanctioned in the Qur’an.24 A critique of Ostroumov’s work was published in the same year, in the prestigious Muslim journal Shura.25 While giving Ostroumov credit for the substantial research he conducted, the author of the critique, A. Mustafi, takes issue with the fact that Muslim women of imperial Russia barely figure in the book.26 In addition, he refutes Ostroumov’s contention that the inferior position of women in Islam is sanctioned by the Qur’an, by providing arguments drawn from Sura #43: az-Zukhruf (Ornaments of Gold), and Surah #48: al-Fath (Victory). In doing so, Mustafi shares Agaev’s position and places the blame squarely on the shoulders of the ‘Muslim religious establishment’, arguing that ‘interpreting the Qur’an and Shari‘a any way they wanted, our mullas made it possible [for some] to argue that [they] were a hindrance to progress’.27 In a blatant display of racist missionary thinking, Ostroumov was ready to allow Islam a civilizing role in Asia and Africa, only to add, however, that ‘Christianity is a world religion while Islam is the religion of Asia and Africa’.28 This is the equivalent of the colonial arrogance that emanated from West European capitals where the label ‘Bon pour l’Orient’ identified second-rate products of a material and spiritual nature. As a counterpoise to Ostroumov’s call ‘to adopt Christian ideals’ in order to improve the situation of Muslim women, Mustafi refers to the sobering critique of Christian cultural practice, articulated by Olga Sergeevna Lebedeva who, pointing at the gap between Christian 45

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doctrine and social practice, noted that ‘if Jesus were to return to earth he would hardly recognize the religion he founded’.29 Lebedeva, a Russian Christian, born in the environs of Kazan in 1854, was a Turcologist and scholar of Islam in the Russian empire, to whom notions of racial, religious and ethnic superiority when interacting with other peoples and cultures were totally alien. Lebedeva’s writings, free of missionary bias, were instantly deemed both ‘a Muslim voice’ and a ‘heretic voice’ by the imperial missionary establishment. A friend of many of the leading figures of Muslim enlightenment in the Volga region, including Kayyuim Nasiri, Shihabeddin Merjani, and Muhammad Gali Mahmutov, Lebedeva was also in close contact with such respected orientialists as Vladimir Bartol’d, Il’ia Berezin, Vasilii Radlov, and Iu.I. Krachkovskii, and played a significant part in lobbying for the organization of the Imperial Society for Oriental Studies.30 During the years she lived in the Ottoman capital, Lebedeva became an emissary of Russian literature. A translator of the works of Russian classics into Turkish, she used the pseudonym Gulnar Khanim, assuming a Muslim identity as a bridge to the Muslim audience she was addressing. However, when upon her return to Russia in 1893 Lebedeva threw herself into a series of projects aimed at giving agency to the Muslims, the Russians perceived her voice, like that of Gulnar Khanim, as alien; Lebedeva became persona non grata, and her name disappeared from newspapers and journals. Although marginalized at home, Lebedeva capitalized upon her credentials and visibility in Western Europe to represent the Muslims of Russia in general, and Muslim women in particular. In this context, her participation and contributions at several world congresses of Orientalists (Paris: 1897; Rome: 1899; Hamburg: 1902; Algiers: 1905)31 brought her and the Muslims of Russia world exposure. Clearly generations ahead of her time, Lebedeva’s perception of Self and that of the Muslim women with whom she shared gender, citizenship, a land of birth and commitment to achieving equality and enlightenment, but not race and religion, nurtured pluralism and diversity. At the twelfth International Congress of Orientalists held in 1899 in Rome, she presented papers on the history of Kazan and the emancipation of Muslim women.32 Her main thesis echoed the argument of the Jadid reformers and of Muslim women themselves, that the conservative religious establishments were responsible for their condition. An editorial published in 1915 in the Tatar women’s journal Soembika, in addition to validating this point, opens a window to the universe of Muslim women, which emerges as hardly the procrustean mould into which missionaries had placed them. In fact, not only did Muslim women seem to have had a clear perception of their own identities — without embellishments, but without self-deprecation either — they were capable of critically assessing the double standards of Europeans. They pointed to the fact that while exhibiting patronizing attitudes toward Muslim women in their own countries, Europeans prevented the 46

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entry of women in general into certain professions and excluded them from participation in politics. The only Europeans who were given high marks were the Finns and the Norwegians because in their countries women had the right to vote and to be elected.33 Such editorial boldness, however, was hardly solid ground for making generalizations about Muslim women’s perception of Self because, against the background of intersecting habiti, the complex fabric of their multiple identities was woven of their cultural diversity and class differences that determined its durability and configuration.34 To be sure, those voices that left a trail of evidence challenging the generalizations that the colonizer discourse generated about Muslim women are almost exclusively those of middle-class Muslim women. Still, their very existence and the range of issues they raised reflected how keenly they were aware of the changes taking place beyond the narrow confines of home and immediate community and how passionately they considered themselves to be part of a world that comprised the Russian imperial polity, as much as it did the Muslim umma elsewhere. The immediate impact of the 1905 Revolution that swept across urban and rural Russia was the emergence of a ‘diluted’ autocracy: in the ensuing state of emergency, Nicholas II was forced to relinquish some of his powers and reluctantly, to open the door to parliamentary life in Russia. The imperial manifestos and government decrees that followed in rapid succession between 1905 and 1906 were in fact, the building blocks of Russia’s new constitution, euphemistically called the Fundamental Laws of the State, thus avoiding that ‘accursed word — constitution’, of which Nicholas II’s tutor and adviser had warned even his grandfather Tsar Alexander II.35 The first Russian parliament, the Duma, was convened only four days after the proclamation of the Fundamental Laws, on 23 April 1906; its activities were defined in a charter comprising sixty-three articles.36 Muslims were represented in all four Dumas that met between 1906 and 1917. They sent twenty-five deputies to the First Duma, and thirtyfive, ten, and seven deputies respectively, to the Second, Third, and Fourth Dumas.37 Muslim women were not only aware of these momentous developments but saw them as an opportunity to realize the promises of pluralism and popular participation in their own lives. To that end, they appealed to the Muslim delegates to the Duma urging them to become the voice of Muslim women, and to take up the issue of their rights in the much broader arena that a national parliament represented. The assertiveness of Muslim women, who found no contradiction in seeing themselves ‘of the umma’ and ‘of the empire’ — with all the promises that empire held for the realization of grazhdanstvennost’ (civic-mindedness) — revealed some of the ambiguities embedded in identity construction and in the perceptions of pluralism, and illustrated to a great extent the dynamics of what has been called ‘received categories and perceived contexts’.38 It was given coverage in the 47

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Muslim press of Russia, Russian women’s journals, and even in West European journals. In its 16 March 1907 issue, the Crimean Tatar women’s journal Alem-i-Nisvan (Women’s World — published in Bakhchisaray between 1906 and 1910) carried a letter by Najiya Khanim to Muslim Duma deputies, urging them to be receptive to the needs of Muslim women on the grounds that women represented ‘the people’s party’.39 On 23 May 1907, the newspaper Ulfat (Rapprochement — published in St. Petersburg between January 1906 and June 1907) printed an article concerning an appeal of Muslim women delegates to the Muslim Fraction of the Duma at its 18 May 1907 session.40 The Russian women’s journal Zhenskii vestnik publicized an appeal of Muslim women of Orenburg, which had originally appeared in Vaqt (published in Orenburg between February 1906 and January 1918).41 Even Revue du monde musulman took note of this event in one of its 1908 issues.42 Relying on Shari‘a to legitimize their requests, the Muslim women of Orenburg reminded the Duma deputies that ‘Shari‘a gives us many rights but our husbands deprive us of them’, and urged them: ‘Muslim deputies, you have the obligation to request the passing of a law which would protect us from the abuses our despotic husbands inflict upon us.’43 What is notable about the Orenburg women’s petition is the fact that they were not only accepting but asking for the mediation of Russian law to ensure the observance of Shari‘a and thus, free them of the abuses of Muslim males. The urgency of the appeals sent in 1907 by Muslim women to their Duma deputies asking for support in securing their civic equality may to some extent result from the fact that of the twenty-five Muslim deputies of the First Duma, only Abussugud Akhtiamov and Shakhaidar Syrtlanov, both representing Ufa guberniia, had taken up their cause.44 Akhtiamov, moreover, ceased to occupy a seat in the Second Duma and Syrtlanov’s was the only voice they could count upon; they knew that the support of other deputies was needed to make their voices heard. The position of Muslim deputies on crucial issues pertaining to the definition and interpretation of the meaning of equality of citizens of the empire before the law received attention in a report presented at the First All-Russian Congress of Russian Women, held in St. Petersburg between 10 and 16 December 1908.45 The author of the report, O.A. Vol’kenshtein, prefaced the excerpt she cited from a speech delivered by deputy Akhtiamov with a tirade that read: And here they are, these Muslims, these primordial (iskonnye) enslavers of women [who] having stepped on the popular tribune for the first time, [are] declaring through the voice of deputy Akhtiamov [the following]: ‘Since our State Duma aims at proclaiming the legal equality of all citizens of both sexes, to deprive of this right those women who represent half of the close-to-twenty million Muslim inhabitants living in the Russian empire, to deprive women of the blessings and right [to equality] for which, I think, a lot of ink and, in some places, even blood has been spilled, would be the utmost injustice’.46

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It is ironic how much Volkenshtein’s feminist voice echoed those of the missionaries, how unmistakably radical and conservative discourses intersected on the ideological terrain that acknowledged Russia’s civilizing mission and western identity, which had been further confirmed and reinforced by the rights and liberties laid down in the Fundamental Laws of 1906. World War I presented the women of the Russian empire with new challenges, but opportunities as well, acting as a catalyst in accelerating their acceptance into the public arena. This fact was noted by the leading representative of the Kadet Party, Pavel’ Miliukov, who in a speech delivered at a meeting of the women’s organizations of Petrograd in 1916, emphasized that since the beginning of the war women had become more active in the life of Russian society.47 An article featured in the Volga Tatar women’s journal Soembika stressed this issue in unambiguous terms. Its author noted: Our women organized their own societies and just like Russian women, fought against the ravages of war; in Orenburg, Ufa, Troitsk, Kazan, Petrograd, Moscow, Tashkent, and other cities the press noted [the deeds] of women in the service of the nation. All this information should be gathered and a record of their contributions kept because these materials will be needed for the compilation of national statistics.48

Once again, their identity as Muslims seems to have been in harmony with their identity as citizens of the Russian empire. Moreover, some Muslim women had even been bold enough to criticize the portrayal of Muslims in the press, relying precisely on their identities as citizens for whom the Fundamental Laws had opened new vistas of participation and pluralism. One such woman was Ummylgulsum Kamalova, a graduate of the Russian gymnasium for girls and a kursistka (auditor) at St. Petersburg courses for women, who joined forty-five other Muslim young people in protesting the pejorative, slanderous depiction of Muslims in the Balkan War, in the Russian newspaper Den’.49 The example of Kamalova adds yet another nuance to the already rich and complex canvas that captured Muslim women’s perception of Self in the sunset years of the empire. Her voice, along with those of other Muslim women, reveals the agency some Muslim women were assuming in restructuring their lives. Their voices were rising, but missionaries, government bureaucrats and feminists, either remained oblivious to their needs, ignored them, patronized them, or became alarmed at discovering their assertiveness. The case of Muslim women illustrates the fact that both the Russian state and the intellectual élites (Russian and non-Russian alike) played significant roles in shaping identity. Their roles, however, should be acknowledged without succumbing to an instrumentalist stand, despite the fact that the events of the last decade of the empire scarcely affected the determination of the colonizer to shape the colonized after its own image, and in accordance with its own script. Problems arose when the colonized inorodtsy, such as Jadid reformers and Muslim women, 49

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‘deviated’ from the script and as consumers of ‘modernity’ as well as advocates of pluralism threatened the verticality of the existing social, political and cultural hierarchies.50 NOTES 1. For works on the politics of representation, see Kirsten Belgum, Popularizing the Nation. Audience, Prepresentation, and the Production of Identity in Die Gartenlaube, 1853–1900 (Lincoln/London: University of Nebraska Press, 1998); Homi K. Bhabha (ed.), Nation and Narration (London/New York: Routledge, 1990); Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann (eds), Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). For a variety of recent perspectives on identity construction in imperial Russia see Daniel Brower and Edward J. Lazzerini, (eds.), Russia’s Orient. Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700–1917 (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1997). Also, among earlier works see Ivo Banac, John G. Ackerman and Roman Szporluk (eds), Nation and Ideology: Essays in Honor of Wayne S. Vucinich (Boulder: Westview, 1981); Wayne S. Vucinich, (ed.), Russia and Asia: Essays on the Influence of Russia on the Asian Peoples (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972); Richard Wortman, The Development of the Russian Legal Consciousness (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1976); Elise Kimerling-Wirtschafter, Structures of Society: Imperial Russia’s ‘People of Various Ranks’ (DeKalb: Northern Illinois Press, 1994). 2. See N.F. Katanov, Materialy i soobshcheniia (Abakan: 1958) p. 28; S.N. Ivanov, N.F. Katanov, Ocherk zhizni i tvorchestva (Moscow, 1973) p. 35. Also, ‘Kazanskaia khronika’, Kazanskii telegraf, August 22, 1915 (#6656), p. 5. 3. The two stories were: Dolina Azhitugai (The Azhitugai Valley) and Persidskii Anekdot (A Persian Anecdote). R. Kh. Kereitov, ‘Novoe o Kazi Giree’, Polovetskaia luna, 1 (1991), p. 90. 4. A better translation of the name would be the Muslim Spiritual Assembly. This widely accepted term represents ‘the voice’ of the Russian government and reflects its understanding of the religion of Islam. 5. As quoted by Jo-Ann Gross, ‘Historical Memory, Cultural Identity, and Change: Mirza ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Sami’s Representation of the Russian Conquest of Bukhara’, in Brower and Lazzerini, Russia’s Orient. Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, p. 214. 6. Akt chastnogo soveshchaniia dukhovnykh lits okruga Orenburgskogo magometanskogo dukhovnogo sobraniia (Ufa: 1914), p. 9. 7. The names of Ismail Gasprali, Rizaeddin Fahreddin, Ahmet Agaev, Sadri Maksudi, Yusuf Akchura, Ahmed Baytursun, Abdurauf Fitrat, Ibrahim Altinsarin should be particularly noted. The periodical press of Russia’s Muslims acquired prestige at home and elsewhere in the Muslim world particularly through the contributions of journals and newspapers such as Terjuman, Vaqt, Kazan Mukhbiri, Shura, Ayqap, Ayna, Ishigh, Soembika, Alem-i-Nisvan, and Molla Nasreddin. 8. Among those dedicated to proving this point, Nikolai Petrovich Ostroumov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Mashanov, Evfimii Aleksandrovich Malov, Nikolai Ivanovich Il’minskii, A.A. Mozharovskii, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bobrovnikov, and Konstantin Pobedonostsev remained unshaken in their life-long commitment to it. Among periodical publications, Pravoslavnyi sobesednik and Mir islama were most vocal in their anti-Muslim orientation; Mir islama, whose publication was the result of the decisions taken at the 1910 Missionary Congress, switched to a clear anti-Muslim line after a brief attempt at maintaining scholarly ‘objectivity’. 9. See Gosudarstvennaia Duma. Stenograficheskie otchety. Tretii sozyv. Ch. III. Sessiia V. Zasedaniia 84–119 (March 5–April 28, 1912 (St. Petersburg: 1912), col. 979. On the same issue, see also Sadri Maksudi: Tarikh ham hazerge zaman (Kazan, 1999), pp. 181–91. 10. On the issue of reconversions, see S. Bagin, Ob otpadenii v magometanstvo kreshchennykh inorodtsev Kazanskoi eparkhii i o prichinakh etogo pechal’nogo iavleniia (Kazan, 1910).

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11. For the report of the conference, see A. Arsharuni, ‘Iz istorii natsional’noi politiki tsarizma’, Krasnyi Arkhiv 4(1929), pp. 107–27; 5(1929), pp. 61–83. The conference was featured as: ‘Osoboe soveshchanie po vyrabotke mer dlia protivodeistviia tatarsko-musul’manskomu vliianiu v Privolzhskom krae’. 12. On the missionary congress see ‘Ob organizatsii missionerskogo s”ezda v gorode Kazani dlia obsuzhdeniia religioznykh voprosov’, Ts. G.A. Tat., fond 359, opis’ 1, delo 524 and F.T. McCarthy, ‘The Kazan Missionary Congress’, Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique 3(1973), pp. 308–33. 13. For detailed reports of all sections of the congress, see the 706 page published text of the proceedings: Missionerskii s”ezd v gorode Kazani — 13–26 iiunia 1910g. (Kazan, 1910). [Hereafter, S”ezd]. 14. S”ezd, p. 224. 15. Ibid., p. 378. 16. Ibid., p. 217. Votiaks was a ‘self-identity’ label. The etonym used by the Russians in referring to Votiaks was ‘Udmurt’. 17. Ibid., p. 383. 18. Ibid., p. 384. 19. For a discussion of culture and power, hierarchies of structures and structuring, see Richard Kilminster and Ian Varcoe (eds), Culture, Modernity and Revolution. Essays in Honor of Zygmunt Bauman (London and New York: Routledge, 1996). 20. Arnold Toynbee characterized ‘“zealotism” as a form of archaism evoked by foreign pressure and “Herodianism” as a form of cosmopolitanism evoked by that same external agency’. For a discussion of Toynbee’s essay on ‘Islam, the West, and the Future’, see: Charles Issawi, Cross Cultural Encounters and Conflicts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 9. 21. At the missionary congress particular attention was given to measures aimed at counteracting the false teachings of Islam. See S”ezd, p. VIII. 22. N.P. Ostroumov, Sovremennoe pravovoe polozhenie musul’manskoi zhenshchiny (Kazan, 1912). Of his other works, Koran i progress (Tashkent: 1901) should also be noted. 23. M. Mashanov, Mukhammedanskii brak v sravnenii s khristianshim brakom, v otnoshenii ikh vlianiia na semeinuiu i obshchestvennuiu zhizn’ cheloveka. (Kazan, 1876). 24. His criticism focused on ideas A. Agaev developed in his work entitled Zhenshchina po islamu i v islame (Tiflis: 1901). 25. A. Mustafi, ‘Hazarga Musulman hatunining huquq jihatandan tutqan urni’, Shura 5 (1912) pp. 141–4; 9(1912) pp. 268–70 (Tatar, Arabic script). 26. Ibid., p. 141. 27. Ibid., p. 268. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid., p. 269. 30. Abrar Karimullin, Kitap don’iasina sayahat. (Kazan, 1979) p. 161. 31. Already prior to her return she had participated in one such conference in Stockholm in 1889. 32. Actes du douzième Congrès International des Orientalistes (Rome: 1899) Vol. I, pp. CLXXXV–CLXXXVI. The paper was later published as Ob emansipatsii musul’manskoi zhenshchiny (St. Petersburg: 1900) and translated into Tatar by Rakiyb Rakiybov, as Golnar Khanim (Lebedeva), Moslimalar Khorriyate (Kazan, 1907). 33. ‘Yavrupaning ing bahatle hatunlari’, Soembika 1(1915) pp. 17–18. 34. It was Pierre Bourdieu who introduced the concept of habitus/habiti, understood as a complex web of norms that govern social practices of both conscious and unconscious nature and representative of orthodoxy and heterodoxy alike. Bourdieu gave agency to the individual by highlighting the role it can play in changing the collective habitus of the entire community by mobilizing it into action. See Pierre Bourdieu, An Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) pp. 78–82; 160–70. 35. See Michael T. Florinsky, Russia. A History and Interpretation Vol. II (New York: Macmillan, 1953) p. 1089.

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36. Svod zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii, Part I, Vol. I (St. Petersburg: 1911) pp. 48–51. 37. Azade-Ayse Rorlich, The Volga Tatars. A Profile in National Resilience (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1986), pp. 181–7. 38. Marshall Sahlins, Islands of History (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1985), pp. 144–50. 39. Alem-i-Nisvan (Tatar, Arabic script), March 16, 1907, pp. 1–2. 40. Ulfat (Tatar, Arabic script), May 23, 1907, p. 2. 41. ‘Izvestiia’, Zhenskii vestnik 7–8 (1907), pp. 190–2. 42. ‘L’éducation des femmes et la civilisation musulmane’, Revue du monde musulman, 3, IV (1908), pp. 800–2. The journal, however, erroneously placed this event in the spring of 1908. 43. Zhenskii vestnik, 7–8 (1907), p. 191. 44. M.I. Pokrovskaia, ‘Zashchitniki i protivniki ravnopraviia zhenshchin v pervoi gosudarstvennoi dume’, Zhenskii vestnik, 5–6 (1907): pp. 129–34. 45. O.A. Vol’kenshtein, ‘Zhenskii vopros v trekh gosudarstvennykh dumakh’, in Trudy I-go vserossiiskogo zhenskogo s”ezda pri russkom obshchestve v Sankt Peterburge 10–16 dekabria 1908 g. (St. Petersburg: 1909), pp. 898–903. 46. Ibid., p. 900. 47. N. Nolle, ‘Petrogradskaia beseda o zhenskom voprose’, Zhenskoe delo, 16 March 1916, pp. 11–15. 48. Gismati, ‘Hatun-qizlar isiyezdi’, Soembika, 1 May 1916, p. 226. 49. Information on the critique of the coverage of the Balkan war in the Russian press was published in Vaqt, 1 Nov. 1915, p. 3. 50. For discussions of identity issues in the colonizer — colonized equation see Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

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4 The Hidden Dialogue on Constitutionalism between the Russian Provisional Government and the Khivan Democracy in 1917 DOV YAROSHEVSKI INTRODUCTION The German concept of Rechtsstaat, or the law-based state (pravovoe gosudarstvo, in its Russian rendering), served for seven decades, from the 1850s to 1917, as a vigorous ideal in the Russian liberal struggle for the transformation of the tsarist autocratic state into a constitutional one.1 Promoted initially in the legal thought and practice of the zemstvo (local self-government), it later became the banner of the struggle for reform. It was prominent in the public debate of 1900–1906, during which such crucial issues as civil rights, the need for a parliamentary system and the crusade against the arbitrariness of a police state were advanced. Moreover, it was the goal of the ongoing struggle during the semi-constitutional empire of 1907–1917.2 This essay discusses the most unusual case of the application of the Rechtsstaat ideal in the Russian milieu — in the Khivan khanate, a Russian protectorate in Central Asia from 1873 — and its elaboration into a full-fledged legal-administrative program in 1917. The idea of applying the Rechtsstaat approach in a colonial setting was proposed by the Russians in July–August 1917 as an emergency response to the challenge of indigenous democratic activists, who had proclaimed their intentions of building a constitutional state. The activists in Khiva were the political grouping led by Huseyn Bek, who had seized power from the hands of the despotic khan in April 1917 and drafted a manifesto, whose central aim was to transfer power from the khan to the people and to create a representative government elected by popular franchise. The interaction of the Khivan and Russian visions of constitutionalism may be regarded as a hidden dialogue between the Russian Provisional Government and the Khivan democracy. 53

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While historians have written widely on the dialogue between the new Russia and the democracies of Finland and Ukraine,3 the RussianKhivan dialogue has been overlooked entirely. Khiva, unlike Finland and Ukraine, was manifestly not at the centre of Russian public attention at the time. The dialogue there was not public, and received coverage only in the provincial press. As for historians, neither Soviet nor Western scholars have related to this case: the former have focused on a narrative of the October Revolution and therefore minimized any extraordinary enterprise of democratization in the colonial periphery during the period of the Provisional Government; and the latter, being deprived of access to sources, were not informed of this special Russian-Khivan relationship and represented the Russian constitutional proposal for Khiva as an illustration of the Russian fascination with Western democratic models.4 The purpose of this essay is to explore the historical, moral, legal and political context for the contesting versions of constitutionalism elaborated by Russians and Khivans, in order to achieve insight into how each side perceived the structuring of power and protection of civil rights during the transition from absolutism to democracy. It is particularly important to investigate how the personal and public histories of the main protagonists in this contest — Huseyn Bek on the Khivan side and B.P. Trizna on the Russian — moulded their respective viewpoints on constitutionalism; how the moral fervour of the Russian February Revolution shaped the borders of the discourse on political change and constitutionalism in the colonial periphery; to what extent the structure and contents of their constitutional proposals were contingent upon general political and juridical visions; and how the constitutional projects in the colonial periphery meshed with the general discourse of 1917 revolutionary Russia. In my research, I have used previously neglected sources, a number of which have proved extremely helpful in discerning the dialogue between the Russian Provisional Government and the Khivan democracy: the report submitted by Trizna on his mission to Khiva in summer 1917 helps elaborate the Russian revolutionary moral approach; the provincial newspaper Turkestanskie vedomosti provides access to Khivan constitutional thinking; and archival and printed documents provide a glimpse into the ideas of Russian constitutional democrats on the reconstruction of the empire.5 BACKGROUND The idea behind the formation by Russia of the two Central Asian protectorates of Bukhara and Khiva was a legacy of the Caucasian Wars (1820s–1860s), which taught St. Petersburg to intervene as little as possible in the daily life of what they considered to be stagnant political entities. In this context Russian policy rebuffed any mention of transforming these societies; at the same time the protectorates were not to become an economic burden for the metropolis. The Khivan protectorate was a convincing case of this lenient approach. 54

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At the turn of the twentieth century Russia changed its passive approach into an active one, and began to strive to reform the administrations of the despotic regimes in the Asian protectorates. With Russia’s transformation into a constitutional monarchy in 1906, one school of Russian colonial administrators called for the annexation of the protectorates and their forcible integration into the Russian social fabric, while another preferred to reform them by preserving the local systems of government and the Muslim character of their society. Thus, in 1910, under Russian influence, administrative reform in Khiva was proclaimed by the new ruler, Isfendiyar Khan. The reform was aimed at implementing payment by the state of a regular salary to various ranks of state officials, setting up a budget, and giving priority to development of requisite infrastructure (land surveying, irrigation, road construction, mail and telegraph communications, public health, agricultural consulting services, etc.). Russian advisers were to oversee the path of reform.6 The period of 1916 and the first three months of 1917 are crucial for understanding the course of events which were to occur in 1917 Khiva. A revolt of the nomadic Turkmen population that year called into question the very existence of the ruling dynasty.7 It compelled the protecting power to intervene, and in the summer of 1916 a Russian military force, commanded by General A.S. Galkin, overpowered the rebels, massacring many of them, and imposed a heavy indemnity on the entire Turkmen population, which it levied by force. This precedent allowed the Russian authorities in Turkestan to review the ideas of reforming the administrative system in Khiva, and finally, after discussing the issue with Petrograd and submitting documentation to the Tsar, the governor-general of Turkestan Krai, Aleksei Nikolaevich Kuropatkin, signed an agreement with the ruler of Khiva on 29 January 1917 in Tashkent. According to the agreement, for the first time a Russian military commissar would be appointed for the Khivan protectorate and a bureau, including advisers and police officers, established. The military force which had entered Khiva to suppress the Turkmen uprising would be stationed on Khivan territory, and the reforms designed in 1910, but never implemented, would be pursued.8 The February Revolution and the abdication of the Tsar instigated the first modern type social upheaval in the protectorate of Khiva. On 4 April 1917, with the support of revolutionary soldiers of the Russian garrison, Huseyn Bek’s followers succeeded in persuading the ruler to sign a manifesto establishing a constitutional monarchy, with a provisional parliament and government.9 Preparations for general elections and the implementation of reforms were to begin. This was a revolution from above par excellence : a small élite, entrenched within the despotic regime, challenged the autocratic ruler, proclaimed a democracy and was bold enough to take over the government of the country. Everything had to be built from scratch: there were no political forums; no civil society; no parties. Aid for political survival (so they hoped), would come from outside in the form of political support from the new 55

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revolutionary government in Petrograd, technical expertise from the Russian Muslim Bureau10 and military support from the Russian soldiers stationed in the khanate. This revolution11 occurred at a time of growing economic and security troubles in Khiva: famine threatened the population and Turkmen bandits plagued the countryside.12 The new revolutionary government had no tools to deal with these emergencies. It had neither an effective army nor mounted police to suppress the gangs of Turkmen. It had to request grain supplies from the Russians, but could not count on getting priority in treatment since famine was endangering all areas of Russian Turkestan. Despite the growing food and security exigencies, the major crisis which threatened the new governing group was a political one. The weak constitutional regime immediately provoked the opposition of many social and religious groups. These continued to extend support to the ruler who, though deprived of formal power, was still popular with the broad conservative strata. In the traditional Muslim polity, ruler and society were still strongly identified. Thus the appearance of a selfstyled democratic group posing a challenge to traditional values and the existing political order, immediately produced a political rift within Khivan society. The ruler and officialdom felt endangered; the clergy perceived for the first time that the changes might undermine its power and the very foundations of Islamic society; peripheral Turkmen tribes claimed redress for previously inflicted injuries; the urban population (artisans, shopkeepers, servants) took part in acts of mass protest, such as bread riots; and the active support of the military Russian force gradually became more problematic, with soldiers continuing to support the Khivan democracy and officers leaning toward a more critical position. In such an unstable political situation, the khan and his supporters counterattacked. Using the bread riots in the city of Khiva as a pretext, on 23 May 1917, Isfendiyar Khan disbanded the government and arrested the democratic leaders and members of the group who sat in the parliament. The Russian military command did not intervene. A delegation of democrats went to Tashkent for redress. On 6 June 1917, after considering their plea, the Turkestan Committee of the Provisional Government, the Turkestan Krai Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and the Muslim Krai Council decided to send a mission to Khiva headed by the commissar of Syr Darya Oblast B.P. Trizna.13 The representative of the Turkestan Krai Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies to the mission was instructed to ‘extend real support to the progressive elements of the [Khivan] mejlis’.14 After a six-week visit to Khiva, the mission returned to Tashkent, and on 25 July, Trizna reported to the Syr Darya Oblast soviet, that the socalled progressists,15 who were asking for Russian support, were not worthy of it, as they represented the old regime and were unable to extirpate traditional practices of despotic arbitrariness and corruption which had flourished in this Russian protectorate under the rule of the 56

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khan. Accordingly, Trizna went on to contend that ‘the general framework for [democratic] reforms should be elaborated here in Tashkent’.16 Three weeks later, on 13 August 1917, Trizna forwarded his draft of reforms to the Turkestan Committee of the Provisional Government. The draft consisted of two documents — a constitution for the protectorate and an ordinance on the duties and rights of the commissar of the provisional government in Khiva.17 After their approval on 9 September, the Turkestan Committee directed them to Petrograd, and a month later, on 9 October 1917, they were submitted for consideration of the Juridical Council, the consulting body of the Provisional Government for the preparation of legislative acts. With the Bolshevik seizure of power at the end of October, the documents on Khivan constitutional reform no longer had any political significance and were relegated to the dustbins of history. Ultimately, the Khivan progressists and their leader Huseyn Bek were arrested by the khan, the process of democratization was disrupted, and the traditional despotic regime was restored after the withdrawal of the Russian army force from Khiva in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution.18 HISTORICAL ROOTS Two statesmen — Huseyn Bek and P.B. Trizna, as the respective authors of the Khivan and Russian foundational texts, played a special role in the Khivan–Russian dialogue on constitutionalism. This section entails a survey of the historical backgrounds of the two protagonists and the specific circumstances and experiences that may have contributed to the formation of their respective perceptions on the major issues at stake. Huseyn Bek (1856(?)–1918) was born into a family of prominent Khivan statesmen and he dedicated his entire life to state service in the highest positions (as minister and twice as prime minister). Broadly educated and well-known as a poet, Huseyn Bek was fluent in Russian and subscribed to Turkish and Russian Muslim newspapers. The local circle of democrats considered him their leader, and it might be said that his entire existence was a preparation for the main event — leading the revolution against the Khivan autocracy in April 1917. Most of his life Huseyn Bek lived in the shadow of his father, Muhammed Divan Begi. The father was a former slave, who had become an accomplished administrator, military commander and dignitary in the service of the Khivan state. After the Russian conquest of Khiva in 1873, Muhammed Divan Begi spent six years in Russian exile in Kaluga — in the company of Shamil the well-known leader of the Caucasian Muslim resistance to Russian imperial rule. His sojourn in Russia and life in a new environment left a certain imprint on the ‘desert robber’; he learned some Russian, became exposed to Russian imperial ways and administrative methods and became accustomed to European amenities. Then the Russians returned him to Khiva, where the khan made him responsible for taxing the population — to pay off the indemnity to the Russian empire. Huseyn Bek helped his father in this 57

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matter, and became adept at resisting Russian control through economic means. Adopting his father’s credo, Huseyn Bek (and the other sons of Muhammed Divan Begi, who also served in high state positions) saw the modernization of Khiva as the only way to overcome its economic backwardness and to withstand imperialism. In one direction Huseyn Bek went much further than his father. As a man whose adult life coincided with the period of high imperialism, and as a statesman who attentively followed political and cultural developments in the Muslim world, and specifically in the Ottoman empire and among the Muslims of the Russian empire, he began to be interested in new political methods of overcoming the colonial situation and dependence of his country. This is how he arrived at his ideas of constitutionalism. Huseyn Bek may have found inspiration in the Ottoman reform (Tanzimat) of the late 19th century, and particularly in the promulgation of the constitution in 1876 and its restoration in 1909. He may have been impressed by the role played by Ottoman bureaucratic reformers such as Ahmed Midhat Pasha in this constitutional innovation, and undoubtedly, he fully understood the political uses Ottoman statesmen made of these advanced westernizing reforms in their resistance to the pressures and encroachments of the Great Powers in the affairs of the empire.19 The 1909 victory of the Young Turks, and the restraints they imposed on the autocratic power of the sultan, had made waves throughout the entire Muslim world. The blueprint for political-constitutional change in Ottoman terms seized many politicians everywhere, including, probably, Huseyn Bek. Another crucial element in Huseyn Bek’s history — and a rare precedent in modern Khivan history — was his open clash with the autocrat. In 1910, when Isfendiyar Khan ascended the throne, the Russians negotiated with him broad reforms which, according to both Russian and Khivan assessments, would lead to greater dependence on Russia and ultimately to Khiva’s annexation to the empire. Huseyn Bek and other dignitaries signed a letter to the ruler, protesting his overly submissive position vis-à-vis the Russians. The Khan avenged this unheard-of act of opposition by firing the dignitaries, placing them under house arrest and confiscating all their property. Though later restored to his ministerial position under Russian pressure (the tsarist colonial administration preferred to observe the balance between competing ‘native’ political groups), Huseyn Bek remained the ruler’s most dangerous enemy.20 In contrast to the high social status into which Huseyn Bek was born and which he enjoyed throughout his life, the Russian protagonist, Lieutenant-Colonel B.P. Trizna, was a low colonial official in Turkestan Krai. Until the February 1917 revolution he had held the position of deputy district officer (pomoshchnik uezdnogo nachal’nika) in Syr Darya Oblast. The February revolution gave Trizna the opportunity for a meteoric rise in status. He was advanced to the position of district officer (uezdnyi nachal’nik), and immediately appointed commissar of 58

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Syr Darya Oblast (the most important in Turkestan Krai, with Tashkent as the seat of the commissar). The main reason for Trizna’s promotion was his character and his popularity among the nomadic Kyrgyz for whose administration he was responsible.21 In a rare newspaper source, Mustafa Chokaev (Chokay)22 recollected some years later the image of Trizna in the following words: ‘We, and particularly the Kyrgyz, were well acquainted with Trizna, and we knew him as the wonderful (prekrasneishii) man who succeeded even in the uniform of a police officer (pristav) to keep both his heart and his soul clean.’23 Trizna’s special asset was his knowledge of the revolutionary tradition of the tsarist colonial administration in the Kyrgyz steppe. For a century and a half, from the time of Catherine the Great, the area had been the ground for a sweeping Russian experiment in administration, legislation and self-government. In a major thrust to strengthen Russian sway in the steppe, tsarist administrators in the 19th century destroyed the rule of steppe despots (the sultans), and introduced locally elected self-government. When this kind of administration became a source of corruption and gave rise to rule of local tycoons able to mobilize the broad support of the nomads, the Russian administration revised its approach and opened an attack on the former.24 Russian colonial experts, administrators and particularly jurists, considered the reform of Kyrgyz customary law and the traditional adat courts of biys, which were seen as an evil influence in the life of the nomads,25 to be another major issue. In both campaigns — against the local tycoons and customary law — Trizna was well versed. For years a member of the Russian military administration, Trizna was familiar with problems of law enforcement. Defiance of imperial legislation on the part of the lower classes of the indigenous population — non-payment of taxes or ‘improper public behaviour’, the term coined in official jargon — was met by the state and its colonial administrators with repressive measures. Article 64 of the Turkestan Statute was considered the most feared by the local population. It allowed Russian district officers to incarcerate any ‘native’ for up to seven days, and in a time of state emergency, for up to thirty days.26 The February revolution abrogated this method of administrative punishment and substituted it with court prosecution. However, the problem of law enforcement became even more critical as revolutionary Russia appropriated the ‘legal order of government’. Trizna turned on his own initiative to the Tashkent Provincial Court and exhorted it to take expedient measures to punish those who contravened orders issued in accordance with existing law.27 RUSSIAN MORAL STANDARDS The February revolution produced a new discourse and selfidentification among the Russian people: supporters of the revolution considered themselves an advanced free nation with high moral standards. A moral distinction between ‘old’ and ‘new’ people, based on 59

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affiliation with the old and the new regime, was given a privileged place. The ‘new people’, of lower- and middle-class origin, felt they were performing on the stage of world history, and had nothing in common with representatives of the old regime. Thus, candidates for this community had to fit the new criteria and be more upstanding than members of the old regime.28 Lieutenant-Colonel Trizna, head of the Russian mission to Khiva in June–July 1917, judged Huseyn Bek according to these new high moral standards. Because of the latter’s past social status, his history of state service, his everyday behaviour and his immersion in practices of corruption and nepotism (this discomforting description can be found in Trizna’s report),29 Trizna could not recognize Huseyn Bek as a ‘new man’, or, in other words, as a member of the Russian revolutionary moral community. POLITICAL AND LEGAL VISIONS The notion of constitutionalism as a form of political organization based on written charters was not the central dimension in the political/legal dialogue between Khiva and Russia in 1917. Rather, the liberal vision of constitutionalism was being explored as a mechanism for setting certain limits on governmental power in respect to citizens’ rights.30 In the 19th century constitutionalism was associated with two major currents — parliamentarism and Rechtsstaat. Both were aimed at curbing absolute rulers, though the former focused upon enactments of the representative government, while the latter sought to introduce legal norms into the functioning of the state in order to protect civil rights. These two major historical visions of constitutionalism — a parliamentary and a law-based state — met on Khivan ground in 1917. The parliamentary version relates to the Khivan visions of constitutionalism, and Rechtsstaat — to the Russian. Raymond Aron has noted that ‘in the 19th century parliament was a symbol of the modernization of politics’.31 Indeed, this symbol had permeated the consciousness of Ottoman bureaucratic reformers who elaborated the 1876 constitution and convened the first parliament in the history of the empire. Although short-lived (it was dispersed by the sultan after fifty meetings in 1878) and re-convened by the Young Turks only in 1911, the very institution of parliament was perceived throughout the Turkic world as a landmark in the uphill struggle against autocratic rule. No less important for the Khivan case was the experience of Russian Muslim participation in the Russian state parliament (Duma) between 1906 and 1917, and the activities of the Muslim fraction in that forum.32 Another stimulus for the parliamentary idea in Khiva was provided by the February revolution, which specified the setting up of a constituent assembly as one of its central aims. The immediate political motive behind the Khivan struggle was Isfendiyar Khan’s signing of the agreement of 29 January 1917 with the Russian tsarist authorities, which actually deprived Khiva of its autonomy in domestic affairs and put it under the control of the Russian military 60

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commissar.33 A revolution in Khiva and the establishment of a representative government seemed to Khivans the most fitting way to overcome Petrograd’s colonialist stratagem. Khivan constitutional intentions were formulated in three basic documents: the Khan’s manifesto announcing constitutional rule; a telegram to the Russian Muslim Bureau; and a telegram to the prime minister of the Russian Provisional Government and chairman of the Turkestan Committee of the Provisional Government.34 The manifesto prepared by Huseyn Bek’s followers consisted of a preamble and seven sections. The first and central section declared that, on the basis of constitutionalism, the power of the khan was being limited and sovereignty in the country transferred to the people. The following five sections stipulated the pre-eminence of the Shari‘a (Islamic Law); guaranteed civil rights; proclaimed a representative government; announced the introduction of regular salaries for civil servants; and prescribed the establishment of a state treasury and control of state expenses by a government elected in accordance with the constitution. The seventh section introduced a provisional parliamentary body (mejlis) which would oversee the activities of the national and provincial administration during the transitional period until the elections. The telegram to the Muslim Bureau, published by Turkestanskie vedomosti on 26 April 1917, called for the sending of Russian Muslim experts to lay the groundwork for the elections and initiate reform in the financial sphere.35 Two days later Turkestanskie vedomosti published a telegram under the title ‘Constitution in Khiva’, signed by the Khan and Huseyn Bek and addressed to the chairman of the Russian Provisional Government and chairman of its Turkestan Committee, which informed him that a precursor of the parliament had been convened in the country with the task of preparing ‘the principles of the constitutional government of the people of the khanate’. The issue of constitutionalism is of paramount importance for understanding the substance of the political change which occurred in Khiva. The manifesto of 4 April decreed a constitutional monarchy in the Khivan khanate and transferred sovereignty to the people. From the moment of the proclamation, the ruler pledged not to intervene in matters of governance ‘so that my loyal subjects might govern the country as they wish’. This clearly meant that the ruler would remain on his throne as a symbolic figure, without any legislative, executive or judicial power. The second most important message of the manifesto related to the granting of civil liberties to the people of Khiva. This was rendered in a phrase which was an unheard-of revolutionary innovation in the life of the despotic kingdom: ‘I have given my subjects freedom, equality and unity.’ Third, the manifesto referred to relations with the colonial power. It stated that the Khivan people wished to ‘[march] hand in hand with the Russian people’; that both peoples were ‘joining the family of free and liberated peoples’; and that the ‘Great Russian people will refuse neither help nor advice regarding the well-being and 61

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prosperity of Khivans’. There is no explicit mention of Russia’s status as Khiva’s protector; rather it seems that the Khivans were deliberately indicating that after the Russian and Khivan revolutions, their relationship, previously founded on Russian conquest, should be reconsidered on the basis of international law. It seems appropriate to close this short discussion of the basic elements of Khivan constitutional intentions by quoting an extract from the memoirs of Palwan Niyaz Yusupov, a member of Huseyn Bek’s circle and later, in 1920–21, chairman of the Council of People’s Nazirs (Ministers) of the Khorezm People’s Soviet Republic. Though written in the mid- or late 1920s, it depicts magnificently the atmosphere of euphoria produced by the manifesto: We have received freedom from our Khan! Our Muslim country will be governed on the basis of a constitution… Everybody is granted his personal freedom and nobody is entitled to abuse another person or to inflict offence. Our state affairs are to be administered by a constitutional government composed of persons elected by the people; and members of the national assembly will always be informed about the activities of the government; and if the national assembly considers actions of the government harmful to the khanate or to the nation, it is to take measures to stop them and even to remove the government.36

In contrast to the Khivan perception, the Russian vision of constitutionalism in the 19th century was based on the German model of Rechtsstaat. This model played a crucial historical role in the German revolutions of 1848: by elaborating a detailed catalogue of civil liberties, it contributed towards undermining the old social structures.37 But proponents of this model of mid-19th century Germany turned out to be too weak to safeguard these rights against the might of the state, and, thus, jurists focused on complementary strategies: binding the state by rules and laws, pursuing legality in acts of officialdom, and thereby gradually achieving the proclaimed civil rights. Although such an approach towards constitutionalism (binding the state to law) does not automatically presuppose revolutionary change in the structure of power, it might encourage the ruling power to follow the path towards a constitutional monarchy. This model was transplanted to Russia and became the Russian liberals’ vision of constitutionalism. According to liberal ideologists, it served as the sole effective, gradual path for curbing the monstrous Russian autocracy. It was the guiding idea of Russian liberals in 1900–1905 in their work on drafting a constitution for Russia (these drafts became the foundation of the first Russian constitution of 1906).38 The 1906 Fundamental Law included an impressive list of civil rights and various devices to curb abuses of the state.39 Within this scheme, the parliament (or Duma) became a new, important institution, yet ministers and the government were not responsible to parliament. In 1917 the Rechtsstaat was still the governing vision, despite a battery of revolutionary decrees on equality enacted by the Provisional Government. The major reason for this 62

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adherence to the old model was the fact that the state and its officials remained the central actors in the Russian drama and the Rechtsstaat was likely to prove useful in curbing them. Lieutenant-Colonel Trizna shared this vision of the Rechtsstaat, which he considered a more fitting model for Khiva than the parliamentary model supported by the Khivans. His knowledge of Central Asian indigenous political structures (the power of the Kyrgyz elected political machine), his acquaintance with Khiva (the rule of Huseyn Bek’s clan) and his experience as governor of Syr Darya Oblast (acquaintance with the problem of law enforcement during revolutionary upheaval) led him to believe that the protection of civil liberties in a despotic environment should commence with imposing the idea of law onto the practices and attitudes of indigenous governors. For his proposal, Trizna invented a clumsy Russian formula: ustanovlenie obshchestvennykh pravovykh norm,40 which may be rendered in English as ‘the introduction of public legal norms’. To grasp the meaning he ascribed to this awkward formula, it is worth dwelling briefly upon its interpretation. The clue here must be the word obshchestvennye, or public. When Trizna speaks of public legal norms with reference to Khiva he implies new, positive laws relating to the public good (or public interest) as opposed to parochial interests of former rulers and governments in old Khiva.41 By emphasizing the public component in the laws which he intended to introduce in Khiva, Trizna counterpoised positive law with the previously dominant Islamic law and with local custom. He thus drew a line separating old and new legal norms. Referring to public norms, he indicates — in the tradition of liberal proponents of the Rechtsstaat — that they contribute to the transformation of relations within society.42 Finally, merging the words ‘public legal norms’ with the word ‘introduction’ (the Russian ustanovlenie seems to indicate introduction from above by a powerful entity), Trizna explicitly stresses the imposition of new, borrowed ideas onto an indigenous political body by an outside authority. In summary, it might be assumed that Trizna’s ideas implied his support of a Russian revolutionary policy in Khiva which would pursue an initiative to change the contours of political power and elaborate and enforce new legal norms in the form of a constitution and laws. These norms (relating to freedoms and institutions) were designed to reflect the interests of society as a whole in accordance with the original German and Russian models of constitutionalism. This body of ideas led Trizna to prepare constitutional documents for Khiva: the Fundamental Laws of the Khivan Khanate and the ordinance on the duties and rights of the commissar of the Provisional Government in Khiva. Trizna submitted them to the Turkestan Committee of the Provisional Government, which approved them, with some changes. The title, structuring and wording of many articles of the Khivan Fundamental Laws are transplanted from the Russian constitution of 1906, and the draft, sent to Petrograd, consisted of five 63

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chapters: one on laws (Articles 1–9); one on ‘supreme power’, i.e. the monarch (Articles 10–17); one on the mejlis (Articles 18–39); one on ministers and beks (provincial governors) (Articles 40–48); and one on the rights and duties of Khivan citizens (Articles 49–58). The second document — the ordinances on the duties and rights of the commissar of the Provisional Government in Khiva — complemented the draft constitution. The ordinance included 17 articles. Two articles dealt with the appointment of the commissar, nine described the scope of his power, two outlined his duties, and four related to the office of the commissar. When drafting the ordinance, Trizna revised the text of the agreement signed by the governor-general of Turkestan Krai, A.N. Kuropatkin, and the Khan of Khiva on 29 January.43 In accordance with the revolutionary Zeitgeist, Trizna omitted some ‘politically incorrect’ clauses in the original text: for example, the definition of the commissar’s function as ‘assistance in pacification of the khanate’; favourable conditions for Russian investors in the planned program of reforms; providing control of waqf institutions and the obligatory study of Russian, geography and history in local schools. The first feature of Trizna’s draft is that it refers, point by point, to the ideas expressed in the Khivan manifesto of 4 April. The most conspicuous thrust of his argument with the Khivans was the fate of the ruler. Trizna actually denounces the sovereignty of the Khivan people proclaimed in the April manifesto. The Khivans had relegated the khan to the status of a symbolic figure and granted sovereignty to the people; Trizna restored his broad powers, on condition that he share them with the parliament. Trizna’s outline also stipulated that only the khan be entitled to represent the khanate in dealings with the Russians. In old Khiva the ruler acted as judge in his own court. The Khivan manifesto had implied that this role should be eliminated because the khan was to be just a figurehead; in Trizna’s draft the ruler’s juridical role is reinstated. Trizna’s constitutional draft entitled the ruler to approve laws elaborated by the mejlis and to administer the executive arm of the government; to choose the prime minister; to convene extraordinary sessions of the mejlis; and to disperse the mejlis before the end of its three-year regular term. The Khivan manifesto mentioned civil rights only in vague terms. Trizna’s draft, on the other hand, highlights an impressive list of Khivan civil rights. Taken from the Russian constitution of 1906, the list names three basic categories of freedom: legal proceedings; property matters; and rights of movement, assembly, speech and association. Thirty articles out of fifty-eight in Trizna’s constitutional draft are dedicated to the subject of the legislative body — the mejlis. This chapter depicts in the greatest detail all areas connected with that body: elections; its composition (50 deputies out of ‘the best people of the khanate’ to be chosen for three years, although it does not explain by which criteria the merits of these deputies would be assessed); the apparatus of the parliament (speaker and secretary responsible for the 64

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minutes); the status of deputies — their allowance, presence at parliamentary sessions, exclusion or absence from mejlis sessions; scheduling of sessions (twice a year); extraordinary sessions; dissolution of parliament (when, why and on whose initiative); legislative activities of the mejlis (interpolations to the ministers, no confidence motions in the government, deliberations on laws); agenda of the mejlis — laws on infrastructure and welfare. Finally, the mejlis speaker is given the insulting task of reporting daily during the parliamentary session to the Russian commissar in the khanate on proceedings in the legislature. Trizna’s draft treated the executive power even more harshly. Trizna transformed the office of prime minister from constitutional Khiva’s leading position, endowed with real power (according to the April manifesto), to that of an unspecified senior official, subordinated to the khan and controlled by the mejlis. The second feature in Trizna’s documents — as opposed to the Khivan — is the shift of perspective toward a detailed treatment of constitutionalism. The draft constitution discusses specific tools for putting obstacles in the way of any untoward exercise of the state’s power with reference to citizens’ rights. The first and most general was the substitution of regular laws for decree, fiat and emergency ordinance. The entire first section of Trizna’s draft deals with the enactment of laws, their force, custody, promulgation and abrogation. The draft states that the minister of justice was to be responsible for the promulgation and preservation of laws. To prevent the circumventing of laws, the draft constitution designates specific legal norms. Thus, for instance, the draft prohibits membership in the government to people belonging to one family, and prohibits employment of relatives by heads of governmental agencies. Although Trizna inserted this measure specifically to obstruct access to the government by members of Huseyn Bek’s clan,44 the implications are extremely important — this norm introduced a radically modern approach to practices which had previously flourished in the Khivan civil service and which were a major source of corruption in Khiva. Another revolutionary innovation, in terms of constitutionalism, was the unprecedented publication of a catalogue of rights of Khivan citizens. Anyone in Khiva who had experienced governmental intrusion (such as confiscation of property, which was the prerogative of the autocrat)45 must have felt the historical significance of the lapidary phrase under Article 55 in the draft constitution: ‘property is inviolable’. As the draughtsman of the draft constitution, Trizna was aware of the importance of promoting a legal consciousness among Khivan citizens as a major pillar of a new law-based state. Thus, there is a point in the constitution connected to the development of self-government in Khiva and citizens’ active participation in the administration of the provinces, and their cooperation with governmentappointed officials. These legal norms were complemented by a device central to the Rechtsstaat doctrine — namely administrative justice. It was very 65

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popular with legal scholars and the public in 19th century European countries where equality before the law was not yet recognized.46 Thus, administrative courts (tribunals) emerged, which prosecuted officials for indictable offences. The Russian empire was familiar with this legal practice, particularly from the end of the 19th century, and after the February revolution administrative courts were established by Provisional Government decree.47 Elaborating the Khiva constitution draft, Trizna inserted into the text a point providing the establishment of a mixed Russian-Khivan court which would deal with administrative offences. The list of higher Khivan officials who could be tried in this court included the mejlis speaker, the prime minister, ministers and provincial governors. Finally, Trizna envisaged a form of constitutional review which would guarantee that acts performed by the state conformed to the letter and spirit of the constitution.48 In the draft, he granted this highest authority to the Russian representative in Khiva — the commissar. The third feature of the draft was its ambivalent silence on the judiciary. The draft, which pays so much attention to the law with regard to constitutionalism, practically overlooks the functioning of the traditional Islamic courts and their contribution to the rule of law in Khiva. The answer may lie in a sense of uneasiness on the part of the draughtsman towards this complicated, delicate and dangerous issue. In old Khiva four kinds of jurisdiction coexisted: the ruler’s court; the Shari‘a court; the tribal court (of nomadic Turkmen); and the Russian Justice of the Peace, who sat in the nearby town of Petro-Aleksandrovsk on Russian territory, which since 1912 had dealt with Russian subjects residing in Khivan territory. Obviously, after the February Revolution and with the introduction of the position of Russian Commissar in Khiva, this latter jurisdiction could have been transferred to the commissar. The only (albeit significant) innovation in the juridical sphere which Trizna allowed in the draft was a mixed Russian-Khivan (administrative) court. Even such a bold liberal reformer as Trizna sensed that tampering with the functioning of the Islamic legal system might cause a general revolt of the population against the Russians. Therefore, he restored the ruler’s court, and the Shari‘a courts remained a sacrosanct realm closed to the effects of Russian revolutionary legal fervour. Trizna may have hoped that in time and as a result of the mejlis ’s legislative activities, a large new corpus of law would emerge which would eventually contest the Shari‘a courts. A LIBERAL EMPIRE As major themes of the Russian liberal movement before the first Russian revolution of 1905–6, historians usually mention local selfgovernment, civil liberties and the establishment of the constitutional state.49 During the 1905–6 revolution, the Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets) dealt with problems that had previously been the exclusive domain of the state bureaucracy, namely nationalities policies, regional autonomy and the structural problems of empire-building in all its diversity. The most relevant to our discussion was their attempt to 66

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project the British imperial experience onto the administrative structure of the future Russian state. This topic was explored during the period 1906–16 by two outstanding Russian liberal lawyers, Boris A. Nol’de (1878–1953) and Fedor F. Kokoshkin (1871–1918).50 Both viewed the British empire as a superb ‘museum of political institutions’ from which one might borrow ideas and devices for a future reorganization of the Russian empire.51 After visiting Great Britain and working in its archives, Nol’de and Kokoshkin returned home with a profound belief that the British were moving from hegemony of the metropolis over the imperial colonies towards equality between centre and periphery. Nol’de stressed in a 1906 paper the amazing diversity of British administrative tools of government, from the simplest to the most complex, from imperial control of native states by British residents to dominions with representative governments responsible to the local parliament. Noting this dimension, too, and deeply impressed by the diversity of federative and unitary relations in the British empire, Kokoshkin stressed the growth of its democratic institutions, going so far as to envisage the British empire as a huge laboratory of democracy. This fascination with the British imperial experience was undoubtedly in the forefront of the minds of Nol’de and Kokoshkin when they sat as members of the Juridical Council of the Provisional Government in 1917 and dealt with elaborating a new centre-periphery relationship in Russia. To both men the conflict-laden negotiations between the centre and periphery in the former empire and the search for a new legal relationship were reminiscent of those moments of crisis and transition which they had noted in British imperial history and which they discerned as the time for producing an authentic and imaginative imperial strategy. Nol’de left a remarkable memo in his archive, reflecting his perception of the process of constructing a Russian liberal empire in 1917: The problem of nationalities in pre-revolutionary law was posited as a negative one: the creation [sozdanie] of national restraints and during the last decade, the slow and gradual process of their abrogation. Now the same problem is posited as a creative one, as a legal design for national claims. Nationality is a living force, struggling for its recognition by the state and searching for the best forms for this recognition. The state meets (idet navstrechu) in one form or another these claims of the living force, transforming nationality into an essential part of its legal institutions, its internal organization.52

This search for a model for liberal forms of empire in all its diversity may have been the main reason that the Khivan constitutional project, emanating from Tashkent, seemed to have received a warm reception in Petrograd.53 It was a pioneering endeavour into transforming a notorious Oriental despotism into a democracy, an attempt to apply Rechtsstaat principles under Russian revolutionary guidance. Had it been implemented, it would have been a unique experiment in its day, and might have become the pride of the Russian liberal empire in-themaking. 67

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CONCLUSIONS In the aftermath of the February revolution, within the framework of negotiations over the future relationship between the centre and periphery of the Russian state, the investigation of the nature of constitutionalism for the protectorate of Khiva became one of most unique examples of this dialogue. This particular discourse was initiated by the Khivan side. A small group from the indigenous élite, led by Huseyn Bek and inspired by the constitutional experience of the Ottoman empire, perceived constitutionalism as a way to curb domestic autocratic rule. This, they believed, could be achieved by promoting a representative government. Through this radically new arrangement the democratic group believed it could resist Russia’s gradual annexation of the country and, with the country’s new standing as a modern and democratic entity, renegotiate a new, more favourable status vis-à-vis the Russian Provisional Government. By carrying out a coup d’état with the help of Russian revolutionary soldiers in April 1917, the group supplanted the despotic ruler, promulgated in its constitutional intentions that sovereignty be transferred to the people, that the parliament (mejlis) become the supreme power in the protectorate and that civil rights be granted to the population. Declaring a new political order in this traditional Muslim state, the Khivan democracy became a historical landmark in the modern political history of Central Asia. For historical and political reasons, the representatives of the Russian Provisional government were distrustful of this core of Khivan democrats and did not see them as a part of the Russian revolutionary moral community. On the other hand, they could not ignore their message of constitutionalism. For many decades the Russian liberal movement had conceived the aim of constitutionalism as limiting the power of the autocratic ruler and protecting the civil rights of citizens; this was the sacrosanct goal of the Russian Revolution of February 1917. But in contrast to Khivan democracy, which had been nurtured on the Ottoman parliamentary model (in turn borrowed from the FrenchBelgian constitutional experience), the Russians proceeded according to the German model of constitutionalism — the Rechtsstaat, or law-based state. Aware of the enormous power of the state and its central role in Russian history, such a model seemed the most effective device for restructuring social relations in the Russian state — by advancing civil rights and binding the state to rules and laws. This philosophy of restructuring traditional despotic mechanisms served as a guideline for Trizna, the representative of the Russian Provisional Government, in his dealings with the Khivan democrats and informed his attitude on the Khivan vision of constitutionalism. Trizna offered his reply to the Khivans in the form of a draft constitution which adhered to the Rechtsstaat model. Through a division of power, the Russian constitutional draft sought to anchor civil rights of Khivans against state infringement. Pursuing legality in state administration, it effectively eliminated the notion of representative government which the Khivans had delineated in their manifesto. 68

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At least three lessons, historical, political and comparative, may be drawn from this study of a trail-blazing constitutional experiment in early 20th century Central Asia. From a historical perspective, the Khivan-Russian dialogue on constitutionalism, although aborted due to the October 1917 revolutionary upheaval in Russia and the Bolshevik seizure of power, appears to have contained the seeds of the contemporary struggle for democracy and pluralism in Central Asia. It demonstrates that the two models of constitutional approach, parliamentarism and a law-based state, were employed in the efforts to formulate the contours of a modern state on Khivan soil. It also shows that even at the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a real opportunity for a transition to democracy in at least one of the Central Asian states, with the cooperation of Russian, Khivan and Russian Muslim54 political élites. Moreover, it proves that the process of democracy-building could be advanced despite misapprehensions, prejudice and resistance. From a political perspective, the Khivan constitutional experiment confirms that rules and norms of constitutionalism and limitation on government have to be applied from the initial stages of the transition to the new democratic political order. The difficulties of Huseyn Bek’s short-lived regime may be explained by a constellation of many factors, both internal and external, but its bias toward traditional authoritarian governance, and its lack of energy and creativity in inventing and demonstrating new constitutional rules of governance were an essential ingredient in the eventual failure of this constitutional initiative. Trizna, a most attentive observer of Huseyn Bek’s regime, discerned these contradictions in the Khivan experiment, and this awareness prompted him to place so much emphasis in his own constitutional project on formal rules of governance. This early confrontation on ways of pursuing constitutionalism supports the argument of a contemporary political scientist that, ‘scholars have yet to develop a theory about the types of constitutions that strengthen constitutionalism at successive stages of democratization’.55 Finally, from a comparative perspective, the hidden Khivan-Russian dialogue on constitutionalism in 1917 demonstrates an intriguing coincidence of elaborating new political agenda in different parts of the colonial world at the end of World War I. Political innovations discussed in Russian Central Asia in 1917 may be reflected in the Indian-British dialogue on self-government between the Indian National Congress and All-India Muslim League, on the one hand, and the British, on the other, in 1916–18. In the November–December 1916 deliberations Hindu and Muslim politicians formulated a scheme of legislative reforms in India, which in effect would create self-government for India. In 1917–18 the British Cabinet authorized Edwin Montagu to announce the British policy of gradual transition towards parliamentary government by the Indians.56 Both dialogues, Khivan-Russian and Indian-British and their contexts, might serve as a starting point for discussing paths of democratization in 20th century Asia. 69

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NOTES 1. Harold J. Berman translates it into English as ‘law-based state’. See his article ‘The Rule of Law and the Law-Based State (Rechtsstaat): With Special Reference to the Soviet Union’, in Donald D. Barry (ed.), Toward the ‘Rule of Law’ in Russia? (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1992), pp. 43–60. 2. See Gianmaria Ajani, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Law-Based State in the Experience of Russian Legal Scholarship: Foreign Patterns and Domestic Style’, in Barry, Toward the ‘Rule of Law’, pp. 3–21; William G. Wagner, ‘Civil Law, Individual Rights, and Judicial Activism in Late Imperial Russia’, in Peter H. Solomon, Jr. (ed.), Reforming Justice in Russia, 1864–1996 (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 21–43. 3. For documentary sources see Krasnyi arkhiv, Vol. 30 (1928), pp. 49–71; D.G. Kirby (ed.), Finland and Russia 1808–1920 (London: Macmillan, 1975); Robert Paul Browder and Alexander F. Kerensky (eds), The Russian Provisional Government 1917 (Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press, 1961), Vol. 1; Wolodymyr Stoiko, ‘Ukrainian National Aspirations and the Russian Provisional Government’, in Taras Hunczak (ed.), The Ukraine, 1917–1921: A Study in Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), pp. 4–32; Ronald G. Suny, ‘Nationality Policies’, in Edward Acton, Vladimir Iu. Cherniaev and William G. Rosenberg (eds), Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution 1914–1921 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), pp. 659–66. 4. Seymour Becker, Russia’s Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara and Khiva, 1865–1924 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968); I.V. Pogorel’skii, Ocherki ekonomicheskoi i politicheskoi istorii Khivinskogo khanstva kontsa XIX i nachala XX vv. (1873–1917gg) (Leningrad: Leningrad State University, 1968) and Istoriia Khivinskoi revoliutsii i Khorezmskoi Narodnoi Sovetskoi Respubliki (Leningrad: Leningrad State University, 1984). 5. See ‘O Khivinskikh delakh’, Turkestanskie vedomosti, 28, 29 July, and 3, 4 Aug. 1917. 6. The Military Governor of Samarkand Oblast to the Governor-General of Turkestan Krai, 5 Feb. 1911. RGVIA (Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Voenno-Istoricheskii Arkhiv — Russian State Archive for Military History, Moscow), f.400 Az[iiatskaia] Ch[ast’]. op.262/910, d.62, ll.120–7. 7. Unlike the 1916 revolt in Turkestan and steppe krais where the indigenous population protested against the draft for the Russian war effort, the 1915–16 revolt of the nomadic population in the Khivan protectorate was aimed at revision of its subordinate status there. See Dov Yaroshevski, ‘The Central Government and Peripheral Opposition in Khiva, 1910–24’, in Yaacov Ro’i, The USSR and the Muslim World (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984), pp. 16–39. 8. ‘Agreement on Establishing the Position of Russian Military Commissar in the Khivan Khanate’, 29 Jan. 1917. RGVIA, f.400, Az[iiatskaia] Ch[ast’], op.263/916, d.33 (1917), ll.5–9. 9. On the events see Pogorel’skii, Ocherki, pp. 121–6 and Istoriia, pp. 63–5. 10. The provisional Central Bureau of Muslim Affairs, which represented primarily Tatars, Bashkirs and Azerbaijanis, came into existence after the February Revolution on the basis of the Muslim faction in the State Duma. The Central Bureau was responsible for organizing the Russian Muslim Congress in Moscow, which took place between 1 and 11 May 1917. Upon receiving the Khivan request, the Bureau formed a group of prominent experts to serve as an advisory board for reforms in Khiva. With the dissolution of Huseyn Bek’s government, the mission was aborted. 11. Or coup d’état — depending on the viewer and his perspective. For the coup d’état version see Valerii Germanov, ‘Kontrabanda’, Zvezda Vostoka, 7–8 (July–Aug., 1994), pp. 186–8. 12. Contemporaries and historians paid much attention to these aspects; while the first was a real problem, the danger of the second has been manipulated and exaggerated in many instances for political reasons. See Trizna’s report (note 6). 13. After the February Revolution the Provisional Government changed the title of the governor to Commissar.

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14. Minutes of the Turkestan Krai Soviet, 8 June 1917. Pobeda Oktiabr’skoi revoliutsii v Uzbekistane, Vol. 1 (Tashkent: Uzbek SSR Academy of Sciences, 1963), p. 131. 15. In early Soviet Russia, Khivan democratic activists were called ‘Young Khivans’ and the term became common in Soviet and Western historiography; they called themselves ‘progressisty’. 16. Turkestanskie vedomosti, 4 Aug. 1917. 17. Krasnyi arkhiv, Vol. 30 (1928), pp. 71–9. 18. Huseyn Bek and some of his closest associates were executed by Isfendiyar Khan in Khiva in 1918; others fled to Soviet Turkestan and returned to Khiva in 1920 after its conquest by the Red Army. 19. On the Ottoman reform and constitution of 1876 see ‘The Advent of the Principle of Representation in the Government of the Ottoman Empire’, in Roderic H. Davison, Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History, 1774–1923 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), pp. 96–111 and Reform in the Ottoman Empire 1856–1876 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963). 20. On the confiscation of property belonging to Huseyn Bek and his brothers by the Khivan Khan see Pogorel’skii, Ocherki, pp. 74–6 and Istoriia, p. 48. 21. In the Russian imperial nomenclature of 18th–19th centuries the area of contemporary Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and part of Uzbekistan were labelled as Kyrgyz Steppe and its habitants referred to as Kyrgyz. Although administratively these areas were included in the Steppe and Turkestan krais from mid-19th century, I prefer to use the former designation ‘the Kyrgyz Steppe’ and to refer to its residents as ‘Kyrgyz’. The term does not correspond to the contemporary ethnic conventions. 22. President of the Turkestan Muslim Council and member of the Turkestan Committee of the Provisional Government; later, Dec. 1917–Feb. 1918, chairman of the government of the Kokand Autonomy. 23. Mustafa Chokaev, ‘“Zamnarkom” Broido’, Dni, 24 July 1923. I am grateful to the Bibliothèque de l’Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Paris) for giving me access to Chokay’s archive. 24. See Dov Yaroshevski, ‘Imperial Strategy in the Kyrgyz Steppe in the Eighteenth Century’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 2 (1991), pp. 221–4; Dov Yaroshevski, ‘Attitudes toward Nomads of the Russian Empire under Catherine the Great’, in A.G. Cross and G.S. Smith (eds), Literature, Lives, and Legality in Catherine’s Russia (Nottingham: Astra Press, 1994), pp. 15–24; Dov Yaroshevski, ‘Empire and Citizenship’, in Daniel R. Brower and Edward Lazzerini (eds), Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700–1917 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), pp. 71–2. 25. See ‘Koshmar kirgizskikh stepei’, Turkestanskie vedomosti, 15 April 1911. 26. ‘O karatel’noi vlasti uezdnykh nachal’nikov v Stepnykh oblastiakh’, Library of the RGIA (Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv) (St. Petersburg), PZ 255; Evgenii Markov, Rossiia v Srednei Azii (St. Petersburg, 1901), p. 530; P.G. Galuzo, Agrarnye otnosheniia na iuge Kazakhstana 1867–1914 gg. (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1965), pp. 66–7. 27. Pobeda Oktiabr’skoi revoliutsii v Uzbekistane, pp. 279–80. 28. See, for instance, speech of the chairman of the extraordinary investigation commission of the Provisional Government N.K. Murav’ev on the interrogation of former members of the tsarist government, June 1917, in Padenie tsarskogo rezhima (Leningrad: Gosizdatel’stvo, 1924), pp. vii–xxi. 29. See report of Trizna in Turkestanskie vedomosti, 29 July and 3, 4 Aug. 1917. 30. Donald P. Commers and W. J. Thompson, ‘Fundamentals in the Liberal Constitutional Tradition’, in Joachim Jens Hesse and Nevil Johnson (eds), Constitutional Policy and Change in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 26. On various definitions of constitutionalism see Michel Rosenfeld (ed.), Constitutionalism, Identity, Difference, and Legitimacy (Durham: Duke University Press, 1994). 31. Quoted in M. Sükrü Hanioglu, The Young Turks in Opposition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 28. 32. Dilyara M. Usmanova, ‘The Activity of the Muslim Faction of the State Duma and Its Significance in the Formation of a Political Culture among the Muslim Peoples of Russia (1906–1917)’, in Anke von Kügelgen, Michael Kemper, Allen J. Frank (eds),

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33. 34. 35.

36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47.

48. 49.

50.

51.

Muslim Culture in Russia and Central Asia from the 18th to the Early 20th Centuries, Vol. 2 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1998), pp. 419–33. For this faction, see also the chapter by Azade-Ayse Rorlich in this volume. See note 8. Turkestanskie vedomosti, 8, 26 and 28 April 1917, respectively. The Muslim Bureau established a special Khivan commission headed by a legal expert and high official at the Senate (Supreme Court) Akhmetovich. But due to developments in Khiva the commission never set out for Khiva (Turkestanskie vedomosti, 15 June 1917). Quoted in Ia. M. Dosumov, Ocherki istorii Kara-Kalpakskoi ASSR (Tashkent: Uzbek SSR Academy of Sciences SSR, 1960), p. 79. Jörg-Detlef Kühne ‘Revolution und Rechtskultur. Die Bedeutung der Revolutionen von 1848 fur die Rechtsentwicklung in Europa’, in Dieter Langewiesche (ed.), Die Revolutionen von 1848 in der europaischen Geschichte [Historische Zeitschrift Beihefte, Band 29] (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2000), pp. 57–72. See Marc Szeftel, The Russian Constitution of April 23, 1906 (Bruxelles: Les Éditions de la Librairie Encyclopédique, 1976); A. M Medushevskii, ‘Konstitutsionnye proekty russkogo liberalizma i ego politicheskaia strategiia’, Voprosy istorii 9 (1996), pp. 3–23. Szeftel, The Russian Constitution, pp. 97–8, 146–51; W.E. Butler, ‘Civil Rights in Russia: Legal Standards in Gestation’, in Olga Crisp and Linda Edmondson (eds), Civil Rights in Imperial Russia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 1–12. Krasnyi arkhiv 30 (1928), p. 72. On the public good see Jane Mansbridge, ‘On the Contested Nature of the Public Good’, in Walter W. Powell and Elisabeth S. Clemens (eds), Private Action and the Public Good (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 3–19. Kühne, ‘Revolution und Rechtskultur’. During the German revolutions of 1848, for example, the advancement of citizens’ rights to form associations promoted ideas of pluralism in society, hence challenging the omnipotent state. See note 9. See Trizna’s report in Turkestanskie vedomosti, 3 Aug. 1917. On the confiscation of Huseyn Bek’s property by the Khan see the section of this chapter entitled ‘Historical Roots’. Sir William Wade and Christopher Forsyth, Administrative Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); William A. Robson, Justice and Administrative Law (London: Stevens & Sons, 1951); Genevra Richardson and Hazel Genn, Administrative Law and Government Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). I.D. Mordukhai-Boltovskii, Raz’iasneniiia po voprosam administrativnogo prava (St. Petersburg, 1909). This and other printed administrative law commentaries cover the period from 1885 to 1908; Istoriia pravitel’stvuiushchego senata za dvesti let 1711–1911 gg. Vol. 3 (St. Petersburg, 1911), pp. 613–15; Daniel T. Orlovsky, ‘Reform during Revolution: Governing the Provinces in 1917’, in Robert O. Crummey (ed.), Reform in Russia and the USSR (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), p. 106. S.A. de Smith (4th edition by J.M. Evans), de Smith’s Judicial Review of Administrative Action (London: Stevens & Sons, 1980). Charles E. Timberlake (ed.), Essays on Russian Liberalism (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1972); William G. Rosenberg, Liberals in the Russian Revolution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974); Sabine Breuillard, ‘Russian Liberalism — Utopia or Realism? The Individual and the Citizen in the Political Thought of Milyukov’, in Robert McKean (ed.), New Perspectives in Modern Russian History (London: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 99–116. On Nol’de see Marc Raeff, Russia Abroad (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); on Kokoshkin see the chapter ‘Tragediia russkogo parlamentariia (F.F. Kokoshkin)’, in M. Vinaver, Nedavnee (Vospominaniia i kharakteristiki) (Paris, 1926), pp. 134–64 and James A. Molloy, Jr., ‘Kokoshkin, Fedor Fedorovich’, in The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, Vol. 17, pp. 101–3. Nol’de uses the phrase in Russian, muzei politicheskikh form. This idea is very close to Kokoshkin’s. For Nol’de’s approach see his article ‘Angliia i ee avtonomnye kolonii’,

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52. 53.

54. 55. 56.

Vestnik Evropy 9 (1906), p. 6; for Kokoshkin’s perception of the British Empire see his public lecture in Petrograd in 1916, printed in 1918 as Angliia, Germaniia i sud’by Evropy (Moscow, 1918). OR RNB (Otdel rukopisei Rossiiskoi natsional’noi biblioteki — Manuscript Division of the Russian National Library, St. Petersburg), f.529, no. 13, l.1d. The Political Department of the War Ministry in Petrograd, still responsible for Russian control of Khivan affairs, forwarded the draft to the Juridical Council of the Provisional Government but the discussion of it did not take place because of the October Revolution. See note 10. Eric Hoffman, ‘Can Viable Constitutionalism Take Root in Russia?’, in Abdo I. Baaklini and Helen Desflosses (eds), Designs for Democratic Stability: Studies in Viable Constitutionalism (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), p. 219. P.G. Robb, The Evolution of British Policy Toward Indian Politics 1880–1920 (New Delhi: Manohar, 1992); Christine E. Dobbin, Basic Documents in the Development of Modern India and Pakistan, 1835–1947 (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1970), pp. 71–7.

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II POTENTIAL PRESSURE POINTS

5 Aid and Ideas: The Impact of Western Economic Support on the Muslim Successor States RICHARD POMFRET To what extent and in what ways has economic aid been used to influence economic and political development in Azerbaijan and Central Asia? This chapter deals primarily with assistance from international financial institutions (IFIs — namely, the International Monetary Fund [IMF] and the World Bank) over which the US and the European Union (EU) exert strong influence, and to a lesser extent assistance from UN agencies and bilateral aid. It focuses on political aspects of technical advice, such as retention of a common currency or adoption of a socalled Big Bang transition strategy, and on the interplay of general principles and specific national interests, such as the impact of the Armenian and oil lobbies on US policies towards Azerbaijan, or of ethnic Germans’ right of return on Germany’s policies towards Kazakhstan. While some reference is made to Russian, Iranian and Turkish aid, they will be analyzed only in the context of Western assistance aimed at promoting market economies and political pluralism. The rapid dissolution of the Soviet Union in the second half of 1991 and the emergence of six new independent states with eponymous Muslim populations came as a surprise to most outside observers. The phenomenon of transition from central planning to more marketoriented economies was, of course, not new in 1992; the IFIs’ view, known as the Washington consensus, on the desirability of rapid economic reform had already been consolidated, influenced by the economic policies introduced in Poland in January 1990. However, the Muslim successor states of the USSR posed idiosyncratic problems. They were the poorest post-Soviet transition economies and might be attracted by extremist philosophies if subjected to rapid economic change. Western attitudes were shaped by the dilemma of stability versus change, and in 1992 preference for the former was reflected in responses to the currency question, which will be discussed in the first section of this chapter. 77

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On broader questions of transition strategy, the Muslim successor states took backstage to Eastern Europe, the Baltics, Russia and Ukraine, which were either more dynamic or more important to the West. Applying the Washington consensus to the Muslim states was also complicated by the lack of a suitable model, as the initially more reformist Kazakhstan became more autocratic. Only after Kyrgyzstan had established its own currency in May 1993 was this indigent and poorly endowed state featured as the torchbearer of liberalization in the region. The contrasts between Western attitudes towards Kyrgyzstan and towards the other Central Asian countries will be explored in the second and third sections. The Western approach towards these states has been influenced by their economic significance as mineral and energy suppliers as well as by non-economic factors. These considerations took on even greater significance in the evolution of Western relations with Azerbaijan. A well-organized Armenian lobby succeeded in cutting off US assistance from the newly independent Azerbaijani state, but the importance of Azerbaijan’s oil and the country’s strategic significance eroded Western ostracism of this state in the second half of the 1990s. Many of the themes in section four are common to the region as a whole but are highlighted most clearly with respect to Azerbaijan. The final section draws some conclusions about the interaction of aid and ideas in Western economic support for the Muslim successor states of the Soviet Union. THE RUBLE ZONE 1991–93 One of the first questions facing the newly independent states at the end of 1991 was whether to introduce national currencies.1 The Baltic states were clearly heading along this path, but the remaining Soviet successor states were concerned with bolstering existing economic relations. Already in 1991 intra-USSR trade had been severely disrupted and as the drift to barter accelerated in 1992, preservation of a common currency was seen as a bulwark against such adverse economic tendencies. The desire for economic stability within the CIS may have been shared by Western policy-makers, but Western input into the debate over the currency issue in 1992 was on a technical rather than an ideological or geo-political basis. Western advice on monetary and exchange rate arrangements within the CIS was initially couched in terms of the theory of optimum currency areas. The USSR appeared to conform with these grounds for a currency union because there were obvious breaks in factor mobility at the union’s borders and internal trade far outweighed trade with outsiders; thus, conventional wisdom was strongly in favour of retaining the ruble zone after the dissolution of the USSR. Max Corden’s report for the UNDP/World Bank Trade Expansion Program, with some caveats, recommended creation of a ruble zone, specifically pointing to the Central Asian countries as well suited to this arrangement: 78

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If a republic is small, if the argument for fixing the exchange rate to the ruble is strong because trade with Russia is expected to dominate the country’s trade for a long time, and if Russia is expected to succeed in stabilizing its economy, then the case for going all the way into a monetary union with Russia becomes strong. Perhaps these conditions apply for the central Asian republics. If the intention is to maintain a fixed exchange rate indefinitely, it is better to lock it in through an institutional arrangement and thus avoid any foreign exchange speculation.2

The first Economic Reviews of CIS countries published by the IMF in spring 1992, repeated the policy recommendation that the Central Asian countries should remain within the ruble zone,3 advice which these states followed at first. From the perspective of individual republics seeking to pursue economic reform during 1992, membership of the ruble zone posed two serious problems. First, the institutional arrangements encouraged an inflationary monetary policy. Second, despite being a common currency the ruble was an increasingly ineffective means of exchange: trade between ruble zone members was being disrupted by delays in payments, and more generally there was a shortage of cash which crippled both domestic and intra-zone exchange. Following the demise of the USSR, Russia determined the currency issue, but, because all the Soviet successor states retained power over domestic credit creation and because there was no balancing mechanism for inter-country trade, no institution could exert effective monetary control over the ruble. The result was an explosive increase in the money supply, and hyperinflation, although this was less pronounced during the first half of 1992 because the Gaidar government in Russia was pursuing a reform program supported by a fairly restrictive monetary policy. The policy encouraged Russian enterprises to sell to other ruble zone members, and the growth of Russia’s trade surplus drew rubles away from the deficit countries. The flow of rubles to Russia was exacerbated as other ruble zone members issued parallel currencies to alleviate the cash shortage. The proliferation of such currencies with varying degrees of inconvertibility, plus the increasing trade imbalances, eroded the main benefit of the ruble zone — the facilitation of trade among members. The situation deteriorated after June 1992 when growing opposition in the Russian parliament to the Gaidar program forced the resignation of the Central Bank chairman and he was replaced by a person committed to supporting state enterprises through a looser credit policy. Inflation began to accelerate as enterprises and governments throughout the ruble zone faced soft budget constraints. Each country, individually, had little incentive to restrict money creation because they would reap the total benefit (control of resources) but only bear a fraction of the cost (in higher zone-wide inflation).

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One response to hyperinflation was the dollarization of parts of the economy, but no CIS government was willing to embrace the dollar as the sole means of exchange. Alternatively, they could maintain the ruble zone and reform the monetary system in order to control the growth of the money supply; however, this required agreement among ruble-zone members to share power and create effective mechanisms for money creation. The only other option was to issue national currencies. The Ukraine government began issuing ‘coupons’ in 1991, which gradually took on all aspects of a currency, until in November 1992 the Kiev government scrapped the use of the ruble. The Ukraine government had no targets for monetary growth, nor any plans for reducing government spending, and its economic policies (such as printing money to support unprofitable state firms or to continue price subsidies) led to even higher inflation. The Baltic states, on the other hand, left the ruble zone in order to regain macroeconomic stability as a framework within which economic reform could be pursued. The Estonian kroon was introduced in June 1992, and monetary policy was based upon current account convertibility at a fixed exchange rate to the German mark; the pegged exchange rate was unchanged a year later, and inflation had dropped to 2 per cent per month. Latvia and Lithuania followed Estonia out of the ruble zone in the second half of 1992, but both adopted flexible exchange rate regimes.4 At the October 1992 Bishkek summit of the CIS, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan signed an agreement to establish a single monetary system and coordinate macroeconomic policies. Turkmenistan did not sign the agreement, but continued to use the ruble. The Bishkek agreement did not exclude the issuance of parallel currencies, which Armenia, Belarus and Moldova all did (as did the non-CIS members, Azerbaijan and Georgia), leaving the Central Asian countries as the only non-Russian CIS members not to have created some form of parallel currency by the end of 1992. As predicted by Corden, the Central Asian countries had the most to gain from remaining in a common currency area with Russia, and were the firmest adherents to the ruble zone. Nevertheless, even they found that membership in an inherently inflationary currency zone was undesirable, and that renegotiating the ruble zone’s institutional framework could not be done quickly enough.5 The Central Asian countries began preparing to issue national currencies; by spring 1993, the banknotes had been printed and deposited in vaults. The printing of ruble notes with the Russian flag instead of Lenin’s head created the impression that Russia itself was introducing a national currency and might declare the old ruble notes worthless. This heightened political uncertainty in Russia after March, increasing nervousness about the country’s intentions. Russia’s role was crucial because it controlled two inducements for other countries to remain in the ruble zone despite hyperinflation: 80

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favourable ruble-denominated raw material prices and credit. The Russian Central Bank levied a one per cent service charge on ruble notes plus 20 per cent interest on banknotes provided on credit. Although Central Asian officials complained about paying these charges, the interest rate was negative in real terms and some outside observers saw this subsidy from Russia as the main reason that the ruble zone took so long to die. During the first five months of 1993, however, it became increasingly obvious that Russia was using credit access for political ends, with Belarus and Kazakhstan the main beneficiaries. Fears that Russia might use its creditor status for political leverage were highlighted by Azerbaijan’s experience.6 Although the manat was introduced in August 1992, it still represented only a small proportion of the currency in circulation by year’s end. During the first quarter of 1993 manat issuance increased, driven both internally and externally by the military conflict over Nagorno-Karabagh. To finance military expenditures, Azerbaijan’s monetary policy became looser, the situation having been exacerbated by the Armenian invasion in April. At the same time, the Russian Central Bank ceased granting credits to Azerbaijan and the issuance of rubles practically ceased after March. The ruble quickly began to trade at a premium to the official exchange rate of ten rubles to one manat, and effectively disappeared from circulation.7 On 2 June parliament passed legislation to make the manat sole legal tender and a delegation prepared to go to Moscow to negotiate withdrawal from the ruble zone. These steps were nullified, however, by the coup that replaced Albufaz Elçibey and the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, which began in the first week of June. Whatever the legal position, the manat had de facto left the ruble zone by June 1993. Physical problems of shipping banknotes, which tended to arrive in large quantities at irregular intervals, added to the uncertainty over the Russian Federation Central Bank’s intentions. After a lengthy period of non-delivery, Kyrgyzstan received a shipment of 21 billion rubles at the beginning of April 1993. When these notes were released over the next five weeks, they roughly doubled the currency supply in the country. The monetary uncertainty was exacerbated in Kyrgyzstan when Russia began to exert pressure for settlement of inter-enterprise debts and threatened not to provide any more credit. This appears to have been the catalyst for Kyrgyzstan to issue its own national currency on 10 May 1993.8 Kyrgyzstan received immediate support from multilateral institutions. On 12 May the International Monetary Fund’s Executive Board approved a loan of 16.125 million special drawing rights (SDR; $23 million) under the Systemic Transformation Facility (STF), which had been set up less than three weeks earlier, and a stand-by credit of 27.09 million SDR ($39 million). The following day the World Bank announced its first credit to Kyrgyzstan of $60 million through its soft loan arm, the International Development Agency (IDA). Co-financing of $70 million was promised by Japan, the Netherlands and Switzerland. These were the first substantial amounts of Western aid to a Muslim 81

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Soviet successor state, which were also connected to the emergence of Kyrgyzstan as a regional showcase for economic liberalism analyzed in the next section. In June 1993 Russia adopted a tougher line on credit towards rublezone countries. Negotiations with Kazakhstan broke down because Russia wanted settlement of inter-government debts (where it was the creditor), but would not link this to inter-enterprise debts (where Russian enterprises were debtors to Kazakhstan). When the Kazakhstan government talked of opening direct negotiations with individual regions of the Russian Federation, the Russian Central Bank cut off the ruble supply, causing currency shortages in Kazakhstan in early July. On 26 July the IMF announced $86 million credit to Kazakhstan under the STF, based on the knowledge that the country would soon be adopting its own currency. On 24 July fears of Russian invalidation of pre-1993 ruble notes were realized. The announcement by the Central Bank of Russia was made on a Saturday when President Yeltsin was out of town and the minister of finance was in the US (and his deputy on vacation). Neither other ruble zone members nor the IMF, which had a mission in Moscow earlier in the week, were informed of the decision. Under the initial plan, Russian citizens were allowed until 7 August to exchange up to 35,000 old notes for new, but foreigners were given only one day to cash in their old notes — and many Russian banks failed to open their doors on the Monday (as happened with banks and many shops in Tashkent and other Central Asian cities). Although President Yeltsin eased the conversion terms when he returned to Moscow on the Monday, he did not rescind the announcement. Apart from the financial losses suffered by those who could not convert their old notes into new ones at the one-for-one rate, this episode destroyed trust in the Russian Central Bank, reducing chances of reaching a settlement in future negotiations over the ruble zone. On 19 August President Niyazov announced that Turkmenistan would introduce the manat on 1 November. This decision was interpreted as a reaction to the July events in Russia, but the timing and nature of the currency reform had been planned earlier in the year. Turkmenistan’s policymakers appeared to believe that the country’s relatively strong trade balance (based on natural gas exports) would support a move to greater economic independence, although the manat soon depreciated from its fixed rate of two to the dollar. At a September 1993 summit in Moscow, Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan once again reaffirmed their commitment to a renewed ruble zone, referred to as the CIS Economic Union. The monetary institutions were not specified and it was clear that Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan were adopting a wait-and-see approach, similar to that taken at the Bishkek summit a year earlier, which had been followed by the decision to have national currencies printed. 82

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In Russia, suppression of the parliamentary opposition to President Yeltsin in October, gave reformers the upper hand. The complete freeing of bread prices was a symbolic step which underlined renewed price liberalization. Meanwhile, Russia was moving towards a more federative budget, which would reduce the central government’s ability to grant technical credits to CIS partners. Both of these developments made the ruble zone less attractive to Uzbekistan, whose government was reluctant to reform prices. For Kazakhstan, reduction in Russian credits would remove the main carrot for staying in the ruble zone. On 31 October President Nazarbayev suddenly announced that Kazakhstan would introduce its own currency within the next two to three months. The explanation given for this decision was Russia’s failure to live up to commitments given by President Yeltsin in August to accept payment in old rubles. Underlying the decision, however, was undoubtedly the breakdown in trust since the July currency reform in Russia, which had created a situation where economic negotiations could easily collapse. Following Nazarbayev’s announcement, the currency markets of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan went into total confusion.9 Old (pre-1993) rubles, no longer valid in Russia or in Turkmenistan after 1 November, flooded into Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan as holders saw the conversion to new national currencies as their last opportunity to get rid of potentially worthless banknotes. Traders were unwilling to accept old notes, despite their continuing official status, and market exchange rates (against new rubles or against dollars) dropped rapidly. On 5 November President Nazarbayev issued a decree freezing most bank accounts instantly, and a week later he announced that a national currency would be introduced on 15 November. A sum coupon was also issued on the same day. The ruble zone effectively collapsed in November 1993. After Armenia introduced the dram on 22 November and Moldova the leu on 29 November, only Russia, Belarus and Tajikistan remained within the ruble zone. Tajikistan was de facto in its own currency area by the end of 1993. The Russian Central Bank was not supplying new banknotes and the main medium of exchange was the old ruble which was no longer accepted anywhere else. Thus, the only former Soviet republic with a communist government was also the only one which continued to use banknotes adorned with Lenin’s head; Tajikistan finally introduced a national currency in May 1995. The currency issue had some repercussions for future relations with Western powers and international financial institutions. Although the Western position had been driven largely by objective economic theory, there was a suspicion that institutions such as the IMF had been supporting Russian hegemony and inhibiting national development of the new states. As a result, the reputation of Western economics, especially on macroeconomic issues, was undermined. The IMF, as the leading 83

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technical adviser in such matters, had reversed its position on the common currency by the end of 1992 and supported the new Kyrgyz currency, but its credibility had been damaged.10 Both the IMF and the World Bank had gone through a learning phase. They now had staff familiar with the region, whereas previously they had none. Technical assistance was being provided through resident representatives, consultants and training programs. Financial assistance was beginning to flow into the region, although in 1993 this was restricted to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan (Tables 5.1 and 5.2). Other international agencies were also becoming involved; in particular, specialized UN agencies such as the High Commission for Refugees provided valuable humanitarian assistance on the fringes of the conflicts in Azerbaijan and Tajikistan.11 The damage to Russia’s standing was more severe. Russian support for Armenia in its dispute with Azerbaijan and use of economic levers against Azerbaijan, reinforced the hatred of Moscow which had been festering since Soviet troops had killed some 150 civilians in Baku in January 1990. In Central Asia, where Kazakhstan had been a solid supporter of continued union and where Uzbekistan and Tajikistan still looked to Russia, the currency-related events of the summer and autumn of 1993 generated frustration with and loss of trust in Russia. Western influence was still far behind Russia’s in 1993, but a potential vacuum was emerging. RAPID ECONOMIC REFORM AND THE KYRGYZ MODEL During the early 1990s the IMF and the World Bank were associated with a view of the transition from central planning, which was strongly influenced by the Polish Big Bang of January 1990. This view, dubbed the Washington consensus, emphasized macroeconomic stabilization as the key first step and the desirability of rapid implementation of other steps in establishing a market economy. After the dissolution of the USSR, the focus was on supporting ‘reformist’ elements in the ongoing political struggles in Russia and, although Washington institutions established resident representatives in many of the southern republics and provided training services in-country and abroad (especially at the joint centre in Vienna), these transition economies were not high priorities in 1992. However, when Western assistance for the establishment of a new national currency was provided in May 1993, Kyrgyzstan quickly became the model of economic reform in Central Asia. In 1992 Kyrgyzstan was not the leader of economic reform: Kazakhstan, which had reacted better in matching the Russian price liberalization of January 1992, seemed the likely candidate for the role in the region.12 The initial impetus, however, became dissipated in struggles over the country’s natural resource rents and the spread of corruption, so that outside observers increasingly worried about a crisis of governance.13 Meanwhile, the resource-poor Kyrgyz republic had little room for manoeuvre. The dissolution of the USSR and the early stages of 84

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transition had been highly disruptive; average incomes fell from already low levels and inequality increased, leading to the highest poverty rates in all of the former USSR and Eastern Europe in 1993.14 In mid-1993 Kyrgyzstan began embracing the philosophy of the Washington consensus in return for generous financial assistance and technical support. Macroeconomic control was established after the introduction of the national currency, and annual inflation was brought below 50 per cent in 1995 (compared to 1996 in Kazakhstan, and 1997 or later elsewhere in Central Asia). Financial reform was pursued energetically as banks were restructured (with support from an IDA Financial Sector Adjustment Credit) and credible prudential regulation enforced after 1995. Privatization of housing and small enterprises was completed quickly. Agricultural reform was more thorough than in neighbouring countries, although the impact varied significantly from region to region.15 Trade policy was liberalized, and current account convertibility established; in 1998 Kyrgyzstan became the first Soviet successor state to accede to the World Trade Organization. Kyrgyzstan’s progress and status as the region’s leading economic reformer was lauded in public documents such as the World Bank’s 1996 World Development Report. The country’s performance however, remains controversial. The drop in real output in the first half of the 1990s was larger than in most non-war-torn Soviet successor states and the increase in poverty was traumatic, especially in rural areas of the south.16 In 1997 and 1998 real GDP grew faster than in neighbouring countries, but whether this was a sign of firmly-based market-oriented development or a rebound from an excessively low trough was difficult to determine. Kyrgyzstan has been most successful in generating foreign aid. By 1996 it had the second largest debt/GDP ratio of any Soviet successor state — 43 per cent — almost entirely in the form of official development assistance and support from the IFIs.17 World Bank commitments to Kyrgyzstan up to the end of 1996 were $70 per capita, compared to $49 in Kazakhstan, $11 in Uzbekistan, $6 in Turkmenistan and $1 in Tajikistan (Table 5.2). By mid-1998 external debt exceeded $1 billion, up from zero in 1992, and over half was on concessional terms from multilateral institutions.18 In addition, Kyrgyzstan received substantial grants; in 1997 net transfers amounted to $68 million, of which $65 million came from public sources, mainly the governments of the US ($40m.), the EU ($13m.), Japan ($8m.) and Germany ($2m.). This financial assistance has enabled the government to reduce inflation without balancing domestically generated revenue and expenditure. As tax revenue fell during the early stages of transition, expenditures were not cut commensurately and the budget deficit peaked at 17 per cent of GDP in 1995. The deficit has been reduced since 1995, and because of the large official inflows has required little domestic financing. Thus, the deficit could be covered, while the growth of money supply was kept under control, with less draconian 85

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expenditure cuts than would have been required in the absence of foreign aid. Kyrgyzstan’s budget required practically no inflationary financing by the Central Bank in 1997 or 1998, although this was due to massive external support rather than balancing of the domestic books (Table 5.3). Success in reducing inflation could then be used as evidence that the country had been deserving of support, because its reform strategy and economic policies were sound, although it was really the foreign aid which had underpinned the success in reducing inflation. Kyrgyzstan has also been lauded as an island of democracy and an open society in a region of autocracies and intolerance. Western aid does, however, seem to have been motivated by economic rather than political liberalism, and praise of democratic tendencies only followed identification of Kyrgyzstan as a model of economic reform in Central Asia. Moreover, the ‘island of democracy’ image is an oversimplified perspective. President Akayev has ruled by decree when he considered it necessary to push through desirable legislation (especially in 1994–96), to which his Western supporters generally turned a blind eye.19 He has also been as unwilling as other Central Asian leaders to allow establishment of a political process that could lead to changes in power. Nevertheless, it is true that the media are flourishing more in Kyrgyzstan than elsewhere in Central Asia, and that the feeling of oppression is less than in some other countries. The extent to which this relative liberalism has been fostered by positive aid relations with Western institutions or generated by domestic forces is unclear. ELSEWHERE IN CENTRAL ASIA The other four Central Asian countries have each received less Western aid per capita than Kyrgyzstan, although they are all special cases in various ways. Kazakhstan received the largest aggregate aid from the IFIs, led by a $700 million commitment in 1994 for support of the national currency. Subsequently, however, the IFIs’ enthusiasm for Kazakhstan waned. Whether this was in response to concerns about internal political or economic developments or to external political conditions is difficult to identify, because all three explanations are consistent with changes in Kazakhstan’s situation after 1994. Kazakhstan has been reformist, but corrupt, with a cosmopolitan but autocratic president. Despite early hope for democracy, Kazakhstan’s slide into authoritarianism could be seen as a necessary response to the delicate ethnic balance. However, once President Nazarbayev embarked on this path, concern for state stability was transformed into concern for his own political longevity and ‘a solid undemocratic foundation’ was laid.20 At the same time, privatization of large enterprises, especially in the natural resource sector, at giveaway prices, created a new rich class and an aura of corruption. Kazakhstan was the only Soviet Union republic in which the titular nationality was not a majority; on the eve of independence the 86

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population was roughly two-fifths Kazakh, two-fifths Russian and onefifth other ethnic groups.21 The Russians were heavily concentrated in the north and east of the country, which differs little in culture from Siberia, while the Kazakhs and other Central Asian ethnic groups clustered in the south and west. After independence Kazakhs were encouraged to return to their homeland (mainly from Western Mongolia) and many Russians emigrated, but the ethnic balance remains fragile. One response by President Nazarbayev has been to move the capital from the south-eastern city of Almaty to the northern city of Astana (formerly Akmola), a heavy economic burden, which also increased opportunities for corruption in the distribution of construction projects. Kazakhstan’s economy is oriented towards Russia, both by geographical proximity and by the commodity composition of exports. Northern and eastern Kazakhstan are dotted with ‘company towns’ based on mineral or energy products supplied to manufacturers in Russia by pipeline or rail links, rendering changes in the direction of trade infeasible. The Russian orientation has acted as a significant counterweight to attempts to increase Western influence in the country either directly or through proxies such as Turkey. Despite gaining short-term diplomatic benefits from an early decision to relinquish its nuclear weapons, Kazakhstan has remained suspect in the West due to the Russian connection, which includes military bases in the republic. Another aspect of the ethnic mosaic was the large number of people of German origin. Close to one million Germans whose ancestors had settled in the 18th and 19th century in the Volga region and along the Black Sea had been forcibly moved eastward to Western Siberia and Kazakhstan after the Nazi invasion in 1941. After independence many tried to emigrate, exerting their rights to German citizenship and hence to residence in the EU. Germany, motivated by a desire to reduce the economic push to emigrate from Kazakhstan, showed special interest in the newly independent country, although the amounts of German bilateral aid have been modest.22 A similar historical background underlies the special Korean interest in Kazakhstan, ethnic Koreans having been shipped from the Soviet Far East by Stalin in 1937 lest they act as a fifth column for Japanese penetration. Despite initial anticipation of aid flows from Germany and Korea, the actual official capital input was never large and dwindled quickly. Kazakhstan’s energy and mineral wealth has attracted Western interest. Chevron’s Tengiz joint venture in Western Kazakhstan, negotiated in the Gorbachev era, was the largest foreign investment project in the USSR. Other oil projects have involved most of the North American and European majors. Australia has also been commercially active in minerals, pastoral activities and telecommunications, and its only embassy in Central Asia was established in Almaty.23 All of these links, however, have led to commercial capital flows rather than to aid. The oil companies in particular are used to looking after themselves and 87

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to dealing with unsavoury regimes, so there has been little pressure put on Kazakhstan to reform faster or to democratize. Uzbekistan competes with Kazakhstan for regional hegemony. During the late Soviet era the Uzbek Republic was synonymous with corruption and arbitrary justice,24 and after independence was coldshouldered by the West as an undemocratic and unreforming regime. Relations with the IFIs were formal but not cordial, and Uzbekistan did not receive the same assistance as Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan for the establishment of its national currency. Relations deteriorated even further in 1996. The stand-off was not uncongenial to President Karimov, who emphasized his country’s independence. After 1996 both sides sought a rapprochement. The IFIs were somewhat embarrassed by Uzbekistan’s economic success, with the smallest 1989–96 decline in real output of any Soviet successor state. Whether the performance was due to favourable initial conditions or good policies remains contentious,25 but Uzbekistan was helped by buoyant cotton prices in the early and mid-1990s. Reversal of these price trends in 1996 set in motion the reimposition of exchange controls in the second half of the year, despite commitments to the contrary to the IMF, and the rupture of relations between Uzbekistan and the IFIs. The poorer economic performance of 1997 and 1998, relative to neighbouring Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and increasingly obvious costs of the exchange controls stimulated rethinking of Uzbekistan’s gradual reform strategy; at the same time, reconsideration of the Washington consensus made the IFIs more amenable to a heterogeneous strategy. The economics-driven changes overlapped with changing international relations. Since 1995 Russia’s power in the region has waned markedly. Military weakness was exposed in the first Chechnya conflict (1994–96). In 1995–97 Russian weakness was regarded by its neighbours as a temporary phenomenon and treated with caution, but Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova (GUAM) gradually became more vigorous in coordinating their resistance to Russian plans for military bases in the Caucasus, and in October 1997 the four presidents issued a joint communiqué. Since then the four GUAM countries have cooperated on a greater range of issues, such as oil exploitation and transport. Uzbekistan shared many of their interests and in April 1999 it formally joined the group, which then became known as GUUAM. The US began holding joint military exercises with Uzbekistan in 1998, education opportunities in the US were increased, and in general USUzbekistan relations became warmer. To date, the détente has been associated with technical rather than financial assistance. Turkmenistan is often linked with Uzbekistan as the other slow Central Asian reformer, and its relations with the IFIs have been minimal. The contrast with Uzbekistan’s institutionalized and improving international relations is not difficult to explain. Turkmenistan’s gradualism 88

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was a synonym for non-reform, at least until the economic collapse of 1997, whereas Uzbekistan has been genuinely reforming its economy at a slow pace.26 Moreover, while both governments are autocratic and suppress civil liberties, Turkmenistan has an extreme personality cult, whereas Uzbekistan provides passable governance at some levels (such as supplying social services and limiting corruption). Without exception, international agencies and Western governments have held back from close contact with Turkmenistan.27 Tajikistan was riven by civil strife throughout most of the 1990s. Although the intermittent civil war appears to have been resolved since the June 1997 peace agreement, the government still does not control the entire country. The central government has remained heavily dependent on Russia, and to a lesser extent on Uzbekistan, for military and financial support during most of the decade, and by 1996 had the highest debt/GDP ratio in the CIS, 84 per cent.28 Serious economic reforms were pursued in a sustained manner only after 1997; before that, relations with the IFIs were limited.29 Although some signs of economic liberalism akin to the Kyrgyz model are emerging, driven by similar resource scarcity and widespread poverty, it is too early to positively identify such a pattern. A surprising feature of Western aid to the region is that it has been almost totally unaffected by the spectre of Islamic fundamentalism. Despite predictions in the early 1990s of competition between Turkey, as the champion of secularism, and Iran, and some initial gestures on the part of these two countries, such as the establishment of credit lines or cultural links, the influence of these regional powers has proved to be minimal.30 President Karimov has presented Uzbekistan as a pillar of secularism, supporting anti-fundamentalist forces in Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan and, especially in 1995–96, denouncing Iran. Shared opposition to Iran sometimes united the US and Uzbekistan. For example, Uzbekistan was one of the few countries to back the US trade embargo on Iran announced in spring 1995, but this led to little more than the surprising spectacle of Uzbekistan and Israel being the sole supporters of the US in a United Nations vote. Serious US rapprochement towards Uzbekistan in the late 1990s was in the common cause of containing Russia rather than being directed against Islamic fundamentalism, geopolitics appearing to dominate ideology in this context. Throughout the 1990s, Western powers stayed out of the Tajik conflict, and more surprisingly, until late 2001, out of the Afghan civil war. The US in particular was, until September 11, ambivalent, urging ‘engagement’ with the Taliban leaders in contrast to its hard-line policy towards Iran.31 Pakistani and Saudi support for the regime and Iran’s support for the opposition were enough to tilt the scales towards nonintervention. The Uzbek warlords in northern Afghanistan received no Western support, and their stronghold of Mazar-i-Sharif fell to the Taliban in 1997/98. When the US oil company Unocal lobbied for support for a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan in 89

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1997, it looked briefly as though recognition of the Taliban government might be on the cards, but the US government ultimately withdrew from the scheme. Subsequently, Taliban atrocities against their opponents and treatment of women received greater publicity, and Western governments avoided any show of support for the regime. Although US feelings were heightened by the Taliban’s refusal to extradite Osama bin Laden after the bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, no punitive action was taken. AZERBAIJAN Azerbaijan was unique among the Islamic successor states in that it encountered practical antagonism in the West rather than benign indifference. Azerbaijan’s history during the first half of the 1990s was dominated by the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict, in which its opponents had the support of a small but vociferous lobby in the US. Without any serious opposition, the Armenian lobby sponsored legislation which prevented US aid to Azerbaijan, and this also undermined Azerbaijan’s relations with the IFIs.32 Pressure to reverse the aid boycott increased during the 1990s, especially after the signing of the first oil productionsharing agreement with foreign investors in September 1994 and after the emergence of the GUAM axis, but US legislation is difficult to rescind.33 Tensions between Armenians and Azeris mounted after the Armenian inhabitants of the Azerbaijan-administered Nagorno-Karabagh enclave demanded autonomy in 1988. After a tumultuous period, culminating in the February 1992 military defeat and civilian massacre in the Azeri village of Khodjali in Nagorno-Karabakh, the ex-communist president of Azerbaijan resigned. In June 1992, the Popular Front candidate won the presidential election with 60 per cent of the vote. One irony of the US aid boycott was that in mid-1992 Azerbaijan had the most democratic political system of all the Muslim successor states of the former Soviet Union. Once in power, the Popular Front quickly lost popularity. The leadership was incompetent and, in many cases, corrupt. Primarily, however, it failed to create an effective army, and when Armenian forces took the offensive in spring 1993 they repeatedly won. By April Azerbaijan had lost control not only of Nagorno-Karabagh but also of about one-fifth of its own undisputed territory, and a million people, one-seventh of Azerbaijan’s population, were displaced from their pre1992 homes. Against this background, the Popular Front government disintegrated and between June and October 1993 Heydar Aliyev, former first secretary of the Azerbaijan CP (1969–82) and subsequently a member of the Soviet Politburo and first deputy prime minister of the USSR, consolidated power and was elected president. Aliyev abandoned the Popular Front’s pro-Turkish and anti-Russian orientation, led Azerbaijan into the CIS in September 1993 and negotiated a Russian-brokered ceasefire in May 1994. Armenia continued to 90

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occupy Azerbaijan territory and Nagorno-Karabagh ceased to be an enclave. Since 1994, Azerbaijan has refused to lift its blockade of Armenia until Armenian forces withdraw from the occupied territory; Armenia has refused to pull back unless the status of Nagorno-Karabagh is settled to its satisfaction; and the US aid boycott remains — until the blockade is lifted. The Azerbaijani economy performed poorly in the first half of the 1990s, with real GDP falling by more than 70 percent between 1992 and 1995 and monthly inflation rates of over 50 per cent until late 1994.34 In addition to the shocks suffered in common with the other Soviet successor states, Azerbaijan’s performance was strongly affected by the conflict over Nagorno-Karabagh, which was financed by creating money, fuelling inflation and rapid depreciation of the currency. In early 1995 an economic reform program was launched which effectively followed the Washington consensus model of putting macroeconomic stabilization first. Once adopted, the program was implemented firmly, leading to a rapid decline in inflation; by late 1997 annual inflation was close to zero, and the consumer price index (CPI) fell by over 7 per cent in 1998. The year 1995 marked a major turning point in relations with the IFIs. Azerbaijan had joined the IMF and World Bank in September 1992, but for several years relations were strained. An IMF credit negotiated in November 1994 was not approved because of Azerbaijan’s failure to implement budget deficit reduction measures. Azerbaijan’s first use of IMF financing was approved in April 1995: a loan of 29.3 million SDR ($46m.) under the STF. A second STF drawing of SDR 87.8 million ($132m.) was approved in November 1995, when the IMF described the stabilization and reform program launched in early 1995 as ‘extremely successful in achieving macroeconomic stabilization’.35 Subsequently, support was provided under the IMF’s Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF) and the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), and policies were also supported by a World Bank Structural Adjustment Credit (SAC). Apart from support from the IFIs, Azerbaijan benefited from large inflows of foreign direct investment. The September 1994 oil contract was the first step, unilaterally starting offshore oil exploitation despite Russia’s opposition to national sectors of the Caspian Sea. According to IMF estimates, foreign direct investment averaged 16 per cent of GDP annually in 1995–97, far higher than in any of the Central Asian countries.36 Most of the leading Western oil companies, including the US majors, invested in Azerbaijan.37 Azerbaijan’s decline in output was reversed in 1996, and real GDP grew by over 5 per cent in 1997 and by 10 per cent in 1998. Once the ceasefire had been established in 1994, Aliyev removed Azerbaijan from the Russian sphere of influence and reoriented it towards the West.38 Russian insistence on military bases in Azerbaijan as well as its views on the Caspian Sea were unacceptable. As Armenia became more firmly linked to Russia militarily, Azerbaijan turned to the 91

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West as a counterweight. Although Azerbaijan joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace Program only in 1996, two years after the program’s initiation, it quickly made up for lost time. After NATO Secretary General Javier Solana visited Baku in February 1997 and addressed the parliament, in May–June 1997 Azerbaijani troops participated in NATO exercises in Norway. In 1998 Azerbaijan floated the idea of NATO bases in Azerbaijan, and in March 1999 US General Charles Wax, head of the US European Command, visited Baku with instructions from Secretary of State Albright to discuss creation of a NATO base on the Apsheron Peninsula.39 Aliyev has also sought to strengthen his ties with Western Europe and in early 2001 Azerbaijan acceded to the Council of Europe. An abiding feature of Aliyev’s external diplomacy, however, has been achieving balance, and in 2002 relations with Russia became warmer despite economic tensions over the position of Azeri guest workers in Russia.40 CONCLUSIONS Western policies towards the Muslim successor states of the Soviet Union evolved rapidly during the 1990s. In late 1991, as the USSR dissolved, the southern republics were not high in the priorities of any Western country. Turkey and Iran briefly filled a vacuum, but neither did much and early identification of their roles as proxies for secularism and militant Islam, respectively, proved false. In national forums, the only major policy initiative reflected the influence of the Armenian lobby in the US, which was well organized in important states (New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California), and which stopped bilateral assistance to Azerbaijan.41 The work of the IFIs in this initial period was largely technical, focusing on monetary arrangements, and was flawed by mistaken analysis of the common currency issue. In mid-1993 the IFIs became more active in advocating a model of transition and supporting willing pupils. Kyrgyzstan took the early lead in May 1993, followed by Azerbaijan in early 1995. Kazakhstan was an errant pupil, while Uzbekistan took some delight in remaining independent of the IFIs’ models and outperforming the good pupils. Turkmenistan was ostracized by the IFIs as well as bilaterally by the Western community, and Tajikistan was sidelined by civil unrest. The ideological purity of the Washington consensus was, however, weakened in the late 1990s, as doubts were raised about the costs of Big Bang strategies and more emphasis placed on across-the-board reforms, including construction of safety nets for those adversely affected by the introduction of market mechanisms. One indicator of greater pragmatism was the rapprochement between Uzbekistan and the IFIs towards the end of the decade. There is little evidence of the IFIs’ aid having being determined by domestic politics in the recipient countries or of ideas or policies having being changed by the IFIs’ aid, apart from Kyrgyzstan. President Akayev may have had more liberal political and economic ideas than the other 92

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leaders, but he was surely encouraged to become the most rapid economic reformer by the prospect of IFI support. Less certainly, he may have been induced to greater political liberalism by contract with Western institutions. Be that as it may, in the mid-1990s Akayev governed autocratically without loss of his preferred status among Western leaders. Elsewhere in the region, the IFIs’ aid showed little relation to the degree of democracy, with no assistance going to relatively democratic Azerbaijan in 1992 and 1993. The limited aid to Uzbekistan and to Turkmenistan is as well explained by these countries’ failure to embrace the Washington Consensus economic policies as by their undemocratic regimes.42 Increased aid to Azerbaijan from 1995 onwards followed unilateral adoption of economic stabilization by an undemocratic regime; neither the policies nor the nature of the regime were much affected by the provision of Western aid. Bilateral financial aid has been limited. Western private capital flows have gone overwhelmingly to the energy sector, and hence to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, rather than to the other three Central Asian countries. The US has been the most active Western power in the region, and its actions especially in the second half of the decade, have been driven by strategic rather than ideological considerations. In particular, the emergence of the GUUAM axis as a means of containing Russian influence has led to growing US support for and friendliness towards Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, rather than for the more democratic and more market-based Kyrgyzstan and (possibly) Kazakhstan. The overall impression of the decade following the dissolution of the USSR is of a two-pronged Western approach to the Muslim successor states. Geopolitical considerations determined US policy, which shifted from initial indifference to warmer support for allies in containing Russia’s southern flank. This involved technical support but little financial aid. The more economic focus of the IFIs provided some balance as a second prong in the equation. The IFIs generally supported sound monetary and economic reform policies, even though the specific content shifted from the Washington consensus to a more heterodox view. Thus, Western economic support went mainly to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and, after 1995, Azerbaijan. There was some interaction of the geopolitical and economic prongs in the rapprochement of the IFIs with Uzbekistan in 1998–99, but nothing like the degree to which the IFIs became explicit tools of Western, especially US, foreign policy in Mexico in 1994 or in Russia throughout the 1990s. Turkmenistan and Tajikistan were left out on both geopolitical and economic grounds. Ideas such as democracy and religious fundamentalism, originally seen as potential rallying cries, remained almost totally in the background. The individual nation states have become more distinctive, and external economic events in the late 1990s and early 2000s affected them differentially. The 1998 Russian crisis had the greatest impact on Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, whose trade was still substantially Russia93

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oriented. The economic downturn, combined with concerns about the growing external debt, led to a hiatus in Kyrgyzstan’s economic reforms. In Kazakhstan, the downturn was reversed by a sharp currency depreciation and by increasing world oil prices. Azerbaijan also benefited from the oil price hike of the early 2000s, and both countries pressed on with economic reforms. The US-led military action in Afghanistan after September 2001 provided a further external shock. Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan all received US military aid, but this was not associated with substantial economic assistance, either bilaterally or through the IFIs. Tajikistan appears to be moving closer to the IFIs’ economic advice, but this was related to attempts to revive the war-torn economy, rather than in response to financial or other western incentives, and was plagued by the government’s inability to implement reforms effectively. Uzbekistan remained cautiously reformist, but relations with the IFIs were frostily minimal in the opening years of the new century. Meanwhile, Turkmenistan retreated even further into economic isolation. In sum, the lack of interconnect between aid and ideas still obtains, as western economic support continues to be limited. TABLE 5.1: IMF CREDIT AND LOANS OUTSTANDING TO CENTRAL ASIA AND AZERBAIJAN, 1993–96 (in millions of Special Drawing Rights) Azerbaijan Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

0 62 44 0 0 0

0 198 53 0 0 0

68 291 84 0 0 161

122 384 97 15 0 243

198 379 122 23 0 165

228 464 124 70 0 165

297 335 139 73 0 147

Source: Ishan Kapur and Emmanuel van der Mensbrugghe, ‘External Borrowing by the Baltics, Russia and Other Countries of the Former Soviet Union: Developments and Policy Issues’, IMF Working Paper WP/97/72, (Washington DC, 1997), p. 26, updated from http://www.imf.org/np/tre/tad/excred2.cfm.

TABLE 5.2: WORLD BANK LENDING OPERATIONS IN CENTRAL ASIA AND AZERBAIJAN (a) Commitments by Fiscal Year, 1993–96 (in millions of US dollars) Azerbaijan Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan

1993

1994

1995

1996

Total

per cap.

0 0 60 0 0 0

0 274 78 0 0 21

82 283 77 0 25 226

83 260 98 5 0 0

165 817 313 5 25 247

21 49 70 1 6 11

Source: World Bank data, reported in Transition 8 (Feb. 1997), p. 3. The per capita amount in the final column is the total divided by the 1996 population, as given in the World Bank’s World Development Report.

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TABLE 5.2: (cont.) WORLD BANK LENDING OPERATIONS IN CENTRAL ASIA AND AZERBAIJAN (b) Cumulative Lending by Country to 30 June 1999 (in millions of US dollars). Amount Azerbaijan Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan

309 1679 500 180 81 434

Source: World Bank Annual Report 1999, Appendix 13. All lending to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan has been IBRD loans, while all lending to Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan has been IDA credits; the latter are soft loans with more generous terms.

TABLE 5.3: KYRGYZSTAN, BUDGET FINANCING, 1993–98 (IN PER CENT OF GDP) 1993 Budget deficit External financing Domestic financing

-14.4 12.8 1.6

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

-11.6 9.8 1.9

-17.3 9.1 8.2

-9.5 6.9 2.6

-9.0 7.8 1.2

-8.8 8.3 0.5

Source: ‘Kyrgyzstan: Recent Economic Developments’, IMF Staff Country Report No. 99/31 (Washington DC, April 1999), p. 64.

NOTES 1. This section draws heavily on Richard Pomfret, The Economies of Central Asia (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995) and, especially, Richard Pomfret, Asian Economies in Transition (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1996) pp. 118–29. Among the Soviet successor states, the Muslim-majority republics were the least prepared for dissolution of the USSR and faced three major shocks: (1) nation building started practically from scratch, and initially failed in Tajikistan; (2) economic disruption resulted both from the cessation of substantial positive net transfers and from the breakdown of intra-USSR demand and supply links due to non-payment or nondelivery of inputs; (3) acceleration of economic reform was unavoidable as Russia’s price liberalization in January 1992 had to be followed by other countries using the common currency. 2. Max Corden, ‘Integration and Trade Policy in the Former Soviet Union’, paper prepared for the UNDP/World Bank Trade Expansion Program (Washington DC, Jan. 1992), pp. 14–15. Corden’s influence was considerable because of his academic stature as one of the leaders in international economics over the past four decades and because in 1991–92 he was working for Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC and had connections with both the IMF and World Bank. His May 1992 World Bank working paper, ‘Trade Policy and Exchange Rate Issues in the Former Soviet Union’, Policy Research Working Paper WPS 915 (Washington DC, World Bank, May 1992), p. 27, contains essentially the same quotation. Russia’s trade dominance turned out to be short-lived; by 1996 over half of the Central Asian countries’ foreign trade was outside the CIS. Economic Survey of Europe in 1996–1997 (Geneva, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 1997), p. 205.

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3. The argument was set out in the International Monetary Fund’s spring 1992 World Economic Outlook (Washington DC), pp. 41–2, where introduction of new currencies was discouraged on the grounds that: (a) macroeconomic stability should be achieved first; and (b) intra-CIS trade would be disrupted. For discussion of this episode, see the special issue of Comparative Economic Studies, Dec. 2002. 4. The Latvian ruble entered circulation in May 1992 at par with the Russian ruble, initially as a parallel currency to alleviate the cash shortage, but in July, Russian rubles were withdrawn from circulation and the Latvian ruble became the sole currency, with its exchange rate market-determined. Lithuania followed a similar route converting the talonas (a rationing coupon since 1991) into a parallel currency at par with the ruble in April 1992, and then making it the sole legal tender in October. The Central Banks in each country suspended purchase of rubles, which halted the imported inflation. One problem with the hasty conversion of a temporary parallel currency into sole legal tender was the poor quality of the banknotes, which could be easily counterfeited, and both countries soon introduced permanent national currencies: the lats between March and June 1993, and the litas in July 1993. 5. The IMF’s plan of establishing a fund to support new currencies after macroeconomic stabilization had been achieved was unrealistically slow. The IMF was reconsidering its position by October 1992 in light of Russia’s lack of monetary discipline — ‘New Currencies Need the Support’, IMF Survey, 26 October 1992, p. 363. 6. See, for example, Pomfret, Asian Economies in Transition, pp. 103–17. 7. During the first five months of 1993 about three-fifths of the rubles issued in Azerbaijan left the country, mostly converted into goods from other ruble-zone countries. 8. The Western press reaction was surprisingly negative. As with other new currencies (e.g., The Financial Times, London, 15 May 1992, had described the introduction of the Latvian currency as ‘a suicidal step’ which would precipitate further collapse of trade with Russia), the som’s introduction was predicted to lead to trade disruption (‘Out of Steppe’ was the headline in the Far Eastern Economic Review). Uzbekistan closed its border with Kyrgyzstan and stopped bank transfers between the two countries on the day the som was issued, while Kazakhstan kept trade flowing by granting credit to its neighbour, but these differing reactions by Kyrgyzstan’s two larger neighbours could be explained by political rather than by economic considerations and there was no major disruption of intra-CIS trade. The Wall Street Journal ran a story on resistance to internal acceptability of the new currency, but this difficulty had disappeared within a week. The Economist also took a negative tack with its headline ‘Battle of the Som’. 9. Uzbekistan announced that it would form a monetary union with Kazakhstan, confirming suspicions that Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan had a secret agreement that if they left the ruble zone they would do so in unison, although Kazakhstan denied that a monetary union would be formed. When the two countries introduced their national currencies, the differing par values were a clear signal that monetary coordination, if it was ever intended, had not carried through to implementation. 10. Both the IMF and the World Bank have difficulty reconciling the pressures for a single ‘company line’ on key policy issues, with the inherent imprecision of answers to major economic questions. It would have been better to have aired pros and cons of a common currency rather than trying to present a unified front in the first half of 1992. Similarly, the Washington consensus of the early and mid-1990s was not shared equally by all staff, but it remained the company line until a new position was adopted in the later 1990s (articulated most forcefully by the World Bank’s new chief economist Joseph Stiglitz in, for example, ‘More Instruments and Broader Goals: Moving Towards the Post-Washington Consensus’, WIDER Annual Lectures 2, United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER), Helsinki, Jan. 1998). 11. The Soviet successor states joined the United Nations in July 1992. The Muslim successor states all opted to be in the Asian region, joining the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) which gave them access to the

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12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25.

Asian Development Bank. Subsequently they were also permitted to join the UN Economic Commission for Europe, which gave them access to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, as well. The European Union also began to provide assistance, mainly through its Tacis program. Pomfret, The Economies of Central Asia, pp. 53–7. Yelena Kalyuzhnova, The Kazakhstani Economy: Independence and Transition (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1998) and Martha Brill Olcott, Kazakhstan: A FaintHearted Democracy (Washington DC, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1998). Dissolution of Parliament and President Nazarbayev’s manipulation of the March 1994 election also cast doubt on Kazakhstan’s democratic credentials. Branko Milanovic, Income, Inequality, and Poverty during the Transition from Planned to Market Economy (Washington DC: World Bank, 1998). Mohinder Mudahar, ‘Kyrgyzstan, Strategy for Rural Growth and Poverty Alleviation’, World Bank Discussion Paper No. 394 (Washington DC, Sept. 1998). Jane Falkingham, Jeni Klugman, Sheila Marnie and John Micklewright (eds), Household Welfare in Central Asia (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1997), pp. 81–99; and Richard Pomfret and Kathryn Anderson, ‘Poverty in Kyrgyzstan’, Asia-Pacific Development Journal 1 (June 1999), pp. 73–88. Ishan Kapur and Emmanuel van der Mensbrugghe, ‘External Borrowing by the Baltics, Russia and Other Countries of the Former Soviet Union: Developments and Policy Issues’, IMF Working Paper WP/97/72 (Washington DC, 1997), p. 24. ‘Kyrgyzstan: Recent Economic Developments’, IMF Staff Country Report No. 99/31 (Washington DC, April 1999), p. 125. The main items were $267 million owed to the World Bank’s concessional arm (the IDA) and $127 million under the IMF’s Extended Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF); others included concessional loans from the Asian Development Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Paul Kubicek, ‘Authoritarianism in Central Asia: Curse or Cure?’ Third World Quarterly 1 (March 1998), pp. 29–43. See also the chapters by Neil Melvin and Leonid Levitin in this volume. Ian Bremmer and Cory Welt, ‘The Trouble with Democracy in Kazakhstan’, Central Asian Survey 15 (June 1996), pp. 179–99. Rafis Abazov, ‘A Note on the Presidential Elections of 10 January 1999 in the Republic of Kazakhstan’, Russian and Euro-Asian Bulletin (University of Melbourne) 8 (1999), pp. 5–8, analyzes Kazakhstan’s January 1999 election which legitimatized an authoritarian presidency. Anna Matveeva, ‘Hard Times and Change in Central Asia’, International Affairs 75 (1999), pp. 23–44, provides an insightful survey of authoritarianism in the five Central Asian countries, but she (unlike Kubicek or Abazov) is sceptical of the governments’ ability to deal with mounting problems unless they achieve greater legitimacy through democratization. See also the chapter by Neil Melvin in this volume. See the chapter by Pål Kolstø in this volume. Kazakhstan’s outstanding debt to Germany has declined from $4.1 million at the start of 1997 to $3.7 million at the start of 1999 (Tacis, Economic Trends, Kazakhstan, April–June 1999, p. 156). The embassy was, however, closed after three years when the commercial hopes proved less fruitful than anticipated. Notably, the telecomm joint venture foundered amidst mutual recriminations. The Uzbekistan elite was the first major target of Gorbachev’s anti-corruption campaign. Some harrowing evidence of local justice in the Uzbek republic is provided in Boris Rumer, Soviet Central Asia: A Tragic Experiment (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), pp. 149–59. Some of the performance may be due to unreliable statistics, but Günther Taube and Jeromin Zettelmeyer, ‘Output Decline and Recovery in Uzbekistan: Past performance and future prospects’, IMF Working Paper 98/132, Washington DC, Sept. 1998) conclude that the macroeconomic data are not greatly distorted, by the standards of formerly-centrally planned economies, and that Uzbekistan’s relatively good economic performance is a substantive phenomenon requiring real explanations.

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26. Richard Pomfret and Kathryn Anderson, Uzbekistan: Welfare Impact of Slow Transition (Helsinki, United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER WP135), June 1997). 27. The World Bank committed $25 million in 1995 and $64 million in 1997, but only $5 million had been disbursed by the end of 1997. A similar pattern applied to EBRD loans. The IMF limited itself to technical assistance ( ‘Turkmenistan: Recent Economic Developments’, IMF Staff Country Report No.98/81 (Aug. 1998), pp. 56–7 and 63–4). 28. Kapur and van der Mensbrugghe, ‘External Borrowing by the Baltics, Russia and Other Countries of the Former Soviet Union’, p. 24. 29. The first financial assistance from the IMF and World Bank was in 1996, but after the resumption of violence in December 1996 and kidnapping of UN and Red Cross personnel in early 1997 the IMF and World Bank resident representatives were evacuated in February (they returned in May). IMF staff were involved in developing the new economic reform program after October 1997. The main source of Western assistance to Tajikistan until then was humanitarian aid mainly from the US, the EU and its member states, and UN agencies. UNDP, Tajikistan Human Development Report 1997, pp. 103–4. 30. Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and the five Central Asian countries are members of the Economic Cooperation Organization, which may have had some influence in turning potential conflict between the first three countries into more cooperative actions. Richard Pomfret, Central Asia Turns South? Trade Relations in Transition (London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, and Washington DC, The Brookings Institution, 1999). 31. S.Frederick Starr, ‘Power Failure: American Policy in the Caspian’, The National Interest 47 (Spring 1997), p. 30. 32. The extent of the negative impact is difficult to assess. Although the Armenian lobby was powerful in the US Congress, it had little broad support in the US or in Western Europe. Britain enjoyed cordial diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan in 1992–93, largely due to the early entry of British Petroleum into Azerbaijan, but the dominant Western mood was indifference. Following the confused events of June–October 1993 and fuelled by suspicion of Aliyev’s Soviet past, a wait-and-see attitude during 1994 by the IFIs may not require deep explanation. 33. The legislation, Section 907 of the 1992 Freedom Support Act, bars US government assistance to Azerbaijan until the President certifies to Congress that Azerbaijan has taken ‘demonstrable steps to end all blockades and other offensive use of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabagh’. In a House of Representatives vote on 17 September 1998 backers of continued sanctions won the vote 231–182, using the unfairness of the upcoming October 1998 presidential elections in Azerbaijan as an argument to keep Section 907 on the books (Michael Ochs, ‘OSCE Criticizes Azerbaijan’s Presidential Elections’, Caspian Crossroads 4 (Summer/Fall 1998), p. 9). 34. Data in this paragraph are from IMF Staff Country Report No. 98/83 (August 1998), and IMF Public Information Notice No. 99/72 (9 August 1999). 35. IMF Survey, 11 Dec. 1995, p. 385. 36. Christoph Rosenberg and Tapio Saavalainen, ‘How to Deal with Azerbaijan’s Oil Boom: Policy Strategies in a Resource-Rich Transition Economy’, IMF Working Paper WP/98/6 (Washington DC, January 1998), p. 22. 37. Companies involved in Azerbaijani oil projects as of early 1999 included British Petroleum, Agip, Statoil, Deminex, Petrofina, Elf Acquitaine, Total, Turkish Petroleum, Amoco, Exxon, Unocal, Conoco, Mobil, Pennzoil and Chevron (Glen Howard, ‘Azerbaijan’s Road to NATO’, Caspian Crossroads 4 (Spring 1999), p. 6). 38. Thomas Goltz, in Azerbaijan Diary (Armonk NY, M.E. Sharpe, 1998), provides a firsthand journalist’s account of events between 1991 and 1997. Elizabeth Fuller, ‘Azerbaijan at the Crossroads’ in Roy Allison (ed.), Challenges for the Former Soviet South (London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, and Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 1996), pp. 117–53; and Audrey Altstadt, ‘Azerbaijan’s Struggle towards Democracy’, in Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott (eds), Conflict, Cleavage, and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University

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39. 40. 41. 42.

Press, 1997), pp. 110–55 also discuss the 1988–95 period. Goltz’s view is that Aliyev was a masterful politician who pragmatically courted Russia in 1993–94 to stop the war, but whose long-term vision was of Azerbaijan as a market economy oriented towards the West. Despite the irregularities of the 1995 and 1998 elections, Aliyev also claimed democratic intentions, and some observers saw the 1998 election as an improvement even if not yet up to international standards of fairness (Michael Ochs, ‘OSCE Criticizes Azerbaijan’s Presidential Elections’. Aliyev’s heart surgery in the US in April 1999 revitalized the opposition movement, and the succession, whenever it comes, will be the litmus test of whether Aliyev has imposed a dynasty or paved the way for a democracy, and whether he leaves any political legacy. Glen Howard, ‘Azerbaijan’s Road to NATO’, pp. 4–11. Domestically this coincided with a strengthening of Aliyev’s position through an August 2002 referendum, which curtailed the political participation of his critics and increased his control over the succession process. Germany showed some concern about Kazakhstan where many people of German origin could claim German citizenship, but was too preoccupied with reunification and with its eastern neighbours to exert meaningful pressure on Kazakhstan. The unwillingness of Uzbekistan’s policymakers to pay much attention to IMF advice was still linked in 1999 to the faulty analysis of the ruble zone in 1992. The most unfortunate consequence was Uzbekistan’s imposition of tight exchange controls in the second half of 1996, a measure which all Western economists would have criticized, but whose adverse consequences Uzbekistan was condemned to learn by experience over the rest of the decade.

99

6 Islam in the FSU — An Inevitable Impediment to Democracy? YAACOV RO’I The major debate surrounding Islam in the former Soviet ‘space’ pertains to its political significance and impact. Following the Iranian revolution and the Islamic insurgence against the Marxist-Leninist regime which took power in Afghanistan in 1978, the Soviet authorities began to show concern at Islam’s ‘politicization’. In the last decade or so of the USSR’s existence, as its hold in the periphery weakened, Moscow took pains to portray domestic Islam — at least in those parts where the Islamic ‘revival’ appeared particularly dynamic — as a threat to its hegemony. The Kremlin accused certain elements within ‘the Islamic movement’ of seeking to follow in the footsteps of Islamic extremists in Iran and Afghanistan, and from time to time of maintaining actual contacts with them with the intention of undermining Soviet rule in those areas in question.1 In the wake of the Soviet Union’s disintegration and the claims of its successor states to be democratizing, their leaders have levelled similar charges against a variety of Islamic groups. They have contended that these organizations pose a threat to internal stability, with some even aspiring to the establishment of an Islamic state. In this way Islam has acquired the image of an ultra-conservative force of reaction, whose ultimate purpose is to overturn the status quo, to eliminate the achievements that secularization, enlightenment and modernization have brought to the various Muslim populations, and to take them back in time to a pre-technological era when religion reigned supreme. The portrayal of Islam by both Moscow and the governments of the six ‘Muslim’ successor states as reactionary and anti-democratic is designed to mask their own authoritarianism and to win Western support for their regimes.2 The questions this chapter seeks to tackle are whether Islam in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) must necessarily be a political factor and whether its message is intrinsically anti-democratic, as post-Soviet leaders and Western political scientists and analysts have maintained.3 In order to analyze both these issues, it is essential to comprehend the 101

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Weltanschauung and socio-political climate of the states in question. As a study of Islam and democracy in the Arab world has convincingly shown, the political culture which crystallized over the years in a particular state proved a significant factor in determining the path taken by the Islamic movement there.4 While the Soviet Union’s successor states are not homogeneous, each having its own agenda — political, social and economic — all of them are influenced by the Soviet legacy. One of the central components of that heritage is the sense that for a state to be run effectively, regime authority must not be impaired (even if it is no longer axiomatic in most successor states that there should be no opposition whatever). Another vestige of Soviet thinking is the postulate that a modern state must be secular, religion being a ‘vestige of the past’. One consequence of this is that even if religion is no longer so regarded, Islam must not be allowed to recover its traditional role of regulator of social relations or vehicle of education, a role which a number of religious figures have been seeking for it.5 True, the national intelligentsias in the former Soviet Muslim nationalities have accepted the premise that Islam is part of the national culture and tradition. According to their interpretation, however, observation of its rites belongs to the realm of social mores and ethos; for them Islam does not have a separate existence in its own right. Over the centuries Islam and the state forged a mutual relationship, which underwent surprisingly few major transformations in the three historic periods preceding the breakup of the Soviet Union: that prior to the Russian conquest, the era of tsarist colonialism, and the Soviet one. Certainly, Islam developed very differently in the various areas in question in the centuries before their annexation to the Russian Empire, in accordance with local conditions and the traditions of the diverse Muslim peoples. There was little in common, for example, between Islam as practised in the long sedentarized parts of Central Asia, where it was deeply rooted and heavily institutionalized, and among the nomads of the adjacent Kazakh steppe. The historical processes that had governed Islam’s evolution in Central Asia, the Caucasus and European Russia made their imprint on the climate of Islam even in the second half of the 20th century, yet the differences tended to be mitigated by the common situation in which the USSR’s Muslims found themselves and the uniformity of the central power’s attitude to them as believers. For it was not only the social system or framework which determined Islam’s social and political ethos. Perhaps more important from the point of view of this study was the status of Islam and of the Muslim establishment and their position vis-à-vis the secular authority. Wherever this authority was institutionalized, where some form of statehood existed, there were essentially only two alternatives: either they cooperated with it or opposed it. There was no middle road. In other words, in the various khanates, the state and the Muslim organizations and clergy defined their mutual relationship, although this relationship was not static and could change with the accession of a 102

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new ruler. The reasons for adopting a position of cooperation or antagonism were more often than not personal or subjective, rather than resulting from any convergence or divergence of views. Certain Central Asian rulers, for instance, were closer to the traditional ulama, the scholars of Shari‘a law, others to Sufi teachers or leaders, ishans. The weaker the ruler, the greater the power of his religious entourage and the institution it represented. Following the Russian conquest, the fact that orthodox Islam, except in its Sufi variant, nurtured values similar to those held by the Russian Orthodox Church — political consensus, stability, legality, belief in the divine selection of the secular power — enabled the former to cooperate with the Russian colonial power. This occurred despite the oppression by the tsarist regime of local cultures, including Islam. Indeed, although Islam was legalized by Catherine II and the Orenburg Mahommedan Spiritual Assembly was set up in Ufa headed by a mufti, to be followed by similar institutions in Crimea and the Caucasus, their main purpose was to facilitate regime supervision of the Muslim establishment. Toward the end of the tsarist period, in the context of the first Russian Revolution of 1905 and the formation of the State Duma, the Tatar political and intellectual leadership tended to join the moderate opposition. The majority of the Duma’s Muslim members — the largest contingent of whom were Tatars — developed a political program that in its general outlook largely coincided with that of the Russian Constitutional Democratic Party (the Kadets). In the first Duma, before the formation of the Muslim fraction, 14 out of 25 deputies were officially aligned with the Kadets, whose very success at the polls in the Tatar and Bashkir guberniias was attributed to the non-Russian population (the inorodtsy). Most Tatar Jadids representing a movement that sought to merge Islam and Islamic culture with European modernism, similarly favoured the state’s evolution into a democratic, parliamentary multi-ethnic modern nation, where Tatars and other Muslims would enjoy equal political and legal rights. After the revolution of February 1917, the Tatar leadership for the most part continued to maintain allegiance to constitutional democracy.6 The readiness of the Muslim establishment to collaborate with the regime paradoxically carried over to the tsars’ Soviet successors, the very severe repression Islam underwent in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s notwithstanding. When Islam re-surfaced during World War II, the attitude of its establishment to the regime was manifestly reminiscent of pre-revolutionary days. Again, certain elements within Islam were ready to make their peace with the powersthat-be out of pragmatic considerations, a fatalistic conviction that, there being no question of setting up an Islamic state, Islam had no choice but to reconcile itself to the body politic in which it existed; this was an attitude that had characterized Islam throughout its long history in the world of apostasy, dar al-harb. 103

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The Muslim establishment throughout the Soviet Union was often eager to carry out the regime’s behest. In the realm of theory it preached the compatibility of Islam and communism, stressing that Muhammad and the Qur’an were essentially socialist-oriented and that the prophets of Marxism-Leninism had in fact merely sought to implement the social precepts of the founders of Islam. In practice this same establishment supported the campaigns and slogans of Soviet foreign and domestic policy: the world peace movement, the Arab cause in the Arab-Israeli conflict, the ongoing struggle against alcoholism, the need for citizens to fulfil their work norms. This adherence to the positions of the Communist regime exposed the registered clergy and the personnel of the four spiritual directorates to charges on the part of nonestablishment religious figures that they were in essence ‘Soviet’ mullas. The non-establishment figures appealed recurrently to the believer community to shake off its links to these sycophants and traitors.7 Yet the political ethic of opposition currents within Soviet Islam was no more inclined towards democracy and pluralism than were the regime and those who collaborated with it. Traditionally perceived in many parts of the world as a tolerant religion, Islam had always differentiated between dar al-islam and dar al-harb. This distinction between believers and apostates was tantamount to the saying that whoever does not actually belong to us is against us. Thus, even if there might be periods or countries where non-Muslims were treated with leniency or non-Muslim political entities with which Islam entertained friendly relations, this was done either as a concession, a form of condescension, or as a political necessity. It did not reflect a germane sense of fraternity or equality. While the non-Muslim community was inferior by definition, Muslims were often hardly more tolerant towards dissension within their own ranks. The history of Islam from the very earliest times is replete with quarrels, strife and even internecine struggle between Sunnis and Shiites, between Sufis and regular mosque clergy. Islam in the areas that were to come under Russian rule were no exception; indeed, disputes between various trends within Islam continued after the Russian conquest. In some parts they even became exacerbated with the advent and expansion of Jadidism, the attempt of Muslim reformers to modernize Islam and rid it of what they perceived as the constraints imposed on its evolution by the obscurantism that had characterized Muslim society for centuries.8 What concerned Islam and its representatives in the pre-Soviet period, then, was not the nature of the political regime in which it existed and operated. While naturally interested in finding a modus operandi and, wherever possible, in influencing it, so that it might relate more positively towards Islam and its institutions, they had no problem with autocratic methods and criteria. Even in and after 1905, when certain parties in the Russian body politic sought to institutionalize more liberal norms, those Muslims who associated with them did so because 104

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they were persuaded that such an orientation would improve the lot of the Muslim peoples, not out of any conviction that they were meritorious in themselves. In similar fashion Muslim religious figures who joined the armed opposition to the incipient Bolshevik regime in Central Asia or the Caucasus were motivated by its militant atheism and actual repression of Islam,9 and not by any desire to question or undermine its totalitarianism. Their resistance to collectivization, too, derived from apprehensions regarding its implications for the traditional social frameworks in rural areas which were the bulwark of local Islam rather than from a need to defend the civil rights of the local peasantry, the dehqans. There were also clerics who found ways and reasons to support the regime, in the belief apparently that any government which detested and fought the tsarist system would aid Muslims in shaking off the shackles and repression that had been a concomitant of imperial rule. The radical wing of the Jadid movement, likewise, found itself supporting the Bolsheviks, some of its leaders becoming their official representatives in the Muslim regions. Yet, their identification with the new order was designed specifically to enable them to conduct their battles within Islam and to overcome the resistance to their reformism of the more traditionally orthodox qadimists; it did not stem from any intention to rule their fiefdom democratically. One might go so far as to say that one of the attractions of bolshevism for them was the total power it seemed to give them within their area of jurisdiction.10 ‘Russian’ or ‘Soviet’ Islam, then, even in its most radical and secular form, had no orientation towards democracy, certainly not in Central Asia or the Caucasus. As to the Muslims of European Russia, some groups among those that had been longest under Russian rule and had imbibed certain European values and customs, seemed more democratically inclined. But these groups were manifestly those most alienated from Islam, so that even here there seemed to be an inherent contradiction between Islam and democracy. All in all, it was thus no surprise that, although prepared to take advantage of glasnost to initiate cultural and political associations and even political parties — notably the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) — Islamic groups and activists under Gorbachev showed little penchant for democracy. They sought a more meaningful role for Islam in their various societies, some of them hoping to conduct a struggle against the increasing secularization of the Muslim populations of their areas of domicile. Yet only a few of them joined the bandwagon of democracy and pluralism, slogans that were in vogue among some of the more radical politicians and public figures of this period (of whom Andrei Sakharov was the most eminent). One of these exceptions was the Islamic Democratic Party in Dagestan, formed in October 1990. A declaration it published together with its draft program and charter stated that it intended to be guided by Islam’s ‘humanist traditions’ and to ‘strictly observe human rights’. Its 105

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program spoke of the need for far-reaching perestroika on the basis of ‘Islamic humanism’ and of a state founded on laws which did not contradict religion and ‘the interests and aspirations of the people’. It insisted that the state existed for the people and not the people for the state, and that the people had the right to establish whichever political system and way of life answered its requirements. The party intended operating in accordance with ‘democratic and constitutionally recognized methods’. It sought to ‘improve the political climate, to overcome the atmosphere of uncertainty, fear and threats’, and to put an end to persecution for political and religious convictions. It preached ‘Islamic morals, based on personal freedom, mutual tolerance, respect for the individual, honesty, justice, compassion and charity’. The party program addressed itself to the rights of ethnic groups as well as of private citizens. It condemned ‘the mechanical merging of nations and assimilation as a process conducive to the degradation of [their] culture’ and demanded the reform of Dagestan’s ‘administrative-territorial division in accordance with the historic, geographic and ethno-psychological specifics’ of its various peoples. It denounced collectivization as ‘agricultural genocide of the peasantry’ and called for ‘economic democracy’ that would enable Dagestan to be autarchic. Finally, it denounced the existence of a ‘nomenklatura caste’.11 In 1994 the party split into two, one faction agreeing to collaborate with the regime; the other, which retained the original program, petered out.12 In Uzbekistan, as well, an ‘informal group’ was reported to have come into being that called itself Islam and Democracy. The angry crowd that materialized in the streets of Tashkent after Friday prayers on 3 February 1989 to demand the ouster of the Chairman of the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, Mufti Shamsutdin Babakhanov, had done so at the behest of Islam and Democracy, which claimed a membership of 25,000.13 In Kazakhstan, the official slogan of the Alash National Freedom Party, whose constituent congress took place in 1990, was Islam-Turkism-Democracy. Yet, the democratic component of a party that advocated the repatriation of Slavs beyond the borders of Kazakhstan was clearly not identical with democracy as generally conceived. The party’s claim to democracy stemmed from its opposition to Nazarbayev, the denigration of other parties and movements as ‘pseudo-democratic’ and puppets of the Communist Party apparatus and its call for a state structure that would be ‘a democratic republic’ with all the characteristics of a universally elected regime (parliament, separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers, a multi-party system, etc.). Its consistent opposition to the establishment condemned it to illegality, while its stance regarding the country’s Slav population and emphasis on Islam relegated it to the rural areas of southern Kazakhstan. According to one scholar, the party’s attempt to acquire an ‘Islamic image’ did not bode well from the start, both because this meant introducing into the country an ideology that had no resonance among Kazakhs and because the law 106

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prohibited the formation of religious parties.14 Indeed, after a short period the party fell into obscurity.15 (When Alash re-emerged in 1999, Islam was no longer mentioned in its program at all.) The reason the adherence to democratic or pluralist parties and associations in the Gorbachev years was not a wider and more meaningful phenomenon among islamists was not that Islamic leaders feared joining the opposition to the ruling CPSU. Many of them, especially in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, the Fergana Valley and Tajikistan, had long made no distinction between their antagonism to the Muslim establishment as embodied in the spiritual directorates and the registered clergy and their attitude to the regime. Both alike were ‘the enemy’. Indeed, it was not always clear whether hostility towards the religious establishment was intrinsic or a consequence of its collaboration with the regime, nor whether the Muslim radicals’ hatred of the regime was inherent to their general position or a corollary of its support of the Muslim establishment. What is clear is that the attainment of their objectives dictated opposition to both. The failure of these movements among Islamic activists can be explained, on the one hand, by Moscow’s reluctance to apply its slogans of perestroika, glasnost, new thinking and democratization when it came to Islam and, on the other hand, by the disinclination of the republican élites in the Muslim areas to adopt Gorbachev’s program in their respective fiefdoms. The main issue at stake between the Soviet authorities and Muslim revivalism in the USSR’s very last years (1990–91) remained the very possibility of Islam’s politicization. This was a prospect which the Soviet regime, even in its most liberal form under Gorbachev, could not tolerate. Islam’s politicization seemed to entail the rejection of a number of the regime’s basic postulates: the divorce of religion from politics; the creation of a political platform not rooted in Marxism-Leninism; the attempt or temptation to look to antagonistic foreign forces as a model for imitation; slogans that might serve to unite the Soviet Union’s various Muslim populations under a single banner — populations which the regime had strenuously and persistently sought to dissociate from anything smacking of pan-Islam. Against this backdrop there was little Islamic political activity could hope to achieve within the frames of reference stipulated by glasnost and perestroika. This became evident with the surfacing of the unionwide Islamic Renaissance Party, which came into being in Astrakhan in June 1990. The party did not mention democracy specifically in its platform, yet apparently saw itself as part of the liberal democratic movement in the USSR.16 Its political program stated that it would operate by constitutional means only. It condemned ‘extremism, terrorism, and all forms of discrimination’. It called for ‘the sovereignty of peoples’ and favoured granting each people ‘the right to choose the forms of administration appropriate to its traditions and spiritual values’. It also sought the full openness (glasnost) and accessibility of information — ‘political, demographic, ecological and economic’ — and 107

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objectivity of the media. The IRP’s ‘appeal to all Muslims of the Soviet Union,’ published together with the party program and charter, spoke of ‘equality between believers and non-believers on the basis of tolerance and mutual understanding’.17 In other words, the universal principles which characterized Gorbachev’s political program were to be applied and adapted to the country’s Muslim community. One member of the IRP leadership, Jemal Heydar, founder and chairman of the Tawhid Islamic Centre, went so far as to insist that it was Islam rather than the European version of democracy that ‘guarantees legal opportunities for all and everyone regardless of tongue, nation, skin colour, etc’.18 Other IRP activists, at the same time, expressed scepticism regarding the prospects for accommodating Islam and ‘democratization’. The party organ al-Wahdat published an article under the title ‘Democracy for Democrats, Islam for Muslims’, which demonstrated the incompatibility of European democracy and the traditional political norms of the Muslim East.19 All its moderate and precautionary language notwithstanding, the party was severely repressed in a number of areas, notably in Uzbekistan. While prepared, like other Central Asian leaders, to associate publicly with Islam in order to give legitimization to the new regime, President Islam Karimov was, from the outset, uncompromising in his refusal to allow the use of Islam as a political banner by forces he did not control. Indeed, both he and President Sapurmurad Niyazov in neighbouring Turkmenistan went to considerable lengths, both prior to full independence and in the wake of it, in order to re-create an Islamic establishment which would be subordinate to the state leadership. In Karimov’s view, the state can and must control Islam in much the same way as happened in the Soviet period. A Committee for Religious Affairs, attached to the Council of Ministers, was therefore set up to control all Uzbekistan’s official Muslim institutions. The Uzbekistan branch of the IRP, for its part, invited Abdurahim Polatov, the leader of the major opposition party, Birlik, to speak at its founding convention in January 1991, perhaps in order to stress the democratic nature of its program.20 One month later, in February 1991, the Uzbek government issued a Law on Public Associations which specifically prohibited the formation of religious parties.21 There were, however, no public indications that this was in any way connected to the Uzbekistan IRP’s link to Birlik which, for its part, continued despite its secular character, to aid the All-Union IRP that was supported by religious communities in the Fergana Valley.22 Already prior to the IRP founding convention, the press quoted Mufti Muhammadsadyk Mamayusupov, head of the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia situated in Tashkent, as saying that the very idea of an Islamic political party was a contradiction in terms, since Islam was the party of God whose charter and program were the Qur’an and the Sunna.23 In this way, the Uzbekistan IRP became an underground, illegal movement. In order perhaps to achieve some legitimization, it 108

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continued to cooperate with Birlik, which had been allowed to register as a movement. And in June 1992 a meeting took place in Andijan of the Forum of Democratic Forces, comprising the IRP, Birlik, Erk and Adolat, the Justice Party.24 The allegedly democratic Co-ordinated Opposition Centre set up in 1995, which included Birlik, maintained that it could find ‘a common language with the so-called independent islamists’.25 Meanwhile, the Fergana Valley was the venue for the rise of a number of Islamic movements and events. In the fall of 1991 Adolat groups began forming there. Comprising, among others, Afghan war veterans and controlled by the local clergy and elders, the aksakals, they were part of an informal Muslim self-government structure. They helped provide material assistance to the community and introduced zakat, the traditional Muslim tax intended to redistribute public wealth in favour of the poor. By early 1992 there were some sixty such groups, averaging 100 to 200 people. In November 1991 an Islamic Centre was formed in Namangan. This was designed to be the initial step in setting up Islamic control over the Namangan region. In order to gain time and to mobilize support on the eve of presidential elections, Karimov himself in early December transferred the headquarters of the Namangan Communist Party City Committee to the community for use as headquarters for Islamic self-government. However in March 1992, as soon as he felt more secure, Karimov suppressed Adolat with the help of the republican KGB.26 These developments provided ballast for Karimov’s attempts over the course of time to blame Islamic ‘fundamentalism’ for recurrent instability in his country.27 At the same time, his limited association with Islam and his subordination of and support for the official clergy demonstrated not merely the President’s good will, as it were, towards Islam, but also Islam’s ability to align with an autocratic government. It goes without saying that the Islam with which Karimov was prepared to identify was what he designated a national, Uzbek variant of Islam. He spoke of a secular Islam, or rather ‘islamism, an ethno-state policy which has as its goal boosting the economy by means of traditional, national-confessional spiritual values and establishing a law-based state of a democratic type’.28 His party, the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, sought to broaden its popular base by penetrating the mahalla committees, the mahalla, or residential neighbourhood, being the traditional base of Central Asian Islamic society. These mahalla committees, which in many places in Uzbekistan at least had continued functioning throughout the Soviet period, were a version of the local committees of elders (aksakals) and traditionally included imams, mullas, and other people engaged in religious activity.29 In Turkmenistan, too, a council for religious affairs was created within the presidential apparatus in April 1994. Its members included the country’s highest religious authority, Qazi Nasrulla ibn Ibadulla (chairman), the head of the Russian Orthodox Church (co-chairman) 109

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and state officials, who ‘ensure the observance of the law’. Among other assignments, the qaziate appointed all clerics, so that the state controlled religious affairs down to the village level.30 In Tajikistan the republican IRP established itself as an independent political party and was allowed to register in October 1991.31 Its leader Muhammad Sharif Himmatzoda had reservations regarding the applicability to Muslim society of democracy as generally understood, his position being not unlike that laid down in the all-union IRP organ (see above): ‘Western countries have their democracy, we have ours. Our democracy is incompatible with Western democracy. In the West, the rights enjoyed by the individual are unlimited almost to the point of not recognizing those of society as a whole.’ Regarding freedom of the press, Himmatzoda said that it should not be allowed to become an excuse for publishing works which advocate depravity and loose morals or contain unfounded criticism of Islam.32 Yet even the Tajikistan IRP seemed to mitigate its Islamic objectives by aligning with the country’s democratic forces — Rastokhez and the Democratic Party — as the only option in current circumstances for opposition to the communist or quasi-communist government that headed the new independent state.33 It also called for the establishment of a secular, democratic and lawbased state. (The program of this united opposition solicited the nation’s cultural and spiritual revival, i.e. a return to Tajik and Islamic traditional values, not the creation of an Islamic state.) Even when the situation began deteriorating in April-May 1992, the IRP emphasized that it was a democratic party and would restrict itself to democratic means in order to achieve an Islamic state.34 Religious questions continued to be ancillary to the demands for democratic elections and the establishment of a new supreme soviet. As deputy prime minister in the coalition National Reconciliation Government, IRPT Deputy Chairman Davlat Usmon persisted in maintaining that the form of government the country chose to adopt would depend on the will of the people.35 The country’s leading Muslim figure, Qazi-Kolon Akbar Turajonzoda said Tajikistan must ‘mingle the democracy of Western Europe with the canons of Islam’. Tajikistan must be a ‘secular democratic state, but the role of Islam has to be considerable’.36 Somewhat later, after aligning with the IRP, Turajonzoda stated his belief that the people were not yet ripe for an Islamic state, and therefore the immediate task was to educate them in the spirit of Islam. Indeed, he was reported to have pressured the IRPT to officially drop the idea of an Islamic state from its program. Both he and the IRPT leadership advocated the establishment of a secular, democratic state with a market economy and separation of church and state. In a similar vein, the Islamic component of the opposition committed itself to respecting ethnic minority rights.37 Later still, in exile, Turajonzoda suggested a constitutional clause to prohibit the formation of an Islamic state for fifty years.38 It is not clear whether this stand was motivated by practical, tactical considerations, or represented a position of principle. In one interview Turajonzoda stated 110

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specifically that the separation of church and state was necessary so that the sins of society not be attributed to Islam as they had been to the Communist Party.39 Fathullokhon Sharifzoda, who headed the official Muslim establishment after Emomali Rahmonov took over the government, insisted — like Mamayusupov in Uzbekistan — that Islam and politics must not overlap. ‘We stand apart from the state and from politics,’ he declared, noting that whereas politics depended on changing circumstances, Islam and its values were eternal. At the same time, in a period of searching for a new national identity, Islam inevitably came to the fore as a unifying force, representing a return to traditional ethnic values and customs. Thus, the conditions that prevailed in Tajikistan in the 1990s, specifically the protracted civil war, which was essentially a struggle between the inhabitants of different regions over political power and scarce resources (notably land and water), led to the enhanced politicization of Islam. As one commentator remarked in 1996, the Muslim leader of each region claimed to be the foremost figure of contemporary Islam.40 This has been enlarged upon by another scholar, who shows how in fact Islam came to be represented on both sides in the Tajik civil war. On the one side stood powerful Sufi ishans and their followers, together with a few leading clergy who had studied Islam abroad; on the other, was the popular Islam of the silent passive majority, who accepted the authority of the establishment.41 By the end of the decade, however, the population of Tajikistan was having second thoughts. Parliament, the Majlis Oli, attempted in May 1998 to prevent the IRPT’s re-registration — all the parties that had participated in the opposition after the breakdown of the coalition in late 1992 had been outlawed in 1993 — but this was vetoed by President Rahmonov and the registration of religious parties was permitted once more in 1999 on condition that no cells were created in the mosques and medreses. The law specifically prohibited the participation in pre-election propaganda of people occupying positions in the government or military bureaucracy and in charitable organizations and religious associations.42 Yet the elections of February 2000 showed that the IRPT had not retained its pristine strength; it garnered all in all some seven per cent of the votes. In the single successor state where Islam seemed a possible alternative to the establishment, its citizens rejected the idea of an Islamic state, which by now was the party’s avowed goal. Interestingly, Turajonzoda returned his party card. Among other contentions, he claimed that the IRPT was causing dissension among the country’s Muslim population, was not popular either in the urban mahallas or in the countryside and had no grounds for claiming to have promoted Islam or to have consolidated the country’s ‘democratic system’.43 Another instance where Islam played a central role as a unifying force in the early, formative years of the consolidation of national identity was Chechnya. Here Johar Dudayev, elected president in 111

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October 1991, stated unequivocally that he advocated democracy, that he wished to see Chechnya as a ‘lay, secular state, with equality of rights, obligations and opportunities for all citizens’.44 In the same month, however, the Mehk Kel, the recently reinstated traditional Chechen council of elders, declared Islam the country’s dominant religion. Within just over one year the Dudayev regime, immersed in an effort to mobilize the population in the campaign to attain Chechen independence and dependent on the Mehk Kel and on the Sufi tariqats (brotherhoods), was clearly identified with an increasingly zealous Islam, and democracy had become the shibboleth of his opposition. In Chechnya, however, democracy was so manifestly irrelevant in face of the rising force of political Islam that over time Dudayev’s opponents followed suit and adopted Islamic slogans as well.45 The focus of the political movements and parties which appeared on the Russian political scene on the eve of and following the breakup of the Soviet Union was guaranteeing the rights of the country’s Muslim population — civil, cultural and religious — and its consolidation in order to acquire political influence.46 Although they sought to participate in Russia’s political life and some of them became affiliated with broader political parties, they did not dwell for the most part on issues that reflected any specific position on democratic values. The sole exception was the short-lived Islamic Democratic Party set up in Kazan in May 1991, whose leader made an attempt in the following month in Ufa to create an All-Islamic Democratic Party. This initiative, however, never seems to have passed the embryonic stage and had no impact on Russian politics.47 *** A number of points seem to emerge from this short study of Islam’s politicization and attitude to democracy and pluralism in the former Soviet ‘space’. In the first place, despite the reiteration by each of the relevant successor states in turn that their body politic was secular and based on a separation of state and religion, Islamic groups, movements and parties recurrently surfaced on the political scene. Insofar as the state’s laws prohibited the formation of religious parties, as in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan,48 these associations operated illegally.49 The emergence of Islamic political associations is an inevitable result of society’s acute polarization, the declining respectability of Soviet political culture, which nurtured most of the current leaderships, and the general moral and spiritual vacuum and disorientation. It is also a consequence of the suppression of all authentic political opposition within the institutions of government and the body politic, which leaves the islamists with a greater sense of mission and readiness for sacrifice and with jihad as the only viable option for rallying the disgruntled, who have become increasingly numerous and vocal. In the words of one scholar, 112

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The building of civil society in Central Asia undoubtedly has its own distinctive features and should be based on a synthesis of the traditions of the local society and universally accepted democratic institutions…The ideals of an Islamic state concerning justice, equality, and brotherhood in our opinion are completely compatible with the commonly accepted contemporary understanding of civil society... The idea of a state ruled by law took root in the East on the basis of the universally accepted Shari‘a law, which in theory eliminated estate, racial and class privileges for the observers of the law, thus making the rights of the rank-and-file Muslim and the ruler equal. The Law of God, spelled out in detail in the Shari‘at, was invoked to express concern for the spiritual and physical health of man, his home and family, the balancing of the interests of society and individual, and the regulation of property and economic relations in the interests of the state and its citizens. Freedom was limited primarily in cases where there was danger of the degradation of society and person in the spiritual and physical sense.

In the view of this same scholar, the threat to an orderly civil society with democratic features was the outcome of a ‘brief historical period’ that saw ‘the destruction of a defining principle of Islamic civilization — tawhid — monotheism, understood to embody the unity of God, Mankind, and Nature.’50 Secondly, as in many parts of the Arab world, islamists have resorted to violence basically only where and when a legitimate political option was precluded. (A certain symbiosis exists between regimes and Islamic movements in all that concerns the readiness of both sides to use force in order to achieve their goals.) Insofar as the state has allowed the latter to operate within the framework of an open political system, they have shown a willingness to adapt to the rules of the parliamentary political game.51 Where this did not happen, the nature of the governments they have opposed has led them to request democratic states and the rule of law. In other words, there has been no rejection in principle by Islamic forces of secular politics or of parliamentary democracy with its concomitant separation of powers and the supremacy of man-made law. At the same time, as a result of its inevitable interaction with each and every existing political reality, a moderate Islamic leadership might find itself radicalizing its declared objectives and hastening the timetable for their implementation, as a result either of a deteriorating political situation or of pressure from below. Such pressure usually emanates from un- or under-employed youth, who present a challenge even to groups they claim to support and are characterized by a lack of patience and rapidly escalating demands. One scholar has compared the radicalization of Islamic politics in the FSU to what happened in the Middle East following the disillusionment with the various brands of socialism that reigned there in the 1960s and 1970s.52 Simultaneously with the fusion of Islamic ideas and national aspirations, the Islamic movements have become players within the body politic in which their co-ethnics comprise the eponymous nationality, rather than calling for 113

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the restructuring of borders and/or the creation of a Turkestani/Central Asian or Caucasian Islamic state, as one would expect their goal to be. Some of them have become radicalized in the process both politically and on the strictly religious level and this tendency will in all likelihood deepen and/or recur in the not too distant future as a result of a variety of constraints. Yet, this need not be the case, in the event that the regimes in question themselves become more flexible, broad-minded and democratic. NOTES 1. See e.g., Yaacov Ro’i, Islam in the Soviet Union from World War II to Perestroika, (London/NY: Hurst/Columbia University Press, 2001), pp. 551–2, 583–4, 711 and 716. 2. This contention was made as early as 1992 by the leader of the Uzbek opposition party, Birlik, Moskovskie novosti, 27 Sept. 1992. For Birlik, see below. 3. The leading Western political thinker to have made this assertion was probably Samuel Huntington; see Introduction. Huntington was not, of course, speaking specifically of Islam in the former Soviet Union. 4. Meir Litvak (ed), Islam ve-demokrtyah ba-‘olam h-‘Aravim, (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University/Hakibuts ha-me’uhad, 1997), pp. 21–2. 5. For example, Muhammadsadyk Mamayusupov after becoming Mufti of the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan in early 1989. Pravda Vostoka, 22 March 1989. 6. Galina M. Yemelianova, ‘The National Identity of the Volga Tatars at the Turn of the 19th Century: Tatarism, Turkism and Islam’, Central Asian Survey 4 (1997), pp. 552–3, and ‘Islam and Nation Building in Tatarstan and Dagestan of the Russian Federation’, Nationalities Papers 4 (1999), pp. 606–7; and Diliara Usmanova, Musul’manskaia fraktsiia i problemy svobody sovesti’ v Gosudarstvennoi Dume Rossii (1906–1917) (Kazan: Master Lein, 1999), Ch. 2 and Table 2. See also the chapter by Azade-Ayse Rorlich in this volume. 7. For a study of Islam in the Soviet Union as of World War II, see Ro’i, Islam in the Soviet Union from World War II to Gorbachev. 8. For Jadidism, see Adeeb Khalid, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Universtiy of California Press, 1998), especially pp. 148–54 and 176–83. 9. See, for example, Glenda Fraser, ‘Basmachi’, Central Asian Survey, 1 (1987), p. 34. 10. For an analysis of the Jadids’ joining up with the Bolsheviks, see Khalid, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform, Epilogue. In Khalid’s words, ‘the revolution provided the chance for a politicized and radicalized cultural elite to win control of the destiny of the nation it sought to change’ (ibid., p. 283). 11. Draft Program and Charter of the Islamic-Democratic Party, n.d. 12. Galina Yemelianov, ‘Islam and Power’, in Hilary Pilkington and Galina Yemelianov (eds), Islam in Post-Soviet Russia: Public and Private Forces (London and New York: Routledge-Curzon, 2003), pp. 105–6. 13. New York Times, 4 and 6 Feb. 1989 and Evgenii Abdullaev, ‘Islam i “islamskii faktor” v sovremennom Uzbekistane’, Tsentral’naia Aziia, 6 (1997), p. 90. 14. Alma Sultangalieva, Islam v Kazakhstane: istoriia, etnichnost’, obshchestvo (Almaty, 1998), p. 71. 15. For Alash in the years 1990–92, see Vladimir Babak, Demian Vaisman and Arye Wasserman (eds), Political Organization in Central Asia and Azerbaijan: Sources and Documents (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 107–12. 16. Bess Brown, ‘The Islamic Renaissance Party in Central Asia’, RFE/RL, Report on the USSR, 10 May 1991. 17. Program and Charter of the All-Union Islamic Renaissance Party, n.d. 18. Den’, 25 Oct.; 8 Nov. 1991 (quoted in Malashenko, Musul’manskii mir SNG. Moskva, 1996, p. 128). When the IRP split in effect in April 1992, Heydar headed the more

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19. 20.

21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32.

33.

radical wing (Malashenko, ‘Does Islamic Fundamentalism Exist in Russia?’, in Yaacov Ro’i (ed.), Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies [London: Frank Cass, 1995] ), p. 44. Elsewhere he is portrayed as a publicist and philosopher and perhaps the main ideologue of Russia’s Muslim renaissance. See A. Malashenko, Islamskoe vozrozhdenie v sovremennoi Rossii (Moscow, 1998), pp. 153–5. Al-Wahdat, 2 March 1991. Aleksandr Verkhovskii, Sredniaia Aziia i Kazakhstan: politicheskii spektr (Moscow, 1992), p. 35, quoted in William Fierman, ‘Political Development in Uzbekistan: Democratization?’, in Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott (eds), Conflict, Cleavage and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 375. Ibid., p. 376. This law was followed in June 1991 by a Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations, which reinforced this stipulation, ibid., p. 377. A 1997 law ‘On Political Parties’ renewed the prohibition of parties along religious or ethnic lines. Aleksandr Khalmuhamedov, ‘Islamskii faktor v Uzbekistane’, Svobodnaia mysl’ 4 (1998), p. 53. Author’s interview with Abdurahim Pulatov, Tashkent, June 1991. Komsomol’skaia pravda, 8 Dec. 1990. Nezavisimaia gazeta, 6 June 1992. Khalmukhamedov, ‘Islamskii faktor v Uzbekistane’, p. 55. Led by former VicePresident Shukurullo Mirsaidov, the Centre included Birlik, Erk, the women’s organization Tumaris, and the Organization of Independent Uzbek Youth. Yuri Kulchik, ‘Central Asia after the Empire: Ethnic Groups, Communities and Problems’, in Roald Z. Sagdeev and Susan Eisenhower (eds), Central Asia: Conflict, Resolution, and Change (Washington, DC: CPSS Press, 1995), pp. 108–9. See also Abdumannob Polat, ‘The Islamic Revival in Uzbekistan: A Threat to Stability?’ in R. Z. Sagdeev and S. Eisenhower (eds), Islam and Central Asia: An Enduring Legacy or an Evolving Threat? (Washington, DC: CPSS Press, 2000), pp. 45–6, and Abdullaev, ‘Islam i islamskii faktor v sovremennom Uzbekistane’, p. 93. It is not clear what, if any, links the Namangan Islamic Centre had to the IRP. Indeed, insufficient information is known about it for any statements to be made regarding its position on the issue which is the topic of this chapter. Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century (Richmond (Surrey): Curzon Press, 1997), pp. 25–7. Ia. Umanskii and A. Agarov, ‘Secular Islam — the Uzbekistan Variant’, Svobodnaia mysl’, 7 (1995), pp. 104–18. Malashenko, Musul’manskii mir SNG, p. 123. Graham Smith, Vivien Law, Andrew Wilson, Annette Bohr and Edward Allworth, Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 160–1. This was made possible by a new law, passed by the Supreme Soviet of Tajikistan under the impact of demonstrations ‘On the Abrogation of Certain Acts of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Tajikistan on Questions Connected to Parties of a Religious Nature’. Saodat Olimova, ‘Political Islam and the Conflict in Tajikistan’, Tsentral’naia Aziia i Kavkaz, 4 (1999), p. 137. Nezavisimaia gazeta, 4 Oct. 1991. Similar ideas were expressed by Muslim figures elsewhere. The Egyptian Islamist writer, Fahmi Huwaidi, who claimed that it was impossible either to compare Islam with democracy or to contend that the two contradicted each other, subordinates the will of individuals to the superior will of the Muslim collective, the umma. I am grateful for this information to Meir Litvak. Iranian Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi maintained that religion gives priority to social over individual interests. Since the liberal school of thought prefers the demands of the people to those of God, and requires that if the people so desire, all religious edicts are superceded, it can not be compatible with Islam (Meir Litvak, ‘Democracy and Islam: The Clerical Debate in Islam’, paper submitted to the 4th Biennial Conference on Iranian Studies, 24–26 May 2002). Narodnaia gazeta, 29 Oct. 1991.

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34. 35. 36. 37.

IRP Deputy Chairman Davlat Usmon to Izvestiia, 6 April 1992. Interfax in English, 18 June 1992/FBIS-SOV-92-119, 19 June 1992. Nezavisimaia gazeta, 18 Sept. 1991. Sergei Gretsky, ‘Civil War in Tajikistan: Causes, Developments and Prospects for Peace’, in Sagdeev and Eisenhower (eds), Central Asia: Conflict, Resolution and Change, pp. 236–7. At first, Turajonzoda had considered the formation of the IRPT premature, preferring to ‘prepare public opinion to accept the idea of such a party’ (Qadi Akbar Turajonzoda, ‘Religion — the Pillar of Society’, ibid., p. 269). 38. OMRI Daily Digest, 28 April 1995 — quoted in Shahram Akbarzadeh, ‘The Political Shape of Central Asia’, Central Asian Survey 4 (1997), p. 526. 39. Izvestiia, 5 Oct. 1991. 40. A. Niyazi, ‘Islam and Society’, Aziia i Afrika segodnia, 7(1996), pp. 30–1. 41. Saodat Olimova, ‘Political Islam and the conflict in Tajikistan’, pp. 136–7. 42. Ibid., p. 140; Narodnaia gazeta, 21 Jan. 2000. 43. Narodnaia gazeta, 25 Feb. 2000. Turajonzoda also pointed out that the history of other Muslim countries had shown that Islamic parties could represent all shades of the political spectrum, demonstrating that they in fact did not remain true to the wholeness that Islam symbolized. 44. Nezavisimaia gazeta, 18 Feb. 1992. 45. For the evolution of Dudayev’s regime, see Alexis Koudriavtsev, ‘L’imamat du General Doudaev ou l’islam et la politique en Tchetchenie’, MANA, Revue de sociologie et d’anthropologie, religion et politique (Caen: Universite de Caen, 1996), pp. 63–89. See also Yaacov Ro’i, Islam in the CIS: A Threat to Stability? (London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2001), pp. 36–8. 46. The All-Russia Muslim Public Movement Nur, for example, which surfaced in the context of the parliamentary elections of 1995 set itself the task, among others, of ‘arousing the political activity of the Muslim sector of the Russian Federation’s population, defending the rights and liberties of the Muslims and of Russia’s Turkicspeaking and numerically small peoples. Erik Komarov, ‘The Elections in Russia and the Muslims’, Rossiia i musil’manskii mir 5 (1996), p. 27. 47. Rafik Mukhametshin, Islam v obshchestvenno-politicheskoi zhizni Tatarstana v kontse XX veka, (Kazan: Iman, 2000), pp. 59–60. See also Malashenko, Islamskoe vozrozhdenie v sovremennoi Rossii, pp. 151–2. 48. A law to this effect was passed in Kazakhstan in 1992 (the Law on the Freedom of Religion and of Religious Associations, Article 4; see also the Constitution of Kazakhstan, 1995, Art. 5); in Kyrgyzstan a similar law, of December 1991, prohibits the creation and activities of religious parties and their affiliates, departments and divisions (quoted in Implementation of the Helsinki Accords: Human Rights and Democratization in the Newly Indpendent States of the former Soviet Union. Washington, D.C., 1993, p. 172). The Constitution of Turkmenistan expressly forbids the formation of political parties of a religious or national nature (Turkmenskaia iskra, 19 May 1992). For Uzbekistan and the situation in Tajikistan, see above. In the Russian Federation and in Azerbaijan there are no legal limitations regarding the formation of religious parties. (The Russian Constitution (Article 13) merely forbids the formation or activity of public associations aimed at ‘instigating social, racial national and religious strife’.) 49. Since the end of the 1990s, for instance, Hizb al-Tahrir has been operating in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. 50. Aziz Niyazi, ‘Islam and Tajikistan’s Human and Ecological Crisis’ in M. Holt Ruffin and Daniel Waugh (eds), Civil Society in Central Asia (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999), p. 193. 51. Compare, Litvak (ed), Islam ve-demokrtyah ba-‘olam h-‘Aravim, p. 21. There have, however, been exceptions: on the one hand, there have been examples of violence even in relatively liberal regimes, and, on the other hand, pragmatism on the part of Islamic movements is not necessarily an indication of a democratic orientation or an a priori readiness to tolerate rivals. 52. Malashenko, Musul’manskii mir SNG, p. 92.

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7 Authoritarian Pathways in Central Asia: A Comparison of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan NEIL J. MELVIN The collapse of the Soviet Union was initially viewed with great optimism by many in the Soviet republics and by the wider international community. In part reflecting this spirit, within academic circles the study of the post-Soviet states has frequently been framed in terms of a ‘transition to democracy’. Indeed, for many scholars the demise of the Soviet state was interpreted as part of a wider global shift towards democracy that characterized the latter decades of the twentieth century. Within the Central Asian states themselves there was also considerable optimism about the future, and Western governments and international organizations devoted significant resources to the development of institutions of democracy in the region and to the consolidation of democratic politics. By the late 1990s, however, it became hard to avoid the conclusion that rather than participating in a broad movement towards democratization, the Central Asian states had bucked these trends. In a report on the newly independent states issued in 1998, Freedom House ranked many of the Central Asian states as among the most authoritarian in the world, alongside regimes such as Iraq, North Korea and Yugoslavia.1 The development of authoritarian politics in Central Asia during the 1990s was not confined to individual countries. Clear evidence of a shift towards authoritarianism was apparent in all five Central Asian states. Thus, for example, in 1999 Uzbekistan experienced a massive crackdown on opposition voices following bomb explosions in Tashkent. In the same year, presidential elections in Kazakhstan were cynically manipulated to ensure the victory of the incumbent. Meanwhile, in the neighbouring Kyrgyz Republic in 1999/2000, actions against independent media and opposition forces were underway to ensure the election of pro-regime groups and the re-election of President Akayev. 119

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By the late 1990s, almost all Central Asian states were engaged in the regular and widespread violation of human rights and the repression, not simply of opposition forces, but of almost any independent voice. Together, these developments left little doubt that rather than a transition to democracy in Central Asia, authoritarianism had become the dominant political mode in the region.2 For many, the emergence of authoritarian politics in Central Asia was not unexpected. Numerous experts on the region had previously noted the long history of repressive regimes and a culture and set of traditions that would seem to lend support to authoritarian forms of rule. They also pointed to the low level of socio-economic development as a likely check on political liberalization. An examination of the regimes of Central Asia reveals, however, that socio-economic and cultural explanations alone can not account for the authoritarian politics of the region. In particular, the important differences that exist in the forms of authoritarianism that have emerged and in the ways that the Central Asian polities have developed as authoritarian systems, point to the role of contemporary policy actions as moulding, to a large degree, the region’s political evolution. Although there were important differences between the three republics of Soviet Central Asia examined here, in terms of formal political systems they had in common a broadly similar structure, based on the Communist Party and the central state apparatus of the USSR. Yet, with the onset of independence in 1991, these Central Asian states quickly took different paths. Kyrgyzstan set out with great enthusiasm and commitment on a course of liberalization. Kazakhstan adopted a ‘Western’ development model, embracing elements of a democratic order, a market economy, the rule of law, and civil rights. Uzbekistan assumed a quite different route, emphasizing traditionalism, strong leadership and statism, collective rights, and national consolidation. Thus, by the late 1990s, while Uzbekistan was characterized by a high degree of repression and an extremely powerful ruler, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan displayed important elements of pluralism and opportunities for criticism and opposition. The rapid development of such diversity amongst the systems of the Central Asian states suggests that the sources of authoritarian politics within the region may themselves be diverse. Indeed, the evidence indicates that the emergence of authoritarian politics may owe as much to contingent factors, such as policy choices and institutional design, as to the macro-structural factors of historical legacies, socio-economic systems and culture. Such a conclusion suggests that there may be strategic opportunities to redress some of the authoritarian developments in the region. This chapter will explore the nature and sources of authoritarian politics in three Central Asia states: Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan. I aim to answer two interlinked questions. Firstly, what are the principal characteristics of authoritarian politics in the three states? Second, what factors explain the diversity of authoritarian forms 120

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in the region? In section one, the main theories of authoritarian politics will be outlined and their applicability to the Central Asian cases considered. In the second section, the defining characteristics of the authoritarian systems in the three Central Asian republics are identified. In section three, the elements that have contributed to the emergence of authoritarian politics in Central Asia will be examined. It will be argued that five sets of factors are important in this respect: patterns of state formation (pre-colonial, imperial Russian, and Soviet); the experience of modernization; the manner in which the Soviet order broke down (principally élite alignments); the personality of the leader; and finally, strategies for the transition. In the concluding section, the possibilities for future political trajectories within the region are considered. DEMOCRATIZATION AND AUTHORITARIANISM As noted, the demise of the USSR was viewed by some observers as part of a larger movement in the latter part of the twentieth century, away from dictatorship, an end of ideology and a consolidation of democratic politics.3 Within this context, the dominant mode for analyzing subsequent political developments in the post-communist states was drawn primarily from the work of democratic theorists, who applied knowledge of democratic change and consolidation derived, inter alia, from the experience of Latin America and southern Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. Much of the work that has addressed the post-communist world has, thus, explored the issues of the independence period through the framework of ‘transitology’ and the breakdown of authoritarian regimes. The approaches and assumptions that inform transition theory have, however, faced opposition from area studies specialists who have pointed to the role of historical legacies (‘path dependency’) and culture in shaping and limiting the possibilities for change in the region. While the literature on democratization is extensive, studies on the emergence and consolidation of authoritarian — as distinct from totalitarian — regimes is less developed. Although totalitarianism provided the dominant framework for analyzing the USSR, in the final decades of Soviet power and in the post-Soviet period, researchers began elaborating notions of authoritarian politics appropriate to ‘developed socialism’. It has been argued, for example, that post-Stalin communism should be seen as a sub-type of authoritarianism, and that five specific features, taken together, distinguish communist systems from other authoritarian or totalitarian regimes.4 In recent decades, research on authoritarian politics has focused on regimes in Latin America and Africa in particular.5 Perhaps the broadest discussion of authoritarianism is the essay written by Juan Linz in 1975,6 which provided the basis for later work on sultanistic regimes (see below). Subsequent work on authoritarian politics has sought to develop approaches that explore the diversity of authoritarian regimes, their nature, genesis and collapse, and highlights the variety of forms 121

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that authoritarian politics can take, from military regimes to one-party civilian rule.7 In the late Brezhnev era, a number of scholars also sought to explore the link between political culture and authoritarian politics in the Soviet Union.8 In particular, they were keen to identify the relationship between communism and pre-communist cultures and traditions. While such studies suggested that clear links existed between historical cultural practices and contemporary politics, accounting for how political cultures change proved elusive.9 The breakdown of the Soviet state has led to the re-emergence of the debate about the role of culture and history in shaping political development. Are the post-communist states characterized by particular sets of political values? Has communism bequeathed values and political cleavages different from those found in other post-authoritarian societies? Are these values the products of long-term and culturally distinctive political and religious traditions? Are values and attitudes fixed or should they be seen as responses to the successes and failures of democratization and economic change in particular countries? Providing answers to these questions is critical to determining the nature and origins of authoritarian politics in Central Asia. The new opportunities for empirical and survey work in the postcommunist states have enabled a more straightforward exploration of some of the assumptions about values and political outcomes in Eurasia. During the Soviet period, little direct research was undertaken on the Central Asian republics and of this, only a small part focused on the political order in the region. Following the disintegration of the Soviet system, the scope, volume and quality of work produced on the new Central Asian states have risen considerably. In seeking to identify and explain the emergence of post-independence political forms in the region, experts on Central Asia have employed a range of perspectives. Although there is considerable diversity and subtlety in these works, the central thrust of much writing on Central Asia is to seek explanations for contemporary developments in the culture and past traditions of the region.10 One of the earliest exponents of a distinct basis for authoritarianism in eastern states was Karl Wittfogel, who situated the source of despotism in the environmental and economic conditions of the region.11 More recently it has been argued ‘that while culture may not determine outcomes, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that it serves to shape and constrain the choices made by élites’.12 The important restrictions placed on the post-Soviet systems by their experience of rule from Moscow have also been highlighted. Thus, unlike the British in India, whose democratic rhetoric and experiments with local selfrule laid the basis for subsequent developments, Moscow provided no preparation for independent rule let alone a politics rooted in genuine pluralism. Given the absence of an older tradition of popular rule to fall back on, despite occasional Kazakh and Kyrgyz appeals to 122

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tribal assemblies of the past, and in a situation where independence stemmed from imperial collapse rather than popular pressure, it would have been surprising to see any substantive democratic experiments in Central Asia after 1991.13 Some of the diversity of political systems in the region may also be explained in cultural terms as it is ‘the inheritors of the more religious and settled emirates of Bukhara and Khiva (Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) that have opted for authoritarian rule, whereas the relatively un-islamized and nomadic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz have seen the evolution of at least some elements of pluralism’.14 Although cautious in attributing too much weight to the past, some scholars highlight the importance of the region’s political culture for the development of authoritarianism in Central Asia.15 ‘Central Asian traditions of patriarchy, popular submissiveness, deference to authority and to elders and weak democratic institutions would seem to impel Central Asian societies towards an authoritarian future.’16 Thus, the failure of democracy to take root is a consequence of the ‘power of the past’, notably a traditional mind set. Likewise: Today, despite the social, political and economic upheavals of the past five years, Central Asia is still remarkably stable. The main reason for this is the highly conservative nature of society. The very specific conditions under which the modernization of the Soviet period took place meant that change and development in the public sphere (i.e. the workplace) scarcely penetrated into the private sphere. Here, custom and tradition continued to be the dominant features. This conservatism, especially in the face of external threats, favours consolidation rather than fragmentation. It is underpinned by a number of socio-cultural factors. One is absolute respect for seniority: each individual is acutely sensitive to, and bound by, interlocking hierarchies of age, social standing and administrative power. Another characteristic is the great emphasis on consensus: whether in the private or the public sphere, disputes tend to be resolved through negotiation and compromise leading to the formulation of a common view. A third feature is the all-embracing sense of community. A high degree of conformity is required from all members. This entails full participation in group activities and the fulfilment of numerous obligations and responsibilities to the extended family. In return, the individual receives constant material and emotional support from the community.17

A number of observers have also noted that besides pre-Soviet and Russian influences, important legacies from the Soviet era have an influence upon the nature of contemporary politics in Central Asia. Some Central Asians claim there is another, even more important constraint on the adoption of Western political institutions in Central Asia than the power of the executives. It is unlikely that the newly adopted political institutions of legislatures and independent judiciaries will be anything other than superficial, these critics say, ‘unless fundamental changes take place in Central Asia’s fourth branch of government — the tradition of personalistic rule’.18 123

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During the period of Soviet rule, powerful and resilient mechanisms of public decision-making — informal authority structures — developed as a result of the interaction of the Soviet system of rule and local reactions to that system.19 Survey work conducted in Central Asia since independence suggests a complex set of value orientations in terms of popular attitudes to political development. Thus, while ‘democracy’ has become a catchword used by leaders and the general population alike throughout Central Asia, survey data ‘suggests that strong leadership, stability, law and order, and economic improvement are far higher priorities than the construction of any particular government system. Since there is no history of democratic rule in these countries, democracy is perceived as, at best, an ideal for some distant future, not as the best system to resolve Uzbekistan’s or Kazakhstan’s problems today.’20 Respondents who said they supported democracy, moreover, often demonstrated vague or contradictory perceptions of what democracy entails as a political system. While traditional values in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan tend to emphasize fairness and certain other democratic values, survey results also highlight competing currents of less-than-democratic priorities and support for relatively authoritarian systems and leaders.21 Thus, although there is broad support amongst the population and élites for democracy as an abstract ideal, there appears to be little enthusiasm for some of the key elements of democracy, such as a commitment to freedom of the press or support for opposition parties.22 The results of surveys undertaken in the region are, thus, ambiguous. The élites and population of the region certainly exhibit support for authoritarian values. Yet, there is also considerable evidence of value structures that support policies that would foster a far more pluralistic type of politics. For example, surveys have pointed to strong support for a decentralization of government amongst the population and, perhaps not unexpectedly amongst the regional élite. Furthermore, there is considerable popular mistrust of the leadership of Central Asia, resentment about corruption, and about the use of personal and family networks for advancement. Certainly, there is little indication of a single dominant political culture based on traditional or authoritarian values. While it is indisputable that the past influences the present, the nature and means of this influence are often obscure, ambiguous and contested. Much of the writing on Central Asia does not specify exactly how broad cultural orientations or macro-societal factors have produced the specific forms of contemporary authoritarian regimes in the region. Further, in accounts of the relationship between the past and the present political life of Central Asia, a variety of explanations seem to be operating simultaneously. Some authors suggest that underdevelopment and particular socio-economic forms have been responsible for authoritarian politics; others that features specific to cultural and traditional practices (although these may be linked to socio-economic factors) are behind the inclination towards authoritarianism.23 Still 124

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others believe that the legacy of the Soviet period in the form of informal networks and corruption lies behind contemporary developments. The broad-based assertions about the role of culture, tradition and socio-economic factors leave considerable room for interpretation. For example, while in many accounts Islam is presented as a negative force, not least by much of the region’s leadership, others have suggested that Islam could be closely related to the emergence of civil society in the region. One observer, for example, argues that in parts of Central Asia, Islam survived the Soviet years by fusing with the mahalla (or residential neighbourhood, traditionally the basic social unit of many urban and large rural communities), especially in the Fergana Valley region. This informal synthesis persisted in the Soviet era, and in the post-Soviet period it is suggested that, in the right circumstances, the two could serve as the basis for grassroots civil organization.24 Thus, while most scholars attribute a role to historical legacies and culture, the exact significance of these elements is less clear. Have these factors determined or merely influenced the emergence of authoritarian politics? What exactly is the relationship between an authoritarian past and the specific forms of political regimes in the region today? When a non-democratic culture is identified, does this operate at a regional, national, ethnic or sub-regional level? Are there different political cultures in Central Asia (geographically and temporally) or is there only one source? While qualitative and quantitative studies have identified non-democratic values, traditions and practices, alternative values, traditions and practices also co-exist. Are the values, traditions and practices themselves, in fact, the reflection of other factors in the political life of the region? What role has the Central Asian leadership played in the development of the authoritarian political orders of the region? THE IDEOLOGY OF AUTHORITARIANISM Studies that stress the historical and cultural sources of authoritarian politics in the region also find echoes in much of the official writing from within Central Asia, particularly, of the regional leaders themselves. Frequently, local observers have presented strong rule as the only, and indeed the natural, way to solve Central Asia’s problems. Such ideas have their clearest expression in the speeches and writings of the regional leadership under the rubric of stability and the fight against radical Islam, and inter-ethnic and inter-tribal conflict. In these works, state collapse and civil war in Tajikistan and Afghanistan are linked to democratization and a break with traditions of centralized rule. Thus, for example, addressing Turkmenistan’s National Institute for Democracy and Human Rights on 21 April 1999, President Sapurmurad Niyazov noted that Western-style democracy is incompatible with the Turkmen national mentality and with the Asian model of democracy.25 Later in the same year, in a speech before the parliament outlining his policies, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev stated that economic 125

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problems were likely to stir up competition and tensions between the main tribal groupings in the country — the hordes; thus strong control was required. Later still, in 2002, the President challenged Western criticism of recent actions by his regime, including legislation imposing stricter criteria for the registration of political parties, arguing that the process of democratization should not be ‘artificially accelerated’.26 In these ways, the leaders of the Central Asian states have sought to construct a seamless link between a certain definition of the region’s problems and the use of culturally and historically legitimated forms of authoritarian politics. In more sophisticated arguments, the case for authoritarianism is made in terms of the need for strong executive power as the basis for state-building, ensuring the protection of minority communities, extending centralized control over territories in the face of regional and clan movements, building the institutions of a modern administrative state and reforming the economy. In some cases, the idea that authoritarian politics are necessary within the region has found support outside Central Asia. The authoritarianism of the states of Central Asia is presented as developmental dictatorship in which power is concentrated in the presidency and the government in order to promote economic reform and avoid internal political upheavals. In the words of one analyst: The larger question is what effect continued authoritarianism will have in these states. Should such governments be condemned as ‘backwards’ or do they serve a function, such as state-building, maintenance of interethnic peace, or facilitators of economic growth?… The regimes of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan on balance, do serve a positive purpose, preserving order and discouraging expression of radical nationalism. On the other hand, success for democracy in these countries is far from likely, and limited democratic experience in Kyrgyzstan shows that it can exacerbate ethnic tensions and threaten economic reform. There are, of course, risks and problems associated with even the most benign forms of authoritarianism, but thus far many of these pitfalls have been avoided. 27

NEW AUTHORITARIANISM IN CENTRAL ASIA While it is undeniable that Central Asia had an authoritarian past, this, of course, is true for all parts of the world at some point in their history; the key issue is to identify what prompts a break, evolution or, indeed, extension of that tradition. In the case of the Central Asian states, the current regimes do not simply mark a ‘natural’ continuation or reemergence of past authoritarian traditions. The contemporary authoritarian regimes have been constructed on the basis of new political arrangements that reflect the realities of the post-independence struggle for power and resources in the region. Although Central Asia emerged from the Soviet Union without the degree of turmoil found in other regions of that state, the transition from Soviet authoritarianism to post-Soviet authoritarianism was not seamless. In the early 1990s, the three Central Asian states examined exhibited 126

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important elements of pluralism and some opposition groups were active. In the mid-1990s, however, this situation was quickly transformed. In the space of a few years, much of the liberalization of the early years was reversed. One might ask why and how cultural and traditional norms reasserted themselves in such a way? Below it will be argued that rather than a return to traditional forms of politics, the mid1990s should be seen as a time when new authoritarian political systems were fashioned and opportunities for liberalization ignored or poorly developed. Instead of viewing the contemporary regimes of Central Asia as representing a continuation of past traditions of authoritarian politics in the region, it is important to recognize the transformative character of these regimes. Frequently, these processes of change take place in the guise of a constructed history of authoritarian rule. In fact, the regimes of the region are fundamentally new and, in important ways, revolutionary. Moreover, their essence is not continuity and stability but change involving a restructuring of state and society in the semblance of tradition. That is, while elements of previous regimes and cultural patterns are clearly to be found in the new orders, these are not so much the foundations of the present system as building blocks that have been rearranged to construct a new political edifice in a neo-traditional form. Four main elements distinguish the contemporary authoritarian regimes from the political systems of Central Asia in the pre-colonial, Russian imperial and Soviet periods: i) Façade democracy: All three of the Central Asian states have gone to considerable lengths to set in place the formal institutions of modern democracy. Constitutions have been written, elections held, parties established and systems of justice developed. In none of the countries, however, do these institutions operate as the primary means for conducting political activity and such formal institutions and their rules are frequently ignored or overridden by the president. ii) Executive power. Unlike the Soviet period, since independence there has been a wholesale concentration of power in the hands of a single figure within each of the Central Asian states. Rather than a party or the institutions of the state apparatus (during the Soviet era the Communist Party and central state apparatus provided a check on the power of the Central Asian élite), or a tribal or monarchical system, these individuals rely upon personal patronage networks for their power. The emergence of neo-patrimonialism not just as an important element of the political orders of Central Asia but as the main means of conducting politics has produced a loss of accountability, undermined the creation of new institutions and fostered the destruction of the institutions of the Soviet era. iii) Centralizing states. Under the guise of state-building, the leaders of the three Central Asian states have sought to centralize power in the new national capitals to a degree that has never previously existed. As part of this process, the power of regional élites has been undermined 127

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and refashioned and central control and personnel projected into the provinces.28 iv) Radical policies: Behind the image of stability, continuity and a reassertion of pre-colonial practices, the new regimes in Central Asia have been promoting a series of radical policies aimed at transforming the nature and distribution of political power and economic resources. Since independence, the regimes of Central Asia have undertaken to foster new national ideologies, reshape national identities, transfer wealth, reorganize the state in each republic, and create new élites. To achieve these ends, coercion has been employed in ways that are essentially new in the region. THREE FORMS OF AUTHORITARIANISM While the regimes of Central Asia share broadly similar characteristics, there are also important differences in the nature of authoritarianism in the three cases.29 Thus, while the political order in Uzbekistan closely resembles Linz’s notion of a sultanistic regime,30 Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic contain important areas of a more pluralistic politics.31 These differences are important because they highlight the degree to which a range of factors fashioned diverse political forms in the region. Five areas of difference, in particular, distinguish the political orders of the three authoritarian states examined here: relations between centre and regions; policies of economic liberalization; ethno-political cleavages; élite structures; and use of coercion. i) Centre-regional relations. All three of the republics under examination here have adopted unitary state forms. The actual nature of centre-regional relations, however, varies considerably. In Kazakhstan, the central authorities have sought to extend control over the regions but has been only partially successful. Despite policies to forge a national élite and subordinate regions to the centre, regional élites have continued to enjoy important areas of autonomy. This is particularly the case in the oil rich regions of the west and those areas with large minority (predominately Russian) populations in the north and east. The presence of a significant Uzbek minority in the south of the country has also restrained centralizing tendencies. In the cases of the Russian and Uzbek communities, powerful neighbouring kin-states with potential claims on diaspora populations have underlined the sensitivity of centre-regional issues.32 Reanimated or re-fashioned social divisions (tribalism) have also served to weaken the centralizing impulse.33 In the late 1990s, a series of measures was undertaken — notably the transfer of the capital to the north and the amalgamation of several regions — in an effort to establish firm control over the regions.34 Despite these measures, in 2002 the leader of one of the northern regions was able to mount a challenge, in alliance with a number of leading political figures, to the ruling group based around the president.35 Although ultimately unsuccessful, the move by one of the regional élites was a clear indication of the tensions inherent in the Nazarbayev regime’s relations with the regions in the country. 128

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In the Kyrgyz Republic, the split between the north and south has characterized the politics of the early years of independence.36 Following ethno-political violence in the south, Askar Akayev, an academic who was largely outside the Soviet era political networks, became president and set about consolidating his position with the appointment of his supporters drawn predominately from the capital and surrounding region.37 With the north displacing the south as the political centre of gravity in the country in the early independence period, extending control over the southern territories became a primary goal of the Akayev regime.38 The presence of a large Uzbek minority in the southern territories bordering Uzbekistan added a further level of complexity to the situation. Although the centre was gradually able to promote its own personnel to leading positions in the regions, by the late 1990s the president had become dependent on the support of these powerful regional figures, leading to the emergence of a system built around a ruling coalition of key regional and central personnel. Despite the President’s actions to establish élite level control over the southern areas of the country, the population in the south continued to express opposition to the ruling regime in Bishkek. In March of 2002, popular demonstrations in the Ak-Sui district led to a violent confrontation between demonstrators and the police that left six dead. The subsequent reaction to the Ak-Sui events produced a broad popular mobilization in the south against the central authorities and led the President to dismiss the government and announce that significant constitutional reform would be undertaken.39 In Uzbekistan, the central authorities were more successful at asserting their hegemony over the regions than in the other two other cases examined here. The political system that emerged at independence was in large part a product of the complex regional political balance that was informally institutionalized in the Communist Party of Uzbekistan in the Soviet period.40 The changes of the Gorbachev era did much to destabilize this system; in particular, the weakening of the regional political networks as a result of anti-corruption purges opened the way for the emergence of younger élites after 1991. From the outset, Tashkent pursued a rigorous regional policy, destroying potential opposition to the new regime. Any moves towards autonomous political activity, notably in the Fergana Valley region, faced a strong response from Tashkent, particularly if it was linked to Islamic activities. A new prefectural (hakim) system was established. The regional leadership was also subject to regular purges with new governors loyal to the President generally ‘parachuted’ in from Tashkent. As a result of these policies, within the space of a few years a highly centralized and vertically organized state was established. The efforts to foster a new national integrated élite were hampered, however, by the overall fragile nature of the state and the over-reliance on coercion to achieve control, including over the regions.41

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TABLE 7.1: SUMMARY OF CENTRE-REGIONAL RELATIONS

Kazakhstan Kyrgyz Republic Uzbekistan

Principal characteristic of centre-regional relations Dominant centre Centre-regional bargaining Highly centralized

Main centre-regional division Ethno-political/ social divisions Ethno-political/ social divisions Patron-client/ religious

Regional elite structure Semi-integrated national élite Semi-integrated national élite National élite

ii) Degree of Economic Liberalization. The degree of economic liberalization adopted in Central Asia states has been important in a political sense because the extent to which financial resources are distributed across society, particularly amongst different sections of the élite, is closely related to the scale of political pluralism. The establishment of autonomous resources in the form of a decentralization of control of property, including privatization, has made it harder to maintain narrowly based and tightly controlled élite structures. Most notable in this respect has been the situation of the mass media where the establishment of private ownership of the press, television and radio in the 1990s has meant that the authorities have found it difficult to completely silence internal voices of dissent and criticism. In Kazakhstan, during the early years of independence a cautious program of liberalization was adopted, which relied heavily on the rhetoric of marketization. The initially limited policy of economic liberalization was abandoned in the mid-1990s when the deterioration of economic conditions prompted a more extensive agenda of privatization. By the late 1990s, Kazakhstan’s economy exhibited a diversity of patterns of ownership and control — although ethnic Kazakhs benefited disproportionately in the sell-off.42 Not only did this diversity provide the basis for opposition politics by providing resources outside the state, but it also created important divisions in the ruling élite over the control and distribution of these resources — as well as helping to promote corruption. The exploitation of Kazakhstan’s extensive hydro-carbon reserves and the large investments forthcoming from Western companies for this purpose had a particularly important role in spreading resources to different sections of the élite — notably the regional élite in areas where oil was located. Another important consequence of economic liberalization was the creation in the early 1990s of one of the most diverse media environments in Central Asia. As a result of privatization and the possibility to buy newspapers, television and radio stations, ownership of the media passed from the state to a variety of individuals and groups.43 Faced with criticism of the President during his efforts to extend his term in office and to seek re-election, the Kazakhstani authorities sought to re-establish control over the media through a licensing system44 and, in 130

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some cases, crude intimidation. Despite these actions, the authorities found it hard to shackle completely the media that grew up in the early years of independence, particularly when the international community offered support for a free media and for journalists who risked their personal freedom to report on issues the government deemed unacceptable. In the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, President Akayev made clear his commitment to market reform in the early years of independence. The President adopted proposals for reform advocated by the International Monetary Fund, with the aim of attracting foreign investors to modernize the economy. In early 1992, an austerity program was introduced to stifle inflation. Although the economy later suffered from indebtedness and economic decline, the policies of the first decade of independence served to weaken significantly the state’s monopoly control over business activities. A diversity of resources, including a media in which a variety of private individuals and groups owned publications and television stations, the service sector and small and medium size enterprises subsequently emerged as the basis for political opposition. Uzbekistan pursued an economic program distinct from its neighbours in a number of respects. Eventually, the set of policies applied by Tashkent was even presented as a model of transition by the Uzbek leadership. At the heart of the Uzbek ‘model’ was a continuation and indeed extension of state involvement in the economy. Autarky and a lack of a convertible currency kept external engagement in the economy to a minimal level. As a result of these policies, the political economy of Uzbekistan emerged as one in which state and business were fused at almost all levels providing little in the way of autonomous resources that would challenge the hegemony of the political élite based around the President.45 iii) Ethno-Political Cleavages. All states of Central Asia contain large minority populations, generally located in peripheral areas bordering potential ‘home states’. The role of these populations in the development of authoritarian political forms has, however, varied in each country. In Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic, ethnic minorities have presented a far more significant challenge to the new regimes than in Uzbekistan. In Kazakhstan, the large Slav population concentrated in the north, east and the former capital (Almaty) played a critical role in shaping the politics of the early independence period. Concern about possible secessionist movements and the importance of predominately Slav networks of power played a major role in consolidating the political system in Kazakhstan.46 A cautious approach to the north and east in the early years of independence permitted the emergence of a more liberal politics in the country as a whole.47 By the end of the 1990s, while the issue of the Slav population had retreated in importance, the issue of the Uzbek minority in the south continued to make the central élite sensitive to ethnic issues. 131

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Ethnic conflict in the Kyrgyz Republic was largely responsible for the political triumph of a counter-élite in the late Gorbachev period.48 In the independence period, the issue of the Uzbek minority appeared to represent a significant threat to the territorial integrity of the state. At the same time, the importance of the Slav population in the north required significant shifts in national policy, notably a softening of the nationbuilding strategy was signalled with the adoption of Russian as a second state language and some efforts to include ethnic minorities through new institutions and policies.49 Although containing significant and geographically concentrated minority populations, Uzbekistan did not face a serious ethnic challenge to the new state. The Tajik and Karakalpak populations failed to mobilize against Tashkent or the Uzbek communities, while the sizeable Slav population opted for emigration rather than confrontation. Instead, religion emerged as the main challenge to the Uzbekistani state. TABLE 7.2: SUMMARY OF ETHNO-POLITICAL CLEAVAGES* Principal minorities Kazakhstan Kyrgyz Republic Uzbekistan

Slav Uzbek Uzbek Slav

Size (as percent of total population) 40.9% 2.2% 12.9% 21.5%

Location North and East (capital) South South North (capital)

External Actor Russia/ Uzbekistan Uzbekistan Non-state actors

Tajik Karakalpak Kazak Slav

4.7%50 0.6% 4.1% 8.3%

South West North, West Capital

Non-state actors

*Figures from 1989 Soviet census

iv) Elite Structures. All of the Central Asian states have developed élite networks built around the person of the president. The nature of these structures varies from state to state. In Kazakhstan, the élite is characterized by important fissures.51 The main divisions are between centre and regional élites and between political and economic actors. In the early years of independence, although there was little stability in terms of office-holding, circulation of leading figures between important positions coupled with stability for key posts provided the basis for the élite system, with the legislative and judicial systems firmly subordinated to the President.52 In the Kyrgyz Republic following independence the president’s support base was gradually expanded to incorporate key actors from other strategic groups. Crucial in this respect was the co-option of the regional élites — particularly representatives from the south — within a ruling coalition in the mid-1990s.53 This coalition of key figures provided the basis for the concentration of power within a relatively 132

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stable network and the exclusion of other important figures, notably the leaders of parliament and the opposition. The President’s efforts to undermine the parliament in the mid-1990s were particularly significant — with all of the regional, ethnic and economic fissures reflected in the composition of the parliament, it proved relatively easy for the executive to manipulate it. Regional and family connections, however, proved difficult for the President to contain.54 In Uzbekistan, an élite structure that was subordinate to the person of the president and fluid in its composition was forged quickly after independence.55 Competing figures were purged and replaced with loyalists. All positions, except the president himself, were subject to high degrees of turnover. Institutions similar to the former Communist Higher Party School were established to train a new national élite. By the late 1990s, a younger generation of technocratic figures had begun to enter the élite but there was little evidence that this caused, at least initially, significant tensions between its different generations. TABLE 7.3: SUMMARY OF ELITE STRUCTURES

Kazakhstan Kyrgyz Republic Uzbekistan

Main characteristic of élite structure Fragmented/ Competitive Coalition Hierarchical

Main Divisions

Elite stability

Economic/regional High turnover Regional Generational

Elite circulation High turnover

v) Coercion. Throughout the 1990s, the use of coercion expanded considerably in Central Asia and in many places the employment of state agencies to intimidate groups and individuals became commonplace. The role of coercion, however, was different in extent and the forms employed in each republic. In Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic, methods such as harassment through legal manipulation and tax pressures formed the primary instrument of coercion (although violence and, on occasion, torture were also employed); in Uzbekistan torture and execution became an essential element of the system of rule. TABLE 7.4: SUMMARY OF EMPLOYMENT OF COERCION

Kazakhstan

Employment of Coercion Regular

Kyrgyz Republic Uzbekistan

Sporadic Systematic

Dominant Forms of Coercion Imprisonment, harassment, violence Imprisonment, harassment Imprisonment, harassment, torture, execution

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SOURCES OF AUTHORITARIAN POLITICS The important differences between the forms of authoritarianism in the Central Asian states point to a diversity of factors influencing the political development in the region. Five interrelated factors appear to explain the principal differences amongst the political systems of the Central Asian states: i) Patterns of State Formation. Prior to incorporation into the Russian imperial system, Central Asia had little experience of modern statehood. While the region had been the centre for a number of empires, by the late eighteenth century Central Asia consisted of a patchwork of multiethnic principalities and tribal confederations scattered over thousands of kilometres. Colonial rule began a process of reshaping notions of identity and community and of establishing distinct borders where overlapping divisions of language, ethnicity, tribalism and economic relations had previously existed. The key development in the division of Central Asia was the process of ‘delimitation’ in the 1920s and 1930s.56 This process established the main borders for the modern states of Central Asia. Delimitation extended and institutionalized much of the pattern of colonial rule that had been introduced with the Russian conquest of the region. At the same time, delimitation established new centres and sources of political power, reshaped relations between territories and established the principal framework for the Soviet project of modernization of the region. The creation of proto-states, notably the inclusion of certain minority populations and regions within the newly-fashioned republics, provided important and different legacies for the Central Asian governments at independence. Further, the differentiated approach of the Russian imperial and the Soviet authorities to the organization and administration of diverse regions of Central Asia shaped the nature and possibilities for state-building in the post-Soviet period.57 In particular, the consolidation of Russian imperial political control over the Steppe territories of the nomads, the direct administrative subordination to power centres in European Russia of these territories until the 1920s and 1930s, and large-scale European settlement in areas populated by nomads, predominantly in the northern areas of Central Asia, tied these territories more closely to European Russia than was the case for the area’s central regions that were consolidated as Uzbekistan. ii) Experience of Modernization. In addition to determining the broad parameters of the state-building projects in the Central Asian states, the legacies of the Russian and Soviet colonial periods played a critical role in shaping the direction of policies at independence. Not only did the colonial period establish the external borders and ethnic composition of the Central Asian states, it also inscribed crucial divisions on society: between urban and rural communities, industry and agriculture, and ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultures (including languages). The legacies for each Central Asian state in terms of the combination of issues 134

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involved in transforming the economy, addressing national and ethnic aspirations, managing developmental issues, and the different resources available to meet these challenges crucially shaped the different trajectories of development. While Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic faced significant ethno-political challenges, difficulties around centreregional relations, and urban-rural contradictions, the experience of Russian and Soviet policies for Uzbekistan provided, in contrast, a firmer foundation for the consolidation of centralized power. iii) The Breakdown of the Soviet System. The reconfiguration of the political élite in Central Asia as a result of perestroika also had a profound impact upon the nature of the political order in the region. The creation of a new élite grouping in the Kyrgyz Republic in the late 1980s following ethnic conflict in the south established the basis for a more liberal politics to emerge in the republic in the early 1990s. The fragmentation of Soviet era élite networks led to intense competition as various groups sought ascendancy. While President Akayev eventually established considerable control over much of the élite in the Kyrgyz Republic, the regime remained fractured along a number of fault lines, notably the north-south axis, urban-rural divisions, and inter-ethnic fissures. These fault lines provided important spaces for forms of liberal politics to emerge. In Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the late Soviet élite was more successful than in the Kyrgyz Republic at retaining its former position and coherence in the post-independence period. In Uzbekistan, President Karimov used the former republican level élite networks of the Communist Party to quickly extend his control over the territory of the country. While many of the former leading members of this network were subsequently purged, the nature of political relations, and the coherence of the network represented, for the most part, a continuation of Soviet-era arrangements. In Kazakhstan, while the new national leadership was drawn extensively from the former leadership of the Republican Communist Party, the country lacked an integrated élite network.58 Western regions had always been loosely linked to the central republican structures, while the northern and eastern regions had been more closely tied to all-union networks and to Moscow. At independence, President Nazarbayev and his supporters faced not only the problem of a large and potentially secessionist Russian/Slavic population but also a fragmented élite network. The extension of centralized control over different parts of Kazakhstan was, thus, slower, more problematic and, by the end of a decade of independence, less successful than was the case in Uzbekistan. iv) Leadership. While much of the nature and direction of political development in Central Asia was shaped by the structural constraints of state-formation, social and economic legacies and élite structures, the actions and choices of individual leaders have also been of importance. Given the enormous powers of discretion available to the chief 135

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executive in Central Asia, the personality of the president played a critical role in shaping political developments. President Akayev’s background outside the Communist Party apparatus helped to foster the relative freedoms in the Kyrgyz Republic. In Kazakhstan, President Nazarbayev had been supportive of economic liberalization but has acted harshly against political opponents. In Uzbekistan, President Karimov was prepared to employ coercion as the policy of first choice from the earliest days of his reign.59 v) Post-independence Policies. An area where the character of the individual presidents has been particularly important is in the policies towards economic development adopted in the post-independence period. The authorities in Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic have been far more willing to promote economic liberalization, particularly privatization and foreign direct investment, than has been the case with Uzbekistan. In the latter, the emergence of a political economy built upon autarky and an extension of state control over the economy provided the basis for the creation of a strong centralized state and a unified élite structure. The adoption of policies of economic liberalization in the early years of independence in Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic (even if many of these policies were poorly implemented) fostered some separation between economic and political power in these republics. While many of the economic élites were not committed to political liberalization and were associated with corruption, the creation of a range of diverse interests and the distribution of economic resources beyond a narrow political élite provided the basis for competition, criticism and opposition. As a result of the attempts at economic liberalization, both President Nazarbayev and President Akayev subsequently faced difficulties in forging dominant and cohesive ruling blocs capable of integrating political and business élites. In Uzbekistan the lack of reform in the first years of independence provided the political élite with control of economic resources and so stifled the emergence of competing interests, and gave the regime the resources to undertake widespread repression and control.60 CONCLUSIONS In the 1990s, authoritarian politics became dominant within Central Asia. While many observers have located the source of this dynamic in a continuation or reanimation of cultural values and political traditions, it is argued here that the post-independence regimes of Central Asia were, in essence, new. Thus, while there is an implicit assumption in many works on Central Asia that authoritarianism is something akin to the natural order of things — democracy in contrast is an exceptional development that requires special measures to promote — it is contended here that the contemporary authoritarian orders of the region have had to be constructed, both from the past (both real and imagined) and through the policies of the present. 136

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Although Central Asia has been characterized by long periods of authoritarian rule, most recently in the form of Soviet domination, and also by a relatively low level of socio-economic development, these legacies did not determine the prospects for political change in the postindependence period. While culture and socio-economic legacies may have acted as constraints upon the range of possibilities in terms of political evolution (perhaps excluding the possibility of the emergence of Western-style liberal democracy), all three countries examined here had important opportunities for liberalization following the collapse of the Soviet system. Instead, the reactions of the new leaderships of the region to the challenges and opportunities created by the legacies of state construction, patterns of modernization and the breakdown of the Soviet order, shaped both the overall drift to authoritarianism and the particular forms of political evolution in the region. The post-Soviet regimes have not mirrored ancient cultural patterns and preferences but have reflected, instead, the interests of rentier élites that construed their own concerns as those of the whole population and used their position to extract resources from the wider society. In forging the authoritarian regimes of Central Asia, the élites of the newly independent states sought to establish images of the region in terms of values and history that gave preference to authoritarian elements rather than stressing the potential basis for a more liberal politics.61 The accounts of the culturo-historical basis for authoritarianism have also been accompanied by particularistic analyses of the region’s current problems. Many writers within Central Asia have presented ‘strong rule’ as the only, and indeed the natural, way to solve the region’s problems. Such ideas have their clearest expression in the speeches and writings of the regional leadership under the rubric of stability, the fight against radical Islam, inter-ethnic and inter-tribal conflict. In these works, state collapse and civil war in Tajikistan and Afghanistan are linked to democratization and a break with traditions of centralized rule. The leadership of the Central Asian states has thus sought to construct a seamless link between a certain definition of the region’s problems and the use of culturally and historically legitimated forms of authoritarian politics. At the same time, democratization has been discredited in the region itself by a campaign to link it to ‘instability’. In fact, the authoritarian orders that have been constructed in the region do not reflect the needs of ensuring stability and providing the basis for development. The regimes have not served as developmental dictatorships, as has been argued by their proponents. More than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet order, there has been little indication that the prerequisites for an economic modernization of the region have been created. Indeed, the regimes of Central Asia have had precisely the opposite effect — to refute the increasingly popular calls both within and beyond the region for authoritarianism as the first step to economic modernization and liberalization.62 137

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Instead of development, following ten years of independence the Central Asian regimes were characterized by inefficient administrations, widespread corruption, low levels of foreign direct investment (the limited resources that were available were concentrated primarily in raw materials sectors), a process of de-institutionalization across the region as informal networks became the dominant mode of organization, as well as de-industrialization. At the same time, social problems had grown more acute. Politically, the regimes of the region had become more vulnerable as they became entirely dependent on the person of the president. The emergence of diversity within the authoritarian regimes in Central Asia in the first decade of independence suggests, however, that political development in the region can follow various paths. The adoption of liberalizing policies in the early years of independence in the case of Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic established a set of interests and élite alignments that initially served to prevent the creation of the sultanistic politics that quickly developed within their neighbour Uzbekistan. By the late 1990s, however, there was evidence of a convergence of authoritarian forms, indicating that authoritarian rule in the region was being transformed and sustained by new factors; the engagement of key sections of the élite with international capital and political interests, geopolitics and the struggle with terrorism and radical Islam. The authoritarian systems of Central Asia have not, however, achieved equilibrium. The fragility of the authoritarian orders in Central Asia may well offer possibilities to establish a more liberal tradition of politics in the future. The increased level of engagement in the region by the international community following the attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001 has brought with it opportunities and the responsibility to balance geo-political and strategic concerns with support for the development of a more liberal type of politics, which is based on respect for human and minority rights and is capable of offering a genuinely more secure future for the populations of the region. NOTES 1. In 1998 Freedom House identified four former Soviet republics as consolidated autocracies and statist economies: Belarus, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan was categorized as an autocratic state that tolerates only limited opposition, while the Kyrgyz Republic was designated a transitional polity and economy. Nations in Transition: From Change to Permanence (New York: Freedom House, 1998). 2. By 2002, there was little evidence of change in the authoritarian dynamics of the Central Asian states according to Freedom House, although Kazakhstan was now rated a transitional polity — primarily due to policies of economic liberalization. Nations in Transition: From Change to Permanence. 3. Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991) and Francis Fukuyama, ‘The End of History’, National Interest 16 (Summer 1989), pp. 3–18. In contrast to Huntington, who

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4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

identified three historical waves of democratization, Laurence Whitehead sees the process of democratization in Eastern Europe as a ‘fourth wave’. Laurence Whitehead, ‘Three International Dimensions of Democratization’ in Laurence Whitehead (ed.), The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 3–25. Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 310–15. Brown talks of five factors: (1) the supreme authority and unchallengeable hegemony of the Communist Party; (2) a high degree of centralization and discipline within that organization with very narrowly-defined rights of intra-party debate — ‘democratic centralism’: (3) state, or at any rate non-private, ownership of the means of production, with exceptions sometimes made for agriculture, but not for industrial, production; (4) the declared aim of building communism as the ultimate, legitimizing goal; and (5) a sense of belonging to — and, in the Soviet case, of leading — an international Communist movement. Chazan et al. identify neo-patrimonialism in almost all regimes in Africa, but they note differences between administrative-hegemonic, pluralist, party mobilizing, party centralist, personal coercive, populist, and ambiguous regimes. Naomi Chazan, Robert Mortimer, John Ravenhill and Donald Rothchild, Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa (London: Macmillan, 1988), pp. 129–46. Juan J. Linz, ‘Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes’, in F.I. Greenstein and N.W. Polsby, (eds), The Handbook of Political Science, Vol. 3, ‘Macropolitical Theory’ (Reading, MA.: Addison-Welsey, 1975), pp. 175–411. See also Leonardo Morlino, ‘Authoritarianism’ in Anton Bebler and Jim Seroka, (eds), Contemporary Political Systems: Classifications and Typologies (Boulder CO: Lynn Riener, 1990) and Archie Brown, ‘The Study of Totalitarianism and Authoritarianism’ in Jack Hayward, Brian Barry and Archie Brown, (eds), The British Study of Politics in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: The British Academy, in association with Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 345–94, especially the concepts of totalitarianism and authoritarianism, pp. 354–60. For a classification of nondemocratic regimes see Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), Chs 3 and 4. Archie Brown and Jack Gray, (eds), Political Culture and Political Change in Communist States, (London: Macmillan, 1979) Steven White, Political Culture and Soviet Politics (London: Macmillan, 1979), A. Brown, (ed.), Political Culture and Communist Studies (London: Macmillan, 1984). Gabriel. A. Almond, ‘Communism and Political Culture Theory’, Comparative Politics 2 (Jan. 1983), pp. 127–38. Sally N. Cummings, ‘Introduction’, in Sally N. Cummings (ed.), Power and Change in Central Asia (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 16–17. Karl Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957). John Anderson, ‘Elections and Political Development in Central Asia’, Journal of Communist and Transition Politics 4 (Dec. 1997), p. 47. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., p. 47. Huskey identifies ‘a deferential political culture’, along with leadership tactics as responsible for the emergence for an authoritarian political system in Kyrgyzstan. Eugene Huskey, ‘Kyrgyzstan: an Economy of Authoritarianism’ in Cummings, Power and Change in Central Asia, pp. 74–96. Kangas argues that there is little qualitative difference between the political system in contemporary Uzbekistan and the nature of rule in these territories in the pre-Soviet or Soviet period due to the factors of ‘fealty and loyalty’. Roger Kangas, ‘Uzbekistan: the Karimov Presidency — Amir Timur Revisted’, in Cummings, Power and Change in Central Asia, pp. 130–49. Gregory Gleason, The Central Asian States: Discovering Independence (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997), p. 38. Shirin Akiner, Central Asia: Conflict or Stability and Development? (London: Minority Rights Group, 1997) p. 40. Akiner does, however, note that change may be coming

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18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

30.

to the region through a new generation with modern skills and the erosion of traditional culture as a result of the expansion of Western culture. Gleason, The Central Asian States, p. 179. Gregory Gleason, ‘Fealty and Loyalty: Informal Authority Structures in Soviet Asia’, Soviet Studies 4 (1991), pp. 613–28. Nancy Lubin, Central Asians Take Stock: Reform, Corruption, and Identity (United States Institute for Peace) Peaceworks 2 (Feb. 1995). See also Steven Wagner, Public Opinion in Uzbekistan, (Washington, DC: IFES, 1997). Lubin, Central Asians Take Stock, p. v; also pp. 4–5. Ibid., p. 5. In a sophisticated account of the relationship between historical forms and practices in the present, R.D. McChesney argues for the influence of historic forms of legitimation and law rather than some abstract notion of culture as providing the link between past and present. But he notes that Central Asia has been characterized by a struggle between competing forms of legitimation in the past. ‘The future of Central Asia lies, as it always has, in re-establishing legitimate institutional forms. Legitimacy is expressed through the consensus of the governed, or those constituencies of the governed who count, and is formalized in written and unwritten laws and constitutions’. R.D. McChesney, Central Asia: Foundations of Change (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1996), p. 147. McChesney further notes important continuities in the region: ‘Certain symbols of the past were abolished or transformed (e.g. the name of the Communist Party, Marxist-Leninist street and town names, and the Soviet flag) and new symbols adopted in their stead (e.g. new flags, new or revived toponyms, new anthems, new constitutions). But the change was, and is, largely cosmetic and the form and ideology of the old symbols remain. While the name of the Communist Party disappeared, its leaders and members did not. Old cadres adopted new names, especially in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Those who formerly hewed to the party line became the new voices of “democratization”, though economic, political and social structures remained more or less intact, albeit now with no visible Muscovite hand in the background to organize, legitimize, and help pay the bills.’ p. 4. Reuel Hanks, ‘Civil Society and Identity in Central Asia’, in M. Holt Ruffin and Daniel Waugh, (eds), Civil Society in Central Asia (Seattle and London: Center for Civil Society in association with the University of Washington Press, 1999), pp. 158–79. See also Eric W. Sievers, ‘Uzbekistan’s Mahalla: From Soviet to Absolutist Residential Community Associations’, The Journal of International and Comparative Law at Chicago-Kent. 2 (2002), pp. 91–158. RFE/RL Newsline, Part 1 (27 April 1999). RFE/RL Newsline, Part 1 (11 November 2002). Paul Kubicek, ‘Authoritarianism in Central Asia: Curse or Cure’, Third World Quarterly 1 (1998), pp. 29–43. Neil J. Melvin, ‘Patterns of Centre-Regional Relations in Central Asia: The Cases of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan’, Regional and Federal Studies 3 (Autumn 2001), pp. 165–193. The authoritarian label has been applied to a wide variety of political regimes. The role of the military and party-type regimes have received particular attention. In Central Asia, the weak political role of the military and the process of de-institutionalization of the former Communist Party, suggest that these approaches have little to offer for understanding developments in Central Asia. Instead, authors have focused on patrimonialism as a more appropriate framework of analysis for the region. John Ishiyama, ‘Neopatrimonialism and the prospects for democratization in the Central Asian republics’ in Cummings (ed.), Power and Change in Central Asia, pp. 42–58; Paul Brooker, Non-Democratic Regimes: Theory, Government and Politics (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), pp 52–58; Anna Matveeva, ‘Democratization, Legitimacy and Political Change in Central Asia’, International Affairs 1 (Jan. 1999), pp. 23–44. ‘The ideal type of a contemporary sultanistic regime can be constructed as follows: It is based on personal rulership, but loyalty to the ruler is motivated not by his

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31.

32.

33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43. 44.

embodying or articulating an ideology, nor by a unique personal mission, nor by any charismatic qualities, but by a mixture of fear and rewards to his collaborators. The ruler exercises his power without restraint, at his own discretion and above all unencumbered by rules or by any commitment to an ideology or value system. The binding norms and relations of bureaucratic administration are constantly subverted by arbitrary personal decisions of the ruler, which he does not feel constrained to justify in ideological terms. As a result corruption reigns supreme at all levels of society. The staff of such a ruler is constituted not by an establishment with distinctive career lines, like a bureaucratic army or a civil service, recruited based on more or less universal criteria, but largely by people chosen directly by the ruler. Among them we very often find members of his family, friends, business associates, or individuals directly involved in using violence to sustain the regime. Their position derives from their purely personal submission to the ruler, and their position of authority in society derives merely from this relation. The ruler and his associates do not represent any class or corporate interests. Although such regimes can in many ways be modern, what characterizes them is the weakness of traditional and legal-rational legitimation and the lack of ideological justification.’ H. E. Chehabi and Juan J. Linz, ‘A Theory of Sultanism I: A Type of Nondemocratic Rule’ in H. E. Chehabi and Juan Linz, (eds), Sultanistic Regimes (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998) p. 7. Olcott and Ottaway suggest that Kazakhstan should be considered as a ‘semiauthoritarian’ regime. Although they note that Kazakhstan is undergoing a process of ‘decay’ towards ‘full-fledged authoritarianism’. Martha Brill Olcott and Marina S. Ottaway, The Challenge of Semi-Authoritarianism (Carnegie Endowment for Peace Working Papers, No. 7, 1999). Neil Melvin, Russians Beyond Russia (London: Pinter, 1995) and Neil J. Melvin, ‘Elites of North-Eastern Kazakhstan in a New Geopolitical Context, 1989–95’, in Richard Sakwa (ed.), The Experience of Democratization in Eastern Europe (London: Macmillan, 1999), pp. 91–117. Edward Schatz, ‘The Politics of Multiple Identities: Lineage and Ethnicity in Kazakhstan’, Europe-Asia Studies 3 (2000), pp. 489–506. Sally N. Cummings, The Dynamics of Centre-Periphery Relations in Kazakhstan (London: RIIA, 2000). In November 2001, a political struggle involving the President’s son-in-law became the basis for the emergence of a new political movement led by Ghalymzhan Zhaqiyanov, the governor of Pavlodar region, and a number of other technocratic figures. The movement demanded greater regime transparency. In 2002, the leaders of the movement were jailed for alleged financial irregularities. Michael Denison ‘Still Only Shallow Emerging New Political Networks and Strategies in Kazakhstan’, Central Asia–Caucasus Analyst (Wednesday/August 28, 2002). John Anderson, Kyrgyzstan: Central Asia’s Island of Democracy? (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1999). Eugene Huskey, ‘Kyrgyzstan: an Economy of Authoritarianism’, pp. 84. Melvin, ‘Patterns of Centre-Regional Relations in Central Asia’, pp. 178–83. Alisher Khamidov, ‘Kyrgyzstan: Organized Opposition and Civil Unrest’ Eurasianet.org (12 Dec. 2002). Demian Vaisman, ‘Regionalism and Clan Loyalty in the Political Life of Uzbekistan’, in Yaacov Ro’i, (ed.), Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies, (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1995), pp. 105–22. Melvin, ‘Patterns of Centre-Regional Relations in Central Asia’, pp. 183–6. Martha Brill Olcott, ‘Democratization and the Growth of Political Participation in Kazakhstan’, in Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott (eds), Conflict, Cleavage, and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 216–18. Eric Johnson with Martha Olcott and Robert Horvitz, The Media in Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan (Internews: April 1994), pp. 8–13. Oleg Katsiev ‘Prospects for Development of an Independent Media in Kazakhstan’, in Ruffin and Waugh, (eds), Civil Society in Central Asia, pp. 122–34.

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45. Neil J. Melvin, Uzbekistan: Transition to Authoritarianism on the Silk Road (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000), Ch. 3. For an account of the problems of reforming the political and economic system in Uzbekistan see International Crisis Group, Uzbekistan’s Reform Program: Illusion or Reality? (Osh/Brussels: February 2003) Chs 3 and 4. 46. Melvin, Russians Beyond Russia and Melvin, ‘Elites of North-eastern Kazakhstan in a New Geopolitical Context, 1989–95’, pp. 91–117. 47. Martha Brill Olcott has suggested that the politicization of ethnicity in the late 1980s, and concerns about managing inter-ethnic issues in the country, served to promote a more sophisticated approach to democratization amongst the leadership of Kazakhstan. Olcott, ‘Democratization and the Growth of Political Participation in Kazakhstan’, p. 218. 48. Eugene Huskey, ‘Kyrgyzstan: an Economy of Authoritarianism’, p. 76. 49. Eugene Huskey, ‘Kyrgyzstan: The Fate of Political Liberalization’ in Dawisha and Parrott, Conflict, Cleavage, and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus, p. 254. 50. These are the official figures. They do not include the far larger number of Tajiks who were forced to register as Uzbeks in the 1926 census and their descendants, who are far more numerous. 51. Sally N. Cummings, ‘Kazakhstan: an Uneasy Relationship — Power and Authority in the Nazarbayev Regime’ in Cummings, Power and Change in Central Asia, pp. 59–73. 52. Gleason, The Central Asian States, Ch. 4. 53. Huskey, ‘Kyrgyzstan’, p. 257–8. 54. In the current volume, Vladimir Khanin outlines the ways in which traditional modes of social political order in Kyrgyzstan in the form of ethnic and clan alignments and organization have been transformed by the regime and the ways in which the new configurations permeate the system. 55. Roger D. Kangas, ‘Uzbekistan: the Karimov presidency — Amir Timur revisted’, in Cummings, Power and Change in Central Asia, pp. 137–45. 56. Steven Sabol, ‘The Creation of Soviet Central Asia: the 1924 National Delimitation’, Central Asian Survey 2 (1995), pp. 225–41. 57. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, Chap. 18. 58. Melvin, ‘Elites of North-eastern Kazakhstan in a New Geopolitical Context, 1989–95’, pp. 96–101. 59. Melvin, Uzbekistan, Ch. 2. 60. William Fierman, ‘Political Development in Uzbekistan: Democratization?’ in Dawisha and Parrott, (eds), Conflict, Cleavage, and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus, p. 383. 61. Starr identifies six key arguments that are used to suggest that civil society can not develop in Central Asia. He believes, however, that these arguments do not preclude the emergence of civil society. He points to the high levels of literacy and education in Central Asia (especially for women) and also the integration of the region into international channels of communication as factors to promote liberalization. Starr also highlights a history in the region that is often neglected in contemporary analysis and that could be used to legitimate the strengthening of civil society in Central Asia. Thus, while local rulers dominated in the oasis settlements, there was also a tradition of guilds and independent associations of artisans in the region that were subsequently suppressed by the Soviet authorities. S. Fredrick Starr, ‘Civil Society in Central Asia’ in Ruffin and Waugh, eds., Civil Society in Central Asia, p. 31. 62. Kubicek, ‘Authoritarianism in Central Asia: Curse or Cure’, pp. 29–43.

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8 The Formation of Political Parties and Movements in Central Asia VLADIMIR BABAK In the pre-Soviet era the social status of an individual, among the nomadic Kazakhs, Turkmen and Kyrgyz, was determined almost solely by the place occupied by his tribe in the hierarchy of a specific horde and by his own status within that tribe. This meant that even where intra-horde or intra-tribal traditions contained elements of a protodemocratic nature, the ultimate political authority was anything but democratic.1 The primarily sedentary peoples of the region — the Uzbeks and Tajiks — who since the Middle Ages had lived under rigidly despotic, centralized regimes, were familiar only with the rudimentary forms of democracy which existed, for instance, in the mahalla.2 The period of Soviet rule with its single-party dictatorship, contributed little or nothing to the introduction of democratic social structures or to the inculcation of democratic values in the public mind. During the Soviet era, everyday political life conformed not to the hazily formulated, formally democratic constitutions of the USSR and the union republics, but to the political realities of a totalitarian regime. These realities included the dictatorship of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which actually performed the state’s functions; the semi-feudal kolkhoz system; and the punitive apparatus of the security organs and a judicial system that together kept not only the actions of individuals, but even their intentions, under close observation. In the first stage of democratization, the absence of democratic institutions that would in fact guarantee human rights, including the right of assembly, and the persecution of dissidents, hampered the development of political activism and the creation of parties and movements whose activity might challenge the regime’s ideology. Thus, when the process of forming democratic political movements and parties began in the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, it did so on a very fundamental level, with the creation of discussion clubs, political education circles, and other informal organizations. This was even more conspicuous in Central Asia, where regional interests were of primary importance in the creation of the early clubs. 143

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Existing rivalries between clans and families, further aggravated by the antagonism between regional élites and their struggle for power in the republican capital, also had an impact on the process of forming political movements and parties. The priority of clan and regional interests led to the creation of political organizations and parties — and even party blocs — which served the interests of local élites rather than the common interests of the nation. This was manifest in the civil war of the early 1990s in Tajikistan where the confrontation between the regional élites of the northern and southern parts of the country led to the crystallization of blocs in which political parties and organizations with irreconcilable political views, such as the Communists and Islamists, supported the same side at various stages of the conflict. The level of backing for a political party was based less on the party’s ideology than on regional loyalties or personal ties to the party leadership.3 In other words, a leader’s allegiance to a specific clan or his advocating the interests of a specific region were more important than his convictions. POLITICAL CLUBS AND INFORMAL ASSOCIATIONS The first politicized grass-roots organizations stimulated by perestroika and glasnost, appeared in the Central Asian republics somewhat later and at a slower pace than elsewhere in the Soviet Union. With the mounting socio-economic crisis and the weakening of party control, ‘dissident’ intellectuals began to openly express their opinions on the situation and on ways to improve it, diverging increasingly from the official line. Sensing a threat in such discussions, the authorities tried to contain political tempers and control the activity of the clubs by planting agents within them and, by creating their own discussion clubs under the aegis of the Komsomol, especially among students. These ‘domesticated’ clubs made their own contribution to the development of political consciousness and soon overstepped the limits initially set for them. The Ru ba Ru club in Tajikistan provides an example of these early youth clubs. It was formed at the end of 1988 by a group of young people headed by Jumahon Isoev, a lecturer at Dushanbe University. The club organized meetings with deputies of the republican Supreme Soviet, members of the government and state officials, with whom they conducted dialogues. Formally, the club was not a political organization, but these exchanges of opinion inevitably acquired a political colouring.4 In spring 1987 the Demos discussion club in Frunze, in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, was created under the aegis of the editorial board of Komsomolets Kirgizii, the Komsomol newspaper. It was the first socalled informal organization in Kyrgyzstan and consisted of about 40 people, mostly young Russian-speaking intellectuals of various ethnic origins. The newspaper published reviews of the discussions held at the club. The club members were criticized by the authorities for their 144

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attempts to discuss the idea of a Kyrgyzstan Popular Front. In 1989 the club split up. About the same time, another student political grouping, Zamandash, functioned under the aegis of the chair of philosophy at the Kyrgyz State University in Frunze.5 This first stage of development continued for nearly two years (from spring 1987 to the end of 1989). In the second stage these clubs were replaced by openly politicized organizations, such as the Memorial Society created in Moscow in August 1988. The Memorial Society’s goals were to rehabilitate the victims of the Stalinist repression, to render aid to the survivors and relatives of those who perished, and to fight against the remnants of totalitarianism in Soviet society. The first Memorial groups in Central Asia were created in Kazakhstan — in Tselinograd (now Astana) and Alma-Ata in December 1988. The authorities tried to split the organization by creating a parallel formation, Adilet, with the same proclaimed goals. Their aim was to sow discord among the members of Memorial, which now comprised mostly politicized intellectuals of European origin, and those of Adilet, who were mainly representatives of the titular nation. While the political activity of the Russian and russophone population manifested itself initially in the formation of political clubs, the younger generation of the titular nationality expressed its protest through mass demonstrations (Alma Ata, December 1986), or by seizure of land (Frunze, June 1989 and Osh, May 1990). At the beginning of 1990 the apparatus of the still ruling Communist Party of Kazakhstan initiated the creation of the Kazakh Tili (language) society with branches throughout the entire territory of the republic; within a number of months many national youth movements arose under its aegis. The largest such organization outside Alma-Ata was the Union of Independent Kazakh Youth in Shymkent (Chimkent). In summer 1990 young Kazakhs who had begun mass seizures of land for settlement in Alma-Ata, formed the Shanyrak, Daryn and Altyn Besik societies. Mass land seizures by Kyrgyz youth also took place in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Frunze, in the beginning of 1989. The Ashar association was created, whose goal was to render aid to these squatters; it consisted of more than 5,000 families and became an all-republican organization. The politicized wing of this association later spawned the Ashar movement and the Democratic Kyrgyzstan Movement (the DDK), both of which had a national revivalist orientation.6 In March–April 1990, two new national democratic associations, Asaba and Atuulduk Demilge (Civil Initiative), appeared and a ‘democratic union’ was created in JalalAbad. Numerous organizations of national democratic orientation began to appear throughout the republic.7 ECOLOGICAL MOVEMENTS Organizations and movements for the protection of the environment appeared in the Central Asian republics in tandem with other regions of the USSR. They were rapidly politicized. Many who joined these 145

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movements were interested in a platform from which to disseminate opposition ideas rather than in actual ecological problems. Indeed, for all their importance, ecological problems often served as a ‘smokescreen’, masking the manifestly political character of the new public organizations with the politically innocuous image of protectors of the environment. The ecological label gave these movements a chance to obtain legal status at a time when any political activity was still subject to rigid control. Although the ubiquitous security organs closely observed the activities of all organizations, this camouflage initially made it possible for their activists to avoid serious trouble. In Kazakhstan the first ecological organizations appeared as early as 1987. That summer in Pavlodar a group was created that fought on ecological grounds against the construction in the city of a pharmaceutical factory. In August of the same year a public association, Ekologicheskaia Initsiativa, was created in Alma-Ata under the aegis of the local society for environmental protection, which was followed in November by a public committee set up to deal with the problems of Lake Balkhash and the Aral Sea.8 During the next year, the ‘green movement’ in the republic continued to gather strength, and ecological organizations were formed in Taldy-Kurgan, Jambul and Shymkent. In June 1988, all ecological organizations in Alma-Ata merged into the socalled Green Front.9 Unlike the political clubs, ecologists did not limit themselves to discussion, but soon moved on to taking action, demanding that the authorities rescind certain economic measures, and often putting forward distinctly political claims. In October 1988, activists of the Green Front in Kazakhstan’s capital announced the formation of the Alma-Ata Popular Front. Similar ecological organizations appeared in other republics of the region. In August 1988, the Ekolog group was established in Frunze, and soon after, the Public Committee for the Salvation of Lake Issyk-Kul was set up under the aegis of the Union of Kyrgyz Writers; a ‘green movement’ also surfaced in the Osh region.10 As a rule, these organizations were rather small in size (for example, the Alma-Ata Popular Front had only 30 members). The most important role in the public and political life of all Central Asia was probably played by the Nevada-Semipalatinsk ecological antinuclear movement, which became a broad international association in both its scope and goals. It declared its main purpose to be the elimination of nuclear weapons and wars, and the ecological and socioeconomic rehabilitation of regions that had suffered from nuclear testing and its harmful consequences. However, its actual aims were, from the outset, of a clearly political character, since the movement opposed all forms of violence and strife, whether military, ideological, religious or ethnic. In Kazakhstan, the movement was headed by the popular writer and political figure Olzhas Suleymenov, which enhanced the movement’s appeal. On 28 February 1989, Nevada-Semipalatinsk became the first political organization officially registered by the 146

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Ministry of Justice in the Kazakh SSR republic. In the course of time, the movement formed the basis for one of the largest centrist political parties in independent Kazakhstan, the People’s Congress of Kazakhstan (PCK). POLITICAL MOVEMENTS AND NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTIES The late 1980s and the early 1990s were marked by the increasing popularity of social-democratic ideas in the USSR.11 These notions also found adherents in the Central Asian republics and representatives from Uzbekistan were among those present at the founding convention in Moscow of the All-Union Social Democratic Association on 13–14 January 1990. The first social-democratic groups and associations that appeared in the Central Asian states during this period later generated social democratic parties. In December 1989 the Union of Social Democrats was formed in Kazakhstan among the ranks of the Memorial Society. In June this Union, in reality a small group of 16 activists, was admitted into the All-Union Social Democratic Association. A group called Social Democrats of Kirgiziia was created in June 1990. Consisting of 20 to 25 people, mostly Russian-speaking intellectuals, it also registered as a regional branch of the All-Union SocialDemocratic Association. The Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan was created in 1993. The USSR law on public association promulgated on 1 January 1991, granted political organizations legal status as such, and upon registering the newly formed political parties, acquired a status formally equal to that of the CPSU. In the spirit of this law, similar republican laws were adopted in the Central Asian republics, at least formally legalizing political pluralism. This legislation further encouraged the formation of political organizations. In four of the five Central Asian countries — the exception being Kyrgyzstan — the old leadership remained in power, the former Communist Party first secretaries becoming presidents. 12 These erstwhile representatives of central authoritarian rule did not attempt to democratize political life in their republic, fearing that doing so would threaten their positions. However, in order to create a favourable international image, to receive financial, technological and other aid from the West, and to join the UN, the OECD and other prestigious international organizations, they indulged the existence of political parties and organizations, as long as their platforms and the nature of their activity were in line with those of the ruling party and were prepared to condone the president’s authoritarian regime. The region’s rulers were categorically opposed to any real political diversity and any legalized opposition, placing endless obstacles in the path of such parties and free mass media. Consequently, the laws on political parties and public organizations adopted in the post-Soviet countries of Central Asia set stringent limits on the appearance of new political parties by imposing very restrictive 147

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and often arbitrary conditions for registration. The first prerequisite was a relatively high initial membership. For instance, the June 1991 Law on Public Organizations adopted in Kazakhstan required that a party applying for registration should have no fewer than 3,000 members. The law in Uzbekistan set the same quota for registration. In Turkmenistan the quota was 1,000. The regimes obviously counted on the fact that it would be difficult to find significant numbers of people who would be ready to openly declare themselves oppositionists. Nor was the size of membership the sole restriction. In Turkmenistan, for instance, a new organization was obliged to register its charter, which formulated its goals and tasks, conditions of membership and procedure for amending the rules, with the Ministry of Justice. In addition, an organization could not be registered if another organization bearing the same name had already been listed. This rule was intended to restrict the choice of attractive-sounding names, such as ‘democratic party’ or ‘popular democratic party’. In Turkmenistan the authorities refused to register an opposition Democratic Party under the pretext that the name had already been assumed by the ruling former Communist Party. Similar rules existed in other republics of the region.13 Legislation in Kazakhstan, as well as in other former Soviet Central Asian republics, stipulated that organizations which infringed on ‘society’s health and moral foundations’ were to be outlawed. But the law failed to specify what constituted ‘society’s health and moral foundations’, thus giving the authorities a free hand in considering applications for registration. The law gave the authorities the right to be fully informed of the sources of an organization’s finances, as well as the activities of any leader or member even after registration. Any amendments to the charter or rules could necessitate re-registration of the organization within the same month.14 The activity of any party or public organization that failed to register was prohibited by law. In 1995 the Kazakhstan authorities imposed a new set of restrictions on public organizations. A presidential decree of 17 March 1995 made punishable not only the creation of, but also participation in, non-registered public associations, as well as organizations whose activities had been suspended or banned. An additional article (63-3) was added to the criminal code, entitled ‘Creation or Participation in Illegal Public Associations and Militias’.15 Although the 1996 Law on Public Associations adopted in Kazakhstan16 declared freedom of (registered) association, the registering bodies (belonging to the Ministry of Justice) were authorized to supervise the activities of all associations. In particular, they acquired the right to suspend the activity of an association if they decided that it had strayed from its own stated rules and goals, irrespective of whether or not this activity violated the country’s constitution and existing legislation. A similar situation existed in other states of the region. In this way, the laws on public associations in Central Asia were designed to 148

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drastically limit opportunities for the creation of unwelcome opposition parties and movements. During the extensive period in which the states of the region were either colonies of the Russian Empire or Soviet republics totally dependent on the all-union centre, large-scale migration to Central Asia of Russians and Russian speakers took place. In addition, during the Soviet era, the region became a place of exile for entire ethnic groups from various parts of the country. These artificial demographic changes, which transformed the population of the republics in question into multi-ethnic formations, had serious consequences in various social spheres. A considerable part of the population was composed of nonindigenous nationalities. The use of the titular national languages dwindled. These factors made their imprint on the process of formation of political movements and parties in Central Asia, and inevitably gave a boost to the slogan of national revival. The new political situation led to the establishment in these republics of political parties of a ‘democratic nationalist’ leaning, whose programs demanded not only the abolition of totalitarianism and the transition to democratic principles in the construction of the new societies, but also preferential treatment for the titular nationality and recognition of the titular language as the sole official tongue. The more radical nationalists even demanded that non-indigenous ethnic groups, Russians and other russophones (not only Slavs, but also Germans, Koreans, Greeks and others), be expelled from their countries. Although these parties called themselves national democrats, their demands for privileges for the titular population and even more so for the expulsion of the non-indigenous population were incompatible with democratic principles. This contradiction can be explained by the perception commonly held by the national political élite and representatives of the national intelligentsia that their people had been oppressed by the Soviet regime, and therefore they were now attempting to gain leading political and economic positions in their countries through nationalist parties such as these. The Zheltoksan Public Committee was one such political organization. It was created in 1989 by a group of participants in the December 1986 riots in Alma-Ata, who had subsequently suffered persecution by the authorities. They initially demanded only the rehabilitation of the victims of the riots, including financial compensation and social benefits. Within a short time, the Zheltoksan National Democratic Party, which stood primarily for the protection of the interests of Kazakhs, came into being. The Azat Civil Movement of Kazakhstan, created in July 1990, was similar in character.17 At first, its formal demands did not go beyond the usual claims of the Kazakh political élite — recognition of the republic’s sovereignty, the adoption of a constitution and other attributes of independence, the restoration of original Kazakh toponyms, and the creation of an independent banking and financial system. Azat’s first 149

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co-chairmen were Marat Chormanov, a former official of the Alma-Ata City Party Committee (gorkom) and Mikhail Isinaliyev, a former minister of foreign affairs. However, in 1994, when the well-known dissident Hasen Kozha-Ahmet — hitherto leader of Zheltoksan — took over as Azat’s leader, the movement became more radical and overtly oppositionist. It blamed the authorities for the difficult situation of the predominantly Kazakh rural population, for the decline of the Kazakh language, and for widespread corruption. The Republican Party fell into the same category. It assumed a radical stance on inter-ethnic relations. Its leadership believed that the interests of the Kazakhs should take precedence over those of the republic’s other nationalities. The social base of these parties was rather narrow, and they never attained a politically meaningful membership. As soon as their main proclaimed goal — the attainment of independence — was achieved, their activity, to a certain degree, became obsolete and they switched to criticizing the government’s social policy. Internal strife, and the ultimate split in Zheltoksan, did not enhance their popularity. The Alash party, established in Kazakhstan in 1990, can also be classified as a radical party of nationalist character. It derived its name from the nationalist Alash party, which existed at the beginning of the twentieth century in the Kazakh and Kyrgyz regions of the Russian Empire and championed the interests of the indigenous population of Turkestan and the steppe. In adopting the name Alash, the party leaders sought to emphasize the continuity and relevance of the idea of national revival based on the principles of Islam, reflecting the goals of the radical national element of society. Its slogans were supported primarily by marginal sections of the native population, especially among the youth.18 In Kyrgyzstan, the first parties were oriented towards problems specific to the titular nation. Following the period of club activity, the Ashar Voluntary Movement was established in 1989 (see above), becoming one of the first nationalist political organizations. Its social base consisted mostly of young people of Kyrgyz origin from rural areas who had settled in Kyrgyzstan’s towns and cities. The movement concentrated its efforts on resolving problems of land and housing. On some issues the movement took an extremely radical stand. For instance, in 1991, when the Land Code was being discussed in the republican Supreme Soviet, the movement called for the insertion of a clause stipulating that land in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan belonged historically to the Kyrgyz people. The movement also strove to grant the indigenous population a series of other privileges.19 Another similar organization was the regional Osh-Aimagy movement created in Osh in 1989 and consisting mostly of young Kyrgyz from the southern regions of the republic. The movement took a radical stand on granting privileges to the titular population as a means of resolving socio-economic issues, and did not exclude the 150

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option of taking up arms in order to achieve their goals. Their radicalism manifested itself during the bloody conflict in June 1990 that erupted in Osh as a result of the sense of deprivation on the part of the Kyrgyz, especially with regard to land.20 The Kyrgyzstan national democratic movement Asaba (see above), proclaimed itself to be a party of national revival. The movement set itself the goals of democratizing public life, improving socio-economic conditions, above all, those of the native population, and forming an indigenous working class. Its program emphasized the development of the agrarian sector, in which most of the native population were employed; in particular it stipulated the introduction of private land ownership. The party also stood for ‘protection of the language, culture, gene pool, environment and statehood’ of the Kyrgyz people.21 The Erkyn Kyrgyzstan Democratic Party, whose members were mostly rural residents, was another such party. Along with demands for national sovereignty and the democratization of Kyrgyz society, the program of this party stipulated the goal of consolidating the national economy, in particular the promotion of native entrepreneurship. All these parties were characterized by their small membership (usually just several hundred), their mono-ethnic composition and the priority of promoting the interests of the titular nation. In Tajikistan, the secular national democratic trend was represented mainly by the Rastokhez movement, established in 1989, and by the Democratic Party of Tajikistan, which split from Rastokhez. Initially, the Democratic Party had many Russian and other russophone members, representing, in particular, the technical intelligentsia. Nevertheless, secular nationalism became its ideology. The La’li Badakhshon regional organization, registered on 30 May 1991 and representing the interests of the population of Badakhshon, represented similar views. Rastokhez consisted mainly of native intelligentsia who believed that the Tajik people were in danger of losing their cultural identity and appealed for a cultural renaissance. The most important condition for cultural revival was, in their view, the rehabilitation of the Tajik language and its usage in all spheres of life. Like many other movements of a similar nature, Rastokhez was not a monolithic organization, yet, the nationalist component prevailed over the democratic one in the worldview of many of its members.22 The pivotal tenets of Rastokhez’s nationalists were pan-Iranism and a glorification of the ancient Iranian culture. The ideologues of the movement viewed the inclusion of the two ancient Tajik cultural centres, Bukhara and Samarkand, in Uzbekistan in the 1920s as a grave injustice. They maintained that since in ancient times Central Asia was the region of settlement of Iranian tribes, Tajikistan should orient itself towards the related states of Iran and Afghanistan rather than towards the neighbouring Turkic-speaking countries of Soviet Central Asia. The social-democratic aims of both Rastokhez and the Democratic Party were somewhat amorphous. The Democratic Party often made 151

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declarations in favour of market reforms and even volunteered to help in developing a theoretical basis and formulating appropriate draft laws for such reforms. The party received financial support from the so-called new businessmen. On the whole, the secular nationalist parties in Tajikistan reflected the aspiration of nationalist elements to occupy a prominent position in society, displacing the former élite from its economic and political positions. The nationalist slogans were intended to comprise a consolidating factor in their struggle for power. Their relative popularity may be seen from an opinion poll conducted in 1992. Accordingly, the DPT was supported by 27.7 per cent of engineers and technicians, 23.3 per cent of students and 10.8 per cent of state officials. However, the party did not receive much backing among workers and peasants (only 7.8 per cent of industrial workers and 5.9 per cent of peasants).23 In Uzbekistan the Birlik national movement, founded in November 1988, had a national democratic orientation. Its program was based on general democratic principles of social life and slogans of an Uzbek national revival. The movement consisted almost exclusively of ethnic Uzbeks. The early stages of its activity, Birlik’s main demand was that Uzbek be given the status of official language. Birlik’s program proclaimed the revival of Uzbekistan’s cultural heritage and the expansion of cultural and other links with ethnic Uzbeks living in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and other countries. It also included demands to adopt a special government program designed systematically to increase the percentage of Uzbeks in the blue collar sector. The Birlik leadership made wide use of mass demonstrations and pickets, which aggravated the Uzbek authorities. In 1990 there was a split in Birlik, part of its members creating a new national-democratic party, Erk. Birlik was permitted to register only in November 1991, but it was banned again just a year later, in December 1992. It tried to reregister in 1993 but permission was denied by the authorities.24 RUSSOPHONE POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS The implementation of the idea of national revival, which was attractive for most people of the region’s titular nationalities, had serious consequences for interethnic relations. In practice, it often meant the replacement of officials in the upper and middle echelons of power with those belonging to the titular nationality, and discrimination of other ethnic groups, specifically Russians and other russophones, chiefly under the pretext of their lack of knowledge of the national state language. This, naturally, engendered resistance from the Russianspeaking sector of the population, which also began to form political organizations and movements for the defence of its rights. This process took place in all the republics of the region with varying intensity, and most visibly in Kazakhstan, where ethnic Russians comprised well over 30 per cent of the population, and where Russian-speakers actually constituted half of the population at the end of the Soviet period.25 152

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Political organizations appeared which were devoted to preventing discrimination on grounds of language, and lobbying for resolutions which would stop mass emigration from the republic. Equality of all peoples within the republic, recognition of Russian as the second official language, and granting the Russians the right to hold dual (i.e., Kazakh and Russian) citizenship became the main demands of organizations such as the Interethnic Edinstvo Movement, the Russian Community Organization (Russkaia obshchina) and the republican Lad Slav Movement. Cossack organizations also emerged, a considerable Cossack population having inhabited Kazakhstan since tsarist times. In a number of oblasts Cossack organizations of varying political orientation were established. The largest were the Society of Assistance to the Semirech’e Cossacks (Obshchestvo sodeistviia kazakam Semirech’ia) in the AlmaAta and Taldy-Kurgan Oblasts, the Siberian Brotherhood of the Gor’kaia Liniia Cossacks (Sibirskoe zemliachestvo kazakov Gor’koi linii) in Petropavlovsk, 26 the Upper Irtysh Cossack Community of Old Believers (Verkhne-Irtyshskaia staroobriadcheskaia kazach’ia obshchina) in UstKamenogorsk and others.27 Their demands included more than just the revival of Cossack culture and traditions. Some went so far as to demand the secession of certain oblasts from Kazakhstan and the establishment of a South Siberian Republic with the view of its later incorporation into Russia. Some leaders even threatened acts of civil disobedience and appeals to the Russian president for help. Similar organizations for protecting Russians and Russian-speakers also appeared in other Central Asian republics. The Slav Foundation (Slavianskii fond) was established in Frunze in 1990. At about the same time the Slav Diaspora (Slavianskaia diaspora) and a Cossack Centre appeared in Kyrgyzstan. The Slav Diaspora was especially active in Jalal-Abad Oblast, from which many non-natives were emigrating. In spring 1989 the International Union of the Peoples of Uzbekistan (Intersoiuz narodov Uzbekistana) association was established. Intersoiuz consisted mainly of Russian-speaking white and blue-collar workers in Tashkent’s industrial enterprises, and members of the technical and artistic intelligentsia. It declared itself an independent public organization and vowed to fight against all forms of nationalism, chauvinism, bureaucratization and corruption. It sought to promote equality of all citizens of the republic, irrespective of their ethnic origin, race, language and religion, and rallied for the implementation of all the provisions of the International Declaration of Human Rights. The organization warned that declaring Uzbek the only state language at the expense of other languages, in particular Russian, would have negative consequences, which would outweigh all the positive strides (free education, health care, social security, inexpensive public transport, housing, etc.) made in Uzbekistan during the Soviet era.28 The republican authorities were not favourably inclined towards Intersoiuz and, in September 1991, the organization announced its self-dissolution. 153

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In response to the increasing influence of nationalist parties and movements, political organizations emerged which sought to protect not just the Russians and the Russian speaking population, but other ethnic groups, especially those which found themselves discriminated minorities in their own native territories following the National Delimitation in Central Asia carried out by the Bolsheviks in the 1920s. In this context the Saikal Society (later renamed Samarkand), was established in 1989 in Samarkand, a city which still retained a large Tajik population. Its declared aim was the struggle to fight discrimination against Uzbekistan’s Tajik population. The Tajik national society Oftobi Sogdien (The Sun of Sogdian) was likewise created in another of Uzbekistan’s cities with a very large percentage of ethnic Tajiks, Bukhara.29 In the Osh and Jalal-Abad oblasts of Kyrgyzstan, which had large Uzbek populations, Uzbek national cultural centres were set up. Many political parties and movements were denied registration on the basis of the laws on public organizations adopted in the Central Asian states (see above). For instance, in Kazakhstan, in the period from June 1991 up to early 1995, 23 public and 7 religious organizations were denied registration.30 Among these were the Azat National Democratic Party and the Alash Party. The decision regarding the activity of the Society of Assistance to the Semirech’e Cossacks was held up for half a year. In Uzbekistan, Birlik, Erk, the Islamic Renaissance Party and other religious political organizations were banned (Birlik in 1992, Erk in 1993 and the IRP was never permitted to register). In 1993, shortly after Rahmonov’s advent to power in Tajikistan (in late 1992), the Islamic Renaissance Party, the Democratic Party and Rastokhez were banned and went underground or into exile. The Turkmen authorities banned the Agzybirlik (Unity) Popular Front created in 1989 by a small group of Turkmen intellectuals, after functioning for only four months.31 ISLAMIC POLITICAL PARTIES AND ORGANIZATIONS Islam, the region’s dominant religion, exerted a strong influence on the process of forming political parties and movements. This was especially salient following the Islamic revolution in neighbouring Iran, that catalyzed the politicization of Islam throughout the Muslim world. The 1980s saw an Islamic renaissance in Soviet Central Asia. After decades of ‘semi-legal’ existence, Islam began once again to operate openly and regained its historical role as a component in the social and political life of the peoples of the region. According to one Kazakh scholar, ‘the stability of religious traditions, their direct or indirect influence on politics, is a reality of contemporary [Central Asian] societies. This makes it possible to speak of the phenomenon of political Islam as an integral factor of the political reality in many countries of the Muslim East.’32 Islam actually became an overt political force in the struggle for power. Its improved legal status in the countries of Central Asia and its enhanced political activism coincided with the catastrophic deterioration of the socio-economic situation and the dramatic decrease in the already 154

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low living standards of the local population. These circumstances provided fertile soil for Islamic propaganda. Striving to increase their influence in society, many Islamic leaders resorted to political methods of struggle. A group of Islamic radicals called for the establishment of an Islamic state in Uzbekistan’s sector of the Fergana Valley in 1992. At the same time, Islamic activists sought to inculcate into the minds of the population an identification between the idea of restoring Islamic traditions, law and customs and the struggle for national revival. The introduction of the Islamic factor into the political arena led to the rise of Islamic political organizations, parties and movements (legalized in Tajikistan, but clandestine in all the other states). The constituent congress of the All-Union Islamic Renaissance Party was held in 1990 in the southern Russian city of Astrakhan. In Uzbekistan at about the same time, along with the local branch of this party, the Adolat movement and the Islamic Party of Turkestan, Islom Loshkarlari (the Warriors of Islam), were established. The Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami party (The Party of Islamic Independence) has also been very active in disseminating its ideology. It distributed, in Uzbek translation, large quantities of Islamic literature sent from Arab countries. By the middle of the 1990s other radical Islamic organizations, such as Hizballa and Akramiyya were also operating clandestinely in Uzbekistan.33 In Tajikistan, the Islamists achieved even more. They not only succeeded in creating and registering the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, but in May 1992 their representatives were admitted into the country’s coalition government. At the end of 1993 in exile in the Afghan province of Takhor, the Islamic political organizations were transformed into the Islamic Renaissance Movement of Tajikistan. According to various estimates, its membership numbered anywhere from 8,000 to 15,000.34 Alash, although nominally not a religious party, propagated Islamic traditions and values in Kazakhstan in order to achieve its nationalist goals.35 A politicized Islamic Cultural Centre was set up in Kyrgyzstan. Only in Turkmenistan, where the authorities placed the activities of religious figures under strict control from the very start, were Islamists unable to create any political organization. In this way, for a considerable part of the population who were not very well-versed in political issues, the re-establishment of Islamic traditions in everyday life became a symbol of national revival. They considered the activity of Islamic political organizations to be sanctified by Allah himself, making these organizations very attractive in the eyes of the less educated strata, especially in rural areas. The official authorities, for their part, developed a manifestly dichotomous attitude towards Islam. On the one hand, they were aware of the adherence of the majority of the population to Islam and strove to use this factor to consolidate the Muslim part of the population in their countries. This explains various public demonstrations of respect for Islam, especially in the very early stages of independence: 155

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for instance, the leaders made the hajj to Islam’s holy places in Mecca and Medina, and the Uzbek leader, Islam Karimov, while insisting on the secular character of his country, took the presidential oath on the Qur’an. These gestures were made for both internal and external consumption, since the new Muslim states felt a need to curry favour with other Muslim leaders, especially the financial and political élites of the Gulf countries. On the other hand, the authorities considered Islamic political activism a threat to their regimes. The example of Tajikistan, where the Islamic Renaissance Party was legalized and the alliance of the democrats and Islamists became involved in a bloody civil war, alarmed the leaders of the other countries in the region. These fears were enhanced by events such as the Islamic demonstrations in Namangan in late 1991 and early 199236 and even more so by the rise of Taliban radicals in neighbouring Afghanistan. In response to these developments, the political leaders of the Central Asian successor states kept religious organizations under tight control and rigidly restricted their activities. The authorities continued to maintain religious organizations under direct state control through Councils for Religious Affairs. Both the name and the methods of control were reminiscent of the Soviet era. In Turkmenistan, religious leaders were co-opted into the Council and the leader (Qazi) of the country’s Muslim community was appointed its chairman. Thus leading Muslim figures were granted the status of prominent state officials and, once again, formally served the secular power.37 In order to further secure themselves against the activities of Islamic political organizations, the authorities inserted in their constitutions clauses prohibiting the creation of religious political parties and paramilitary organizations.38 Kazakhstan’s first post-Soviet constitution (1993) not only prohibited the creation of political parties on a religious basis, but stipulated that ‘religious associations are not allowed to pursue political goals and tasks’.39 Despite the official ban on the political activity of religious organizations and parties, such activity in effect did not cease; neither did the confrontation between politicized Islam and the authorities. It peaked in the years 1999–2000 with bomb attacks attributed to Islamic terrorists in Tashkent in February, and subsequent show trials, as well as the incursion of IMU fighters from Tajikistan into Southern Kyrgyzstan in the period between August and October 1999 and again into Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in August–September 2000. COMMUNIST PARTIES Communist parties did not vanish from the political arena of the new independent states of Central Asia, despite the official ban imposed on their activity in the wake of the August 1991 putsch. They not only demonstrated their ability to survive, but remained mass parties, continuing to play an important role in the political life of their respective 156

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countries. According to a Kazakh analyst, ‘the social costs of reform in Kazakhstan, Russia and other post-Soviet countries turned out to be very high. While in the early 1990s public opinion rallied behind the slogans of civil rights, by the mid-1990s, these were replaced by slogans related to social welfare and social equality.’40 The decrease in the standard of living promoted, among the pauperized sector, nostalgia for better times, which were associated with Communist rule. In Kazakhstan, at an extraordinary congress held on 7 September 1991, the former Communist Party renamed itself the Socialist Party and was registered by the Ministry of Justice the following month. The idea of this transformation was Nazarbayev’s.41 The party committed itself to supporting market reforms and came out in favour of a socially oriented economic policy. By the end of 1992, its membership was 47,000, making it one of the largest parties in the republic.42 In October 1991, the former Communist Party was reconstituted in Kazakhstan. This came about because not all former communities had agreed to the renaming of the party; these people insisted on retaining the old name. Its program called for the suspension of privatization, a halt to the liberalization of prices and the full restoration of social benefits that had existed in the Soviet era. In February 1994, after its applications were twice rejected, it was finally registered. The party took part in the 1995 elections and gained two seats in parliament. Its subsequent high level of popularity, attributable to a sharp decrease in the living standard of the majority of the population after the USSR’s disintegration, was demonstrated by the success of its leader in the presidential elections of 10 January 1999, where he received more than 15 per cent of the vote against the incumbent president. In Kyrgyzstan, the Communist Party was banned after August 1991. However, in June 1992, it was reconstituted for tactical reasons under a new name, as the Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan. It was registered in September of the same year. There is no reliable data on its membership, and various sources place its membership between 2,000 to 25,000.43 The party has a broad base of support. At the 24 December 1995 presidential elections, party chairman (former first secretary of the Communist Party of Kirgiziia) Absamat Masaliyev received 24.4 per cent of the votes. The Communist Party of Uzbekistan officially ceased to exist in September 1991. As early as 1 November, the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan (PDPU) was registered. It was joined by a large number of former communists, and by March 1993, numbered 337,000 members.44 Although the party program criticized the administrative command system created by the former Communist regime, the PDPU retained not only the structure, the membership and the corps of the former CPSU’s party functionaries, but also its style and methods of work. Moreover, it retained its position as a ruling party, although now it co-existed with several other parties, whose legalization was designed to create a democratic image rather than real political pluralism. 157

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The Communist Party of Turkmenistan was also renamed, becoming the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan. Its dominance was total, being the only party with legal status. Like the former Communist Party, it became a part of Turkmenistan’s state structure. The situation in Tajikistan developed somewhat differently. Here too, the activity of the Communist Party was suspended in fall 1991, but at the beginning of 1992, it renewed its operations on a legal basis. The reformists within the party proposed a ‘Democratic Platform’, attempted to raise the issue of renaming the party and suggested discarding the most unpopular clauses of its program in order to give it a more democratic image. However, these attempts were unsuccessful. While the party’s membership had dwindled by 1993 to one-fourth of its previous number, by May 1993 it had 60,000 members in 4,240 primary cells: in addition to many state officials, a considerable part of the general population sympathized with it, since, in their opinion, the Soviet regime had brought meaningful benefits to the Tajik people. Although the Communist Party took sides and was directly involved in the civil war, this did not damage its image as an all-republican party, as distinct from most parties which had a manifestly regional affiliation. It remained not only the largest party, but also the one that was best organized and that functioned most effectively. President Rahmonov, in the past a prominent party activist, took into account the Communist Party’s residual influence in society. At the same time, he became head of the ruling People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan, whose program had many common features with that of the Communist Party, for instance, extensive state interference in the national economy. No other party, including the Islamic Renaissance Party,45 could compare with it from the point of view of its influence on the populace. PRO-GOVERNMENT PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS The political élites in Central Asia’s successor states have endeavoured to establish their own political parties which could serve as window dressing, creating an image of a multi-party democracy, and recruiting mass support for their regimes. In February 1993, the Union of National Unity was created in Kazakhstan, which quickly became the Party of National Unity of Kazakhstan. Its main ideas were centrism, interethnic harmony, economic reform and ‘constructive cooperation’ with the powers-that-be. Among its leaders at different periods were people close to the president: Supreme Soviet Deputy Serik Abdurahmanov, Deputy Premier Kuanysh Sultanov, and Akhan Bizhanov, one of the heads of the president’s administration. The party was especially active when the need arose to publicly express political support for the state leadership.46 Another such party in Kazakhstan was the Democratic Party, created in summer 1995. Prominent representatives of the state apparatus, such as Tulegen Zhukeev, the former secretary of the President’s Security Council, Minister for Mass Media Altynbek Sarsenbaev and many 158

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captains of industry were among its founders. The principal clauses in its program were based on the classified results of government commissioned opinion polls conducted in order to test the popularity of various political slogans. The statement of principles described it as a ‘party of supporters of a strong state, who favour a socially-oriented market economy, a democratic state ruled by law and a civil society’. As was to be expected, the party openly declared its support for the president. The party’s close ties with the authorities and openly centrist stand made it hardly distinguishable from the National Unity Party.47 The political élite in Kazakhstan also sought to persuade the popular People’s Congress of Kazakhstan to support the state leadership. The Congress was created in October 1991. Its founders came from the antinuclear Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement (see above), the Aral-AsiaKazakhstan ecological movement, the Kazakh Tili Society (see above), the Women’s Union and several cultural centres. The party was created not as a party of the supporters of an idea or ideology, but as a party of the adherents of certain politicians. It was headed by Olzhas Suleymenov, which enhanced its popularity. Its other leader was the poet and public figure Mukhtar Shakhanov, who remained active in the party for only a short time. The party defined its goal as the creation of a humane democratic society and the construction of an independent, unitary state ruled by law. When in October 1994 Suleymenov declared that the Congress was in ‘constructive opposition’ to President Nazarbayev, and when the issue of Suleymenov contesting the presidency arose, the authorities took preventive measures. The elections were replaced by a referendum, Suleymenov was sent to Italy as ambassador, and the third congress of the PCK declared that it had passed from constructive opposition to constructive cooperation.48 In Kyrgyzstan, too, there were attempts to create pro-government movements and parties. In October 1991 a large group of prominent former political leaders endeavoured to create under the banner of democracy a broad pro-presidential movement, the People’s Unity, with a view to possibly transforming it into the ruling party. Its program stated that the movement ‘will strive to consolidate all healthy forces in society, to strengthen civil and interethnic harmony’, and that as ‘the mouthpiece of the democratic aspirations of all social strata — the working class, peasantry and intelligentsia — the movement will actively participate in the formation of a so-called “middle class”, a class of worker proprietors’. At the same time it would ‘resolutely defend the interests of the most vulnerable sectors’.49 President Akayev welcomed the creation of the movement, apparently seeing in it a useful tool for gaining support of his reforms among a broad spectrum of the population. However, these expectations did not materialize, since the movement never succeeded in gaining wide support. In 1994 Kyrgyzstan saw the creation of the centrist, pro-presidential Party of Kyrgyzstan’s Unity, which stood for basically the same values 159

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as the People’s Unity Party. The Republican People’s Party created and registered in 1992 could also be counted among the country’s centrist parties. Its support was based largely on intelligentsia and small business representatives. In 1997 its membership was about 6,000, which for Kyrgyzstan was relatively large.50 Its program stated that the party’s policy focused on ‘a consistent defence of the rights and freedoms of all citizens living in the republic, and the creation of a society that would favour private initiative and enterprise… The party stands firmly in favour of harmoniously combining the rights of the individual and the nation.’51 In 1992 the Social Progress Party of Uzbekistan was created. It found support among businessmen and representatives of the intelligentsia. In 1993, it was followed by the Watan Taraqqiyoti (Progress of the Homeland) Party, which was made up of artistic and technical intelligentsia, businessmen and peasants. The latter party had a rather large membership of about 30,000. Its program was practically identical to that of the ruling People’s Democratic Party, and its leader, Usmon Azim, was a political adviser to President Karimov. Although both these parties officially proclaimed themselves left-centrist, in fact they completely supported President Karimov’s political line and played the role of ‘moderate opposition’, thus providing a democratic façade to the ruling regime. After independence and the introduction of economic reforms, a stratum of businessmen appeared and became politically active throughout Central Asia (with the exception of Turkmenistan). There arose a need for protecting their political interests. In the mid-1990s new parties and organizations began to emerge, which drew their support from businessmen and farmers. These included — in addition to the parties mentioned above — in Kazakhstan, the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (the directors’ party, as it was often called), and the Popular Cooperative Party, which declared that it stood for the interests of rural producers and consumers. However, the leadership of the last party recruited mostly from the former Communist nomenklatura, opposed private land ownership. In Tajikistan businessmen’s interests were represented by the Party of the Political and Economic Renovation of Tajikistan and the Union of Progressive Forces of Tajikistan. The latter consisted mostly of businessmen from the north. Both were registered in 1994. The interests of managers were represented by the Scientific and Industrial Union of Tajikistan, which was active chiefly in the economic sphere. * * * The process of tracing the formation of political movements and parties in post-Soviet Central Asia reveals a complex maze of various factors, characteristic of the political realities that existed in the region during the transitional period. The creation of numerous political organizations, movements and parties was society’s natural response to the freedom of 160

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expression, which was permitted after a long period in which there was a virtual ban on any political activity outside the single ruling party. Many of these new bodies had very vaguely formulated political platforms owing to the narrowness of their leaders’ political outlook and inexperience in organizing party structures. Opposition to the CPSU was not the sole impetus for the emergence of this multitude of new political parties. There was also an artificial imposition of party pluralism from above by the authorities (notably in the cases of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan), who sought pseudodemocratic façades for their regimes. Specific regional conditions, including each state’s multi-ethnic composition, the emergence of Islam as a political force after long years of suppression and the strife between regional political élites (notably in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan) left their imprint on the formation of political movements and parties. All these factors resulted in the appearance of a wide range of ethnic, regional and religious movements and parties and, paradoxically, significantly impeded a gradual and smooth transition from Communist dictatorship to democracy. Indeed, some countries, (notably Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), saw the emergence of a more rigidly totalitarian regime than that of the Soviet era — at least in the post-Stalin period. Indeed, in Uzbekistan, for example, the most extreme religious organizations demanded the establishment of an Islamic state and resorted to violent methods of struggle in an effort to achieve their goals. In response, the government, under the pretext of struggling against religious and other types of extremism, banned, de facto, all types of opposition activity, introduced censorship of the mass media and sharply restricted the distribution of foreign political and religious literature. In spite of the existence of several ostensibly democratic parties founded by the authorities to create an illusion of pluralism, the regime was inarguably totalitarian. An even harsher, more despotic, totalitarian regime existed in neighbouring Turkmenistan. There the former communist leadership headed by First Secretary of the CC CP of Turkmeniia concentrated all power in its hands. Niyazov suppressed all opposition and left only the former communist party under its new name — the Democratic Party. A Stalin-like cult of personality was instituted. An apparently more liberal, but in fact hardly less autocratic regime was established in Kazakhstan. There a political opposition was active in spite of the authorities’ attempts to restrict its freedom, to control the mass media and to actively interfere in the conduct of election campaigns. Even Kyrgyzstan, which in the initial post-Soviet period had been considered the Central Asian showcase of democracy, saw the democratic process come to a complete standstill. And while political parties of varying persuasions did operate openly there, the regime harassed the opposition. In the post-Soviet period Tajikistan was torn by civil war. The political élite was replaced almost in its entirety. 161

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Numerous political parties operated legally, including religious parties that had been banned in all the other newly-independent republics of the region. However, the web of relations among the regional élites is a much more significant force in the political life of the country than political parties. In order to maintain the political balance in Tajikistan, the regime makes use of both ostensibly democratic methods and ruling practices characteristic of traditional oriental societies.52 The creation of political parties is a crucial factor in the process of democratizing social and political life. The difficulties encountered in the formation and functioning of multi-party structures in the countries of Central Asia clearly reflect the circuitous course that this process has taken. NOTES 1. Such as have been described in the chapter by Zhanylzhan Dzhunusova in this volume. 2. The first public movements in Central Asia appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. Jadidism, a movement that emerged in the 1880s, was the most important of them. It advocated reform in Islam and the introduction into Islamic society of a system of education based on European models. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the members of the movement also adopted the ideas of Pan-Turkism. This ideology was considered harmful by the tsarist administration and it took repressive measures against the members of the movement. After the February 1917 revolution in Russia, other political organizations were founded in Tashkent, among them the Shura-yi Islamiya (Islamic Council), Ulama Jamiyati (Society of Islam) and Ittifaq (Union of Muslim Toilers). In 1920 a political party of ‘Young Bukharans’ appeared whose membership consisted mostly of Jadids. The Soviet authorities persecuted the members of all local non-communist parties and movements as ‘bourgeois nationalists’. For more on the Jadid movement, see the chapter by Azade-Ayse Rorlich in this volume. At the beginning of the 20th century, in the territory populated by the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, a new political party, Alash, was founded. It set as its goal the defence of the interests and political rights of the Kazakh and Kyrgyz population. The Congress of the Kazakh and Kyrgyz Peoples held in Orenburg on 5–13 December 1917, proclaimed a national-territorial autonomy of Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, known as Alash-Orda, as part of the USSR. In August 1920 the Alash-Orda armed forces suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of the Bolsheviks, and the Alash party ceased to exist. 3. Saodat Olimova, ‘Politicheskie partii i mnogopartiinost’ v Tadzhikistane’. Central Asia Information and Analytical Center, http://www.ca-c.org/datarus/st–04–olimova.shtml, p. 1. 4. Jumaboi Niiazov, ‘Iz istorii razvitiia demokraticheskogo dvizheniia v Tadzhikistane’, Tsentral’naia Aziia 3 (1997) p. 100. 5. V.A. Ponomarev, Obshchestvennye organizatsii v Kazakhstane i Kyrgyzstane (1987–1991), (Alma-Ata, 1991) p. 92. 6. Ibid., p. 81. 7. Ibid., p. 86. 8. Ponomarev, Organizatsii v Kazakhstane i Kyrgyzstane, p. 14. 9. Ibid., pp. 14–15. 10. Ibid., p. 83. 11. Literaturnaia gazeta, 17 January 1990. 12. Islam Karimov became president of Uzbekistan in March 1990; Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan in April 1990; Sapurmurad Niyazov of Turkmenistan in October 1990;

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13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

and Qahhor Mahkamov of Tajikistan in November 1990. Askar Akaev, president of the Kyrgyz SSR Academy of Sciences, became president of Kyrgyzstan in October 1990. Human Rights and Democratization in the Newly Independent States of the Former Soviet Union, (Washington, DC: GPO, 1993), p. 179. M. Amirova, ‘Komu i pochemu my otkazyvaem v registratsii’, Mysl’ 7 (1995), p. 49. Mysl’ 7 (1995), p. 51. Zakon Respubliki Kazakhstan, ‘Ob obshchestvennykh ob”edineniiakh’, in S. D’iachenko, L. Karmazina and S. Seidumanov, Politicheskie partii Kazakhstana, 2000 (Almaty, 2000), pp. 148–59. Serik T. Seidumanov, Fenomen mnogopartiinosti v Kazakhstane (Almaty, 1997) p. 54. Mysl’ 11 (1994) pp. 51–2. Some of these demands were historically grounded and were adopted by the leadership. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 19 November 1991. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 24 February 2000. ‘Programa “Gul” partii natsional’nogo vozrozhdeniia “Asaba” ’, Central Asia and the Caucasus Information and Analytical Centre (Sweden), www.ca-c.org/datarus/asaba. Olimova, ‘Politicheskie partii i mnogopartiinost’ v Tadzhikistane’, p. 4. Grigorii G. Kosach, ‘Tajikistan, Political Parties in an Inchoate National Space’, in Yaacov Ro’i, (ed.), Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies (London: Frank Cass, 1995) pp. 134–5. Bakhtier Ergashev, ‘Formirovanie mnogopartiinoi sistemy v Uzbekistane: problemy i perspektivy’, Tsentral’naia Aziia i Kavkaz, 6 (2000), p. 58. According to the 1989 census, the Russians in Kazakhstan comprised 37.8 per cent of the republic’s population, Germans 5.8 per cent and Ukrainians 5.4 per cent. In addition Belorussians, Koreans, Greeks, Poles and others were generally russophones. Vestnik statistiki 12 (1990) p. 71. In the mid-eighteenth century, the tsarist government built a number of Cossack military settlements on the border of Western Siberia and the Kazakh steppe. The geographic name of this area is ‘Gor’kaia liniia’ (the bitter line) due to several salt lakes situated in the region. Delovaia nedelia, 19 June 1998. Uzbekistan: etnopoliticheskaia panorama. Ocherki, Dokumenty. Materialy, vol. 1, (Moscow, 1994) pp. 272–4. Ibid., pp. 199–202 and 207–10. Mysl’ 7 (1995) p. 47. Human Rights and Democratization in the Newly Independent States of the Former Soviet Union, pp. 178–9. A. Sultangalieva, ‘Novye nezavisimye gosudarstva Tsentral’noi Azii i islam’, Kazakhstan i mirovoe soobshchestvo 3 (1995) p. 49. Aleksei Malashenko, ‘Islam i politika v gosudarstvakh Tsentral’noi Azii’, Tsentral’naia Aziia i Kavkaz 4 (1999) p. 63–4; B. Babadzhanov, ‘Ferganskaia dolina: istochnik ili zhertva islamskogo fundamentalizma?’, Tsentral’naia Aziia i Kavkaz 4 (1999), pp. 128–9. A. Niiazi, ‘Vozrozhdenie islama v Tadzhikistane: traditsiia i politika’, Tsentral’naia Aziia i Kavkaz 5 (6) (1999) p. 161. See note 17. Tsentral’naia Aziia i Kavkaz 4 (1999) p. 91. Sultangalieva, ‘Novye nezavisimye gosudarstva Tsentral’noi Azii i islam’ p. 51. See, for instance, Article 28 of the constitution of Turkmenistan (Turkmenskaia iskra, 19 May 1992); Article 57 of the constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan (Pravda Vostoka, 15 December 1992). The Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Article 58; Mysl’ 4 (1993) p. 8. Seidumanov, Fenomen mnogopartiinosti v Kazakhstane, p. 115. Mysl’ 1 (1993) p. 48. Sh. Karabaev, ‘Zhivet li soglasie v mnogopartiinom dome?’, Mysl’ 7 (1993) p. 43. According to Tsentral’naia Aziia 2 (1997) p. 103, the party numbered 2,000; Pravda, 28 May 1994 gave the figure 25,000 at the beginning of 1994.

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44. At the beginning of 1988, the Communist Party of Uzbekistan numbered 660,000 — BSE, Ezhegodnik (1988) p. 174. 45. According to a poll conducted in Dushanbe in January 1999, the Communist Party enjoyed the support of 28 per cent of the interviewees, while the Islamic Renaissance Party had only 5 per cent. S. Olimova, ‘Politicheskii islam i konflikt v Tadzhikistane’,Tsentral’naia Aziia i Kavkaz 4 (1999) p. 139. 46. Delovaia nedelia, 29 May 1998. 47. Delovaia nedelia, 5 June 1998. 48. Delovaia nedelia, 29 May; 5 June 1998. 49. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 22 October 1991. 50. Tsentral’naia Aziia i Kavkaz 2 (1999) p. 103. 51. ‘Programma Respublikanskoi narodnoi Partii Kyrgyzstana’, Internet site of the Central Asia Information and Analytical Centre: www.ca-c.org/datarus. 52. For more on Tajikistan see the chapter by Saodat Olimova in this volume.

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9 The Price of Stability: Kazakhstani Control Mechanisms under Conditions of Cultural and Demographic Bipolarity PÅL KOLSTØ Kazakhstan has not experienced any ethnically motivated bloodshed since the country achieved independence in 1991. Ethnic violence did occur during the perestroika period, the most serious outbreak being the turmoil in December 1986 during which at least three people died.1 This gave rise to fears that Kazakhstan would become a crisis zone in the post-communist world. The securing of political stability in independent Kazakhstan has therefore generally been considered a major, if not the most important, achievement of the regime of Nursultan Nazarbayev. In one sense, Nazarbayev’s success is not unique. Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan and Sapurmurad Niyazov in Turkmenistan, for instance, could pride themselves on a similar social tranquillity in their countries since independence. However, the preconditions for social stability in these states were very different from those in Kazakhstan, in two important respects: first, Karimov and Niyazov presided over countries with relatively homogeneous ethnic populations, whereas Kazakhstan is a culturally bipolar state. Second, the titular ethnic group in Kazakhstan accounted for well under half of the total population at the time of independence (although by early 2000 it had topped 50 per cent), and the vast majority of the non-titulars were Europeans and other russophones with a high degree of common identity.2 According to some experts on nationalism, bicultural societies are extremely volatile. Since ethnic conflicts in multi-national states usually take place on the periphery of the system, the centre might pose as an impartial arbiter, elevated above particular group interests.3 In bicultural states in which two distinct groups of approximately equal size and strength confront each other, the prize is the state itself, and the entire state structure is at stake. The potentially explosive ethno-cultural situation in Kazakhstan would seem to have necessitated the employment of tougher control measures than the ones used by the authorities in the other Central 165

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Asian states, but the opposite has been the case. If Karimov’s regime was harshly authoritarian and Niyazov’s appeared to have elements of both Stalinist totalitarianism and oriental despotism, the political system in post-independence Kazakhstan has been less repressive. Press censorship and harassment of journalists certainly has taken place, but, with the exception of Kyrgyzstan, the media have been freer here than in any other Central Asian state. A number of political parties have been allowed to register and operate.4 Elections have frequently been tampered with, but the fact that Nazarbayev’s political opponents have found it worthwhile participating in them indicates that they are not regarded in Kazakhstan as mere façades. In December 1992 it was reported in the West that Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan had embarked ‘on the road to democracy’.5 One year after independence this was perhaps a reasonable analysis, shared by many observers. Some years later, however, these optimistic expectations had been replaced by much more sombre assessments. A 1996 opinion stated: Despite early hopes that Kazakhstan would be a beacon of democracy in otherwise bleak Central Asia, prospects of a civil Kazakh society have evaporated. Human rights violations, rigged elections and rule by decree have shown Kazakhstan to be well in line with the Central Asian statebuilding model.6

This analysis seems somewhat exaggerated and misses the important differences that at the time still existed between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, on the one hand, and the other Central Asian republics, on the other. Another Western observer, writing in the same year, maintained that ‘Nazarbayev does not rule with an iron fist. This is a key point when characterizing his system’.7 While Nazarbayev has certainly employed a wide variety of ruling techniques in order to achieve his political objectives, this chapter will focus in particular on those tools which were used to cope with the cultural-demographic bipolarity of the country. This bipolarity, I will argue, poses not only a serious and unusual problem, but has presented him with some unique opportunities, especially, a chance to play the age-old game of divide-and-rule. In this game he has employed, among others, two tools which I would identify as ‘the image of the irreplaceable internationalist’ and ‘the parallel parliament of the peoples’. While I do not believe that Nazarbayev had a master plan which enabled him to outwit his opponents, like most politicians, he developed and employed ruling techniques in response to political situations as they arose. THE IMAGE OF THE IRREPLACEABLE INTERNATIONALIST In 1994, a noted expert on Kazakhstan, commented: Although 1994 saw a steady rise in political demonstrations, as well as increasing reports of clashes between Kazakhs and members of other

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nationalities (mostly Cossacks), Kazakhstan has nevertheless managed to survive enormous political and economic upheavals in relative peace. This continued stability is largely due to the popularity of Nursultan Nazarbayev, head of Kazakhstan since June 1989, who satisfies Kazakh national pride because he is a Kazakh, but who also reassures Russians, because he was a prominent Soviet. The Russians also know that Nazarbayev is far more likely to be sympathetic to them than would any possible successor, who would inevitably be Kazakh.8

The last sentence of this quotation is imprecise: the Russians in Kazakhstan, of course, have no way of ‘knowing’ how Nazarbayev’s successor will behave. The assertion, moreover, is not supported by survey data or other evidence. Even so, a large proportion of Russians in Kazakhstan possibly believed that Nazarbayev would be the best Kazakhstani president they could ever hope to get, and supported him for that reason. The question I propose to examine is, how did they come to embrace this belief? The answer, I surmise, is that their support largely reflects the success of Nazarbayev’s propaganda machine. Nazarbayev’s first challenger for the highest post in Kazakhstan’s political structure was a 42-year old composer and chairman of the nationalist Zheltoksan party, Hasen Kozha-Ahmet. A former dissident who, in 1977, had been sentenced to two years imprisonment for slandering the Soviet regime, his reputation as a staunch fighter for the Kazakh cause had been reinforced by his active participation in the December 1986 riots in Alma-Ata. According to two insightful Kazakh journalists, Kozha-Ahmet ‘enjoyed the support of a part of the Kazakh intelligentsia and of those among the common people who hoped for “rapid changes” in society’.9 Kozha-Ahmet tried to register as a candidate in the December 1991 presidential elections — the only candidate to run against Nazarbayev. It seems reasonably clear that if he had been allowed to do so, he would not have stood a chance of winning. Few, if any, Russians would have voted for him and important segments of the urban Russianspeaking Kazakh population also rejected his program. By letting him run, the political establishment could have demonstrated its commitment to democracy without running any risk of losing power. It decided, however, on the more radical solution: to deny Kozha-Ahmet registration altogether. Since this was an obvious case of political overkill one wonders why it was necessary. It might have been connected to the country’s bipolarity, as I will try to explain below. The official media claimed that Kozha-Ahmet was denied registration because he failed to collect the necessary hundred thousand signatures in support of his candidacy as required by law. However, 60,000 signatures had already been collected when his campaign stands in Alma-Ata were forcibly removed on orders from the local authorities.10 Ultimately, Nazarbayev was elected Kazakhstani president with 98.6 per cent of the vote, having run unopposed. Similar nearly unanimous results produced under Soviet rule were usually viewed in the West as 167

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confirmation of the non-democratic character of communist elections. When Nazarbayev achieved such a landslide victory, however, it was generally interpreted as a sign of his popularity and the confidence he enjoyed among all sectors of the population. No doubt, Kozha-Ahmet espoused a more nationalistic program than Nazarbayev. While his political party Zheltoksan (December — socalled after the 1986 December events), did not ‘call for the forcible expulsion of Kazakhstan’s Russian population, as [did] the much more radical party Alash, it believes that the Russians should be encouraged to leave’.11 This was very close to the position taken by a number of influential nationalist parties in Estonia and Latvia and certainly enough to alarm the local Russian population. A political biography of Nazarbayev published in Kazakhstan in 1993 maintained that ‘the internationalism of the President apparently served as the social cement which united the Kazakhstani voters on 1 December 1991. He proclaimed that the preservation of inter-ethnic harmony would be one of the fundamental principles of state policy.’12 This certainly was one of the strong messages sent by Nazarbayev to the electorate during this pre-election campaign, and not only through his public statements and appeals. Equally important in pressing home this point, I will argue, was the treatment accorded to his rival. By turning out in overwhelming numbers in support of Nazarbayev, the Russians in Kazakhstan not only rallied behind his political program but also tacitly condoned the methods he used. This set an important precedent for the future. As of 1991 three leading personalities were groomed to lead the opposition as potential successors to Nazarbayev. These were, in chronological order, Olzhas Suleymenov in 1992, Murat Auezov in 1996, and Akezhan Kazhegeldin in 1998. A broadly-based political party supported each of these politicians: Kazakhstan’s People’s Congress, Azamat and the Republican People’s Party, respectively.13 All of these contenders represented programs that were significantly different from KozhaAhmet’s. While most of the opposition leaders had no Russian or russophone roots, they were generally regarded as sincere supporters of the rights and interests of the non-titular population.14 To be sure, the ‘internationalism’ of Nazarbayev’s new rivals was not something that could easily be discerned in their programs or speeches. All three opposition movements tried to embrace as much of the political spectrum as possible, and when addressing the public did their best to avoid divisive issues. The national question, accordingly, was often downplayed or referred to in non-committal terms.15 Thus, for instance, the program of Kazhegeldin’s Republican People’s Party of Kazakhstan stated, ‘We should not remain content with the fact that until now in Kazakhstan we have not experienced the kind of conflicts that have broken out in some neighbouring states. Our party supports the real equality of all nationalities living in Kazakhstan… We are opposed to a division of the population into indigenous and non168

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indigenous sectors.’ However, the program went on to assert that ‘the territory of Kazakhstan is the ancient land of the Kazakhs, their historical homeland’.16 This was not dissimilar from the dualism which characterized Nazarbayev’s rhetoric on the national question. The main reason these opponents have nevertheless been regarded by many as more truly internationalist than the president’s team is that all of them have been supported by a large number of widely respected russophone politicians and community leaders.17 In Petr Svoik, Auezov had one of the ablest Russian politicians in Kazakhstan as his Azamat co-chairman. Indeed, Svoik may well have been the real driving force behind the party. Kazhegeldin, for his part, enjoyed the express support of the chairman of the Slav movement Lad, Viktor Mikhailov, Valerian Zemelianov of Kazakhstan’s Communist Party, and the independent democratic politician Vladimir Chernyshev.18 This list of rivals undercuts the assertion that all possible replacements to Nazarbayev’s rule would inevitably have been less sympathetic to the Russians than he had been. Nazarbayev’s propaganda machine, however, continued to insist that he could and would defend the interests of the russophones better than the opposition. Thus, for instance, during the 1998–99 presidential election campaign an article in the semi-official Kazakhstanskaia pravda said: There is no denying that it is Nazarbayev who has been able to steer the ship of state clear of all dangerous reefs, and preserve the political stability of the country. […] N. Nazarbayev’s critics stubbornly refuse to accept that it is his name and his authority among all citizens of Kazakhstan, irrespective of nationality, that have played a crucial role in saving the country from plummeting into the maelstrom of internecine chaos. [He] has been, and remains, the guarantor of the rights of the russophone population, not in words but in deeds.19

This statement closely links the protection of the rights of the russophones, on the one hand, and the safeguarding of political stability, on the other. The subtext seems to indicate that if ethnic violence is once again unleashed in Kazakhstan, the Russians will be the first targets of the mob, and only Nazarbayev can keep the mob at bay. However, an increasing number of observers consider Nazarbayev’s record on the national question to have been the exact opposite of that proclaimed in the above quotation. While he has loftily defended the rights of the non-titulars, his deeds have often belied his words. Under his presidency kazakhification has continued unabated in most social and cultural fields.20 Laws have been adopted in the areas of dual citizenship and migration, for instance, that assure ethnic Kazakhs rights while denying them to non-titulars.21 Streets, cities and oblasts with Russian names have been renamed en masse and given Kazakh toponyms, even in compactly Slavic parts of the country in the north. Top-level positions in politics and administration are increasingly filled by Kazakhs.22 There are hardly any Slav governors (akims) left, even in 169

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the north. The most prestigious institutions of higher learning, such as the School of International Relations at the Kazakhstan Al-Farabi State University, which trains future diplomats, are overwhelmingly filled with ethnic Kazakhs.23 The statements made by Nazarbayev’s aides and official experts on ethno-politics and inter-ethnic relations have gradually moved closer to those of the Kazakh nationalist opposition.24 Since 1994–95 many Western and Russian observers have reported that the mood among russophones in Kazakhstan has been shifting. After pinning their hopes on Nazarbayev they have felt increasingly betrayed by him.25 Those who have abandoned the loyalty option, however, have not necessarily rallied behind the opposition. More commonly they have retreated into political apathy or opted out. For several years after independence, the migration of russophones from Kazakhstan was low compared to other Central Asian states, but in 1994–96 it picked up, and nearly a million Russians and approximately 700,000 Germans (most of whom were russophones) left the country in the 1990s.26 While the causes of this migration are complex, related also to such factors as financial situation and family unification, a growing sense of social marginalization in Kazakhstan has clearly been one of the push factors. It is upon these sentiments of frustration and resentment that the opposition could potentially capitalize. Nazarbayev has used various means to eliminate his centrist challengers. It is still unclear how he persuaded Suleymenov to pull out of the political race and accept an appointment as ambassador to Italy. The ambassadorial post was certainly a juicy carrot, but Nazarbayev may have used the stick as well. Cooptation worked well also with Auezov, who accepted a position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.27 Attempts were likewise made to scare Kazhegeldin into silence, perhaps even to kill him. On 14 October 1998, immediately after he had fallen out with the president, someone fired a shot at him but missed.28 Several of his aides and supporters were similarly attacked or threatened.29 In January 1999 Kazhegeldin was prevented from registering as a candidate in the presidential elections on the flimsiest of pretexts: he had attended a meeting of an unregistered non-governmental organization called, ironically, ‘For Honest Elections’.30 This event seems to have marked a turning point in Western assessments of the prospects for democracy in Kazakhstan.31 The OSCE refused to send observers and declared that the elections fell ‘far short’ of being democratic.32 In the parliamentary elections held later in the same year international observers noted some improvement over the presidential elections, but concluded that they remained fundamentally flawed from a democracy-building point of view. Kazhegeldin was once again disqualified from participating, and his party, along with several other opposition parties, experienced great difficulties in receiving the necessary registration with the authorities. When they eventually did, they found that in many places their campaign posters were torn down 170

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just as soon as they were hung up, and in a number of cases candidates running for their party were fired from their jobs without any reason, sometimes also their family members. The offices of one opposition candidate were fire-bombed, and independent media critical of Nazarbaev were harassed.33 At this point Kazhegeldin left the country. In short, 1999 was the year when the Kazakhstani political regime took a decisive turn towards authoritarianism. A PARALLEL PARLIAMENT OF THE PEOPLES — OR OF THE PRESIDENT? An important obstacle to the establishment of Nazarbayev’s personal rule was the existence of an independent legislature. Elected in the spring of 1990 under a multi-candidate election system, the members of Kazakhstan’s Supreme Soviet could claim that they had a somewhat stronger democratic mandate than the president, since he had run unopposed for his office. The Supreme Soviet did not depend upon Nazarbayev for its authority and on several occasions the legislators showed that they were willing to flex their muscles. By December 1993 the President had had enough. Against the backdrop of the recent political turbulence in Moscow — the shelling of the White House in October and the strong showing of ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovskii in the Duma elections in December — Nazarbayev’s supporters in the Kazakhstani parliament moved to have it dissolved. New elections were held in April the following year, but contrary to expectations, the new parliament — the Supreme Kenges — too, refused to act as a band of docile yes-men. These developments have received sufficient coverage by other researchers and do not require any further analysis here.34 My intention, rather, is to demonstrate how Nazarbayev played upon the inter-ethnic bipolarity of Kazakhstan’s population in order to eliminate this source of opposition to his personal rule as well. Many observers have portrayed the parliament as a stronghold of Kazakh nationalism. Thus, for instance, an article in The World Today in the winter of 1994 maintained that while Nazarbayev for his part was doing his best to maintain ‘Kazakh-Russian bi-national power’, the results of the 1994 parliamentary elections ‘have caused fears among Slavs in Kazakhstan: out of 176 members of the Supreme Kenges, 105 are Kazakh and only 49 Russian’.35 One way of increasing the President’s power over the parliament has been to allow him to appoint a quota of MPs, the so-called state list (gosspisok).36 In the Supreme Kenges 42 deputies belonged to this list and were beholden not to the voters but to the head of state. Kazakh researcher Zhanylzhan Dzhunusova has acknowledged that this system ran counter to generally accepted ideas of democracy, but defended it as necessary in order to protect the rights of the minorities in the Kazakh-dominated political body: The stringent selection of criteria according to nationality and sex means that the [April 1994] elections were not democratic in the full sense of the word. But that would not have been possible in the transition period,

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when the most important political objective in a multinational society is to safeguard stability. Without taking the interests of the major national groups into consideration, it would have been impossible to achieve such stability. This is exactly what guided the president when he selected candidates for the gosspisok.37

Dzhunusova explicitly links the imperfections of Kazakhstani democracy to the need to protect the interests of ‘the major national groups’.38 In her view, it is because of the power of the president that the Russians can expect to get their due share of deputies and influence in the national assembly, through his active and deliberate use of the ethnic criterion in determining the composition of the gosspisok. The strong message sent to the Russians was thus that they had a vested interest in the limitations placed on democracy in Kazakhstan, and that only by supporting a strong executive could they hope to achieve justice and equality. This same message was sent by the chairperson of the Central Electoral Commission, Iurii Kim, during the 1995 parliamentary elections. The newly adopted constitution gave the President the right to nominate seven of the 47 members of the new upper house, the Senate. This clause had been introduced, Kim said, because the president wanted to ensure ‘proportional representation with regard to nationality, gender, profession, and social and age group’.39 Certainly, Russians and other non-titulars in Kazakhstan could easily have obtained a reasonable share of MPs by mechanisms other than the gosspisok — for instance, by the introduction of a proportional rather than a majority electoral system. Another contrivance could have been fixed quotas of representation for non-titulars, which would have amounted to the introduction of an element of consociational democracy into the political system of Kazakhstan. Consociationalism is a model of democracy that has been tried in various forms in several countries of the world with plural societies in order to promote stability and democracy. While this model has been enthusiastically advocated by some Western political scientists,40 it has been severely criticized by others.41 For its part, the Kazakhstan leadership has clearly rejected it. At an OSCE conference in Almaty in February 1996, First Deputy Prime Minister Nagashbai Shaikenov, one of the most influential thinkers in the Kazakhstani government, declared that ‘if we were to make an attempt to fill the parliament on the basis of proportional ethnic representation, we would have to do the same with regard to social groups as well’.42 At first glance it may seem that the Kazakhstani leadership was pursuing a contradictory policy, rejecting ethnic quotas, on the one hand, and introducing the gosspisok on the other. However, this does not amount to an inconsistency since the gosspisok as a conflict-reducing mechanism is radically different from other models of ethnic quotas. The gosspisok depends entirely upon the president as the guarantor and arbiter of stability and inter-ethnic peace. He could use the gosspisok for other ends than redressing ethnic imbalances in the parliament. To the 172

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extent that he does so, it is as an act of grace handed down from the ruler to his subjects, and not anything they can claim as a right. What is freely given can also be freely taken away. This arrangement, then, leaves the non-titulars at the mercy of the president. There is evidence to suggest that the much-touted gosspisok system was once again a case of protecting the rights of non-titulars in words rather than in deeds. The oppositional Kazakh political scientist Nurbulat Masanov analyzed the voting pattern of the gosspisochniki— that is, those included on the gosspisok—in a number of parliamentary districts in December 1994 and demonstrated that they did not necessarily express the interests of the non-titulars any more than did other deputies; if anything, the opposite was true.43 Since the Kazakhstani parliament elected in 1994 turned out to be no more controllable that the previous one, Nazarbayev sought a pretext to dissolve this one, too. He found one in the critical remarks made by Western monitors regarding certain irregularities in election procedures. These observations had been brusquely shelved by the Kazakhstani authorities when first submitted, but were now unearthed.44 Rather than decide that new elections had to be conducted in some districts, Kazakhstan’s Constitutional Court declared the elections invalid in their entirety. On the basis of this decision, the president dissolved parliament and organized two referendums. In the first one, held in April 1995, the voters were asked to support an extension of the president’s term of office until 2000 (that is, four years beyond the five-year period for which he was elected). In the second, in August of the same year, they were asked to vote in favour of a new constitution which would do away with both the independent judiciary and an independent legislature — the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Kenges — and replace them with two more pliable bodies — a Constitutional Council45 and a two-chamber parliament, the Mazhlis and the Senate. In both referenda an overwhelming majority supported the president’s proposals.46 It is interesting to note the extent to which Nazarbayev managed to play on the bipolar ethno-cultural situation in the country to achieve his goal. On 1 March 1995 — exactly one week before he ordered the dissolution of the Supreme Kenges — President Nazarbayev signed a decree on the establishment of an Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. This was either a most ‘felicitous coincidence’,47 or a shrewd act of political engineering. The functions of President Nazarbayev’s new Assembly, both in political terms and in terms of legislative capacity, were unclear. The President’s continuous evocation of two issues of particular concern to the population at large, namely the possibility of inter-ethnic strife and the everincreasing level of crime, and the undefined way that the new assembly could contribute constructively to these questions, should have provided some warning that its real function might be to provide a surrogate representative body to a population about to be deprived of its Parliament.48

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There were no elections to this new organ. Instead, the president himself appointed 40 of its 260 delegates, while the remainder were selected by the local governors, the akims, after consultations with their respective organs of local government, the maslikhats. As the akims themselves were appointed by the president and belonged to the socalled ‘presidential line of command’, this system effectively ensured that most of the deputies to this body supported the president and echoed his views.49 In the first years of its existence the Assembly was directly subordinated to the Office of the President. This status, according to Assembly spokespersons, proved that it enjoyed real power and influence in society.50 Unlike the Mazhlis and the Senate, which functioned (in principle) on a regular basis, the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan was an instrument that could be activated and deactivated at the president’s will. For long periods of time he chose to let this tool lie idle, but then would suddenly put it to use when the need arose. The most important document produced by the Assembly during its 1995 founding session was a resolution petitioning the president to suspend the 1996 presidential elections and continue in office until the year 2000. Guided by the higher interests of enhancing stability and inter-ethnic harmony and the objective necessity of securing the continuity of the policy of reform; in order to avoid a schism in society in connection with a struggle for presidential power, and in a situation in which there is no worthy alternative to N.A. Nazarbayev, the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan urgently recommends that the President of the Republic shall conduct a nation-wide referendum on the extension of his plenipotentiary powers to December 2000.51

Here, then, Nazarbayev had assembled a group of people who were willing to express one of the central tenets of his perception of his presidency, namely, that he constituted an irreplaceable guarantor of interethnic peace. Some russophone organizations, most notably the Slav movement Lad, protested against both the April and August referendums, believing that they represented dangerous steps away from democracy and the rule of law. However, many Russians trusted the official propaganda more than the warnings of this organization. In the public discussions of the new draft constitution it was frequently asserted that ‘the country will enjoy stability until the year 2000 if Nursultan Nazarbayev — the guarantor of the new constitution — stays in power’. The urge for stability is an important factor determining the outcome of the referendum. Although […] some russophone organizations and movements have claimed that the results of the referendum were rigged, it is clear that many Russians in Kazakhstan voted in all sincerity for the motion in order to support stability in the country.52

The national, all-Kazakhstan structure of the Assembly is supplemented by a network of local branches at oblast level. These are called 174

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the ‘small assemblies’ (malye assemblei).53 Members of the small assemblies are selected from among the leaders of the various local nationalcultural centres, which organize for the most part the non-titular part of the population. (Among them one finds also the Kazakh Tili language association that promotes the spread of Kazakh language and culture.) The small assembly is presided over by a special representative of the akim. If the All-Kazakhstan Assembly may be described as a parallel parliament, then the small assemblies are local counterparts of the maslikhats. These local branches of the Assembly also speak with their master’s voice. Kazakhstan’s leading socio-political journal Mysl’ has regularly featured articles on the work of the Assembly, centrally and locally, under the caption ‘The Assembly: Our Motto Is Unity and Closed Ranks’. Thus, for instance, in the April 1997 issue of the journal, the deputy akim of Torgay Oblast praised the work of the local assembly under the headline ‘A Guarantee of Stability’.54 In particular, the author pointed out that the local small assembly participated actively in the dissemination of state propaganda: N.A. Nazarbayev’s works, such as The Ideational Consolidation of Society as a Precondition for Progress in Kazakhstan, On the Threshold of the 21st Century, and On the Situation in the Country and The Main Directions of Domestic Policies for 1997, provide the practical guidelines for our work together with his other reports and speeches, especially those which he has delivered at the sessions of the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan.55

In September 1998 a voice of dissonance was added to the otherwise unified chorus of praise for the Assembly. Seisen Amirbekuly, a former member of the All-Kazakhstan Assembly, wrote an article in the Kazakhlanguage journal Dat under the long-winded title ‘What Is the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan? An Organization Promoting the Friendship of the Republic’s Nations, or an Instrument of Political Games Used by the President during Various Campaigns?’56 To this provocative question Amirbekuly answered in favour of the latter alternative. He believed that the Assembly could and ought to be allowed to play an active role in the prevention of inter-ethnic strife in the country, lest Kazakhstan slide into ‘the Yugoslav scenario’. The paltry financial resources set aside for this task, however, had exasperated many of the deputies, he claimed: In the corridors of the Assembly one can hear angry words addressed to the head of state: ‘After all, it was thanks to our services that it was possible to dissolve the parliament, to conduct the referendum and to adopt legally-binding presidential decrees.’ One gets the feeling that the president has used us whenever he needed us and as soon as he has achieved his objective he relegates us to oblivion.57

Amirbekuly’s article was reprinted in the oppositional Russian-speaking press and created a minor scandal. Assembly Deputy Chairman 175

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Pavel Atrushevich, a Belarusian, leapt to the Assembly’s defence in Kazakhstanskaia pravda. He did not deny that the Assembly had played an active role in launching many important policy initiatives supportive of the president, a fact in which he took great pride. ‘The results of these initiatives were evidence of the stabilizing role the Assembly has played.’58 Behind the massive attacks on the Assembly, Atrushevich ominously claimed, one could discern the political interests of certain groups that were opposed to the consolidation of inter-ethnic harmony among the peoples of Kazakhstan since such harmony could prevent them from achieving positions of power. ‘They bank, it seems, on the possibility of dividing the people. If they succeed, they reason, it will become easier for them to fool the people and manipulate them with their selfish schemes.’ As I shall argue below, the Assembly itself has been one of President Nazarbayev’s main instruments for driving wedges among the peoples of Kazakhstan, and splitting them into their composite ethnic parts. This, in my view, is the third main function of the Assembly — together with promoting the policies of the president and helping him outmanoeuvre the parliament — and an aspect of its activities that seems to have been largely overlooked by Nazarbayev’s domestic critics. If, as I contended in the introductory part of this chapter, the cultural and demographic bipolarity of Kazakhstan represents a particular problem from the viewpoint of preserving social stability, it is one that can be tackled by various means. One method would be to ensure that one group in society has the requisite means to keep the other under control.59 This might be termed bipolarity management. Another approach could be classified as bipolarity elimination. Whenever the state authorities in an ethnically bipolar state choose the latter set of mechanisms they do what they can to alter the cultural or demographic structure of the population. Theoretically, three paths towards ‘de-bipolarization’ of the population of Kazakhstan might be envisaged: assimilation of the nontitulars into the titular group; out-migration of non-titulars; and finally, what the Norwegian political scientist Jørn Holm-Hansen has termed ‘multiple re-ethnification’. The first of these options is clearly unrealistic,60 the second would be fraught with dangerous socioeconomic side-effects;61 the third seems to be a rather promising ruling technique, which has indeed been employed by the Nazarbayev regime. The category of ‘non-titulars’ in Kazakhstan is basically homogeneous with regard to language (Russian), culture and traditions (European, sovietized), but not to ‘ethnicity’. If ethnicity could somehow be turned into the salient cultural parameter in Kazakhstani society — rather than language or social mores — then the cohesion of the russophone group would crumble. For these reasons, the Kazakhstani authorities are trying to resuscitate half-forgotten ethnic identities and trigger ethnic revival among both titulars and non-titulars. Ukrainians, Poles, Germans, Belarusians, 176

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and members of other smaller russophone groups are encouraged to turn to the ethnic roots of their forebears in order to be weaned from the embrace of the Russians. Nazarbayev has explicitly rejected the term ‘russophone population’.62 In his speeches he has often pointed out that more than one hundred ethnic groups reside in Kazakhstan, and he has hailed the ideal of ‘poly-culturalism’ as a progressive factor in the development of Kazakhstani society.63 In the state museum in Almaty the cultures of all major ethnic groups in Kazakhstan are extolled in separate exhibitions. Kazakh experts recommend the publication of multi-ethnic encyclopaedias, cookbooks, literary anthologies and studies of ethnic folk craft.64 The harsh treatment accorded to entities in Kazakhstan such as Edinstvo, Lad, Cossack units and Birlesu, all of which have a predominantly or exclusively russophone membership, might leave the impression that the Nazarbayev regime does not want the non-titulars to establish organizations of any kind. This is far from being the case. The authorities are opposed to only two kinds of organizations among the non-titulars: those which pursue independent political objectives, and those which try to organize the russophones on a supra-ethnic basis, for example as ‘Europeans’ and ‘Slavs’. This is clearly the reason why Lad, a perfectly legal and non-extremist organization, has been harassed into marginality.65 Lad is an explicitly Slav, not Russian, organization in the narrow ethnic sense. It consciously cultivates a common identity among the European population of Kazakhstan that is directly opposed to Nazarbayev’s re-ethnification scheme. Non-titular centres and clubs that organize a minority on an ethnic basis for explicitly cultural and non-political activities, on the other hand, are not only tolerated but actively encouraged. In the building of the regional Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan in Semipalatinsk/Semei, which I visited in September 1996, the various ethnic centres in the city had their own offices; some of them also had teaching facilities for the resurrection of their forgotten languages. The largest office of the building, at the top of the stairs, was occupied by the representative of the akim, who kept a close eye on the activities of his underlings. Lad also had an office in the building of the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan, but the door was locked. Instead, I found the local Lad activists in their homes: they lacked the means to man their office and also felt unwelcome in the Assembly building.66 One of the most important elements of the re-ethnification strategy is an affirmative action program for the recruitment of minority students into institutions of higher learning. Ten per cent of all student slots are reserved for non-titular youth. The program is administered not by the universities themselves but by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan which is thus invested with an important lever of real power. In the 1995–96 academic year somewhat fewer than 2,000 non-titular students were accepted into Kazakhstani universities and other institutions of higher learning under this program; the next year the figure had risen 177

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to over 2,600.67 Members of all ethnic groups could apply — with the exception of Russians. This symptomatic limitation sent a very strong signal to the non-Russian non-titulars that they would do well to seek their future outside the russophone community. The policy of re-ethnification in Kazakhstan seems to have met with a measure of success. When Lad leaders appealed to the voters not to support the prolongation of Nazarbayev’s term in office in the 1995 referendum, some Belarusian, Ukrainian and Polish spokesmen criticized the movement for this stance. A Kazakh researcher saw this as evidence of these nations’ greater loyalty. It was not the russophones, but the Russians who were the main opponents of the Kazakhs, she believed.68 A political analysis printed in a pro-Nazarbayev Kazakhstani newspaper in February 1997 noted that, ‘Over the last five years it has become clear that the country’s leadership has been able to work out a system of control over inter-ethnic relations and ensure that they remain stable. This has been achieved in various ways, such as supporting the activities of the national-cultural centres; establishing the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan, and by means of important domestic and foreign policy steps.’69 In 1998 Nazarbayev expanded the prerogatives of the Assembly by introducing a new element. In a speech to the Mazhlis he created a link between his two assemblies — the national assembly and the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan — through himself and the gosspisok system (retained in the 1995 constitution for the upper house — see above), and Nazarbayev suggested that ‘we should enable a broader representation of national and religious minorities in the parliament. In order to achieve this, a number of senators whom the president appointed to the parliament were to be chosen from a list of candidates compiled by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan.’70 This proposal, however, was devoid of any real substance. As pointed out above, the members of the Assembly were handpicked by the president and his men and it was unlikely that they would put forward any independently-minded candidates. But Nazarbayev’s suggestion was important in reinforcing the notion that the president represented the main political voice of the non-titulars. At the same time he also managed to reinforce the idea that they were ‘minorities’, in spite of the fact that, taken together, they still comprised roughly half of the total population. CONCLUSIONS President Nazarbayev has managed to secure political and social stability in Kazakhstan since independence in a demographic and cultural situation that many observers believed would be particularly difficult to control. This, moreover, has been achieved without recourse to methods quite as repressive as those employed by his colleagues in neighbouring Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Repression has certainly been used in Kazakhstan, but in a more selective fashion. Nazarbayev 178

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has wielded the truncheon but he seems to have preferred more refined instruments whenever he could find them. Increasingly, however, and particularly since 1999, Kazakhstan has met with criticism from international organizations for its failure to live up to democratic standards, such as free and fair elections and safeguarding independent and critical journalism. Rather than addressing these problems and trying to rectify the weaknesses identified by international observers, the Kazakhstani authorities have stepped up the persecution of their opponents. Thus, when the independent newspaper Soldat in March 2000 reprinted Western articles about dubious business links between Kazakhstani officials and foreign firms, involving the transfer of millions of dollars from Kazakhstan into Swiss bank accounts, the owner of the paper was taken to court for insulting the dignity of these officials. Another opposition paper had its premises firebombed in May 2002, and the owner was later, somewhat disingenuously, accused of having orchestrated the bombing himself. Members of local branches of opposition parties find that they are unable to buy train and plane tickets to go to Almaty to attend meetings with foreigners.71 Long prison sentences are meted out for opponents of the Nazarbayev regime. In September 2001, Akezhan Kazhegeldin, Nazarbayev’s most prominent opponent, who had not felt able to return to Kazakhstan since his departure in 1999, was convicted in absentia to 10 years of hard labour on charges of tax evasion and abuse of office while serving as prime minister. In July 2002 the founder of a newly established opposition party—Democratic Choice for Kazakhstan—was sentenced to six years in prison and 3.6 million dollars in fines on similar charges. Even harsher sentences—up to 18 years imprisonment—were handed down in June 2000 to twelve Russian citizens charged with having attempted to establish an independent Russian republic in north-eastern Kazakhstan, allegedly by violent means.72 In the introduction I quoted two Western experts who in 1996 claimed that human rights violations, rigged elections and rule by decree had shown Kazakhstan to be ‘well in line with the Central Asian state-building model’. This statement, in my opinion, underplayed the elements of political pluralism and democracy that, at the time when it was made, could still be found in Kazakhstan. Later developments, however, have gradually given this verdict a greater accuracy than it originally had. While there continue to be differences between Nazarbayev’s ruling techniques and those employed by other Central Asian leaders, they have increasingly become a matter of degree rather than substance. Several of the political initiatives that Nazarbayev has taken to prop up his personal rule have clearly been modelled on similar actions undertaken by his counterparts in other Central Asian states. Thus, for instance, the decision in April 1995 to prolong Nazarbayev’s term in office by four years rather than hold the presidential elections scheduled 179

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for 1996 was an initiative taken following identical decisions made in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in January 1994 and March 1995 respectively. Another example was the decision to set up not one but several pro-regime parties. A similar system of rubber stamp multipartyism exists in Uzbekistan, allowing the regime to present the political system as pluralistic while at the same time muzzling all real opposition.73 The Karimov leadership in Uzbekistan, indeed, has not had to deal with a similar bicultural situation as exists in Kazakhstan. The russophone community in Uzbekistan is numerically and politically too weak to challenge the ethnic Uzbeks for supremacy. However, another strong cultural cleavage runs within the Uzbek community which threatens to tear the country apart: the secularists vs. the Muslim revivalists. After independence the former Soviet nomenklaturists in the Karimov entourage tried to present themselves as genuine believers and defenders of the Faith,74 but this pose was utterly unconvincing and failed completely. The islamist movement in Uzbekistan is far stronger than any opposition movement in Kazakhstan has ever been; among others, it claims more than 7,000 armed guerrilla fighters. Thus, it appears that cleavages running between ethnic groups may be less volatile and destabilizing than cultural cleavages within one and the same ethnic group. Contrary to general expectations, the bipolar structure of Kazakhstani society, with a titular nation and a russophone group of roughly equal size pitted against each other, has not presented a major challenge to social tranquillity. On the contrary, it can be argued that this situation has presented the current Kazakhstani leadership with opportunities to consolidate its positions, by playing the two groups off against one another. As this chapter has demonstrated, the need to preserve political stability and interethnic peace has been a recurrent theme in official Kazakhstani propaganda, and Nazarbayev has been touted as the only person capable of carrying out this task. His team has adroitly played up to the russophones’ fears of kazakhification and the Kazakhs’ fears of renewed Russian dominance, and successfully presented itself to each group as the only political force able and willing to defend its interests against the rival group. NOTES 1. The Helsinki Watch report Conflict in the Soviet Union. The Untold Story of the Clashes in Kazakhstan (New York: Helsinki Watch, 1990), downplays the ethnic aspect of the riots, while some Western experts on Soviet nationalities policies see this aspect as crucial. See Bohdan Nahaylo and Victor Swoboda, Soviet Disunion. A History of the Nationalities Problem in the USSR (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990), pp. 254–9, and Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, The End of the Soviet Empire: The Triumph of the Nations (New York: Basicbooks, 1993), pp. 31–46. 2. I discuss the identity aspect of Kazakhstan’s population in greater detail in Pål Kolstø (ed.), Nation-Building and Ethnic Integration in Post-Soviet Societies. An Investigation of Latvia and Kazakhstan (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1999), pp. 15–43.

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3. R.S. Milne, Politics in Ethnically Bipolar States (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1981); Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), p. 36ff. 4. See, e.g., Politicheskie partii i obshchestvennye dvizheniia sovremmenogo Kazakhstana: Spravochnik, Vol. 13 (Almaty: Ministry of Media and Mass Information I-II, 1994). 5. Bess Brown, ‘Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan on the Road to Democracy’, RFE/RL Research Report 48 (4 Dec. 1992), pp. 20–2. 6. Ian Bremmer and Cory Welt, ‘The Trouble with Democracy in Kazakhstan’, Central Asian Survey 2 (1996), pp. 179–200. 7. Nonetheless, Eschment called her article ‘The Nazarbayev Khanate’. Beate Eschment, ‘Das “Chanat Nazarbayevs” Innenpolitische Entwicklungen 1995 in Kazachstan’, Osteuropa 9 (1996), pp. 876–99. 8. Martha Brill Olcott, ‘Kazakhstan: Pushing for Eurasia’, in Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (eds), New States, New Politics. Building the Post-Soviet Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 549. 9. Zhanna Bulatova and Erik Zhanusov, ‘Materiia i idealy (chem 2000 god budet trudnee 1991-go)’, Delovaia nedelia (Almaty), 10 April 1998. 10. Bulatova and Zhanusov, ‘Materiia i idealy’, Delovaia nedeliia, 17 April 1998; and Eschment, ‘Das Chanat Nazarbayevs’, p. 877. The signature lists later mysteriously disappeared. 11. Brown, ‘Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan’, p. 22. Zheltoksan’s program is published in the official information booklet Political Parties and Social Movements in Contemporary Kazakhstan (see n. 4). It states, inter alia, that ‘as a consequence of migration into Kazakhstan, the relative weight of the indigenous nationality in the total population has been drastically lowered. As a result, the development of the language and culture of the Kazakh people has been distorted.’ Politicheskie partii i obshchestvennye dvizheniia, Vol. 1, p. 78. The program, however, does not offer any clues as to how Zheltoksan proposed going about redressing this situation. By contrast, the program of the Alash party declared that the party was in favour of ‘state regulation of migratory processes and the realization of a state policy of repatriation (giving all those who wish to leave Kazakhstan full material compensation, while making it possible for persons belonging to the indigenous population living abroad to move to Kazakhstan.)’ Politicheskie partii, Vol. 1, pp. 64–5. 12. K.V. Zhigalov and B.K. Sultanov, Pervyi prezident respubliki Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev. Khronika deatel’nosti (1.12.1991–31.5.1993) (Almaty: “Kazakhstan — XXI vek”, 1993), p. 230. 13. The oppositional character of Kazakhstan’s People’s Congress was for some time a matter of dispute. Its leaders insisted that they supported the president and only wanted to influence his policies. (Interview by the author with Gennadii Tolmachev, the editor of the party’s newspaper Narodnyi kongress, in Almaty, May 1993.) In the autumn of 1994 the People’s Congress announced that it would act as a ‘constructive opposition’ to the president. See also the chapter by Vladimir Babak in this volume. 14. Suleymenov studied in a Russian school and his early writings, at least, are all in Russian. 15. The program of the Kazakhstan’s People’s Congress declared that ‘the spirit of the nation is rising again, national dignity is growing. This is a healthy process, […] but in a multinational society proclaiming the priority of only one nation, one’s own, will not lead to civic peace and harmony, either in theory, or in practice.’ Programma partii Narodnyi kongress Kazakhstana na perekhodnyi period do 2000 goda (TaldyKurgan: Taldykurgan kalasy, 1992), p. 23. With regard to Azamat, the author was present at one of its press conferences in Almaty in September 1996. The entire session was devoted to criticism of Nazarbayev’s social and economic policies; nationality policy was not touched upon at all. 16. Kongress demokraticheskikh sil Kazakhstana. 3–4 dekabria 1998 goda (Moscow, 1998), p. 122. 17. Suleymenov began his political career as the leader of the ecological movement

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18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

24. 25.

26. 27.

28. 29.

Nevada-Semipalatinsk and managed to make this movement truly internationalist, in contrast to the nationalistically oriented ecological pressure groups which dominated in most other countries in the former Soviet bloc. See Edward Shatz, ‘Notes on the “Dog That Didn’t Bark”: Eco-internationalism in Late Soviet Kazakhstan’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 1 (Jan. 1999), pp. 136–61. A member of the Kazakhstan Supreme Soviet, and strongly critical of Nazarbayev, in March 1995 Chernyshev was hit on the head from behind and badly beaten while he lay unconscious on the ground. Two more attacks over the next weeks resulted in a broken nose and rib and a dislocated kidney. See Arman Uteshev, ‘I chuvstvo glubokogo udovletvoreniia. Nursultan Nazarbaev obespechivaet sebe politicheskuiu monopoliiu’, Respublika (Almaty; Dec. 1998), pp. 4–5. Vasilii Serebrianskii, ‘Kogda logiku iskat’ bespolezno’, Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 10 Nov. 1998. Robert Kaiser and Jeff Chinn, ‘Russian-Kazakh Relations in Kazakhstan’, Post-Soviet Geography 5 (1995), pp. 257–73; Neil Melvin, Russians Beyond Russia. The Politics of National Identity. (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1995), pp. 108–12. Paul Kolstoe (Pål Kolstø), Russians in the Former Soviet Republics (London/ Bloomington: C. Hurst/Indiana University Press, 1995), pp. 249–51. Some of these laws were later repealed. Boris Giller and Viktor Shatskikh, ‘Russkoiazychnye v Kazakhstane: Opredelenie berega’, Karavan (Almaty), 24 Dec. 1993; A.B Galiev, E. Babakumarov, Zh. Zhansugurova and A. Peruashev, Mezhnatsional’nye otnosheniia v Kazakhstane. Etnicheskii aspekt kadrovoi politiki (Almaty: Institut razvitiia Kazakhstana, 1994). The only area that for all practical purposes seems to be exempt from kazakhification, is language policy. See e.g. Bhavna Dave, ‘National Revival in Kazakhstan: Language Shift and Identity Change’, Post-Soviet Affairs 1 (Jan.–March 1996), pp. 51–72; Pål Kolstø and Irina Malkova ‘Is Kazakhstan Being Kazakhified?’, Analysis of Current Events 11 (Nov. 1997), pp. 1; 3–4. The lack of vigour that characterizes the campaign for linguistic kazakhification, however, should not necessarily be seen as a concession to the russophones. Rather, it expresses the self-interests of the ruling Kazakh élite, which is usually more fluent in Russian than in Kazakh. To give the language campaign real teeth would play directly into the hands of opposition leaders such as Hasen Kozha-Ahmet who hail from the cultural intelligentsia. Pål Kolstø, ‘Anticipating Demographic Superiority. Kazakh Thinking on Integration and Nation-building’, Europe-Asia Studies 1 (1998), pp. 61–3. Arkady Dubnov, ‘Kazakhstan: The Looming Threat of an Ethnic Conflict’, New Times (Jan. 1995), pp. 40–2: Shirin Akiner, The Formation of Kazakh Identity. From Tribe to Nation-State (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1995), pp. 69–74; Adam Dixon, ‘Kazakhstan: Political Reform and Economic Development’, in Allison Roy (ed.), Challenges for the Former Soviet South (New York/London: Brookings Institution Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1996), p. 113. (Dixon refers to observations made by the British researcher Neil Melvin). ‘Kazakhstan: Forced Migration and Nation Building. A Special Report by the Forced Migration Projects’, http://www.soor.org/fm2/html/Kazakhstan.html; http://www. soor.org/fm2/html/Kazakhstan.html, p. 1 Suleymenov is the author of Az i Ia, perhaps the most famous literary work produced in Kazakhstan in the Soviet period. As the son of the celebrated writer and literary critic Mukhtar Auezov, Murat Auezov bears one of the illustrious names in contemporary Kazakhstani cultural history. Kazhegeldin served as prime minister under Nazarbayev from 1994 to 1998. Uteshev, ‘ I chuvstvo glubokogo udovletvoreniia’. In late August 1998 Kazhegeldin’s press secretary Amirzhan Kosanov was attacked by seven masked men. As a result of this encounter Kosanov spent a month in hospital, undergoing several operations. On 18 September the same year one of Kazhegeldin’s other aides, Mikhail Vasilenko, was detained and held in custody for three days. During that period his family was left unawares about his whereabouts, and no one knew whether he was dead or alive. On 24 October 1998 Elena Nikitina from the

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30. 31. 32.

33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43.

44.

public relations firm SR was beaten in the street shortly after her firm had announced that it would function as Kazhegeldin’s official representative during the presidential election campaign. Uteshev, ‘I chuvstvo glubokogo udovletvoreniia’. Ronald Eggleston: ‘Kazakhstan: OSCE Concerned about Presidential Elections’, online at: http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1999/03/F.RU.9903095819.htm. Three other oppositional candidates did participate in the elections, but without any chance of winning. According to official figures almost 82 per cent of the votes of a 86 per cent turnout were cast in favour of Nazarbayev. RFE/RL Newsline, 11 Jan. 1999. Bruce Pannier: ‘Fairness of Parliamentary Elections Will Be Scrutinized’, online at: http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1999/03/F.RU.990622123514.html. The OSCE Office for democratic institutions and human rights received an official invitation to observe the election and sent a Needs Assessment Mission to the country. The mission concluded that Kazakhstan did not meet OSCE election-related commitments in the pre-election process. In particular, the organization was concerned about the amendments to the decree on elections which disqualified potential candidates who had received a minor administrative sanction for an ‘intentional offence’ during the year prior to registration. See: The Republic of Kazakhstan. Presidential Election 10 Jan. 1999, (OSCE/ODIHR election observation, 8 Feb. 1999.), pp. 3–4. It was these amendments that were used to refuse the registration of Akezhan Kazhegeldin’s candidacy. Bruce Pannier: ‘Parliamentary Candidates Complain of Lack of Media Access’, online at: http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1999/10/F.RU.991008131730.html; Bruce Pannier: ‘Election Battles Waged in Courts, Not Campaigns’ online at: http://www. rferl.org/nca/features/1999/08/F.RU.990804135003.html. Eschment, ‘Das Chanat Nazarbayevs’; Dixon, ‘Kazakhstan: Political Reform’, pp. 93–103. Kirill Nourzhanov and Amin Saikal, ‘The New Kazakhstan: Has Something Gone Wrong?’, The World Today 12 (1994), pp. 225–9. The president nominated a total of 70 candidates to this list to fill 42 seats. This gave the voters a semblance of influence regarding its composition. Zh.Kh. Dzhunusova, Respublika Kazakhstan: Prezident. Instituty Demokratii (Almaty: Zheti Zhargy, 1996), p. 94. In the context this expression must refer to the Russians since the interests of the Kazakhs were already over-represented in the parliament. ‘NEGA soobshchaet: Kazakhstan’, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 6 Dec. 1995, p. 3. First of all by Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977). See also chapters by Olimova and Kisriev in this volume, and n. 58. Brian Barry, ‘Review Article: Political Accommodation and Consociational Democracy’, British Journal of Political Science 4 (1975), pp. 477–505; Horowitz, Ethnic Groups, pp. 571–6. Western political scientists have pointed out that fixed numerical quotas in the parliament and other political institutions in Lebanon was one factor among others leading up to the bloody civil war in 1975–76. The Muslims had been given a quota on the basis of their share of the total population at the time when the arrangement was agreed upon in 1943, and felt they should be entitled to greater representation as this share increased due to their faster population growth. This demand was rejected by the demographic losers, the Maronite Christians. See, e.g., Robert Cooper and Mats Berdal, ‘Outside Intervention in Ethnic Conflicts’, in Michael E. Brown (ed.), Ethnic Conflict and International Security (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 181–205. As quoted in Panorama, 1 March 1996. Nurbulat Masanov, ‘Reitingovoe golosovanie v parlamente’, in Uregulirovanie etnicheskikh konfliktov v postsovetskikh gosudarstvakh (Moscow: Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, RAN, 1995), pp. 26–8. See also Kolstø, ‘Anticipating Demographic Superiority’. Bhavna Dave, ‘A New Parliament Consolidates Presidential Authority’, Transition 6 (22 March 1996), pp. 33–7.

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45. Among the seven members of the Constitutional Council three are appointed by the president, two by the Senate, and two by the Mazhlis. ‘Ukaz Prezidenta Respubliki Kazakhstan o konstitutsionnom Sovete Respubliki Kazakhstan’, Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 9 Jan. 1996. 46. According to official information, 95.5 per cent voted yes in the April referendum which had a turnout of 91 per cent. In August the figures were allegedly: 90.6 per cent turnout and 89 per cent ‘yes’, although local election monitors in Almaty claimed that in the stations they checked the turnout was only 14–28 per cent. Eschment, ‘Chanat Nazarbayevs’, pp. 885 and 890. 47. V.N. Khliupin, ‘Bol’shaia sem’ia’ Nursultana Nazarbaeva. Politicheskaia elita sovremennogo Kazakhstana (Moscow: Institute of Topical Political Research, 1998), p. 45. 48. Adam Dixon, ‘Kazakhstan: Political Reform and Economic Development’, in Allison Roy (ed.), Challenges for the Former Soviet South. (Washington, DC/London: Brookings Institution Press for The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1996), p. 102. 49. Jørn Holm-Hansen, ‘Political Integration in Kazakhstan’, in Kolstø, Nation-Building and Ethnic Integration, pp. 193–6. 50. Author’s interview with Nikifor Kan, head of the local Small Assembly of the Peoples in Eastern Kazakhstan, in September 1996. In May 1998, the Assembly was moved from the presidential structure to become subordinated to the newly established Ministry of Information and Social Harmony. This ministry was established in the autumn of 1997 when the State Committee on Nationality Policy was merged with the National Media and Information Agency. 51. Za mir i soglasie v nashem obshchem dome (Almaty: ‘Kazakhstan’, 1995), p. 158. 52. N.I. Petrov and M.S. Gafarly, ‘Kurs na politicheskuiu stabil’nost’ i sotrudnichestvo s sosediami’, in Postsovetskaia tsentral’naia Aziia. Poteri i obreteniia (Moscow: Vostochnaia literatura, RAN, 1998), p. 54. 53. See note 49. 54. R. Sariev, ‘Zalog stabil’nosti’, Mysl’, April 1997, pp. 28–33. 55. Ibid., p. 29. 56. Dat 17, 1998. 57. Seisen Amirbekuly, ‘Chto predstavliaet soboi Assambleia narodov Kazakhstana, organizatsiia, sposobstvuiushchaia druzhbe natsii v respublike, ili instrument politicheskikh igr, ispol’zuemyi prezidentom vo vremia razlichnykh kompanii? [sic]’, XXI vek, 4 Sept. 1998, p. 4. As Amirbekuly was writing his article, it seemed as if the president was planning to dust off the Assembly again. Relating to the recent announcement that the next session of the Assembly would be brought forward from December to September 1998, Amirbekuly predicted that the real reason behind this decision was that the president wanted the Assembly to suggest that the presidential elections be brought forward. 58. Pavel Atrushkevich, ‘Politikov s chervotochinoi pugaet edinstvo naroda’, Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 6 October 1998. 59. A theoretical discussion of such control mechanisms in plural societies may be found in Ian Lustick, ‘Stability in Deeply Divided Societies: Consociationalism vs. Control’, World Politics 3 (1979), pp. 325–44. 60. The cultural, social, historical, and phenotypical differences between the titulars and the Europeans are so great that no one in Kazakhstan seems to be thinking in these terms. 61. Many russophones fill important functions in Kazakhstan’s economy and their departure would almost certainly lead to serious disruptions in production, trade, and transport. 62. Nursultan Nazarbaev, ‘Ia stremlius’, chtoby kazkhstantsy zhili blagopoluchno, edinoi druzhnoi sem’ei’, Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 22 Jan. 1994, p. 2. 63. Nursultan Nazarbaev, K obnovlennomu Kazakhstanu – cherez uglublenie reform, obshchenatsional’noe soglasie (Almaty: Kazakhstan, 1994), p. 19. 64. N.D. Baitenova, ‘Mezhetnicheskaia integratsiia v Kazakhstane: Sostoianie i perspektivy’, Saiasat (Almaty) 3 (1995), pp. 27–33.

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65. In the second Kazakhstani parliament Lad had four deputies, but in the Mazhlis elected in 1995 only one, Mikhail Golovkov, remained. In a conversation with the author in September 1996 Golovkov expressed disappointment and bewilderment with regard to Nazarbayev. He told me that he had had numerous conversations with the President who seemed to listen attentively to his presentation of the russophones’ grievances. Several times, however, policies had been adopted shortly afterwards that were the very opposite of what Golovkov had suggested. 66. Author’s interviews with Anatolii Syromiatnikov and Nikolai Ul’ianov in Semipalatinsk, 22 and 23 Sept. 1996. 67. As reported by Nazarbayev in his report to the Fourth Session of the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan in 1997. See Mysl’ 7 (1997), p. 10. See also ‘V vuz—s “blagosloveniia” Assamblei Narodov Kazakhstana’, Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 18 May 1996. 68. Baitenova, ‘Mezhetnicheskaia integratsiia’. 69. Asen Bisenbaev, ‘Politicheskaia zapadnia perekhodnogo perioda’, Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 21 Feb. 1997, p. 7. 70. Nursultan Nazarbaev, ‘O polozhenii v strane i osnovnykh napravleniiakh vneshnei politiki’, Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 1 Jan. 1998. 71. Bruce Pannier: ‘Kazakhstan: Press Said to Insult Dignity of Officials’, online at: http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/03/08032001120914.asp; Bruce Pannier, ‘Kazakhstan: Slander Case Sends “Chilling” Message to Independent Press’, online at: http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/04/05042001122128.asp; Antoine Blua: ‘Kazakhstan: Head of Paper Accused of Orchestrating Fire at His Offices’, online at: http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2002/07/12072002170856.asp; Antoine Blua, ‘Kazakhstan: Nazarbaev Prevents Opposition Figures From Attending Seminar’, online at: http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2002/07/23072002150907.asp. 72. Bruce Pannier, ‘Kazakhstan: Convictions of Russian “Separatists” Upset Relations,’ online at: http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/06/F.RU.000615145849.html. 73. See the chapter by Neil Melvin, in this volume. 74. Pål Kolstø, Political Construction Sites: Nation-Building in Russia and the Post-Soviet States (Boulder, Colorado: Westview press, 2000), 75–9.

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10 Liberalization in Kyrgyzstan: ‘An Island of Democracy’ LEONID LEVITIN In the early 1990s, the West was unanimous in the view that Kyrgyzstan constituted ‘an island of democracy’ in the post-Soviet space, and particularly in Central Asia. There was a complete absence of censorship and restrictions on the opposition or on dissidents, and the term ‘political prisoner’ had been essentially forgotten. This was not a purely intuitive assessment on the part of Western politicians and leaders, or of specialists and other figures sympathetic to President Akayev. It was reflected in the objective findings of Freedom House, a well-respected, non-governmental organization based in the US, whose primary purpose is to evaluate the standards of freedom in any particular country, according to a scale developed by the organization’s staff. Freedom House analysts rated civil liberties in Kyrgyzstan over an extended period, placing it in a category with countries such as Germany, Japan and Greece.1 In this vein, one may also cite Zbigniew Brzezinski, the American political analyst and statesman, who served from 1977–81 as national security advisor to US President Jimmy Carter. In his article ‘The Great Transformation’, Brzezinski divided all the former communist countries into four groups in accordance with criteria such as the projected future of democratic and market reforms.2 In the first group he placed countries with an especially positive prognosis. These were countries where only an absolutely unpredictable and highly unlikely scenario would have to develop in order for them to abort the process of transformation into full and pluralistic democracies. The list included Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Estonia. The second group contained countries whose democratic and market prospects for the coming decades appeared favourable, but which were presently vulnerable in their political and economic sectors, so that the possibility of a complete turn-about, or even political and/or economic collapse, could not be discounted. Kyrgyzstan was placed in this group alongside Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania and Latvia. Countries 187

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listed in the third group — those whose political and economic future would evidently remain uncertain for a decade or more — included Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The fourth group listed those countries whose future appeared gloomy for a variety of reasons: Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia, Moldova and Tajikistan. Brzezinski allocated this preferred status to Kyrgyzstan in 1993. In November 1998, he was interviewed by Vitalii Tret’iakov, then editor-inchief of Nezavisimaia gazeta.3 He was asked whether he considered the model of peace and democracy-building favoured by the US and the West suitable for the countries of the East, and for the Islamic world specifically, which was currently both far removed from, and actively opposed to it. Brzezinski’s views remained basically unchanged: I am not convinced of the absolute correctness of the notion that the entire Islamic world is, by definition, incapable of adapting to democratic institutions. Even in the newly independent Islamic states on the territory of the former Soviet Union, there is a significant difference in this respect between, for example, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan.

Moscow-based political analysts and orientalists likewise persisted in their opinion that an authoritarian form of government prevailed in all the Central Asian republics, with the exception of Kyrgyzstan.4 It may be argued that the creation of the regime’s democratic image in Kyrgyzstan was closely linked to the personality of President Akayev as a reformist leader with liberalizing tendencies. DEMOCRATIZATION OR LIBERALIZATION? All attempts at transition from totalitarian and authoritarian regimes to democratic forms of political life, and of societal structure in general, such as those currently under way in the newly independent states on the territory of the former Soviet Union, have, for all their differences, followed a particular pattern. In all cases, the replacement of undemocratic regimes has been imposed from above by the new political leaders and ruling élites, which are split between reformers and conservatives who opposed change. Thus, these processes were not genuinely democratic, since they were almost entirely controlled from above, and could be aborted at any moment. The reforms began with the preliminary liberalization of the regime but were not necessarily destined to attain political democracy. In this sense, liberalization has become part of the social democratization process in the Soviet successor states, and forms one of its stages. Democratization is naturally a broader concept than liberalization, including, in addition to social liberalization, the irreversibility of antitotalitarian and anti-authoritarian processes. It is founded throughout the CIS on a developing middle class, the growth of society’s civil institutions, and an effective judicial system, truly independent of the other branches of government. 188

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The Soviet successor states have demonstrated that liberalization of a former communist regime comprises a combination of specific political, economic and social changes in the life of that society. These include, based on the experience of other states, regular elections; according real power to the parliament; reorganization of the organs of state security; toleration of political opposition; relaxation of censorship; freedom of movement, including the right to leave the country; openness of the country to foreign capital and foreign non-governmental organizations; legalization of private ownership of property, and support for entrepreneurship.5 Such liberalization, which was achieved in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, has not characterized all the Soviet successor states. Indeed, in Central Asia, it applied only to Kyrgyzstan. It would nevertheless be impossible to make a reliable assessment of the liberalization trajectory in Kyrgyzstan, and its impact on the country’s overall development, without examining the particular characteristics of Kyrgyz society. Similarly, one can not ignore the profound systemic crisis which the country has continued to endure. THE ISLAMIC FACTOR Kyrgyzstan belongs to the Muslim family of nations. Yet Islam as a civilizing factor has neither the same long-standing or extensive history, nor the same social dynamic in Kyrgyzstan that it has in neighbouring Uzbekistan or Tajikistan, since it has had to compete more fiercely with pre-Islamic ethnic traditions. The islamization of the Kyrgyz really only dates from the time of the migration of significant numbers of Kyrgyz into the Fergana Valley in the seventeenth century, when northern Kyrgyz lands were seized by Jungarian Oirat (Kalmyk) feudal lords. Only the southern Kyrgyz actually underwent islamization at that time, while the northern Kyrgyz converted to the faith later, and in a far less intensive manner. Islamic theologians remained largely unknown to the northern Kyrgyz, while many even refrained from observing religious rituals. The fact that Sufi communities existed in some areas, and even in the Tien Shan, does not detract from the assertion that Islam did not have strong roots in northern Kyrgyzstan. In 1858, Chokan Valikhanov, the Kazakh ethnographer, wrote the following about the Kyrgyz: ‘Islamic puritanism has not yet managed to spread among this people. The Buruts [Valikhanov’s term for the Kyrgyz] call themselves Muslims, but do not even know what kind of a person Muhammad was. They mark funerals and celebrate weddings in the shamanist tradition, but will endeavour to find a literate Central Asian or Tatar to read the Muslim prayer.’6 The ensuing colonization of Kyrgyzstan by Russia brought to northern Kyrgyzstan Volga Tatar mullas. Seeking to introduce a more moderate model of Islam that that of neighbouring Bukhara, Kokand and Khiva, the Russian government resolved to use the services of men 189

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of religion whose mentality and perceptions had a long tradition of rapprochement with Russia and Russian civilization. To this day, only a relatively small proportion of Kyrgyz pray regularly, or observe other Islamic traditions, rituals and precepts. The majority observe only a few basic rituals and laws, such as circumcision and burial. For the Kyrgyz, Islam is largely a symbol of their specificity and identity, rather than the bedrock of their lives, and it does not regulate their conduct. After Kyrgyzstan achieved independence, over 1,200 mosques appeared in the country, most of which were constructed with the assistance of foreign donations. This has not, however, changed the essential picture with regard to the Kyrgyz themselves. In September 1991, President Akayev’s election campaign was in full swing. He prepared himself meticulously for his visit to the Jalal-Abad Oblast in the south, where he was slated to appear in the low-lying Kyrgyz villages. In this part of the country the principles and norms of Islam find expression in everyday life and Islamic authority dominates issues of moral conduct. Akayev returned disenchanted, having found that his audience, who considered themselves true Muslims, had responded with little enthusiasm to his ideas and proposals for correcting social ills. He felt most keenly that Islam did not constitute a cultural value for them, and that it comprised only a formal framework. On several other occasions as well, in his contacts with Islamic practice in the country, the president did not receive the response he anticipated.7 Similarly, Akayev’s suggestions to include a reference to the moral values of Islam as a part of Kyrgyz national culture in the preamble to the constitution of Kyrgyzstan were rejected. The overwhelming majority of parliamentary deputies voted to exclude a reference to Islam in the debate on the draft constitution. Critics of Akayev’s proposal said that mention should be made of their native soil and ancestral traditions dating back to the distant past, and not to Islam.8 With respect to the oblasts of Osh and Jalal-Abad, however, there are visible, ongoing changes, namely, an evident growth in the numbers and activity of so-called Wahhabis, which has prompted a series of administrative and other organizational responses by the regime. These anti-Wahhabi measures have been publicly criticized by Sadyk Kamalov (Sadikjan Hajj Kamaluddin), president of the Kyrgyzstan Islamic Centre and a well-known public figure. From 1987 to 1990, Kamaluddin was Qazi of Kyrgyzstan, and from 1990 to 1994, he served as a deputy of the Republic’s Supreme Soviet. Furthermore, it was he who nominated Akayev for president in October 1990.9 Kamaluddin is an ethnic Uzbek, and highly influential in the Uzbek community. As an avowed follower of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings, Kamalov has declared publicly on numerous occasions that a part of the Muslim community in Kyrgyzstan was genuinely endeavouring to follow the precepts of true Islam, but that they did not and never would engage in any subversive activity against the government or the regime.10 190

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The struggle with ‘Wahhabism’ in Kyrgyzstan has one important feature which Akayev would be wise never to underestimate: namely, that the majority of its followers are Uzbek. Thus, whether intentionally or otherwise, tensions between the country’s Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities may rise once again, and lead to a revival of the bloody Osh oblast clashes of 1990. Certainly, at any moment shockwaves from events in Uzbekistan may roll across southern Kyrgyzstan with full intensity. It is, therefore, vital to examine Islam’s role in contemporary Kyrgyzstan, not only in immediate connection with events in neighbouring Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, but in the overall context of Islam’s growing role as a factor, indirectly or directly defining the direction and character of major social processes in the world today. This thesis was proven most convincingly by the entry into Kyrgyzstan’s Batken Raion (now Batken Oblast) and the Chong-Alay Raion in Osh Oblast in summer 1999 of Uzbek armed militants from Tajikistan, belonging to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.11 Earlier in the year the movement had declared a jihad on the Karimov regime, which was later extended to Akayev’s administration. This was publicly declared by Zubahir ibn Abdurahim, self-styled president of the Political Divan (Council) of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.12 As a person who knows Akayev closely, I believe that he will not seek to resolve the highly complex problems of countering Islamic extremism through armed conflict, but will turn for support to the adherents of traditional Islam. Whether this will be effective is entirely another matter. I hold serious reservations with respect to use of this tactic among Kyrgyz in northern Kyrgyzstan, where there are literally only a handful of ethnic Kyrgyz mullas, who wield minor influence and whose authority is clearly tenuous. I contend that the Kyrgyz Republic’s administration will not be able in the foreseeable future to depend upon Islam as a creative force or one having a regulatory role. The real issue is how to restrain and block its destructive and destabilizing potential. URUUCHULUK This is the term for the Kyrgyz traditions of blood relationships. Uruuchuluk has enabled the Kyrgyz to preserve their ethnic identity, together with the stability of their primary social structures. Like many other phenomena in traditional societies, uruuchuluk has not infrequently — side by side with its positive potential — prolonged the existence of extremely negative phenomena. There are instances where kin or tribal interests have stood in opposition to national ones, or where disagreements between clans and tribes on minor economic or other questions have turned into hostility that has lasted for many years. To this day in Kyrgyzstan, the sub-ethnic level of identity remains more significant than the ethnic one — and, sub-ethnic rivalries persist. As one moves from the realm of rhetoric to the real world, it is 191

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impossible not to acknowledge that the key players in socio-political processes in modern Kyrgyzstan are not political parties, but regional clan élites which influence the behaviour of broad sections of the population in no small measure.13 In particular, both local and foreign observers note that a significant number of deputies to the Zhogorku Kenesh14 were elected in February-March 1995 because of support from their kinsmen and tribesmen and the authority they held in those circles.15 During the presidential elections of December 1995, members from all political parties in southern Kyrgyzstan (practically two-thirds of the Kyrgyz population of Osh and Jalal-Abad Oblasts), who appeared to hold diametrically opposing political positions, voted primarily for Absamat Masaliyev, leader of the Communists. I see nothing to censure in this phenomenon — it is a historical fact. Moreover, I am not convinced that the cohesion of people around these factors is any worse than class-based cohesion, or unity around nationalist political slogans in a multi-ethnic society. The issue is rather one of how the administration should cooperate with regional and clan élites: whether it should act from a position of strength, or conduct and promote dialogue among various sub-ethnic groups, principally within existing democratic structures. It is to Akayev’s credit that he has consistently demonstrated a sensible and rational approach and utilized his ability to seek compromise solutions as far as possible. A NATIONAL STATE IN A MULTINATIONAL COUNTRY In Kyrgyzstan, as in the other post-Soviet states, all of which are multiethnic, objective factors preclude identifying the concept of nation with the people of the country. For the foreseeable future, so-called primordialism will continue to hold sway, whereby a nation is perceived as one’s ethnic group, an immutable entity of people linked by blood, with distinctly manifested and constant features. Under the provisions of the constitution of Kyrgyzstan, sovereignty belongs to the people of Kyrgyzstan, on whose behalf the constitution was adopted, and who comprise the Kyrgyz (the eponymous, stateforming nation) and citizens of all the country’s other national groups. Consistent with the situation in many multi-ethnic countries, these citizens belong to both indigenous, mainly Uzbek and Tajik, and nonindigenous ethnic minorities (Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, ethnic Germans, and others). In 1996, the country’s population stood at 4,512,000, of whom 2,720,000 were Kyrgyz (60 per cent), 640,000 Uzbeks (14 per cent), and 790,000 Slavs (17.5 per cent), of whom 707,000 were Russians.16 Such is the ethno-demographic composition of Kyrgyzstan. This farfrom-simple state of affairs is a consequence of the ‘delimitation’ of Central Asia’s administrative boundaries in the 1920s and of the territory’s tangled history of interethnic relations. Uzbeks and Tajiks have lived in densely populated areas in Kyrgyzstan since time immemorial, 192

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just as Kyrgyz have lived in certain areas of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In 1993, there were more than 240,000 Kyrgyz living in Uzbekistan, and approximately 80,000 in Tajikistan. Representatives of non-indigenous ethnic minorities appeared on the scene significantly later: at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, as a consequence of the Russian colonization of parts of Kyrgyzstan and in even larger numbers after the October Revolution. Whereas Russians and Ukrainians comprised 18.1 per cent of the population in 1926, they accounted for 30.2 per cent in 1939 and 36.8 per cent in 1959.17 National policy with respect to the indigenous and non-indigenous ethnic minorities must entail significant differences. Many Russians and other Slavs will most likely leave Kyrgyzstan at some point. Georgii Rudov, Russia’s consul to Kyrgyzstan, expressed the opinion in January 2000 that, with appropriate support from the Russian Federation and regional authorities, the number of Russians living in Kyrgyzstan could be expected to drop to between 200,000 and 250,000 over a period of ten years, and that those remaining would be largely older people who would simply live out their lives there.18 By the same token, the Uzbek and Tajik population will continue to dwell alongside the Kyrgyz. Kyrgyzstan’s national political strategy with respect to its indigenous and non-indigenous ethnic minorities must consequently differentiate between them. For the present, however, the pivotal point of this policy is provision for equitable participation of representatives of the ethnic minorities in the administration of power, whose basis should afford them equal status with the eponymous nation — whether directly (in referendums or elections), or through the system of government agencies. Therefore, the question of an equitable representation for these ethnic minorities — in both houses of the Zhogorku Kenesh, in local government agencies (and particularly in regions and towns where their population is compact), in the government and in other agencies of the executive, in the courts, and in various civil structures of society — is acutely relevant. Yet, it is no simple matter, as has been demonstrated by the experience of state organization in independent Kyrgyzstan. An examination of the situation in Kyrgyzstan reveals that in effect only representatives of the eponymous nation participate in political life. The occasional exception does not diminish the accuracy of this conclusion. This may eventually lead to extremely grave consequences for the country’s stability. The 1995 elections returned an 80 per cent Kyrgyz representation to both houses of the Zhogorku Kenesh. In the lower house, the Assembly of National Representatives, Kyrgyz deputies comprised approximately 90 per cent. The elections in 2000 showed similar results. For purposes of comparison, the composition of deputies to the Kyrgyzstan Supreme Soviet in 1990 was 64 per cent Kyrgyz, 19 per cent Russian, 8 per cent Uzbek, 3 per cent Ukrainian, and 6 per cent other groupings.19 193

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There is practically no representation of the ethnic minorities in ministerial positions, among local government leadership at oblast or raion levels, in the Prosecutor’s Office or within the court system. In January 1994, the first all-national qurultay (convention) was held in Bishkek, including over 300 representatives of non-Kyrgyz ethnic groups, and the Assembly of the People of Kyrgyzstan was established. Its declared goals were: to express the interests of the ethnic minorities and to ensure all-national solidarity, i.e., between Kyrgyz and the country’s ethnic minorities and among the ethnic minorities themselves. Although several years have passed, I would venture to suggest that the Assembly’s potential as one of the foremost secular and social structures has barely been given expression. President Akayev has repeatedly advocated that the Assembly of People’s Representatives of the Zhogorku Kenesh comprise representatives not only on a territorial basis, but also reflecting the country’s composition. I believe that the most intelligent way to ensure this would be to define the number of seats in the house to be elected from the Assembly of the People of Kyrgyzstan. Since the establishment of the Assembly, there have been two referenda in Kyrgyzstan on issues of amendments and additions to the constitution, and various election laws have been drafted — but no-one has raised the question of the Assembly’s representation in the legislative agencies. A provision for obtaining an optimal number of representatives from the ethnic minorities within the Zhogorku Kenesh would appear feasible, in principle. In the executive and juridical branches of government, however, no progress can be anticipated in that direction. This is not only due to total lack of knowledge of the state language among the urban sector of the Russian population, including professionals, or insufficient knowledge of the language among the Uzbeks and Tajiks: the powerful and definitive factor is the socio-psychological predominance of primordialism. DEMOCRATURE/DEMOCRATORSHIP A profound systemic crisis is common to all the Soviet successor states, both more authoritarian regimes and liberalizing ones. Its source is corruption in all its various expressions — the result, and perhaps the aim, of the ‘privatization’ of government by state employees at different levels of the bureaucracy, which has led to clientelism and favouritism, and a sharp stratification of the population according to income and standard of living. Kyrgyzstan is no exception to this phenomenon. As in other post-Soviet states a chasm has developed between government and society, while the formal institutions of democracy (free elections, parliament, and a free press), and the mechanisms for effective democratic control over the government’s actions are frequently exploited for undemocratic purposes. Western analysts have dubbed the post-Soviet regimes ‘democratorships’ or ‘élitist (nominal) democracies’ — systems where the 194

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possibilities for effective mass political participation are limited, but where competition is authorized at the élite level.20 It could even be said that a characteristic and essential feature of this kind of political regime is the ‘privatization’ of the regime, where power is utilized by the promoters of sinecures, not so much in the interests of society as in their own personal and mercenary interests. The most significant aspect of this phenomenon in Kyrgyzstan is its clientelist orientation, which was at the core of the internal structure of the former Soviet local bureaucracy, defining the mentality and conduct of its officials, and characterizing the style of their government to a significant degree. The term clientele is used to denote a large or small group of clients, free people, who submit themselves to the protection of a patron or leading citizen, and clientelism was originally synonymous with patronage. Both terms have been revived in recent times — obviously with reference to a new reality. Clientelism today implies a form of dependence of bureaucrats and private citizens based on protection, usually for purposes of monetary compensation or other material gain, upon other and more influential officials, state leaders, politicians, important clanbased and foreign businessmen, who represent a kind of patronage system. The ‘privatization’ of power is linked to favouritism, where someone’s personal closeness to a top state official, based on a special personal relationship and personal loyalty, can automatically transform that person into a political figure, irrespective of his official status. These protégés may cause serious damage to the national figure who advanced them, and even to the state itself, as current political practice in Kyrgyzstan has demonstrated. In the first place, under the bright political spotlight and because of the uncontrollable status of the mass media in contemporary Kyrgyzstan, these protégés may come under heavy fire, which casts a shadow on their patrons. Secondly, very few of them are prepared to renounce their own political aspirations, which leads them to the point where they suddenly dissociate themselves from their patrons and engage in their own political manoeuvres. Such behaviour was exemplified in the activities of the former head of the state-owned Kyrgyzaltyn (Kyrgyzgold) Corporation, Dastan Sarygulov, former Minister of Finance Kemil Nanayev, and the head of the president’s office, Misir Ashirkulov. The names of President Akayev’s protégés are common knowledge. In private conversation, one can hear the most exhaustive information from people no longer in the system, about each and every one of them, their degree of closeness to the president or prime minister, how long they are likely to remain in favour or continue to cooperate with their patron, or any other detail. The major topic of interest in 1999, for instance, was the great influence wielded by Akayev’s son-in-law, Adil Toygonbayev, on issues requiring skill and experience, which he manifestly lacks.

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LAND REFORM Land reform appears to be the primary thrust of Akayev’s liberalizing initiatives, both in terms of its importance and its implementation. For all the post-Soviet Central Asian states, land reform lays the foundations for other democratic and market reforms, as well as for economic, social and political changes in general. To this day, these are still peasant countries, because of the significant ratio of the peasantry in the indigenous population. Moreover, other classes, social strata, and groups of the titular nation, including its élite retain links to the rural areas. Agrarian reform naturally also extends to the problems of how to sharply increase agricultural production, which will remain a major issue for a long time to come. Several noted specialists on Central Asia hold even more categorical opinions about the vital importance of land reform. They believe that the agrarian issue in the region lies at the root of all the other problems, since no strictly national or social conflicts exist and that, in the final analysis, these are all related to the land issue. In this connection, a 1997 IMF report on economic developments in Kyrgyzstan is noteworthy. Based on the outcome of a fact-finding mission to Kyrgyzstan, it begins with the following statement: In the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR, the Kyrgyz government rapidly adopted a strategy to transform the economy to a market system. The Kyrgyz Republic has thus been one of the earliest and most active reformers of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

The ‘broad-based’ economic recovery benefited from ‘the implementation of structural reforms, especially in privatization and restructuring of public enterprises, banking, activities and the legal framework, as well as in agriculture’.21 The IMF is an institution universally known for not being inclined to complimentary statements or exaggeration about a country’s achievements. In 1995, in the course of my professional engagements in the Samarkand and Andijan Oblasts of Uzbekistan, I had an opportunity to talk both with some of the regional farm managers and with peasants. Both groups mentioned their earlier enthusiasm and aspirations regarding President Karimov’s decisions concerning agrarian reform, and their subsequent disillusionment when they were not implemented. According to them, local government was not interested in private enterprise because it feared it might lose its hold over people, or, more likely, because officials were looking for ways to make money by collecting extortion payments. In this respect, the situation in Kyrgyzstan was even more complex. Over and above the opposition to agrarian reform by the majority of regional leaders, and by the sovkhozes and kolkhozes for reasons identical to those pertaining in neighbouring Uzbekistan, factors of another kind were at play. As a result of Russia’s colonializing policies in Kyrgyzstan in the late 19th and early 20th century, the Kyrgyz were 196

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disinherited of their best agricultural lands.22 Moscow deliberately designated the Kyrgyzstan region a top priority for land and water reform at the commencement of Soviet rule, with the express intention of equalizing the status of Kyrgyz and Russians in agriculture. Up to the acquisition of independence, however, there were no substantial changes in this respect. Land tenure regulations and collectivization could not remove the legacy of ethnic injustice from the past in relation to the land issue. The most fertile agricultural lands in the northern regions remained in the hands of the descendants of re-settled Russian peasants, and the kolkhozy there were ethnically Russian. This long-standing Kyrgyz grievance explains why Akayev established a national land repository for the north of the country from the outset of his rule. And what of the south? While the land issue is not problem-free here either, the origins of the problem in this part are rooted in the ancient, unresolved, rival claims of Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. At a meeting of oblast and raion leaders in the winter of 1991, Akayev said: Our land reform is a dialogue. We need to conduct ongoing and concerted negotiations with everyone whose interests will be affected one way or the other by this reform. We need to tell them that we will not stop this reform under any circumstances: either we come to an agreement, or chaos will ensue. And no-one is interested in chaos.23

So, patient and seemingly interminable negotiations began. I recall numerous conversations between Akayev and economic leaders in the agrarian sector. The main question was always the same, and Akayev would put it very succinctly: ‘What do you want to gain from the land reform? What is your interest in it?’ Sometimes the answer was, ‘We aren’t particularly interested in it.’ Akaeyev would then ask, ‘How can that be?’ and they would say, ‘Well, we are living now without reform and our lives aren’t too bad. It suits us to have kolkhozes and sovkhozes.’ Akayev’s reply would be: ‘Look, the kolkhozes and sovkhozes are operating out of inertia. They have exhausted all their resources, and their re-organization was underway even under the Soviet regime. Without this reform, the system has no future. Either we reorganize or we liquidate. Let’s discuss what kind of securities you need, what you stand to lose financially and ethically, the level and manner of compensation. Let’s think about this seriously.’24 It was a veritable trial of endurance. Akayev, for example, would speak with a group of parliamentary deputies, most of them former nomenklatura (chairmen of kolkhozy and sovkhozy), and come to an agreement whereby, if he introduced a bill on land reform into parliament, they would support it. However, when the time came not only did they not stand by him, they even voted against it. Akayev felt this to the quick, but persevered with his dialogues. To recall one particular tactic: he would set his demands too high, realizing they would not be accepted, but that the participants might consent to the adoption of 197

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lesser demands, as a compromise. He used this ploy in the debate on the first section of the Civil Code in the Zhogorku Kenesh in April 1994. Akayev said the issue of the introduction of private title to land ownership needed to be presented. The proposal was discussed. The deputies would probably not concur with this, but his instructions to officialdom were to work patiently towards this goal, and only propose a compromise at a later stage. At this later stage, the bureaucracy would agree to the inclusion in the Code of a sentence about the perpetuity of inheritance of land ownership, with a provision for rights of purchase and sale. Discussions and debates about the articles relating to private ownership of land dragged on. Finally, as Akayev had assumed, when he proposed an alternative in the form of the perpetuity of inheritance of land ownership, with the option of transferring that right, it was adopted practically unopposed.25 This is how the legal basis for agrarian reform was laid. More importantly, not only were the appropriate acts of legislation passed, but they have been perceptibly implemented. This achievement was due to the fact that both the political forces and the social groups upon whom their implementation depended stood to gain from it. On 17 October 1998, a universal referendum was held in Kyrgyzstan; an overwhelming majority voted for the president’s proposal on the introduction of private land ownership. It was all a rather humdrum event. The voting dragged on. This was not the first referendum and the people of Kyrgyzstan were not initiates to the practice. Yet, they had never before voted in a referendum on an issue of such major importance. The resultant revised formulation of Article 4, Paragraph 3, of the Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic reads: ‘Land may be held in state, communal, private, or other forms of ownership. The limits and manner in which landowners exercise their rights and their guaranteed protection are defined in law.’ It was not just a matter of peasants and farmers now having legal rights to obtain credit against their land on favourable terms, although the significance of this prosaic fact for today’s landholders in Kyrgyzstan can hardly be overestimated. The primary outcome was the constitutionally based creation of the foundations of a mass property-owning class in the rural areas. The economic, political, social and psychological consequences of this reform will undoubtedly have a constructive influence on the country’s future development. LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM Reform of local government was another important direction of liberalization in Kyrgyzstan. Local government development owes its high priority not only to universal reasons, but to specific characteristics of this post-Soviet state. Akayev frequently cited Alexis de Tocqueville’s well-known analogy between the role of communal institutions and elementary schools in the establishment of independence: both, he 198

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maintained, opened a path to freedom for the people, and taught them how to use this freedom. The early years of Kyrgyzstan’s independence have demonstrated that many institutions of Western democracy could not be transplanted there in a truly effective manner (especially its parliamentarism). At the same time, autonomous local communities are perfectly capable of undertaking an active democratic commitment, and they can also work to resolve specific problems and bring about interethnic accord. Local associations in the ails (mountain settlements) and in the villages are not solely territorial collectives, but are defined in accordance with family and kinship units. This obviously affords them greater stability, enhances their potential to influence their individual members, and enables the consolidation of each local association in its reciprocal relations with other local associations and official, state institutions. Local government reform in Kyrgyzstan, as in any other Soviet successor state, was associated with overcoming ingrained stereotypes in public consciousness, generated by 70 years of Soviet rule. Everyone recognized as fiction the concept of the supremacy of the soviets — as a fig leaf of rural administration. Party decisions, however, did receive a form of legalization in the soviets. Outside the Party apparatus, no one took the soviets seriously. It might therefore be expected that, with the departure of the Party from the political arena, the soviets would also disappear. But during perestroika, with the increasing acceleration in the loss of the partocracy’s functions as an all-pervasive superpower, the soviets breathed new life into the Leninist postulate and laid claim to dictatorial supremacy for themselves. Gorbachev, who as chairman of the AllUnion Supreme Soviet Presidium, the pinnacle of the pyramid of soviets demanded that they should become the organs of ‘true’ power at all levels — at the top of the pyramid and at the local level. The relatively free elections of 1989–90 for national deputies of the USSR and union republic supreme soviets led to the appearance of parliaments with real power, which claimed the right to take decisions in all spheres, and to implement their status as the supreme agency in the hierarchy of soviets. This applied, among others, to the Supreme Soviet of Kyrgyzstan. The local soviets, however, were still deprived of their original purpose as a form of municipal and communal power. Once more, the concept of local power as essentially community-based, rather than governmentally-based, was relegated to obscurity. With it disappeared the idea that the entire purpose of local government is to serve the needs of the population and the collectives in a given territory, and that it should take into account local traditions, customs and culture. Local government reform in Kyrgyzstan thus offered ‘desovietization’ as an alternative to the pre- and post-perestroika models of the soviet. Akayev initiated local government reform from the outset of his tenure in presidential office. Yet it gradually slowed down until it 199

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stopped altogether, despite Akayev’s continued endeavours. Akayev was highly concerned about this: he had frequently stated that democracy in Kyrgyzstan would not only have no future, but no present, either, if it was not rooted in strong local government. He said that failure to understand this truth and contemptuous disregard of the potential of local communities might cost society dearly in social, economic and political terms. The Kyrgyz in the ails did indeed have their own kind of selforganization long before Russian colonization, a system which had proved its durability under the difficult conditions of nomadic life, with a mechanism which worked well in various everyday situations. The majority of ails were ruled by aksakals (elders) with the help of a wisdom acquired through a lifetime of experience and the trust of their kinsmen. While the large tribes and clans were led by manaps (in northern Kyrgyzstan) and by biys (in the south), they settled the more important issues together with the aksakals. Various forms of mutual self-help were widely practised in rural society, such as ashar (the collective execution of any large undertaking) and ortok (friendship and cooperation among peasants). Each ail lived as one united family: no one was ever allowed to feel excluded or deprived of his rewards, and rural society took care of its orphans, widows, the weak and the elderly — or, to use contemporary terminology, it provided social support and assistance. Incidentally, to this day, the Kyrgyz preserve their system of primary social organization, such as the division of clans into groups named bir atanyn baldary, which they consider to be descendants of a common ancestor. The members of these groups consider themselves blood relatives, bound to provide each other with material assistance. Thus, the ideology and practice of local government reform in Kyrgyzstan has its own national roots and traditions, but it also borrows from the historical experience of neighbouring territories, specifically, the Uzbek mahalla. On 22 September 1994, Akayev enacted a decree, whereby he affirmed the statute of the foundations for local government organizations in the Kyrgyz Republic.26 This was the first time in any state belonging to the Commonwealth of Independent States, that an official document defined the basic, primary level of territorial organization as the local community — the population of the ails, villages, settlements and cities — which unites around common interests for the purpose of resolving issues of local importance (known in some Western countries as a ‘free commune’). The raions and oblasts were defined in the statute as the territorial union of local communities. It provided for the establishment by local communities of raion and oblast keneshes (councils), comprising deputies who were authorized to resolve problems at the raion and oblast level. The raion and oblast’ keneshes became productive and were dependent on the local communities. 200

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The statute established that citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic, who resided permanently on the territory of a local community and were connected to it through mutual ties, were members of these local communities. There was a provision by which people who were not resident in the local community constituency, but held property there, who paid taxes to the local authorities and declared their wish to participate in local community business, also became eligible for membership. This broad understanding of community membership is extremely important to the Kyrgyz. Any Kyrgyz, irrespective of place of residence, intuitively or consciously feels an indissoluble tie to the ‘little homeland’, the place where one’s ancestors lived, where one’s paternal home is located, where relatives and friends reside. Were it otherwise, the very roots of one’s existence would be severed. The statute provided that the local community would act independently in settling issues of local life and its own organization through autonomous decisions, laws and other governmental legislation, and it would enjoy a wide range of powers in the economic and social sectors, including broader-ranging commercial activity. Local administration was to be implemented directly by the people through a process of local referendums, assemblies and gatherings of residents, and through the representative institutions of the local community (keneshes) and their executive apparatus. It also stated that ‘local government is a democratic form of power belonging to the people’ and comprised one of the fundamental parts of the constitutional structure of the Kyrgyz Republic. On 16 February 1996, at the president’s behest, appropriate additions to the amendment relating to local communities and local government were made to the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan. Primarily, they resolved the issue of communal property, which formed the economic basis of local communities. They also provided for monitoring functions within local government in the regions, cities, and oblasts vis-à-vis local state administration (in other words, giving local government the right to express its lack of confidence in the akims who headed the state administration at the local level). At a convention of heads of local administrations in late 1994, Akayev responded to a question about what the ordinary person would gain from local government reform in Kyrgyzstan: ‘Above all, it will give him, together with his relatives, neighbours, and fellow countrymen, the opportunity to make decisions about the major issues in their lives. A person who lives in a genuinely self-governing local community need not and should not feel isolated, or be left to his own devices in the face of his problems, sorrows and troubles.’27 The next striking landmark in the evolution of local government in Kyrgyzstan was the experimental introduction of a particular method of local government in Bishkek. (A provisional statute, entitled, ‘On the foundations of local government organization in Bishkek’, was signed into law by presidential decree on 4 July 1995.28) Local government in 201

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the capital of the republic was combined with the state administration, and a unified administrative structure was established. Under Paragraph 5 of the above statute, the head of the Bishkek local government was the mayor, elected by the city’s population; he was the highest officeholder in the capital and the head of the executive-administrative organ, the municipality. He was also the representative of the president and government and responsible for the implementation of government policy and the implementation of the executive arm in the spheres delegated by the government. On 24 April 1996 the government set up ail-okmotus (village administrations) throughout the country. These organs attended to a variety of issues related to everyday life, as well as working towards the implementation of land and agrarian reform. The history of local government in Western Europe, and particularly in France and Germany, has shown that significant difficulties can arise in the formation of communal corporations and the selection of optimal forms of inter-community cooperation. The fact that these issues were indeed resolved at the legislative level in Kyrgyzstan is evidence that local government reform in that country took international standards into account. An Association of Local Government Organizations was established, and in late December 1997, the first qurultays of local community representatives convened and resolved to create a congress of local communities of Kyrgyzstan. This Congress has two primary goals. The first is to cooperate to serve the most important interests of local communities and their associations, and be their representative on these issues to the organs of state. The second is to cooperate in the development of local political interests and aspirations of the people of Kyrgyzstan at a local level. In short, the Congress of Local Communities is conceived not just as a forum for inter-community coordination or cooperation; but as an influential political force, which, manifestly reflects the political and social profile of the transition period in Kyrgyzstan.29 The aspiration to politicization of local government generated a complex response among the country’s political élite. Certain leaders and several national deputies expressed the opinion that according a political character to the congress was a deviation from the principle of the division of power.30 To a significant degree, judging by Western standards, this is indeed true. Here, however, the issue is really one of the division of power between the Centre and the rest of the country. In concluding the discussion of the evolution of local government in Kyrgyzstan, it can be seen that a range of important problems with implications for the entire country are supposed to be resolved at the level of local government. In general, this means real social support and a kick-start from the ‘grass roots’ for a continued ‘ripple effect’ on behalf of democratic and market reforms, together with the opportunity for a certain re-privatization of power. Through strong local government in communities throughout the country, the issue of a response to Islamic 202

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extremism, for example, can be effectively resolved. Local communities also offer the optimal milieu for the fulfilment of particular interests of ethnic minorities. THE OPPOSITION In all the post-Soviet states, the opposition — where it exists — is largely in competition with the political élites. Who, then, belongs to the political élite in Kyrgyzstan, holding the highest offices of state or contending for these positions? Who has the leading political role in the country? It is possible to state that the nucleus of this élite is the corpus of former party-state sinecurists at the middle level, whose ranks have been ‘diluted’ by the new career and professional administrators. In 1990, the first, relatively free parliamentary elections returned a group of active representatives of the national artistic and scientific intelligentsia. Overall, a lively process of ethnicization had begun; at the same time, the political élite of Kyrgyzstan is distinctively regional and clanbased in character. On the eve of the presidential elections in the autumn of 1995, one of the leading Kyrgyz oppositionists was publicist and film producer Dooronbek Sadyrbayev, who had been a dissident in the time of the Communist regime. He declared in confidence to Former First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kirgiziia, Absamat Masaliyev, that: ‘it would have been better had they shot us then, as truth-seekers, fighters for freedom of opinion from the rigidity of communist ideas. We only numbered about 40 in all. That way we would not now have to mourn what the new regime of post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan has become in the embrace of a strange mutant, as we watch the ugly shape which proclaimed democracy has assumed on Kyrgyz soil.’31 In contradistinction to the Russian dissident movement in the 1960s and 1970s, which was almost completely repressed by Brezhnev and Andropov, its Kyrgyz counterpart came onto the scene during the perestroika period, and was in fact — possibly without realizing it — a component of the transition of power, an intrinsic part of the final years of the Communist system. The national-democratic movements that came into being in Kyrgyzstan during perestroika, were generated by developments in Moscow and indeed were controlled by it through the KGB. They were not dissident, in the sense that they had no aspirations to constitute an opposition to the regime (as happened in Poland or Hungary). For the most part, their interests were primarily careerist in orientation, but this obviously does not diminish the importance of their contribution to the formation of the early stages of democracy in post-Soviet society. Thus, nostalgic regrets over not being shot or repressed in other ways are nothing more than an unjustifiable attempt to paint one’s past in a heroic light. In the course of time, indeed, a novel phenomenon surfaced which could be termed ‘transition to power via opposition to 203

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power’. Under Akayev, this was even a profitable occupation, as well as a safe one. Any mediocre laboratory scientist or college lecturer, and any burnt-out or failed writer, producer, or artist could instantly become a political figure. To do them justice, it should also be said that a number of successful producers and journalists also willingly joined the opposition. Their degree of recognition in society and the level of financial and moral rewards they acquired soared immediately. One only had to begin to criticize the government, and especially the president, to find oneself the centre of attention from government officials at the highest level, important figures in non-governmental agencies from the West, and international human rights movements. To speak of the new post-Communist regime in Kyrgyzstan as a ‘strange mutation’ is, not only a powerful, but in my opinion a true image. There is only one nuance to refine: that the opposition was itself part of this same mutation, and not its most attractive feature at that (if a mutant can have features which are differentiated in character). A number of important opposition representatives, such as Feliks Kulov and Daniyar Usenov, crossed the benches because they did not find rewards which met their personal and political ambitions. Kulov had been interior minister, vice-president of Kyrgyzstan, akim (head of state administration in Chuy Oblast), minister of national security and finally mayor of Bishkek. Usenov was an aide to the Prime Minister Jumagulov (1995–2000) and a member of the Zhogorku Kenesh from 1995. He went over to the opposition in 1996. Kulov set up the opposition party Ar-Namys in 1999 (see below). The opposition and the government in Kyrgyzstan share common roots. The social basis of the opposition is no broader than that of the government, and, for a number of reasons, the opposition is probably no less compromised in the public eye than the government. In Kyrgyzstan there never have been democratic political opponents in the Russian sense, whose priorities include not only the interests of the eponymous nation, but also those of the people as a whole. Irrespective of what Kyrgyz oppositionists have said or written about Akayev, the opposition of no other Central Asian state has enjoyed the freedom which prevailed in Kyrgyzstan. And where has this led? This is more of a question to the opposition, both on the right and left. Akayev has appealed to them on dozens of occasions to enter into a dialogue. In the presence of this author, Akayev met with Satybaldy Zheyenbekov, Tursunbay Bakir-ubu, Adakhan Madumarov, and Sheraly Sadykov. His message was: ‘Make a distinction between the problems and woes of our present, which are inevitable, from those which are my mistakes or those of the government. I am ready not only to hear all you have to say, but to accept your criticism and work out the implications. Let’s try to find a compromise.’ His interlocutors did not seem to object, and some even agreed to continue the dialogue. They subsequently made public announcements, however, in the following vein: ‘Akayev has become frightened, he’s afraid of us, he is offering us 204

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a deal behind the people’s back and against the people’s will. We will not make any deals.’32 In other words, they vigorously demonstrated their irreconcilability. Nothing else could have been expected of them: opposition to Akayev has always been closely related to issues of personality, rather than ideological or strategic questions. It was a struggle to attain the highest office of state, a chance to privatize authority. What kind of political compromise could exist in such a situation — ‘quid pro quo’ is their sole motto and motive. Moreover, what real alternative can they offer to the president’s path, for all its errors and anomalies on certain points? They simply do not have one. Yet, for all this irreconcilability, the majority of oppositionists have found it relatively easy to take their place in the various structures they have so mercilessly criticized. For example, Medetkan Sherimkulov, one of Akayev’s strongest opponents and former speaker of parliament, happily accepted the offer of an ambassadorial posting to Turkey after publicly denouncing the president as ‘a personality entirely groomed under Communism, who, with surprising skill, exploited democratic slogans against the old order for speculative purposes’, and as a leader who was leading the country toward disaster. One of Akayev’s most active opponents, Bakyt Beshimov, from Osh, was sent to India as ambassador, while Usen Sadykov from Jalal-Abad, another of Akayev’s longstanding and irreconcilable critics, was appointed Kyrgyzstan’s permanent representative to the CIS. Overall, it can be stated that no constructive or competent opposition had surfaced by early 2000. The opposition was even unable to take advantage of the disgruntled mood in society which had gathered strength towards the end of the 1990s. It proved incapable of unification within its own ranks, or of unifying the forces of protest. In 2001–2002, however, it organized mass anti-Akaev demonstrations, mainly in southern Kazakhstan, in which the authorities were able to subdue only through the use of force and at the cost of human life. POLITICAL PARTIES In summer 1989, a group of homeless young Kyrgyz took up unauthorized occupation of wasteland on the Bishkek periphery to build their own homes. To defend their claims they founded a communal movement they called Ashar. Somewhat later, similar communal entities were established in the city of Osh, namely, the young Kyrgyz Osh Aimagy, and the Uzbek Adilet. The Ashar movement soon turned its attention from material to political issues. In March and April 1990, the Asaba and Atuulduk Demilge, Kyrgyz ‘national democratic’ movements were established and, together with Ashar, went on in May 1990 to form the nucleus of the Democratic Movement of Kyrgyzstan, commonly known by its Russian acronym DDK. Erkyn Kyrgyzstan (ErK), which was distinctly national and democratic in tendency, was the first political party to officially register 205

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with the Republic’s Ministry of Justice on 4 October 1991. In May 1992, the first issue of the party’s social and political newspaper appeared, also under the name of Erkyn Kyrgyzstan. In December 1991 the Asaba Movement officially registered as a party. Asaba’s leaders withdrew their participation from the DDK on the grounds that it was not sufficiently nationalist in orientation. By the end of the 1990s there were approximately twenty political parties in Kyrgyzstan. Practically all of them represented the eponymous nation — the ethnic minorities had no parties of their own, and there were no Islamic-oriented parties. Four major groupings can be discerned among them: all offered more or less well formulated political platforms. They comprised the communists (the Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan); the nationalists (Asaba, the party of national revival); the socialists (the Ata-Meken Socialist Party, the Erkyn Kyrgyzstan (ErK) Progressive Democratic Party); and the Social-Democrats (Adilet and ArNamys). Those most strongly opposed to President Akayev were AtaMeken, Asaba, Ar-Namys and the El Party. Ata-Meken was particularly dynamic in comparison to the other nationalist parties. It was considered a party of young intellectuals, and has been extremely active in the sphere of legislation, drafting and introducing numerous bills into parliament. The party’s popularity owes much to the personality of its leader, Omurbek Tekebayev.33 The main features of Kyrgyzstan’s political parties can be summarized as follows: élitism and paucity of numbers; well-formulated platforms; no differentiation of social basis; undeveloped organizational structure; lack of funding; weak positions in the Zhogorku Kenesh; and an inability to influence the work of the executive organs of power. The formation of a multi-party system in Kyrgyzstan has not yet moved past the initial stage, and it will be a long time until this model becomes an authentic fact of the country’s political life. The parties’ standing and influence on the electorate can be seen to some extent from the results of the elections (according to party lists) for the Legislative Assembly of Kyrgyzstan, which took place on 20 February 2000.34 Thus, the party lists show an almost equal division of seats between pro-government and opposition parties: the opposition gained 8 of the 15 seats slated for party representatives, while the government won 7 seats. It is my conviction that it will be impossible to establish working political parties capable of genuine participation in creating a political agenda among the populace, and of acting as intermediaries between the people and the state, as long as there is no sufficiently numerous middle class. Until that time, these functions could be far more successfully filled by social institutions than political parties. For example,: the Congress of Local Communities; the Assembly of the People of Kyrgyzstan; and the cooperative movement, all enjoy a firm social base. All these structures have sought to resolve specific and genuine issues, including some of a political nature. The potential 206

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weight of social institutions was not taken into consideration in the formulation of the new electoral legislation in Kyrgyzstan, and they are unable to participate in elections.35 TABLE 10.1: RESULTS OF THE 20 FEBRUARY 2000 ELECTIONS TO THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Title of Electoral Association/bloc Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan Union of Democratic Forces (Adilet and Social-Democratic Party) Democratic Kyrgyzstan Women’s Party Afghanistan War Veterans’ Party Ata-Meken Moia strana* Erkyn Kyrgyzstan Agrarian Labour Party Agrarian Party Manas electoral bloc Asaba Party for National Renaissance

Political Tendency

No. of Seats in the % Legislative of Vote Assembly

opposition

27.6

5

pro-government

18.6

4

pro-government opposition opposition pro-government opposition pro-government pro-government opposition

12.6 8 6.4 5 4.1 2.4 2.3 2.4

2 2 1 1 -

1.5

-

opposition

*This was a russophone party, its Kyrgyz members being urban dwellers. It therefore went by a Russian name.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS For Akayev, who supported Andrei Sakharov’s ideas and those of other Russian democrats in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, glasnost became, from the start, one of the major priorities of his political strategy. This was not only because he felt that reform would not succeed without glasnost: rather, he viewed it as one of the greatest democratic values in its own right. As early as January 1991, at a meeting with journalists in Moscow, Akayev quoted the following passage from the Nobel Prize speech of Russian writer Ivan Bunin: ‘In the world there must exist one area of complete independence... There is something unshakeable which unites us all — freedom of thought and conscience, to which we owe civilization itself.’ I clearly recall that this reference to Bunin was understood by those present on the occasion not just as evidence of Akayev’s erudite knowledge, but of his liberal political thinking as well. Another personal recollection dates from early 1992, when a Moscow journalist who visited Bishkek wrote a critical and even malevolent article about Akayev, but nevertheless stated, ‘On one issue I have to acknowledge Akayev with respect: freedom of the press here is, as they say, “bursting at the seams” — write whatever you want.’ And 207

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that is how glasnost works: absence of censorship and freedom of the printed word. Overnight, the press became a gigantic political force, truly the fourth estate. A series of newspapers, such as Svobodnye gory, Res Publica, and Asaba were instantly mobilized by the president’s political opponents. It soon became clear, however, that serious analytical articles required competence and class. Even in Moscow, it is rare to find journalists capable of fitting the bill. Financial considerations promoted yellow journalism. Those who have enjoyed freedom of the written word, as the eminent playwright Aleksandr Gel’man so correctly remarked, have, ‘primarily, been those who are not the most honest nor upright but rather those who are most adroit or brazen.’ This eventually led to the appearance of articles which were nothing less than outright libel and which offended the dignity of the president — a misuse of the right of freedom of expression that led to a series of criminal libel suits. Safeguarding pluralism in the mass media and simultaneously preventing abuse of the free word proved none too simple a matter in Kyrgyzstan. The main responsibility for the collision between the regime and the press was, in most cases, borne by the press itself. The following are some cases in point. In August 1994, the State Prosecutor brought a criminal libel action to the Pervomaiskii Court of Bishkek, which sought to suspend the activity of the Svobodnye gory parliamentary newspaper. The action stated that over a considerable period of time, this newspaper had knowingly been publishing false information with the purpose of defaming the regime in the person of the president of the republic. Furthermore, material had been printed which constituted a vulgar violation of accepted ethical norms in international relations, and insulted the leaders of foreign states and their symbols. In particular, in the issue of 25 April 1994, a front page cartoon, depicted the state and national symbol of the State of Israel — the Star of David — with the figure of the president of Kyrgyzstan at its centre appearing as an Israeli underling. The case, in which the newspaper’s interests were represented by one of the country’s best counsels, lasted almost a week. The outcome, on 18 August 1994, was that the court upheld the Prosecutor’s libel action, finding that the paper’s editorial board had systematically violated a number of articles of the Mass Media Law of the Kyrgyz Republic. Permission to appeal was rejected by the Bishkek Municipal Court. The decision also cited Paragraph 2 of Article 10 in the European Convention for Human Rights and Fundamental Liberties, which states that the exercise of freedom of opinion and dissemination of information may be subject to restrictions, carries responsibilities necessary in a democratic society for the protection of morals and the reputation or rights of other persons. In 1995, Akayev was involved in another dispute, with a different newspaper, Res Publica. The Moscow paper Trud reported: 208

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The case of Citizen Akayev vs. the newspaper Res Publica has ended in the Kyrgyzstan capital. The court found Zamira Sadykova, the editor, and her deputy editor, guilty of libellous fabrications about citizen Askar Akayev and sentenced the journalists to deprivation of liberty: half a year for the editor and a year for her deputy. The editor’s sentence was suspended for half a year, and that of her deputy for a year. During this period, both journalists were deprived of the right to engage in journalistic activity. Their crime was to have accused the president of Kyrgyzstan of possessing a villa in Switzerland, and a house in Turkey, allegedly given as a gift to him by Turkish President Suleyman Demirel. Neither of these facts was proven.36

It is perfectly possible to conclude that the mass media in Kyrgyzstan in the 1990s were no longer faced with taboos and that no person was safe from criticism. It was the only such country in Central Asia. Asaba, Vechernii Bishkek, Delo and AKIPress magazine freely and frequently engaged in biting polemics with the president, the parliament and the government, subjecting their various deeds and overall activities to scathing criticism. Television carried similar features.37 FUTURE OPTIONS To a considerable extent, the political regimes and strategies in the Soviet successor states in Central Asia are shaped by the personalities of their respective leaders. In this regard, it is irrelevant whether one is considering the relatively liberal regime in Kyrgyzstan or totalitarian Turkmenistan. What will happen in these countries when their present leaders exit the political arena? What kind of changes can be expected? This question appears crucial to me, not so much in terms of one or another Central Asian country, but rather, for the region as a whole, and — in the final analysis — for the entire world political order. In this connection, the events of early 2000 in Kyrgyzstan merit a closer look. I believe that the ‘post-Akayev’ era began during this period, under Akayev himself. At meetings I had with Akayev on two occasions — 22 January and 18 March 2000 — he appeared weary and depressed. It is not easy to determine the precise reason for this — one possibility might be the invasion of the Batken and Chong-Alay regions by a militant detachment of Islamic extremists the previous summer (see above). Alternatively, it might have been caused by the difficult economic situation in Kyrgyzstan, triggered by Russia’s 1998 financial crisis, whose repercussions rippled across all the states in the CIS. Or had Akayev simply exhausted his physical and emotional energies over his near decade of leading the country? Whatever the reason, it appears that the situation in Bishkek is beginning to resemble that in Moscow during the last two or three years of Yeltsin’s government. Those in Akayev’s innermost circle have started to play an increasingly important role in politics. Akayev himself informed me: ‘I want you to know that I have transferred all economic matters to the prime minister. And I want to introduce amendments to 209

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the constitution in the near future, to ensure that part of the president’s functions and powers are passed over to the government.’ Prime Minister Amangeldy Muraliyev, however, did not appear equal to independent resolution of the country’s acute economic problems. The final say actually lay with the head of the presidental office, Misir Ashirkulov. The presidential office continued to pressure the government, even on issues under the latter’s authority. How should the present situation in Kyrgyzstan be evaluated? Overall, liberal institutions have been established in politics, the economy and the media, while pluralism and freedom of expression have been preserved. On the other hand, all of them have been subject to ‘erosion’: for example, illegal and extensive telephone tapping of Akayev’s political opponents — both real and imagined — has been carried out, with the president’s knowledge.38 Violations of the constitution and electoral legislation were committed during electoral campaigns and voting for the Kyrgyzstan parliament on 20 February and 12 March 2000. Since the opposition was participating in these elections, an Election Observation Mission (EOM) was established in Bishkek, representing the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE/ODIHR), together with international human rights organizations. (No such organization was set up in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, or Turkmenistan.) Preliminary findings by the EOM were that certain obstacles had been placed before political parties and their candidates to prevent them from participating in the elections on a fair and equal basis, and that state officials had actively interfered in the electoral process. The EOM advised the Kyrgyzstan government that it was essential to address these concerns before the second ballot. Nevertheless, the second round was again clouded by the harmful interference of state employees and, in particular, the selective application of legal sanctions against opposition candidates. The EOM concluded that the elections to the Zhogorku Kenesh did not comply with OSCE norms. On 14 March 2000, US State Department representative James Foley, in his statement on the parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan, said that the second electoral ballot did not comply with international standards and was a clear deviation from democratic principles.39 In Kara-Bura electoral district No. 44 in Talas Oblast, where General Feliks Kulov, one of President Akayev’s major opponents, was standing for election, the chairman of the Territorial Election Commission was intimidated into relinquishing his position after the first round. Pressure was placed upon him after the commission had publicly reported numerous violations during the first round, and had refused to take part in manipulation of the ballot returns. Kulov’s electoral campaign manager was detained in Bishkek by the Ministry for Internal Affairs in the few days preceding the beginning of the second ballot, but no charges were brought. During the second round, incidents were noted 210

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in several electoral districts of this constituency, where voters showed their already completed ballots to certain members of the Election Commission. The official returns of the second ballot in this district, where the winning candidate was Alimbay Sultanov, head of the Talas Department for Internal Affairs, were considered by many voters to have been falsified. Strong protests followed, accompanied by picket lines outside the regional administrative offices. One of the picketers declared a hunger strike and sewed up his mouth. (The image of his face with his sewn-up mouth was shown repeatedly on Russian State Television and other Russian TV channels.) On 17 March 2000, the chairman of one of the Kara-Bura district subcommissions hanged himself. The deceased’s relatives and fellow villagers sent a statement to Bishkek claiming that the suicide was caused by the authorities’ intimidation of the deceased for refusing to conduct fraudulent elections. On 20 March, the chairman of another of the same district’s election sub-commissions publicly announced that he and the members of the commission had received a special payment from the head of the raion administration in return for guaranteeing victory to Kulov’s opponent.40 On 22 March, while undergoing treatment for hypertension at a hospital, Kulov was arrested and incarcerated in the detention centre of the Ministry for National Security. He was arrested for abuse of public office, offences which he allegedly committed during his period as governor of Chuy Oblast and minister for national security, posts he had held several years previously. Many community representatives legitimately asked why President Akayev, who must have been aware of Kulov’s abuse of power as governor of Chuy Oblast, had appointed him minister for national security and subsequently, mayor of Bishkek.41 All of the above has naturally caused serious damage to Kyrgyzstan’s liberal and democratic image, which was one of the country’s exportable assets in recent years. Will Kyrgyzstan retain the liberal tendency of its political regime? Is the present government capable of leading the country forward to new frontiers of democratic and market reform? Will local government and the Assembly of the People of Kyrgyzstan work towards these goals? Will initiatives come from the ordinary people in the country? I can not offer affirmative answers to these questions. I am, however, beset by serious doubts. NOTES 1. See www.freedomhouse.org/ratings. 2. Zbigniew Brzezinski, ‘The Great Transformation’, The National Interest 33 (Fall 1993), pp. 3–13. 3. Nezavisimaia gazeta, 31 Nov. 1998. On Kyrgyzstan’s status as a leading economic reformer, see also Richard Pomfret’s chapter in this volume.

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4. For example, see Igor’ Rotar’, ‘Vo vlasti traditsii’, Sodruzhestvo (supplement to Nezavisimaia gazeta) 11 (1998). 5. For the correlation between liberalization and democratization, see Stepan Allfred, Democratizing Brazil: Problems of Transition and Consolidation (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). 6. Chokan Valikhanov, Sobranie sochinenii, Vol. 1, p. 413. 7. Author’s personal testimony. 8. Stenographic records of the 12th session of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, April–May 1993, pp. 487–512. 9. Abdygani Erkebayev, 1990 god: Prikhod k vlasti Askara Akaeva (Bishkek, 1997). 10. Author’s personal testimony. 11. Sanobar Shermatova, ‘Zavtra byla voina: Kyrgyzia Declared Mobilization to Combat Armed Groups Holding Hostages in the Mountain Regions of the Chong-Alay. Who Are These People and What Are Their Goals?’ Moskovskie novosti 33 (30 Aug.–6 Sept. 1999); Batkenskii kolokol and Vechernii Bishkek, 29 Aug. 1999. 12. IWPR, Institute for War and Peace Reporting: http://www.iwpr.net/archive/rca/ rca–200108–63–1–eng.txt. 13. See Vladimir Khanin’s chapter in this volume. 14. The name of the country’s parliament was changed from the Supreme Soviet to Zhogorku Kenesh with the passage of the new constitution in May 1993. 15. Sanobar Shermatova, ‘O vyborakh v Kyrgyzstane’, Moskovskie novosti 22 (1995). 16. Assembly of the People of Kyrgyzstan, ‘O chislennosti etnicheskikh men’shinstv v Kyrgyzstane’, 3 Nov. 1997. 17. Eugene Huskey, ‘Kyrgyzstan: the Politics of Demographic and Economic Frustration’ in Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (eds), New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) p. 659. 18. Author’s personal information. 19. See note 8. 20. Philippe C. Schmitter, with Terry L. Karl, ‘The Conceptual Travels of Transitologists and Consolidologists: How Far to the East Should They Attempt to Go?’, Slavic Review 1 (1994), pp. 173–85. 21. World Bank Report, ‘The Kyrgyz Republic, Agricultural Policy Review. Strategy for Rural Growth and Poverty Alleviation’. The World Bank, Nov. 1997; International Monetary Fund, ‘Kyrgyz Republic: Recent Economic Developments’, 25 Nov. 1997, pp. 5 and 7. Presented to the Second International Agricultural Conference on ‘A Strategy for Further Development’, Bishkek, the Kyrgyz Republic, 2–4 Dec. 1997. For additional support of the position of the World Bank, see: Asian Development Bank, 1996, ‘The Kyrgyz Republic: Reorganisation and Strengthening of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food’, Inception Report and Progress Report No. 1, prepared by ULG Consultants Ltd., Warwick, England, Aug. and Nov. 1996. See also the chapter by Richard Pomfret in this volume. 22. O.A. Shkapskii, ‘Pereselentsy i agrarniI vopros v semirechenkoIoblasti’, Vopros kolonizatsii 1(1907). 23. Author’s personal testimony. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid. 26. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 23 Sept. 1994. 27. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 16 Dec. 1994. 28. For details about the juridical aspects of local government, see ‘Osnovy i perspektivy razvitiia mestnogo samoupravleniia v Kyrgyzskoi Respublike’, Collected Legislation, International City/County Management Administration (ICMA / USAID), Bishkek, 1997. 29. Ibid. 30. Author’s personal testimony. 31. Zamira Sadykova, Za kulisami demokratii po-kyrgyzski (Bishkek: Res Publica, 1997), p. 5. 32. Author’s personal testimony.

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33. The opposition newspaper Res Publica said the following about Tekebayev: ‘He is called the Kyrgyz Zhirinovskii. In the same way that Vladimir Vol’fovich played the Russian-Jewish card in Moscow to move into the centre stage of Russian politics, Omurbek Tekebayev is placing his stake on national and patriotic ideas. In the presidential elections of 1995, he was one of the candidates for the highest office of state’ (Res Publica, 19–25 May 1998). In the spring of 1998, Tekebayev had a chance to become known beyond the borders of Kyrgyzstan. He made an openly antisemitic speech at the Legislative Assembly, which generated critical reaction in Kyrgyzstan. The Kyrgyzstan Council of War and Labour Veterans, in particular, published the following statement: ‘Tekebayev claims that the Jews have destroyed and continue to seek to destroy the country, and are engaged in subversive activity. Tekebayev’s speech of incitement was designed to coincide with the jubilee celebrations of the Jewish state, with which Kyrgyzstan has full diplomatic relations and is building cooperation. It is particularly blasphemous that the speech was made on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, which throughout the world marks the commemoration of the annihilation of six million Jews by the fascists during the Second World War. We believe it essential to protest Tekebayev’s speech and raise the issue of removing the parliamentary immunity of this former candidate for the presidency of the republic’ (Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 12 May 1998). 34. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 22 Feb. 2000. 35. For more on the formation of political parties and movements in Kyrgyzstan see the chapter by Vladimir Babak in this volume. 36. Trud, 19 July 1995. 37. See, for example: AKIpress magazine. 6 (1998), under the larger heading ‘Vybory — 2000’, the articles, ‘Dva motiva ostat’sia Prezidentom’, ‘Ocherednye zadachi ispolnitel’noi vlasti’, ‘Problemy mestnykh prezidentov’; Vechernii Bishkek, 28 Nov. 1998; ‘Statisticheskii kadr’; Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 25 June 1998; ‘Khroniki sladkoi zhizni’, 24 Dec. 1998; and the transcript of a transmission on Kyrgyz independent television, reporting Akayev’s meeting with deputies of the Assembly of People’s Representatives on the candidacy for a new prime minister. 38. Author’s personal testimony. 39. Statement of the Election Observation Mission, representing the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) of 13 March 2000 regarding the elections to the Zhogorku Kenesh of the Kyrgyz Republic, held on 20 Feb. and 20 March 2000,Vechernii Bishkek, 26 March 2000. 40. ‘Miatezhnaia Kara-Bura’, Delo, 22 March 2000. 41. Ibid.

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11 Political Clans and Political Conflicts in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan* VLADIMIR KHANIN The drift toward authoritarianism in Kyrgyzstan between the elections to the Parliament (the Zhogorku Kenesh) in February 2000 and the presidential elections on 29 October of the same year substantially impaired the country’s image as the only real Central Asian democracy. For those who had put their faith in Kyrgyzstan’s multi-party system, relative freedom of the press and wide regional autonomy, as well as the earlier democratic reputation of Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev,1 the government’s move against personal and political opponents and institutions, coupled with the enormous increase of the incumbent president’s authority, came as an unpleasant surprise.2 More than a few observers, however, believe that the political developments of the year 2000 were simply a further step towards an ‘authoritarian’ transformation of power in the country, which had began a decade previously. According to Natalia Ablova, director of the Bishkek-based Kyrgyz-American Office of Human Rights, ‘Kyrgyzstan never was an island of democracy. It was just called that because the countries around us were worse.’3 Ever since the country attained independence, Askar Akayev, whose rise to power began under Gorbachev, has been heavily criticized for his concessions to the ‘old communist nomenklatura’ and for steps leading to the monopolization of power in his hands and those of his close associates.4 From this point of view, the situation in Kyrgyzstan is not radically different from the trends manifested in the majority of the post-Soviet states. There have been numerous attempts to explain the reasons for and essence of the ‘post-Soviet authoritarian revolution’ that took place in 1992–93 in the USSR’s successor states. Some of these explanations focus on ‘difficulties of transition’ from Soviet communism to liberal democracy, which render authoritarianism inevitable. Others stress excessive resistance on the part of the local traditional political culture to the introduction of liberal democratic institutions, which created * The lecture on which this chapter is based appeared under the title ‘Kyrgyzstan: Ethnic Pluralism and Political Conflict’, Central Asia and Caucasus 3 (2000), pp. 123–30.

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obstacles to the democratization process, or consider the Western liberal model inapplicable to local conditions.5 Akayev endorses this last belief. In a statement in 1999 he asserted ‘that there was no mistake in the formulation of our reforms. But they are bogged down (probuksovyvaiut) because of the opposition of corrupt officials and [their] unwillingness to work.’ 6 THE DYNAMICS OF POLITICAL CONFLICTS The real mechanism of political conflict in the country is a projection of a complicated scheme of modern, traditional and neo-traditional relations, which operates on several levels. Its superficial stratum is composed of dealings between the major factions of the ruling class, namely the ‘old’ Communist Party and Soviet state nomenklatura and the new, so-called ‘liberal-democratic’ élite, which moved into the political arena under Gorbachev. A more substantive level is represented by the historical conflict between the ‘aristocratic’ northern Kyrgyz and the ‘lower strata’ southern Kyrgyz sub-ethnic entities. In the Soviet and post-Soviet epoch contradictions between the élites of these two entities acquired a ‘modern’ dimension: the former were more urbanized, russified and secularized; the latter typified predominantly rural areas, which historically came under the impact of Uzbek civilization (whose imprimatur became even stronger after lands inhabited by Uzbeks were incorporated into the Kirgiz SSR in 1924), with its stronger Islamic tradition. These divisions were exposed in a study of the ethnic and social situation in northern Kyrgyzstan conducted by a group of Moscow and Bishkek sociologists in 1992 and 1993. The impact of the Russian language and of Russian/Soviet culture and secularism on the northern Kyrgyz population caused a majority of respondents, questioned in the course of the research, to reach the conclusion that ‘we, the Kyrgyz of Issyk-Kul [in the north], are entirely different from those of Osh and Naryn [in the south]’.7 It might be added that, according to the available data, the overwhelming majority of Kyrgyzstan’s Islamic religious communities both before the Bolshevik Revolution and shortly after independence, operated in the southern Osh and Jalal-Abad provinces.8 In the northern areas, in contrast, ‘Islam is nothing more than a part of ritual culture, revived alongside pre-Islamic beliefs, which became a sort of societal symbol together with universal humanitarian values. Islam there is not a way of life, let alone a stimulus of political activity.’9 The contradictions between Kyrgyz and other ethnic groups, above all Slavs and Uzbeks, are a further source of political conflict, with Slavs most manifestly in the almost totally secular cities of the north, and with Uzbeks in the more agrarian areas of southern Kyrgyzstan.10 The next level of conflict dates back to traditional disagreements among the major Kyrgyz tribal entities.11 For instance, traditional hostility between the Sary Bagysh and the Bugu, as well as historic cooperation between the Solto and the former and between the Sajak and the latter, are of practical significance in contemporary Kyrgyz 216

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politics.12 Finally, the ‘grass-root level’ of traditional political conflicts, mainly in the ails (communal villages) and small urban centres, emerges in the political competition of the leaders of extended family and lineage groups. In a situation in which state and government élite-controlled ‘commercialized’ property of different kinds continues to dominate the economy and a centralized form of distribution of public properties persists, the acquisition of political power on the national, regional (oblast) and local levels has become the major source of political conflict. The dominant purpose of the struggle for power has been its use as a tool for obtaining access to material and social resources and distributing them according to personal, family, and/or group interests. Informal structures of power, or ‘political clans’, are among the most important institutional actors in the struggle for the control and distribution of resources in many Asian and African countries, including Kyrgyzstan. The political clans are neo-traditional institutions of power, an institutionalized form of patron-client relations, which play a dominant role in the majority of non-Western social systems. The leading element of these political clans usually comprises a comparatively narrow group of representatives of the political élite at the national or regional level. These groups are consolidated through a system of personal relations — people from the same region, on the one hand, and business, professional, property and administrative connections, on the other. Relations between clan members and their leaders, who are often high-ranking politicians or bureaucrats, are based on the unquestionable personal and political loyalty of the former to the latter. Another distinct feature of the political clan is a system of a mutual ‘exchange of services’ and favours, determined by traditional norms. A clan leader usually expects and urges his clients to use all their connections and to do everything in their power to strengthen his position within the existing power structures. An indicative example of this norm was the ‘voluntary collection of funds’ for Akayev’s re-election campaign in 2000 among members of the Talas regional administration. The local governor donated 5,000 soms to the president’s election fund, his deputies gave 4,000 soms each, department heads — 1,000 soms, and ordinary employees — 100 soms apiece. According to the Kyrgyz Asaba newspaper, fund-raising also took place in all state agencies in Talas province.13 In return, the patron provides his clients with opportunities for career advancement: political, professional or administrative appointments and access to material goods, financial benefits and social privileges (housing, money, admission to prestigious educational institutions, foreign travel, and, since independence, guaranteed bank loans, licenses, state contracts, participation in ‘privatization’ of profitable state properties and exemption from taxes, as well as guarantees of personal and political security, including ‘cover-ups’ for both legal and illegal activities). 217

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As Akayev’s press secretary, Kamil Bayalinov, confessed: ‘It is no secret that responsible officials of the very highest rank come primarily from this or that clan. This is a reality. In our small republic, no matter where you turn, everyone is someone else’s man.’14 The findings of a nation-wide opinion poll, conducted by an independent body in October 2000, were indicative: they showed that 59 per cent of respondents believed that ‘no high positions in society could be achieved without connections and bribes’, and only 28 per cent thought that promotion on the political career ladder in Kyrgyzstan could be gained through personal effort, talent and hard work.15 In other words, the majority believed that state administration and staffing structures were still subject to regional and clan relations. Within the framework of specific ethnic regional communities, these relations are usually integrated into wider systems of personal and social relations of political clan members with representatives of different social élites and interest groups, namely, administrative, military, law enforcement, economic, media and traditional (family, clan, tribal and religious) élites. In post-Soviet times they have also included connections with representatives of political parties and cultural, educational, academic and even criminal circles. In this way, broad ‘patron-client networks’ have been formed, which have transformed political clans into more developed regional-tribal political structures with substantial stability. In this context one can identify a number of other political clans and groups related to specific regions or districts. Kyrgyzstan’s informal political structures have also become part of wider inter-clan entities (or ‘macro-clans’), which are linked to the above-mentioned historical cleavage between the ‘modernized’ north and the ‘traditional’ south. The northern and southern political clans have internal structural differences, which to a large extent reflect traditional organizational patterns among the northern and southern Kyrgyz. The former have strong tribal, but more weak ‘family clan’ (rodovaia) organization, while among the southerners lineage and extended family structures are much stronger than tribal ones. Manifestly, Kyrgyz clans occupied a specific niche in the typology of informal power structures of the Muslim areas of the former USSR. The political clans of Kyrgyzstan are different from those of Kazakhstan, which are based predominantly on lineage and tribal (zhuz) identity,16 and also from those of Uzbekistan, where ties relating to the area of origin often play a more important role than extended family or even ethnic relations.17 Ethnic-regional, and in urban areas ethnic-communal, ties comprise the formative factor in Kyrgyz clans. (The same is true for informal political structures in Azerbaijan.) In this way leaders of the Kyrgyz clan structure also function as ‘ethnic patrons’, who personalize the whole complex of ethnic social values, and concentrate in their hands the majority of both formal (state and government) and informal (clan and tribal) connections. In these conditions, the social role of informal structures of power in Kyrgyzstan, as in other countries of Asia 218

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and Africa, is reflected in the interrelationship of socio-economic, political, and ethnic cultural relations that function both in ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ social spheres. Thus, informal political institutions perform the important function of integrating various ruling groups with different social, class and political backgrounds. From this point of view, Kyrgyz political clans, which were initially a product of a ‘synthesis’ of traditional feudal relations with the Soviet party and state bureaucratic nomenklatura system, also demonstrated their flexibility in the postSoviet epoch. The clan structures were basically successful in integrating the new ‘democratic’ élites that surfaced on the wave of the opposition movement of the perestroika years. The largest of these was the Democratic Movement of Kyrgyzstan, the DDK. Lacking their own structural entity, the democratic élites were unable to ‘redirect’ towards themselves the neo-traditional mechanisms for mobilization of mass support and to create their own political organizations, which might potentially match the strength and authority of the political clans. Thus, the majority of ‘democrats’ were relegated to the periphery of the national movements that they themselves had launched. The political parties created by these leaders usually united in ‘a small circle of politically concerned personalities’, rarely totalling more then a few hundred (or, in exceptional cases, a few thousand) mostly nominal members. Consequently, these parties had from the outset, and still have, very limited influence.18 As former vice-president of Kyrgyzstan Feliks Kulov noted, ‘if all the activists of these organizations were put together, it is unlikely that they would fill the inside of a bus’.19 As a result, the conflict between the ‘old Communist nomenklatura’ and the ‘new democratic élite’ was integrated organically into the existing ethnic political structure, becoming an additional factor in interclan conflict. The ‘democrats’ in most cases became partners of modernized, urbanized, and russified élites of the northern political clans. Akayev, a member of the largest and most powerful northern tribe, the Sary Bagysh, is an excellent example of this phenomenon. His advancement to power was supported by the ‘northern coalition’ in the Kirgiz SSR Supreme Soviet. In 1990 a ‘clash’ between this coalition, headed by then Chairman of the Council of Ministers Apas Jumagulov, and the southerners’ leaders, including Communist Party leader Absamat Masaliyev, Bekmamat Osmonov, Usen Sydykov, and others, was resolved with the election of Askar Akayev as president.20 According to some sources, an important role in Akayev’s election was played by the support of one of the key leaders of the most ‘aristocratic’ northern Talas clan, the famous Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov, who was at that time a member of the USSR Presidential Council.21 Thus, the ‘northerners’ used the ‘liberal-democratic’ movement of 1989–91 in order to eject from power the ‘southern’ leaders, who in Soviet times had enjoyed dominant positions in the central Communist Party and state organs. (The southerners were viewed as ‘proletarians’, 219

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in opposition to the northern ‘feudal aristocrats’, and generated most of the national Communist élite.) However, as Dooronbek Sadyrbayev, the noted Kyrgyz film-maker and politician put it, ‘today’s democrats are [merely] yesterday’s Communists, who have cleverly exploited the change in government to cloak themselves in the mantle of democracy and enrich themselves in the process.’22 In their turn the leaders of the southern political clans assumed the role of defenders of Kyrgyz ethnic interests in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the course of drafting a new constitution in 1993 they managed to secure a provision which prohibited non-Kyrgyz speakers from running for the presidency. This measure was not so much directed against the Russians and Uzbeks as it was against russified Kyrgyz from the north.23 According to some sources, among ‘northern’ political leaders, especially in Akayev’s inner circle, communication in Russian signalled a sort of ‘political loyalty’ to the leader. As former vice-president and then Bishkek Mayor Feliks Kulov acknowledged, for anybody from this circle, speaking and writing in Kyrgyz was an indication of presidential ambitions. Indeed, it was only when he parted company from Akayev and initiated his own opposition party that Kulov announced ‘he would learn the Kyrgyz language properly, because according to Kyrgyz law, any person who wants to be elected president must write and speak Kyrgyz fluently’.24 Hence, the political turn-about that took place in the republic in the early 1990s, and which is usually regarded as a ‘transition from Communist rule’, was in no way the result of a struggle between ‘liberals’ and the Communist nomenklatura, but rather a redistribution of power within and between neo-traditional informal political institutions. As became clear in the course of both the 1995 and the 2000 parliamentary and presidential elections, voters’ electoral preferences clearly correlated with the candidates’ place of origin and status in the neotraditional social hierarchy. Respectively, confrontations between northern and southern political élites reflected regional interests that ‘often become a matter of political bargaining in decision-making at state level’.25 As they sought to strengthen their power in independent Kyrgyzstan after the abortive August 1991 coup in Moscow, Akayev and his ‘liberaldemocratic’ colleagues demonstrated a clear understanding of this reality, including the essence of the traditional political culture and the accepted rules of the ‘traditional political game’. The legitimization of these rules, norms and institutions, which had in fact never stopped being permissible at the level of ‘real’ Kyrgyz politics, was an important part of a process that began shortly after Kyrgyzstan became independent. The granting of official status and payment of state salaries to the aksakals, the traditional heads of the ails, the establishment of aksakal courts, which were accorded the right to take decisions on local matters, as well as the re-deployment of power at different political 220

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levels according to the traditional hierarchy of the primarily northern tribes and family-lineage groups, were steps on this road to formalizing the traditional structures of power.26 Against this backdrop, the symbolic granting of the title of Supreme Khan of the Kyrgyz to Askar Akayev in 1991 was instrumental in stabilizing his power in the period of political crisis that followed the August 1991 coup.27 THE POLITICAL CLAN AS AN INSTITUTION OF SOCIAL REGULATION At the same time, the social and political functions of clan structures are not limited to upper-strata political struggles and élite conflicts. Together with the redistribution of public income within the ruling strata, the structures of political clans also provide limited access to power/ property resources for broader categories of ethnic, regional and/or tribal entities. In practice, the norms of family, lineage, tribal and ethnic solidarity that are effectively represented and utilized by the political clans make it incumbent upon the lower social strata not only to refrain from struggle with their own ethnic leadership but to give maximum support to their élite in its confrontation with other ethnic or tribal leaders. This fact was well illustrated by Dooronbek Sadyrbayev, when he said in the year 2000 that northerners who had been in power for relatively long periods of time tended to treat their southern countrymen as outcasts. For their part, the southerners, both the common people and the élite, are eager to take revenge in order to regain their lost position.28 In fact, neo-traditional social norms preordain the logic of the political behaviour of the rank and file. This reasoning is as follows: the more ‘political spoils’ (i.e., power and economic resources) that will be obtained by ‘our’ elite, the larger the part of these ‘political spoils’, in the form of investments, donations, job opportunities and so on, that will be transferred to its lower-ranking clientèle. In other words, social class conflict continuously acquires an ethno-social dimension, taking on the character of ethnic regional, ethnic confessional and ethnic communal rivalries. An example of this sort of transformation can be found in the spring 1989 events in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek (then still Frunze). At this juncture a group of young Kyrgyz squatters, predominantly recent rural migrants to the city or its outskirts, initiated unauthorized building in order to solve their housing problem. This situation led to the development of a movement that was the precursor of the Ashar Association.29 It rapidly assumed an anti Russian character — a trend, apparently influenced by the authorities. Even more symptomatic were the bloody clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks (represented in the conflict by the ethnic movements Osh Aimagy and Adolat, respectively) in Osh and Uzgen, also on the basis of a controversy over land which reached a peak in June 1990.30 In this way, conflicts in Bishkek and in Osh, which were initially of a social and class nature, quickly acquired an ethnic dimension, largely as a result of the efforts of the leadership of the 221

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northern and southern clans. During the 2000 parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan the close contest between two candidates, a Kyrgyz and an Uzbek, quickly came to be viewed as an instance of ethnic rivalry, elevating, in the words of one observer, ‘Kyrgyz-Uzbek tensions in Osh to levels not seen since the 1990 clashes [between the two communities]... raising again fundamental questions about the viability of transferring western models of parliamentary democracy to the Fergana Valley’.31 The ‘sweeping’ victory of Communist leader Absamat Masaliyev and his party in Kyrgyzstan’s south during the parliamentary and presidential elections in 1995 and 1996, was the result of a number of factors. The ‘class’ component of this support Masaliyev garnered from the fact that the Communists’ slogan of protecting the ‘common man’ victimized by ‘market reforms’ won a more positive response in the pauperized and disenfranchised south than in the more prosperous north.32 At the same time, the Kyrgyz Communists demanded an end to the privatization of land and industry in order to protect the interests of ethnic Kyrgyz, who within a short space of time found themselves in a much less comfortable position than the local Uzbeks and Slavs.33 The mechanism of (sub-)ethnic loyalties and regional solidarity combines social and ethnic factors at the political behavioural level. The reflection of class considerations in ethnic categories and vice-versa has transformed the ethnic-regional political clans into effective integrators of the main types of political conflict both at the élite and the mass level. As a result, inter- and intra-clan conflicts have become the major watershed of political struggle in Kyrgyzstan. The current political process in Kyrgyzstan provides a good illustration of how this mechanism works. According to the newspaper Kyrgyz Rukhu, in the course of the 2000 parliamentary elections in Alai, for example, the voting went strictly according to the affiliation of the candidates with the three major tribes which inhabit the territory of this constituency:34 A similar situation occurred in the Kara-Bura district of Talas province, which was won in the first round of the elections by the local native opposition leader, Feliks Kulov. Kulov, however, was defeated in the second round, apparently due to massive electoral gerrymandering and the pressure of the central government.35 As a result, on the day the election results were announced a great number of his supporters protested in front of the local administration building in Kara-Bura. At the same time, residents of the neighbouring Bakai-Ata and Manas-Ata districts (populated by tribes opposing Kulov’s) held meetings supporting the official results of the parliamentary elections.36 These and other similar incidents show that informal structures of power are an appropriate framework for mutual adaptation of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ social and political institutions. At the same time, the clan structures themselves have also gone through a process of transformation. The majority of Kyrgyzstan’s political clans include several categories of politicians, among them communal, tribal, religious and former 222

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nomenklatura bureaucratic élites, as well as so-called ‘new plutocrats’. The latter in most cases are representatives of ‘private businesses’, which almost everywhere in the CIS exist under conditions of a highly monopolized state and quasi-market economy, in which the bureaucratic apparatus continues to play a dominant role.37 As a result, businessmen need, as a prerequisite for the success of their enterprises, to seek the ‘protection’ of officials and/or ‘strong men’ (politicians) of various ranks. These relationships, when implemented against the background of the regional political clans, give access to state contracts and other resources provided by patrons (politicians and bureaucrats) to their business clients, in exchange for bribes and economic services. One further category of clan politicians has appeared, who combine different functions of political leadership and public administration. For instance, in the course of a visit to Kyrgyzstan in autumn 1994, the author of this article was informed about one such ‘strong man’ who operated in an area of the Fergana Valley. This new type of neotraditional ‘politician-businessman’, the client of an influential regional official, played the role of informal ‘patron’ to a number of village aksakals and representatives of the district administration. This politician strengthened his authority among the local population as ‘protector and donor’ at the local mazar (religious shrine). He was also involved in legal and illegal business activities, including smuggling drugs into neighbouring Uzbekistan.38 The growth of the political weight of such clan leaders is demonstrated by their increasing interest in formalizing their status, motivated primarily by considerations of personal and political security. An optimal way to attain this goal is getting elected to a local or national legislature. It is obvious that the status of parliamentary deputy, besides granting legal immunity, provides numerous official and unofficial opportunities. It is symptomatic that about 30 per cent of the members of the Zhogorku Kenesh, were under investigation at the time of their election in 1995, suspected of various financial irregularities.39 The central element of the clan structures seems to be in evidence at the regional power level, which during the past decade experienced the least ‘personnel changes’. According to existing data, in the mid1990s all chairmen of local government organs were still representatives of former Communist Party nomenklatura.40 At the end of the 1990s the political clans had in fact almost a total monopoly of power within ‘their’ respective (sub-) ethnic regions. The regional governors, or akims, whose influence grew substantially after the constitutional reform of 1994, appear to be the leading clan ‘patrons’, or their closest associates. The decrease in the number of electoral districts for the central parliament, according to many observers, was a further step in ‘disendowing’ alternative groups of regional élites, while giving the akims additional mechanisms of control over the regional political, bureaucratic and business establishment. Akayev, who assumed that the akims appointed by him, belonged to his 223

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clientele and would strengthen his personal power, had released a genie he was unable to control.41 The concentration in the hands of the clan leaders of all the resources of power, both informal — the mechanisms for mobilizing ethnic and tribal loyalties — and formal — control over the electoral machinery and local government organs — is the key element in the influence of tribal-regional political groups. In the Issyk-Kul’ region, according to one observer: The regional governor, Jumagul Saadanbekov, mobilized his 200-strong akimiat [administration], local state enterprises, the regional public prosecutor’s office and young toughs to support the candidacy of former Prime Minister Tursunbek Chyngyshev. Saadanbekov lured one candidate out of the race by promising him an attractive sinecure. He also arranged the dismissal of the wife of Chyngyshev’s main opponent... Only...[with] the mysterious appearance of several thousand [extra] ballots for Chyngyshev, was the former prime minister able to claim victory. Similar scenarios... occurred throughout Kyrgyzstan.42

The regional clans’ monopoly of political power was evident in the course of the 1998 elections to local government organs and the February 2000 parliamentary elections. The executive director of the Coalition for the Democratization of Society (a coalition of some 130 NGOs) noted that human rights activists had encountered numerous cases in which local authorities recommended appointing specific individuals to local election commissions.43 According to one observer, ‘the victory was won not by those who were right, but by those who counted the ballots ‘right’.44 However, in Bishkek, contrary to the situation in the provinces, a division of spheres of political influence took place between different ethnic-political groups, and between the traditional nomenklatura and the ‘modernized’ élites. On the one hand, the Legislative Assembly (the lower house) of the Zhogorku Kenesh, became a de facto organ of regional power, where according to observers, ‘fellow-countrymen and clan interests are dominant’.45 On the other hand, members of some northern clans, the élite of Akayev’s native Sary Bagysh tribe, as well as his ‘liberal-democratic’ associates, were concentrated around the presidential administration and government organs. This division, in fact, provides the background to the regularly aggravated confrontation between the ‘progressive’ presidency and the ‘conservative’ parliament.46 One inside observer cynically commented that the only ‘ideological dispute’ existing among the Kyrgyz ruling strata is whether the Kyrgyz regime should be ‘akamunism’ (i.e., communism plus Akayev’s personal rule) or ‘akimunism’ (Communist-style rule by the akims).47 The confrontation between the presidential group and the regional (‘parliamentarian’) clans acquired further momentum on the eve of the 2000 parliamentary and presidential elections. The strengthening of the 224

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president’s regime of personal power was undertaken in several major ways: First, was the further consolidation of Akayev’s inner power group, which, in fact, become the strongest political centre ruling the northern macro-clan; second, were the measures taken to augment the presidential administration’s control over local government, administrative appointments and the mass media.48 For instance, Akayev’s success in strengthening his personal power at the expense of the regional élites was manifested in his advancement of his close clients, first Jenish Rustenbekov and then Temirbek Akmataliyev, to the position of governor of Osh region, a traditional ‘stronghold’ of the southern macroclan. All these measures were obviously intended to both strengthen the positions of Akayev’s personal clan in Bishkek and to provide it with bases for a ‘breakthrough’ into the sphere of regional power. Apparently, the same goal was to be served by the allocation of 15 (out of a total 105) parliamentary seats for deputies elected in February and March 2000, on the basis of proportional representation of nation-wide party lists.49 The ‘core’ of a future pro-presidential parliamentary bloc was formed on the eve of the 2000 elections by the Social Democratic Party, the Party of Economic Revival, and the Unity [Birimdik] Party.50 This combined list came second in the February 2000 elections.51 Last but not least, were the attempts to destroy the opposition by ‘granting’ the Central Electoral Committee the ‘function’ of deterring rivals from running for parliament. Thus, both Feliks Kulov, who shortly before had been dismissed as Mayor of Bishkek, and his party list were denied registration on purely technical grounds. Kulov became the leading candidate of a joint list of the Ar-Namys [Dignity] Party and the Party of the Democratic Movement of Kyrgyzstan. Both parties brought together politicians who were in ‘ideological’ or personal opposition to Akayev’s group and enjoyed support in their respective home areas.52 Pressure from government organs was also applied to other opposition figures, such as Masaliyev, Zhypar Zheksheev and Almazbek Ismankulov.53 The southern élite’s reaction took the form of a regrouping of political forces, as of the end of the 1990s. For instance, a more visible role came to be played by the Batken group of politicians. This group, which was conspicuously dominant both in the newly established Batken Oblast and, apparently, in the southern macro-clan in general, included such noted public figures as Masaliyev, leader of the Kyrgyz communists; Mamat Aybalayev, former head of the Kadamdzhay antimony plant, then governor of Batken Oblast; Rahat Achilova and Dosbol Nur Uulu, both parliamentary deputies.54 In contrast to other ‘pluralistic regimes’ in Asia and Africa, where informal structures of power are ‘installed’ within political parties,55 Kyrgyzstan’s political parties have remained on the periphery of the real political infrastructure. For instance, during the 1995 elections parties were poorly represented.56 In 2000, as well, less than 15 per cent of the 225

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candidates to the Zhogorku Kenesh ran on behalf of political movements or parties, and 92 out of 140 legislators were elected as independent candidates. According to an opinion poll solicited by the independent Res Publica, a total of 45.4 per cent of respondents said that none of the existing parties in Kyrgyzstan expressed their interests; and 33 per cent did not know how to reply to the question on their attitude to the political parties.57 According to observers, ‘clan and regional ties appear to matter more in the polls than party affiliations’.58 At the same time, one can see the connection of some political clans with certain political parties or intraparty factions. For example, all candidates of the Ata Meken [Homeland] party scored most of the votes at the May 1999 local elections in Chuy Oblast.59 In the course of the 2000 parliamentary elections, a direct relationship was evident between the Talas clan and the Social Democratic Party; the Naryn clan and Ata Meken; and the southern clans and the Communist Party of Kyrgyzstan. THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC ASPECT Kyrgyz clans have remained essentially different from informal structures of power in the Slav successor states of the former Soviet Union. Russian and Ukrainian financial and bureaucratic (‘oligarchic’) clans, such as the acknowledged Dnepropetrovsk Mafia, the St. Petersburg clique, Moscow’s Luzhkov group, or the Donetsk clan, are also based on patron-client relations and state favouritism, but with very different features. Russian politicians and academics such as Grigorii Yavlinskii and Viktor Sheinis regard these political clans as institutions that ‘usually depend on the authority of certain governors, on the lobbying of one or two extractive industries, and on the financing of private banks. They place this amassed power at the disposal of one political personality in the hope of influencing the national decisionmaking process’.60 Hence, these clans are usually based on professional, administrative, and to a lesser extent, also Landsmannschaft ties, rather then ethnic or family ones; they feature a ‘transformed-personal’ political loyalty rather than immediate personal devotees; they institutionalize a flexible, ‘technocratic’ mechanism of political and economic power rather then a ‘rigid bureaucratic’ one. Activities of political clans in Russia and Ukraine usually include manipulation of state contracts and privatization tenders (placing shares of the most valuable enterprises largely in the hands of favoured companies), and awarding effective monopolies of energy distribution to ‘client’ corporations, as well as allocating Western financial aid (involving control over millions of aid dollars, subsidized loans and rescheduled debts).61 In Kyrgyzstan, in contrast, as throughout post-Soviet Central Asia, the social and economic mechanism for ‘refuelling’ the clan clienteles is still predominantly based on more traditional relations of direct administrative command regulation and bureaucratic favouritism.62 A 226

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more informal source of rent-seeking for Kyrgyz clan politicians emanates from their function as ‘brokers’ between local and foreign economic interests. Kyrgyzstan of the 1990s was known among foreign investors by the ironic nickname ‘Mister Ten Per Cent’ (referring to the cut of the contract that the bureaucrat responsible for a deal with a foreign businessman was ‘entitled’ to receive from him in cash).63 These practices gave rise to a scandal surrounding concessions given to the Canadian-based gold-mining company Cameko, in which prominent representatives of the northern political clans were involved.64 Another model of transformation of power into profits surfaced in the so-called ‘petroleum affair’, contrived in 1996 by a few high-ranking Kyrgyz government officials through a Kyrgyz-American joint venture. The details of the affair, in which the Kyrgyzstan government lost hundreds of millions of soms, according to the deputy chairman of the parliamentary investigation committee, ‘were well known to the top figures of the state’.65 There were also widespread misappropriations of direct foreign subsidies and loans, allocated against Kyrgyzstan government guarantees. Such schemes, according to Kyrgyzstan sources media, have played an important role in serving the interests and activities of the political élite.66 The widespread privatization of state enterprises promoted the strengthening of new, ‘technocratic’ ties within the clan structures According to Sultan Mederov, then deputy chairman of the Kyrgyzstan State Property Foundation, the largest group (28.8 per cent) of enterprises privatized between 1992 and 1997 were transferred to the ‘labour collectives’ (the employees) of those enterprises. Others were either privatized via tenders (26.5 per cent), or sold to private figures (21.2 per cent), or, as in 18.4 per cent of the cases, transformed into closed stock companies which granted up to 75 per cent of the stocks to the administration and/or ‘labour collective’. Such procedures created ample opportunity for transferring real control over the privatized properties to ‘regular’ management and administrative élites.67 Investigations by parliamentary deputies and journalists showed that about 4,000 Kyrgyz enterprises in industry, the services industries, agriculture, construction and trade were privatized for next to nothing. In each case the ‘buy-out’ price ranged between 12,000 and 13,000 US dollars, i.e., 500–800 times less than the real market value of these assets. According to the Kyrgyzstan media, ‘many auctions were closed-door affairs, enterprises were transferred to relatives as part of kick-back agreements’. As a result, ‘in the first years of independence the national economy suffered losses of more then 10 billion dollars’.68 However, the program of ‘mass voucher privatization’ and the denationalization of state properties in the Kyrgyz Republic, which is now underway,69 could lead, as has been shown by the Russian experience, to a redistribution of power and properties among informal political groups and to their substantial structural transformation.70 227

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CONCLUSION Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan has experienced a new period of synthesis of borrowed and local social and political systems and relations. The development of informal power structures is an important aspect of this process, comprising a framework in which the country’s political development has been taking place. Apparently, two parallel and interacting processes, the ‘modernization’ (i.e., adopting institutions of civil society) and the ‘retraditionalization’ (legitimization of traditional relations) of power and property structures are in fact two inseparable aspects of the development of the political clans, as well as of Kyrgyz society as a whole. Access to public resources and their appropriation and redistribution, with political clans as a channel, do not constitute corruption in the classical sense of the word.71 In these circumstances patron-client relations have become a critical element of basic social structures, totally legitimated within the local social and cultural milieu72 and effectively adapted by the political clan structures to ‘modern’ standards, relations and institutions. All the above tinges the process of Kyrgyzstan’s ‘democratization’ with a very specific complexion. In Kyrgyzstan, as in other post-Soviet states, as well as in many Asian and African states, ‘democratization’ consists primarily of the decentralization of power structures. This process obviously intersects with the multi-structurality of local ‘pseudomodern’ society, which adopts ‘modern’ Western-style democratic institutions and enriches them with local, neo-traditional content. It suits the claims of Kyrgyz officials that their nomadic past makes the ‘Kyrgyz a democratic nation by nature’.73 The trend of decentralization does not contradict, indeed, is even compatible with, the phenomenon of ‘oriental authoritarianism’, which in post-Soviet Central Asia has taken the form of increased monopolization and personalization of power by political leaders and their immediate circle. It would appear that the international community has a very limited range of means by which to prevent or obstruct this trend (if it has any interest in doing so at all). In any case, if constraints are to be imposed in the wake of attempts to establish a despotic regime (such as that in Turkmenistan), they must come from inside rather than outside the local neo-traditional society. NOTES 1. Paul Goble, ‘Kyrgyzstan: Analysis From Washington — A Reputation Destroyed’, RFE/RL Weekday Magazine — Kyrgyzstan, 24 March 2000. On the Kyrgyz model of democracy, see Aaron Brudny, ‘Kyrgyzstan: Island of Democracy’, Contemporary Central Asia 2 (1998), p. 6. 2. For details see, for instance: Paula R. Newberg, ‘Kyrgyzstan’s Leader Backslides on His Western Civic Lessons’, The Times of Central Asia, 9 March 2000; Erkebek Abdullayev, ‘Idet okhota na volkov’, Res Publica, 7 March 2000; L.M. Handrahan, ‘The So-Called Island of Democracy Sinks’, Transition (on-line version) 9 May 2000. According to the

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3. 4.

5.

6. 7.

8. 9. 10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

15.

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the October 2000 presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan ‘failed to meet international standards’. It published a long list of serious violations before and during polling and during the count (The Times of Central Asia, 2 Nov. 2000). See ‘Rights Group Comments On Election Irregularities’, Kyrgyz Committee for Human Rights (KCHR), 7 March 2000; ‘Elections: Arrest of WellKnown Member of Kyrgyz Parliament Daniyar Usenov’, Vechernii Bishkek, 20 Jan. 2000; ‘Protest in Bishkek Continues’, The Times of Central Asia, 28 March 2000. Cited in Jeremy Bransten, ‘Kyrgyzstan: Democracy and a Free Press — Endangered Species?’, RFE/RL Kyrgyzstan Service, 14 Oct. 1997. A typical list of such ‘charges’ has been presented by Eugene Huskey: Among them closing down two opposition newspapers in summer 1994; a referendum, violating the existing constitution to increase Akayev’s personal power; disbanding the parliament several months before its term expired; organizing the Committee to Defend the Honour and Dignity of the President; and fraud and corruption during the 1995 presidential elections. (Eugene Huskey, ‘Between Democracy and Authoritarianism: Askar Akayev’, paper presented at the ASN 4th Annual Convention, Columbia University, 15–17 April 1999). To this list one can add numerous irregularities during the 2000 parliamentary elections and the persecution of the political opposition both before and after the elections. See, among others: Rakhat Achylova, ‘Political Culture and Prerequisites of Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign Policy’, Russian Littoral Occasional Paper 83 (Oct. 1994); Shahram Akbarzadeh, ‘The Political Shape of Central Asia, Central Asian Survey, 4 (1997), pp. 517–42; Aleksei Vasil’ev, ‘Rossiia i Tsentral’naia Aziia’, in A. Vasil’ev, I. Sledzevskii (eds), Post-sovetskaia Tsentral’naia Aziia: obreteniia i potery (Moscow: Vostochnaia literatura, 1998), pp. 5–35; Tolkun Namatbaeva, ‘Democratic Kyrgyzstan: What Lies Ahead?’, in Roald Z. Sagdeev and Susan Eisenhower et al. (eds) Central Asia: Conflict, Resolution, and Change (Washington, DC: Center for Political and Strategic Studies, 1995). Quoted in Vechernii Bishkek, 19 Nov. 1999. See Natalia Kosmarskaia, ‘Sotsial’no-psikhologicheskie aspekty natsional’nykh otnoshenii v severnom priisykkul’e’, in N. Kosmarskaia and S. Panarin (eds), Etnosotsial’nye protsessy v Kyrgyzstane (Moscow: Institute of Oriental Studies, RAS, 1994), p. 50. Res Publica, 23 June 1992. Kosmarskaia, ‘Sotsial’no-psikhologicheskie aspekty’, p. 56. See also Leonid Levitin’s chapter, in this volume. The first substantial factor for confrontation between the ‘titular’ nation and the nontitular populations in the post-Soviet period was the Draft Land Law of 1992. The proposed law declared all lands of the country to be the ‘property of the Kyrgyz people’. The draft was adopted by Parliament, but vetoed by President Askar Akayev (A. Doepfner, ‘Kirgizstan Moves Toward Democracy’, Swiss Review of World Affairs 7 (Oct. 1992), p. 10). These are altogether about 80 in number. See Erlend Hovoself, ‘Tribalism and Modernity in Kirgizia’, in Muhammed Sabour and Knut S. Vikør (eds) Ethnic Encounter and Culture Change (Bergen/London: Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies, 1997), pp. 99–100. Personal testimony of Leonid Levitin, former advisor to Akayev. Asaba, 3 Oct. 2000. Officials were also said to have collected 30 soms from citizens for the election fund of President Akayev, but this information was refuted by presidential spokesman Osmonakun Ibraimov (Kyrgyz tuusu, 4–6 July 2000). Interview with Kamil Bayalinov published in Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 15 July 1995, and quoted in Eugene Huskey, ‘Kyrgyzstan: the Fate of Political Liberalization’, in Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrot (eds), Conflict, Cleavage and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 263. The nationwide poll was carried out by the firm of SGI CMA at the beginning of October 1999. During the survey 1,200 people were interviewed, aged 18 and above, representing the adult population of the Kyrgyz Republic in line with the demographic

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16.

17.

18.

19. 20.

21.

22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34.

data of the National Statistics Committee of the Kyrgyz Republic. For the results see Talanbek Sakishev and Sergey Doronin, ‘Are We Able to Use Public Opinion or Not?’, Res Publica, 28 Dec. 1999 in Kyrgyzstan Daily Digest, Eurasianet: http://www. eurasianet.org/resource/kyrgyzstan/hypermail/200001/0027.html. Timothy Edmunds, ‘Power and Powerlessness in Kazakhstani Society: Ethnic Problems in Perspective’, Central Asian Survey 3 (Sept. 1988), pp. 463–70; Nurbulat Masanov, ‘Kazakhskaia politicheskaia i intellektual’naia elita: klanovaia prinadlezhnost’ i vnutrietnicheskoe sopernichestvo’, Vestnik Evrazii/Acta Eurasica, Moscow, 1 (1996), pp. 46–61. See also the chapter by Zhanylzhan Dzhunusova in this volume. See Kadir Alimov, ‘Are Central Asian Clans Still Playing a Political Role?’, Central Asian Monitor 4 (1994), pp. 14–17; N. Petrov, ‘Politicheskaia stabil’nost’ v usloviiakh administrativno-komandnogo rezhima’, in Aleksei Vasil’ev and Igor Sledzevskii (eds) Post-Sovetskaia Tsentral’naia Aziia, pp. 96–7; Akbarzadeh, ‘The Political Shape of Central Asia’, pp. 520–2; and Michail Gegitar, ‘Clans, Cotton, and Currency’, Transition (on-line), 2 Oct. 2000. A. Dzhubekov and E. Niiazov, ‘Stanovlenie mnogopartiinosti v Kyrgyzstane’, in E. Shukurov, A. Alisheva and A. Tabyshelieva (eds), Renessans ili regress (Bishkek: Tsentr issledovanii mira Kyrgyzstana, 1996), pp. 215–30. Eleven parties registered for participation in the parliamentary elections on 20 February 2000. Six of these parties passed the 5 per cent threshold and thus were represented in parliament. See The Times of Central Asia, 27 Feb. 2000 and Levitin’s chapter in this volume. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 5 May 1996. Some observers explained this fact by pointing out that the ‘democrat’ Akayev had broad connections in both the republican KGB and Communist establishments, but was not a career apparatchik, and was thus a sort of ‘compromise figure’ among northerners, who at the same time was not totally unacceptable to the southern élite. See Sadji [pseudonym], ‘Kyrgyzstan’s President Askar Akayev: A Political Portrait’, Prism: A Biweekly on the Post-Soviet States, 26 May 1998. Inside views insist that the Talas clan was seriously weakened by the departure abroad of Chingiz Aitmatov (from1991, USSR, and subsequently Russian ambassador in Luxembourg) as well as by severe internal confrontations. Consequently, its influence decreased, and at present the Talas clan’s leaders are unable to make any top-rank political appointments independently. (This view was expressed by Leonid Levitin in the course of a personal interview with the author in Tel Aviv, Nov. 1999.) Quoted in Jeremy Bransten, ‘Kyrgyzstan: A Democracy only for the Rich’, RFE/RL Kyrgyzstan Service, 14 Oct. 1997. Huskey, ‘Kyrgyzstan: the Fate of Political Liberalization’, pp. 248–9. ‘Bishkek Mayor Resigns’, RFE/RL Kyrgyzstan Service, 27 April 1999. The lack of fluency in the Kyrgyz language finally restricted Feliks Kulov from participation in the presidential race in 2000 (The Times of Central Asia, 6 July 2000). See also Nick Megoran, ‘Language and Ethnicity in Kyrgyzstan’, Eurasia Insight, 17 Aug. 2000. Cf. Vechernii Bishkek, 26 May 2000. V. Kovalskii, ‘Kirgiziia: demokraticheskie declaratsii i politicheskie realii’, paper presented to the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Centre for Civilization and Regional Studies, Moscow, Sept. 1998, p. 2. Doepfner, ‘Kirgizstan Moves’, p. 9. Quoted in The Times of Central Asia, 25 May 2000. See the chapters by Vladimir Babak and Leonid Levitin in this volume. For details see: Eugene Huskey, ‘The Rise of Contested Politics in Central Asia: Elections in Kyrgyzstan, 1989–1990’, Europe-Asia Studies 5 (1995), pp. 809–29; Sovetbek Toktomyshev and Vyacheslav Shapovalov, ‘Fergana Valley, My Native Kyrgyz South’, Perspectives on Central Asia 2 (Feb. 1996) (on-line version). Nick Megoran, ‘Elections and Ethnicity in the South of Kyrgyzstan’, Eurasia Insight, 17 Aug. 2000. See the chapter by Leonid Levitin in this volume. Ian Pryde, ‘Kyrgyzstan: Secularism vs. Islam’, The World Today 11 (Nov. 1992), p. 208. The Times of Central Asia, 13 April 2000. The Kypchaks of southern Kyrgyzstan are a

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35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47 48. 49 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56.

57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

tribe adopted by the Kyrgyz people. See Alexandre Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire: A Guide (Bloomington: Indiana Press, 1986), pp. 110–11. See the chapter by Leonid Levitin in this volume. See: Justin Burke, ‘Opposition Leader Alleges Election Fraud’, RFE/RL Kyrgyzstan Service, 15 March 2000; and The Times of Central Asia, 23 March 2000. See A. Turchaninov, ‘Ten’evaia ekonomika i ten’evaia politika’, in Sergei Makeev, Oleg Belyi, Igor’ Burakovskii, Evgenii Bystritskii, Nikolai Gorelov, Aleksandr Dergachev, James Mays, Iurii Pakhomov, Vladimir Polykhalo, Nikolai Tomenko, Aleksandr Sharvarok (eds), Demony mira i bogi voiny: sotsial’nye konflikty v postkommunisticheskom mire (Kiev: Politichna dumka, 1997), pp. 406–19. The drug trade plays an important role in promoting personal relations within formal and informal structures of power in a number of areas of Kyrgyzstan. See A. Zelitchenko, ‘Batken narco-expansion’, The Times of Central Asia, 3 Feb. 2000. Ian Pryde, ‘Kyrgyzstan’s Slow Progress to Reform’, The World Today 6 (June 1995), p. 115. Nikolai Andreev, ‘Kirgizstan: Grappling With Democracy’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 1 (1994), p. 53. Confidential interview with a high-ranking Kyrgyz government official, Moscow, Sept. 1999. Huskey, ‘Kyrgyzstan: The Fate of Political Liberalization’, p. 260. See: RFE/RL Kyrgyzstan Service, 27 Jan. 2000; Interfax, 27 Jan. 2000, ITAR-TASS, 27 Jan. 2000. Vechernii Bishkek, 25 Nov. 1999. K. Abdymen, ‘Predvybornaia bor’ba v parlamente ili chto zhdat’ ot novykh deputatov?’, Argument 25 (17–24 Dec. 1999). See: Ian Pryde, ‘Kyrgyzstan’s Slow Progress to Reform’, p. 115. For this confrontation see also Levitin’s chapter in this volume. Quoted in Literaturnaia gazeta, 22 Feb. 1995. See Vechernii Bishkek, 11 Nov. 1999; ‘New State TV and Radio Organization is Set Up,’ RFE/RL Kyrgyzstan Service, 27 April 1999. For the media, see also Levitin’s chapter in this volume. ‘Pro-Government Parties Form Electoral Alliance’, RFE/RL, Kyrgyzstan Service, 3 Jan. 2000. See note 18. The Times of Central Asia, 27 Feb. 2000. Kabar News Agency, 5 Jan. 2000; Interfax, 1 July 1999. See also Bruce Pannier ‘Kyrgyzstan: Banned Parties Work to Compete in Elections’, RFE/RL Weekday Magazine — Kyrgyzstan, 19 Jan. 2000. RFE/RL Kyrgyzstan Service, 15 Jan. 2000; S. Lokteva, ‘Pretendenty-narushiteli,’ Vechernii Bishkek, 1 Dec. 1999. ‘A Game: Power, Clans and Plans’, BBC World Service, 15 Nov. 1999. See, for instance: Vladimir Khanin, ‘Razvitiie neformal’nykh struktur vlasti: institut politicheskikh partii v afrikanskikh usloviiakh’, in A. Vasil’ev and I. Sledzevskii (eds), Sovremennaia Afrika i perspektivy razvitia. Evoliutsiia politicheskikh struktur (Moscow: Nauka, 1990), pp. 60–73. See: Tolkun Namatbaeva, ‘Democratic Kyrgyzstan: What Lies Ahead?’, in Sagdeev and Eisenhower (eds), Central Asia: Conflict, Resolution and Change, and online at http://www.eisenhowerinstitute.org/programs/globalpartnerships/securityandterroris m/coalition/regionalrelations/ConflictBook/Namatbaeva.htm. Res Publica, Bishkek, 28 Dec. 1999. ‘Kyrgyzstan Holds Runoff Parliamentary Elections’, Reuters, 19 Feb. 1995. Vechernii Bishkek, 26 Oct. 1999. Quoted in Virginia Coulloudon, ‘The Criminalization of Russia’s Political Elite’, East European Constitutional Review 4 (Fall 1997), pp. 29–30. On corruption scandals in Russia and Ukraine see Nathan Hodge, ‘On the Road with Lazarenko’, Kyiv Post, 22 Jan 1999.

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62. For more details see Vladimir (Ze’ev) Khanin, ‘Clientèlism, Corruption and Struggle for Power in Post-Soviet Central Asia: The Case of Kyrgyzstan’, in Moshe Gammer (ed.), The Caspian Region (London: Frank Cass, forthcoming). 63. Dmitrii Glumskov, ‘Mister 10 protsentov’, Vechernii Bishkek, 29 Feb. 2000. 64. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 7 May 1994. 65. See G. Kus’min, ‘Komissiia proverila. Zabud’te?’, Vechernii Bishkek, 19 Nov. 1999. 66. Vechernii Bishkek, 14 Aug. 2000. 67. All in all, according to Sultan Mederov, about 60 per cent of all state assets were privatized this way (Sultan Mederov, ‘Analyses of Privatization in the Kyrgyz Republic, Its Main Results and Further Strategies’, Journal of Economic Cooperation among Islamic Countries 1–2 (1997), p. 35). 68. A. Oruzbaev, ‘Vykupi to, chto “prikhvatil”’, Vechernii Bishkek, 23 March 2000. 69. In November 1999 a list of 150 companies was drawn up, in which governmentcontrolled shares were to be sold on the Kyrgyzstan stock exchange (Vechernii Bishkek, 24 Nov. 1999). 70. According to an American adviser, working for Kyrgyzstan privatization, ‘privatizing means ripping off 99 per cent of the people’ (quoted in Christian Boehm, ‘Democracy in Kyrgyzstan — Reforms, Rhetoric and Realities’, paper, presented at the conference ‘Postkommunisten Antropologi’, 12–14 April 1996, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, p. 8). Such a pessimistic approach was very soon proved by the results of voucher privatization. According to some Kyrgyzstan economists, the real value of each Kyrgyzstan citizen’s share was not more then 15 soms (about $0.3 US), instead of an estimated $4,000 or so. All in all, only about 40 million soms had been distributed to the Kyrgyzstan population by the end of 1999, which was about onethird of the real value of just one restaurant in Bishkek, (see Oruzbayev, ‘Vykupi to, chto “prikhvatil”’). 71. The approach to these sorts of informal relations in the economic and political spheres as simple corruption is not uncommon. Experts of many international organizations, such as the World Bank, place Kyrgyzstan among the three most corrupt post-Soviet countries. See V. Timirbaev, ‘Sprut po imeni korruptsiia’, Vechernii Bishkek, 19 Nov, 1999. 72. Donald Bowser, ‘Corruption in Post-Soviet States: A Question of Cultural Identity?’, paper, presented at the ASN 4th Annual Convention, Columbia University, 15–17 April 1999. 73. Boehm, ‘Democracy in Kyrgyzstan — Reforms, Rhetoric and Realities’, p. 1.

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12 Linguistic Policy and the Process of Democratization in Uzbekistan VLADIMIR MESAMED Linguistic policy, more particularly the status of the eponymous nation’s language, is a benchmark for social and political change in Central Asia. Interethnic peace and harmony in the regime’s multiethnic states largely depend on the degree of liberalism of their linguistic policy, specifically, how fully this policy answers the needs, not only of the titular nation, but also of the ethnic minorities. In the Uzbek republic Uzbeks comprise 80 per cent of the population of 24 million. The percentages of other ethnic groups are: Russians (5.5 per cent), Tajiks (5 per cent), Kazakhs (3 per cent), Karakalpaks (2.5 per cent) and Tatars (1.5 per cent).1 The official linguistic breakdown of the population looks somewhat different, since 74.3 per cent of the inhabitants of the republic speak Uzbek, 14.2 per cent, Russian, and 4.4 per cent, Tajik.2 Until recently the Uzbeks had no historical experience in forming an ethnic state. In fact, none of the Central Asian states which existed prior to the Russian conquest were based on ethnicity.3 However, Uzbeks constituted the majority of the population in each of the state-like formations on the territory of present-day Uzbekistan. In the Emirate of Bukhara, the most important of these, where the position of the rival Tajik ethnos was strong, the fact that an individual belonged to the Turkic (mostly — Uzbek) ethnos was highly valued.4 Yet Tajik, the language of regional culture, enjoyed the official status of state language; it had long been in use in official correspondence,5 and was widely employed in all spheres of socio-political, economic and cultural life. Despite the numerical prominence of ethnic Uzbeks in the Emirate of Bukhara, the overwhelming majority of local intellectuals, including the most prominent Jadids, were Tajik speakers. Uzbek had official status and experience in functioning as a state language only in the Khivan and Kokand Khanates, which were both rather small and economically backward political-administrative entities.6 Up to the formation of Uzbekistan in 1924, the indigenous inhabitants of all the 233

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political and administrative entities that had existed on its territory identified themselves linguistically as Turks or Farsi; the former category including all the Turkic-speaking peoples of the region and the latter the local Farsi-speaking speaking Tajiks. The later separation into ethnic groups according to ethno-linguistic criteria created fertile ground for subsequent interethnic conflict. After the October 1917 revolution, linguistic issues acquired a political aspect, since the short-term aim of the Bolsheviks’ national program involved the creation of ethnic states. According to Stalin’s definition of a nation, most clearly formulated in his work Marxism and the National Question (1913), language was considered the first characteristic of nationhood. Uzbek was proclaimed the state language in the Turkestan ASSR, created in 1918, and in the Bukharan and Khorezm People’s Soviet Republics, both founded in 1920. After the implementation of the program of national administrative delimitation and the formation of the Uzbek SSR in 1924, legislation was enacted that gave the language of the titular ethnos of the republic the status of ‘state language’. This entailed creating favourable conditions for its development in all spheres of communication. This was in keeping with the nationalities policy pursued in those years, which considered language to be the most important instrument of a nation’s cultural development, and Russian culture the ultimate standard to be aspired to by all the Soviet Union’s nations. Consequently, the building of culture involved ‘europeanization’ — distancing the indigenous peoples from their traditional Muslim culture. This also solved another problem: containing the influence of the ideas of pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism in the region. In subsequent decades, as Soviet totalitarianism was consolidated, the principle of maximal use of the titular nations’ languages within the union republics was gradually abandoned, and Russian was granted preferential status. In the late 1950s–early 1960s in Uzbekistan, where the titular nation constituted a clear majority in almost all regions, the Uzbek language was withdrawn progressively from official usage. Even in rural areas where the population was extremely homogeneous, official correspondence was conducted partially in Russian. In academia, Uzbek was also under-represented, and 80 per cent of scientific publications appeared in Russian. As a result, a considerable portion of Uzbek scholars, writers and scientists, in effect, lost their mother tongue. Fluency in Russian was the determining factor for appointments to senior positions. Legislation with respect to the language of the titular nation, to all intents and purposes, came to a halt, and the Russian-speaking population generally lost all motivation to study Uzbek.7 The various reforms of the Uzbek script of the 1920s and 1930s also served to seriously impede the development of Uzbek and damaged its prestige as the main instrument of oral communication. Under Soviet totalitarianism no one could oppose the many changes of alphabet, which were always justified by raison d’état. The last reform of the Soviet period, the introduction of a Cyrillic-based alphabet 234

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in 1940, meant, in reality, a new stage in enforced russification. The Uzbeks gradually became estranged from the traditional Oriental culture, without, however, adopting Western culture. Sharaf Rashidov, Uzbekistan’s party boss from 1959 to 1983, initiated a major inculcation of Russian, taking great pains to increase its role and elevate its status.8 By the early 1980s, the policy of displacing the titular nation’s language brought about a situation in which ignorance of it, even among Uzbeks, was no longer considered reprehensible. This situation was aggravated by the decline in the proportion of the titular urban population due to the massive, organized immigration of manpower from Russia and the other Slav republics of the USSR to take up jobs as administrators, managers and technical personnel. Only in the second half of the 1980s, with the gradual liberalization and democratization of social and political life and the development of national consciousness among the non-Russian peoples throughout the USSR, was there a real increase of interest in reviving the use of the indigenous nation’s language in Uzbekistan in all spheres. This was in keeping with the process of the Uzbeks’ growing self-awareness. The restoration of the Uzbek language in the major spheres of communication, in social and political life, science, culture and industry, was one of the most popular slogans used by Birlik, the national movement headed by Uzbek intellectuals, which surfaced in Uzbekistan’s political arena in the late perestroika period.9 Birlik was actively supported in late 1988 by student demonstrators, who demanded that Uzbek be made the state language. This was also one of the main slogans at a rally organized by Birlik in Tashkent on 21 May 1989, and attended by many thousands of participants, who also called for economic liberalization, democratization of public life and abolishing the cotton monoculture.10 Uzbekistan’s mass media, too, expressed support for these demands. These events coincided with similar activity in other union republics, which predictably resulted in the tongues of their eponymous nationalities gaining the status of ‘state’ languages. The public activity in support of granting official status to Uzbek was crowned in October 1989 by the adoption of the Law on the State Language of the Uzbek SSR. The status of Uzbek as state language was later officially confirmed by Article 4 of the Uzbek Republic’s Constitution, adopted in December 1992, which also defined the spheres of use of the state language. At the outset, in spring 1989, the plan was to declare both Uzbek and Russian ‘state languages’: Uzbek was to be the official language at the republican level; Russian, the language of interethnic communication among the peoples of the USSR. During the ensuing republic-wide debate on the draft law, however, it became clear that the majority of Uzbekistan’s population did not deem it necessary to give Russian the status of state language within Uzbekistan. As a result, the draft law was changed, the new draft aiming first and foremost at developing and protecting the Uzbek language.11 In this way, the task of preserving the Uzbek language on indigenous 235

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Uzbek territory under the aegis of the state was officially formulated. The primary aim of the law was to create conditions for the development of Uzbek in those spheres where its presence was not strongly felt. Those who elaborated the language law stressed that with its adoption, no enforced transition to usage of the official language would be necessary, because its aim was basically to regulate the sphere of official communication. The opening clauses of the law stated that granting official status to the Uzbek language would not infringe upon the constitutional rights of other nations and ethnic groups living in Uzbekistan.12 Such a democratic statement contrasted markedly with similar laws in the neighbouring Central Asian states, according to which, learning the titular nation’s language was strictly mandatory. For example, the corresponding law in Kazakhstan made mastering the official language the duty of every citizen, which resulted in a division of Kazakh society by language into ‘kinsmen’ [nashi ] and ‘aliens’ and led to a tendentious nationality policy. In Kazakhstan, unlike in Uzbekistan, knowledge of the official language is explicitly required of those who apply for civil service posts. Such tendencies were also manifested in Kyrgyzstan, where non-titulars were dismissed from their jobs because of their ignorance of the official language; there, too, the nationality policy was influenced in many ways by the Law on the Official Language and led to the adoption in 1991 of the Law on Land, according to which the land belonged solely to the Kyrgyz nation,13 although Kyrgyz comprised only 52 per cent of the population of this state at the time of the adoption of the language law in 1989.14 A later version of the language law, approved by the Uzbek parliament on 21 December 1995, emphasized that citizens had the right to choose for themselves the language of interethnic communication. The democratic character of the law was demonstrated by the fact that it allowed conducting official correspondence in other languages in institutions and enterprises where the majority of the staff did not speak Uzbek. This affected large industrial enterprises not only in Tashkent and in the new industrial cities, such as, for instance, Navoy, Angren, Almalyk and Zarafshon, with their high percentage of Russian-speakers, but also in a number of factories in Samarkand and Bukhara.15 In Uzbekistan no cases have been reported of forced introduction of the state language into official correspondence in institutions with a low percentage of titular nationals. Another notable feature of the Uzbek language law, which distinguished it from corresponding laws in the neighbouring Central Asian states, was its laxity concerning the time limits set for transition to the official language. In Turkmenistan, for instance, according to the decision of the Parliament (Khalq Maslakhaty) in November 1999, as of 1 January, 2000, official records were to be written only in the official language,16 although its use in this sphere had not yet become widespread. As President Saparmurat Niyazov stated, despite strict measures taken against violators of the Law on the 236

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State Language adopted in 1989, in 1999 the use of Russian in the sphere of official documentation was still prevalent.17 A special government commission for the implementation of the Law on the State Language set up in 1992 has regularly published reports about delays in its implementation, even by government departments. The commission’s resolutions in 1998 and 1999 stated that many ministries continued to compile documents in Russian.18 It seems unlikely that in the near future correspondence will be switched to the state language in large industrial enterprises where the majority of personnel are russophones. Another important characteristic of the law, which has had farreaching implications for democratic change, was its stipulation that the state render assistance to the unhindered development and employment of the languages of the country’s non-titular nations. The state took into consideration that whereas before World War II there were 28 languages of instruction in schools, by the mid-1980s there were only eight. Article 6 of the Law on the State Language grants citizens the right to freely choose the language of their education at every level. In fact, however, this clause has proved impracticable for a number of reasons, among them the country’s economic difficulties. The adoption of the law on Uzbekistan’s state language marked the beginning of a qualitatively new stage in the linguistic and ethnic situation. Notwithstanding the politically laudable character of the national movement’s endeavours to revive and develop national identity, they have been highly detrimental to non-indigenous ethnic groups — mostly russophones, creating among them a sense of discomfort and national inferiority. Moreover, in the peak years of the activity of the national movement in Uzbekistan, the majority of the non-indigenous population had dissociated themselves from politics. The official proclamation of Uzbekistan’s independence and the establishment of what was in fact a national state created a serious psychological crisis for the non-indigenous population. The Russians’ identity was transformed, almost overnight, from being a part of the national majority of the Soviet Union to being members of just another ethnic minority. The Russian-speaking population was compelled to face the necessity of reconsidering its status in the social structure of Uzbekistan. For a rather large group among Russian speakers, this was a very painful experience, foreordaining the initiation of a major reemigration. The language factor played the main, and in many ways, the decisive role regarding emigration, because the conversion of the language of the Russian-speaking population from being that of the politically dominant one to that of an ethnic minority led also to the loss of prestige of its speakers. For Russian-speakers, the language law became, as it were, a displacing factor. It was no accident that the 1989–1990 peak of emigration involving in particular the russophone population, coincided with the first and most vigorous period of the elaboration and implementation of this law. During those two years 237

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some 240,000 russophones emigrated. In the following years, with the adoption in 1995 of the new, more democratic version of the language law which moderated some clauses concerning the transition to the state language19 and which considerably relaxed the displacing factors, the migration flow declined.20 A few concomitant factors also contributed to this, including measures taken by the Uzbekistan government towards social and political accord and the prevention of interethnic conflict. Nevertheless, in the period between 1991 and 1997, 240,000, or 23 per cent of Russians, left Uzbekistan. In these years, emigration from Uzbekistan totaled 600,000, 80 per cent of whom left for CIS and Baltic states and the rest for the US, Israel, Germany and Canada. Most of the migrants were qualified specialists whose departure inevitably resulted in considerable economic losses to the republic, which were especially painful in the transition period. The reduced allocation of Russian-language media space also caused unease among russophones and contributed to their emigration. Since 1991 there has been a gradual reduction of freely accessible television broadcasts from Moscow, which by the end of the 1990s declined to two–three hours a day. A considerable portion of television programs from Moscow have been transferred to cable networks, significantly diminishing russophone access to them, since many of them can not afford it.21 However, in some regions of Uzbekistan which have experienced economic difficulties because of the loss of qualified, mostly russophone, manpower — for instance, in Samarkand, Bukhara, Jizzak and Navoy22 — the local authorities have introduced free broadcasts of Moscow television stations. Thus, in Bukhara in early 2000, five Russian channels were being transmitted, and in Navoy, four. In Navoy, free access to Russian television was initiated by the heads of large industrial enterprises, who were concerned by the mass russophone emigration.23 At the same time, the number of Russian programs on the official first Uzbek television channel was considerably reduced. The import of Russian-language press from Russia has also been drastically cut, and the distribution of certain Russian periodicals was prohibited for political reasons. Technical measures have also been taken to reduce broadcasting in Russian by foreign stations, such as Radio Liberty and the Voice of America, and BBC Russian Service programs to Uzbekistan have been limited to 30 minutes a day.24 Further psychological uneasiness was caused for the non-titular nations by reform of the Uzbek writing system, which began in 1992. This was launched without regard to the first version of the language law, which provided for the establishment of broad arrangements for studying the old Uzbek system based on the Arabic alphabet. The aim was to make the rich cultural heritage accumulated over centuries on the basis of this system available once again to scholars, scientists and intelligentsia, and to restore cultural continuity, severed consciously by the Soviet regime. Plans were made for studying the Arabic alphabet in 238

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schools and reprinting books in the Arabic script.25 Apparently, a return to the Arabic script was contemplated. However, political realities led to a reversal of policy. The ‘Islamic boom’ which occurred with the onset of glasnost caused the authorities serious concern regarding the danger of a spread of Islamic ‘fundamentalism’. The civil war in neighbouring Tajikistan, in which pro-Islamic forces played a central role, predicated a change in government policy regarding Islam. In this context, the prospect of a change to the Arabic script, which in the common mind was associated with Islam, was perceived as a threat and was discarded by the authorities. The choice of a new Latin script for Uzbek clearly indicated the political preferences of the Uzbekistan authorities. The weakening of ties with Russia which began in the early 1990s and continued at least until mid-1999 and the growing distance from the Soviet past, obliterated the need for further use of the Cyrillic alphabet. The decision to introduce the Latin script was a sign of the Uzbekistan authorities’ firm intention to choose a pro-Western orientation and make secularization of public life irreversible. Moreover, a Latin-based script would make integration in the culture and civilization of the turcophone community more realistic.26 The Law on the Introduction of the Latin Alphabet, adopted by the Uzbek parliament on 2 September 1993, stipulated that there would be a gradual transition in the course of seven years. However, this was soon amended and prolonged by a further five years. The Uzbek Latin alphabet itself has also undergone far-reaching amendments without, however, reaching a final version.27 Reports in the Uzbek press in 1999 dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the passing of the language law stated that work on the improvement of the Uzbek Latin alphabet was still going on.28 According to a number of Uzbek linguists, the adapted Latin-based alphabet which is being introduced, is rather hard to learn and does not fully or adequately reflect the specifics of the Uzbek language.29 Turkic language specialists in Uzbekistan oppose its introduction, because the country’s economic difficulties would render it impossible to reprint in Latin script even a fraction of the large body of literature in Cyrillic published in the course of almost 60 years.30 The government has decided that the full transition to the new Latin alphabet must be completed by 2005, but many linguists believe that a transitory period of a further 10–15 years is required, during which books may be published both in the Cyrillic and in the Latin alphabet.31 The decision by the government was aimed at neutralizing the damage which could be caused to the continuum of Uzbek literary development by the transition to the new alphabet and by the cessation of book publishing in the former script, and at avoiding deprivation of access of an entire generation to their more recent cultural heritage. Naturally, granting the Uzbek language official status led to a decrease in the usage of Russian. Nonetheless, Russian has retained a 239

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strong position. Despite the fact that Russian has no official status in Uzbekistan, it continues to be used on road signs and signboards. For example, during renovations in the Tashkent subway in December 1999, all metro stations were labelled in Russian, as well as Uzbek. Many professional and scientific publications have continued to appear in Russian32 and dissertations are defended in Russian, in order to ensure scientists’ admission into the international academic community. Moreover, there has been no decline in the titular nation’s interest in learning Russian. In the 2001/2 school year, it was being taught at eleven state institutions of higher education. Four of the six state pedagogical institutes33 have retained departments for training teachers of Russian in Uzbek schools. Although the Russian-language educational network is being gradually reduced at all levels, it remains considerable. Early in 2000, many Uzbek parents continued to send their children to Russian schools. This held true not only for Tashkent, in which Uzbek was not predominant, but also for certain regional centres, namely Bukhara, Samarkand, Jizzak, Fergana and Gulistan. The Russian language network of higher education has also remained significant. In higher technical institutions Russian speakers still comprised in the late 1990s one-quarter of the total number of students, far above their percentage in the total population. Concern over the departure of the Russian-speaking population has forced the authorities to seriously consider giving the Russian language official status. The relatively high status of the Russian language relative to Uzbek, has contributed to the slow pace of linguistic uzbekization.34 In spite of the decrease in the number of Russian speakers, especially in the periphery, Russian has retained second place in significance as an instrument of communication, and it continues to be used in international contacts.35 The situation with Tajik in contemporary Uzbekistan is quite different. In the traditional centres of Tajik culture, Samarkand and Bukhara, which became part of Uzbekistan during the territorial delimitation of the mid-1920s, the Tajik language — known commonly as Farsi — has remained more prestigious in the sphere of oral communication than the state language, without ever causing confrontation.36 The indigenous population in these cities has remained predominantly bilingual, using both Tajik and Uzbek; this situation became more pronounced in the 1960s–1980s, when the number of schools with instruction in Tajik was reduced and Tajiks were forced to study in Uzbek.37 Although the implementation of the language law has created a legal base for the restoration of a system of Tajik schools, progress in this direction has been very slow. It was noted shortly after independence, based on official statistics, that the percentage of Tajik schools in Uzbekistan was ‘significantly lower than the percentage of this ethnos in the republic’s population’.38 Apparently, the majority of Uzbekistan’s Tajiks do not want to send their children to Tajik-speaking schools for fear of limiting their opportunities for higher education and career options. As a result, the social prestige of literary Tajik has declined there, and Tajik has 240

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been reduced primarily to a spoken tongue, which is significantly different from the standard Tajik literary language. Since the Tajiks in Uzbekistan are bilingual, for example, their own language abounds in ‘uzbekisms’. An additional factor in this process has been the decreasing circulation of the few periodicals in Tajik, as well as the fact that publication in Uzbekistan of literature in Tajik has almost ceased, a circumstance aggravated by a sharp decrease in the import of books from Tajikistan. According to the official data of the Republic of Uzbekistan, only nine books appeared in 1997 for Uzbekistan’s approximately 1.5 million Tajik speakers and about 300 issues of newspapers in Tajik with a total annual circulation of 428,000. In 1998, the total number of copies of the thirteen books published in Tajik was 112,100, including a number of original textbooks for schools with Tajik as the language of instruction.39 In contrast to Tajik, the languages of other autochthonous minorities — Kazakhs, Karakalpaks, Turkmen and Kyrgyz — have had ample incentive to develop. Kazakh is in wide usage in the regions of compact settlement of this rather numerous ethnic minority. Unlike Tajik, Kazakh is the language of instruction in more than 600 secondary schools and a portion of students in institutions of higher education and technical colleges have been taught in Kazakh. For instance, the Navoy State Pedagogical Institute alone had in the year 2000 about 400 students who planned to become teachers in schools with Kazakh as the language of instruction, which exist in the rural districts in that viloyat.40 According to inter-state agreements between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Kazakh inhabitants of Uzbekistan may also receive education in Kazakhstan with Uzbek state support.41 The other ethnic minorities in Uzbekistan have long been primarily Russian speaking. The years since perestroika, however, have witnessed manifestations of increased national consciousness and a search for ethnic identity among these groups. In places of compact settlement of national minorities, groups for the intensive study of their native languages — Tatar, Korean, Armenian — have appeared. In Tashkent, for instance, an Armenian high school has been in existence for several years and in other cities, some schools have begun teaching subjects in Korean.42 The numerous ethnic cultural centres established in Uzbekistan on the eve of independence have provided instruction in the languages of more than 20 ethnic minorities. *

*

*

The degree to which the national cultural needs of Uzbekistan’s ethnic minorities are satisfied, the democratic functioning of state institutions whose task it is to prevent interethnic conflict and modulate relations between the titular nationality and other ethnoses, and respect for the right of ethnic determination would serve to instil a sense of security among these populations. The implementation of Uzbekistan’s linguistic policy should aim at attaining these goals. Its main achievement, 241

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however, has been a clearly manifested trend to drastically expand the scope of usage of Uzbek at the expense of the languages of the nontitular nations, and this process seems to be irreversible. Uzbekistan’s language policy must inevitably be influenced by interstate relations developed in the post-Soviet space, in particular within Central Asia. The trend towards improving relations with Russia manifested by Uzbekistan as of mid-1999 — mainly out of strategic considerations — will, in our opinion, undoubtedly stem the immanent russophobia emerging in the country and will be instrumental in maintaining Russian as the second most significant language as a means of communication. On the other hand, the growing tension between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan caused by the latter’s support of Uzbek Islamists, including the alleged provision of bases in Tajikistan even after 1999, has provoked anti-Tajik feelings in Uzbekistan. The introduction in August 2000 of the need for visas when crossing the Uzbek-Tajik border has alienated the two countries from each other, weakened their cultural contacts and reportedly led to a decline of education in Tajik in the regions of their compact settlement in Uzbekistan. On the whole, the language policy implemented in the context of the trend towards strong authoritarian rule and the priority of the state over democracy, which is now firmly established in Uzbekistan, will, in all probability, continue to be based on granting privileges solely to the titular nation. At the same time, with the increasing personal power of President Karimov and the strengthening of the country’s law enforcement bodies, interethnic tensions seem likely to remain under control. NOTES 1. CIA online: www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/uz, pp. 2–3. The data given here are based on the estimates of Uzbekistan Statistics Service for 1998. 2. Ibid. It is worth noting that many inhabitants of Bukhara and Samarkand, who are officially considered Uzbeks for various historical reasons are, in fact, Tajik speakers. According to my observations made during trips to Uzbekistan in 1995, 1997 and 2000, making Uzbek the state language did not seriously change this situation. The estimated number of Tajik inhabitants of Uzbekistan is no less than 1.6–1.8 million. See also Neil Melvin’s chapter in this volume. 3. Ethnicity was the formal consideration given for the drawing of borders in Central Asia in the delimitation of 1924–25, which created administrative divisions named after titular nationalities. 4. V. Khanykov, Opisanie Bukharskogo khanstva (St. Petersburg, 1843), p. 182. 5. For more details, see V.V. Bartol’d, ‘Zapiska po voprosu ob istoricheskikh vzaimootnosheniiakh turetskikh i iranskikh narodnostei’, Vostok 5 (1991), pp. 31–3. 6. Edward Allworth (ed.), The Nationality Question in Soviet Central Asia (New York: Praeger, 1973), pp. 144–7. 7. In the early years of Soviet power, until the late 1920s, Russians were motivated to study Uzbek, since on the one hand, it was still in use in urban areas, and on the other, russophone specialists received salary bonuses for speaking the titular nation’s language. 8. In 1978, for example, on Rashidov’s initiative an all-union conference on the study of

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9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

Russian ‘in the national republics’ was held in Tashkent (Pravda Vostoka, 17 Aug. 1978). In this connection the percentage of Uzbeks who spoke Russian as a second language, between the 1970 and 1979 population censuses, grew from 14.5 to 49.3, only to fall again in 1989 to the 1970 level, demonstrating that Rashidov’s ‘achievement’ existed on paper only. See the chapter by Vladimir Babak in this volume. Dilip Hiro, Between Marx and Muhammad: The Changing Face of Central Asia (London: HarperCollins, 1994), p. 168. For the language law, see Michael Lenker, ‘The Politics of Language Policy: A Case Study of Uzbekistan,’ in Alfred J. Rieber and Alvin Z. Rubinstein (eds), Perestroika at the Crossroads (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1991), pp. 264–77; and William Fierman, ‘Independence and the Declining Priority of Language Law Implementation in Uzbekistan’, in Yaacov Ro’i (ed.), Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies (London: Frank Cass, 1995) pp. 205–6. Pravda Vostoka, 29 Dec. 1995. Igor Stepanenko, ‘Pervye itogi agrarnoi reformy v Respublike Kyrgyzstan’, Tsentral’naia Aziia (Sweden) 6 (1997), p. 43. Ibid., p. 42. Based on interviews with local workers in February 2000. Neitral’nyi Turkmenistan, 29 Dec. 1999. This aspect of the Law on the State Language is being implemented even more strictly, for instance in Ukraine, where Russians comprised no less than 20 per cent of the population. According to a decision of the Constitutional Court, state officials and employees in local self-government are obliged to use only Ukrainian at work and in official paper work. Poor Ukrainian may serve as cause for dismissal of state officials, militia officers, teachers in kindergartens and schools, and lecturers in colleges and universities (Novosti nedeli, Za rubezhom appendix (Israel), 13 Jan. 2000, p. 13). Jomhuriie eslami (Iran), 30 Dec. 1999. Narodnoe slovo, 17 Jan. 1998. See also Pravda Vostoka, 16 Oct. 1999. While the first version of the language law set 1999 as the time limit for final transition to Uzbek as the sole means of official communication, the 1995 version of the law contained no such stipulation. L. Maksakova, ‘Tendentsii demograficheskogo razvitiia v Uzbekistane,’ Tsentral’naia Aziia i Kavkaz 5 (1999), p. 45. The weakening of migration trends among the Russian speaking-population is not completely matched by the constant decrease of their representation in the 250-member parliament of Uzbekistan. The number of ethnic Russians among the deputies of the parliament elected in 1999 fell to 9 as compared to 14 in the previous parliament. Turkistan-N, TN -1999 Country Report on Human Rights Practices. Uzbekistan, 25 Feb. 2000, p. 24. According to the Uzbek press, the monthly payment for using cable television is 6.3 US dollars, while the average monthly salary does not exceed 10 dollars. For instance, in the Jizzak region the percentage of the russophone population in the period from 1990 to 2000 decreased from 11.7 per cent to 6.1 per cent Zhizzakh khatsikati, 13 April 2001. Transcript of an interview with N.A. in Bukhara (who has asked to remain anonymous), 12 Feb. 2000. Turkistan-N, TN -1999 Country Report on Human Rights Practices. Uzbekistan, 25 Feb. 2000, p. 11. Fierman, ‘Independence and the Declining Priority of Language Law Implementation in Uzbekistan’, p. 225. Turkistan-N, TR: Alfabe birligi, 23 Feb. 2000, pp. 4–5. While its 1993 first version had 31 letters and one apostrophe, the later 1995 one had 26 letters and three letter combinations. Xalq Soci, 23 October, 1999. Transcript of an interview with L.F., a researcher at the Institute for Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan (who has asked to remain anonymous), Tashkent, 15 Feb. 2000.

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30. Economic reasons caused postponement of the implementation of the transition to a Latin-based alphabet in Kyrgyzstan for an indefinite period. Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 15 Aug. 1998. 31. Transcript of an interview with Sh.Kh., lecturer at the University of World Languages (who has asked to remain anonymous), Tashkent, 14 Feb. 2000. 32. Of 989 books published in Uzbekistan in 1998, 160 were in Russian. This calculation was made on the basis of Biulleten’ knizhnoi palaty Respubliki Uzbekistan 1–2 (Tashkent, 1998). 33. The relatively small number of pedagogical institutes in Uzbekistan by the year 2000 can be explained by the fact that the majority had been upgraded to university status. 34. Fierman, ‘Independence and the Declining Priority of Language Law Implementation in Uzbekistan’, p. 220. 35. A teacher from Tashkent’s State Institute of Oriental Studies related to me that a ceremony in honour of opening a branch of the Iranian Saderat Bank in Tashkent in November 1999 was held in Farsi, with simultaneous translation into Russian and English. Transcript of an interview in Tashkent, 10 Feb. 2000. 36. For details, see Donald S. Carlisle, ‘Geopolitics and Ethnic Problems of Uzbekistan and Its Neighbours,’ in Ro’i (ed.), Muslim Eurasia, pp. 75–7. 37. In the 1987–88 school year, Tajiks in Uzbekistan, who numbered 900,000 in the 1979 population census, had just 174 schools in which Tajik was tthe language of tuition. In contrast, the slightly lower number of Uzbeks in Tajikistan had 952 Uzbek schools. (From the personal diary of Rastokhez activist Mirbobo Mirokhimov.) 38. Muriel Atkin, ‘Tajik National Identity’, Iranian Studies 1–2 (1993), p. 155. 39. Biulleten’ knizhnoi palaty Respubliki Uzbekistan. 1–12 (1997), 1–12 (1998). 40. Narodnoe slovo, 16 June, 2000. Altogether 10 per cent of schoolchildren in Uzbekistan were studying in the languages of the indigenous ethnic minorities in the early mid1990s (Tajik, Karakalpak, Kazakh, Turkmen and Kyrgyz) (Fierman, ‘Independence and the Declining Priority of Language Law Implementation in Uzbekistan’, p. 229), corresponding approximately to their official numbers in the population. See above. 41. Protsessy integratsii v tsentral’noaziatskom regione (Almaty, 1995), pp. 135, 240. 42. Pravda Vostoka, 20 Aug. 1995.

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13 Opposition in Tajikistan: Pro et Contra SAODAT OLIMOVA In Tajikistan the achievement of independence consisted of two distinct phases: crisis, followed by the collapse of the old political system, and the institutionalization and legitimization of the new political order. The shift in the mechanism of government from the CPSU’s implementation of power from above, to the implementation of power on the basis of the will of the electorate, has also occurred in stages. Officially the former Soviet Central Asian republics have all chosen a democratic form of government. But in each of these countries democracy has acquired a different meaning, and democratic institutions vary in content and in the roles they play. One of the key characteristics of the political process in a democratic society is the existence of an opposition that navigates its course according to democratic methods of political struggle. Another is the opposition’s ability to realize political power if and when it is legally attained. This feature is often lacking in the Central Asian states, where all forms of opposition were banned in principle during the Soviet period and where, as a result, there has never been a tradition of democratic opposition. The issue of the formation and functioning of a democratic opposition, and of political opposition per se, is particularly salient and complex in this region, where opposition frequently has an Islamic slant. It should be emphasized at the outset that I use a broad interpretation of the notion ‘opposition’, first, because the opposition forces acting in Tajikistan’s political arena do not correspond to the generally accepted Western understanding of a ‘loyal opposition’.1 Loyal opposition implies forces that give primary importance to legal methods of struggle and refute violence and armed struggle for the achievement and retention of power. If we analyze the history of the appearance and operation of democratic oppositions in post-Soviet countries, there are few parties or movements that could satisfy these criteria of loyalty, although something closely resembling a loyal opposition did exist for a short period in Tajikistan. This may be explained mainly by the character and specific features of the regimes in question, and the conditions in which they function. 245

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The second reason for using a broad interpretation of ‘opposition’ is that it is necessary to consider as opposition in post-Communist societies not only parties and political organizations and movements, but also other factors which play a vital role in the political process. These include political institutions, public organizations, the mass media, disparate groups and even individual leaders. This is because of the peculiar nature of the political process which characterizes all postCommunist societies, where the institutions of power and individuals have, as a rule, greater influence than programs and political organizations. For the post-Communist states ideology is, for the most part, secondary to political practice. This chapter seeks to address a number of issues: Is it possible for opposition to exist and be effective in a post-Communist society in which the tradition of liberalism is totally absent, specifically in Tajikistan? If so, what might its sources be and what would serve as the parameters of its activity? What would be the nature of its relationship with the regime and with society? What factors would determine the success or failure of such an opposition and what would its prospects be? THE BEGINNINGS OF POLITICAL OPPOSITION The opposition to totalitarian rule which surfaced in Tajikistan in the late 1980s was a reflection of the process of perestroika and glasnost filtering down from Moscow to the republics. The first opposition movements which appeared at the end of the 1980s found support first of all among the western-oriented national intelligentsia. A rising level of education, higher living standards and new social and professional opportunities resulting from modernization created a numerically small but influential stratum, oriented toward western values and social democratization.2 Most were inclined toward liberal or social democracy. This new class consisted largely of the younger generation of the nomenklatura, new élite groups, which had retained their party or Komsomol membership. Indeed, the political debating club Ru ba Ru, which was one of the most concrete manifestations of the ‘spring of democratization’ in Tajikistan and which may be considered the precursor of the first political movement Rastokhez, was created as part of a Komsomol initiative.3 Criticism of the Communist Party and the Soviet state by this new western-oriented élite was directed not at liquidating the party or the system but at their rejuvenation. Another source of opposition in Tajikistan was the marginalized population of the cities and the suburbs, which comprised migrants from rural areas, including mountain dwellers who had been forced under Stalin to resettle in the Vakhsh Valley.4 The most notable migration of dehqans (peasants) to the cities was a concomitant of the construction of huge industrial projects — the Norak and Rogun hydroelectric power stations, the electro-chemical plant at Yovon and the Tursunzoda aluminium plant, and the mining and processing 246

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enterprise at Takob — which began in the late 1970s. This largely impoverished, unemployed urban population took an unexpectedly active part in opposition movements of all trends.5 At the initial stage of development of political opposition in Tajikistan, ethnic awareness was salient. Ethno-nationalism occurred as a result of the formation of new national élite groups and of the creation of a large, indeed mass, educated stratum which enhanced national awareness. All this came to the fore in the activity of the most influential civil movement, Rastokhez, which was established in 1989 in Dushanbe on the tide of the discussion surrounding the Language Law in the Tajikistan Supreme Soviet and on the basis of an organizing body of young Tajik intelligentsia. Somewhat later (especially after the demonstration near the building of the Tajikistan Communist Party Central Committee on 24 February 1989), students, white-collar workers and small tradesmen joined Rastokhez.6 The third major social group that fed the opposition movements in Tajikistan at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union were small tradesmen and private farmers. In contrast to other parts of the Soviet Union, a limited free market existed in Central Asia (and Transcaucasia). As of the late 1970s and early 1980s a profound systemic crisis hit the area. A dire lack of investment and a population explosion drastically aggravated economic conditions in the region. The power structures, both in Moscow and Tajikistan, had no alternative but to turn a blind eye to the increase of small private businesses and trade, which partially stabilized the social and economic situation.7 The share of such businesses in the economy of Soviet Tajikistan became so considerable in this period that it led some scholars to refer to the profound traditionalism of Tajik society, whose economic base, they argued, was not the Soviet national economic complex but the ‘traditional’ small-scale economy.8 The appearance of a large sector of small private businesses, generically alien to the Soviet system and Communist ideology, was supported by Islamic opposition movements. Islamists, for example, had ties with the consumers’ union, Tajikmatlubot — one of Tajikistan’s most powerful and wealthy organizations, which financed the opposition. It is noteworthy that in contrast to the democratic and nationalist wings of the anti-totalitarian forces, from the very beginning the Islamic movements openly opposed the system as such and sought its total demolition. It is debatable whether Tajikistan’s Islamic opposition movements were imported or had matured within Tajik society. Many scholars are inclined to believe that the Islamic movement worldwide played a major role in the establishment and development of Islamic political movements in the former Soviet Union, including Tajikistan.9 Others maintain that Islamic viewpoints developed without any external influence, but became more extremist and comprehensive when access to pertinent literature became possible.10 While it would seem that the Islamic opposition movements in Tajikistan, which from the outset had a 247

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distinct social and political character, were rooted in local soil, the impact on them of universal Islamic thought and influence can not be denied. There were also quite close contacts with the Islamists of neighbouring Uzbekistan. For example, the great Islamic authority and Hanafi theologian from Kokand (Uzbekistan) Muhammad Hindustoni Rustamov, known as Hoji Domullo (1892–1989), lived in hiding in Tajikistan.11 He worked at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Tajikistan Academy of Sciences from the late 1950s until his dismissal on orders from the KGB in the 1970s. In subsequent years, he taught privately, gave sermons, which were recorded and distributed on tape, and had a circle of Tajik and Uzbek pupils and followers for whom he conducted readings from Mirzo Abdulqodiri Bedil’s Mukhtasar alwiqayya. He died in Dushanbe, where his pupils, including Hikmatullo Qori, remained. In the 1970s and 1980s underground and semi-underground groups12 began to operate in southern Tajikistan, where they studied and spread Islam. The best known of these groups, organized in 1978, was the Youth Organization, headed by Said Abdullo Nuri, who later became leader of the Islamic Renaissance Movement of Tajikistan. The leaders of the Youth Organization began with educational and cultural activity and gradually moved on to active agitation. With the help of students who were studying in foreign countries, they acquired literature and textbooks and studied and popularized the heritage of leaders of the Islamic movement — Hasan al-Banna, the brothers Sayyid and Muhammad Qutb, Sayyid Hawwo and Abu-l ‘Ala Maudoodi. Their discussion of these Islamic authorities served as a basis for formulating their own goals and methods of struggle.13 Over time, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan grew out of the Youth Organization. Thus, opposition movements in Tajikistan prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union mainly consisted of extremely small groups of liberal and social democrats, who operated within the framework of the CPSU and tried to reform the system, and democratically inclined nationalists and Islamists. The institutionalization of the opposition became possible with the formation of so-called ‘informal’ organizations, which was a concomitant of glasnost. Clubs for supporting perestroika, glasnost and renewal were established in a number of cities and districts. The civil movements Rastokhez, Ekhiei Khujand, Vahdat and Oshkoro, and the political clubs Ru ba Ru, Dirafshi Kovien and Tajdid belonged to this category.14 The development of political opposition in Tajikistan was strongly influenced by the traditions of Soviet political culture and stereotypes of political behaviour which evolved during the Soviet period. The bipolarity of political forces in the USSR at the close of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s was not conducive to the elaboration of democratic alternatives in political conduct; in fact, the political choice was strictly dichotomous — democracy versus anti-democracy — at the level of both the electorate and the political élite. 248

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ELITES AND THE POLITICAL OPPOSITION Behind the opposition movements were the new élite groups that had appeared during the course of Tajikistan’s ‘modernization’ under Soviet rule. As society developed and became more complex, new ways of achieving status emerged and opportunities for social mobility increased. The new élite groups had been insistent in their demands for change and had joined together with the westernized nomenklatura in a struggle against the old (pre-Communist) élite that had impeded social progress. The complexity of the situation in Tajikistan was highlighted by the fact that the new élite were as uncoordinated and diverse as the ethno-cultural profile of the various sub-ethnic and ethno-regional groups that comprised the Tajik ethnos. The social structure of Tajikistan represented the typical pyramid of eastern society in which each ethnic, confessional and ethno-regional group had its own distinct position in the country’s political, economic and social life. The country’s leadership was composed of a quasi-colonial administration, recruited from Northern Tajikistan.15 The allocation of political, economic and social spheres and niches to specific strata and groups had to be constantly taken into account in the praxis of administration. The composition of the nomenklatura followed the Soviet model of quotas from different social strata and ethnic, professional and other groups and in this way, for a while, the equilibrium between the regions had been preserved at the top levels of government (see below). During the Soviet period, moreover, tremendous experience in attaining consensus between the republic’s sub-ethnoses was accumulated. However, well before the disintegration of the Soviet Union this consensus of élites had been violated. The Karategin and Badakhshon regional élites, having achieved economic clout, sought to change the balance of forces in their own interest and used the newly emerging opposition movements to this end. Consequently, regional origin exerted a major influence on the choice of the behavioural strategy of the new élites. In the course of vying for better positions, some sections of the new élites supported the Soviet imperial centre. Others opposed it. The division was determined by regional affiliation. The new élites which came from the north of Tajikistan — the ruling region in the Soviet period — tried to reform the system in an attempt to sustain its viability. Those from the south and centre, which aspired to redistribute power to their own advantage, took the contrary position. Traditionalism and ethnic nationalism became strong forces of legitimization for this segment of the new élites. Thus, the crisis of traditional society brought about the enhancement of religious and cultural fundamentalism and the shattering of social stability. Society in Tajikistan, although later than its neighbours, entered into a period of socio-cultural instability and conflict. As a result, dynamic disparities arose, and in their wake, many complex problems. The most important of these were: growing poverty against the back249

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drop of the population explosion, the appearance of a large marginalized stratum, a crisis of government, and the disruption of the system of law and order and a loss of any sense of justice. The administration was incapable of coping with its tasks, largely because the ruling nomenklatura was not a national élite, but one whose main functions were in the sphere of implementation: transmission of decisions from Moscow to the regions and the mobilization of the population to fulfil them, and the control and gathering of information. Strategic decisionmaking on ideological and key economic and political issues had never fallen within the competence of Tajikistan’s ruling nomenklatura. As a result, it was unprepared to formulate and take strategic decisions at the national level once Tajikistan became independent, a situation that in the final account would lead to the outbreak of conflict. In this fashion, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent crisis of power exposed Tajikistan’s weak spots: regions which competed with each other for power and gravitated towards centres outside Tajikistan, the absence of a national consciousness and national goals and the lack of a national élite or intelligentsia that might have been able to prevent regional warfare. Since the ruling nomenklatura in Soviet Tajikistan was unable to become a national élite owing to the retention of its regional character, it inevitably promoted the crystallization of counter-élite groups.16 Moreover, the fundamental heterogeneity — social, cultural and political — of Tajik society prevented both its consolidation and the setting of nation-wide goals. The counter-élite was in need of a counter-ideology. Islam, the antagonist of communism throughout the seventy years of Soviet rule, eased naturally into this role. Democracy also found a number of adherents. In this way, the rather peculiar alliance of Islamism and democracy, which was the salient feature of the political opposition in Tajikistan, came into being on the basis of anti-communism and regional solidarity. Egalitarianism and communal democratism, which characterized the self-contained communities of the regions that sustained the opposition movements, drew Islamists and democrats together. True, ideological disagreements existed among them, but these differences were subordinated to the solidarity of sub-ethnic groups during the fighting of 1992–93. A significant result of the civil war was the rise to power of the Kulob region in southern Tajikistan, which had been poorly represented in the Soviet nomenklatura and had not formed a counter-élite during the Soviet period. The military élite formed in Kulob during the war became the basis of the new élite of sovereign Tajikistan. Thus, Tajikistan became the only new state in the region, in which the collapse of Soviet power brought with it a change of ruling élite. The change of the ruling élite led to a transformation of the attitude towards modernization and democratization. During the Soviet period a symbiosis of modernism and archaism had been supported by the imperial centre. With the demise of the Soviet Union, traditionalism and 250

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nationalism became the vanguard of anti-modernist reaction and helped bring about the displacement of the élites which had been oriented towards modernization within the framework of the Soviet empire. Thus, both rulers and opposition took up an anti-modernist position and made traditionalism and ethno-nationalism the mainspring of their legitimacy. The paradox was that a leadership inclined to reject modernism was compelled to initiate democratization and shift the country to a market economy. The ruling élite was faced with the necessity of upgrading the national welfare, which was a prerequisite for survival. Tajikistan’s problems could not be resolved without integrating into the world economic system, which meant liberalization of the economy. In its turn, economic growth through liberalization of the economy was impossible without the consolidation of democracy, in other words, by infusing new blood into the system of governance, strengthening the political institutions, and forming and administering a civil society. Rejecting democratization would entail political and economic isolation and deprive Tajikistan of economic assistance. The political opposition was in no less complicated a position than the government. The struggle to increase the freedom granted by the regime was a sine qua non for its own existence. Consequently, the opposition, with its tendency to oppose modernism, had no alternative but to support the government in its quest for democratization. OPPOSITION PARTIES AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MULTI-PARTY SYSTEM The collapse of the USSR’s single-party regime was accompanied by a tendency within society towards party democracy, which it was hoped might introduce an element of political choice. It was assumed that a multi-party system would play a leading role in the country’s transition to democracy, integrate society and state, ensure the legitimacy of government and, at the same time, through the opposition parties, give society influence over the state.17 In 1990 a Law on Citizens’ Associations was adopted by the USSR Supreme Soviet, on the basis of which various movements and protoparties emerged in the republics as well. Initially, Tajikistan’s pragmatic leadership made efforts to take them under its control, but following their conversion into political parties with the creation of the Democratic Party (DPT) and the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT) as political organizations of the counter-élite, the government’s attitude changed radically. The organizational formation of parties in Tajikistan began after the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies abrogated Article 6 of the USSR Constitution in March 1990. The DPT was formed in August. An attempt to establish a Tajik branch of the All-Union Islamic Renaissance Party was made in October 1990 in Moscow. The August 1991 putsch was a crucial stage in this endeavour. Concomitantly, it precipitated the process by which the union republics attained independence, and 251

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contributed to the CPSU’s rapid loss of position. The September 1991 demonstrations in Dushanbe compelled the Tajikistan Supreme Soviet to introduce amendments to the Law on Freedom of Conscience, enabling legalization of the Islamist movement and the creation of the IPRT. The formation of an opposition movement was initially based on political predilections. Members of Rastokhez were united by a common system of values, social status (comprising mostly intelligentsia) and secular orientation. The percentage of Russians and russophones was considerable in the DPT, for example, in the grassroots organizations in the industrial centres — Chkalovsk, Kalininobod (now Sarband) and Rogun. Nevertheless, the real ideological framework for Rastokhez and the DPT was secular nationalism. The nationalistic orientation of all opposition parties and movements, except the IRPT, was motivated both by the russified intelligentsia’s search for identity and by tactical considerations: their nationalistic position must inevitably dissociate them from the old ‘international’ élite and serve to mobilize potential members and consolidate ideas. Nationalism also legitimized the group’s claim to power. Gradually, the proportion of members belonging to a specific Tajik ethno-regional group grew in all these organizations, and under cover of an all-national purpose, regional interests became distinct. In the period of the USSR’s collapse and Tajikistan’s suddenly acquired sovereignty, the opportunity arose for a change in the correlation of forces of the regional élites, corresponding to their real weight and influence in the country. The regional élites turned to the parties as instruments of political mobilization and political struggle. The Tajik ethnos’ regional articulation made it possible to establish relatively strong parties and a powerful opposition movement, whose driving force was the regional élites’ aspiration to redistribute power and resources in the period of the Soviet Union’s collapse and the subsequent division of state property. The alliance of Democrats and Islamists and, later, the establishment of the military and political association, the United Tajik Opposition (UTO — see below), took place on a regional basis. The chronology of events was as follows: on 1 December 1990, at the first Congress of the DPT, party leader Shodmon Yusuf declared that the DPT’s relations with the IRPT and Rastokhez were based on principles of friendship and fraternity. The struggle against the Communist Party of Tajikistan (CPT) could know no compromise.18 During the 1991 presidential elections, the DPT, together with the IRPT, Rastokhez and the La’li Badakhshon movement, established a so-called Union of Democratic Forces and nominated Davlat Khudonazarov as their candidate for the presidency. On 24 November 1991 the former Communist Party leader Rahmon Nabiyev was elected president of the Republic of Tajikistan (RT).19 After losing the presidential election, the leaders of the democratic-Islamist bloc declared themselves a political 252

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opposition. They worked actively through the mass media and some popular opposition publications appeared in this period. Nevertheless, hunger strikes and mass demonstrations that continued uninterrupted for many days on end became the most effective method of political struggle. Following the demonstrations, which persisted from March until May 1992, a coalition Government of National Reconciliation was formed, which included eight representatives of the opposition out of a total of 24 ministers. It was at that point that the southern-based Popular Front turned to armed struggle, which by August 1992 had developed into a full-fledged civil war.20 In this period the DPT and the IRPT, together with Rastokhez and La’li Badakhshon, organized the armed formation Najoti Vatan (Salvation of the Motherland). In this way, the opposition parties and movements transformed themselves into a military-cum-political association. Towards the end of 1992 units of the Popular Front, formed under Communist slogans, took Dushanbe, and at the 16th ‘conciliatory’ session of Tajikistan’s Supreme Soviet, the victorious Kulobi-LeninobodHissor coalition determined the new political order. The opposition’s activity was confined to the territories that the Popular Front was unable to conquer — Karategin, the foothills of the Pamirs and Gorno-Badakhshon. In June 1993 the Tajikistan Supreme Court banned the DPT, the IRPT, Rastokhez and La’li Badakhshon, as well as their press organs — Adolat, Bomdod, Orion, Oinayi Sikandar, Charogi ruz, and Najot.21 The focus of the opposition’s activity was now relocated beyond the borders of Tajikistan, to the various countries of the CIS, where over 250,000 Tajiks took refuge, and to Afghanistan, where there were an additional 60,000 Tajik refugees.22 These included the main contingent of the opposition’s military force, about 9,000 troops, for whom military training camps were set up in four regions in the northern part of the country; an approximately three thousand-strong opposition force remained in Tajikistan, chiefly in the Karategin Valley. The UTO was created in Afghanistan in June 1993,23 uniting the DPT and the Islamic Renaissance Movement, which replaced the IRPT during its period of exile. Deprived of any option for influencing the situation in Tajikistan politically, the opposition in effect assumed the path of armed struggle. As of 1993 the territorial integrity of Tajikistan was under threat. The country broke up into regions with varying levels of dependence on the central government. This situation underscored the impact of regionalism on the country’s political life. In the territories controlled by the government, the transformation of the political and economic system continued, albeit at a very slow pace. New parties came into being: the Party of Political and Economic Renovation (September 1993); the Civilian Patriotic Party, Ittihod (November 1994); the People’s Party of Tajikistan (December 1994); the Justice Party (Adolat; March 1996); and the Socialist Party of Tajikistan (June 1996).24 The Party of 253

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Justice and Development and the Agrarian Party of Tajikistan also held constituent congresses (in March and July 1998, respectively).25 All these parties had an ethno-regional character and sought to protect the interests of regional élites. Gradually a ‘new opposition’ began to emerge, generally known as the ‘third force’, the basis for which were the quondam allies, the victorious élites of 1992–93 which were not all satisfied with the distribution of power. For example, the interests of the big businessmen of the north were represented by the Party of Political and Economic Renovation (led by financial magnate Valijon Boboev) and by the Party of Popular Unity (led by former prime minister Abdumalik Abdullojonov), while those of the Kurgan-Teppe region were represented by the People’s Party (whose leader was Abdumajid Dostiyev, deputy speaker of the Majlisi Oli). Almost all these newly established parties constituted leadership structures, institutionalized in the form of parties with clienteles which supported the interests of the regional élites. As a result of open clashes or pressure or political bargaining behind the scenes, the most active of the new opposition parties were forced out of the game. Thus in April 1999, the Party of Political and Economic Renovation was banned and the activities of the Agrarian Party and the Civilian Patriotic Party, Ittihod, were suspended. After the 1998 disturbances in Khujand (then Leninabad Oblast) the Party of Popular Unity was also banned by a decision of the Supreme Court. The People’s Party reorganized and in June 1997 became the People’s Democratic Party (PDPT), henceforth the nationally based presidential party. The government strove to prevent the appearance of the new regional opposition and to retain control over the political parties. To this end, a new post was created, that of Presidential State Advisor for Ties with Public Associations and Inter-Ethnic Relations. On 9 March 1996 the leaders of seven political parties, together with the leaders of other public organizations, signed an agreement on social accord, which provided the basis for the establishment of the Public Council of the Republic of Tajikistan. Its main task was ‘to facilitate an ongoing dialogue among the various social and political forces in order to attain a balance of interests and opinions, to put into practice the assessments and analyses of experts regarding the social, political and economic situation of society and the changes occurring within it, and to elaborate programs, conceptions and suggestions designed to achieve civil and social accord.’26 Although a number of parties existed, they did not in reality participate in the political game, because during elections parliamentary candidates, even when affiliated to a party, spoke only about themselves and their individual programs. This deprived the electorate of a potentially valuable political forum for influencing Tajikistan’s choice of its future. The significance of the existence of parties was further devalued by pointless brawls and endless political manoeuvring, changing platforms and unpredictable alliances. This undermined the faith and interest of 254

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the people in the parties, as reflected in discrepancies in public opinion. According to polls conducted by the Sharq Centre in Dushanbe in January 1999 regarding the optimal number of parties, supporters of a one-party and of a multi-party system comprised the largest groups and were almost equal in size. Forty-two per cent of the population of Dushanbe considered that ideally just one party should exist; 38 per cent believed that the best system was one that included several parties; 9 per cent preferred not to have any parties at all; and 10 per cent had no opinion on this score.27 As before, the Communist Party had the largest number of supporters — 28 per cent; next came the two democratic parties, with almost 12 per cent between them; the PDPT polled 11 per cent, the IRPT, 5 per cent, the Party of Free Labour, about 4 per cent, the Socialist Party, 2.4 per cent, and the remaining parties, 1 to 1.5 per cent among them.28 The weakness of the parties was the result of the fragmentation of society on the one hand, and an inadequate political culture and the lack of tradition and any experience of open political struggle, on the other. At the same time, the surveys conducted by Sharq prove that there is great potential for the development of parties in Tajikistan. The findings of the above-mentioned poll testify that 80 per cent of the inhabitants of Dushanbe supported the existence of one party or more. They also prove that the best-known parties were those that had participated in the civil war and that support for parties correlated primarily with ethnic, regional and socio-economic factors — rather than with gender or level of education.29 THE OPPOSITION AND THE PEACE PROCESS The transformation of the political system in Tajikistan took place against a backdrop of persistent conflict. The harsh daily realities resulting from the war, the schism in society, permanent clashes of armed groups, the severe economic crisis and the difficulties of restoring the destroyed economy compelled the hostile parties to sit down at the negotiating table. In April 1994, under the aegis of the UN, the process of inter-Tajik negotiations between the government and the UTO for the attainment of national reconciliation got underway. The signing of the General Agreement on Peace and National Reconciliation on 27 June 1997 in Moscow between the Tajikistan government and the UTO marked the end of the four-year military conflict and became the starting-point of an active process of postwar reconstruction and reintegration.30 The implementation of all the conditions of the General Agreement was assigned to the Commission for National Reconciliation (CNR) which began its work in September 1997. According to the agreement, the UTO undertook a pledge to disarm. The parties comprising the backbone of the UTO — the IRPT, the DPT, La’li Badakhshon and the others — were reinstated as political parties and were to restrict themselves to political activity. For its part, the government committed itself to give representatives of the UTO 30 per 255

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cent of all government posts in the executive organs, ministries and other state structures at all levels and to grant the opposition parties the opportunity to participate in political life. After four years of military confrontation, which resulted in tremendous losses, it was very difficult for both sides to conduct a dialogue based on compromise and the renunciation of violence. Nevertheless, in spite of the persistence of discord and conflict, as of early 1998 no armed clashes between the government and the UTO were registered. The CNR became the main forum for resolving problems. In order to settle particularly complex issues a further practice was introduced: the establishment of committees, bilateral commissions and working groups. Thus, the quarrels and collisions between UTO field commanders and commanders of the government forces in Kofarnihon district in spring 1999 were successfully settled by a commission headed by Akbar Turajonzoda and a representative of the government, Amirkul Azimov. The adoption of the Law on Political Parties led to disagreements and the temporary suspension of the activity of the CNR in summer 1998, accompanied by the formation of a new conciliation commission, which worked out a compromise solution acceptable to both sides. Thus, the course of reconciliation saw rejection by the parties of the military option, and a transition to resolution of conflicts through purely political means. INSTITUTIONAL CONFIGURATION AND THE POLITICAL OPPOSITION Following legalization of the opposition parties in 1998, Tajikistan was faced with serious questions regarding its future: Was it possible to impel the regime in the direction of representative democracy? Would Tajikistan’s development be based on a consensus of the interests of all political forces or would some political groups, which did not obtain access to the political process, once again form a new opposition? Would ideologies co-exist within a proclaimed pluralistic framework and be expressed through parliamentary-type parties and movements, which would define the foundations of Tajikistan’s political and economic life? Or would a general ideology be elaborated for the entire state, a broad national concept that would of necessity bring together all political forces, including the religious ones? Following the first multi-party elections of 27 February 2000, it was difficult to predict the the direction in which the political system would develop, although the general contours of the transformation had been determined. In order to analyze the nature of the ruling regime in post-communist Central Asia, and specifically in Tajikistan, the model of ‘delegated democracy’ is most appropriate.31 This model is particularly relevant to transition societies in which the regime is fully democratic from the point of view of formal procedure, shows no signs of becoming authoritarian, yet does not necessarily evolve in the direction of representative democracy. Typically, such regimes are not yet sufficiently strong and lack their own institutional system, although they 256

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have demonstrated their ability to survive. The model of a delegated democracy therefore is distinct from a representative democracy, which is more democratic but less liberal; in other words, in a delegated democracy democratic procedures and norms do not serve civic rights and freedoms, but the interests of the leader chosen by the majority, who is spared any horizontal accountability to other state and social institutions. At the same time, these political systems retain a sufficient level of civic freedoms to be distinguished from authoritarian regimes. The model of delegated democracy is characterized by a strict majoritarianism, the concentration of power in the hands of certain individuals through ‘hyper-personification’ — the aspiration of the ruling authorities to reduce the role of representative institutions and political organizations (even those loyal to them) by introducing extra-institutional political mechanisms, and the regime’s disregard for interest groups by forming a permanent crisis administration. This leads to forces of clanship and corruption filling the void left by inactive, stagnant democratic institutions.32 The consummation in Central Asia of a variant of mixed democracy was noted by Frederick Starr in his address at the conference in Bishkek in November 1997 on ‘Democratic Processes in Central Asia: Experience and Prospects’. He did not, however, believe that the Central Asian states were in danger of becoming ‘illiberal democracies’, that is, nominally democratic regimes which ignore legal limitations on their power and use the power gained from democratic elections to deprive citizens of basic rights.33 In outlining the characteristics of the regime which took shape in Tajikistan, it is necessary to note the hypertrophied plenary powers of the executive, the growth of the administrative apparatus, the marginal role of parliament in the decision-making process, the weakness of judicial supervision, the homogeneous nature of the political, economic, administrative and military élite despite its ethno-regional divisions, the fusion of state and private positions, and the corruption in all echelons and at all levels of power. To this must be added the society’s intrinsic traits — unavailability of information,34 extreme weakness of formal social institutions and the continued influence of traditional social institutions (the community, clan structures and, to an extent, the Sufi orders). The most outstanding and significant phenomena of Tajikistan’s political and social life are, however, the retention of the regional character of the ruling élite and the lack of institutionalized, i.e. depersonified, sources of legitimacy. This compels the ruling clique, which aspires to de-ideologize its policies and free itself of commitments to any social entity other than a section of its own ethno-regional group, to create such sources artificially. This it has done through two channels. The first is the confirmation of the government’s legitimacy by the will of the people through the mechanism of referenda,35 or by the establishment of supplementary corporate structures, including nonelective representation (the Public Council under Tajikistan President 257

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Rahmonov, the Presidium of the Movement for Peace and Accord, and the Platform for Peace), with the subsequent transformation of the holders of power into the source of power. The second is the imposition from above of political organizations which become fused with the existing power structures, a sort of government party, or the inclusion of existing political groups or organizations in government. The reconstruction of the People’s Party of Tajikistan as of 1997 has been the most successful attempt to do something of this kind. The PPT was an influential party of the Kurgan-Teppe regional élite which constituted a part of the ruling leadership. The party’s presence, and in particular that of its charismatic leader Abdumajid Dostiyev, was a constant threat to the unity of the ruling élite. The hidden clash within the top leadership resulted in the defeat of the Kurgan-Teppe regional élite, the victory of President Rahmonov and the relative consolidation of the ruling group. The next step consisted of endeavouring to consolidate all the pro-government regional élites prior to the signing of the General Agreement on Peace and National Reconciliation of June 1997. On the eve of its signature, on 25 June, the third PPT Congress was convened with this purpose. The new political situation and the change in the party’s strategy and tactics in connection with the signing of the Reconciliation Agreement were discussed, and the party was renamed the People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan.36 The heads of the ruling structures at all levels — in the regions, districts and localities — were instructed to join the PDPT. President Rahmonov became a member of the party on 10 March 1998 and at its fourth congress, held on 18 April, was elected chairman of the party, with Dostiyev as first deputy chairman. In his keynote speech at the congress, Rahmonov declared: History has shown that politicians who want to conduct comprehensive reforms in their country must, before starting to implement their strategic programs, find associates and comrades-in-arms. Ultimately, the formation of political and social foundations depends upon the opportunities for success in implementing strategic and tactical goals … I will do my best to enhance the party’s political role in society and at the same time will not allow manifestations of egoism and duplicity in the party. The Party’s reputation is linked to the reputation of each of its members.37

In the first post-conflict multi-party parliamentary elections on 27 February 2000, the PDPT won the largest number of seats (64.5 per cent of the vote). Under conditions of increasing authoritarianism, the primary objective of the political opposition consists of broadening the framework of freedoms and promoting the transition from delegated democracy to representative democracy. But it is precisely delegated democracy that hampers the formation of a democratic opposition, for it polarizes political forces. The ruling regime’s rejection of compromise, which stems from the inability of society to organize itself in a constructive 258

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direction, together with the collapse of law and order and of a sense of justice, which is characteristic of post-Soviet Central Asia, facilitate the discrediting of parliamentary forms of political activity. The extraparliamentary path brings the struggle of the various forces to a deadlock and delegitimizes the opposition. If political organizations and institutions exist formally, possess a legal base and are recognized by society, but have little influence in decision-making, they tend to degenerate and lose prestige, consequently gravitating towards opposition to the government. Examples of this have been the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Tajikistan, the Union of Tajikistan’s Industrialists and Businessmen and the Council of Directors of Leninabad region, and, among the political movements, the Congress of National Unity. The activity of the group of intellectuals who rallied around the newspaper Junbish took a similar direction in the formation of a ‘new opposition’ in summer 1999 which called itself the Consultative Council of Parties and Movements of Tajikistan. The players in the political process in Tajikistan were placed in a situation in which they had only restricted influence on society and the government. This was a result of both internal causes: a weak social base, an amorphous, underdeveloped organizational structure, insufficient mobilization of resources, an unfortunate choice of tactics and lack of consolidation, and external causes, specifically, the authoritarian tendencies of the regime and the weakness of public institutions. The domestic opposition had the ground cut away from under its feet in one of the following ways. In some instances, it allied itself with the antidemocratic opposition, for example, the Alliance of the Party of Political and Economic Renovation with the UTO in 1998, or of Azam Afzali’s Democratic Party with the radical wing of the IRPT in October 1999. In other cases the opposition became a hostage of government policy, having been compelled to join forces with the government; such examples included the Socialist Party of Tajikistan, the Uzbek Community of Tajikistan, and a long list of others. There were also instances where the opposition lost influence in society, as happened to the Agrarian Party and the Scientific and Industrial Union. Finally, the government actually closed down certain opposition structures and institutions. This occurred in two cases: that of the disloyal opposition, for example, the liquidation of Abdumalik Abdullojonov’s Party of Popular Unity after the disturbances in northern Tajikistan, and that of opposition organizations which exceeded the limits laid down by the ruling élite. Thus, the Ittihod Party, which expressed the interests of a segment of the Kulob regional élite and whose activity threatened to split it, was eliminated. *

* * What, then, are the prospects for the functioning of a democratic opposition in conditions of ‘delegated democracy’ such as exist in Tajikistan? Notwithstanding the danger of transforming from a loyal into 259

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a disloyal opposition, or of losing influence and becoming marginalized as a result of government action, the experience gained by the democratic opposition can serve as a basis for the further development of democratic processes. One thing may be stated with a great measure of certainty: Those political forces that function in the country will continue to rely on regional rather than political considerations. It has become manifest in recent years that the regional political élites have become independent political forces which, in the absence of a civil society, are repositories of power. The regional élites could become a strong point d’appui of an authoritarian power were the central élite to acquire a state-wide character. As long as this does not happen, the local élites will conduct their own independent policy, nurture their own sectorial interests and form their own political positions, opinions and methods of operation. In this way, regionalism, by threatening Tajikistan’s territorial integrity, will further stimulate the development of authoritarian tendencies. The changes and amendments to the constitution approved by the referendum of 26 September 1999 considerably enhanced the authority of the executive power, and particularly of the president. The only party which might benefit from this would be the Communist opposition, which is manifestly drifting towards the social democrats and is sustained by a nostalgic and remonstrative electorate. As authoritarianism tends to increase, a group which has emerged from the very heart of the political establishment, taken a centrist position and oriented itself toward evolutionary and consistent reform, could become a loyal, constructive and democratic opposition. Such an opposition obviously could not have surfaced either in the years in which the Soviet system was disintegrating, when the task of the largescale redistribution of state property was being resolved, or during the period of resistance (i.e., the civil war). Nor are the prospects high of such an opposition emerging in the foreseeable future. Certainly, maintaining regional militias provides opportunities for reviving a military-cum-political opposition. In any event, the problem of a loyal opposition demands a solution. The situation pertaining in Tajikistan has underscored the particular acuteness of the problems associated with the functioning of a loyal democratic opposition, since as a result of the implementation of the 1997 General Agreement on Peace and National Reconciliation, the armed opposition has disarmed and the components making up the UTO — the Democratic Party, the IRPT and La’li Badakhshon — have been legalized. These circumstances raise the question of the place and role of the Islamic opposition movement in a state which has declared its secular orientation. During recent years it has become evident that Islam embraces all spheres of social, spiritual and political life of Tajik society and its influence has grown annually. Political Islam is an integral part of the political process in Tajikistan, but can Islamic political organizations and their leaders co-exist within the semi-authoritarian 260

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political system that has taken shape? If so, what position would they occupy? If they can not find a compromise, could political Islam organize a loyal opposition, or must it become radical and again choose methods of armed struggle? The interaction of politics and Islam has been and remains a matter of extensive and intense discussion in which neither the government nor the Islamic leaders have demonstrated a clear-cut position. The most disputed issues have been, first, the attitude to democracy, which the Islamists, in contrast to the democrats, interpret as a means for achieving their objectives rather than as a goal in itself; and second, the place of the Islamic parties in the political system. The various opinions on this score have resulted in the split and fragmentation of the IRPT and the resignation from the party of Khoja Akbar Turajonzoda, one of the leaders of the UTO. In his article ‘Is Islam really just the Islamic Renaissance Party?’, he harshly criticized the IRPT and called for ‘the preservation of the unity of the Islamic nation of the country’, insisting that political and party questions must not be confused with ‘problems of the people’s faith and conviction’.38 Three additional questions at the centre of the debate have been: representative democracy’s correspondence to or divergence from the principles of Islam, that is, the interrelationship between parliamentarism and Islam; the permissibility of the use of violence in politics; and the identification of impermissible targets of violence. At least two points of view concerning the place and role of political Islam in Tajik politics have been highlighted. The first position was expressed by Turajonzoda, who contended that to ensure the unity of society and state and in order to obtain an Islamic state in the future by evolutionary means, Islamic forces must work within the political system of contemporary Tajikistan, i.e., support the political establishment. The IPRT leadership has supported a second position, namely that the Islamists must conduct their struggle as a political opposition through the party and activity in parliament. In spite of the difference of opinion regarding the precise political role that Islam should play, it can be stated with confidence that one of the most important achievements of the reconciliation process in Tajikistan has been Islam’s peaceful incorporation into the political process. The relationship between Islam and politics is very delicate and complex. The path taken by Tajikistan has presented the world community with a unique example of concord among the political interests of various sectors of society, which profess different and even contradictory approaches to the application of Islam in politics. The Islamic opposition movement, together with the Communist Party and the regional parties, may in the future emerge as a real political opposition to the government. So far, however, Tajikistan’s political system is in a state of polyfurcation, in which a diversion of its trajectory is still possible. The place the political opposition will occupy in the newly evolving post-conflict order, remains to be seen. 261

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NOTES 1. For example, those defined by the American political scientists Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan. See Juan Jose Linz and Alfred Stepan (eds), The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes (Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), p. 50. For more on Linz see Neil Melvin’s chapter in this volume. 2. S. Olimova and M. Olimov, ‘Obrazovannyi klass Tadzhikistana v peripetiiakh 20 veka’, Vostok 5 (1991), pp. 95–103. 3. N.G. Chicherina (ed.), Grazhdanskie dvizheniia v Tadzhikistane (Moscow: Centre for the Study of International Relations, 1990), pp. 115–80; 166–9. Ru ba Ru was preceded in 1988 by Yaroromi Bozsozi (Friends of Reconstruction), which called for recognizing Farsi as Tajikistan’s state language, democratizing the state system, economic reform (such as privatization of land and the establishment of a market economy), and environmental reconstruction. Dismantled after a few months by party and state pressure, it was succeeded by a new organization, Marifat (Insight), which was also quickly disbanded by the authorities. The organizations were composed of virtually the same people — primarily journalists, writers, historians and academics. Nassim Jawad and Shahrbanon Tadhbaksh, Tajikistan: A Forgotten Civil War (London: Minority Rights Group International, 1997), p. 11. For Ru ba Ru see Vladimir Babak’s chapter in this volume. 4. From the first compulsory state-organized population transfers in 1925–26 down to 1941, this method brought 48,700 dehqan households into the Vakhsh Valley. Sh. Kurbanova, Pereselenie: kak eto bylo (Dushanbe: Irfon, 1993), p. 76. 5. Chicherina, Grazhdanskie dvizheniia v Tadzhikistane, p. 18. 6. Ibid., pp. 115–30. 7. For the social structures which provided relative social stability in Soviet Tajikistan see M. Olimov and S. Olimova, ‘Etalon nekapitalisticheskogo razvitiia’, Narody Azii i Afriki 4 (1989), pp. 23–34. For the scope of the activities of this private small trade, see ‘Sel’skokhoziaistvennoe proizvodstvo v lichnykh, podsobnykh khoziaistvakh naseleniia’, Statisticheskii sbornik. (Moscow: Statistika, 1991), pp. 38–42. 8. S.P. Poliakov, Traditsionalizm v sovremennom srednoaziatskom obshchestve (Moscow: Moscow State University, 1989), pp. 16–18. 9. R. Karimov, ‘Konfliktnyi potentsial v treugol’nike Uzbekistan — Afganistan — Tadzhikistan’, Tsentral’naia Aziia i Kavkaz 3 (1999), pp. 46–7. 10. Allen Hetmanek, ‘Islamic Revolution and Jihad Come to the Former Soviet Central Asia: the Case of Tajikistan’, Central Asian Survey 3 (1993), p. 370. 11. Ashirbek Muminov, ‘Traditional and Modern Religious — Theological Schools in Central Asia’, in Lena Jonson and Murad Esenov (eds), Political Islam and Conflict in Russia and Central Asia (Stockholm: The Swedish Institute of International Affairs, 1999), pp. 108–9. 12. By semi-underground I mean groups whose existence was known to the authorities, but against whom they refrained from taking action. 13. ‘God Is with Us, Victory Is Ours’ — interview of correspondent of Charogi ruz (monthly newspaper in Tajik published in Moscow) Abduqaum Qaumzod with Islamic Renaissance of Tajikistan Party Chairman Muhammadsharif Himmatzoda 24 (1992). 14. Chicherina, Grazhdanskie dvizheniia v Tadzhikistane, pp. 169–72 and 180–6. 15. For details of Tajikistan’s regional specifics, see M. Olimov, ‘Ob etnopoliticheskoi i konfessional’noi situatsii v Tadzhikistane i veroiatnosti mezhetnicheskikh konfliktov’, Vostok 2 (1994), pp. 79–97. Muzaffar Olimov and Saodat Olimova, ‘Regionyi Tadzhikistana: proshloe i nastoiashchee’, in Muzaffar Olimov (ed.), Mezhtadzhikskii konflikt: put’ k miru (Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences; Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology and Sharq, 1998), pp. 75–82. 16. Muzaffar Olimov and Saodat Olimova, ‘Postsovetskaia elita Tadzhikistana’ in Olimov, Mezhtadzhikskii konflikt, pp. 93–118. 17. A. Salmin, et al. (eds), Partiinaia sistema Rossii v 1989–93: opyt stanovleniia (Moscow: Nachala Press, 1994). 18. Adolat 6 (1992).

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19. A detailed account of these events may be found in the following memoirs: Safarali Kenjaev, Perevorot v Tadzhikistane, (Dushanbe: Kenjaev Foundation, 1996); Asliddin Sohibnazarov, Subhi sitorakush [in Tajik], (Dushanbe: Donish Publishing House, 1997). 20. For a detailed account of these events, see Ashurboi Imomov, Konstitutsional’nopravovye problemy razvitiia Respubliki Tadzhikistan (Dushanbe, 1998), pp. 48–68. 21. Narodnaia gazeta, 4 Dec. 1993. 22. CIS Migration Report. 1996. Technical Cooperation Centre for Europe and Central Asia, 1997, p. 109. 23. The actual term United Tajik Opposition (UTO) was used for the first time during the inter-Tajik negotiations in Ashgabat (30 Nov. to 22 Dec. 1995), Doroga mira: Dokumenty mezhtadzhikskikh peregovorov (Dushanbe, 1997), p. 173. 24. S. Olimova, ‘Politicheskie partii i mnogopartiinost’ v Tadzhikistane’, in Na putiakh politicheskoi transformatsii (Politicheskie partii i politicheskie eliti postsovetskogo perioda) Part 1, No. 8 (Moscow: Moskovskii obshchestvennyi nauchnyi fond, 1997), pp. 248–9. 25. For information about the Agrarian Party of Tajikistan and the Party of Justice and Development, see S. Olimova and M. Olimov, Tadzhikistan na poroge peremen (Moscow: Centre of Strategic and Political Studies and Sharq, 1999), pp. 64–6 and 101–4. 26. Vahhob Nabiyev, ‘Vo imia mira i natsional’nogo soglasiia’, Partii i dvizheniia Tadzhikistana 6 (1998), p. 4. 27. Olimova and Olimov, Tadzhikistan na poroge peremen, p. 36. The data were obtained through a public opinion poll conducted in Dushanbe between 5 and 15 January 1999. Personal interviews were conducted in the homes of those polled. The sample, which comprised 533 adults (18 years and older), was of a stratified random design (margin of error +/- 2.5 per cent). The structure of the sample and the weighting ensured that respondents constituted a fair representation of the adult population of Dushanbe and, therefore, the findings accurately reflected public opinion in the capital. 28. Olimova and Olimov, Tadzhikistan na poroge peremen, p. 38. 29. Ibid., pp. 38–9. 30. General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord in Tajikistan: What Does it Say ? (Dushanbe: UNMOT, 1997); Vesti o mire (Dokumenty) compiled by Abdunabi Sattorzoda and Ibrohim Usmonov (Dushanbe: Oli Somon Publishing House, 1998), p. 49. 31. See chapters by Neil Melvin and Enver Kisriev in this volume. 32. Guillermo O’Donnell, ‘Delegative Democracy’, Predeli vlasti 2/3 (1994), p. 57. For delegative democracy in Russia and Ukraine, see Paul Kubicek, ‘Delegative Democracy in Russia and Ukraine’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 4 (1994), pp. 423–41. Most scholars prefer to relate to the regimes in the post-Soviet period as inchoate entities. They use such terms as ‘façade democracy’, (D. Furman, ‘Nasha strannaia revoliutsiia’, Svobodnaia mysl’ 1 (1993), pp. 9–19) or erzats democracy (V. Rukavishnikov et al., ‘Sotsial’naia napriazhennost’: diagnoz i prognoz’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, 6 (1994), pp. 25–32, nn. 8 and 9. 33. S. Frederick Starr, ‘Democratization in Central Asia: The Public’s View’ in Democratic Processes in Central Asia: Experience and Perspectives (Bishkek: International University of Kyrgyzstan, 1999), p. 14. 34. For a contrasting approach to information in Kyrgyzstan, see the chapter by Leonid Levitin in this volume. 35. For the role of referenda in Tajikistani politics see Ashurboi Imomov, ‘Konstitutsionnopravovaia reforma i politicheskii protsess v Tadzhikistane’, Tsentral’naia Aziia i Kavkaz 2 (2000), pp. 244–52. 36. A. Dostyev, ‘Hizbe, ki zodai darki mas’uliiat ast’ [in Tajik], Minbari khalq, 7 April, 1998. 37. Imomali Rahmonov, Molodezh’ — budushchee natsii (Dushanbe: Irfon, 1998), p. 53. 38. Khoja Akbar Turajonzoda, ‘Razve islam — eto tol’ko Partiia vozrozhdeniia?’, Narodnaia gazeta, 25 Feb. 2000.

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14 Democracy and Civil Society Building in Independent Azerbaijan: Irrevocable Changes or Temporary Diversion? FARDA ASADOV CONNOTATIONS OF DEMOCRACY AND CIVIL SOCIETY This chapter seeks to examine the concepts of ‘democracy’ and ‘civil society’ and their application in Azerbaijan since its establishment as an independent state. It therefore behoves us first to clarify our basic concepts. We have to recognize that some confusion could still occur with respect to the implications of ‘democracy’ and ‘civil society’. In this essay democracy denotes a political system entailing both the practices of governance and the methods by which a regime attains legitimacy. These two aspects, principles of governance and the legitimization of authority, comprise, on the one hand: questions of competence and decision-making capacity of government institutions; the balancing of the executive, legislative and judiciary branches of government; and the extent of decentralization of power and development of initiatives by local authorities and increase in their jurisdiction. On the other hand, they comprehend a diversity of political parties with a wide spectrum of activity and the process of electing representative and government organs. As to ‘civil society’, it is understood here as relating to the sphere of social relations and activities aimed at meeting the wide range of challenges entailed in social development and undertaken by nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and movements. In underdeveloped civil societies these organizations, if they exist at all, are under government control, or are actually organized by the government. In more developed societies non-governmental social activities have a considerable impact on the practice of governance and are an influential factor in shaping political and economic processes. It is rather difficult to propose effective indices of their activities, particularly in countries, where clan and group interests determine the significance and aims of the NGOs. However, their number, registration procedure and 265

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behaviour, the diversity of their political links, the scope of their specialization and professional competence, and last but not least the importance and urgency of the problems these NGOs address provide some notion of the extent to which civil society has been constructed. CULTURAL IDENTITY AND THE POTENTIAL FOR DEMOCRACY According to the ideas spelled out in Samuel Huntington’s article, ‘The Clash of Civilizations’ and then further elaborated in his book of a similar title, the conflict of civilizations is to determine the world order in the 21st century.1 Huntington classified countries by the features of their civilization. In this paradigm, Azerbaijan is a country of Islamic identity and its development must be dictated by the characteristics of Islamic civilization. Furthermore it is a country situated on a so-called civilization fault line, which is destined to be the frontline of an eventual clash of civilizations. Azerbaijan’s confrontation with neighbouring Christian Armenia, Huntington asserts, is a vivid manifestation of an acute conflict of civilization. Huntington’s understanding of civilization, however, is rather vague and misleading. He insists repeatedly throughout his book that national and ethnic characteristics are ancillary for affiliating a country to any given identity as a civilization compared to the traditional faith, or religion, of the people. Thus, Azerbaijan is presented as a flashpoint of the struggle between Islamic and Christian civilizations. He contends that Azerbaijan is sustained by its Islamic brothers, whereas Armenia enjoys the support of Christians. For those who are aware of the details of the conflict, it is no secret that Iran, the most clerical Islamic state, officially occupies a neutral position and has even become a considerable trade partner to Armenia, breaching what has been widely alleged as an illegal blockade of Armenia. Azerbaijan is in many aspects a stumbling block for Huntington’s concepts, for Azerbaijan’s sympathy and bias have been towards Turkey, although Azerbaijanis are bound by their religion to Shiite Iran rather than to Sunni Turkey. It is well known that there is fundamental tension between Iran and Azerbaijan over the rights of the Azerbaijani population in southern Azerbaijan.2 True, under Heydar Aliyev, the Azerbaijani government has on the whole been unusually cautious in its references to this issue, although Foreign Minister Vilayat Gilayev expressed in May 2000 his concerns over the violation in Iran of the rights of the Azerbaijani people there. The bilateral relations between two countries are far from being as friendly as is alleged by diplomats and high-ranking officials on both sides. The case of Turkey, too, has evoked a severe critique from Huntington’s opponents. Turkey was believed to be a divided country as a result of Kemal Ataturk’s westernization reforms, although Huntington insists that it is destined to align along Islamic determinants.3 Certainly, the Islamic resurgence and the politicization of Islam in Turkey in the 1990s can not be overlooked. Over the centuries Ottoman 266

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Turkey was the epitome of Islamic power and strength. Islamic values are deeply rooted in Turkish society. However modern Turkish statehood has counted its achievements by very different standards, and has seen the quintessence of fundamentals of Turkish nationhood as no less significant than Islam. The Turkish people, while retaining in their memory the heritage of the Ottoman Empire, are convinced that modern Turkey is a completely new state, based on the principles of Kemalist secular ideology. Despite the strengthening of Islam, recent developments in Turkish politics prove that the regulatory mechanisms and traditions of parliamentarism and democracy have retained a decisive impact on the development of Turkish society;4 the spring 1999 parliamentary elections and, indeed, the elections of 2002 highlighted a consistent shift of public opinion towards national values. However, the discussion of the antinomy between nationalism and Islamism in traditionally Islamic societies falls outside the scope of the present chapter. What has more pertinence to our subject is Huntington’s statement that democracy, the protection of human rights and parliamentarism are distinctive features of Western civilization. In so far as these are embedded in Western culture, they can not be adopted by other civilizations in the course of promoting their innate potential or by peaceful exchange. Huntington does not even believe that trade and cultural contacts can bring peoples together; he asserts that they are rather apt to aggravate the conflict of civilizations.5 An observer in the Economist has pointed out that scholars and politicians all over the world, in their search for explanations for political, economic and diplomatic problems, tend to address cultural distinctions, rather than political interests, economic expedience, personal characteristics, or simple miscalculations and mistakes.6 It would undoubtedly be presumptuous for any scholar to refute the importance of a people’s cultural heritage in discussing contemporary developments. However, the question is, what is supposed to constitute that cultural heritage? Is it reduced to remote events going back to the rise of the world religions? Have later generations down to modern times contributed nothing to that heritage? Statehood is one of the most remarkable achievements of mankind. People live under conditions determined and maintained by the state. Statehood in its turn is a fundamental constituent of cultural heritage. Exposing his understanding of Western culture, Huntington pinpoints public organizations as the determinants of western civilization. Those organizations — parliament, constitutionalism, non-governmental associations — are not, however, traceable to ancient times. They are the achievements of more recent developments, clashes, conflicts and bloodshed that sometimes lasted for centuries, and now have become an integral element of Western statehood and culture. In other words, the further development of contemporary nations largely depends on what constituted the cornerstones of the respective state. In the establishment of Pakistan, for example, the Islamic factor 267

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played a manifest role; thus its nationhood is likely to preserve Islamic considerations. Israel, as well, was based on the traditions of Judaism and the associated, although essentially secular, ideology of Zionism. It is highly doubtful whether it is possible to abandon this heritage entirely. This does not imply a necessary hardening of given guidelines with no prospect for evolution or accommodation to a changing environment. Again the Turkish experience is very indicative. The general Islamic resurgence in the aftermath of World War II brought up crucial issues for Kemalist foreign policy. Turkey, as one of the largest Muslim countries, could not keep apart from this movement. It was one of the initiators of the Organization of Islamic Conferences. Political scientists have tried to bring the principles of Ataturk’s foreign policy into line with traditions of Ottoman policy, but they did not totally transform them.7 CHALLENGES OF STATE AND DEMOCRACY BUILDING IN AZERBAIJAN In considering the achievements and prospects of democracy and civil society in Azerbaijan, it is necessary to organize our analysis along the following lines: We must highlight the present day situation regarding the country’s experience of democracy, namely the working principles of governance, society’s political structure and the circumstances of the election process. In the course of doing this, we will also attempt to give some idea of spontaneous non-government initiated civil activities. Furthermore, we have to observe the determinants of Azerbaijani society’s further developments, taking into account the national state’s historical experience, achievements of the period of independent development after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and external influences. SOCIO-POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS Azerbaijan is the biggest state in the Transcaucasus with a territory of 86,000 sq. km. and a population numbering 8 million. The country borders on Russia in the north, Georgia and Armenia in the west, and Turkey and Iran in the south, while the Caspian Sea washes its eastern frontier. The overwhelming proportion of the indigenous population (about 80 per cent) are of Turkic origin and speak the Azeri language, which is closely akin to Turkish. Azerbaijan became an independent sovereign democratic state on 18 October 1991. As of 1988, Azerbaijan suffered the crucible of the military conflict against Armenia for the Nagorno-Karabagh enclave situated within its own territory since 1921 (and as an autonomous region since 1924). The military clashes led to the loss of 20 per cent of Azerbaijan’s territory and the displacement of about one million people. In May 1994 a ceasefire was eventually agreed upon, following which, peace negotiations 268

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sponsored by the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe were conducted, without much progress. In 1997, the OSCE Lisbon Summit supported Azerbaijan territorial integrity, without Armenia’s concurrence. The Azerbaijani people were one of the first to rise up against the Soviet empire and demand independence. A Constitutional Law on the Sovereignty of Azerbaijan was adopted even before that of Estonia. The brutal advance of the Soviet Army upon Baku in January 1990 and the ensuing bloody clashes between the Russian military and civilians led to the massacre of 150 defenceless citizens, yet did not cripple the Azerbaijani people’s aspirations to freedom. The Popular Front of Azerbaijan, the nationalist democratic movement that headed the struggle, became extremely influential among a broad spectrum of social strata and groups. That is why, unlike the rest of Central Asia, the Azerbaijani communist élite, which survived until August 1991, could not take credit for the attainment of independence. Moreover, then President Ayaz Mutalibov was forced to resign in May 1992, and the Popular Front took power. However, the newcomers, inexperienced in political intrigues and incapable of pushing vital economic reforms, soon lost popular support and were helpless in the face of Colonel Suret Huseynov’s uprising a year later in spring 1993. It was then that Heydar Aliyev proved his political acumen. With great care and patience he led matters to a compromise, simultaneously pushing his challengers from the political scene. He legalized his presidency in the October 1993 elections, and won the next presidential elections as well, in October 1998. The following important characteristics should also be noted: — Azerbaijan is the sole country in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) without any presence whatever of the Russian Army.8 — It is the only Muslim country in the former USSR where a democratic opposition came into being, took office, withdrew, yet nonetheless, did not disappear from the political scene. — In Azerbaijan the interaction between the government and its opponents has passed the stage of direct violence and has arrived at a comparatively high level of civic and law-governed relations. — It is a country of multinational culture with a distinctly Turkic heritage and strong psycho-cultural influences of Persian and Caucasian origin. — Azerbaijan enjoys a very advantageous geopolitical position at the crossing of trade routes from Central Asia and Russia to the Near and Middle East. This position has become enhanced with the introduction of a major Silk Road revival project aimed at establishing a corridor for the transportation of commodities from the Far East to Western Europe.9 — Last, but not least, Azerbaijan possesses huge hydrocarbon resources. 269

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ECONOMIC COOPERATION WITH THE WEST Economics and politics are inextricably intertwined everywhere, and Azerbaijan is no exception. The development of the oil industry requires enormous investments. Consequently, the struggle for the establishment of an independent state in Azerbaijan was associated, from its very inception, with the development of the oil industry and the involvement of Western investors. The government of President Elchibey believed that the United States would support the regime as long as American companies would have a foothold in the Azerbaijani economy. The negotiations on the oil industry under Elchibey’s presidency made great progress, and the parties actually came to terms regarding a large-scale contract involving a number of outstanding Western companies. It appears that Secretary of State James Baker overestimated the impact of economic cooperation with the West as a factor that would influence the Karabagh conflict. It could be asserted that Azerbaijan had no alternative other than to enter this path in its economic and political orientation, since Russia, in effect, supported the Armenians against Azerbaijan. Heydar Aliyev’s policy retained similar priorities. Aliyev managed to involve international organizations, most importantly the OSCE and the Minsk group, in the resolution of the conflict with Armenia, yet they put no pressure on Armenia to withdraw from the occupied territories. Nor did the United States, despite, the strong footing of American companies in Azerbaijan, revise its attitude towards the oil rich republic. Section 907 of the 1992 Freedom Support Act remained in effect until 2002, discriminating against Azerbaijan by preventing its receiving ‘humanitarian aid’ from the US government. A western political scientist, an expert in post-Cold War international affairs has noted, that American international interests can be understood only by avoiding facile distinctions between an interest-based and a ‘moral’ foreign policy. ‘America’, he says, ‘has a broad interest in the preservation of a world where it can pursue its many specific interests without violating its ideals. The United States has a national interest, therefore, in the global enlargement of democracy. A world full of democracies might not mean the end of international conflict, but it would be a world, in which American interests and ideals would be most easily reconciled.’10 HALLMARKS OF AUTHORITARIANISM In looking back to the practices of the Azerbaijani democratic government in 1992–93, it becomes manifest that little progress was achieved in developing democratic principles of governance. Vicious practices of authoritarianism were retained. Government policy was characterized by a complete lack of transparence. The government’s state-building activities were neither understandable nor acceptable to society as a whole. When the rebel colonel Suret Huseynov initiated his uprising, the people understood neither his real motivations, nor the measures 270

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the government took against him. The government itself encouraged the enhancement of Huseynov’s power, the sources of which were obscure. Heydar Aliyev’s accession put an end to a measure of anarchy as well as to the ambitions of a handful of militants to take power. This was his greatest merit in the process of Azerbaijani state building. Aliyev’s style of governance has had much in common with previous Soviet practices. This became conspicuous during his absence from work for almost two months while recovering from the heart surgery he underwent in April 1999. Foreign investors complained that his being out of the picture delayed key economic decisions. A Western diplomat told a Reuters reporter: ‘While [Aliyev’s] gone Azerbaijan is like a rudderless ship. Aliyev micromanages the country and takes every decision here… without him the whole system from the parliament to the ministers is incapable of doing anything.’11 Aliyev’s influence has been dominant in both the economic and political sphere. All of the 20 oil contracts signed with Western companies were concluded since he came to power and were overseen and approved by the President before the final signing. Other issues of economic and political reforms such as the privatization law, election laws and amendments to the constitution had to be decided by Aliyev before being passed on to Parliament for formalization. The court system has also been under the President’s total control. American human rights and democracy activists, who spent long periods in Azerbaijan noted that ‘the court system offers no recourse to those who seek restitution of their claims since it exists not to serve justice, but to satisfy a person, the President’.12 In accordance with the constitution, the President has kept firm control over the judiciary system. However, the opposition and independent mass media have continued to defend their rights within the courts. In 1999 some rulings were made in favour of journalists claiming violations of their rights. That was due rather to the continuous struggle conducted by the independent mass media than to independent judgements by the courts. Again, some particularly outrageous violations were brought for the consideration of the President and then, with his blessing, turned over to the judges.13 Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of these hearings was that the Minister of Information, himself a journalist by profession, unequivocally defended his colleagues in television interviews. To sum up then, governmental structures, the competence of ministries, and power distribution between the executive, legislative and judiciary have preserved the hallmarks of authoritarianism. Even Elchibey’s government did not constitute a real democratic option. President Heydar Aliyev has kept the rudders of political power in his hands. While his regime has been recognized by the democratic opposition, its representatives sitting in parliament and participating in elections have proclaimed from time to time that his presidency is not legal because of conspicuous infringements of the election process. 271

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Indeed, the weakest point of Aliyev’s legitimacy and power has been the way he has been elected. At the same time, the election process can be reckoned as a field where democratic changes have meaningful prospects. MULTI-PARTY SYSTEM AND ELECTIONS The domination of the Communist Party in Azerbaijan perhaps endured the first blow during the elections to the USSR Supreme Soviet in spring 1989, the first since the advent of perestroika when the young leaders of the newly established Azerbaijan Popular Front (PFA) made an unsuccessful attempt to stand for seats in the Azerbaijan Supreme Soviet. The still powerful communist authorities, headed by Abdurakhman Vazirov easily organized the elections so that they were won by the communist nominees. However, the elections demonstrated the crucial upheavals that had occurred in people’s mentality. Public sentiment was overwhelmingly with the challengers of the powerful ruling establishment. The Popular Front was the first organization to enter on the path of struggle for political power. All subsequent elections have taken place in conditions of an existing multi-party political structure. Political developments in Azerbaijan from that moment on were determined by the interaction between the authorities and the opposition. Azerbaijan even experienced a sharp switch in policy when political power shifted from the traditional post-Soviet political élite to opposition in 1992 and then in 1993 to Heydar Aliyev. Since 1992 Azerbaijan has witnessed two parliamentary and four presidential elections. Neither of the latter has actually been free. The parliamentary elections of 1995 were characterized by international monitoring organizations as non-democratic. It was therefore not surprising that the parliament, the Milli Majlis, failed to stand on its own feet as an independent legislative organ but was destined to be a tool in the President’s hand. Nevertheless, the multi-party system, which came into being following independence, made essential adjustments to the traditional scheme. The most influential opposition parties managed to obtain several seats and to act in parliament as a meaningful factor in the legislative process, well beyond their proportion. The importance of their presence in Parliament was not reflected in the number of their delegates. This became evident during the presidential elections of 1998, as well as in 1999 during the preparations for the elections to local government. In 1998 Azerbaijan had over 60 parties, 30 of which were formally registered.14 Official statistics report that the President’s Yeni (New) Azerbaijan Party was the biggest. It possessed a majority in Parliament and occupied the bulk of government positions. The Azerbaijan Popular Front, following the losses suffered in 1993, was transformed into the Azerbaijan Popular Front Party, which became one of the major opposition forces. The APFP was represented by four 272

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delegates in the parliament elected in 1995, but its significance and influence on parliamentary work was nonetheless considerable. The Yeni Musavat party, headed by Isa Gambar, former parliamentary speaker during Elchibey’s rule in 1992–93, claimed to be the heir to the nationalist Musavat, which ruled in in the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918–20. Yeni Musavat obtained one seat in the Milli Majlis. Another influential opposition party is the Azerbaijan National Independence Party (ANIP). Its chairman, Etibar Mamedov, was considered one of the most radical leaders of the former Popular Front. Unlike the two above-mentioned opposition parties, the ANIP recognized the legitimacy of the Aliyev regime after the 1998 presidential elections. Previously, the party’s representatives were wont to severely criticize the President’s policy in the Milli Majlis. These three opposition parties came into being as a result of the Popular Front’s disintegration and were opposed to the political establishment of Aliyev from their very inception. As to the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan (ADP), its creation was due to the dissolution of the consensus achieved between various groups of the bureaucracy and businessmen during the first phase of Aliyev’s presidency. The names of the ADP’s co-chairmen are well known in Azerbaijan. Rasul Guliyev the former speaker of the Milli Majlis (1993–96) and Ilyas Ismailov, the former Procurator-General and Minister of Justice. This, then, was an alliance between disgraced functionaries and a magnate reckoned as one of the richest people in Azerbaijan, similarly displaced from his high-ranking position as a result of a disagreement with the authorities over the division of spheres of influence and issues of economic strategy. The ADP does not rank as a party with an extended membership. However, its leaders enjoy the support of a considerable part of the electorate. A number of members of Parliament joined the party after its establishment or formed loose alliances with its leaders. Other parties that are not represented in parliament, but have had a say in political life and influence among specific social groups, include the Liberal Party of Azerbaijan (LPA), the Social-Democratic Party (SDPA) and the Vahdat Party. The leaders of these parties have been well known politicians. Lala-Shovket Hajiyeva (LPA) occupied the post of State Secretary in Heydar Aliyev’s administration.15 Zardusht Alizade (SDPA) was one of the foremost leaders of the Popular Front, as was Tahir Karimli (Vahdat), who was Chairman of the Supreme Court and member of the Milli Majlis during the reign of the Popular Front. The opposition parties did not concur that the parliamentary elections of 1995 were fair and that their results reflected the actual balance of political forces in society. However their participation in these elections and their activities in parliament legitimized it in the eyes both of the international community and of Azerbaijani society. The first president of independent Azerbaijan, Ayaz Mutalibov was elected in 1991 in accordance with traditional Soviet practice, without 273

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there being any alternative candidates. Some observers have expressed the view that the country’s presidential elections of May 1992, in which Abulfaz Elchibey won 56 per cent of the vote to bring the Popular Front to power were perhaps the most democratic in Azerbaijan’s short history as an independent country.16 In June 1993, barely one year later, Elchibey was unseated in a coup d’état that transferred the leadership of the Republic to Heydar Aliyev. Aliyev conducted new presidential elections the following October, formalizing his mandate with 98 per cent of the vote. Azerbaijan held its fourth presidential elections on 11 October 1998. These were the first under the new 1995 constitution. In February 1998, a new election law was proposed. The opposition actively participated in debates in the Milli Majlis concerning the stipulations of the law. The draft law was substantially amended as a result of pressure from international organizations and human rights groups and passed by Parliament. Realizing that the presidential elections would be watched closely by the international community, including the United States, it was signed into law by President Heydar Aliyev on 9 June 1998. The law was internationally recognized as the most comprehensive of its kind among all the new independent states of the former Soviet Union. The Azerbaijani authorities duly incorporated numerous recommendations by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) in Washington. The NDI issued a statement on 22 July 1998, according to which, ‘the current draft of the Law on Presidential Elections provides in many respects a legal framework that conforms with international standards for elections. It reflects extensive deliberation and consultation on the part of the government, and incorporates proposals made by the opposition’. The passage of the new law seemed to represent a new chapter in the developing democratic environment that might have an impact on the entire FSU. It was composed to ensure free and fair elections and to support an electoral process consistent with international standards for democratic elections.17 On 6 August 1998, Aliyev issued a presidential decree abolishing censorship. The decree liquidated the Department for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press and Other Media, established in 1966 when Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union. It also annulled two previous presidential decrees regarding military censorship enacted in 1992 and 1993 by former leaders of Azerbaijan, Acting President Mamedov and President Elchibey. The Azerbaijan government understood the importance of having a full range of political forces participate in the elections. Despite the atmosphere of compromise, however, some parties decided to boycott the elections unless certain conditions were met. The opposition pointed, for example, to the provision for deploying police and security officials at polling stations and to the 274

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inequitable representation of opposition parties in the Central Electoral Commission. On 3 July 1998, the OSCE’s Organization for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) issued a press release expressing its concern ‘about the announcement of a boycott by opposition candidates for the 11 October elections’. The ODIHR called upon ‘all political parties to fully participate in the election process’ and urged ‘political parties to respond to the appeal of the President and to present their nominations of representatives to the CEC’. The government and the opposition’s Movement for Electoral Reforms and Democratic Elections (MERDE) conducted negotiations that culminated in meetings in the President’s office at the beginning of August. The opposition demanded half of the seats in the Central Election Committee. This demand of the opposition alluded to serious violations of the implementation of the election law during the election campaign and polling. The talks failed to reach a compromise and the parties included in the MERDE proceeded to boycott the elections. However, the CEC did register six presidential candidates, including President Aliyev. Etibar Mamedov, one of the founders of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, now the leader of the National Independence Party, was one of the main challengers to Aliyev. On 11 October, Aliyev was re-elected with 76.1 per cent of the vote. Mamedov, his closest rival, received 11.6 per cent, and Independent Azerbaijan Party Chairman Nizami Suleymenov 8.6 per cent of the vote.18 The amendments made by the government in the election law under the pressure of the opposition and of international organizations made it possible for non-partisan observers and participating opposition parties to effectively monitor the election process. Mamedov’s companions succeeded in obtaining a large number of certified copies of protocols from the Territorial Election Commissions (TECs) and Precinct Election Commissions (PECs), under Articles 51, 52 and 56 of the presidential election law. This enabled Mamedov to make his own evaluation of the election results and to demand their invalidation on the grounds that they had been falsified. The National Democratic Institute and the OSCE also challenged the outcome of the elections and expressed deep concern about election fraud. According to the NDI, ‘it is very disturbing that the violations appeared to be systematic and that almost all were committed in favour of Aliyev’.19 Although the pre-election process, and provisions of the election laws augured well for the development of democracy in Azerbaijan, many international observers were extremely disappointed by the outcome. A Washington Post editorial of 17 October 1998, ‘Missed Chance in Baku’, was devoted to the elections in Azerbaijan. Responding to this, Azerbaijan Ambassador to the US Hafiz Pashayev alluded to the proverbial question about the glass being half full or half empty. Pashayev believed that Azerbaijan’s presidential elections highlighted the full half of the glass. He said: ‘We did not expect perfect elections, 275

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but almost all observers agree that this election represented significant improvements over previous elections. Election laws were improved, censorship was abolished, each candidate received free time on national television, open campaigning was encouraged, opposition candidates flourished, and hundreds of election monitors and observers were invited to witness the election. And while irregularities were reported, no one really questions the outcome.’20 In fact, nobody questioned that Aliyev won a majority of votes. The issue was that the opposition and the democratic community perceived the elections as a decisive precursor to future elections that were expected to further promote the culture of democracy in Azerbaijani society. In this light one can sum up the presidential elections as marking the following achievements: a democratic election law had been enacted; participating opposition elements benefited fully from legal opportunities for monitoring the voting process; international organizations had unlimited access to information concerning the elections at every stage of the process; the political establishment, despite its determination to legalize its ruling position, was constrained to align with the requirements of the international democratic community and even eventually recognized in interviews in the media that violations might have taken place during the elections. Azerbaijan experienced its first local government elections on 12 December 1999. The draft of the relevant law was highly controversial and subjected to severe criticism by the opposition within parliament. The law had to be passed speedily in order for long overdue elections to be held and its passage was one of the conditions for Azerbaijan’s acceptance to the Council of Europe. (The Council makes membership dependent on democratic legislation and practices.) According to the constitution, the elections should have been held in 1997 but they were delayed by political squabbles. Western political observers were concerned that further postponements would bring harm to Azerbaijan’s reputation in regard to implementing the recommendations of the Council of Europe. They were also worried that the opposition would boycott the local elections, as some of it had in the 1998 presidential election, if they were excluded from further debate. The opposition objected to the procedure by which one delegate was to be elected by simple majority in each precinct comprising the various districts, and questioned the local authority’s competence to carry out such a procedure. Its parliamentary representatives kept boycotting parliamentary sessions for two months and demanding amendments to the draft. Despite the agreement obtained between the opposition and the parliamentary majority to return to discussions of the draft, the law was adopted on 2 July 1999, without any substantial changes. Ali Kerimov, a leading Popular Front figure, complained that parliament had shown it was continuing to ignore the views of the opposition and preventing its voice from being heard. ‘Accepting the law without taking our opinion into account has created a very uncertain situation in the 276

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country and we will not participate in these elections’, he told a Reuters correspondent.21 Azerbaijan National Independence Party parliamentary delegate Nazim Imanov said during the pre-election discussions that he considered the elections a further step towards the establishment of democratic traditions in Azerbaijani society, and he emphasized the importance of every new election for broadening democratic practices. One of the leading figures of the Musavat Party, Arif Hajiyev, concurred with his ANIP colleague.22 In the event, almost all opposition parties except the ANIP participated in the elections, and even ANIP members or sympathizers joined the election campaign as independent candidates. Despite bureaucratic obstacles and manifest falsifications, the opposition succeeded in placing their nominees in local committees in many districts. The ANIP, for example, had representatives in 17 committees; the Azerbaijan Popular Front Party — in 28. Political analysts predicted that the opposition would occupy a considerable portion of high-ranking municipal posts, including top positions in municipal councils.23 Later forecasts were rather less optimistic.24 Though the circumstances of these elections left much to be desired from the point of view of their democratic tendencies, they can be summed up as indicating that the election process in Azerbaijan is a phenomenon that is in flux and an enhancement of the democratic tradition. A senior program officer for the Caucasus and Turkey at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs stated with regard to what might be the expectations of the democratic community: ‘Azerbaijan is not Uzbekistan and recent actions taken by both the government and the opposition have altered the balance of political forces. The government now has an organized and disciplined opposition to contend with, and the manner in which authorities treat it will determine who really wins and loses.’25 CIVIL SOCIETY BUILDING: NGO ACTIVITIES IN AZERBAIJAN Article 54 of the Azerbaijani constitution provides that all citizens shall have the right to participate without hindrance in the political life of both society and state. However, the legalization of a citizen’s public activities is hampered by legislative obstacles and government practices. The law on public organizations that was in force as the 1990s drew to a close was inherited from the Soviet epoch. The adoption of a new draft law ‘On Non-Governmental Organizations’, prepared with the assistance of foreign experts in autumn 1997 was still being blocked by parliament. The Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for the registration of political parties and public organizations, remained very reluctant to register legal entities actually independent of government control. The establishment of independent NGOs has been a priority of many international organizations and foundations which have been active in Azerbaijan, such as the Institute of Soviet-American Relations (ISAR), the 277

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Eurasia Foundation, the Open Society Institute (OSI-Azerbaijan). The NGOs are mainly human rights and environmental protection groups, professional associations and youth organizations. It is difficult to give an exact number of active NGOs partly because many of them have operated without authorization. According to some evaluations there are about 300 operational NGOs in Azerbaijan, on both local and international levels.26 NGOS AND THE GOVERNMENT The creation of public organizations and associations was stipulated by successive Soviet constitutions. That was the legal basis for the establishment of the Popular Front and some other political organizations in Azerbaijan during the struggle for independence and reform. After the establishment of a multi-party system and the adoption of the new constitution in 1995, the NGOs became a recognized feature of political life. The official attitude of the Azerbaijani authorities towards human rights organizations has been far from benevolent. They consider them as a form of political opposition and look upon them with suspicion. This should not be surprising for a country with an unfavourable human rights records. On the other hand, some opposition activists have indeed been leaders of human rights NGOs: Leyla Yunusova, one of the leaders of the Vahdat Party, became head of the Institute of Peace and Democracy Office in Azerbaijan; ASDP activist Arzu Abdullayeva headed the Azerbaijan National Committee of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly; Vice-Chairman of the Azerbaijan Popular Front Party Asim Mollazade served as President of the Euro-Atlantic Association. That was one of the reasons for the government’s refusal to register a number of NGOs despite the broad scale of their activities and influence.27 However, a great number of NGOs are actually non-partisan entities with specific areas of activity. They enjoy the support of the corresponding international non-government networks and funds. Environmental protection, public health, and human rights NGOs intervene in the discussion of urgent development issues, have a say in their solution and contribute to public awareness of these problems. The government, with its definite commitments to international organizations, especially in view of its determination to become part of the European Union, has been unable to ignore the existence of the NGOs. A number of them have even been organized on government initiative, were immediately registered and have been supported by the authorities. On 19 June 1998 a Human Rights Defence program was adopted by the government, and responding to an approach by the UN Development Program Office in Azerbaijan, it organized a NGO Forum to coordinate the activities of the NGOs with a central administration. Fiftyeight NGOs, which were not government controlled, left the foundation meeting and established their own NGO Congress. The latter subsequently came to embrace over sixty members, all of which 278

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rejected any institutional association with the government organized NGOs.28 INDEPENDENT MEDIA A number of opposition newspapers emerged at the very inception of the national liberation movement. The Azerbaijan Popular Front newspaper Azadlig (Freedom), initiated in 1989, was one of the first forums to challenge the official mass media. Since that time a broad range of non-government media came into being. Azadlig turned into an independent organ that was very popular. Many other newspapers were initiated as independent media and have severely, even fiercely, criticized the government; they include: Yeni Musavat (the newspaper of the Musavat Party), Mukhalifat, Bu gin, Olaylar and 525 Gazet in Azeri and Zerkalo and Bakinskii bul’var’ in Russian. Journalists are likely to be the best-organized group of intelligentsia. Their independent association Yeni Nasil and the Press Club, which came into being in May 1994 and July 1998, respectively, were organized by several independent media and played a central role in many political events. Thus it was no coincidence that the government began pinpointing the activities of journalists not connected to the media it controlled. It introduced new licensing regulations in April 1998 and during 1998 and 1999, sporadically suspended the printing of certain newspapers and restricted access to information.29 Following the 10 November 1998 parliamentary decision to enforce the country’s defamation laws, numerous civil and criminal libel suits were brought by the authorities against opposition newspapers, which threatened their very existence. Fines imposed were often more than a hundred times the average monthly salary in Azerbaijan. In November 1998 the editors of a number of independent newspapers launched a hunger strike protesting the charges brought against some newspapers for insulting the honour and dignity of President Aliyev.30 As many observers have noted, the prosecution of the media in the form of court suits increased following the abolition of official censorship. The courts mostly reduced the size of the fines to reasonable dimensions under the pressure of human rights activists. In the above-mentioned case as well as in many similar ones, like the Speaker of Parliament’s claims against the newspaper Sharg and the suit brought by President Aliyev’s brother against Bakinskii Bul’var’ journalist Irada Huseynova,31 the sentences were reduced to significantly smaller fines and suspended prison terms. On the whole, the payments would remain pending and imprisonment was delayed. Harassment was perhaps especially dangerous for independent journalists. They were beaten up from time to time by the police, and arrested while carrying out their duties, frequently when reporting on demonstrations. The journalists manifested their solidarity in marches and rallies. Representatives of foreign embassies and of international organizations have kept a close watch on the activity of journalists as a 279

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barometer of regime policy on human rights in general and freedom of the press in particular. To sum up briefly the mass media situation in Azerbaijan, one can reasonably argue that the independent media sector has constituted a remarkable phenomenon. It has been relatively well organized and has been led by the country’s most proficient journalists. The number of independent media organs is impressive and journalists’ skills and qualifications have constantly grown. Azerbaijani media established extensive relations with international journalists and human rights organizations. What may have more consequence for the country’s social development is that independent media have enjoyed much more sympathy and been in larger demand than the official press. DETERMINANTS OF DEVELOPMENT TOWARDS A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY In spite of the poor experience of democracy in Azerbaijan, many crucial changes occurred in Azerbaijani society and in the mentality of the people. It does not appear unduly optimistic to forecast the persistence of a multi-party system, of independent mass media and of ever-increasing public initiatives as important characteristics of Azerbaijani society in the years to come. The most important controversial factor in regard to this tendency has been the endeavour of the political élite to run the country in total disregard of public sentiment and initiatives. Conversely, external political conditions and the exigencies of political development have imposed manifest limits on the authorities’ conduct. These limitations can be enumerated as follows: Partnership with European Organizations Azerbaijan aims at membership in the Council of Europe. Many democratic innovations owed their emergence to this priority in the government’s development strategy: elections have been monitored by international democratic institutions; media supported, politically and financially, by acts of solidarity in the countries of developed democracy; and information on human rights violations have been made available. Foreign Investments Increasing overseas investments have signalled that economic reforms, legislation and public practice have conformed to meet the requirements of cooperation with developed Western countries.32 Military Conflict with Armenia The Karabagh conflict initially detonated the people’s resentment against Moscow and caused the emergence of the Azerbaijani popular movement. Azerbaijan’s military defeat created hundreds of thousand of refugees and internally displaced people became frustrated and refused to believe that a radical solution of the problem of the occupied territories in and around Nagorno-Karabagh would be achieved in the 280

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near future. They placed their hopes initially on President Aliyev, who declared peace negotiations to be the only solution. These desperate people had no other prospects for a way out of their predicament. By the end of the 1990s their patience seemed close to exhaustion. The government had proved unable to make any further progress since the Lisbon OSCE summit in 1997, and thus become more vulnerable to opposition pressure. This lay behind the opposition’s increased critique of government policy on the Karabagh conflict. Rallies and demonstrations organized by the opposition on the eve of the 1999 local elections were focused on the Karabagh conflict. Thus, the Karabagh conflict and issues of human rights and the progress of democracy have become inextricably intertwined. As long as the refugees’ rights are not restored the Karabagh conflict can be expected to remain a subject of reciprocal accusations between government and opposition. The former will try to use it to suppress the opposition, demanding coordination for the sake of the national interest; the latter will inevitably discredit the authorities for their shortcomings and accuse them of indifference to the lot of the refugees. Sustainability of the Regime The regime owed its stability and effectiveness to the personality of President Aliyev who, in 1999, at the age of 76, underwent open heart surgery. The regime’s potential for continuity is low, since no promising leader has emerged within the establishment, who might successfully substitute the President. Meanwhile, a politician close to Aliyev has launched initiatives that appeared to be aimed at gauging the degree of support the President’s son, Ilham Aliyev, could count upon among Azerbaijani parties. In late June 1999, Fazail Agamaly, chairman of the pro-government Ana Vatan (Homeland) party, suggested that Ilham, whom he described as ‘the most popular of the young politicians among the present leadership’, was known ‘to have given preference to democratic values’, and was capable of collaborating with the Azerbaijan Popular Front Party and the Azerbaijan National Independence Party (ANIP), although not with Musavat or the Democratic Party. The latter two parties, Agamaly said, have ‘burned all bridges that could lead to a compromise, in contrast to the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party and the ANIP, which, according to Agamaly, ‘demonstrate a constructive position, incline towards democratic values, and espouse democratic methods of political struggle’. However, spokesmen for both these parties were equivocal in their response to Agamaly’s trial balloon. Nazim Imanov of ANIP said the proposal was purely hypothetical, and that ANIP had no plans to cooperate with any representatives of progovernment forces. Alimamed Nuriyev of the APFP, for his part, was quoted by Zerkalo on 26 June 1994 as saying that Ilham Aliyev neither had a personal political support base nor had he shown himself to be ‘a serious politician’. It should be noted that Agamaly’s differentiation between what he sought to portray as the constructive and the radical 281

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wing of the opposition apparently did not lead to tensions between the two camps. Representatives of all four parties congregated at Musavat’s headquarters on 5 July 1999 to discuss the possibility of aligning in a single political bloc in the contest of the local government elections.33 Historical Traditions of State Building The newly independent Muslim countries of the former Soviet Union have had necessarily to establish the fundamentals of their national statehood. Searching for links to previous national state experience has been one of the most important steps towards the formation of a national ideology, a national mentality and state development strategy. Unlike the Central Asian peoples, which had no pre-Soviet national states, many of the ideas, institutions, policy priorities and attributes of national statehood of the Azerbaijani people enjoyed the experience of this short-lived national state. Those inherited commitments include the national boundary, parliamentary republicanism, a secular ideology, and cooperation with European countries. Rethinking the events of 1918–1920 and the days of the struggle for national independence against the Soviet occupation, Azerbaijanis commemorate the statesmen and activists of the national democratic movement, members of the Musavat Party, who were constrained to surrender to the Red Army and to political circumstances. Today’s Azerbaijani state considers itself a successor of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and an adherent of the nationalist ideas that prevailed in the nationalist movement and particularly in the Musavat party from islamism or Pan-Islam reflected in the first program of Musavat (1911–13) to ‘Turkish romanticism’, as it was called by Musavat’s founder, Mamed Emin Rasulzade, which predominated in the party’s ideology in the years 1913–15, and finally in 1917 to the ideology of a national democratic state.34 CONCLUSION The emergence of the independent Muslim states of Central Asia and the Caucasus is likely to influence the development of the Middle East for years and decades to come. At the same time, their search for a national identity and their very minimal experience in state building make these countries vulnerable to various external influences. The development of democracy is restricted by the interests of the political establishment, the shortcomings of their experience as a democratic state, the dearth of influential opposition parties, independent mass media and non-government public activity and last, but not least, by the interests of Russia in regaining its former control in these parts. In many of these aspects Azerbaijan occupies a position which is relatively more favourable to the prospects of democracy. Its pre-Soviet state experience, though limited to the two years of the existence of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, has bequeathed the fundamentals of Azerbaijan’s contemporary secular society. Present-day practice is determined by cooperation with western democratic states and an 282

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ever-growing educational and intellectual exchange with international democratic institutions. The opposition parties, independent media and NGOs have taken their place as important phenomena in the country’s social development. Though nobody in Azerbaijan or among proficient international analysts can point to any political force as one that will inevitably secure the development of a democratic society, under present circumstances, Azerbaijan seems to have better chances than the Central Asian states for developing along democratic lines in the first decade of the 21st century. NOTES 1. Samuel P. Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs, 3 (Summer 1993); Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (NY: Simon and Shuster, 1996). 2. Brenda Shaffer, Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity (Cambridge: MIT, 2002). 3. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations?, pp. 72, 147. For a critique, see Fouad Ajami, ‘The Summoning’, Foreign Affairs Sept./Oct. (1993), p. 5; Stephen Holmes, ‘In Search of New Enemies’, London Review of Books 24 April 1997, p. 6; On Huntington see Roy P. Mottahedeh. ‘The Clash of Civilizations: An Islamicist’s Critique’, Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 2 (1995), pp. 5–9. 4. These fundamentals are a recognition of Ataturk’s standing and his legacy in establishing a Turkish state, based on considerable democratic and parliamentary traditions and the special role of the Turkish army in society. The fluctuations in the popularity of religious parties do not necessarily reflect, on the one hand, a religious upsurge or, on the other, a suppression of the people’s religious sentiment. Votes won by Islamic parties in parliamentary elections, in 1973, 1977, and more recently in 1996 did not necessarily mean that all the people who voted for them did so on religious grounds. See Mahmut B. Aykan, Turkey’s Role in the Organization of the Islamic Conference: 1960–1992: The Nature of Deviation from Kemalist Heritage (NY: Vantage Press, 1994), pp. 48, 84. 5. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations?, pp. 70–1. 6. ‘Cultural Explanations: the Man in the Baghdad Cafe’, The Economist, 9 Nov. 1996, p. 25. 7. Aykan, Turkey’s Role in the Organization of the Islamic Conference, pp. 3, 22. 8. The only possible exception to this is the Gabala radar station which is maintained according to a bilateral agreement between the two governments. Russian presence includes non-military staff and guards. 9. For these projects, see Stanislaw Sokolenko, ‘O nekotorykh perspektivakh vkliucheniia Ukrainy v programmu razvitiia shelkovogo puti’, in Caspian and Black Sea Region: Conditions and Prospects of Development (Kiev, 1998), pp. 96–112. 10. Dana H. Allin, Cold War Illusions (NY: Macmillan Press, 1995), p. 195. 11. Reuters, News on-line, 11 May, 1999. 12. Joanna Levison, ‘Azerbaijani Presidential Elections: A Presidential Choice’. Political Debate at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in Washington, DC, www.ndi.org. 13. International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Annual Report, 1999, p. 29. 14. E. Ismailov, ‘Vlast’ i oppozitsiia nakanune i v period presidentskoi izbiratel’noi kampanii v Azerbaidzhane’, Tsentral’naia Aziia i Kavkaz 1 (1999), p. 36. 15. Established under Mutalibov (1990–92), the post existed through the Elchibey administration and until Hajiyeva’s resignation. Its functions resembled those of the Head of the President’s Administration. 16. Levison, ‘Azerbaijani Presidential Elections’, p. 1.

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17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

Open Society Institute Briefing Paper (Sept., 1998): Presidential Elections in Azerbaijan. RFE/RL Newsline, Oct. 16, 1998. International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Annual Report, 1999, p. 25. Washington Post, 3 Nov. 1998. Reuters, News on-line, 2 July, 1999. Zerkalo, 10 July 1999. Zerkalo, 18 Sept. 1999. Zerkalo, 18 Dec. 1999. Levison, ‘Azerbaijani Presidential Elections’, p. 2. This figure was given to the author in private conversation at the Human Resource Centre in Baku. International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. Annual Report, 1999, p. 31. This information has been provided by Mrs. Saida Godjamanli, the Head of the Human Rights Department at the Institute for Peace and Democracy (Azerbaijan). International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Annual Report, 1999, p. 26. RFE/RL Newsletter, 19 Nov. 1998. Institute of Peace and Democracy (Azerbaijan). Press on Human Rights and Democratic Freedoms. Vol. VII, July 1999, p. 18. See Richard Pomfret’s chapter in this volume. RFE/RL Caucasus Report, 15 July 1999, Vol. 2, No. 28. I.S. Bagirova, Politicheskiie partii i organizatsii Azerbaidzhana v nachale XX veka (Baku: Elm, 1997), pp. 325–6. The evolution in Musavat’s ideology was subordinated to the main aim of liberation from the Russian imperial yoke and the establishment of national statehood, and was inevitably influenced by the international situation.

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15 Post-Soviet Tatarstan: Democratic Strains in the Ideological Evolution of the Tatar National Movement RAFIK MUKHAMETSHIN The Tatar national movement underwent a profound crisis at the turn of the twenty-first century. Its ascendancy between 1989 and 1991 was quickly followed by a period of stagnation. Various Tatar social movements and parties existed, but the political significance of their activity was minimal. More recently, President Putin’s measures to restore a vertical power structure, have served as a pretext for numerous public pronouncements on the part of Tatar nationalists. These statements, however, have not been innovative in their approach, in their analysis of the causes of the internal crisis of the Tatar national movement or in their search for solutions. A multitude of statements, for example, emerged from the All-Tatar Public Centre (VTOTs), and particularly from its Naberezhnye-Chelny section, containing sharp criticism of the Russian president’s decision to establish new administrative districts (okrugs). A VTOTs statement noted: ‘The decree ignores not only the peoples’ rights to self-determination, but also Russia’s own constitution... This decree constitutes in essence a continuation of the silent aggression against the sovereignty of the national republics.’1.In response to the decision, VTOTs proposed ‘the unification of the “Greater Volga” and the “Greater Ural”’ on the basis of confederated statehood, which would reinforce the true state sovereignty of each national republic that is a constituent member of the confederation’. It was emphasized that this would become ‘a national progressive union of peoples on a genuinely democratic basis and in accordance with their express wishes. It is evident that the indigenous Turkic and Ugro-Finnish peoples of the Idel-Ural region wish to unite into a broad cultural (tsivilizatsionnyi) confederation, and not within an imperial guberniia.’2 The campaign that preceded the Tatarstan presidential elections in autumn 2000 should, on the surface, have provided a serious impetus 287

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for activating nationalist organizations and associations. Indeed, this was a real opportunity to elaborate new, or substantiate existing, plans of action. But this did not occur. Although VTOTs put forward its own candidate for the presidency of Tatarstan, it was unable to collect the 50,000 signatures necessary for his registration. In a subsequent statement, the VTOTs presidium named incumbent President Mintimer Shaimiyev as ‘the optimal claimant to presidential office’, designating among his achievements ‘the promotion of the republic’s sovereignty, bringing gas to rural areas, the opening of an Islamic university, the construction of the Kul-Sharif mosque and the transition to the Latin alphabet’. At the same time, the presidium’s statement noted that the president should discontinue pursuing a policy of ‘sovereignty devoid of national orientation’, which translates as ‘self-determination of the Tatar nation’, ‘the eponymous nation of the Tatarstan state’.3 This position testified to the lack of any new thrust in the interpretation of or solution to these developments. The more radical Ittifaq Party, for its part, had in effect departed the political arena after the closure of its press organ, Altyn urda (Golden Horde) in 1998, and the loss in 1995 by its leader, Fawziya Bairamova, of her place in the republican state council. Nor did it reappear during the crisis of 2000/2001. The only force that endeavoured to step up its activity was the Round Table — the union of opposition forces — which came into being in 1994 and was joined in 1998 by the Omet (Hope) sociopolitical movement headed by Gabdulla Galiulla, former mufti of the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of the Republic of Tatarstan (see below). Yet the national factor was not given priority in this alliance. What, then, were the causes of the crisis in the Tatar national movement, that affected it on all levels: organizational, structural, and ideological? One of the more conspicuous factors was the relatively weak social base of Tatarstan’s political movements or parties (not only the ethnic ones). Sociologists have established that their impact was insignificant, even during the period of the upsurge of the nationalist movement from 1989 to 1992. Thus, in August 1991, TOTs (the original acronym for VTOTs) adherents accounted for 6 per cent of the respondents in an opinion poll, and the Ittifaq Party for 2.5 per cent. With the exception of the Organization of Communists of the Republic of Tatarstan, which was chosen by 27.1 per cent of those surveyed,4 one must, nevertheless, take into account that support for other political parties operating on the territory of Tatarstan (approximately ten in number) accounted for only 10.6 per cent of the respondents, whereas 46.9 per cent of those polled did not express a preference for any political party or organization. An opinion poll of November 1997 showed VTOTs support at 0.6 per cent (and 0 per cent in Kazan), with support for Ittifaq also at 0.6 per cent and for the Milli Mejlis at 0.4 per cent.5 It is possible that these indicators are more representative of the overall picture in Tatarstan and Russia than of the various parties’ and movements’ respective influence on the 288

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mass and political consciousness, for by late 1997 approximately 68 per cent of those polled in the survey in Tatarstan could not name any one party which they preferred over the others. These data are evidence ‘of a sustained political disorientation of public opinion and the inability of the majority of citizens to identify politically with any particular trend or party’.6 At the same time, the nationalist movement in Tatarstan, while not a large-scale phenomenon, did actually consolidate the Tatar intelligentsia and part of the clergy around itself in the 1990s; it also played a direct role in the formation of the people’s national consciousness and in the development and adoption of political documents of prime importance. Furthermore, in the period in which the nationalist movement came into being, organizations and parties and their leaders believed that the growth of national consciousness, a sense of patriotism and, especially, Tatarstan’s state sovereignty, which was born of the nationalist movement’s achievements, would lead to the resolution of many — if not all — of the problems of national development. But within a short time after the adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Tatar Soviet Socialist Republic, on 30 August 1990, the nationalist movement was evidently in crisis. It was unable to propose a positive program for national and state construction in Tatarstan: its programmatic documents were predominantly pragmatic in nature, focusing on the immediate priority of finding a solution to social and economic problems. The outcome was that the nationalist movement felt no particular urge to elaborate any nationalist concept or comprehensive program for national and cultural development. It is conceivable that the substitution of a national ideology by a broad national objective, namely the sovereignty of Tatarstan, played some part in this process.7 Another point is that the nationalist movement proved either incapable of drawing up a theoretical basis for the consolidation of the Tatar nation or of proposing specific forms for its implementation. Taking into account the fact that two-thirds of all Tatars live outside the borders of Tatarstan, this was a highly pertinent issue. While this aspect of national unity was addressed in the programmatic documents of VTOTs and Ittifaq, and ideas were proposed to achieve this goal (such as instituting dual nationality outside Tatarstan, or self-determination in various forms of territorial and extra-territorial autonomy), no legislative plans or proposals were drafted for putting them into effect. This issue held not only theoretical but also practical significance, since the regional sections of public and political movements and parties had to organize their operations in the localities. This became a particularly acute task for TOTs, which in 1990 already had 41 sections in the oblasts and republics of the former USSR (of which there were 64 at the time), and 98 in 1991 (of a total of 123). These sections survived even the nationalist movement’s stagnation period. According to data from the movement leadership, VTOTs ran 100 sections outside the borders of Tatarstan in 1995. The Ittifaq Party also had regional sections: 289

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27 in 1991 and 31 in 1995. Sections were established, for instance, in the Russian towns of Ekaterinburg, Izhevsk, Penza, St. Petersburg, Saratov and Ul’ianovsk.8 In any study of the origins of the crisis within the Tatar nationalist movement it is impossible to ignore the problems that prevail in the political systems of Russia and Tatarstan, of which the social and political movements and parties constitute an integral part. It is a wellestablished fact that, in the final analysis, it is society which determines the character, options and parameters of evolution of the party system. The selection and pursuit of a particular model of social development has an impact on the prospects of social and political movements and parties, on the conditions of their activity, on their theoretical foundations, and on the feasibility of their operation. Although Tatarstan was declared ‘a sovereign state’ in its constitution (Article 1). it is obviously not one in practice. It is, therefore, essential to analyze the social and political processes occurring there against the background of events in Russia. On the other hand, taking into consideration the generally acknowledged specifics of the ‘Tatarstan model’ and of Tatarstan’s ‘quasi-state’ status, to use the term coined by ethnosociologist Damir Ishakov,9 it is possible to speak about certain features of its political development as peculiar to post-Soviet Tatarstan. Political scientists examining the process of transformation in Russia, have indicated that the regime operated during the period of transition by combining characteristics of both democracy and predominantly, authoritarianism.10 The political situation in Tatarstan would be more accurately characterized as a ‘delegated democracy’, to adopt Guillermo O’Donnell’s terminology.11 This is democracy in a regime where the President holds undiminished sovereign power, relying on popular support, the sole restrictions placed upon him being the length of his period of office as stipulated in the constitution. This kind of democracy typically lacks any feedback mechanisms between society and the head of state. While the regime is endowed with democratic institutions, they do not function. After expressing their choice at election time, the voters become a somewhat passive and approbatory audience to all the President’s actions up to the next elections.12 The political situation in Tatarstan has come to approximate the ‘authoritarian model’ formulated by Juan Linz.13 It evolved in a constitutional framework, but was characterized by exclusion of certain politicians and almost all public and political organizations from the political process and by regime control of the press. In consequence, the nationalist movement’s crisis, originally generated by its own internal problems, was exacerbated by the political situation in Tatarstan in the early 1990s. For the nationalist movement, the goal of the revival of Tatarstan as a state was, to quote one scholar, ‘subordinate to the concept of national self-determination, which aimed at creating the political, social and economic conditions and mechanisms to preserve the ethno-cultural 290

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integrity and distinctiveness of the Tatar nation’.14 In its advocacy of the interests of the Tatar ethnos, the nationalist movement placed the ethnopolitical approach at the forefront of its design for resolving the issues of Tatarstan’s independent statehood. The Tatarstan authorities had to explore different principles and methodological options in order to reinforce Tatarstan’s independence and preserve political stability. One French political scientist has noted that ‘the nationalist movements and the Republic’s legal and political authorities are initiating two types of Tatar nationalism with distinctly disparate strategies; more importantly, they use dissimilar approaches to define Tatarstan — is it a historical community or a geographical one? Is it a nation which is striving to become a state, or a state which intends to become a nation?’15 Another scholar, in his analysis of two fundamental documents — the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Tatarstan Soviet Socialist Republic (30 August 1990) and the Constitution of the Republic of Tatarstan (6 November 1992), reaches the conclusion that ‘in the latter document, the concept of a “Tatar nation” has dissolved within the concept of a “multi-national people”’.16 Both experts maintain that Tatarstan’s ruling élite has chosen the path of building an artificial ‘nation’, based on a commonality of economic and social interests. This political course received theoretical substantiation in a book entitled The Twilight of an Empire: On the Issue of Nation and State, by Rafael Hakimov, political advisor to the President of Tatarstan. Its fundamental thesis is that ‘a nation comprises citizens who have united into a state community, irrespective of their ethnic origins’. According to Hakimov, it is the state that ‘transforms a particular community of people into a nation’, and it is within the framework of a state that ‘a people, and subsequently a nation begins to form, with a new value system which, in many respects, will not correspond to the previous one’.17 President Shaimiyev asserted that, ‘in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Tatarstan, we are constructing a multiethnic, multi-cultural society, where citizenship — and not ethnic affiliation — takes priority’.18 In 1988 and 1989, Tatarstan’s political élite, following in the wake of and under pressure from the nationalist movement, began to speak of independence and to utilize many of the movement’s ideas. Gradually, however, it moved towards formulating its own concept of sovereignty, in which the basic element was ‘the acute need for the support of the majority of the citizens of Tatarstan in demanding from Moscow a new political status’.19 The newly created state nationalism relied on both the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ nomenklatura, consolidating their monopoly of political power, and was not, therefore, interested in the political ‘structuralization’ of Tatarstan’s society. The absence of any strong political competition was highly convenient. In this situation, the nationalist movement was dislodged little by little from the political arena. Striking evidence of this is provided by the 291

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representation of the national movements and parties in the regime’s highest echelons. Whereas, in the March 1990 elections, they returned over one-third of the deputies (90 out of 250)20 to the Tatarstan Supreme Soviet, only one out of 27 candidates was returned in 1995 (Fanavil Shaimardanov),21 and in 2000, none became deputies in the Republic State Council. Simultaneously, a process of radicalization began to take place within the national movement: one stark example was the establishment in 1992 of the Milli Mejlis (the National Assembly of the Tatar People), which was proclaimed ‘the supreme representative organ of the Tatar people’. A law it passed, entitled On the Milli Mejlis, authorized it to make legislation and resolutions on the following issues: the status of the State of Tatarstan and the sovereignty of the Tatar people residing beyond the borders of Tatarstan; the status of the Tatar language; public education; the national culture; religion; and ecology’. On the basis of this document, the Milli Mejlis had ‘the right to raise the issue of annulling laws and decrees of the President of the Republic of Tatarstan, which violate the principles of implementation of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Tatarstan and the national interests of the Tatar people’. The Milli Mejlis also had the right to formulate ‘drafts of laws and administrative decrees for the agenda of the Supreme Soviet and the Cabinet on issues related to the political, social and economic life of the Republic of Tatarstan, and to other questions concerning the Republic and the people, as well as to oversee their implementation’.22 The regime perceived this as an attempt to create a parallel organ of supreme power. The President of Tatarstan promulgated on 31 January 1992 a decree entitled, Regulating the Activities of Public Associations. This document stated that ‘the interference of public associations or their leaders (and members) in the activity of government institutions and officials’ would incur penalties, including, ultimately, the suspension of their operation.23 The President of Tatarstan’s official pronouncement of 20 January 1992 on the hosting of a World Congress of Tatars in Kazan was also enacted with a view to restricting the spheres of activity of public and political organizations seeking to consolidate their positions outside of Tatarstan. The VTOTs Congress of March 1993 revealed both the starkness of the crisis and the radicalization of the organization; it was also conducive to VTOTs’ disintegration. The election as VTOTs chairman of Zinnur Agliullin, a worker from Naberezhnye Chelny, known for his extremely radical views, was clear testimony to these tendencies. The authorities took an unprecedented step: Agliullin was arrested and accused of illegal possession of arms.24 This action was a blatant indication of the attitude of Tatarstan’s political élite to the nationalist movement’s radical wing, namely, that the radicals had no place in the republic’s political life. Indeed, following the establishment of the Milli Mejlis, public and political movements and parties essentially ceased 292

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participating in the preparation and discussion of the most important documents (such as the constitution and the agreement with Moscow).25 Given this state of crisis, the national movement’s radical wing was obliged to seek alternative ideological aims that would create favourable opportunities for fulfilling its political goals. In their search for a specifically national path of development, the leaders of Ittifaq and the Milli Mejlis turned their sights specifically towards Islam. The development, or rather, the transformation of the perception of Islam’s role in the life of society within the Ittifaq Party and the Milli Mejlis26 can be quite distinctly traced in a document adopted by the Milli Mejlis on 20 January 1996. Entitled The Tatar Codex (Tatar Qanuny), it claims to be ‘a guide to the way of life of the present and future generations of the Tatar people and to preserving its most august moral and fundamental values’. A Milli Mejlis resolution of the same date states that ‘the Codex lays down the principles which define the national consciousness, the revival of its moral and ethical foundations, the conservation of its ecology and the revival of Shari‘a law in harmony with Jadidism’.27 The Codex essentially attempts to combine nationalism as a political theory and practice with Islam, and not, as interpreted by the Milli Mejlis, in its reformed Tatar/Jadid variant, but in its classical form. This approach can be interpreted as a desire to create a political perception which would incorporate certain Islamic directives as national doctrine. The document attempts to determine the limits of religious, moral and ethical principles, vesting them with a secular nature and thus enabling them to answer its goals. The Codex thus refers to one of the fundamental tenets of national life as ‘the formation of its own Islamic madhhab adapted to the local conditions and life of the Tatar nation, and incorporating its “traditional lifestyle” ’.28 It must be acknowledged that this was not a novel approach. Throughout the history of national movements among Muslim peoples, nationalism and Islam have often featured as powerful ideological stimuli to social and political action. The history of the Tatar national movement at the dawn of the twentieth century also bears witness to the existence of an interdependence between the level of popular awareness of the greater national good and the strength of the integrating influence of the religious factor. At the same time, however, the history of the Tatar national movement in the early twentieth century demonstrates that religious doctrines and the national program and ideals are compatible only when they operate in a single social space and draw on stereotypes which are deeply rooted in the public consciousness, where the religious ethic is closely intertwined with ethno-national traditions. In this respect, it should be noted that on the conceptual plane, the Achilles’ heel of the Codex is its blatant disregard for these parameters of compatibility. Without delving further into its history, it is nevertheless vital to emphasize that since the end of the nineteenth century, Tatar political 293

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thought has, to quote one source, attempted to ‘enjoy the fruits of European enlightenment in the interpretation of its national and confessional problems’. This was reflected in their efforts to position their reality in the context of world and, primarily Russian history, and their culture, in the broader context of global civilization — albeit, once again, through the prism of its Russian interpretation. The assimilation of European perceptions was applied particularly to the guarantee of the exercise of democratic principles in international and interdenominational relations. ‘In this manner, a combination of Muslim nationalist and religious ideas emerged, which was suitable for both defensive and offensive purposes in the context of Russian imperial ideology and its extant political culture which viewed the Muslims as an object of conquest.’29 The Codex appears to show almost total disregard for the richness of the theoretical thought and experience of the Tatar national movement. The document assigns conservative functions to Islam in the protection of Tatar society from the enemy so diligently devised by its authors, namely, Judeo-Christian civilization, whose democratic principles are not deemed appropriate as a basis for resolving national problems. On the contrary, ‘Western (Judeo-Christian) democracy exploits the name of the people in the service of the privileged strata of society. Under this system of government, the people is transformed into an spineless mass, a puppet in the hands of political parties.’ Only two forces in the world are capable of opposing it: ‘an authentic Islamic world and nationalism in its purest form’.30 The Codex thus bases the political concept of Tatar nationalism today on a rejection of the achievements of Western civilization and uses Islam as a dividing force by overemphasizing its conservative tendencies. This amounts to the authors’ recognition of their own inability to formulate a constructive program in the context of a multinational and multi-confessional Tatarstan. At the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, the sociopolitical movements and parties began defining their aims and tasks in more precise and specific terms. The fact that in the period of its rise, the Tatar national movement had been primarily preoccupied with ideas about national statehood — which even its radical wing (for example, the Ittifaq Party) presented in manifestly secular terms — was a meaningful factor in this development. Within the framework of the spiritual revival of Tatar society, the problem of religious reawakening was viewed superficially, and Islam’s role in this process was not clearly defined. It was only in the mid-1990s, when the decline and crisis of the national movement set in, that this issue took centre-stage among the movement’s leaders. As Fawiziya Bairamova pointed out, …a rapprochement has recently taken place between true nationalists and Muslim religious activists. We ourselves have been witnesses to the fact that national ideas are encountering rather severe opposition. Our

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movement has decelerated significantly and the people have become alienated from it. Cooperation with religious activists on the basis of Islam will give us new strength and demonstrate new ways of gaining the nation’s confidence.31

It is not difficult to perceive that the emphasis had already shifted somewhat: although there was still no definition of Islam’s place in the spiritual renewal of Tatar society, there was an attempt to use the Islamic factor in order to reinforce the national movement’s shaky status. This position was initially shared in the mid-1990s by all branches within the Tatar nationalist movement but almost immediately took on various interpretations. The VTOTs leaders, for example, came to the conclusion that ‘our Islam must be a Tatar Islam’, one which would prevent Tatars from assimilating with other Muslim peoples. To this end, the language of Islam must be Tatar. One of the VTOTs co-chairmen, Rashat Safin, viewed the purport of Islam as giving meaning to life: it guides the way to preparing for the future (the next world and eternity), teaches one to live for one’s children (i.e., for the future), educating them according to the laws of Nature (at Allah’s behest). It entails the laws of preservation of life and of the human race — and in this is superior to Marxist-Leninist philosophy and atheism, which leave no hope for the future. Certain individuals (who are not distinguished by a fear of God, but are capable of understanding the entire human perspective) may be able to live without religion, but the people can not live without religion. In the absence of religion, the people are destined to extinction… Without religion, without the fear of Allah or of sin, society can not endure for long; the fate of the USSR illustrates this graphically... In a democratic society there is no room for an authoritarian order, which is why people must be educated from childhood to fear God. Otherwise, society will create its own ‘bogeyman’. The most democratic and comprehensible ‘bogeyman’ is sin, i.e., fear of God and religion.32

Such an approach to the definition of religion’s role in the life of a society is overly abstract; for this reason, it was necessary to define its role and place in the national movement. A nation lives not by religion alone — it must be able to feed itself, listen to music, love... and, generally, to resolve its everyday problems. In order for people to resolve their problems, to protect themselves and to advance, develop themselves and their religion, their language, their customs, traditions and culture, the nation needs its own state. To this end, it requires an independent national policy. In a nutshell, a nation is a broader concept than religion. Although religion is more extensive than the nation in geographic terms, at a functional level it can not supply the nation’s needs completely. Nations have endured even after they changed their religion, but without the people — without the nation — there can be no religion. This is why the nation has first priority, while religion is second in importance.33

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The Tatar national movement’s radical wing also thoroughly reviewed its attitude to Islam. The Ittifaq leaders and the Milli Mejlis moved from the declaration in Ittifaq’s first program (1991) to acknowledging the fact that ‘in the complex contemporary situation, religion must protect the nation, and vice versa... We publicly oppose the various trends which are destroying Islam from within and will fight for the purity of our religion and its Qur’anic quality.’34 In 1997, the Ittifaq Party leader gave concrete expression to her party’s position: The time has come to discuss Tatarism and Muslimism seriously. If we wish to survive, where do we need to place our priorities?.... Tatarism can not protect us from extinction. Only by subordinating the nation to the Codices of Islam can we deliver it from this fate. A Tatar must live by the Codices of Islam. In first place comes Allah; the nation is second. There can be no other way... Possibly, we should have called upon the nation long ago to live by the Qur’an, and by the Qur’an alone; possibly, we should ourselves have set the example, and prostrated ourselves before Allah — rather than before the idea of statehood, or before the nation.35

The Fourth Ittifaq Party Congress (December 1997) defined the party’s position in even sharper terms: We publicly oppose those representatives of the Tatar intelligentsia who are working to substitute the Qur’an with trends such as Jadidism, Sufism and ‘Euro-Islam’. The battle for national liberation which we are waging against the Russian Empire we henceforth proclaim a jihad designated to liberate us from the yoke of slavery to the infidels... We, Muslim nationalists are launching a struggle for the creation of an Islamic state in Tatarstan.36

The changes in the political evaluation of Islam in Ittifaq’s programmatic documents, reflected the opinions of its leader, Fawziya Bairamova. In the latter half of the 1990s she advocated the need for restoring common Muslim values in Tatar life, One of the principal obstacles in Bairamova’s view, was the activity ‘of Judeo-Christian civilization’, which had elaborated a strategic plan and program to destroy the Tatars from within and drive them to apostasy’.37 This idea was not new among radical Tatar nationalists; it was expounded in detail in the Codex.38 In that document, however, considerable attention was devoted to the external factors responsible for hampering society’s spiritual renewal, and an appeal was made to make more effective use of Tatar society’s internal resources — essentially a reference to the mobilization of Jadidism in conjunction with Shar‘ia law. By contrast, Bairamova delineated other causes impeding the Islamic revival of the Tatars, designating, inter alia, trends ‘within the nation itself which pit Turkism against Islamism’. According to Bairamova, the representatives of these trends contend that Islam, allegedly, halted the development of the Turkic peoples… that it can lead to the arabization of the Turkic peoples. These Turkists

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consider Islam not as the religion of Allah, but as the religion of the Arabs — an aggregate of Arab spiritual values. To their mind, in order to save the Tatars, who are an integral part of the Turkic peoples, it is necessary to return not to Islam, but to Tengrianism.’39

Among the causes obstructing the renaissance of true Islam, Bairamova specified ‘Sufism and Jadidism, which destroy Islam from within... If the essence of Jadidism can be reduced to a religious renewal under the guise of progress that impels the nation towards unbelievers, and turns into a battle against basic Islam, then the total lack of faith of the Tatar people can be considered an instructive outcome of this Jadidism.’40 Bairamova sees the contemporary Tatar intelligentsia as essentially Russian-speaking, russified...; it perceives religion in effect as a moral and philosophical concept. In its understanding, religion is necessary in order to keep the popular masses within a specific framework, but at the same time, religion must be adapted to the conditions and the national lifestyle. It never calls the people to live in accordance with the Qur’an: for the intelligentsia, religion is one thing, the Qur’an is another... [The intelligentsia] has to accommodate itself to Europe, to world civilization, and to compete with them. This is why it is ready to thrust Islam into the framework of so-called ‘Euro-Islam’, calling persistently for religious reforms, a new Jadidism, and envisioning a nationalization of Islam.41

This critique of Jadidism, which appeared in Bairamova’s publications only in 1997, seems to have stemmed from her profoundly negative attitude to the position of the moderate wing of the Tatar national movement, and primarily VTOTs, one of whose principal goals was to advocate a revival of the best traditions of Jadidism. However, Bairamova’s later publications indicate that, in her discussions of Jadidism, she went beyond criticizing programmatic positions relating to the renewal of contemporary Tatar society. She finds fault not only with attempts to revive Jadidist traditions, but with Jadidism as an ideological and political system as a whole, although it is known to have played a major role in creating Tatar social revival in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. According to Bairamova, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Tatar intelligentsia adopted the slogan, ‘destroy the old life and build a new one’. For a nation, which had acknowledged up to that point only the laws of Islam and had lived according to Islam, the destruction of the old life signified primarily the destruction of fundamental Islam. The Tatar intelligentsia, incapable of fighting for the independence of its state, felt that the path to the nation’s survival lay in progress and acceptance of the principles of an alien civilization.... Had Jadidism, the invention of scholars, not destroyed the foundations of Islam and established a Tatar national science, we would not be opposing this movement. But Jadidism struck a blow at true Islam; then, under the guise of creating an educated nation, patterns of a foreign civilization permeated Tatar life.42

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Given its controversial nature, it is not surprising that Bairamova’s article ‘Nation, Religion and Power’, where she set out her position in detail, was met with unequivocal criticism.43 Whether or not there is a solid basis for Bairamova’s interpretation of the essence of Jadidism is irrelevant to this essay. The issue at stake is the attempt to formulate a new political platform for Ittifaq, founded on entirely new ideological bases. As a result of the crisis within the Tatar national movement, Ittifaq was impelled to renovate its ideological platform. With her excellent understanding of the movement from within, the party’s leader, for a number of years, had been seeking a suitable niche for Islam in Tatar public and national life. The distance from political to religious radicalism appeared the shortest, especially as this slot had remained open up to that time. Bairamova’s publications are, therefore, an exposition and public approbation of the principles of the revised political platform. True, this revision did not amount to an entirely new ideology, but it did mean actively using ideas, grounded in a total islamization of personal, public and political life on the basis of an unequivocal return to the original and universal postulates of Islam contained in the Qur’an and the Sunna. Such an approach to the existential fundaments of Tatar life raised more questions than it answered. This also applies to one of the fundamental problems facing the national movement, namely, the issue of the relationship between Islam and nationalism. In an attempt to introduce clarity into this complex issue, Bairamova wrote that certain extremes can be discerned in our treatment of the question of the relationship between Islam and nation. For example, one school of religious activists, particularly those who have studied in Arab countries and in local medreses where the teachers are Arabs, hold a strongly negative position on the national issue: for them, there is only one people — the Muslim umma. A second school of thought, which is more in evidence among the Tatar intelligentsia and Tatar nationalists, places the national factor in the forefront, and regards religion as one of the components of national life. We believe that both of these approaches are faulty.

Her criticism of the Turkish model is a tangible reflection of Bairamova’s attitude to this problem. There [in Turkey] religiosity is confused with national customs and rites. Life is not built on an understanding and reasoned absorption of the Qur’an in the soul. Rather it is lived in accordance with the precepts of one’s ancestors, who prescribed that one should be religious. I have even wondered ‘whether there is a future for that kind of state’.44

In these articles, Bairamova was doing more than defining Ittifaq’s political program: she was constructing an entire Weltanschauung for the Tatar way of life. The uniqueness of this system is that it is based on a rejection of widely accepted spiritual values and teachings, which 298

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have comprised the foundation of Tatar society’s ideological life, in essence formed Tatar national consciousness and defined the role of the religious factor in Tatar spiritual life. According to Bairamova, the formation of a ‘non-Muslim’ Tatar way of life was the result of an erroneous choice of their basic credo: We, the Tatars, are Muslims who fell into infidel slavery 500 years ago.45 We do not have our own state, where we could live according to our own religious and national Codices. In these circumstances, by Allah’s command, we must move to places of residence acceptable for Muslims (undertake hijra) or lead a struggle for liberation from slavery and undertake a jihad and attain independence. There is no third option; the third path, living among infidels (kafirs), and becoming kafirs ourselves is the path to extinction. However, in Tatar history, since the appearance of the batyrs [hero warriors] in the eighteenth century, there have been no instances where they have risen together in jihad, to a struggle for their religion. Living in the prevailing kafir environment, the Tatar slave gradually became accustomed to his situation, and in practice consented to it. At the beginning of the [20th] century, when political upheaval began in Russia, the Tatars did not initially comprehend the issue of a jihad of liberation from the infidel’s enslavement. Neither the Tatar intelligentsia nor the religious activists... addressed the issue of national independence and an independent state!46

Even today, Bairamova states, when the a real opportunity has arisen to resolve these questions, the Tatars are not raising these issues or making an attempt to address the problem of national independence. This, she claims, is due to the fact that the Tatar nation, raised on the axiom that ‘war must be avoided at all costs’, has given way to a ‘feminine [cowardly] mentality’. It is also due to its having distanced itself from the idea of ijtihad (innovative interpretation within an Islamic context) which could provide a scriptural basis for changing the status quo.47 For Bairamova, what is important then, is not only the education of true Muslims in contemporary circumstances, but a fundamental transformation of the basic attitude to the Muslim spiritual heritage, and to the most prominent representatives of Tatar social thought — from Gabdenasr Qursawi in the eighteenth century to Gayaz Iskhaki in the mid-twentieth century. It is not even a matter of which ideological principles these social thinkers upheld, since in essence they all had a hand in the destruction of authentic religious ideas and the creation of false substitutes.48 Observing the Tatars’ contemporary religious situation, Bairamova notes that the Tatars are a nation which was within the fold of Islam, but has been temporarily alienated from it. Allah noticed that at one point the faith began moving in the wrong direction and deprived us of His blessing for many years. The entire generation, which suffered from paganism, Sufism, Jadidism and polytheism, has disappeared from the stage of history and bequeathed all these ills to the people under the guise of

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religion. With their departure, these maladies should have disappeared, too. Today, we — the generation which did not know what true religion was for seventy or eighty years — should have started life with a clean slate, with purity of soul and the undefiled principles of the faith. Instead, one hundred years later, the same phenomenon is repeating itself — there are those who propose returning to Islam, beginning with the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Sunna, while others call for a reestablishment of Jadidism, the transformation of Islam into a philosophy. The latter wish to exploit Islam in order to maintain the nation within a framework, by setting the different schools against each other. They increasingly advocate opposing each other — Arabs versus Turks, society versus nation, religion versus science, and intellect versus Allah... The same mistakes are happening over again, and we do not discern the true path — the path of Allah, which lies before us.49

Bairamova’s publications of the late 1990s reflect a new stage in the politicization of Islam in Tatarstan. They suggest a cardinal change of attitude toward a number of society’s most important spiritual values, and promote totally different religious reference points which are atypical of Tatar society. On the other hand, this can also be understood as the first stages in the formation of, what is for Tatarstan, a new kind of religious consciousness — Islamic revivalism.50 Known in the literature as Islamic fundamentalism, it was not represented by any public or political association in Tatarstan until this time, with the exception of small religious groups like Saf Islam.51 Of course, bold political statements of this nature are not made without forethought by experienced politicians like Bairamova. They are voiced consciously and must have political, social and material foundations. Undoubtedly, these elements are present in Tatar society to some extent, not without assistance from external sources. Whatever prevails — whether it be objective circumstances or the subjective desires of certain leaders, or even a combination of both — in light of its complexity, this question requires specific and in-depth research. Among the national political and social movements actively seeking to enter Tatarstan’s political life at the end of the 1990s was Omet (Hope), established at the Second Congress of the Muslims of Tatarstan Movement, in November 1998. Although it was stated at the Congress that the idea was merely to change the name of the movement, its leaders proceeded to radically revamp their political goals and objectives. They claimed that First, the movement’s narrow religious orientation limited its ability to influence the formation of the political aspirations of citizens. The movement [therefore] opened up its membership to citizens of other religious persuasions and to people who conceived of Tatarstan’s spiritual and moral renewal. In this sense, it changed from a mono-confessional organization into a movement of a general civic nature. Second, the narrowness of the platform restricted the movement’s representation in the elected organs of government.52

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There was also another reason for revising the program: the Muslims of Tatarstan, which was founded as a movement in 1996, had aligned with the radical nationalist forces in Tatarstan in order to strengthen its position. However, this union proved unworkable. In order to resuscitate the movement, it was therefore essential to radically change their manifesto and seek new allies. This substantive new feature in the movement’s manifesto and programmatic documents was its orientation towards general democratic values. ‘The ethical and political foundations of the movement’s activity are non-violence, respect for the rights, honour and dignity of the individual. It repudiates totalitarianism, and rejects racial, regional, national or class exclusiveness, and religious intolerance.’53 The sectarian factor was pushed into the background. Gabdulla Galiulla, the movement leader, explained: What is needed today is an overall idea which would unite Tatarstan’s society, but the ideas of independence of the early 1990s can not fit the bill. Religion can not appear in this capacity, since our republic is multiconfessional. Christians and Muslims are represented equally; to advocate this would be to divide our society, perhaps bring about armed conflict. I therefore find it unacceptable on humanitarian grounds. The same applies to our national basis. One can not build the happiness of one people on the unhappiness of another. This means we have to find an idea and a program which the Russian-speaking sector of the population could support as well. This must be based on a socioeconomic program which would guarantee people a dignified life, the development of their spiritual needs, give them confidence in their future and improve their difficult situation.

Galiulla placed great hope on an alliance with the opposition movements in Tatarstan, which would make this vision possible. He considered such an association ‘feasible on generally democratic terms, without ideology — democratic, communist or religious, but on the basis of a socio-economic program. That is what unites us. If we go beyond this, disagreements will crop up.’54 Galiulla obviously realized that changing the movement’s name and goals would lead ‘to its rejection by the purely religious and radical wing of the national movement. The religious wing will evidently join up with official Islam as represented by the muftiate of the Republic of Tatarstan; the radical wing with the Ittifaq Party, or other movements which pursue the political goals of reinforcing the Republic of Tatarstan’s sovereignty.’55 From this statement, it is not difficult to deduce that Omet sought allies among the Republic’s political opposition, composed for the most part of local branches of all-Russian parties and movements. In its manifestos and numerous statements, Omet allocated considerable space to an assessment of the political situation in contemporary Tatarstan. It pointed out that in recent years ‘there has been neither spiritual nor national rebirth; neither democracy nor social justice have been established. Only the authoritarian regime, protecting the interests of the ruling classes, has been strengthened. There is no opposition at 301

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the present either from the right or the left, spiritual or secular.’ In his analysis of the relationship between public political movements and the official structures, Galiulla pointed out that ‘Tatarstan’s national democratic forces set their sights on the democratization of society from the very beginnings of perestroika... The ruling communist nomenklatura regime realized this and perceived it as a threat to their power...’ TOTs was founded at the initiative of the CPSU obkom.56 In this way, the Popular Front, which rallied all the Republic’s democratic forces, split along ethnic lines. The ‘pro-sovereignty’ activists grouped themselves around TOTs, while the supporters of an indivisible Russia rallied around the republican branch of the Democratic Party of Russia. ‘With the collapse of the Popular Front, the democratization process in Tatarstan ground to a halt. It was particularly difficult for the popular democratic wing of the nationalist movement: the TOTs members found a roof in the Tatarstan nomenklatura, and the russophone democrats among Russian Great Power circles. The national democrats, however, with their populist positions, were not needed by either of them.’ In his assessment of the meaning of sovereignty for Tatarstan, Galiulla reaches the conclusion that ‘the power was sovereign in relation to its own people — not a [Tatar] invention, but a Latin-American imitation of the West for poorly developed and dependent countries... the kind of model which is successfully adapted to a society where there has been no democracy over a long period of time, and where an authoritarian regime is in power. In this way, a Tatarstan model with a specifically Tatar profile came into being.’57 The rather abstract ideals and the dearth of serious political allies and of support within the intelligentsia and the population, all contributed to the movement’s gradual but total decline. From trying to actively expand its operations in the first half of the 1990s and resuscitate them with a renewed ideology at the end of the decade, the only record of the movement’s existence remained its leader’s signature on various resolutions and statements of the Round Table of Tatarstan’s political forces (see above). With respect to VTOTs, the concept of the ‘Preservation and Development of the Nation’, adopted at its Sixth Congress in April 1999, and recognized as ‘a program acceptable to VTOTs’58 did not introduce any fundamental changes into the existing program. Placing emphasis on VTOTs’ political priorities, the document notes that ‘it is necessary to define correctly the role of the nation and of the state. The nation is primary, before the state. The nation already exists... But to preserve and develop the nation ... it needs a state... A nation without a state loses its religion ... and eventually itself.’59 Nevertheless, the document emphasizes that ‘the history of Tatar culture and enlightenment, and indeed the entire [Tatar] way of life, are bound to Islam by the closest bonds. Islam can not, therefore, be sundered from national policy or the national movement; it has close reciprocal ties with both of these and collaborates with them. 302

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Furthermore, pure Islam can itself move the national movement forward. Whatever happens, pure Islam ought to fight for the independence of the Tatar nation and state.’ Without disclosing the substance of ‘true Islam’, the document points out that it does not actually exist in Tatar society, since Islam was subject to persecution for centuries, especially in the VolgaUral region and in Tatarstan, and was also the object of continual interference by the Empire. To this very day, Islam in this region officially serves to subordinate the peoples of the Empire. Its clergy, by not exposing the underlying causes of injustice or opposing it, invoke the people to peace and to the tolerance of evil-doing. Thus, by not giving priority to freedom and independence, by not opposing the infidels, local Islam cut itself off from the Qur’an and exists in a weak form. If this negative situation persists for any length of time, the duped Tatar people will do major damage to true Islam and the future it portends. To end this state of affairs it is necessary first to eradicate all links of the spiritual administrations and the muftiate with the Empire and to substitute illiterate clergy for educated representatives of true Islam.60

Admittedly, it is somewhat difficult to find an internal logic or common sense in these pronouncements, let alone any real analysis of the contemporary state of affairs or any definition of ways to resolve existing problems. All this can best be described as an expression of the profound structural and ideological crisis within VTOTs. *

*

*

The Tatar nationalist movement has thus experienced a severe crisis whose origins, can be discerned in the situation within Tatar society and in Tatarstan’s political development towards the close of the twentieth century. It is not only the processes taking shape within the movements themselves which have played a role in the emergence of this situation, but a series of other factors. These include the fragility of civic society; the absence of a democratic political culture; the prevalence of an authoritarianism that has allowed the ruling élite to dominate all the functions of power behind the façade of a constitutional structure; and asynchronic political and economic changes. NOTES 1. ‘Ob antikonstitutsionnom Ukaze Prezidenta Rossii po razdelu natsional’nykh territorii’. Unpublished VTOTs statement of 18 May 2000. VTOTs archive (Kazan). 2. VTOTs statement of 10 May 2000 in connection with pronouncements by Russian politicians on the administrative division of the Russian Federation. Unpublished. VTOTs archive. 3. Zvezda Povolzh’ia, 7–14 March 2001. 4. F.Kh. Mukhametshin and G.A. Isaev, Respublika Tatarstan v zerkale obshchestvennogo mneniia (90-e gody) (Kazan, 1998), pp. 182–3. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid.

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7. For details, see D.M. Iskhakov, ‘Sovremennoe tatarskoe natsional’noe dvizhenie: pod’’em i krizis’, Tatarstan 8 (1997), pp. 25–31. 8. I.V. Terent’eva, R.Iu. Beliakov and M.F. Safarov, Politicheskie partii i dvizhenie Respubliki Tatarstan (Kazan, 1999), pp. 51–2, 73–4. 9. D. Iskhakov, Problemy stanovleniia i transformatsii tatarskoi natsii (Kazan, 1997), p. 124. 10. V.Ia. Gel’man, ‘“Transition” po-russki: kontseptsii perekhodnogo perioda i politicheskaia transformatsiia v Rossii (1989–1996)’, Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost’ 4 (1997), pp. 64–81. 11. Guillermo O’Donnell,. ‘Delegative Democracy’, Journal of Democracy (Jan. 1994), pp. 55–60. See also the chapters by Saodat Olimova and Leonid Levitin in this volume. 12. President Shaimiyev indeed enjoys the support of the population of Tatarstan. Thus, in 1991 he received 91 per cent of the ballot; and in 1996, 97 per cent (Nezavisimaia gazeta, 26 March, 1996). In three polls between July 1993 and October 1995, between 43 and 50 per cent of respondents expressed confidence in him (Iskhakov, Problemy stanovleniia i transformatsii tatarskoi natsii, p. 107). For further details, see G. Vainshtein, ‘Mezhdu polnoi nesvobodi i polnym khaosom (O prirode politicheskoi sistemy sovremennoi Rossii)’, Pro et Contra 3 (3), pp. 40–56. 13. Cf.: V. Gel’man, ‘Kak vyyti iz neopredelennosti?’, Pro et Contra 3 (3), p. 27. This is not the case only in Tatarstan; see references to the work of Juan Linz in Neil Melvin’s chapter in this volume, pp. 5 and 14. 14. R. Gabidullin, ‘Etnopoliticheskaia kontseptsiia gosudarstvennogo vozrozhedeniia Tatarstana v programmnykh polozheniiakh tatarskogo natsional’nogo dvizheniia’, in S. Dudoignon, D. Iskhakov and R. Mukhametshin (eds), Islam v tatarskom mire: istoriia i sovremennost’ (Kazan, 1997), p. 278. 15. Jean-Robert Raviau, ‘Tipy natsionalizma, obshchestvo i politika v Tatarstane’, Polis 5–6 (1992), p. 50. 16. Iskhakov, Problemy stanovleniia i transformatsii tatarskoi natsii, p. 128. 17. Rafael Khakimov, Sumerki imperii. K voprosu o natsii i gosudarstve (Kazan, 1993), p. 49. 18. Respublika Tatarstan, 8 Aug. 1996. 19. Ishakov, Problemy stanovleniia i transformatsii tatarskoi natsii, p. 112. 20. Jean-Robert Raviau, Tatarstan v tsentre sozdaniia federal’noi struktury Rossii: inventsiia suvereniteta — soiuza’, in Dudoignon, et al., Islam v tatarskom mire, p. 303. 21. Terent’eva, et al., Politicheskie partii i dvizheniia, p. 77. 22. D.M. Iskhakov, Suverennyi Tatarstan. Dokumenty. Materialy. Khronika, Vol. 3, (Kazan, 1998), p. 164. 23. Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 37. 24. Terent’eva, et al., Politicheskie partii i dvizheniia, p. 58. 25. For Tatarstan’s agreement with Moscow see Ildus Ilishev’s chapter in this volume. 26. The political positions of Ittifaq and the Milli Mejlis in effect coincided, insofar as Fawziya Bairamova was head of the faction and ideologist of both organizations. In May 1997 well-known writer Aidar Khalim was elected speaker of the Milli Mejlis. 27. Altyn Urda, 3 (1996). 28. Tatar Qanuny (Kanunname) (Kazan, 1996), p. 27. 29. M.A. Batunskii, ‘Pravoslavie, islam i problemy modernizatsii v Rossii na rubezhe XIXXX vv’, Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost’ 2 (1996), pp. 83–4. For further discussion of the postulates of the Tatar national movement in the late tsarist period, see Azade-Ayse Rorlich’s chapter in this volume. 30. Tatar Qanuny, pp. 11–15. 31. Argamak 2 (1997), p. 12. 32. Rashat Safin, ‘Natsional’noe dvizhenie i islam’, in Tatarskaia natsiia: proshloe, nastoiashchee, budushchee (Kazan, 1997), p. 98. 33. Ibid., p. 93. 34. The Ittifaq Party Program, Naberezhnye-Chelny (1993), p. 3. 35. Tatarstan 8 (1997), pp. 22–3 (in Tatar). 36. Altyn Urda 32 (1997).

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37. Madani zhomga, 19 Dec. 1997. 38. Ibid. Such a trend is actually occurring. See below. 39. Ibid. Tengrianism is a form of polytheism found among Turkic peoples. It centres on worship of a supreme god of the heavens — Tengre. See also the chapter by Zhanylzhan Dzhunusova in this volume. 40. Ibid., 19 Dec. 1997. For more on Jadidism, see the chapter by Azade-Ayse Rorlich in this volume. 41. Argamak 2 (1998), p. 9. 42. Madani zhomga, 19 Dec. 1997. 43. Bairamova’s article appeared in Madani zhomga on 3 April 1998. 44. Argamak 10–11 (1997), pp. 5–6, 10. 45. The Russian conquest of Kazan took place in the mid-16th century. See the chapter by Rorlich in this volume. 46. F. Bairamova, ‘Zaman. Millyat. Keshe’, Argamak 7 (1999), p. 12. 47. Ibid., p. 13. 48. Argamak 8 (1999), p. 16. 49. Argamak 9–10 (1997), pp. 20–1. 50. For the typology of religious consciousness, see Rafik Mukhametshin, ‘Dinamika islamskogo faktora v obshchestvennom soznanii tatar XVI-XX vv.’, in Sovremennye natsional’nye protsessy v Respublike Tatarstan (Kazan, 1994), pp. 111–13. 51. Saf Islam is a small sect, which emerged at the onset of glasnost and perestroika, and advocated reviving a primordial ‘pure’ form of Islam (Saf means purity). It had few adherents among the Tatars. 52. Omet nury 1 (Jan. 1999). 53. Konflikt — dialog — sotrudnichestvo (Bulleten’) (Moscow) 1 (1999), p. 158. 54. Novaia vecherka, 28 Sept. 1999. 55. Omet nury, 1 (Jan. 1999). 56. See The chapter by Alexei Kudriavtsev, note 2, in this volume. 57. Omet nury, 1 (Jan. 1999). 58. BTIU 6-nchy koryltaenyn kararlary (resolyutiyalyare) (Kazan, 1999), p. 4. 59. Tatar milli kharate nizamnamase (kontseptsiyase) (Kazan, 1998), p. 8. 60. Ibid.

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16 Nation-Building and Minority Rights in Post-Soviet Russia: The Case of Bashkortostan ILDUS G. ILISHEV STRAINS OF POST-SOVIET STATE-BUILDING IN RUSSIA The collapse of the Soviet Union marked a new stage in the development of the Russian Federation, during which both the Centre and the regions have been searching for answers to pressing questions in order to shape the future of Russia as a single multinational state. These have concerned the foundations upon which Russia’s renewed statehood would be built and whether and by what means new forms and principles of co-existence between numerous ethno-linguistic groups could be developed. Many republics within the Russian Federation have sought to abandon their quasi-autonomous status by adopting declarations of sovereignty and new constitutions, and redefining themselves as sovereign nation-states. These steps were engendered by a natural desire to overcome the imperial legacy of the Soviet period. During the 1990s the élites and populations of Russia’s ethnic republics shifted from a mildly politicized ethnic consciousness to various forms of nationalism and separatism.1 Although this phenomenon has not necessarily meant that each republic would demand, or even contemplate demanding, complete independence from the Centre, the fact that several of them signed power-sharing agreements with the federal government indicated their desire to achieve some degree of genuine sovereignty within the federation. Such treaties take into account regional differences in geography and natural resources, economic factors, ethnicity, language and ecological concerns. The treaty with Tatarstan, signed in 1994, was the first of its kind, and led subsequently to 45 other power-sharing agreements, not all of them with ethnic units: some were signed with administrative regions which had no specific ethnic attributes, such as that endorsed by the city of Moscow on 16 June 1998. In the absence of clear legislation on the power of regional government regarding the way periphery-Centre 307

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relations were developing or were likely to develop, treaties provided some guidance. Moreover, without the power-sharing treaties, Russia would probably have either fallen apart like the Soviet empire, or become a unitary state. It would hardly be an exaggeration to suggest that prior to 1994 there was a real danger that contradictions between the Centre and the republics might undermine Russian society entirely and lead it to total disintegration. The solution found to this threat in the form of power-sharing agreements turned out, in effect, to be an essential component of the consolidation of Russian federalism, laying the foundations of a truly federative state and becoming, in a sense, extensions to the Russian constitution. In this context, the contributions of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, the two most important ethnic republics in the very heart of the Russian Federation, both of whose titular nationalities are Muslim and Turkic, were vital for Russia’s survival as a federation. The ethnic republics’ motivation for signing separate arrangements with the Centre is easy to explain: by demanding additional rights, ethnically unique republics and economically strong regions sought either to resist Moscow’s centralization tendencies or to avert the consequences of frequently crude reform policies devised without proper consideration for their special historical, geographical, cultural and linguistic conditions. Obviously, attempts to homogenize all subjects of the federation (as the 89 administrative units were called) by arbitrarily disregarding their individual differences or special circumstances would have been unwise and even dangerous. In one telling example, President Yeltsin overruled Ingush President Ruslan Aushev’s decree ordering a referendum on 28 February 1999 on the division of responsibilities between Ingushetia and the federal centre. The referendum was intended to measure the degree of public support for Aushev’s proposals, according to which Moscow would have no say in the nomination or dismissal of local police chiefs in Ingushetia. Furthermore, the referendum proposed that certain, specifically Ingush national customs (such as carrying a dagger or the abduction of a future bride by her prospective bridegroom) should not be considered crimes in Ingushetia, even though they were not permitted under the criminal code of the Russian Federation.2 The decision strained relations between the Centre and Ingushetia, further intensifying anti-Russian sentiment in a region deeply affected by the consequences of the war in neighbouring Chechnya. It should be borne in mind that even in such an extremely centralized and unitary state as imperial Russia, certain ethnic territories, such as Finland, Poland, Khiva or Bukhara, were allowed to exercise full autonomy in internal affairs due to their ethnic and cultural specificities.3 In fact, it was the bankrupt nationalities policy of the former Soviet state that triggered the movements for self-determination in the Russian Federation. The leaders of these movements had every reason to believe that cultural and linguistic survival could only be ensured by obtaining greater self-governance and sovereignty within the framework of a 308

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genuine federative state. The most important issue in this context following the breakup of the Soviet Union was whether the political structure of Russia would take into account the aspirations of the culturally, economically, and ethnically divergent national and territorial units. Would it guarantee free development of the languages and cultures of the various peoples of the federation? The problem of fair representation for ethnic groups within the federal organs of power and in the media remained a vital issue in Russia’s multi-ethnic society. The ‘one person, one vote’ electoral system, often considered to be the most democratic, and simple majority rule, have limitations in multi-ethnic societies. If the composition of the Parliament, or Federal Assembly, were to accurately reflect the country’s population, which consists predominantly of ethnic Russians (82 per cent in 1989), representatives of other ethnic groups would have no say in the decision-making process. The non-Russians could not influence a single policy in the State Duma or the Council of the Federation (the lower and upper house, respectively of the Parliament). Even if the representatives of all 21 ethnic republics voted together, they would collect only 25 percent of the vote.4 One option for Russia would be to embrace consociational democracy, the system of government advocated by American political scientist Arend Lijphart for multi-ethnic states.5 It guarantees minority group participation in government, and even grants minorities veto powers on matters of cultural autonomy, as well as on other issues of direct concern to them. Another viable alternative for Russia would be the integrative approach described by two other American political scientists, Timothy Sisk6 and Donald Horowitz.7 The integrative system requires not simply a majority of votes, but a majority of votes for the election of the president in a majority of territories. In Russia, such a system would give greater weight to the republics. Given the mood and composition of the State Duma in the 1990s, however, it was unrealistic to expect it to support the idea of consociational or integrative democracy.8 One of the most important tasks facing Russia in the 1990s, if it were to be a truly democratic federation, was to establish a framework that would be accepted by all subjects of the federation and the federal centre. In other words, in addition to the so-called ‘horizontal’ division of power between the legislative, executive and judicial branches, there existed another important and complex aspect of nation-building, namely, the ‘vertical’ division of authority between the Centre and the subjects of the federation.9 Russia’s federal structure is asymmetrical, presenting additional challenges to developing a well-balanced ‘vertical’ division of power. Its peculiarity is that it is composed of both ethnic and territorial formations — autonomous republics and oblasts or krais, respectively. The 1993 constitution spoke of 21 republics based on nominal ethnicity, 49 provinces (or oblasts), 6 territories (krais), 10 autonomous regions (okrugs ), 2 federal cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg) and one autonomous province (oblast). 309

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In addition to the constitution and federal laws, the foundations of Russian federalism include a federation treaty and bilateral treaties demarcating spheres of jurisdiction between the federal government and governments of some subjects of the federation. Thus, on the one hand the designers of Russia’s multi-ethnic federation were able to incorporate some of the international experience of other states (for example, the US, Canada, Germany) in the development of federalism. On the other hand, the existence of ethnic territories presented the task of recognizing the specific needs of the non-Russian peoples, while at the same time securing the stability of the state. The signing of multiple power-sharing treaties between the Centre and the republics, oblasts and krais represented an attempt to consider the historical, geographic, ethnic, and other particularities of the subjects of the federation. But, clearly, concluding treaties was not sufficient. The development of democracy and consensus in Russia required that the legitimacy of the power-sharing agreements that had been concluded not be undermined; that republican leaders become actively involved in designing federal legislation; that more power be delegated to local political institutions which are by definition more flexible and responsive to the cultural and linguistic needs of the population; and that the public gradually be swayed in favour of improving the electoral system in order to give minority groups more access to institutions of power. The success or effectiveness of federalism is clearly the key to preventing conflicts arising on the grounds of national and regional separatism and the criterion for accommodating Russia’s ethno-linguistic diversity. Moreover, in post-Soviet Russia, it is impossible to separate democracy from federalism since the federative structure serves as a major counterbalance to building a unitary polity and as a guarantee of the preservation and development of democratic institutions in both Centre and periphery. Why were Bashkortostan and Tatarstan more vocal than other autonomous republics in the process of re-defining the relationship between Centre and periphery? One explanation is that these republics’ relative economic prosperity and unique geographic location in the middle Volga region, enabled them to serve as major links between Europe and Asia. For instance, the industrial potential of Bashkortostan alone was equal at the time of the Soviet Union’s dissolution to that of the three Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) combined. Secondly, Bashkortostan and Tatarstan were historically more independent of the Centre than other ethnic republics. Bashkortostan had a long history of statehood, including treaty-based relations with Russia since the 16th century. After the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, Bashkiria became, in 1919, the only autonomous republic founded on the basis of a bilateral power-sharing treaty with Lenin’s government.10 The others were formed by unilateral decree of the Kremlin. The first secretaries of the Tatar and Bashkir ASSRs were always included in the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet along 310

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with the leaders of the union republics,11 making these the only autonomous republics to be represented in the USSR’s Supreme Soviet on a par with all the union republics, including Russia. Gorbachev’s glasnost served to facilitate the debates on the division of power between Centre and republics and various national movements surfaced among the population. Neither Bashkortostan nor Tatarstan concealed the desire to gain union republic status. When, through the elaboration of a new union treaty, Gorbachev made a desperate attempt to save the crumbling Soviet state, Bashkortostan and Tatarstan negotiated to raise their legal status. The leaders of these two autonomous republics were determined to be signatories of the union treaty, thus acquiring recognition of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan as having union republic status. These aspirations were never realized due to the August 1991 coup attempt which preempted the signing of the union treaty and brought about the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union. In fact, none of Russia’s ethnic republics (with the exception of Chechnya) ever officially asserted full independence. While demanding rights for independent development, the ethnic republics were unwilling to compromise the integrity of the Russian Federation. Yet, if secession was not an issue in Bashkortostan or the other autonomous republics, the question of how to formulate a system of asymmetrical federalism on the basis of treaties and, ultimately, to rewrite the Russian constitution was at the centre of the ongoing debate. The dissatisfaction with the 1993 Russian constitution was illustrated by the fact that it was not approved by the majority of residents in Bashkortostan, Tatarstan or by the population of thirty other subjects of the Russian Federation during a nation-wide referendum in 1993. This was due to the federal government’s failure to take into consideration the special interests of many of the federation’s subjects. The suggestions of their administrations were completely ignored. Under these circumstances it was difficult to speak seriously of any kind of consociational or integrative democracy. The 1993 constitution did not provide a well-balanced foundation for a representative political system because, in addition to disregarding the reality of Russia’s ethnic diversity and unique federative arrangement, it failed to incorporate institutional mechanisms to protect the interests of non-Russians on a federal level. Even in the former Soviet Union, where everything was centralized and ethnic republics existed under a totalitarian regime, until October 1993 the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation included a Chamber of Nationalities, but neither the constitution nor the representative organs — the Duma and the Council of the Federation — guaranteed minority rights. The only option under these circumstances was to embark on a process of revising the federal constitution in order to bring Russia closer to a genuine federative arrangement. It was important that the Russian Parliament and the president acknowledge the fact that the Russian political structure 311

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operated on the basis of power-sharing treaties which formed the core of Russia’s system of asymmetrical federalism. Historically, the Soviet autonomies were created first and foremost as a means of compensating the indigenous peoples for the injustices of centuries of colonization and oppression. In the 1920s the promises of broad autonomy lured the nationalities of the former tsarist empire into the Bolshevik federation of Soviet peoples. Initially, the principal rationale behind Lenin’s decision to build a union of soviet republics was to secure political loyalty in the non-Russian regions. Whatever the Bolshevik motives, the grievances of many peoples could be addressed only by the establishment of national-territorial entities. Later on, these entities came to epitomize not only the national sovereignty of the titular groups, but of the entire population. Under these historical conditions, this was the only way to ensure the fledgling Soviet state’s integrity without compromising the peoples’ right to genuine self-determination, a principle that had been advocated before the revolution by Lenin himself.12 Six major reasons can be given to substantiate the ethnic republics’ claim to self-determination within the Russian Federation. First, they had long been autonomous entities whose right of self-determination had been officially acknowledged. Second, many of these republics, including specifically Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, had been forcefully annexed to the Russian Empire.13 Third, Soviet rule in these republics had led to massive violations of human and minority rights. Fourth, this was the only way to redress these peoples’ grievances and to ensure their economic, political, cultural and linguistic development. Fifth, in post-Soviet Russia, as evidenced by many examples of federal policies, including the war in Chechnya, these ethnic groups could survive only within the framework of their own statehood. Sixth, the provision of sovereignty for the republics within a larger state had to be the ideal form of governance for Russia, since the two conflicting tendencies, the centripetal and centrifugal, were reconciled within a federation that legitimized its ethnic groups pursuing their goal of self-determination while preserving the country’s integrity as a multinational state. In the wake of the first Chechen war, there was hope that Moscow might realize the advantages of granting a wider degree of autonomy to the republics. One indication of a shift in Moscow’s nationalities policy came in June 1996 with the adoption of the decree ‘A Concept of the State Nationalities’ Policy of the Russian Federation’. This document acknowledged that optimizing federal relations was among the ‘priority tasks’ of Russia’s domestic politics. This document pointed out that unitary as well as separatist tendencies weakened the development of Russian statehood and created inter-ethnic tension.14 Contrary to initial expectations, the adoption of this decree had little in the way of followup. Instead, there were many indications that the federal government was prepared to resume the unitary policies of the recent past. For example, at the conference, ‘Federalism in Russia’, held in December 312

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1998 in Washington, DC, Director of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy of the Russian Government Andrei Fedorov spoke openly about the need to revise all the power-sharing treaties and replace them with a more unified approach.15 Former Prime Minister Evgenii Primakov echoed this view when he called for reducing the number of regions in Russia, at an all-Russia conference on federal relations on 26 January 1999. Moreover, Primakov favoured the idea of appointing governors and heads of regional administrations instead of electing them. Such changes would undermine the foundations on which Russian federalism had come into being. Newly appointed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Yeltsin’s preferred candidate for presidency, vowed in August 1999 that Moscow’s regional policy ‘would no longer be motivated by the ethnic factor but by purely economic considerations’.16 Russia’s republics perceived these calls as aimed, first and foremost, at downgrading their status. Clearly, many high-ranking Moscow officials stubbornly clung to the old, authoritarian belief that republican movements for sovereignty and the very process of nation-building would ultimately lead to the disintegration of the country. I would argue, however, that to preserve ethnic peace and stability in Russia it is necessary to avoid both unitary/unionist-centrist and extreme separatist solutions. The only possible way to achieve this is to reach a compromise between the Centre and the constituent republics by decentralizing state power through ethno-territorial federalism and power-sharing treaties. RUSSIA AND BASHKORTOSTAN UNDER YELTSIN: RELATIONS BASED ON A POWER-SHARING TREATY The policy of democratization advocated by Mikhail Gorbachev through glasnost and perestroika was conducive to the revival of the Bashkir people’s national identity. In October 1990, Bashkortostan’s Declaration of Sovereignty was adopted. The land of Bashkortostan with all its natural resources was declared to be the exclusive property of its multinational people. The declaration paved the way for forming a new law-based state, and emphasized the need for Russian-Bashkortostan relations to be built on treaty agreements. The declaration contained the political message that, henceforth, owning and exploiting natural resources and conducting a socio-economic policy that conformed to the interests of its people would be considered inalienable rights of the republics.17 In accordance with the Declaration of Sovereignty, Bashkortostan’s constitution (adopted 24 December 1993) and laws took precedence over federal legal acts on the republic’s territory, except in cases where precedence was voluntarily delegated to the federal government. On 31 March 1992 all the former autonomous republics of Russia, with the exception of Tatarstan and Chechnya, signed the Federation Treaty in Moscow. Bashkortostan leader Murtaza Rahimov agreed to sign the treaty at the very last moment — and then 313

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only after successfully extracting from Moscow special provisions ensuring a greater measure of autonomy than that accorded to the other signatories.18 These provisions were ratified in a special Supplement to the Federation Treaty signed by the Russian president and Rahimov. The signatories agreed that the Republic of Bashkortostan was entitled to the right of independent participation in international and foreign economic activities, again, except when this right was voluntarily delegated to the federal government. The supplement is of major scholarly and practical interest — in essence nullifying all the provisions of the Federation Treaty that infringed on the rights of Bashkortostan. Thus, if according to the Treaty, all questions of ownership, use and management of land and natural and mineral resources, guidelines for levying taxes and the legal and judicial systems were under the authority of the Russian Federation, in conformity with the Supplement to the Treaty, all the above areas remained under the jurisdiction of Bashkortostan. Another significant landmark in the development of Bashkortostan’s sovereignty was the adoption of a new constitution and the signing of the power-sharing treaty between Bashkortostan and the Russian Federation on 3 August 1994. The constitution recognized Bashkortostan as a multinational state but accorded the Bashkirs alone the right to self determination. The Supplement to the Federation Treaty was of major significance in negotiating the power-sharing treaty, for it added greatly to Bashkortostan’s bargaining power. In effect, all the provisions of the Supplement became part of and were further elucidated in the powersharing treaty. The power-sharing treaty between Russia and Bashkortostan took into account the new legal circumstances of the post-Soviet period and the fact that, historically, both parties had maintained long-standing relations based on special treaties and recognized the objective nature of the process of the constituent republics’ ‘sovereignization’. This process emanated from the following: – a desire to overcome the imperial legacy of the Soviet period, and to increase independence (mostly in the economic sphere) from a central bureaucracy which had proved unable to meet the specific interests of the national minorities, most notably in the sphere of culture and language; – the natural reaction of ethnic regions, primarily of the ethnic republics, to the failure of economic reforms in Russia, and to the Kremlin’s attempts to restore the status-quo in the form of autonomies according to the Stalin-Brezhnev model; – a desire to build a democratic, truly federative, multi-ethnic Russian state favouring ethno-linguistic revival of all nationalities. The treaty between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Bashkortostan (together with those of Tatarstan and Sakha-Yakutia) effectively delimited the power delegated to the federal government, creating a legal basis for embarking on the process of building an asymmetrical federation. To Bashkortostan, the treaty was a confirmation of its special 314

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legal status and sovereignty, and recognition of its right to solve independently issues related to its property, budget, legislation, judiciary system and foreign trade. The fundamental provision of the treaty stipulated that Bashkortostan should be a sovereign state within the Russian Federation. True, the application of the terms ‘sovereignty’ and ‘sovereignization’ with regard to a national-territorial entity within another state, albeit a federative one, may seem controversial and inaccurate to certain politicians and jurists.19 Some of the heads of Bashkortostan’s five neighbouring provinces, namely the governors of Sverdlovsk and Orenburg, were at first outspokenly critical of Moscow’s ‘special relationship’ with Ufa. Later, after they themselves had concluded analogous power-sharing treaties with Moscow, they assumed a more friendly and cooperative stance. More recently, in view of the Kremlin’s new budgetary policies, the governor of Sverdlovsk and the president of Bashkortostan formed an alliance to try to preserve their powers vis-à-vis Moscow.20 This coalition was a political compromise that had to be made if Bashkortostan’s historic, ethnic, economic and geographic uniqueness were to be recognized. Under the treaty a radically new form of union was defined — a union of sovereign states based on mutual delegation of specific powers and subjects of authority. The Republic of Bashkortostan was entitled by the treaty to interact with other states, conclude international agreements, exchange diplomatic, consular and trade representatives with other states, and participate in the activities of international organizations. Moreover, when the republic signed the Federation Treaty, it succeeded in retaining certain rights regarding its budget and taxes not enjoyed by other subjects of the federation.21 The Soviet federation had initially been conceived as asymmetrical. The Soviet system of ethno-territorial federalism divided the territory of the state into a complex four-tiered set of national territories, endowed with varying degrees of autonomy and correspondingly more or less elaborate political and administrative institutions.22 However, these intentions were soon forgotten and buried under the weight of a totalitarian state. Now times have changed: the breakup of the Soviet Union soon paved the way for a new civilization, making efforts to build a federation which would meet the interests of scores of different nations and peoples, ethnic groups and communities within the new Russia. The only way to keep the Russian Federation together was to ensure constitutional recognition of its asymmetric composition. This was the principle to which the Republic of Bashkortostan adhered. Nor was it only Bashkortostan and Tatarstan and their peoples that sought guaranteed rights but the regions of the rest of Russia as well. In a truly democratic state all territories enjoy certain rights. Some scholars and politicians artificially counterpoise the federation’s constitution and the treaties that have become an essential component of Russian federalism. They refuse to recognize their implicitly dual (constitutional and treaty315

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based) character, and express doubts as to the treaties’ constitutionality. But as Prof. Eduard Tadevosian, one of Russia’s most famous jurists, points out, it is important to take into account not only the primacy of federalism’s constitutional foundations, but also the other, informal side of the coin. The apparent discrepancies between the above-mentioned documents often arose as a result of a reflection in the treaties of the actual experience of Russian federalism.23 Those discrepancies could in turn be conducive to change in the constitutions and legislation of both the republics and the federation, since the provisions of the powersharing treaties have proved more effective legal instruments for harmonizing relations between the ethnic republics and the Centre than have the constitutions.24 The treaty concluded between the Russian Federation and Bashkortostan contributed greatly to overcoming the former totalitarian legacy, since it provided for maximum development of self-government in all echelons of power. The power-sharing treaties basically restricted the role of the Centre to securing the unity and integrity of the country at large and entitled regional government to decide independently on all matters within their jurisdiction. The aggregate powers delegated to the federal government would be different in each particular case, as specified in the relevant treaty. In accordance with the Russia– Bashkortostan treaty, the following powers were allocated to Russia: finance, defence, foreign policy and international affairs, problems related to issues of war and peace, the shaping and organization of the supreme bodies of power, certain modes of transport and some industries. Even after the conclusion of 46 power-sharing treaties, much uncertainty remained about the prospects of Russian federalism. From time to time a massive campaign would be launched in the media decrying the treaties, primarily those of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan. The very titles of some of the articles in Moscow newspapers were telling: ‘Will Russia Remain, When the Centre Concludes an Agreement with the 89th Subject of the Federation?’25, ‘Will Russia Have 89 Presidents?’26 Some Moscow politicians spared no efforts in promoting theories about the alleged separatism of Bashkortostan and continued to instil fear of Russia’s disintegration. In a 1997 interview, Bashkortostan President Murtaza Rahimov frankly admitted that he and the Bashkortostan government felt much anxiety about the future of the republic. He sensed that with every day the prospect of being downgraded to an ordinary Russian oblast was becoming ever more real.27 RUSSIA AND BASHKORTOSTAN UNDER PUTIN: DILEMMAS OF STATE FORMATION With Vladimir Putin’s election to the presidency, as many ethnic republic leaders expected, Russia’s system of governance became Moscow’s major object of reform. The Kremlin initiated a number of measures aimed at reducing the ethnic republics to the level of regular 316

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Russian provinces. First, the State Duma passed a law giving the president authority to remove popularly elected regional leaders, including presidents of ethnic republics. Secondly, Russia was divided into seven federal districts, each comprising ten to twelve — and sometimes more — subjects of the federation, supervised by presidential representatives of the Russian Federation. Although the Kremlin insisted this move would ensure a more effective federalist system, the leaders of the republics feared it would eventually lead to the merging of ethnic and non-ethnic entities. Finally, the Russian Constitutional Court declared the sovereign status of the republics to be unconstitutional.28 Murtaza Rahimov in a speech at an annual conference marking the sixth anniversary of the power-sharing treaty with Moscow, sharply criticized the Russian Constitutional Court’s ruling: In effect that decision undermines the foundations of the Russian state which have been built over the last ten years by all parties concerned — the federal authorities and the subjects of the federation — and violates the basic principles of democracy, federalism and the criterion of selfdetermination. Some politicians are trying to use that decision to erase a ten-year period of the country’s history, to declare null and void all its legal documents and political institutions, the creation of which demanded so much effort, and to propose building another federation from scratch which in reality is nothing but a unitary-administrative state. Thus, by a mere stroke of the pen, the old grievances and the mutual mistrust of the peoples are being revived, and the basis for interethnic accord is being destroyed. A dangerous tendency of resolving vital issues of state formation by coercion unworthy of a great power is making headway.29

Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiyev concurred when, addressing the Parliament of Tatarstan, he said, ‘No one will be able to strike the notion of sovereignty out of our lives.’30. Chuvashia President Nikolai Fedorov, has been one of the most outspoken critics of Putin’s reforms. In an interview with Izvestiia he said: One can not stop regional separatism by employing methods of administrative-political redistribution of powers between the subjects of the Russian Federation and the federal centre. The consequences of creating a structure of vertical power will be lamentable. The President has to understand once and for all: either Russia will be built up as a lawgoverned federative state, or it will be ruined and disintegrate into seven or more parts … Surely, the aim of creating the seven federal districts is to abolish one system of rule (to put it bluntly, the independence of ‘disobedient’ regions) and to replace it with another system in which the subjects of the federation will be oriented not towards the constitution but towards the so-called presidential representatives in the newly created okrugs… In effect, the presidential representatives in the regions do not strengthen the system of vertical power but rather destroy the country’s constitutional system of government.31

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Indeed, ethno-territorial federalism has helped incorporate various ethnic groups into a single state. Yet, many federal politicians representing a wide political spectrum (Sergei Kirienko, Vladimir Zhirinovskii, Gennadii Ziuganov, Iurii Luzhkov to name but a few) believe that the existing political system has been a major source of instability in Russia that will ultimately lead to its disintegration. Former Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko, the presidential representative to the Volga federal district, called the determination of borders within the country along ethnic lines ‘an unforgivable blunder’. Moreover, he maintained that Iurii Andropov had planned in his day, to correct that mistake and even issued orders to divide the Soviet Union into administrative districts along the lines of Putin’s reforms years later. According to Kirienko, had it not been for Andropov’s death he would have implemented this idea, thereby drastically changing the fate of Russia. But what kind of fate would he have opted for? One that would eventually have broken up the country along the Yugoslav pattern. Concerning the possibility of redrawing the boundaries of the ethnic republics in the context of the creation of the new administrative districts, Kirienko was of the opinion that such a question would not arise since, as he put it, ‘we have to face the realities as they take shape’.32 Yeltsin’s legacy in the field of post-Soviet state-building includes two diametrically opposed patterns of conflict resolution: along with examples of successful, non-violent approaches to resolving conflicts with Russia’s largest and most economically developed ethnic republics, Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, a militarized solution was preferred with regard to Chechnya, which in fact became Moscow’s most spectacular failure in coping with nationality problems. Despite a general awareness that the most challenging problem for the Russian political leadership in the Centre as well as for the ethnic élites in the republics is to find a viable form of federation that will enable non-Russian peoples to pursue their goal of self-determination within the framework of a single multinational state, Ramazan Abdulatipov, former minister for nationalities, seems justified in asserting that ‘almost no one among Russia’s leading politicians has worked out, even in his own mind, a model for federal relations’.33 In line with its new strategy, the Kremlin has begun an aggressive campaign to bring the legislation of the ethnic republics into conformity with federal law. The president’s administration maintains that of the 21 ethnic republics’ constitutions only that of the Republic of Udmurtia fully conforms to the constitution of the federation. According to Aleksandr Zviagintsev, deputy prosecutor-general of Russia for the Volga Federal Okrug, the largest number of legal inconsistencies has been revealed in Bashkortostan — 57 altogether, followed by Tatarstan with 45. Saratov and Ul’ianovsk Oblasts each have just one legal act contradicting federal legislation. Samara Oblast was given as an example of a ‘region free of inconsistencies’.34 318

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At the same time Moscow seems to be willing to recognize the fact that due to the Russian Parliament’s tardiness in adopting many federal laws, the regions, out of sheer practical necessity, were forced to pass many controversial legal acts in order to address the most critical economic and other issues. With a view to achieving mutual accord on general principles of state formation in contemporary Russia, Bashkortostan suggested that all controversial issues be regulated through the mechanism of a joint RussianBashkortostan conciliation commission. Specifically, the republic’s leaders expressed the hope that negotiations involving two equal partners would soon draw the constitutions of both sides closer to one another. Yet, the political figures at the Centre have generally tended to hold traditional Soviet views of state-building, in accordance with which they assume that regional and central authorities of a federative state can not possibly be engaged in genuine political consultations and negotiations. The basic argument here has been that Russia is not a confederation. However, on the whole, by making mutual concessions, Bashkortostan and Russia have been able to eliminate some of the problems straining their relations although by late 2002 many issues remain to be resolved. On 11 May 2000 Vladimir Putin addressed a letter to the speaker of the State Assembly of Bashkortostan, Konstantin Tolkachev, wherein he suggested that Parliament bring the republican constitution into conformity with the Russian constitution and federal legislation. In particular, Putin noted that the process of bringing Bashkortostan’s legislation into agreement with federal laws should be carried out on the basis of all those legal acts that define the relations of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Bashkortostan. Significantly for Bashkortostan, Putin declared the power-sharing treaty concluded between Bashkortostan and Russia to be the basic legal document regulating these relations and assured the Bashkir Parliament of his commitment to its provisions. At the same time, in urging the Bashkortostan Parliament to bring the constitution of Bashkortostan into conformity with federal legislation, he specifically referred to those provisions which had not been duly agreed to in the power-sharing treaty. For instance, Putin drew attention to the fact that under the Bashkortostan constitution, republican laws took precedence over federal laws. According to information received on 11 May 2000 by the Interfax news agency from officials in the Putin administration, the message to the Bashkortostan Parliament was a response to a letter addressed to the Russian president by Speaker Konstantin Tolkachev wherein he suggested creating a joint conciliation commission to examine all controversial issues. Apparently Bashkortostan President Rahimov had been anxious to forestall a more awkward turn of events. However, Rahimov preferred not to raise this issue with the Russian president himself, and so he authorized the speaker of the Parliament to do so. Strategically, the main rationale behind this tactical move was to save the power319

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sharing treaty and preserve as much sovereignty for Bashkortostan as possible under the circumstances. As Irek Ablayev, Bashkortostan’s official representative to Moscow, put it, ‘if an act of rape is inevitable you had better relax and derive maximum pleasure from it’.35 The way the constitution of Bashkortostan was subsequently amended vividly illustrates that Bashkortostan was intent on putting Putin’s message to full advantage. On 3 November 2000, the State Assembly of Bashkortostan passed a law entitled On the Introduction of Amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Bashkortostan, which stipulated the insertion of more than one hundred amendments and additions into the constitution. However, the constitutional provisions proclaiming Bashkortostan a sovereign state within Russia were not abolished, although the Constitutional Court of Russia in its June 2000 ruling declared them unconstitutional. As for the Bashkortostan-Russia power-sharing treaty, the members of the Ufa Parliament hastened to capitalize on Putin’s reference to it as the principal legal document (although for the ex-KGB operative it may have been a mere tactical ploy to gratify the State Assembly of Bashkortostan36), and voted unanimously to include its entire text in the constitution. The events that followed were not unexpected: the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office submitted another protest, but this time over the revised version of the constitution. As one of Rahimov’s advisers commented: ‘They do their job, we do ours’. According to Rafail Mirsayev, deputy speaker of the Bashkir Parliament, about 30 inconsistencies were under dispute. How Bashkortostan would react to yet another round of administrative pressure was not clear, but Zufar Yenikeev, Murtaza Rahimov’s legal adviser, was quite positive that the president of Bashkortostan would negotiate hard to cut the best deal with a view to preserving the latest version of the constitution. Another deputy speaker of the Parliament of Bashkortostan, Minirais Ishmuratov, expressed his conviction that Bashkortostan would cooperate fully on the issue of bringing republican legislation into line with federal laws. But he believed that any attempt to homogenize regional legislation without considering the republics’ ethnic peculiarities could have a negative impact for Russia, as it often had in the past. He was certain that in dealing with Putin’s initiatives Bashkir deputies would always bear this in mind.37 This, in effect, meant that Bashkortostan was determined against all odds to preserve as many of its prerogatives as it could. Although cooperative on the issue of bringing republican legislation into conformity with federal laws, Bashkortostan regularly stressed that it would continue seeking to maintain relations with the federal centre on the basis of the renewed constitution and the power-sharing treaty with Russia. However, Rahimov’s bargaining power in dealings with the Kremlin is no less meaningfully dependent on the ethno-political situation in Bashkortostan. Not unexpectedly, Moscow’s ‘new’ regional politics, with the strategic aim of curtailing the sovereignty of the ethnic republics, have 320

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stirred many ethnic organizations and political parties to greater activity. Notably those organizations’ political preferences, namely their attitude towards the Kremlin’s relentless drive for re-centralization and their degree of support for Bashkortostan’s sovereignty, depended primarily on the ethnic factor, that is, whether they were defending Bashkir, Tatar or Russian interests. In the year 2000, 10 political parties and 345 public organizations operated in Bashkortostan. Among the latter, the most influential were those public organizations which had been created to defend the political, social, cultural and linguistic rights of the three major ethnic groups living in the republic. While Bashkirs are the eponymous ethnicity, they make up only about 22 per cent of the population; Tatars make up over 28 per cent; the largest ethnic group is the Russian, which constitutes 39 per cent of the population.38 Of the Bashkirs living within their own republic, 74.7 per cent listed Bashkir as their native tongue (as against 4.6 who listed Russian) and 20.7 per cent ‘another language of the USSR’ (in this case mostly Tatar).39 The largest and most organized groups included the World Congress (Qurultay) of Bashkirs, the Ural — Bashkir National Centre, the Union of Bashkir Youth (SBM), the ‘Rus’ Russian Social Organization, the Tatar Public Centre of Bashkortostan (TOTs), and the Tatar National Assembly of Bashkortostan (Milli Mejlis). These organizations can be divided into three groups based on their disposition toward the political course pursued by the Bashkortostan government: (1) those actively supporting the official course of the Bashkortostan government to strengthen its sovereignty; (2) those loyal to the government; and (3) those directly opposed to it. The first group was composed mainly of the political organizations of the Bashkir people, the eponymous group. Yet, some organizations of other ethnic groups, such as the Council (Sobor) of Russians of Bashkortostan, advocated the same political stance — although these were not numerous. Those belonging to the third group were ‘Rus’, TOTs, the National Assembly of Bashkortostan and the Azatlyk Union of Tatar Youth. Some of the opposition’s extreme radicals, who often refer to themselves as anti-suverentetchiki, point out that Bashkortostan had, in the past, experienced an eruption of national separatism. Its leaders, headed by the famous scholar Ahmet Zeki-Velidi, suffered defeat and had to emigrate from Russia.40 Certainly, the ethnic factor has begun tangibly to affect the political situation in Bashkortostan, and this, in turn, may facilitate or disrupt Rahimov’s efforts to preserve Bashkortostan’s sovereignty. IMPLICATIONS FOR FEDERALISM IN RUSSIA The situation in Russia deteriorated faster than many people had expected. A deepening economic crisis, the devastation of the country’s industry and agriculture, the growth of its foreign and internal debts, its rapidly diminishing human potential, wage arrears, a demoralized army, 321

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and, above all, the total collapse of central power under Yeltsin, were the alarming by-products of Russia’s transition. On the eve of the millennium, as Yeltsin’s rule came to an end, the greatest threats to Russia’s stability and unity did not come from outside its borders, but from within, a result mainly of the Kremlin’s bankrupt economic policies and the persistence of Russian nationalism, both largely the legacy of Soviet rule. Although the international community has generally tended to focus on the difficulties arising from the economic debacle in Russia, the ‘national question’ may have more serious implications for the future of Russia and for world stability. Contrary to widely held assumptions, the threat to Russia’s integrity as a multi-ethnic state comes not from secessionism on the part of its ethnic minorities — Bashkirs, Tatars, Yakuts, Chechens, Kalmyks — but from great-power chauvinism and xenophobia on the part of certain forces within Russian society and the political establishment. A successful state, especially one as large as Russia, must turn its diversity into a source of strength by fostering a system of governance that will allow ethnic republics to take part in the decisions that affect their specific interests, such as the survival of their cultures and languages. The unique reality of Russia is that it is comprised of 89 subjects, including 21 ethnic republics with different economic and political structures. Considering these specific circumstances, the only viable path for Russia’s survival lies in building its statehood on the principles of asymmetrical federalism, thereby providing for self-governing entities within a larger state. Its nationalities policy has been among the federal government’s priorities, although one of the causes of the first war in Chechnya was the absence of clearly defined rules regulating the relationship between the Centre and the ethnic republics. While issues pertaining to protection of individual human rights have been frequently discussed in Russia, the safeguarding of individual rights is not sufficient for protecting the rights of peoples. International legislation on minorities, embodied in a number of legal instruments (for example, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, 1992; the OSCE Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities, 1995), favours the recognition of collective rights, and if Russia considers itself to be a multinational state (as explicitly stated in the country’s constitution), it must abide by international law on minority rights and uphold these basic rights on its territory. Whatever the future may hold for the non-Russian minorities, they are unlikely to abandon their national aspirations. Yet these can best be addressed by the renewal of national-territorial federalism within the framework of a single multi-ethnic state. Russia’s ethnic regions, especially, those with considerable bargaining power, such as Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, will hardly agree to any unilateral moves aimed at downgrading their status. Too many people have tasted freedom and 322

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been inspired by the successes of self-determination movements elsewhere in the former Soviet empire. The main lesson of the tragedies in Chechnya and Kosovo for Russia and other multi-ethnic societies must be that the liquidation of autonomies never fully succeeds and that it is impossible to handle nationality issues by force and coercion. The Russian Federation is faced with an enormous number of problems. At present, the salient global role of ethnicity affects everything from democratic development to communal security. In a multi-ethnic Russia it will continue to actively influence the processes of post-Soviet transformation. There is no doubt that Russia’s evolution towards pluralism has stimulated, among other things, Russian chauvinism and non-Russian ethnic nationalism. The non-Russian peoples normally invoke the idea of collective rights to affirm the primacy of their culture and language in their respective ethnic territories, while ethnic Russians have been loathe to recognize special rights for minority groups within a cultural framework that is predominantly Russian. In their efforts to understand the causes of ethno-political development, politicians and scholars should begin from the premise that various methods exist for integrating peoples and ethnic minorities into larger political and state formations, from colonization of previously independent peoples to voluntary resettlement and immigration of individuals and families. The means of ethnic integration used by the Centre influences the general behaviour of national groups by shaping the kind of relationships they wish to establish with the broader society. Can Bashkortostan remain a stable component of a strong multinational federation? Surely, both Bashkortostan and Russia can coexist, but not by virtue of the deceptively appealing concept of an ethnicallyblind ‘civic’ state, which glosses over important issues concerning minority rights. States are secure when people who perceive themselves as minorities, and consequently are apprehensive concerning their cultural survival, are successful in reversing assimilatory trends and develop a sense of cultural autonomy and security.41 Political élites of multinational states should accept from the outset that ethnic diversity is an integral part of their statehood and search for means of resolving national and linguistic problems that are acceptable to all parties involved. Any attempt by the central government in Russia to disregard the particularities of the federation’s various ethnic republics, or to homogenize their powers and competence in relation to the Centre, may further destabilize the political situation in the country. The nineteenth-century English theorist Albert Venn Dicey once observed that a stable multinational federation requires: ‘a very peculiar state of sentiment among its citizens, since they must desire union, and must not desire unity’.42 Henri Bourassa, former prime-minister of Quebec, made a similar point when he noted that the ‘special development of the French-Canadian nation must come about in 323

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conjunction with the development of a more general patriotism that unifies us, without fusing us’.43 As the examples of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan (and even the 1996 peace pact between Moscow and Chechnya) have demonstrated, a federative structure based on bilateral treaties is one possible way to join heterogeneous elements — ethnic republics, ordinary provinces, oblasts, and krais — to the whole, without ‘fusing them’. If Russia is to remain a single multi-ethnic, democratic state, asymmetrical federalism seems to be the only reasonable option. Yet at the time of writing, the future of democracy and federalism in Russia remains uncertain. Public disappointment with the experiment in democracy under Yeltsin may lead to the building of a federation based on a formula reminiscent of former imperial gubernias. There is every reason to believe that Moscow has established as its long-term strategy the elimination of a federation based on the ethno-territorial principle. An event deserving special consideration occurred on 7 December 2000, in Moscow, and passed largely unnoticed by the public. Under the Kremlin’s patronage the so-called First All-Russia Congress for Constitutional Restructuring (pereustroistvo) was convened. One of the major topics introduced for discussion at the initiative of the organizing committee was the content of Article 5 of the Russian constitution which provides for asymmetrical subjects in the federation: republics, oblasts, krais. Rafail Mirsayev, deputy speaker of the Parliament of Bashkortostan, who participated in that congress, came to the conclusion that strategically the Kremlin was intent on liquidating the ethnic republics. The final goal was to make Russia a symmetrical federation comprising about 50 homogenous subjects. Moreover, the deputy speaker was convinced that the process of bringing republican legislation into conformity with federal laws was just a ruse, an intermediate stage especially conceived to prepare public opinion for the main scheme — the liquidation of the ethnic republics. The creation of federal districts should also be considered part of this well-planned project. At some point when the time is considered ripe, the constitution will be amended by way of referendum, just as it was accepted in December 1993. The ethnic republics will be unable to influence the decisionmaking process, since there is no effective mechanism at the federal level to ensure just representation of their rights. Hence, the outcome of such a referendum would favour the Kremlin. The experience with the 1993 referendum clearly demonstrated that despite the fact that the Russian constitution had not been approved by 30 subjects of the country it had nonetheless become law under the system of simple majority rule. This may be seen as the culmination of the worst-case scenario of post-Soviet state formation. In sum, Russia has failed to incorporate genuine federalist principles within its political structure and the practice of democracy remains superficial. 324

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FUTURE SCENARIOS Russia is developing a new system of Centre-region relations which will affect first of all Bashkortostan and Tatarstan — the most successful autonomies in Russia. Since Putin’s election as president an active campaign has been launched to abridge these republics’ autonomy but they were still able to preserve more powers than other republics. Centre-ethnic republic relations will continue to be at the forefront of Russia’s politics in the 21st century. Bashkortostan and Tatarstan have preferred to engage in a delicate bargaining game with the Kremlin rather than to advocate direct confrontation. However, even if these republics are able to demonstrate their loyalty to Putin, they will be rewarded only with minor concessions and lose many of their previous prerogatives. Putin and his representatives in the newly created federal districts will not be able to dominate a vast and diverse country like Russia for a substantial period of time. The poor quality of transportation and communications systems in Russia, the country’s sheer size and its dispersed population will stymie any efforts to concentrate all political authority in one place. The existence of diverse political subcultures would also appear to be at odds with a political authority concentrated solely in a central government. Putin will not be able to meet popular expectations of rapid economic improvement. The system of governance itself will become a major source of political instability and national decline. Gradually, society’s disillusionment with Putin’s perestroika will erode the socio-political base of his authority. The weakening of the central government will mean the strengthening of the autonomies vis-à-vis the Kremlin. Ultimately, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan may fully restore the status quo ante. The prospects for the emergence of a genuine, effective federal system in the foreseeable future are remote. As the result of a much longer process (approximately fifteen to twenty years) a looser form of federation may emerge. Should Russia appear to be rebuilding itself in a way that guarantees considerable local autonomy it would mark a radical break with its history. Domestic conditions in Russia and the international environment strongly militate against the building of a unitary state. Re-centralization would inevitably entail a resort to authoritarian methods of governance, and authoritarianism would mean isolation. Sustaining federal relations is a major component of the reform process in Russia and decentralization is needed as a road to stability. Many nationalist and sovereignty movements world-wide (those of the Chechens, Nagorno-Karabagh’s Armenians, Kosovars and Kurds, for example) have demonstrated aptly that the peoples who are denied basic cultural, linguistic and political rights are more likely to resort to violence than those who have been given a large measure of local autonomy. Moreover, rejecting federalism and demands for Q

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autonomy in the name of an ill-defined civic citizenship promotes alienation and will mean continuing difficulties for the unity of the multi-ethnic state. Considering these specific circumstances, it can be argued that the existence of Russia’s ethnic republics is in the strategic interests of the world community, since autonomy is the only way to reconcile the two conflicting trends, the centripetal and the centrifugal, and thereby to secure Russia’s unity. NOTES 1. The Russian Federation includes 21 ethnic republics, as well as 10 autonomous regions, similarly based on ethnicity but representing smaller ethnicities and lacking formal sovereignty. Taken together, ‘these homelands, occupy more than half the territory of Russia, even though their ethnic groups represent only some 7 percent of the total population’. Pål Kolstø, Political Construction Sites: NationBuilding in Russia and the Post-Soviet States, (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000), p. 195. 2. See RFE/RL Newsline, Vol 3, No. 27, Feb. 9, 1999. 3. Vladimir Zorin, ‘Natsional’nye aspekty rossiiskogo federalizma’, Svobodnaia mysl’ 10 (1996) pp. 19–30. The status of Khiva and Bukhara was spelled out in the treaties with Russia of 12 Aug. and 28 Sept. 1873, respectively. 4. The upper chamber of the Russian Parliament in the Federation Council was composed of representatives of Russia’s 89 constitutionally recognized subjects. If all members of the Federation Council representing 21 ethnic republics voted together they would be able to collect about 25 per cent of the vote. 5. See Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977). 6. See Timothy Sisk, Power Sharing and International Mediation in Ethnic Conflicts (Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict: Carnegie Corporation of New York) Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, 1997). 7. See Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985); Donald Horowitz, ‘Democracy in Divided Societies’, Journal of Democracy 4 (1993), pp. 18–38. 8. Suffice it to say that when, after a five-year delay, the Law on Small Indigenous Peoples was finally approved by the Duma in June of 1996, it was rejected by the Council of the Federation. The law, which was directed mainly at the small indigenous peoples of Siberia and the North, laid down legal norms for ensuring the cultural, linguistic and economic survival of indigenous ethnicities. 9. Stephen White, Alex Pravda and Zvi Gitelman (eds), Developments in Russian & PostSoviet Politics (London: Macmillan, 1994), pp. 120–1, 212–13. 10. This treaty was valid for just over one year, from March 1919 to May 1920. Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union (NY: Atheneum, 1974), pp. 162–6. 11. For instance, all the postwar first secretaries of the Bashkir Oblast Committee, Sabir Vagapov (1946–53), Ziya Nuriyev (1957–69) and Midkhat Shakirov (1970–87) were members of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet USSR, i.e., under the regimes of Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev. See Bashkortostan, kratkaia entsiklopediia (Ufa: Bashkirskaia Entsiklopediia, 1996), pp. 199, 441, 640. 12. Lenin and Stalin embraced the rhetoric of self-determination in the early years of the 20th century, while viewing this principle in association with Marxist precepts of class liberation. See Vladimir Lenin, ‘The Right of Nations to Self-Determination’, in Vol. 20 of Collected Works. 45 vols. English edition (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1947); Joseph Stalin, Marxism and the National and Colonial Question (San Francisco: Proletarian Publishers, 1975). 13. See Donelly Alton, The Russian Conquest of Bashkiria, 1552–1740: A Case-Study in Imperialism (London: Yale University Press, 1968). 14. The decree was issued on 1 May 1996. See Russia and Eurasian Documents Annual, 1996, Vol. 1, Chap. 4, (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1997), p. 100.

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15. Andrey Fedorov, ‘A Recent Russian Study of Center-Regional Issues’ in Federalism in Russia: How Is It Working?, Conference Report: 9–10 Dec. 1998 (Washington, DC: US National Intelligence Council and US Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Feb. 1999), pp. 28–9. 16. Speech made by Putin on 15 Aug. 1999 in the Russian State Duma before the parliamentary vote on his confirmation as prime minister. 17. It should be noted that the Tatars enjoyed all basic rights in Bashkortostan. Thus, in the year 2000, of the country’s 20 top bureaucrats, eight were Bashkirs, seven Tatars, four Russians and one a Jew. It was only in the Ministries of Education and Culture that Bashkirs were meaningfully over-represented (in 1995, 36.8 per cent employees in each of these were Bashkirs) — see M.D. Kiebaev, Bashkiry v gorodakh Bashkortostana: istoriia i sovremennost’, (Ufa: Nur-Poligrafizdat, 1998), pp. 60–1. In addition, well over 40 per cent of Tatars were learning their mother tongue in the 1993–94 school year, and well over 50 per cent the year after, in 1037 schools, as against 65.3 per cent Bashkirs who studied Bashkir in 1301 schools in the former year and 67.1 per cent in 1358 schools in the latter year — see Bashkortostan i bashkiry v zerkale statistiki (Ufa: Institute istorii iazyka i literatury UNTS RAN, 1995), pp. 128–9. 18. Just one hour before the signing ceremony in the Kremlin took place, it was not yet clear whether Bashkortostan would sign the Treaty or not. The talks between the Bashkortostan delegation and Boris Yeltsin were still under way. 19. Examples of some politicians and jurists include Russian Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovskii, Russian Communist Party leader Gennadii Ziuganov, Moscow Mayor Iurii Luzhkov, Chairman of the Russian Constitutional Court Prof. Marat Baglai, former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Prof. Sergei Shakhrai and President Yeltsin’s former legal advisor Prof. Mikhail Krasnov, to name just a few. 20. Cf. Vecherniaia Ufa, 20 Oct. 2000. 21. While according to the National Bank of Bashkortostan, in 1995 and 1996 Bashkortostan transferred to the federal budget about 28 per cent of taxes collected in its territory, and in 1997 approximately 20 per cent, it was always one of the Russian Federation’s 18 donor subjects (which together accounted for 60 per cent of the total GNP). As of 1997 the percentage of taxes retained by the Bashkortostan government declined drastically — 50 per cent in 1999 and 20 per cent in 2000, and was destined to be 22 per cent in 2001. This was not the result of a policy change directed at Bashkortostan, but of the change in the Kremlin’s position regarding the revenues of all 89 subjects. 22. See for example, Rogers Brubaker, ‘Nationhood and the National Question in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Eurasia: An Insitutionalist Account’, Theory and Society 23 (1994), pp. 47–78; Alexander Shtromas, ‘The Building of a Multi-National Soviet “Socialist Federalism”: Success and Failures’, Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism 13 (1986), pp. 79–97. 23. Eduard Tadevosian. ‘Rossiiskii federalizm i sovremennyi natsional’no-gosudarstvennyi nigilizm, Gosudarstvo i pravo 10 (1996) (Institut Gosudarstva i prava Rossiiskoi Akademii nauk, Moscow), p. 14. 24. There is no constitutional provision that envisages the federal government signing peace treaties with its constituent republics, which in effect would imply that, theoretically, it might also wage war with them. Political realities being what they were, a peace treaty was signed, nonetheless, with the Chechen Republic in 1996. 25. Vecherniaia Moskva, 6 June 1996. 26. Rossiiskaia gazeta, 26 Sept. 1996. 27. Nezavisimaia gazeta, 17 May 1997. 28. Opredelenie Konstitutsionnogo Suda Rossiiskoi Federatsii o proverke sootvetstviia Konstitutsii Rossiiskoi Federatsii otdel’nykh polozhenii konstitutsii Respubliki Adygeia, Respubliki Bashkortostan, Respubliki Ingushetiia, Respubliki Komi, Respubliki Severnaia Osetiia-Alaniia i Respubliki Tatarstan (The ruling of the Russian Constitutional Court regarding consistency of some of the provisions of the constitutions of the republics of Adygeia, Bashkortostan, Ingushetia, Komi, Northern Ossetia-Alaniya, and Tatarstan with the constitution of the Russian Federation), Rossiiskaia gazeta, 25 July 2000).

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29. Murtaza Rakhimov, ‘Ukreplenie samostoiatel’nosti regionov — put’ k mogushchestvu Rossii’, Report given at a conference dedicated to the 6th anniversary of Bashkortostan’s power-sharing treaty with Russia, 3 Aug. 2000 (http: //kmrb.bashnet.ru/APRB/ press/prezident/03–08.html). 30. Mintimer Shaimiyev, ‘Desiat’ let po puti ukrepleniia suvereniteta’, Report given at a session of Tatarstan’s State Council marking the 10th Anniversary of Tatarstan’s Declaration on Sovereignty, 29 Aug. 2000 (http://www.tatar.ru/president/russian/ speaches/00001094–a.htm). 31. Nikolai Fedorov, ‘Kogda grazhdane v napriazhenie imi udobnee upravliat’, Izvestiia, 31 Aug. 2000. 32. Rossiiskaia gazeta, 11 Oct. 2000. 33. Rossiiskaia gazeta, 1 April 2000. 34. Rossiiskaia gazeta, 2 Sept. 2000. 35. Personal communication, 12 Sept 2000. 36. Quite tellingly, Sergei Samoilov, head of the chief department for regional politics in the presidential administration, was bold enough to contradict Putin’s support of the power-sharing treaties as expressed in his letter to the Parliament of Bashkortostan. He expressed the view that the prospects for those treaties’ survival were dim (Rossiiskaia gazeta, 7 Oct. 2000). One can assume that Samoilov’s statement reflected Putin’s real thinking to some degree. 37. Interfaks-Evraziia, 11 May 2000. 38. RFE/RL, Kate Graney, ‘Bashkortostan — A Case Study on Building National Identity’ (http://www.refrl.org/nca/features/1997/08/F.RU.970826152920.html). 39. Allen Frank and Ronald Wixman, “The Middle Volga: Exploring the Limits of Sovereignty’ in Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (eds), New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 164–8. 40. Otechestvo, 26 Feb. 2001. 41. As Dominique Arel has observed some nationalist, ‘politically incorrect’ measures may be needed to actually defuse nationalism and interethnic tension in the long run. ‘Political Stability in the Multination: the Civic State and the Fear of Minorisation’ in Alain Gagnon and James Tully (eds), Multinational Democracies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 42. See Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 192. 43. Cook Ramsay, French-Canadian Nationalism: An Anthology (Toronto: Macmillan 1969), p. 149.

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17 The Political Process in Dagestan: Prospects for Democracy ENVER KISRIEV The collapse of the Soviet Union and the ensuing political developments had tragic consequences for the Caucasus. Dagestan, with its distinctly segmented ethnic and social structure and torn by contradictions, seemed destined to become a region of acute inter-ethnic conflict. However, at the close of the 1990s, Dagestan was showing signs of political stability and unity. Despite instances of serious internal and external strife — notably the military actions in August–September 1999 in the Botlikh and Tsumada mountains in the west, bloodshed in the villages of Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi in central Dagestan, and the struggle against the invasion of armed groups in the north-western Novolak region where Chechen had lived before 1944 — Dagestan proved that there were mechanisms within its society which, in the final event, could serve to maintain stability and successfully meet these challenges. This essay seeks to identify and analyze these stabilizing mechanisms. It will also attempt to show that, paradoxical as it may seem, the multi-ethnic structure of the political élite in Dagestan is such that the social and political crises that afflict the country ultimately have turned into steadying factors, which enhance the balance of forces and the general stability of the political system. * * * The pattern of structural change in the élites of post-communist society has been as follows: representatives of the old guard are not replaced by leaders of a ‘new guard’; no coup occurs, but there is an increase in the size of the élites, who are joined by the nouveaux riches — a class which did not exist in Soviet society. Under the Soviet system, the ascent to the top was accomplished through a series of strictly regulated steps, under the tight control of top party and state officials. The principles of selection and deployment of cadres were consciously encumbered with a large number of requirements and procedures (for 329

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example, the formation of the nomenklatura of senior officials and control over their promotion) and were impossible, formally, to circumvent. The fact that the old and new élite have in fact merged, is eloquently demonstrated by the sharp increase in the total number of state officials in the country, although they no longer spend their time shadowing citizens and are engaged, instead, in efforts to radically decrease government control over economic and social processes. The collapse of the cumbersome Communist regime should have brought about a simplification and rationalization of state institutions, but in fact the opposite happened: the overall number of state officials increased one and a half times in Russia and doubled in Dagestan. To understand the changes in the nature of the élite it is necessary to carefully examine the differences between the approach of the old and the new élite to the realization of power. The former regime relied on a system of so-called non-economic levers of influence, above all, ‘moral’ and ideological ones (the very concept of power or ideocracy) and law enforcement (the state apparatus of repression). The paradigm of the new order’s realization of power is indifferent to the ideological position of its citizenry. It could be argued that although a certain ideological discourse accompanies their actions and indeed their rule, no conceptual base or new social idea is in evidence. Their primary means of control and subordination are material reward, or, to put it simply, the power of money, combined with the unmitigated use of illegal physical force or the threat of applying such force. The most salient features which characterize the formation of the new élite in Dagestan during the 1990s appear to be: first, an end to the exclusive status of élite groups as a result of the elimination of the hierarchical system of political relations; second, as a consequence of this, the introduction of new principles for élite selection, which in turn generated the third and fourth factors — an increase in the size and greater complexity of the structure of the élite groups and a slackening of their influence and control over the social system. The structure of the stratum, which by the end of the 1990s occupied the top position in Dagestan’s social hierarchy, has not yet been clearly defined. Initially, after the collapse of the communist regime, only minor changes could be observed in the higher echelons of power; its personal composition underwent no radical transformation. However, underlying trends eventually altered the nature of the ruling class rather drastically. By the turn of the century two models of government authority seemed to pertain in Dagestan: authority as a function of the three branches of governmental bureaucracy, and authority as a function of non-government structures, often informal, sometimes latent, whose power derives from heavily-financed, well-organized and usually regional or ethnically-based militias. The very fact of the existence of such a diarchy testifies to the profound crisis which both Dagestan and Russia as a whole were experiencing. Two concepts used in Western sociology can be helpful 330

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in analyzing this dual rule: the first is ‘authority’, defined as a legal capacity for achieving one’s goals within the social system; the other, ‘power’, is its extra-legal equivalent. Though in the former Soviet Union an official distinction was drawn between ‘soviet power’ and the ‘ruling and leading force’ — the CPSU — in reality the structures of authority and power merged into a unified, rigidly structured entity. From the outset, the introduction of democratic election procedures and market relations and the subsequent collapse of the CPSU led to authority and power not only becoming independent of each other, but even confrontational. On the surface, this was not very conspicuous, but it was evident to those directly involved in this clash. Generally speaking, political dualism is inherent in modern pluralistic society. When the entire adult population is given the right to elect candidates to the highest state posts, power structures emerge at the base level of civil society, that are independent of and separate from official state structures. In Dagestan throughout the period of transformation a number of informal activists acquired rather impressive power, some of them ultimately gaining access to levers of authority. The correlation between ‘authority’ and ‘power’ in the Dagestani Olympus can be logically described as the cross section of two overlapping circles. It follows then, that Dagestan’s ruling élite structures actually consist of three rather than two categories: power, authority and the realm which constitutes the intersection of the two. Indisputably, it is the third which is gradually increasing its influence and control, and becoming dominant. The formation of this third category results from two divergent tendencies: on the one hand, the enrichment of top state officials and their active involvement in public and political activity, which is inevitably accompanied by the formation around them of latent support structures based on traditional relationships; on the other hand, the ‘acquisition’ by popular, ‘charismatic leaders’ of mass national movements and by ‘new Dagestanis’ of high government or economic posts by appointment or by democratic election. Both tendencies, via a series of conflict situations, have led to stabilization and consolidation in the ranks of the third category of the élite. Representatives of the first and second category, who failed to make it into the third category since they were unable to acquire the requisite complementary features, have found themselves marginalized within the élite. Because of the difference in status, these representatives tend to hold extremely radical political views. The social and political discourse that has accompanied these tendencies in Dagestan has defined them in terms of ethnic relations. Throughout the stormy decade of the 1990s, the ‘rights’ and ‘interests’ of Dagestan’s numerous nationalities have been the main theme attending the political struggle. It could not have been otherwise. The communist regime which had, in its day, proclaimed slogans of proletarian internationalism had undergone national erosion in the 331

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course of ‘socialist construction’ — primarily in the upper echelons of society. Initially this erosion permeated the artistic élite and then moved on to the political and academic élites. The last 20 to 25 years of the Soviet regime were marked by growing public attention to the ethnic factor. Latent nationalism struck deep roots among the leadership in both centre and periphery, where the practice of personal loyalty gained increasing importance — and it is well known that such adherence operates best within a homogeneous ethnic group. In Dagestan, which is known for its distinctive multi-ethnic structure, most notably among the political élite, mutually dependent mono-ethnic support groups began to arise. By the beginning of perestroika, they were already noticeable to seasoned observers. Later, the republic’s ruling élite, which comprised representatives of its principal nationalities, did not experience any renewal process. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, it lost the support which had come from the collapsed power structure, but found it elsewhere: in the system of personal loyalties among friends, relatives and persons from their own localities and ethnicity. The national movements of the various ethnic groups that were coming into being and gaining strength and prestige among the population, actively confronted the republican authorities, making it necessary for the ruling élite to consolidate vertical inter-ethnic ties. That is why the subsequent political process in Dagestan led to the expansion of the political élite’s influence over the national movements of their respective ethnicities. The republic’s most senior office-holders strove to become leaders of their various national movements and the informal leaders of the national movements endeavoured to attain the highest official posts. To some extent, many members of both groups — though not all of them — achieved their aims. In the course of the transition period of the 1990s, Dagestan’s multinational structure turned into a decisive political factor. Ethnic communities that had not played any political role for a long while, having been mere ‘objects’ of the ‘nationalities policy’ of an authoritarian centralized state, became crucial factors in the political process. The mobilization of political forces took place on the basis not of ideological groups and political parties but of ethnic identity. These facts are manifestly reflected in the Constitution of the Republic of Dagestan adopted in 1994. Before considering the peculiarities of the Dagestani Constitution, it is necessary to examine the concept of ‘consociational democracy’, for in our understanding the present political regime in Dagestan complies with this model to a marked extent. *

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The notion of consociational democracy appeared at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century when the study of the modern political experience of the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Canada and a few other countries revealed a new type of democracy, 332

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which differed from the classical model of democracy adopted in Britain, the US, France and Germany.1 This new type of democracy is characterized by the presence of democratic institutions and political stability in a society possessing a variety of ethnic, cultural and/or confessional groups which all take an active part in political life. Having surfaced in connection with a number of Western countries, the concept of consociational democracy was quickly adapted in studies of certain developing countries, such as Lebanon, Malaysia, Cyprus, Colombia, Uruguay and Nigeria. To understand the sense of this notion, it is essential first and foremost to discard the superficial view that political democracy exists only in societies where the authorities grant the population freedom of speech, assembly and conscience, and where alternative elections are conducted by secret ballot. Unless there exists more than one sufficiently influential and independent political force, all these democratic values become an empty formality or disappear altogether when the first crisis of confidence in the regime occurs. When a disreputable ruling elite, which allows the exercise of certain democratic freedoms, coexists side by side with oppositional forces, and neither prevails, a social and political equilibrium is created which enables the real functioning of democratic institutions. Consociational democracy differs from classical bourgeois democracy, primarily, in that the function of the opposing social and ideological segments of society is performed by either traditional ethnic or confessional communities. Two basic features characterize consociational democracy: first, the presence of a distinct vertical segmentation of the population, i.e. of the various ethno-cultural communities — religious, linguistic, ethnic and racial; and second, a process of political institutionalization of their social interaction, which occurs at the level of the community élites.2 Consociational democracy emerges when a pronounced vertical segmentation of the population into various ethnocultural entities occurs and these sectors become the focus of the political life of the state; interaction among them is institutionalized into fixed social and political structures. In contrast to ‘competitive democracy’ which is based on a majority principle, consociational democracy maintains the principle of proportional representation. The political order in consociational democracies stipulates fixed institutions where all politically significant sectors are necessarily represented in known proportions. Some veto mechanisms have to be elaborated in an effort to prevent attempts to restrict the rights of these politically significant sectors in important spheres of life. All this is reflected in the constitutions of consociational democracies. The model of consociational democracy seems to be a rather effective cognitive tool for the study of political transformation in the FSU/CIS. However, one must be wary of converting this theoretical model into a normative one; that is, one must be careful not to rely on the political experience of this type of democracy in other countries 333

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when recommending the reorganization of political institutions in a specific region such as Dagestan. Political processes are created by the struggle of internally motivated social forces, not by contrivances of political scientists. The trend and configuration of real political processes are the product of too large a number of complex factors for it to be possible to construct and successfully introduce political institutions on the basis of abstract theoretical models. The phenomenon of consociational democracy is generated in the very course of political struggle when there are no prospects for a decisive victory of one side. The conclusion regarding the hopelessness of such a victory does not emanate from theory, but is based on the emergence within society of consociational democratic institutions. Scholars should therefore study the manifestation of political structures within actual political processes rather than superimposed models. In fact, institutions typical of consociational democracy were structured into the Dagestani constitution without those who drafted it being aware of this. *

*

*

The Constitution of the Republic of Dagestan was adopted on 26 June 1994 by the Constitutional Assembly. Its provisions clearly show the political significance of the country’s nationalities as players in its political process. In this way, the Constitution contains provisions that demonstrate the consociational principle in the formation of the republic’s most important political institutions. THE PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF DAGESTAN Article 72 of the Constitution of Dagestan declares that ‘representation of all Dagestan’s ethnic groups’ in the Parliament or People’s Assembly is guaranteed. Moreover, the Law on the Elections to the People’s Assembly stipulates a mechanism that ensures proportional representation for all ethnic groups. Elections to the People’s Assembly are conducted strictly according to a majority system in single mandate constituencies. No seats are earmarked for party lists. The law on elections in Dagestan gives the right to a republican electoral commission to establish so-called ethnic constituencies, that is, constituencies where candidates have to belong to a single ethnic group specified by the commission. This innovation was established and tested during subsequent elections. The prime purpose of this unique system is to resolve two problems. In the first place, it is intended to prevent acute ethnic confrontation in territorial constituencies with a mixed ethnic composition that would inevitably arise in the course of the electoral struggle of candidates belonging to different ethnic groups. The second objective is to secure proportional representation in the parliament, that is, proportional with regard to the total population of Dagestan’s principal ethnicities. Fourteen ethnicities are formally considered principal ones, though nowhere in the Constitution nor in any other legislation is the inventory 334

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of major nationalities specified. However, there is de facto recognition of these fourteen ethnicities as comprising Dagestan’s constituent ethnic groups. The State Council — the highest body of state power in Dagestan — comprises fourteen members and each ethnic group is represented by not more than one member (Chapter 5, Article 88). Of 121 constituencies, 66 were defined as ‘ethnic’ or mono-ethnic.3 Some ethnicities, for instance the Avars, Dargin, Lezgin, Laks, Tabasaran and Nogay (who inhabit Dagestan’s northern plains), and the Rutuls and Aguls, live in solidly mono-ethnic areas. The smallest of the fourteen ethnicities, the Tsakhurs, who inhabit one of the highest mountain areas of the Rutul region, have their own constituency. Others reside almost entirely in multi-ethnic rural regions and towns, for example the Kumyks, Azeris, Chechen, Russians and Tats, or Mountain Jews. In one of the capital Makhachkala’s five constituencies, representatives of any nationality can be put forward. This provision was introduced in order to give Dagestan’s law-makers a case, should they be criticized for depriving members of ethnic groups (not belonging to the above fourteen), the opportunity to become deputies. Table 17.1 gives the statistics on electoral constituencies and representation of the Dagestani nationalities in Parliament. (The data are for the second Parliament, elected in 1999; the composition of the first parliament was very similar.) TABLE 17.1 BREAKDOWN OF THE ‘NATIONAL’ CONSTITUENCIES AND OF NATIONAL REPRESENTATION IN THE DAGESTANI PARLIAMENT (1999 ELECTIONS)

Nationality 1. Avars 2. Dargin 3. Kumyks 4. Lezgin 5. Russian 6. Laks 7. Tabasarans 8. Azeris 9. Chechen 10. Nogay 11. Tats 12. Rutuls 13. Aguls 14. Tsakhurs TOTAL

Number of ‘national constituencies’

Number of representatives in Parliament

12 7 12 4 10 3 5 5 4 1 2 0 0 1 66

33 21 15 14 10 6 6 5 4 2 2 1 1 1 121

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The procedures elaborated in Dagestan have been heavily criticized by the country’s liberal intellectuals. The main failing, the intellectuals argue, is their violation of human rights, namely the right of an individual to stand for election in the district in which he chooses to compete. ‘Medieval restrictions’, they claim, impose limitations on people in accordance with ethnic identity, thus violating modern norms of civic equality. In the elections to the first parliament in 1995, protests were restricted to print and broadcast media. On the eve of the elections to the second parliament in February 1999, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Dagestan heard the complaint of a group of citizens who questioned the constitutionality of ethnic constituencies on the grounds that they restricted civil rights. The court ruled that the regulations which stipulate the possibility of creating ethno-territorial constituencies and the prohibition on registering in them representatives of any ethnic group other than the one specified, did not contradict the Constitution of the Republic of Dagestan. The legal argumentation behind this decision consisted of three main points: First, the Dagestani electoral system is so constructed that the number of ‘ethnic’ constituencies does not coincide with the total number of constituencies; the purpose of introducing them was to secure representation of the ethnic minorities. According to the Constitution of the Russian Federation (Article 72, Paragraph B, Section 1), the protection of minority rights is delegated to joint federal and local jurisdiction. Laws relating to this issue are adopted at the federal level and applied with the aid of regulatory statutes issued regionally. (Article 76, Section 2). In this way, the regions (subjects) of the Russian Federation have the right to adopt their own normative statutes to protect the rights of ethnic minorities. The second contention of the Dagestani Constitutional Court was that it followed from Articles 1, 2, 4 and 5 of the Constitution of the Republic of Dagestan that the principle of the equality of the peoples of Dagestan was one of the foundations of its constitutional system. As no other provision of the constitution can contradict the fundamentals of the constitutional order, legislators have to make the guarantee of the equality of citizens’ electoral rights comply with the principle of the equality of all the peoples of Dagestan. This may entail restricting citizens’ rights in order to implement the principle of equality and protect the rights of ethnic minorities. The restriction involved in the establishment of ethno-territorial constituencies does not mean ‘depriving citizens of the right to be elected to representative organs through general constituencies and ethno-territorial constituencies in accordance with their ethnicity’. The third point made by the republican constitutional court was that the norms of Dagestan’s electoral law also ‘comply with the content of Article 4 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of 1 February 1995 (ratified by the Federal Law of 18 June 336

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1998) which stipulates that when necessary, all parties are obligated to take appropriate measures to encourage the full and real equality of national minorities and the main ethnic groups in all spheres (economic, social, political and cultural). Likewise, they are obliged to take into account the special status of persons belonging to minorities (Article 4, Section 2). Measures to be taken in accordance with Section 2 are not considered acts of discrimination (Article 4, Section 3). Analogous norms can be found in a large number of other acts of international law. Apart from ethnic constituencies, the Dagestani election law establishes the right of the Central Election Commission to institute socalled ‘women’s constituencies’ and ‘professional constituencies’. The argument for creating the former is that unless women are provided with separate constituencies where they can run for election, there will not be a single woman in parliament. The justification for the latter is as follows: Most candidates for parliament occupy posts which they do not wish to abandon upon election. As a result it is difficult to find parliament members who are willing to perform the actual work of legislation. For this reason 25 ‘professional constituencies’, designed for trained lawyers and economists, were established, and those elected to them were obliged to relinquish their positions in civilian life and take up professional activity in parliament. Only those who had higher education, were trained in an appropriate field, and were prepared to relinquish their jobs could register as candidates in these constituencies. The norms for establishing female and professional constituencies were disputed both from a theoretical and a practical viewpoint. They were frequently violated and no law could ensure their enforcement. At the same time, the norms regarding ethnic constituencies were never violated nor were there attempts to do so. In 1999 Dagestan’s Constitutional Court ruled the introduction of female and professional constituencies to be unconstitutional, though some female constituencies were retained, thanks to which several women entered parliament. THE STATE COUNCIL OF THE REPUBLIC OF DAGESTAN The highest executive power in Dagestan is a collective body, the State Council of the Republic of Dagestan, consisting, in accordance with the republican constitution, of fourteen members (see above). After being elected by secret and alternative ballot by the members of the Constitutional Assembly of the Republic of Dagestan (see below), the Chairman of the State Council proposes a candidate for the post of prime minister. According to the republican constitution, a candidate for the premiership can not belong to the ethnic group of the Chairman of the State Council. The prime minister becomes a member and first deputy chairman of the State Council. Consequently, any other person belonging to the prime minister’s ethnic group can not stand for election to the State Council. The remainder of the Council’s composition is determined by a complicated procedure. Each member of the Constitutional Assembly 337

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has the right to nominate a candidate; the three who receive the most votes in each ethnic group are then placed on a ballot. In a second round of voting within the Assembly, one candidate is elected from each group. THE CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF DAGESTAN The Constitutional Assembly, which adopted the constitution, approves all constitutional changes, elects the head of state — the Chairman of the State Council, and the highest collective organ of state power — the State Council. The Constitutional Assembly consists of 242 persons and is formed in strict observance of the principal of proportional representation of Dagestan’s main nationalities. The Constitutional Assembly consists of all 121 parliamentary deputies and an equivalent number of additional members elected in the same territorial constituencies and from the same ethnicities, but to the representative bodies of local government — district and municipal assemblies. In this way, the ethnic proportion of parliament is retained and the Constitutional Assembly constitutes, as it were, a duplicate People’s Assembly. Certain rules regulating the ethnic balance are not fixed in the constitution, in legislation, or in any other form of written regulation, but are always strictly observed in practice in the appointment of personnel. Thus, by unwritten law, the speaker of the People’s Assembly has to belong to some other ethnic group than that of either the chairman of the State Council or the prime minister. The deputy prime ministers are, as a rule, of different ethnic backgrounds. The same holds for the deputy speakers of the People’s Assembly, the chairmen of parliamentary committees and the heads of departments at the State Council. The ethnic factor is also taken into account in the appointment of rectors of universities, directors of scientific institutes, and other posts. The Dagestani constitution also embodies a ‘right of mutual veto’ that enables the effective blocking of attempts to promote and adopt laws which infringe on the ethno-cultural and territorial prerogatives of Dagestan’s nationalities. Article 81, Paragraph 22 reads: ‘When issues relating to changes in the administrative territorial structure, as well as in the demographic, linguistic, social, economic and cultural spheres of the life of the peoples of Dagestan are considered, and in the event of a deputy or group of deputies from the territory under discussion disagreeing with the proposed draft, a decision can only be reached after mutual procedures by a majority of no less than two-thirds of the total number of members of the People’s Assembly.’5 * * * It is thus apparent that Dagestan’s institutions of power and the procedures for forming them, which have been laid down since 1994, correspond in their main features to the model of consociational democracy. At the same time, the analysis of political practice, namely 338

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the processes that are hidden from the public eye and are not reflected in the public and political discourse of consociational procedure, require us to make some clarifications. This applies, for example, to the adoption of crucial political decisions or appointments to top official posts and the actual conduct of election campaigns. The ethnic discourse that has dominated the Dagestani public consciousness does not reflect the true structure of political forces in the republic. The issue at hand is not the nationalism of the Dagestanis but multi-faceted intellectual approaches to social and political processes viewed in terms of an ethnic matrix. A society constructed on the principles of consociational democracy may be likened to the architectural constructs of the ‘colonnade’, in that it is composed of vertical sectors which together comprise society — the traditional ethnic or religious communities — and the ‘portico’, referring to the political élite which is supported by its columns and unites internally by way of endemic agreement, thus reinforcing the whole edifice. ‘At the apex of this social “edifice”, reconciliation takes place and agreements on the basis of compromise are reached among the élites of these social communities.’6 It is easy to imagine how this imagery could be applied to Dagestan. The colonnade would be comprised of ethnic groups: Avars (27.9 per cent); Aguls (0.7 per cent); Azerbaijanis (4.3 per cent); Dargin (16.1 per cent); Kumyks (12.9 per cent); Laks (5 per cent); Lezgin (12.2 per cent); Nogay (1.6 per cent); Russians (7 per cent); Rutuls (0.8 per cent); Tabasarans (4.5 per cent), Tats (0.8 per cent); Tsakhurs (0.3 per cent); and Chechen (4.4 per cent). The portico linking them together into a single whole would consist of 14 members of the State Council (one member from each of these ethnic groups) and the deputies of the Parliament, whose ethnic representation corresponds to their share in the total population. The real players in the political process in Dagestan, however, as has been shown by sociological surveys conducted since 1993 on electoral behaviour and election campaigns, on the actual functioning of the political process in resolving conflicts and on the policy of appointments to top official posts, are those organizations which, as a rule, do not take part in the political discourse and so, as it were, do not formally exist. They reveal themselves when one penetrates the surface and begins paying attention to specific cases of political interaction. These local, sub-ethnic, clan-based structures (sometimes called ethno-parties) possess all the structural attributes of West European political parties, and above all: the necessary share of ideological consensus and corporate interest required for mobilization of social forces; an organizational structure consisting of one or several prestigious leaders and sufficient activists to carry out the necessary activity; financial backing from representatives of the wealthy élite and grass root support. The difference between these informal sub-ethnic structures and Western political parties is that their leaders and those that constitute the 339

ENVER KISRIEV

mass and the financial base of their activities, are all representatives of a single sub-national ethnic community at the level of a rural settlement or group of adjoining settlements, known traditionally in Dagestan as a jama‘at.7 While the key components of these structures — their leaders and financial and grass root support — pertain to a single ethnic group, or to a very close-knit ethno-cultural community, one finds people of different ethnic groups among their functionaries or activists. In fact, none of Dagestan’s ethnicities boasts a single political centre. Since these political structures serve the interests of specific communities, they do not, by definition, extend to the entire ethnicity. Their leaders, moreover, often refrain from joining with other groups of their own ethnicity, preferring, when they deem it expedient, to form alliances with political structures of other ethnicities rather than with their own co-ethnics. The view that Dagestanis vote invariably for representatives of their own ethnicity and that the ruling élite is consolidated according to ethnic principles is axiomatic among the public, but this is far from being the case. When the first elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation took place in December 1993 in the Buinaksk electoral district, which encompasses the entire historical region of upper Dagestan, one representative remained on the list of candidates at the end of the preliminary round from each of the following groups: Avars, Kumyks, Lezgin and Laks. This seemed to support the standard perception of the population’s ethnically-oriented electoral behaviour. At the same time, the strongest claimant for a seat in the Russian Parliament, the Dargin Hamid Hamidov, had two Dargin rivals who refused to withdraw their candidacy to ease his way to victory and deprived him of no less than one-quarter of all Dargin votes. Furthermore, although the Dargin population of the electoral district comprised no more than about 21 per cent, Hamidov received 45 per cent of the vote. In the 1996 elections to the State Duma, another curious situation occurred in the Makhachkala electoral district. Here, four respected Avar leaders impeded each other’s attempts to win the elections. Instead, Nadir Khachilaev, a representative of the small Lak minority, became a deputy with 27 per cent of the vote. The 1996 campaign and mayoral elections which took place in the Dagestan capital, eloquently affirm the thesis that, in spite of what is expressed in the political discourse, it is not nationalities that are the real subject of the political process in Dagestan, but specific ‘parties’, which are based on a more tightly knit, traditional community. In the 1999 by-election to the State Duma of the Russian Federation in the Buinaksk electoral district, the Lezgin Mahomed-Fazil Azizov replaced the Avar Ramazan Abdulatipov, who was appointed deputy prime minister of the Russian Federation. In the course of the electoral campaign, after the Avar Haji Makhachev withdrew his candidacy, the Avar National Movement which he headed decided to support one ‘of 340

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their own’, Arkadii Ganiyev, whose chances of success were very slight, rather than the Avar Mahomed Aliyev, who had a real chance of winning and had the support of Abdulatipov. The real struggle was indeed between Aliyev and Azizov, who won with an impressive 54 per cent of the vote. Predictably, the winner was supported by his compatriots, receiving 60,000 votes as against Aliyev’s 150 in five exclusively Lezgin districts. Altogether, in southern Dagestan, which includes the Rutul, Agul, Khiv, Tabasaran and Derbent districts, Azizov obtained 130,000 votes and Aliyev — 20,000. The opposite picture prevailed in the ‘purely’ Avar districts. In ten such districts, Aliyev received approximately 72,000 votes and Azizov — 11,000. But there were interesting exceptions to the rule: in one ‘purely’ Avar district, 4,000 out of 7,000 voters gave their votes to Azizov. Azizov’s final victory was secured in the Dargin districts, where he won 53,000 votes against his rival’s 24,000. It is therefore evident that the ethnic factor does not determine but often actually conceals the real forces at work in the political process in Dagestan. There is even greater pluralism of political forces in Dagestani society than would be the case if it were differentiated solely on ethnic grounds. There is a more intricate interaction of alliances of political groupings, a higher level of organization of informal, local and clanbased structures — and, finally, a broader range of pretexts for potential conflicts among them. Given these factors, there seems to be no danger of the republic disintegrating along ethnic lines. The deep-rooted level of activity of these political mechanisms guarantees the operation of consociational democracy. It is further ensured by the process of democratic elections in Dagestan. Under present circumstances of enduring and bitter confrontations among the country’s numerous political leaders and a general recognition that there are no prospects for any political force to achieve ‘ultimate’ victory, the procedures of democratic elections are the only means to avoid outright violence and at the same time to enable candidates not to lose face in the event of defeat. It is precisely this functional need for democratic procedures — repeated referendums on the adoption of a presidential system headed by an individual executive (which was rejected), alternative elections for Chairman of the State Council, parliamentary elections and elections of regional and municipal administrations — which leads to a positive assessment of prospects for the democratic development of the Dagestani body politic. NOTES 1. See the chapters by Pål Kolstø and Ildus Ilishev in this volume. 2. M. Dogan and D. Pelassi, ‘Sravnitel’naia politicheskaia sotsiologiia’, Sotsial’nopoliticheskii zhurnal (1994), pp. 134–47. 3. Since this chapter was completed, Dagestan’s electoral system has been modified. See Robert Bruce Ware and Enver Kisriev, ‘Prospects for Political Stability and Economic Development in Dagestan’, Central Asian Survey 2 (2002), p. 156.

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4. 5. 6. 7.

Dagestanskaia pravda, 2 Feb. 1999. Konstitutsiia Respubliki Dagestan (Makhachkala, 1994). Dogan and Pelassi, ‘Sravnitel’naia politicheskaia sotsiologiia’, p. 135. The jama‘at is the basic civil and political unit of traditional organization in Dagestani life. It is territorial, not based on tribe or blood relationship — but a civil structure with its own written laws (adats) and clearly defined borders. It is analogous to the city-state or polis of the ancient Greeks. Hitherto this atomized political structure has attracted the attention only of ethnographers. The best-known works on this subject are those of Mamaikhan Aglarov, notably his Sel’skaia obshchina v Nagornom Dagestane v XVIII- nachale XIXvv.: issledovanie vzaimootnosheniia form khoziaistva sotsial’nykh struktur i etnosa (Moscow: Nauka, 1988). The internal structure of individual jama‘ats, vary, but they have always had two main functions: first, they created a sharp political distinction between their members and outsiders; affiliation to the jama‘at constituted people’s strongest source of identification and this sense of belonging was strengthened by the laws of the jama‘at. Second, the jama‘at served to bridle the force of clan — tukhum — identity. The laws of the jama‘at emphasized solidarity of its members, civil order and political integrity and discouraged clan alliances and conflicts. For a discussion of the jama’at see also the chapter by Moshe Gammer in this volume. The ethnic/tribal structure of the Dagestani population, which was observed by travelers and historians from ancient times to the present, was of no political import except in the communist period when the ethnic factor took centre stage and concealed Dagestan’s traditional structures. The significance attributed to Dagestan’s ethnic composition dates from the period of ‘socialist construction’ in the 1920s and 1930s and derives from the framework of Marxist conceptions regarding the national question. In my view, however, the approach which conceives of the jama‘at as the main traditional structure of political organization in Dagestan has proved itself. Moreover, in the changing circumstances, it has taken on a different aspect and acquired exceptional significance, which substantially enhances our understanding of the internal workings of the political processes in Dagestan.

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18 Ethnic Relations and Democratic Transition in the North-Western Caucasus SVANTE E. CORNELL Among the North Caucasian republics of the Russian Federation, a difference in political development can be observed between republics which have experienced political transitions and instituted some form of multi-candidate elections for positions of leadership, and those where such a transition has not taken place and where the remnants of the Soviet nomenklatura still control positions of power. In principle, it is possible to discern a group of republics which reflect political change: Chechnya, North Ossetia, Ingushetia and Adygeia; and a group which has largely been bypassed by such processes: Dagestan, KarachaiCherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria. The most striking observation is that those that have been most neglected by the processes of political transition are the multi-ethnic republics of the region. Chechnya, Ingushetia, and North Ossetia are all dominated by one titular ethnic group: Adygeia is a special case insofar as it has had a consistent Russian majority but is politically dominated by the Adyge. However, Dagestan, Karachai-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria are multi-ethnic societies in which no group forms a demographic majority (see Table 18.1). Dagestan is ethnically and demographically the most complex territory of the entire region, with over thirty ethnic groups, the largest (the Avars) representing less than 30 per cent of the population. The two republics in the north-western Caucasus, KarachaiCherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria, do not contain the plethora of ethnic groups present in Dagestan, but the fact remains that no group is in a majority position. This chapter seeks to explore the connection between ethnic structure and ethnic relations in these two republics and the problems associated with democratization in the region. It will attempt to show that the ethnic structure of the region carries with it salient risks for the democratization process; in fact, the process itself, if carried out thoughtlessly, could bring about a deterioration of ethnic relations and even precipitate ethnic conflict.

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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The western part of the North Caucasus is inhabited by two groups of peoples. The first group is the indigenous Circassian peoples, composed of the Adyge (having their own republic centred in Maikop), the Kabardins and the Cherkess. The Circassian languages are divided by linguists into western and eastern families. The western is spoken by the Adyge and the Cherkess, while the eastern dialect is spoken by the Kabardins. The dialects are mutually understandable, and are considered to be part of the same language.1 Once a numerous and strong people — until the Russian ‘pacification’ of the region following the suppression of the North Caucasian rebellions in 1862–64, whereby a large portion of the population emigrated — the Circassians now number fewer than 700,000 in the Caucasus, with a large diaspora in Turkey and in the Middle East estimated at one million. In the Caucasus itself, the Kabardins are the largest of the sub-groups, numbering almost 400,000. The second group, the Karachai and Balkars, live in the high valleys of the central North Caucasus, and speak a common language, part of the Kipchak family of Turkic languages. They came to the mountain areas they presently inhabit in the thirteenth century, and number fewer than 300,000, the Karachai being roughly twice as numerous as the Balkars.2 Throughout history, the Kabardins have been considered the most pro-Russian of all Muslim Caucasian mountaineers, and their feudal élite was co-opted with great success by the Russians during their conquest of the Caucasus.3 The western Circassian tribes are substantially more anti-Russian in their attitudes than the Kabardins.4 Islam is, generally speaking, stronger among the Karachai-Balkars than among the Circassians, particularly after the deportations of 1943–57. The position of the Qadiryya brotherhoods, which were imported from ChechenoIngushetia, is strong.5 TABLE 18.1 DEMOGRAPHIC STRUCTURE OF THE NORTH-WESTERN CAUCASUS, 1989 (PER CENT) Republic

Karachai/Balkar

Circassians

Karachai-Cherkessia

31

9.6 Cherkess 6.5 Abaza6

Kabardino-Balkaria

9

48

Russians

Others

42.5

10.4

32

11

The two groups inhabit roughly the same area, which since the 1920s has been divided into two autonomous units within the Russian Federation: the Karachai-Cherkess and the Kabardino-Balkar republics. It is interesting to note that this division cuts across ethnic lines. As the Circassians typically live to the north, and the Karachai-Balkar in the mountainous south of both republics, it would actually have been 344

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possible to create two ethnically homogeneous, and, in this sense, potentially more stable units: for instance, a Karachai-Balkar and a Kabardino-Cherkess republic. Instead, Stalin’s divide et impera policy was applied to create two ethnically heterogeneous units, based on an alleged need to create economically viable entities — a somewhat peculiar claim in a centralized Soviet economy. This in itself did not bode well for the future; to make matters worse, the northern boundaries of these units were drawn further north than the territories actually populated by the Caucasian peoples. This led to the inclusion of areas heavily populated by Slavs, who, moreover, were mostly Cossacks (especially in Karachai-Cherkessia) — bearers of age-old animosities towards the Muslims to the south. Thus, the Turkic group forms a majority in Karachai-Cherkessia, and the Circassians in KabardinoBalkaria. The demographic structure of the two republics, as recorded in the 1989 Soviet population census, is described in Table 18.1. The relations between the Karachai-Balkars and the Circassian peoples have been historically tumultuous — mostly due to the fact that the former were the vassals of the Kabardin nobility from the fifteenth century onwards.7 An additional source of tension is the distinction between foothillers and mountaineers that can be observed elsewhere, for instance in neighbouring North Ossetia and Ingushetia. The Kabardins, in particular, regard themselves as one of the most advanced Caucasian peoples and tend to look down on the Balkars as inferior and primitive.8 The Balkars, to be sure, have a generally lower level of education — due in large part to the disruption caused by the 1944 deportation. It should be noted that there is no particularly explosive territorial issue of the magnitude of the Prigorodnyi Raion in North Ossetia.9 However, certain territories are in dispute — in particular, currently mixed territories inhabited exclusively by Balkars before the deportation; the Balkars upon their return were not resettled in their ancestral lands in the mountains but in other parts of the republic. In the event of a division of the respective republics, such territories could form a basis for conflict. Although these republics, in the words of one analyst, are ‘situated in a region where conflicts rage with double the usual power, and there is a mountain “code of honour” linking families, clans and regions in ways that supersede administrative divisions’, inter-ethnic relations have, on the whole, been relatively harmonious. Even in the aftermath of the return of the Karachai and Balkars from deportation in Central Asia, these peoples have been able to live together without serious problems, and mixed marriages seem not to have been uncommon.10 Throughout the 1990s tensions existed on two fronts: between the two groups and the Cossacks; and between the Turkic peoples and the Circassians. The Cossacks settled in the area during the wars of the 19th century, having been used by the imperial centre as a type of watchdog over the Muslim peoples.11 Discussions throughout the 1990s in 345

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Moscow pertaining to granting Cossack paramilitaries a semi-official status prompted a strong outcry on the part of the Muslim population. In spite of this protest, the Russian government has shown signs of returning to its traditional policy of using the Cossacks as a tool and ally in the North Caucasus. As early as 1993, certain Cossack units stationed in the Caucasus were integrated into the Russian armed forces. Cossack units even patrolled the streets at night.12 The same year tensions rose in Karachai-Cherkessia after Cossacks were blamed for putting pig carcasses in mosques. The mobilization of Cossacks was prompted by a decrease of Russian influence in the Caucasus since the late 1980s and by the parallel process of enhanced national consciousness among the Muslim peoples. The Cossacks fear a division of the Karachai-Cherkess republic into separate Karachai and Cherkess units, which would split the Cossack settlements, as well. The Cossacks would like to have their stanitsy (settlements) ruled from neighbouring Krasnodar, a Russian provincial centre.13 There is a distinct possibility that Russia is using the Cossacks as a lever against separatism on the part of the Karachai and the Cherkess.14 Accordingly, the spectre of a Cossack rebellion, possibly supported by Moscow, would deter the Muslim population from making their separatist claims more vocal. The Cossacks of northern Chechnya, for example, seem to have been encouraged by Moscow in the years 1997–99 in their campaign to sever two districts from the semiindependent republic and annex them to Russia.15 . INTER-ETHNIC RELATIONS The present tensions between the Karachai/Balkars on the one hand, and the Kabardins/Cherkess on the other, have several dimensions. The main problem is the desire of certain groups in all four communities to detach their people from the present administrative structure and form new, ethnically more homogeneous units. Such claims naturally have territorial implications, as no ethnically ‘pure’ division can be made of any of the two republics due to the overlapping settlement patterns. Events in the late 1990s served to further polarize the ethnic relations between the two groups and to increase tensions. It is useful to note that in both republics, the most ardent advocates of political change are the peoples who were subjected to deportation, that is, the Karachai in November 1943 and the Balkars in April 1944. This fact serves to underline the importance of the social, economic and political legacy of the deportation, when almost an entire generation was deprived of regular education and prevented from pursuing traditional lifestyles. Moreover, upon returning after 1957, some, instead of being allowed to reside in their former areas of domicile, were ‘resettled’. It is surely not incidental that the main areas of political unrest in the North Caucasus are associated with the ‘repressed’ peoples. The war in Chechnya is the most blatant example; the conflict between Ingushetia and North Ossetia is another. 346

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KARACHAI-CHERKESSIA The Karachai, led by a national movement named Jamagat, began lobbying for a division of the Autonomous Oblast in 1988. Moscow responded by raising the status of the region to an ASSR. However, the Jamagat, in their quest for full territorial rehabilitation, saw a Karachai republic — which they had enjoyed from 1926–44 — as the only acceptable solution. By 1990, the Cherkess had formed their own movement, called Adygei-Khasa, which defended the integrity of Karachai-Cherkessia. A referendum held in 1992 showed that over 75 per cent of the population desired to retain a unified republic.16 The results placed Jamagat’s following in doubt. However, the formulation of the question posed by the republican authorities: ‘Given the implementation of the Law on the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples and the principle of equal rights of all peoples, do you agree that the integrity of Karachai-Cherkessia should be maintained?’, served to confuse and split a great part of the Karachai vote, as a ‘no’ vote would, in the eyes of many, imply negating the implementation of the law on rehabilitation as well as the principle of equality of peoples. Moreover, many Karachai may have seen the possibility of majority status in a unified republic as more favourable than a smaller, albeit more homogeneous, Karachai republic. Higher birth-rates and limited Russian emigration may make the former a reality within the not too distant future; the Karachai by the beginning of the millennium probably composed over 40 per cent of the republic’s population.17 Still, there is no doubt about the way the Karachai people viewed their political status in the late 1990s: survey results showed 98 per cent of Karachai respondents replying negatively to the question, ‘Are you satisfied with the current political status of your people?’18 Karachai-Cherkessia’s political landscape was one of the last in the Russian Federation to be liberalized. The republic was ruled by former President Vladimir Khubiyev between 1979 and 1999. Khubiyev had never been elected to the post but had been appointed to the leading office of the Autonomous Oblast under Soviet rule and was later reappointed by Yeltsin. As pressure grew both locally and from the Centre for elections to be held, Khubiyev defied a supreme court ruling of April 1997, and tried to retain power by postponing elections.19 By January 1998, Khubiyev was the only non-elected republican leader in the Russian Federation, and public protests had emerged against his leadership — a new phenomenon in the republic.20 Sixty thousand signatures had been collected to force elections by June 1998.21 In September, the republican parliament passed legislation that provided for direct elections to the post of president, which were subsequently held. Vladimir Semenov, a former army general and commander of Russia’s ground forces, announced his candidacy for president. This was greeted with enthusiasm by the people, as high-ranking military officers in general enjoy respect in the North Caucasus. Members of deported nationalities who reach the rank of general are viewed with particular 347

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admiration, since their origins clearly created a major obstacle to their army careers. Johar Dudayev in Chechnya and Ruslan Aushev in Ingushetia are examples of high-ranking officers who managed to rally their people around them; Sufyan Beppayev had the potential to do the same among the Balkars. Semenov’s ascent to power may mean yet another leader in power in the North Caucasus, who is potentially hostile to Moscow and positively inclined towards Chechnya.22 Semenov is of Karachai nationality but has a Russian mother, and therefore is able to appeal to the two largest communities in the republic. The main challenger to Semenov was Stanislav Derev, a Cherkess businessman, who heads several large industrial firms producing vodka, mineral water and furniture. Derev was also the mayor of the republican capital, Cherkessk. Derev could count on the votes of the Cherkess and Abazin communities, as well as a substantial number of Russians, especially Cossacks, with whom he has tried to maintain a good relationship. The unpopular incumbent Khubiyev was left far behind the two other candidates at an early stage. The results of the first round of elections, which had a high participation rate of 73 per cent showed Derev as front-runner with 40 per cent of the vote, and Semenov coming in second with 17 per cent. Semenov’s poor showing was explained by the fact that the Karachai vote had been split between several candidates, including Khubiyev who received almost 7 per cent.23 As no candidate received a majority of votes, a runoff election was held; however the campaign leading up to the runoff elections was characterized by increasing tension between the Karachai and Cherkess communities and violent political acts, including an arson attack against Derev’s offices. It became clear that neither of the two candidates would readily accept defeat.24 The runoff was held on 16 May, and the elections were marred by irregularities. A significant number of polling stations never opened; it seems that several, mainly Cherkess, areas refused to participate in the runoff as they accused Semenov’s followers of manipulating the elections and only 63 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballots. The results completely overturned the first round, giving Semenov close to 75 per cent of the vote and Derev 20 per cent.25 Still, it is not clear that a higher turnout would have made a difference to the outcome. Derev nevertheless demanded that the elections be declared invalid, arguing that the only alternative to new elections would be to divide the republic into separate Karachai and Cherkess entities.26 The Russian Central Election Commission was unable to resolve the crisis, as seven of its fourteen members voted to uphold the elections and seven for them to be declared invalid. On 10 June, the republican supreme court upheld the electoral results;27 however, the Federal Supreme Court urged the lower court to review its decision in light of all available information.28 Derev proceeded to intensify his campaign of splitting the republic into ethnic entities. The fate of the Russian-populated, mixed, and Cossack areas, however, would continue to hamper any 348

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efforts to alleviate tensions between the two communities. In an attempt to calm tensions and prevent an ethnic conflict, Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin visited Cherkessk unexpectedly on 24 May, dispatching interior ministry forces and urging the creation of a provisional government until the validity of the elections was decided.29 This intervention by Moscow was a positive sign, showing a constructive attitude rather than, as has often been the case, merely reacting to developments after they had already gotten out of hand. On 22 October, the Russian Supreme Court endorsed the ruling of the republican court, settling the matter in Semenov’s favour. However, the Russian government’s involvement continued after the advent to power of hardliner Vladimir Putin. The day after the final ruling, Putin met with Semenov and Derev in Moscow together with Boris Berezovskii, who announced his plans to contest a Duma seat from Karachai-Cherkessia. As a compromise solution, it was agreed that a referendum would be held on 22 October 2000 ‘to determine whether the republic’s population trusts Semenov’.30 It confirmed the results of the elections. Berezovsky’s presence was especially intriguing; in fact, Semenov and Derev, in an attempt to defuse the situation, suggested Berezovskii be appointed interim president of the republic. While this did not happen, Berezovskii’s interest in the republic was thought likely to bring economic benefits, especially, perhaps, to Derev, who is by far the most important businessman in Karachai-Cherkessia.31 However Berezovskii’s exit from the political scene put an end to such hopes. Hence, whereas direct conflict was averted in Karachai-Cherkessia, in great part due to the intervention of the central government, the elections of 1999 served to further polarize the society along ethnic lines. KABARDINO-BALKARIA In Kabardino-Balkaria, the Balkars with their history of deportation, have been the most vocal advocates of political change. Whereas Kabardin political aims have been restricted to more autonomy from Moscow and a proportional distribution of political power with the Balkars,32 the latter, heavily inferior in numbers to the Kabardins, fear that demographic changes in the republic — a lower growth rate of the Russian population, coupled with emigration of Russians — will ultimately give the Kabardins a majority position in the republic. Indeed, this may have already occurred.33 The Balkars, just like the Karachai, claimed full territorial redress — the right to return to highland villages, and even a separate Balkar republic, or at least a federative structure within the republic. The Balkars complained about being the ‘poorest segment of the population of the republic’, and about the fact that all major political posts were held by Kabardins.34 The primary claim of the Balkars, nevertheless, concerned certain territorial districts which before the deportations were inhabited by Balkars but were resettled by other nationalities, and have since their return been disputed by both peoples.35 349

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Tensions first surfaced in 1991, when a Balkar Congress declared the creation of a Balkar republic which would remain in a federalized Kabardino-Balkaria. A referendum took place on 29 December 1991, in which 85 per cent of eligible Balkar voters cast ballots; 94.8 per cent voted in favour of the creation of a Balkar Republic.36 However, the republican leadership ignored the results, and instead, carried out an improperly designed opinion poll of its own that showed support among Balkars for retaining the existing republican structure. This opinion poll was later termed a ‘referendum’, and taken as proof of Balkar acceptance of the united republic. Balkar grievances resurfaced in November 1996, when a congress of the Balkar people voted to establish a sovereign republic of Balkaria, requesting that the Russian presidency establish direct presidential rule in the region until the necessary institutions were formed.37 The congress elected a former commander of the Transcaucasian Military District, Sufyan Beppayev, as chairman of the new Balkar state council. The Kabardin president of Kabardino-Balkaria quickly declared the decision unconstitutional, accusing the Balkar delegates of ‘unbridled nationalist extremism’ and of ‘flagrantly flouting’ the constitution of the republic.38 Criminal proceedings were opened against the initiators of the resolution by the republican procurator’s office, while the central ministry of justice confirmed the unconstitutionality of the act. Nor was the situation ameliorated by the fact that the congress formed a ‘Balkar Ministry of Internal Affairs’, which pledged to organize self-defence detachments in Balkar communities. Since these events took place only a week before the final date for submission of documents for the presidential elections in the republic, they were evidently politically motivated. The incumbent president, Valerii Kokov, was the only candidate, and ran unopposed (which, in itself, was unconstitutional) in the elections held on 12 January 1997. Although the elections themselves took place without any mishaps, the situation in the republic remained unstable: a bomb exploded in the parliament building of the republic four days before the elections, but did not cause bodily harm. In the aftermath of the congress, systematic persecution of delegates as well as arrests, searches and interrogations took place. Basically, the republican leadership had decided to forcefully suppress the Balkar movement. Beppayev later distanced himself from earlier remarks that had been more radical and confrontational,39 and was co-opted into the leadership of the republic, accepting a position as head of the Commission for the Rehabilitation of the Balkar People. Beppayev saw himself as a saviour, who prevented Kabardino-Balkaria from turning into another Chechnya, but seemed to lose significant support among the population due to his actions, indeed even being seen by some as a traitor.40 Although the republican leadership managed to suppress the Balkar movement, some signs of political unrest appeared in the late 1990s and the situation remained volatile. The government of the republic was for all practical purposes a dictatorship (identified by the 350

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Balkars with the ethnic Kabardin élite) whose loyalty to the central government ensured that the latter ignore the situation. The Balkar national movement lost hope; however, popular resentment over the situation and the politics of the authorities seemed universal and cohesive as was shown by fieldwork carried out in the republic at the close of the 1990s.41 Obviously, the present situation is not tenable in the long run. The Kokov regime can not perpetuate its position of power indefinitely, and when a transition does take place, Balkar claims are certain to re-emerge with increased strength. Naturally, the events in Karachai-Cherkessia had a strong impact on this republic. Unrest there could very easily spread to KabardinoBalkaria or vice-versa, given the close identification of Karachais and Balkars and of Kabardins and Cherkess. A split in one republic could lead to redrawing — or at least attempts to redraw — the map of both republics, with unforeseeable consequences. The impact of a popularly elected Karachai president in Karachai-Cherkessia on the situation in Kabardino-Balkaria has nevertheless remained limited. POTENTIAL FOR CONFLICT The western part of the North Caucasus, then, has a clear potential for further unrest. The situation was volatile in Karachai-Cherkessia in 1999, and although it calmed down, the political scene has remained ethnically polarized. In Kabardino-Balkaria, the suppression of the Balkar movement is likely to generate instability in the middle to long term, although unrest may be avoided in the short term. The affinity of ethnic groups across republican lines implies a significant risk that escalation in one republic will automatically spill over to the other, engulfing the entire north-western Caucasus. It is, however, difficult to estimate the actual popular weight of the conflicting demands. The spectre of destruction in Chechnya, and to a lesser degree in the IngushOssetian Prigorodnyi conflict in 1992, may have a cooling effect on North Caucasians for some time. Whereas the initial response from Moscow to the unrest in Kabardino-Balkaria did not seem to differ from past trends, the Stepashin government attempted to adopt a constructive approach to the unrest in Karachai-Cherkessia. The accession to leadership of hard-liner Vladimir Putin does not seem to have altered this attitude as far as the north-west Caucasus is concerned. Yet, while the potential for conflict is high in both KabardinoBalkaria and Karachai-Cherkessia, it is possible that the Circassians and Karachai-Balkars will continue to live together — or rather side by side — with only minor disturbances. On the other hand, the ease with which tensions have escalated into skirmishing in other parts of the Caucasus does not give cause for optimism. One notable fact, however, is that all the peoples concerned are Muslim, and in the post-Soviet Caucasus, no major struggle has so far pitted one Muslim people against another. Whether this is a variable to be reckoned with or a mere coincidence, however, remains to be seen. 351

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THE FAILURE OF DEMOCRATIZATION As the above discussion has highlighted, the process of democratization in these republics has been incomplete, delayed and flawed. Even in a regional context, political transition in the two republics has remained slow. Chechnya was the first republic to achieve political transition in late 1991, albeit in a less than orderly fashion. Whereas Chechnya’s first steps were in a somewhat democratic direction, authoritarianism was prevalent from 1993; nevertheless, following the 1994–96 war, Chechnya succeeded in completing a democratic transition during and following the elections of January 1997. In 1998, Chechnya again degenerated into lawlessness, for both internal and external reasons. Its close ethnic neighbour Ingushetia has been a somewhat different case. Since this entity was created in June 1992, it experienced a brief but unresolved war with North Ossetia in October of the same year. It was just building its political institutions when the 1994–96 Russian war in Chechnya flooded the republic with refugees whose numbers were roughly equivalent to its total population. This process was repeated in October 1999.42 Thus, Ingushetia has not had ideal conditions for a democratic transition, although General Ruslan Aushev ruled the republic with relatively wide popular support. Its neighbour and foe, North Ossetia, has been more lucky. Having been staunchly pro-Soviet in the early 1990s, North Ossetia experienced an orderly democratic transition with the presidential election of 1997 which led to Aleksandr Dzasokhov replacing Aksharbek Galazov. In Adygeia, despite the minority position of the Adyge, who number less than a quarter of the republic’s population (the remainder being mainly ethnic Russians), democratic elections which took place in 1997 led to the re-election of the incumbent ethnic Adyge president, Aslan Jarimov.43 Dagestan, on the other hand, has continued to be ruled by Soviet-era nomenklatura, and increasingly by its Avar and Dargin components, whereas other ethnic groups (Kumyks, Lezgin, Laks) have been marginalized in the administration. No liberalization of the political sphere has taken place. The record of the North Caucasian multi-ethnic republics has hence been distinctly different from that of societies where one group has enjoyed a clear majority position. Moreover, in neither KarachaiCherkessia nor Kabardino-Balkaria, or for that matter Dagestan, have any coherent political groupings based on political ideologies developed. Politics has remained personalized and ethnicity has been a major determinant of politics. Looking at other parts of the Caucasus, and for that matter most of post-communist Eastern Europe, the process of democratization of the late 1980s and early 1990s brought mixed blessings at best. In fact, several observers have argued that uncontrolled liberalization in a country lacking a civil society, political culture and political traditions, and with a weak and inefficient state, opens the door to previously existing but hitherto unchannelled nationalist sentiments that come to dominate politics in the absence of other political forces, leading to increasing tensions between ethnic 352

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groups.44 In the words of one scholar, attempts to induce democratization from both above and outside ‘may be one of the factors that most generates ethnic tensions and economic polarization that fuel such conflicts’.45 Another observer has articulated the problem as follows: The Soviet and East European regimes relaxed coercive restraints on nationalism and inter-group hostilities at a time when institutionalized means for their expression and accommodation did not yet exist, or were fragile and distrusted…In democratizing autocracies…the opportunities for communal groups to mobilize are substantial, but the states usually lack the resources or institutional means to reach the kinds of accommodations that typify the established democracies. In these states, democratization is likely to facilitate both protest and communal rebellion. The serious risk is that the rejection of accommodation by one or all contenders will lead to civil war and the re-imposition of coercive rule.46

The clearest example of the occurrence of this process is Georgia, where the liberalization of the late 1980s led to nationalist forces coming to power; the nationalist rhetoric of the late president Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who vowed to make Georgia a unitary state and secured the status of the Georgian language in minority areas, in turn induced fear, especially among the Abkhaz and Ossets, but also among the Armenian, Ajar and Azerbaijani minorities. The Abkhaz and Ossets chose to look to Moscow for protection from Tbilisi, thereby angering further the Georgian nationalists and increasing the Georgian perception that the minorities were being manipulated by Moscow to weaken the Georgian state, and that as a corollary their political demands had no basis.47 One can point to similar developments in Azerbaijan and Moldova as well. In fact, the question posed by Georgian political analyst Alexander Rondeli in this regard, is warranted: ‘The democratization [that] coincides with the occurrence of violence in this region raises the question whether the democratization of multiethnic societies inevitably creates favourable conditions for ethnic conflict’.48 An attempt to explain this process would adapt the concept of ‘the security dilemma’, which is normally used as an explanation for interstate warfare and has come to be used also in the framework of ethnic conflict. The essence of the security dilemma concept is that ‘vulnerable and fearful actors through efforts to enhance their own security undermine the security of others’.49 Sudden, uncontrolled democratization creates precisely a situation in which the security dilemma may be relevant. In an ethnically divided society where politics follow ethnic lines and where no clear majority group exists, both, or various groups, would, before an election, fear marginalization from political and economic life in the event of a victory by the other group or by other 353

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groups. This is especially true if the constitution gives the executive branch, in practice the president, excessive power. Karachai-Cherkessia seems to be a case in point. In the absence of a functioning civil society, and with a population which, following prolonged Soviet rule, lacked any political culture and was profoundly distrustful and ignorant concerning the institutions of a democratic society, the liberalization process was inaugurated simply through the holding of elections. This precedent raised the spectre of conflict in the event of a less than orderly democratic transition in Kabardino-Balkaria. Indeed, the eventual transition period from Khubiyev to more participatory politics in the republic seemed to provide a likely background to the outbreak of conflict. In fact, no steps were taken with a view to preventing the escalation of ethnic tensions. The question of electoral systems was never raised in the North Caucasus — or in the Russian Federation’s other ethnic republics — despite the fact that research clearly showed the importance of designing a democratic electoral system suitable for the ethnic and demographic features of a given territory.50 In fact, the question whether a presidential system of governance was suitable for multi-ethnic societies like Karachai-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria was never raised, let alone addressed; by comparison, it is noteworthy that even in Dagestan, despite its less than satisfactory political record, the post of president was deliberately not instituted, as it was thought that this could lead to the increase of ethnic tensions. Instead, Dagestan has been ruled by a state council, whose chairman is the executive head of the republic. In fact, this system of governance is thought to have been one factor in preventing the escalation of ethnic tensions in Dagestan. In none of these republics have measures pertaining to the prevention of violent conflict been implemented. A growing body of literature emphasizes the need for a ‘culture of prevention’. While the peaceful character of democracies, and the advantages of a democratic system in providing mechanisms for the peaceful resolution of disputes is often advanced, an awareness is nevertheless also growing that democratization of an authoritarian system, as argued above, carries with it the risk of bringing latent conflicts into the open. In response to this problem, several measures have been emphasized, such as: changing popular attitudes to violence and building a democratic culture; building a state based on the rule of law and increasing popular respect for this concept and the functioning of representative organs; creating an impartial administration and promoting positive interaction between government and other political players.51 Nevertheless, the particular situation and status of these two republics have made it difficult for the international community to provide assistance in these matters. First, the republics of the North Caucasus are not independent states but self-ruling parts of the Russian Federation; in a sense they are states within a state. Hence they are not 354

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direct members of any international organizations promoting democracy, be it the United Nations, the OSCE, or International IDEA (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, based in Stockholm). Any international assistance would have to be channelled through the Russian federal government, which is already wary of western influence in the Caucasus and would probably be negatively inclined to such assistance. Second, the North Caucasus is an unruly area in which western non-governmental organizations are at best hesitant to work; the instability around Chechnya and Dagestan and the salience of abductions of westerners have made it practically impossible for international aid, even humanitarian aid, to be transferred effectively to the region. Even the Red Cross operates only with local staff after one of its representatives was abducted in Kabardino-Balkaria. The North Caucasus is in several ways a ‘no man’s land’ which makes developing and building relations with the outside world particularly problematic. As soon as the election date in Karachai-Cherkessia was decided, politics began centring on personalities; the contest between Stanislav Derev and Vladimir Semenov had almost nothing to do with party programs, economic policy and the like, and much more to do with the respective ethnic affiliation and personal character and charisma of the candidates. Although neither of the candidates could be termed a radical nationalist, their respective power bases were ethnically defined, especially in Semenov’s case. In Kabardino-Balkaria, liberalization of government structures has yet to come. Here, the stronger demographic weight of the most numerous people, the Kabardins, seems poised to become another problem. In Karachai-Cherkessia, a coalition of Cherkess and Abaza together with a portion of the Russian vote would have a chance to win an election; in Kabardino-Balkaria, a united Kabardin front would be almost certain to emerge victorious. This increases the risk that in the case of an uncontrolled democratization process, the Balkar population would choose an ‘exit’ strategy from the current political setup and renew their demands for a territorial division of the republic. So far, there has been little discussion of redrawing the map to unite the Karachai and Balkars on the one hand, and the Kabardins and Cherkess on the other. However, should unrest erupt simultaneously in the two republics, the dangers involved in such a development would not be insignificant. CONCLUSIONS The democratization process in Kabardino-Balkaria and KarachaiCherkessia has lagged behind that of the more ethnically homogeneous republics of the North Caucasus. Continued mismanagement by the remnants of Soviet authority and a lack of preventive measures have led to a gradual increase of ethnic tensions in both republics. This was most clearly displayed during the presidential elections in KarachaiCherkessia in 1999. Many observers point to this part of the North 355

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Caucasus as a potential area of unrest. Disturbances in these republics would lead to instability in the entire North Caucasus, with possibly devastating consequences both for the Russian Federation and for regional peace. Certainly there would be tangible risks of spill-over to the South Caucasus. To prevent such a development, there is a need for rapid efforts to build democratic, law-governed, institutions in these republics. Whereas the most acute problems seem to have been handled effectively in Karachai-Cherkessia by the unusually timely action of the Russian central government, the problems have, in essence, remained, especially in Kabardino-Balkaria, where the suppression of Balkar grievances is likely to create further tensions. Again, events in one republic could totally upset the precarious stability in the other. Given the disastrous economic situation in these republics, termed a ‘calamity’ by observers, and the proximity of the renewed war in Chechnya, the situation gives little reason for optimism. NOTES 1. See Alexandre Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire: A Guide (London: Hurst & Co., 1985), p. 197. See also Rieks Smeets, ‘Circassia’, Central Asian Survey 1 (1995), p. 109. 2. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire, pp. 201–4. 3. For an overview of the co-optation of Caucasian élites, see Chantal LemercierQuelquejay, ‘Cooptation of the Elites of Kabarda and Dagestan in the Sixteenth Century’, in Marie Bennigsen Broxup (ed.), The North Caucasus Barrier (London: Hurst & Co., 1992). 4. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire, p. 200. 5. Ibid., p. 203. 6. The Abazians are Muslims, most of whom live in 13 villages of the Karachai-Cherkess Autonomous Area, but some are scattered in Kabardinian, Nogay and Adyge villages. 7. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire, p. 202. 8. See Sergei Arutiunov, ‘Ethnicity and Conflict in the Caucasus’ paper presented at a 1997 symposium of the Slavic Research Centre, Hokkaido University, p. 8. 9. See Moshe Gammer, ‘Unity, Diversity and Conflict in the Northern Caucasus’, in Yaacov Ro’i (ed.), Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies (London: Frank Cass, 1995), pp. 163–86 and the chapter by Alexei Kudriavtsev in this volume. 10. See Arutiunov, ‘Ethnicity and Conflict in the Caucasus’, p. 8. 11. See Tomila Lankina, ‘The Cossacks: A Guarantor of Peace or a Land-Mine in Russia’s Federalism?’, Nationalities Papers 4 (1996). 12. Marina Pustilnik, ‘Caucasian Stresses’, Transition 3 (15 March 1995), pp. 16–18. 13. See Suzanne Goldenberg, Pride of Small Nations: The Caucasus and Post-Soviet Disorder (London: Zed, 1994), p. 206. 14. For details on the Cossack revival, see Roman Laba, ‘The Cossack Movement and the Russian State, 1990–96’, Low Intensity Conflict and Law Enforcement 3 (1996), pp. 377–408. 15. For the Cossacks’ territorial demands and their implications see Fiona Hill, ‘Russia’s Tinderbox’ — Conflict in the North Caucasus and its Implications for the Future of the Russian Federation, JFK School of Government, Harvard University, Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, Sept. 1995, pp. 67–73. 16. Ibid., p. 63. 17. See Arutiunov, ‘Ethnicity and Conflict in the Caucasus’, p. 10. 18. See Swetlana Tscherwonnaja, Die Karatschaier und Balkaren in Nordkaukasus: Konflikte and Ungelöste Probleme, Köln: Bundesinstitut für Ostwissenschaftliche und Internationale Studien, Report no. 32, 1999, p. 40.

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19. ‘President of Karachaevo-Cherkessia Postpones Elections’, Russian Regional Report 8 (May) 1997. 20. ‘First Protest Meeting in Karachaevo-Cherkessia’s History’, Jamestown Monitor, 28 January 1998. 21. ‘Population of Karachaevo-Cherkessia Demand to Elect Their President’, Jamestown Monitor, 26 Feb. 1998. 22. See ‘Former Russian Commander May Run for Presidency in Karachaevo-Cherkessia’, Jamestown Monitor, 2 May 1997. 23. ‘Soviet-Era Regional Head Voted Out in Karachaevo-Cherkessia’, Jamestown Monitor, 29 April 1999. 24. ‘Karachaevo-Cherkessia Heats Up in Wake of Presidential Runoff’, Jamestown Monitor, 5 May 1999. 25. ‘Runoff Election in Karachaevo-Cherkessia’, RFE/RL Newsline, 17 May 1999. 26. ‘Defeated Presidential Candidate Calls for Division of Karachaevo-Cherkess Republic’, RFE/RL Newsline, 16 June 1999. 27. ‘Local Court Declares Semenov Winner in Karachaevo-Cherkessia Vote’, Jamestown Monitor, 14 June 1999; RFE/RL Newsline, 11 June 1999. 28. ‘Supreme Court Overturns Lower Court Decision Validating Karachaevo-Cherkessia Vote’, Jamestown Monitor, 30 July 1999. 29. ‘Situation in Karachaevo-Cherkessia Remains Volatile’, Jamestown Monitor, 24 May 1999. 30. ‘Karachaevo-Cherkessia Presidential Rivals Reach Compromise’, RFE/RL Newsline, 19 October 1999. 31. See ‘Cherkess Radicals Parley Presidential Election Dispute into Campaign for Autonomy’, RFE/RL Caucasus Report, 35 (2 Sept. 1999). 32. See Helen Krag and Lars Funch, The North Caucasus: Minorities at a Crossroads (London: Minority Rights Publications, 1994) p. 32. 33. As of the time of writing the October 2002 population census results had not yet appeared. 34. See Natalia Gorodetskaya in Segodnya, 23 Nov. 1996, Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press (hereafter Current Digest) 47 (1996), p. 16. 35. Krag and Funch, The North Caucasus, p. 32. 36. See Tscherwonnaja, Die Karatschaier and Balkaren in Nordkaukasus, p. 19. 37. OMRI Daily Digest, 19 Nov. 1996 and 9 Jan. 1997. 38. See Dmitrii Kamyshev in Kommersant, 20 Nov. 1996 (‘The Chechen Example Could Become Contagious’), Current Digest, 47 (1996), p. 15. 39. See OMRI Russian Regional Report, 4 Dec. 1996 and 11 June 1998. 40. Tscherwonnaja, Die Karatschaier und Balkaren in Nordkaukasus, p. 23. 41. Ibid. 42. Many Chechen refugees later migrated, legally or illegally, into the Stavropol and Krasnodar areas. 43. ‘Incumbents Reelected’, Jamestown Monitor, 13 Jan. 1997. 44. See. S. Neil MacFarlane, ‘Democratization, Nationalism and Regional Security in the Southern Caucasus’, Government and Opposition 3 (1997), pp. 399–420. 45. Stephen Blank, US Military Engagement with Transcaucasia and Central Asia (Carlisle, PA: US Army War College, 1999), p. 8. 46. See Ted Robert Gurr, Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Confict (Washington: USIP Press, 1993, pp. 137–8. 47. See Svante E. Cornell, Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnolopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus (Richmond: Curzon Press, 2001), Ch. 4: ‘Georgia: From Unitary Dreams to an Asymmetric Federation?’ 48. See Alexander Rondeli, ‘Security Threats in the Caucasus: Georgia’s View’, Perceptions: Journal of World Affairs 2 (1998). 49. See Erik Melander, Anarchy Within: The Security Dilemma between Ethnic Groups in Emerging Anarchy (Uppsala: Department of Peace and Conflict Research, 1999), p. i. 50. See Ben Reilly and Andrew Reynolds (eds), Electoral Systems and Conflict in Divided Societies (Washington, DC: National Research Council, 1998); Peter Harris and Ben

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Reilly (eds), Democracy and Deep-Rooted Conflict: Options for Negotiators (Stockholm: International IDEA, 1998), pp. 191–204. 51. See, e.g., Preventing Violent Conflict — A Swedish Action Plan (Stockholm: Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1999). The policy planning group at the ministry has spent considerable efforts in including prevention in the state policy on conflict management.

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19 Democratic Values and Political Reality in Chechnya, 1991–1999 ALEXEI KUDRIAVTSEV LIBERAL REFORM AND POLITICAL LIFE IN THE CHECHEN-INGUSH ASSR, 1989–1990 From the introduction of perestroika until August 1991, the evolution of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR was similar to that of all national autonomies within the Russian Federation.1 In June 1989 the election of Doku Zavgayev as first secretary of the republican party committee (obkom)2 was widely welcomed and celebrated by the population as a victory of the ‘forces of perestroika’ over the ‘retrogrades’. Under Zavgayev (who, in March 1990, also became chairman of the republican Supreme Soviet), a process of liberalization was begun. In this context, ideological pressure was relaxed and KGB repression in the republic was restricted, enabling ‘informal’ activist groups of democratic or nationalist orientation to surface, and an uncensored press to make its appearance. In the atmosphere of glasnost the official Soviet narrative regarding ‘the voluntary incorporation of Checheno-Ingushetia into Russia’ became a target of open criticism by local intelligentsia.3 The further legalization of Islamic activity, which had begun in 1987–88, was a key element of Zavgayev’s liberal reforms. During the period 1989–91 many mosques were built or restored and two Islamic institutes — in fact, modernized madrasas — opened in Grozny and Nazran. In 1990 hundreds of Chechen and Ingush participated in the first mass hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca from the USSR since the 1920s. The newly created Spiritual Administration of Muslims of ChechenoIngushetia played an important role in the Islamic renaissance and its leaders supported the Zavgayev regime. One aspect of the liberalization policy was a change of party personnel. The most conservative members of the local nomenklatura were replaced by officials promoted by Zavgayev, most of them representatives of the national intelligentsia. In Checheno-Ingushetia, as elsewhere in the USSR’s ‘national’ union and autonomous republics, the general aspiration for democratization 359

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was accompanied by a growing ethnic nationalism among the ‘titular’ nations. In September 1989 the Second Congress of the Ingush People,4 organized by radical Ingush ‘informals’, demanded the establishment of a separate Ingush republic within the RSFSR and the return of the ‘historical’ Ingush area transferred to neighbouring North Ossetia after the deportation of the Chechen and Ingush in 1944. These claims undermined any prospective Vainakh5 unity, so that the two movements — the Chechen and the Ingush — developed henceforth separately. Earlier in 1989 a group of young Chechen intellectuals had created an association known as Bart (Concord), aimed mainly at the revival of Chechen culture. On the political level, its goal was to elevate the Chechen-Ingush ASSR to the rank of union republic within the Soviet Union. In May 1990 the Vainakh Democratic Party (VDP) emerged from the foundations of Bart. Headed by poet Zelimkhan Yandarbyev, the VDP, despite its name, was exclusively Chechen, both in membership and in its formal program. The VDP began its activity as a party of ‘constructive opposition’. It called for a dialogue with the authorities and even condemned ‘extremists’ from the main radical movement, the Popular Front. However, broadly democratic approach quickly evolved into radical ethnic nationalism, so that by autumn 1990 it had become a determined opponent of Zavgayev’s regime. The source of the ‘assimilation’ of democratic values and discourse in nationalist thinking lay — here as elsewhere in the USSR at that time — in the populist understanding of democracy, which signified, first and foremost, the realization of ‘the people’s will’. For the nationalistoriented intelligentsia, which was to a certain extent modern and westernized, democracy was an absolute political value, a ‘good’ thing, as opposed to the evils of Soviet totalitarian tyranny. At the same time, in the nationalist interpretation the notion of ‘the people’ was analogous to that of ‘the nation’ (in the ethnic sense), and implied the realization of the nation’s right to self-determination’ as a basic democratic principle. Chechen nationalists considered democracy to be a guarantee of the security and viability of national sovereignty;6 nevertheless, though guided by western models of a democratic state (comprising a parliament, political pluralism and civil rights), they also insisted on the importance of traditional ‘Vainakh democracy’. In the past, prior to the Russian conquest, Chechen and Ingush society had had no class structure and people lived in independent communities; a Chechen who dared to infringe the general equality within the collective and rise above his tribesmen, risked his life. It was easier for Chechen to submit to foreign (Dagestani or Kabardian) ‘princes’, since their authority (like the Russian domination later on) did not disturb the egalitarian relationship within Chechen society.7 The tradition of ‘Chechen democracy’ was historically embodied in a system of tribal and clan councils or tribunals (kel). The highest of 360

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these — the Mehk Kel (Council of the Land) united the te’ip — clan or tribal — elders who represented large sub-ethnic Chechen groups.8 It held assemblies once or twice in year, solving — according to the norms of customary law — economic, military and other problems concerning the community.9 Debates on the revival of the Mehk Kel raged in 1990 with the gradual de facto legitimization of clan activity and of that of clan elders. Adam Dudayev, in his brochure, The Philosophy of Chechen Sovereignty, wrote of the Mehk Kel: ‘We need it as an organ of the sovereignty of the people, as an organ of concentration of all the popular wisdom for a democratic, just solution of complex problems of the republic’s social, political and spiritual life.’ The Chechen’s continued attachment to the democratic customs and traditions of the past, he wrote, would strengthen democracy; the only question was how to represent these traditions and customs in legal form.10 In September 1990 — a year after the Ingush congress — some Chechen activists began preparations for a Chechen congress, with the support of Doku Zavgayev and the liberal wing of the republican Supreme Soviet. The Chechen National Congress held its first meeting from 23 to 25 November 1990 in Grozny. Its delegates were to be elected by a system of direct democracy. The organization committee allotted a delegate quota to districts according to the number of inhabitants (1:1000). However, the district committees, instead of proceeding to elections, composed lists of delegates in keeping with the quotas. The role of traditional social institutions was important in this preparatory activity. The district committees were composed of the kinsmen and friends of those who claimed leadership roles by virtue of their personal qualities, connections or wealth. Nevertheless, the congress was fairly representative, and included almost all strata of society: intelligentsia, kolkhoz farmers, industrial and professional workers, Muslim clergy and te’ip ‘elders’ — especially those opposed to the ruling regime.11 On 25 November 1990, the Congress adopted a resolution on the ‘state sovereignty of the Chechen Republic’. This document, which was to become, in 1991, the ‘legal’ basis for the Chechen revolution, outlined the political system of the future Chechen state, reflecting the ‘great democratic traditions’ of the Chechen people. Its elements were: a) a People’s Congress; b) a bi-cameral parliament consisting of a Chamber of Elders and a Chamber of Deputies; c) a president; and d) a constitutional court.12 Although the resolution did not have the force of law, its adoption by the Congress had a noticeable political effect. On 27 November — two days after the conclusion of the Congress and under its impact — the Supreme Soviet adopted a declaration on the republic’s sovereignty, which entailed raising its status from autonomous to union republic (there was no mention of the relation of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR to the Russian Federation). The declaration proclaimed the intention to build the republic as a ‘democratic law-governed state’, guaranteeing 361

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citizens’ democratic rights and freedoms, including the free activity of political parties and public associations.13 Whereas consensus prevailed regarding Checheno-Ingushetia’s republican character, public opinion was not unanimous as to the optimal form of republican rule. A survey on this subject, conducted in 1990 by Chechen sociologists, showed that the model of presidential republic was attractive especially to young people, while the majority of the older generation, true to traditional egalitarian principles of tribal democracy, supported the model of a ‘parliamentary’ republic:14 The declaration of sovereignty of the Chechen-Ingush Republic reconciled the authorities with the moderate Chechen nationalists, whose aim was merely to elevate the status of the country to that of a union republic and to enable it to sign a new union treaty on an equal basis with the longstanding union republics.15 However, the radical wing was not content with this goal. RADICALIZATION OF THE CHECHEN NATIONAL MOVEMENT As of December 1990 the Chechen National Congress worked as a permanent organization with an Executive Committee headed (at first, just formally) by an ambitious air force general, Johar Dudayev. Retired in early 1991, he took effective command of the Executive Committee, supported by VDP leader Zelimkhan Yandarbyev and other radical nationalists. Proceeding from the thesis that the Chechen National Congress expressed the ‘people’s will’, Dudayev tried to put pressure upon the Supreme Soviet, demanding that it proclaim the Chechen republic’s sovereignty — separate from Ingushetia. When the Supreme Soviet rejected this language of ultimatums, Dudayev declared that the deputies had ‘lost the people’s confidence’; in May 1991 he said the Supreme Soviet had fulfilled its historical mission by adopting the declaration of republican sovereignty and was now ‘illegitimate’. At the ‘second session’ of the Chechen National Congress (8–10 June 1991) the position of the radical forces in the Executive Committee hardened. Dudayev hailed the fall of the ‘colonial empire’ which had robbed the Chechen nation of its ‘religion, language, education, science, culture, natural resources, ideology, mass media, leadership cadres, and right to freedom and life’. He rejected any ‘hybrid’ version of sovereignty (represented in his eyes by the 1990 Supreme Soviet declaration) and argued that ‘the price of genuine sovereignty is so great that to expect to achieve it cheaply is as absurd as to presume that the Chechen will ever be reconciled with their present miserly colonial freedom... There is only one question to raise today: do we want to be free or shall we willingly sell our future into serfdom? The time has come to make our choice.’16 In order to change the existing political structure in the republic Dudayev made a number of proposals to the Supreme Soviet, including the following: to elect a legislative body until new elections could take place (supervised by both the Supreme Soviet and the Chechen National 362

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Congress; to adopt a new constitution and law on citizenship; to hold presidential elections before 15 September 1991; to hold a referendum before the end of November 1991 to determine the status of the republic and its citizens vis-à-vis the centre in Moscow; to ask the Ingush to choose their own state system and determine by referendum their relations with Chechnya and their decision to be formalized by a pact between the Chechen and Ingush nations. Dudayev also enunciated some specific conditions that had to be fulfilled before Chechnya could sign any treaty with either the USSR or the RSFSR. These included the unconditional recognition of the right of the Chechen nation to sovereign independence; the signing of a peace treaty as a logical outcome of ‘three centuries of uninterrupted warfare’; the trial of those guilty of crimes of genocide against the Chechen nation committed in the Soviet period; payment of compensation for crimes against the nation and the return of the national patrimony; and establishment of a proper government structure based on democratic principles.17 In the ensuing two months the political atmosphere in the republic stabilized noticeably and Zavgayev’s regime consolidated its position, but the putsch of 19 August 1991 changed the situation. The putsch in Moscow gave the Executive Committee of the Chechen National Congress (renamed in June the Pan-National Congress of the Chechen People) a chance to impose itself as the leading force of the popular revolution directed against both the Soviet ‘totalitarian empire’ and the regime of the local nomenklatura. On 19 August the Executive Committee issued an appeal ‘to all the working people of the republic’ calling on them to declare a general strike of unspecified duration from 21 August on the entire territory of ChechenoIngushetia, to resort to civil disobedience until the arrest of the putsch’s perpetrators and ‘to show endurance, determination and courage in defending democracy and human dignity’.18 The wait and see attitude of the republican leadership during the putsch was interpreted by the leaders of the Executive Committee as complicity and this accusation was taken up by all opposition forces. On 22 August, after the failure of the putsch, a rally of democratic groups held in Grozny’s central square passed a resolution condemning the republican leadership and demanding the resignation of Zavgayev. It was the beginning of what was later referred to as the ‘Chechen revolution’. On 6 September 1991, after two weeks of popular manifestations, units of the ‘National Guard’ (an armed formation subordinate to the Executive Committee) stormed and disbanded the Supreme Soviet. The Russian leadership under Yeltsin accepted the fall of Zavgayev, but sought to promote an agreement between the remnants of the government and the opposition in order that ‘the democratic content of the processes taking place in Chechno-Ingushetia be given a legal channel’.19 The majority of Chechen political movements also supported the fall of communist rule in the republic. At the same time the 363

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nationalist liberal wing, as well as democratically-oriented parties and movements came out against Dudayev’s attempt to seize power by force.20 On 15 September the republican Supreme Soviet held its final session. Pressed by the head of the Russian Supreme Soviet, Ruslan Khasbulatov, the deputies issued a statement announcing Zavgayev’s resignation and the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet. Executive powers were transferred to a provisional council which was to hold parliamentary and presidential elections within two months. But at the end of September the Provisional Council had split into radical and moderate wings, the first being supported by the Executive Committee. On 1 October 1991 a group of pro-Dudayev Council members used the resolution of Ingush radical nationalists on the establishment of ‘an Ingush autonomous republic within the RSFSR’ as a pretext to proclaim the partition of the Chechen-Ingush Republic into a sovereign Chechen republic ‘Nokhchi-Cho’ (land of the Chechen) and an Ingush autonomous republic within the Russian Federation. This act provoked a negative reaction from Chechen and Ingush liberals and some political movements. However, on 6 October the Executive Committee dissolved the Provisional Council ‘for subversive and provocative activity’ and took upon itself the functions of a ‘revolutionary committee for a temporary period with absolute authority’.21 Two days later National Guard units seized the premises of the Provisional Council. On 8 October the Executive Committee proclaimed itself the only existing authority in the republic and set presidential and parliamentary elections for 27 October. EVOLUTION OF DUDAYEV’S REGIME, 1992–94 The 1991 Chechen revolution brought to the fore the question of choice of republican rule. The pro-Dudayev radical nationalists in the Chechen Congress leadership insisted that Chechnya be a presidential republic because in the period of transition from the Soviet system to democracy and independence there was need for a national leader with complete authority to implement reforms, while a parliamentary republic would bury them in interminable discussions. In order to evade any accusation of securing a victory for their leader by illegitimate means, they maintained that Dudayev would not stand for the presidency (nobody, however, actually believed this). The opponents of presidential rule proposed holding a Constituent Assembly in order to resolve all constitutional problems. They surmised that in conditions of a still united Checheno-Ingushetia and existing ethnic and clan rivalries, the election of a single leader would provoke a split of the population into competing ethnic and tribal groups. Understanding this very well, Dudayev accelerated the fall of the Chechen-Ingush Supreme Soviet and the subsequent separation of Chechnya from Ingushetia, thus removing all obstacles in his path to the presidency.22 364

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Dudayev’s election program abounded in democratic principles: a law-based democratic and civilized society; defence of the rights of citizens regardless of their race, national origin, religion, creed or party affiliation; respect for the principles of the Declaration of Human Rights; a guarantee of citizens’ free participation in all public organizations except those professing racism, fascism and misanthropy, or propagating war and subversion of the existing order; respect for the presumption of innocence before the law; and implementing the results of referendums and public opinion polls, as well as the recommendations of scientific, technical and political associations, councils or ordinary citizens.23 On 27 October 1991 presidential and parliamentary elections were held on the entire territory of Checheno-Ingushetia (except its western districts which were compactly inhabited by Ingush) — as originally planned by the Executive Committee and contrary to the ruling of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet. Dudayev was elected president of the Chechen Republic Nokhchi-Cho by an overwhelming majority. According to the Executive Committee, 490,000 people (77 per cent of the electorate within the territory it controlled) voted, 85 per cent of them for Dudayev. The Ingush and the majority of Russians did not participate in the elections.24 However, there were contradictory reports of the event. If observers from the International Committee on Human Rights did not think that any violations of democratic norms had occurred during the election,25 Ruslan Khasbulatov declared that ‘only 200,000 people voted in the election’, which ‘conflicted with the norms of democracy’. Ahmed Arsanov, a Chechen RSFSR deputy appointed by Boris Yeltsin as the federation’s representative in Checheno-Ingushetia, also refuted the democratic character of the election, which, he said, had taken place under the threat of National Guard machine-guns.26 Unquestionably, the elections were supervised by the Executive Committee, whose members controlled the republican media entirely; and the election commission consisted of Dudayev’s supporters. The presidential elections were in effect devoid of any alternatives to Dudayev: all seven officially registered candidates withdrew in protest against the unilateral advantages accorded to Dudayev by his supporters, resulting from their control of republican television and other media.27 As for the parliamentary elections, their results, too, were falsified to a large extent;28 however, their political impact and public resonance were far less significant than the election of Dudayev. The emerging ‘post-revolutionary’ political system included a traditional body spontaneously revived in the days of popular manifestations. This was the Mehk Kel, which consisted of pro-Dudayev te’ip elders. Dudayev considered that the Mehk Kel must have a status of moral authority with legislative powers, such as ratification of the Constitution, the right to vote no-confidence in a deputy or the president and modification of state boundaries.29 In December 1991 the Mehk Kel was given the official status of ‘state consultative body’ with additional 365

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functions of control and supervision of morals, and mediation in clan and ethnic conflicts.30 The incorporation of the Mehk Kel into the post-revolutionary state system symbolized a synthesis of traditional (tribal) and modern (western) types of democracy. It is possible that Dudayev thought that the Mehk Kel would substitute for the non-existent parliamentary chamber of elders, but in reality its relations with the legislative body were characterized by open rivalry. Thus, in January 1992 the Mehk Kel, as ‘the genuine spokesman of the Chechen people’, demanded that candidates for ministerial and other state offices should receive preliminary approval by the elders before being confirmed by the parliament. When both the president and the parliament rejected this demand, the Mehk Kel refused to recognize the legality of the newly formed Cabinet of Ministers.31 On 12 March 1992 the parliament adopted the Constitution of the Chechen Republic, which determined the democratic character of the state. It stipulated equality of rights for all citizens regardless of ethnic or religious origin or affiliation, and freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly.32 There was, however, a major gap between declared democratic principles and political practice. For instance, important documents, including the Constitution, were adopted without any preliminary public discussion or referendum, through presidential decrees or parliamentary statements which were merely formalized decisions of the Pan-National Congress of the Chechen People — the ruling nationalist ‘party’. On the other hand, it is noteworthy that in 1992, when some members of the Congress crossed over to the anti-Dudayev opposition, this organization, which symbolized to some extent revolutionary ‘direct democracy’, was dissolved by presidential decree. Thus, Dudayev ‘created a precedent for authoritarian rule, whereby many decisions were adopted not by the direct will of the people, but by its silent consent, which has different political consequences’.33 In 1992–93 the authoritarian evolution of Dudayev’s regime became evident. In part this was due to the uncertain status of Chechnya, whose proclaimed independence led to conflict with Moscow. After Moscow’s abortive attempt (on 8–11 November 1991) to prevent the secession of Chechnya by declaring a state of emergency over the whole territory of the Chechen-Ingush Republic, the permanent threat of a new ‘imperial intervention’ remained. Consequently, Chechen opponents were invariably viewed by Dudayev’s regime as ‘accomplices of Moscow’. Partly, too, the authoritarian evolution was a consequence of the poor functioning of the power institutions — as a result both of lack of experience and of modern political traditions and internal personal, group and clan conflicts (even within Dudayev’s entourage). In the first months of independence a conflict arose between the president, the head of government and the mayor of Grozny, in addition to ‘routine’ confrontations between the legislative and executive powers. 366

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At the same time the fundamental conflict between Dudayev’s regime and the opposition grew rapidly with the worsening economic crisis, the aggravation of crime and the inability of the regime to normalize Chechnya’s relations with Russia. The opposition was represented by various groups, including former nomenklatura, but also liberal intelligentsia and moderate nationalists — erstwhile allies of Dudayev from the Pan-National Congress of the Chechen People. The internal crisis reached its climax in April 1993, when Dudayev suspended by decree the work of both the Parliament and the Constitutional Court, dissolved Grozny’s municipal council and introduced direct presidential rule (not envisaged by the constitution) over the entire territory of Chechnya. Under the slogan of democracy, the opposition began a ‘non-stop’ rally in one of Grozny’s main squares, while Dudayev’s supporters held their own counter-demonstration. Finally, the escalation of conflict led to bloodshed: on 3 June the dissolved Municipal Assembly, whose deputies had continued to hold sessions protected by municipal militia, was stormed by Dudayev’s armed units; and on 4 June the opposition’s rally was dispersed. In this way Dudayev concentrated virtually absolute power in his hands. Formally, he became a dictator who could rule without any control on the part of Parliament34 and appoint officials at his own discretion. He had a manifestly dictatorial manner, as well as ambition, which his military career had reinforced. But, paradoxically, Dudayev’s Chechnya was not ruled by a ‘dictatorial’ or ‘fascist’ regime (as the ‘democratic’ anti-Dudayev opposition tried to depict it). In the 1992–94 period there was in reality no regime at all and no effective state power in the republic. Dudayev insisted that the Chechen people had suffered too much from various kinds of tyranny and would not permit anyone, including the first president of Chechnya, to install a new one. According to Taimaz Abubakarov, a former Chechen minister of the economy, the man-in-the-street reproached Dudayev not for ruling by dictatorship but quite the reverse, for being incapable of putting the republic in order.35 Indeed, all Dudayev’s attempts to create a ‘mechanism of violence’ to force citizens to respect the laws failed. Unlimited ‘liberty’ turned into anarchy, the worst manifestation of which was the rapid growth of crime, especially violent crime: robbery, seizure of dwellings and murder. While the Chechen felt protected to some extent by mechanisms of clan solidarity (including the blood feud), this was not the case for many Russians and other non-Chechen, whose anxiety was reflected in a large-scale exodus from Chechnya in 1992–94. ‘The frailty of power — writes Abubakarov — nourished legal nihilism, which in its turn, increasingly undermined all authority.’36 As a result of this state of affairs, the poorest and most traditionalist sector of the Chechen people turned to an ‘Islamic solution’. Some citizens of Chechnya viewed the introduction of Shari‘a justice as the sole option for ending the situation of general moral decline, criminality 367

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and disorder. These people, mostly inhabitants of mountain villages, supported Dudayev as their ‘imam’, slighted his opponents as ‘enemies of Islam’ and called for replacing the constitution with the Qur’an. Dudayev used these sentiments in a populist effort to strengthen his authority.37 However, he was not prepared to carry out real islamization of state institutions and until the 1994–96 Russian-Chechen war, rejected all demands to impose Shari‘a rule, arguing that the roots of Islam had been so profoundly undermined by the communist regime that it would be impossible to restore them within several years of its downfall.38 In April 1995, however, two months after the federal forces seized Grozny, Dudayev issued a decree establishing Shari‘a tribunals in Chechen areas controlled by the Ichkeria39 government. Yet, for the duration of the war their competence remained limited to ensuring the prohibition of imbibing and selling strong drink, transgressors being punished by bastinado — flogging with canes. INTER-WAR EVOLUTION, 1997–99 After the 1994–96 war Dudayev’s successor, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev,40 took serious steps towards islamizing Chechnya’s institutions. Islam was proclaimed the state religion, the existing civil legal procedure was officially substituted by a system of Shari‘a tribunals placed under the control of so-called Wahhabis,41 members of the jama‘at — a fundamentalist religious-military organization created in 1995 in Chechnya by foreign volunteers, mainly Chechen from Arab countries.42 In January 1997 new presidential elections were held in Chechnya. According to OSCE observers, the elections reflected the free will of those citizens who had the right to vote;43 this formulation was devised to overcome reservations about characterizing the elections as ‘free and just’. The elections were won by General Aslan Maskhadov, who tried to reconcile Shari‘a law with customary law (adat) and democratic political institutions. Though before his election Maskhadov had never favoured Yandarbiev’s policy of forced islamization, he now declared his intention of building a ‘Chechen Islamic state’. As he frequently said, he was finally convinced that only Islamic law had any chance of being respected by the freedom-loving Chechen people. At the same time, Maskhadov and his supporters considered that the Chechen state should be based on national Islamic traditions, which meant, among others, recognizing the important role of the Qadiriyya and Naqshbandiyya Sufi brotherhoods, and not on a fundamentalist — Wahhabi or Salifi — interpretation of Islam. On the institutional level, amendments introduced into Chechnya’s 1992 Constitution as of 1997 had perforce to prevent the concentration of power in one man’s hands (as a reaction to Dudayev’s dictatorial style). At the same time, it was necessary to satisfy the ambitions of the war veterans and their leaders. A special consultative body — the Supreme Presidential Council — was established for this purpose, 368

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consisting of the main military commanders, members of the Muftiate44 and judges of Shari‘a tribunals. Its function was to select candidates for state office, two alternatives for each post, with the final choice to be made by Maskhadov. The new political system impeded strong executive power. For instance, in late 1997 Maskhadov failed to persuade the parliament to confer emergency powers upon him for a term of two years, which would have included taking certain decisions without knowledge of parliament and dismissing ministers45. As in the Dudayev period, the main problem of the Chechen state under Maskhadov remained its extreme weakness. The leadership was unable to mobilize all forces for the reconstruction of the ruined country. It was also unable to end the rapid growth of post-war crime either by ordinary measures, or through Shari‘a justice. In September 1997 the first public executions in the wake of Shari‘a sentences provoked a campaign of protest on the part of international and Russian organizations, which were shocked by such an open violation of democratic norms. In any event, even this practice proved futile in the face of the numerous well-armed criminal groups, especially those involved in the hostage ‘business’. It should be noted in this context that one of the characteristic features of the post-war Chechen state was the fragmentation of power into zones of influence of several leading military commanders (such as Shamil Basayev and Salman Raduyev), who had their own militias and did not, in effect, submit to the central authority. In 1997–98 a number of schemes for building the Chechen state were advanced. The majority of them rejected any ‘blind imitation’ of western democratic models and recommended a return to traditional norms of ‘Vainakh democracy’. The plan proposed by Khoj-Ahmet Nukhayev (who had been deputy prime minister under Yandarbyev),46 provided for indirect, multi-stage elections to the Mehk Kel as the supreme authority, which would institute all three powers: the legislative, the executive and the judiciary, thus becoming the source of their legitimacy. This proposal gave the nine basic Chechen tribal unions (tukhums) equal representation in the Mehk Kel. Each of the nine would also have the right to advance its candidate for the post of head of state; as for the national minorities, they would participate in political life by sending their representatives to the Mehk Kel. The head of state would be elected in direct elections by a secret ballot for a term of nine years; he would be chosen from among two candidates selected by the Mehk Kel from the nine claimants. As for the more radical islamist project, its supporters considered that the sole possible Chechen democracy was a constitutional theocracy, the only reasonable alternative to western and Russian ‘politically and ideologically prostituted’ constitutionalism. This model envisaged the suppression of democratic institutions, for instance, the substitution of a secret ballot by an open nominal referendum.47 369

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This radical opposition often criticized Maskhadov for lack of zeal in building a ‘truly Islamic state’. Ultimately, the prospect of being confronted with a large opposition front comprising factious commanders and Wahhabis forced Maskhadov to take an unusual step in order to neutralize his critics. On 3 February 1999 he issued a decree introducing direct Shari‘a rule in Chechnya. The decree established a new body (the State Council, or Shura), suspended the legislative function of parliament and stipulated reform of the constitution in order to reconcile it with Shari‘a norms. One day later, another Maskhadov decree abolished the post of vice-president. However, these measures did not terminate internal tensions. The parliament refused to ‘suspend’ its activity; taking advantage of the situation, the opposition formed an ‘alternative’ Shura. There were also those who argued that by proclaiming Shari‘a rule, Maskhadov had in fact ‘abolished’ his own post, which was alien to a ‘true’, Shari‘a-based Islamic state. The internal political instability and anarchy persisted in Chechnya until August 1999, when Shamil Basayev’s raid into Dagestan provoked a large-scale counter-terrorist operation by Russian troops in Chechnya, launching the second Chechen war. CONCLUSION The 1991 Chechen revolution, which destroyed Zavgayev’s posttotalitarian regime in Checheno-Ingushetia, was to a large extent inspired by democratic ideals. Nevertheless, its political consequences undermined all prospects for democratic development in de facto independent Chechnya. On the one hand, a process occurred in Chechnya which transformed the rule of revolutionary democracy (in the populist sense) into authoritarianism. Thus, in 1992–94 the Dudayev presidential republic evolved into an authoritarian regime with religious overtones. After the 1994–96 war Yandarbiev proceeded to undertake formal islamization of the state. From 1997, Maskhadov’s regime sought to reconcile Islamic and secular institutions, finally, however, transferring to direct Shari‘a rule in early 1999. On the other hand, the history of Chechen ‘independence’ has been characterized by increasing weakening of all state institutions, and the growth of anarchy. To a large extent these anarchical tendencies were due to specific features of traditional Chechen socio-political culture with its cult of freedom. As a result of the incapacity of the Chechen leaders to establish minimal civil order, fundamental human rights (especially regarding ethnic minorities) were violated. The situation became aggravated in the inter-war period (1996–99), when the chronic feebleness of the central authority was enhanced by the tyranny of the local ‘barons’ — military commanders with their own militias. The case of Chechnya demonstrates the extent to which the problem of democracy in the post-Soviet space is closely associated with the 370

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problem of state-building. Even democratically elected leaders may either turn into dictators or, because they do not enjoy real power, bring anarchy upon the republic. The example of Chechnya also proves that the ‘democratic traditions’ of ethnic social cultures have little relevance, and are in fact inadaptable in contemporary conditions. Moreover, they have little in common with contemporary democratic norms. NOTES 1. The Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR adopted a Declaration of Sovereignty on 12 June 1990. 2. Whereas the union republics officially had their own parties with first secretaries and a hierarchy similar to that of the CPSU, the party establishment of the autonomous republics was headed by a CPSU obkom. 3. The method of incorporation of the various national territories into the Russian Empire was a focus of national movements throughout the Soviet Union in the 1980s and not specific to Checheno-Ingushetia. 4. The event symbolized the ‘historical continuity’ to the 1st Congress of the Ingush People, held in 1918. 5. Vainakh is a typology used by Chechen, Ingush and number of smaller, linguistically related entities to describe themselves. 6. Adam Dudayev, Filosofiia chechenskogo suvereniteta (Grozny: Kniga, 1992), p. 24. 7. On the ‘mountaineers’ democracy’ see for instance: Ian Chesnov, ‘Byt’ chechentsem: lichnost’ i etnicheskie identifikatsii naroda’, Chechnia i Rossiia: obshchestva i gosudarstva (Moscow: Polinform-Talburi, 1999), pp. 81–3. 8. There was at no time a single mekh kel whose competence embraced all Vainakh territory. Usually there would be several mekh kels, each functioning within a given area and representing a territorial group of te’ip.. See also Moshe Gammer’s chapter in this volume. 9. On the role of the Mehk Kel see: Ibragim Saidov. ‘Mehk kel (Sovet strany) u nakhov v proshlom’, Kavkazskii etnograficheskii sbornik (Tbilisi, 1968). 10. Dudayev, Filosofiia chechenskogo suvereniteta, p. 25. 11. Dzhabrail Gakaev, ‘Put’ k chechenskoi revolutsii’, in Chechnia i Rossiia, pp. 157–8. 12. In Dudayev, Filosofiia chechenskogo suvereniteta, p. 23–4. 13. See ‘Rossiia i Chechnia (1990–1997 gody)’, in Dokumenty svidetel’stvuiut’ (Moscow: RAU-Universitet, 1997), pp. 7–10. 14. Zalpa Bersanova, ‘Sistema tsennostei sovremennykh chechentsev’, in Chechnia i Rossiia, pp. 245, 246. The tables speak specifically of the old and the young; they do not explain either category or say whether there was a third group in-between. FIGURE 1: ATTITUDE TO THE INTRODUCTION OF A PRESIDENCY (%)

Pro Con

Mountain villages Plain villages men women men women. old young old young old young old young

old

39 61

28 72

84 16

35 65

56 44

27 73

79 21

22 78

67 33

Cities men women. young old young

82 18

26 74

80 20

FIGURE 2: ATTITUDE TO A PARLIAMENTARY REPUBLIC (%) old

Pro Con

63 37

Countryside young

14 86

Cities old

young

75 25

18 82

15. On Gorbachev’s attempt to work out a formula for a union treaty, see the chapter by Ildus Ilishev in this volume.

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16. Marie Bennigsen Broxup, ‘After the Putsch, 1991’, in M. Bennigsen Broxup (ed.), The North Caucasus Barrier: The Russian Advance towards the Muslim World (London: Hurst, 1992), p. 232. 17. Ibid., p. 233. 18. Ibid., p. 219. 19. Ibid., p. 226. 20. Gakaev, Put’ k chechenskoi revolutsii’, p. 165. 21. Ibid., p. 167. 22. Taimaz Abubakarov, ‘Mezhdu avtoritarnost’iu i anarkhiei (Politicheskie dilemmy Presidenta Dudayeva), Chechnia i Rossiia, p. 184. 23. See Ternistyi put’ k svobode (Grozny: Kniga, 1992), pp. 4–7. 24. From the report on the political situation in Checheno-Ingushetia by a chief of an army training centre in Grozny. Cited in ‘Rossiia i Chechnia (1990–1997 gody)’, in Dokumenty svidetel’stvuiut’, p. 25. 25. Bennigsen Broxup, ‘After the Putsch’, p. 236. 26. Cited in Flemming Splidsboel-Hansen, ‘The 1991 Chechen Revolution’, Central Asian Survey 13 (1994), p. 400. 27. Gakaev, ‘Put’ k chechenskoi revolutsii’, p. 169. 28. According to Gakaev (ibid.), the head of the Election Commission R. Khadzhiev and his assistant S. Kerimov subsequently admitted that the elections had been falsified everywhere; and that Dudayev had ‘given a push’ to some of his supporters or kinsmen who had not received sufficient votes to be elected. 29. Abubakarov, ‘Mezhdu avtoritarnost’iu i anarkhiei’, p. 27. 30. Timur Muzaev and Zurab Todua, Novaia Checheno-Ingushetia (Moscow: Panorama, 1992), p. 10. 31. Ibid., p. 14. 32. Konstitutsiia Chechenskoi Respubliki. For an English version of the Chechen Constitution see http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/cc00000–.html. 33. Abubakarov, ‘Mezhdu avtoritarnost’iu’, p. 183. 34. After the April–June 1993 crisis the Chechen parliament remained, reduced now to a small group of pro-Dudayev deputies. In 1994 ‘supplementary elections’ were carried out, but by this time the parliament had become a purely ornamental institution. 35. Abubakarov, ‘Mezhdu avtoritarnost’iu’, p. 192. 36. Ibid. 37. For more of details on the ‘islamic’ socio-cultural and ideological background of Dudayev’s rule, see Alexis Koudriavtsev, ‘L’Imamat du général Doudaev ou l’islam et la politique en Tchétchénie’, MANA, Revue de sociologie et d’anthropologie 1 (1996), pp. 63–89. 38. Abubakarov, ‘Mezhdu avtoritarnost’iu’, p. 193. 39. In 1994 the Chechen Republic was renamed Chechen Republic Ichkeria (meaning ‘inner space’). 40. Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, the vice-president of Chechnya since 1993, held the post of acting president after Dudayev’s disappearance in April 1996. 41. Vahit Akaev, Sufizm i vakhabizm na Severnom Kavkaze (Makhachkala: Dagestanskii nauchnyi tsentr RAN, 1999), pp. 26–9. For the indiscriminate use of the term Wahhabi to depict radical Islam in the late Soviet period and in the CIS, see Yaacov Ro’i, Islam in the CIS: A Threat to Stability? (London/Washington, DC: RIIA and Brookings Institution, 2001), pp. 26–27. 42. Jama‘at in Arabic denotes a collective or community. The traditional Dagestani Chechen or Ingush jama‘at signified a village community or ‘parish’ of a mosque (see the chapter by Moshe Gammer and note 7 of the chapter by Enver Kisriev in this volume). The new jama‘at was a wider general Islamic community which in Wahhabi or Sufi terminology refers to those Muslims who conform to their norms of religiosity. The jama‘at excluded other Muslims. 43. Current Digest, Vol. XLIX, No. 4 (1997); quoted in Anna Matveeva, ‘Chechnia na Severnom Kavkaze: naskol’ko pravilo i naskol’ko iskliuchenie?, Chechniia i Rossiia, p. 387.

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44. In 1992 the Spiritual Administration of Muslims (Dukhovnoe upravlenie Musul’man) of Checheno-Ingushetia was officially renamed a Muftiate. 45. Matveeva, ‘Chechnia na Severnov Kavkaze’, pp. 382–3. 46. In the 1980s Khoj-Ahmet Nukhayev was reported to be the ‘godfather’ of Moscow’s Chechen criminal network. After the 1991 Chechen revolution he used his connections and talents (including those of an economist and businessman) to aid Dudayev’s regime. After Dudayev’s death in April 1996, Nukhayev collaborated with Yandarbiev and Maskhadov as the initiator of a far-reaching project aimed at integrating Chechnya into a pan-Caucasian economic system. 47. In fact, each of the two proposals had several affiliated ones, based on similar postulates but entailing slight variations.

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Afterword The conclusions that this book invites concerning the future of the Muslim societies in the former Soviet Union are neither encouraging nor optimistic. This is, a priori, hardly surprising. Even before the preparation of this volume, most people with whom I discussed its theme wondered whether it was a topic at all. Could one even contemplate the evolution of democracy and pluralism among the Muslim populations of the former Soviet Union beyond the lip service paid it by their various ruling elites? A further look, however, indicates that there is room for investigation.1 A few of the societies concerned do seem to have prospects for the development of some form of democracy, although manifestly not of a traditional Western type. It is not mere blandiloquence that makes scholars and politicians of these ethnic groups seek to discern democratic roots in the historical past of their respective peoples and to reconstruct or breathe new life into primordial institutions in the hope of making them relevant to contemporary conditions. Some, admittedly, do so in order to provide fig-leaf coverage for their own regime’s authoritarianism. Others, however, appear to be making genuine attempts to find legitimacy for authentic democratic transformation. The Muslim populations of the former Soviet Union are seeking their ethnic identity, with all that this entails; at the same time, they are endeavouring to determine their status and role in the circumstances that have resulted from the disappearance of the Soviet Union. This is most salient for those ethnicities which found themselves for the first time creating their own statehood. Legitimized, as it were, by its ethnic appurtenance, it had to be bolstered by an appropriate narrative. The same also holds, however, for those Muslim groups which remained within the Russian Federation, yet sought to take advantage of the period of transition to assert their distinct features as a foundation upon which to construct as autonomous or sovereign an existence as possible. It is natural that this quest for roots in an environment where democracy is a popular slogan will lead scholars and politicians alike to attribute democratic features to their ethnic traditions and institutions. In these circumstances, the sudden discovery of a proliferation of democratic attributes in the ethnic traditions and institutions of the CIS’s Muslim peoples was predictable. The discussion of Kazakh political history by Zhanylzhan Dzhunusova, a professor at Kazakhstan’s School of Diplomacy is a clear case in point. That elements of proto-democracy and experiments with democracy are not essentially incompatible with the historical evolution of the Muslim peoples/ethnicities in the Middle Volga, the Caucasus and Central Asia is testified to in the chapters by Azade-Ayse Rorlich, Moshe Gammer and Dov Yaroshevski, who look at the 19th and early 20th century (prior to the October 1917 revolution).

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Nor are inclinations towards democracy purely a matter of nostalgia for a real or imaginary past. Muslim collectives which became part of the Russian Federation have clung to democratic values and institutions as the optimal framework for conducting their campaign to attain autonomy. The Muslim successor states (all in fact secular and not genuinely Muslim states) have felt obliged to demonstrate their democratic predilections in order to obtain Western economic and financial aid, of which they were all in dire need. It was generally assumed that this economic assistance would be predicated on the implementation of political reforms, although Richard Pomfret shows that this was not, in fact, the case. Despite an inauspicious start, Saodat Olimova would contend that Tajikistan, seemed by the end of the century to have serious potential for developing a democratic polity. The other states were all constrained by socio-economic forces and by blatantly authoritarian rulers lacking any political ethic or value system beyond collective and personal corruption and self-interest. The lessons learned from this collection of essays are not fundamentally different from those which can be extrapolated from previous studies of the communities in question.2 At the same time, the volume provides a fuller picture of the mosaic of Muslim societies than is to be found elsewhere, in that it reviews both a wide range of Muslim ethnicities and a comprehensive list of aspects of their political and social life over a relatively long period of time. The chapters in this book demonstrate that, despite the short-term obstacles placed by both the regimes in power and by the traditions and mentality of the societies concerned on the path of democracy and pluralism and on the establishment of a true market economy and an effective civil society, there are forces at work which might make it possible to forge ahead. The same groups and movements that surfaced in the late Gorbachev period in order to oppose repressive methods of government described in part by Vladimir Babak have en gros been persecuted by the rulers of the successor states. Many ‘dissidents’ have been put in prison, where, in Uzbekistan at least, some died as a result of torture; others have gone into exile — but they have not disappeared and there is no reason to suppose that they can be effectively eliminated. On the contrary, simple logic leads us to presume that when they deem conditions to be convenient, they will re-emerge. Moreover, the greater the contact with the outside world, to which relatively large groups are exposed, especially in the towns, the more considerable the prospects that a regime crisis — such as the demise of a ruler — will encourage a new wave of democratic demonstrations, organizations and movements. True, Western governments and international financial organizations have not used their clout, as Richard Pomfret shows, to impose meaningful reforms. It has even been suggested in one very perceptive study that the failure to do so in the first half of the 1990s was the main reason for the regression that occurred in Kazakhstan — and this may well hold for Kyrgyzstan as well — as the leadership 376

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discovered that the West was not making aid and full membership in the world market dependent on ‘democratization, observation of human rights, an open society, and reform of [the] political system.’3 Nonetheless, it appears that in the long run, such reforms can be anticipated as a consequence of oblique Western influence. The relevant ethnicities will conclude from their observation of the world outside, which they seek to emulate in many ways because of its greater technological achievements and higher standards of living, that these reforms are an essential prerequisite of their survival, welfare and true modernization. Farda Asadov makes this point implicitly in his piece on Azerbaijan, where links with the outside world have led to the introduction of a wealth of NGO’s whose weight in politics is considerable despite persistent obstructionism from the authorities. This by no means implies that one can expect the evolution of what is called classical or Western democracy. Not only has the record of transplanting its institutions and values in other parts of the world been somewhat dismal — in Europe itself, not to speak of Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The new Muslim states of the CIS in particular but also the Muslim peoples of the Russian Federation are intent on constructing their society specifically on the basis of their own traditional culture and customs. As I have noted in my own chapter, Muslim thinkers and public figures in the CIS have rejected specifically Western models for their own political evolution. The emphasis on the revival, then, of traditional ethnic customs and organization within post-Soviet Muslim societies as they put out feelers in an effort to shape and consolidate their new identities is probably the most common feature of the studies in this volume. While unable to shake off with ease the Soviet legacies with which they are all encumbered — indeed, some of them have consciously retained Soviet administrative practices — the Muslim peoples of the post-Soviet space have all been preoccupied with giving their new circumstances ethnic colouring. It even appears that the struggle that has taken place among some of these populations and elites has focused on the interpretation of the essence of their own heritage in the context of the confrontation between centralized power and popular leverage. Leonid Levitin and Vladimir Khanin show the impact of time-honoured Kyrgyz political culture on independent Kyrgyzstan. The former, who rather unwillingly concurs with Neil Melvin that the situation in Kyrgyzstan has deteriorated and will apparently continue to do so from the point of view of the country’s democratic prospects as long as President Akayev retains power, contends that political culture was the source of Akayev’s failure to make the transition to democracy that he originally contemplated when he acceded to power. Saodat Olimova highlights the weight of long-established regionalism in the burgeoning of Tajikistan’s political institutions and movements. We perceive a similar picture in the chapters on the Northern Caucasus. Enver Kisriev in his exposition of Dagestan’s political dilemmas, insists that these are not the function of 377

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the country’s indigenous population’s ethnic diversity but of the clash between old and new, conservatism and modernism. Alexei Kudriavtsev in his discussion of Chechnya since 1991 shows, too, how Johar Dudayev’s earlier intentions to experiment with democracy — on the basis of Chechen political procedures and rituals — were thwarted in the face of other similarly traditional practices and institutions. One of the telling indicators for examining the genuineness of democratic intention among the ‘national democrats’ in the Muslim populations has been their attitude to non-titulars. This has applied both to the region’s other indigenous nationalities, mostly members of the eponymous ethnicity of neighbouring republics or states, as well as to ethnic Slavs — whether veterans or newer immigrants. Some of the more authoritarian rulers of the Muslim societies have fanned the xenophobia of the titular citizenry in order to win support for their own policies. Vladimir Mesamed shows how President Karimov has done this in Uzbekistan through his manoeuvring in regard to the implementation of linguistic restrictions on non-Uzbeks. Pål Kolstø believes that President Nazarbayev has similarly played the ethnic card in order to ingratiate himself with his country’s large Russian and russophone element and at the same time to persuade the Kazakhs that he alone can ensure stability and secure Kazakhstan’s territorial integrity. According to Svante Cornell, the ethnic factor is also one of the major, if not the most crucial, factor in analyzing the dead end into which the two North Caucasian republics with two eponymous nationalities have found themselves. In his view, only outside interference, designed to superimpose democratic practices and legislation, can resolve the tensions that have accumulated since Stalin consciously sundered kindred ethnicities and created two officially distinct administrative units, each of which became the ethnic mini-state of mutually hostile groups. In Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, on the other hand, the fundamental obstacles to the possible development of democratic government have been the outcome of the demographics of the titular group and the republic’s relations with Moscow. Rafik Mukhametshin shows how the Tatar national movement distanced itself from its original democratic disposition because of its dual dilemma: on the one hand, the Tatars do not constitute a majority in their own country, on the other hand, the majority of Tatars reside outside the borders of Tatarstan. The need to choose between giving preferential treatment to the requirements of the Tatars in their national territory and stressing the needs of the Tatar nation as a whole throughout the Russian Federation, with the concomitant implications of both for Kazan’s relations with the central government in fact neutralized the Tatar national movement and precluded the development of any genuinely democratic ideology or platform. As for neighbouring Bashkortostan, where the Bashkirs are not only not a majority, but comprise only the third largest ethnic group, Ildus Ilishev reveals how they were manipulated by Moscow to gradually surrender the national rights they would have enjoyed as a collective in a 378

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democratic regime, some of which had actually been promised them by the agreement signed between Ufa and Moscow in 1994. The trend of the graph, then, seems unpromising, at least in the short term, as Neil Melvin makes manifestly evident in his chapter on three of the five Central Asian states. After a fairly propitious start, at least in certain instances, the tendency has been for the Muslim states and republics to dissociate themselves from anything smacking of democracy. The context has varied somewhat from case to case, but on the whole it can be asserted that it has been linked to the authoritarian, if not outright dictatorial, proclivities of rulers who were trained under communism and found themselves in power in societies without developed democratic institutions or a system of checks and balances. These leaders reverted to repressive methods in order to retain power whenever and wherever they felt their positions threatened. The return to authoritarianism in the Russian Federation itself, first in Yeltsin’s latter years and more particularly under Putin, has also had considerable impact, not only in the Muslim areas that remained within its confines but to a large degree in the Muslim successor states as well. Moscow’s influence on these emanates from the close ties most of them entertain with it as the regional power (for Moscow too they are ‘the near abroad’, the territory which it perceives as its natural sphere of influence) as well as from the example or cue they continue to take from it in the formulation of their constitutions and in the planning of their institutions. Yet, many of the Muslim ethnicities boast overt or covert oppositions with relatively democratic programs, which there is reason to believe will, in time, prove more viable than the pseudodemocratic pretensions of the first generation of post-Soviet rulers. The time when this assumption will be either proved or disproved need not be in the distant future. Some of the Muslim nationalities may find that the leaders who have presided over the transition from communism are neither immortal nor irreplaceable and, given the increasingly difficult economic and social circumstances which their societies are experiencing, succession crises are likely to provide the backdrop for political and social upheaval that may pre-empt any restoration of dictatorial or authoritarian rule. Yaacov Ro’i Tel Aviv University June, 2003 NOTES 1.

S. Frederick Starr, in a lecture he delivered in Bishkek in 1999, stressed that there were a variety of legitimate indices by which progress towards democratization could be measured (S. Frederick Starr, ‘Democratization in Central Asia: The Public’s View’, in Democratic Processes in Central Asia: Experiences and Perspectives, (Bishkek: National University of Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University, 1999), p. 8.

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2.

3.

See, for example, M. Holt Ruffin and Daniel Waugh (eds), Civil Society in Central Asia, (Seattle and London: Center for Civil Society International and The Central Asia Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University, in association with University of Washington Press, 1999), particularly M. Holt Ruffin’s Introduction. Evgeny Zhovits, ‘Freedom of Association and the Question of Its Implementation,’ in ibid., p. 58.

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Notes on Contributors FARDA ASADOV, a specialist in Arab studies, is executive director of the Open Society Institute (OSI) — Soros Assistance Foundation (Azerbaijan). As a fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and of UNESCO Silk Road, he studied the cultural interaction between Muslim Arabs and Turks of Central Asia. He is the author of a monograph and a number of studies published in Kazakhstan, the UK, Azerbaijan, Russia, Sweden and Turkey. VLADIMIR BABAK is a senior research fellow at the Cummings Center for Russian Studies, Tel Aviv University, where he studies domestic and foreign policy of the post-Soviet Central Asian states, specializing in Kazakhstan. He is the author of a number of scholarly articles, co-author of the book Oil and Geopolitics in the Caspian Sea Region (1999) and is currently working on a monograph entitled Kazakhstan’s Foreign Policy in the First Years of Independence, 1991-1997. SVANTE E. CORNELL is a lecturer in the Department of Peace and Conflict Research and the Department of East European Studies, Uppsala University. His main area of research is ethno-political conflicts in the Caucasus, as well as the regional politics of the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East. His most recent book, Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus is forthcoming. ZHANYLZHAN DZHUNUSOVA is professor of Political Science and head of the Socio-Political Department at the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of International Affairs and Political Studies in Kazakhstan. She has published numerous works on the political system of modern Kazakhstan, including the book The Republic of Kazakhstan: President, Institutions of Democracy (1996, in Russian). MOSHE GAMMER is a senior lecturer in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv University. He is the author of Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan (1994) as well as of many articles on the modern and contemporary history of the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East. He is also the editor and co-editor of several volumes, including a special issue of Central Asian Survey (September 2002), in memory of Dibir Mahomedov (1931–98), and Political Thought and Political History: Studies in Memory of Elie Kedourie (2003).

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ILDUS G. ILISHEV is director of the Institute of History, Language, and Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Ufa Centre. An expert in ethnic and language conflict, as well as indigenous and minority rights, he is the author of two recent monographs, Language and Politics in a Multiethnic State: Theory and Practice (2000) and Language Policy in the OSCE States (2002). VLADIMIR (ZE’EV) KHANIN is a lecturer in Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. He is the author of Documents on Ukrainian Jewish Identity and Emigration (2002), as well as of numerous articles on East European, Jewish, Israeli and African politics and society. ENVER KISRIEV is head of the Sociology Department at the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the Dagestan Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences and an editorial board member of the Herald of the Centre. He has published extensively on ethnic conflict and political and socio-economic change in Dagestan. PÅL KOLSTØ is professor of Russian and Central European and Balkan Area Studies at the Department of East European and Oriental Studies, University of Oslo. Much of his recent research has been devoted to ethnic relations, ethno-politics and nation-building in the former Soviet Union and the Soviet successor states. He is the author of Russians in the Former Soviet Republics (1995) and Political Construction Sites: Nation-building in Russia and the Post-Soviet States (2000), as well as editor of Nation-Building and Ethnic Integration in Post-Soviet Societies: An Investigation of Latvia and Kazakhstan, (1999), and National Integration and Violent Conflict in Post-Soviet Societies: The Cases of Estonia and Moldova (2002). ALEXEI KUDRIAVTSEV has been a senior research associate at the Institute for Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences and a visiting lecturer at the Institut des Sciences Politiques, SNRS, (Paris). The author of numerous publications, Dr. Kudriavtsev’s current interests include Islam in the Northern Caucasus, the modern transformation of postSoviet archaic societies and contemporary Islamic movements in the Middle East. LEONID LEVITIN is a lawyer and professor of law. He served as head of the Law Faculty at the Kyrgyz State University before becoming a legal advisor to Askar Akayev, president of the Kyrgyz Republic. Currently residing in the Federal Republic of Germany, he is the coauthor (with Donald S. Carlisle) of Islam Karimov - President of the New Uzbekistan (1995). NEIL J. MELVIN is a senior lecturer in Politics at the Institute for Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds. He is the author of 382

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Uzbekistan: Transition to Authoritarianism on the Silk Road (2000) and the co-editor of Nations Abroad: Diaspora Politics and International Relations in the Former Soviet Union (1998). His teaching and research interests focus on ethnicity, nationalism and state-building in the former Soviet Union, and his current projects concern democratization in the Russian Federation and the intersection of national identity and business communities within the Russian diaspora. VLADIMIR MESAMED is a research fellow at the Truman Research Institute and a lecturer in the Institute of Afro-Asian Studies of the Faculty of Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Also a member of the editorial board of the magazine Central Asia: Economy & Politics (Almaty), he has published extensively on political, ethnic and linguistic issues in Central Asia, Iran–Central Asian relations and Islam, including Turkmenistan: Oil, Gas and Caspian Politics — Oil and Geopolitics in the Caspian Sea Region (2000). RAFIK M. MUKHAMETSHIN is a doctor of political science, professor, and head of the Department of Social Thought and Islamic Studies at the Institute of History, Tatarstan Academy of Sciences. He specializes in problems of the history of 20th century Tatar social thought and religion. His publications include Islam in the Social and Political Life of Tatarstan at the End of the 20th Century (2000) and Islam in the Social Thought of the Tatars in the 20th Century (2000). SAODAT OLIMOVA is head of the Sociological Service of the SHARQ information and analysis centre in Tajikistan. She is the author of over 90 publications on society, conflict and migration in Tajikistan, including ‘Tajikistan–Russia: From “Divorce” to “Integration”’ and ‘Tajikistan: First Stop on the Way of Afghan Migration’ in Central Asia and the Caucasus and ‘Society and Conflict in Tajikistan’ in Oriens. Dr. Olimova has published extensively on the topic of political Islam in Tajikistan. RICHARD POMFRET is professor of Economics at Adelaide University, Australia. In 1993 he was seconded to the United Nations for a year, acting as advisor on macroeconomic policy to the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union, and since then has been a consultant to the World Bank, UNDP and Asian Development Bank on Central Asian issues. He has written seventeen books, including The Economies of Central Asia (1995), Asian Economies in Transition (1996), The Economics of Regional Trading Arrangements (1997/2002) and Constructing a Market Economy: Diverse Paths from Central Planning in Asia and Europe (2002), as well as textbooks on Canadian economic development, international trade theory and policy, and development economics. YAACOV RO’I is Professor of History at Tel Aviv University. He has served as Director of the Cummings Center for Russian and East 383

DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM IN MUSLIM EURASIA

European Studies and has been a visiting fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, the Kennan Institute, and Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. He is the editor of Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies (1995) and the author of Islam in the Soviet Union from World War II to Gorbachev (2000) and Islam in the CIS: A Threat to Stability? (2001). AZADE-AYSE RORLICH is associate professor of Russian and Eurasian History at the University of Southern California. Her book The Volga Tatars: A Profile in National Resilience was published by Stanford University in 1986. She has published numerous other works on religion and identity, jadidism, national communism and identity construction in the post-communist period. DOV YAROSHEVSKI is a senior research fellow at the Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies at Tel Aviv University. A specialist in Russian imperial history, Israeli-Soviet diplomatic relations and modern Central Asian history, he has published several works on the Khorezm People’s Soviet Republic, including the essay ‘Contest over the Waqf in the Khorezm Republic, 1920–24’, in Giampiero Bellingeri and Giovanni Pedrini (eds), Central Asia: A Decade of Reforms, Centuries of Memories (forthcoming).

384

Index Abazians (Abaza) 355, 356n Abdulatipov, Ramazan, 318, 340 Abdullayeva, Arzu, 278 Abdullojonov, Abdumalik, 254, 259 Abdurahmanov, Serik, 158 Abkhaz, 353 Ablayev, Irek, 320 Ablova, Natalia, 215 Abubakarov, Taimaz, 367 Abulkhayr Khan, 14, 15, 18, 20, 26n Abylai, 15 Achilova, Rahat, 225 adat, 34, 59, 342, 368 Adilet (Kazakhstan), 145 Adilet (Kyrgyzstan), 205, 206, 207 Adolat (Uzbekistan), 109, 155, 221 Adolat (Tajikistan), 253 Adyge (Adygians), 343, 344, 352, 356n Adygeia (see also Maikop), 327, 343, 352 Adygei-Khasa Cherkess Movement, 347 Afghanistan (see also Mazar-i Sharif), 1, 89, 94, 98n, 101, 125, 137, 151, 152, 156; Tajik refugees, 253 Afghanistan war veterans, 109 Afghanistan War Veterans’ Party (Kyrgyzstan), 207 Afzali, Azam, 259 Agaev, Ahmet, 45 Agamaly, Fazail, 281 Agliullin, Zinnur, 292 Agrarian Labour Party (Kyrgyzstan), 207 Agrarian Party (Kyrgyzstan), 207 Agrarian Party (Tajikistan), 254, 259

Agul District (Dagestan), 341 Aguls, 335, 339 Agzybirlik (Unity) Popular Front (Turkmenistan), 154 ails, 200, 202, 220 Aitmatov, Chingiz, 219, 230n Aji-zade, Hikmet, 2 Akayev, Askar, 6, 86, 92, 93, 119, 129, 131, 135, 136, 159, 163n, 187, 188, 190, 191, 192, 194–201, 204–11, 215–20, 221, 223–5, 229n, 230n, 377 Akhdi (Akhty), 37n Akhtiamov, Abussugud, 48 akims, 169, 174, 201, 223 Akmataliyev, Temirbek, 225 Akmola Oblast, 28n Akramiyya, 155 aksakals, 23, 109, 200, 220, 223 Ak-Sui demonstrations (Kyrgyzstan), 129 Alai, 222 Alash (National Freedom Party, Kazakhstan), 106, 107, 114, 150, 154, 155, 162, 168, 181n Alash-Orda, 162 Alash Party (pre 1917), 150; (1920s), 162 Albania, 188 Albright, Madeleine, 92 Alem-i-Nisvan, 48 Aliyev, Heydar, 90, 91, 92, 98, 266, 269–76, 279, 281 Aliyev, Ilham, 281 Aliyev, Mahomed, 341 Alizade, Zardusht, 273 All-India Muslim League, 69 All-Islamic Democratic Party, 112 All-Russian Congress of Russian Women (1908), 48

385

INDEX

All-Tatar Public Centre (VTOTs), 287–9, 292, 295, 297, 302, 303; program, 302 All-Union Social Democratic Association, 147 Alma-Ata Popular Front, 146 Almalyk, 236 Almaty (Alma-Ata), 26–8, 87, 114, 131, 145, 146, 153, 162, 167, 172, 177, 179, 181n, 182; 1986 riots, 145, 167; 1989 disturbances, 149; land seizures, 145 Altai, 26n Altinsarin, Ibrahim, 50n Altyn Besik Society, 145 Amirbekuly, Seisen, 175, 184n Ana Vatan Party (Azerbaijan), 281 Andijan, 109, 196 Andrei, Bishop of Mamadyzh, 43 Andropov, Iurii, 203, 318 Angren, 236 Apsheron Peninsula, 92 Aqusha (Dargi), 32, 35 Arab-Israeli conflict, 104 Aral Sea, 146 Aral–Asia–Kazakhstan ecological movement, 159 Armenia (see also NagornoKarabagh), 80, 81, 82, 90–1, 98n, 188, 266, 268, 270, 280; currency reforms, 83; and Russia, 70, 84, 91 Armenian lobbies, 77, 78, 92, 98n Armenians, 90, 325; in Georgia, 353; in Uzbekistan, 241, 244 Ar-Namys Party (Kyrgyzstan), 204, 206 Arsanov, Ahmed, 365 Asaba Party for National Renaissance (Kyrgyzstan), 145, 151, 205, 206, 207, 209, 217 Asaba, 208 Ashar Movement (Kyrgyzstan), 145, 150, 205, 221 Ashgabat, 263n Ashirkulov, Misir, 210 Astrakhan, 107, 155

Ata-Meken Party, 206, 207, 226 Ataturk (Mustafa Kemal), 268 Atrushevich, Pavel, 176 Atuulduk Demilge (Civil Initiative, Kyrgyzstan), 145, 205 Auezov, Mukhtar, 182n Auezov, Murat, 168, 169, 170, 182n aul, 16, 17, 22, 23, 25, 27n, 28n Aushev, Ruslan, 308, 348, 352 Australia, 87 Austria, 332 Avar National Movement, 340 Avaristan (Avaria), 33 Avars, 335, 339, 340, 343 Aybalayev, Mamat, 225 Azadlig, 279 Azamat (Kazakhstan), 168, 169, 181n Azat Civil Movement of Kazakhstan, 149, 150, 154 Azatlyk (Bashkortostan), 321 Azerbaijan, (see also Apsheron Peninsula, Baku, élites, Nagorno-Karabagh) 7, 29, 77, 78, 80, 81, 84, 88, 90–5, 98n, 114, 188, 218, 265–83, 353, 377; censorship, 274; Constitutional Law on the Sovereignty of, 269; and the Council of Europe, 92, 280; court system, 271; economy, 91, 96n; elections, 273–6; and Great Britain, 98n; Human Rights Defence Program, 278; laws on public organizations, 277; media, 279, 280; Milli Majlis, 272–4; political parties and movements (see Azerbaijan Popular Front, Ana Vatan, Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, Liberal Party, Movement for Electoral Reforms, Musavat, National Independence Party, SocialDemocratic Party of Azerbaijan, Yeni Azerbaijan Party, Yeni Musavat, Yeni Nasil); religious

386

INDEX

associations, 116n; and US, 90, 98n, 270 Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918), 282 Azerbaijan National Committee of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, 278 Azerbaijan National Independence Party (ANIP), 273, 277, 281 Azerbaijan Popular Front, 81, 90, 269, 272–3, 275, 276, 278, 279 Azerbaijan Popular Front Party, 277–8, 281 Azeris, 37, 70, 90, 266, 282, 335, 339 Azim, Usmon, 160 Azimov, Amirkul, 256 Azizov, Mahomed-Fazil, 340, 341

307–26, 327n, 328n, 378; Declaration on Sovereignty (1990), 313; Federation Treaty, 314, 315, 319; ethnic composition, 321; rejection of Russian constitution, 311; Tatar National Assembly (Milli Mejlis), 321; Tatars in, 307–27nn passim Bashli, 37n Batken, 191, 209, 225 Bayalinov, Kamil, 218 Baytursynov, Ahmet, 26, 50n Bedil, Mirzo Abdulqodiri, 248 Bek, Huseyn, 53, 54 Belarus, 80, 81, 82, 83, 138n, 188 Belgium, 332 Beppayev, Sufyan, 348, 350 Berezin, Il’ia, 46 Berezovskii, Boris, 349 Beshimov, Bakyt, 205 bin Laden, Osama, 90 Birlesu, 177 Birlik (Uzbekistan), 108, 109, 114n, 115n, 152, 154, 235 Bishkek, 80, 82, 144, 146, 153, 194, 201, 204, 207–11, 213, 215, 216, 220, 221, 224, 225, 229, 230, 257, 379; European Election Observation Mission in, 210; land seizures (1989), 145, 205, 221 Bizhanov, Akhan, 158 Boboev, Valijon, 254 Bolshevik Revolution, 54, 57, 69, 73n, 193, 310 Bomdod, 253 Bosnia, 188 Botlikh and Tsumada Mountains (Dagestan), 329 Bourassa, Henri, 323 Bourdieu, Pierre, 51 Brezhnev, Leonid, 122, 203 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 187, 188 Bugu tribe, 216 Buinaksk, 340 Bukeykhanov, Alikhan, 26

Babakhanov, Shamsutdin, (Mufti), 106 Badakhshon, 151, 249, 253 Baglai, Marat, 327n Bairamova, Fawiziya, 288, 294, 296–300, 304n Bakai-Ata District, 222 Baker, James, 270 Bakhchisaray, 48 Bakir-ubu, Tursunbay, 204 Baku, 84, 92, 275, 284; uprising (1990), 84, 269 Balkar Republic, 350 Balkars, 344, 345, 346, 348, 349, 350, 351, 355; deportation, 345 Balkhash, Lake, 26, 146 Baltic states, 78, 80, 94, 238, 310 al-Banna, Hasan, 248 Bart (Concord) Association (Chechen), 360 Bartol’d, Vladimir, 46 Basayev, Shamil, 369, 370 Bashkortostan (see also Council of Russians of Bashkortostan, Tatar Public Centre of Bashkortostan, Union of Bashkir Youth, World Congress of Bashkirs, Ufa), 8,

387

INDEX

Bukhara, 151, 154, 236, 238, 240, 242n Bukharan Emirate, 41, 54, 123, 189, 233, 308; treaty with Russian empire, 326n Bukharan People’s Soviet Republic, 234 Bulgaria, 187 Bunin, Ivan, 207

People, Vainakh Democratic Party), 8, 31, 32, 88, 111, 308, 311–13, 318, 322, 323, 343, 346, 348, 350–2, 355, 356, 359–71, 378; Constitution(1992) 366; constitutional amendments (1997), 368; Executive Committee, 362, 365; Muftiate, 369; parliament, 361, 372n; presidential elections (1997), 368; Provisional Council, 364; State Council (Shura), 370; Supreme Presidential Council, 368; wars with Russia, 324, 357n, 370 Cherkess (Circassians), 344, 346–8, 351, 355, 357 Cherkessia (Cherkessk) (see also Karachai–Cherkessia), 348, 349 Chernyshev, Vladimir, 169, 182n Chimkent (see Shymkent) Chingisids, 14, 15, 27n Chingiz (Genghis) Khan, 13 Chkalovsk (Tajikistan), 252 Chokay, Musafa, 26, 59 Chokh, 37n Chong-Alay, 191, 209 Chormanov, Marat, 149 Chuvashia, 317 Chuy, 211, 226 Chyngyshev, Tursunbek, 224 Circassians (see Cherkess) Civilian Patriotic Party (Tajik), 253, 254, 259 clans (see also tribalism, tukhum), 126, 144, 257, 265, 339, 341, 342n, 345; Chechen, 360–1, 365–6, 367; ChechenoIngushetia, 364; Dagestan, 36, 339, 341, 342n; Kazakhstan, 13–25, 26n, 27nn, 28n; Kyrgyzstan, 142n, 191–2, 195, 200, 203, 215–32; Tajikistan, 257 clientelism, 13, 16, 19, 130, 194–5, 217–18, 221–7, 228, 254 Coalition for the Democratization of Society, (Kyrgyzstan), 224

Canada, 227, 238, 332 Carter, Jimmy, 187 Caspian Sea, 91, 268 Catherine II, 59, 103 Caucasus (see also Adygeia, Balkar Republic, Cherkessia, Chechnya, élites, Kabardino-Balkaria, Checheno-Ingushetia, Dagestan, Ossetia, North Caucasus), 103, 277; north-western, 343–56; Russian conquest, 360 Central Asia (see also Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) 119–38, 143–162; 1920s delimitation, 134, 154, 216, 234, 242n Central Bureau of Muslim Affairs (1917), 56, 61, 70n Chabanmakhi, 329 Char (Dzhary), 37n Charogi ruz, 253 Chechen (see also clans), 9, 31, 33, 107, 112, 312, 327, 329, 335, 339, 344, 359, 360, 363, 366–70, 378; deportation, 360 Chechen National Congress, 361, 362, 364; and August putsch, 363 Chechen-Ingush ASSR, 359, 361; Declaration of Sovereignty, 359, 362, 363, 364, 365; Spiritual Administration of Muslims, 359, 373n; Supreme Soviet, 364 Chechnya (see also Grozny, Islam, Mekh Kel, Pan-National Congress of the Chechen

388

INDEX

Colombia, 333 Commission for the Rehabilitation of the Balkar People, 350 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), 1, 3, 4, 9, 78–80, 82, 83, 89, 90, 95, 96, 116, 188, 196, 205, 209, 223, 238, 269, 333, 375, 377; Bishkek summit (1992), 80, 82; economic union, 82 Communist Party of Kazakhstan (see also Socialist Party of Kazakhstan), 145, 156–7 Communist Party of Kyrgyzstan (see Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan) Communist Party of Tajikistan (CPT), 158, 164n, 252, 261 Communist Party of Turkmenistan (see Democratic Party of Turkmenistan) Communist Party of Uzbekistan (see also People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan) 129, 157, 164n Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), 107, 147, 161, 245, 248, 331 Congress of Local Communities (Kyrgyzstan), 202, 206 Congress of National Unity (Tajikistan), 259 Congress of the Ingush People, 360 Congress of the Kazakh and Kyrgyz Peoples, 162 consociational democracy, 172, 309, 332–5, 338–9, 341 Consultative Council of Parties and Movements of Tajikistan, 259 Corden, Max, 78, 80 Cossack Centre in Kyrgyzstan, 153 Cossacks, 153, 163n, 177, 345, 346, 348, 356n, 346; clashes with Kazakhs, 167; Siberian Brotherhood of the Gor’kaia Liniia, 153; Society of Assistance to the

Semirech’e Cossacks, 153, 154 Council of Directors of Leninabad, 259 Council of Europe, 276 (see also Azerbaijan) Council of National Reconciliation, Tajikistan (CNR), 256 Council (Sobor) of Russians of Bashkortostan, 321 Croatia, 187 Cyprus, 333 Czech Republic, 187 Dagestan (see also Agul District, Aqusha, Avaristan, Botlikh and Tsumuda Mountains, Buinaksk, Derbent, élites, Khiva District, Makhachkala, People’s Assembly of Dagestan) 8, 10, 31–4, 36, 37, 114, 329–41, 343, 352, 354, 355, 370, 377; constitution, 332, 334, 338; Constitutional Assembly, 338; election law, 334, 336, 337, 341; ethnic composition (see also Avars, Dargin, Laks, Lezgin, Nogay, Rutuls, Tabasarans, Targhu, Tsukhurs), 332, 335, 339, 340, 342n; national movements (see also Avar National Movement), 332; State Council, 337, 339 Dargin, 335, 339, 340, 341, 352 Daryn Society, 145 Dusht-i Kypchak, 13, 18, 26n dehqans, 105, 246 Democratic Choice for Kazakhstan, 179 Democratic Movement of Kyrgyzstan (DDK), 145, 205, 206, 207, 219 Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, 273, 281 Democratic Party of Tajikistan (DPT), 110, 151, 152, 154, 251, 252, 253, 255, 259, 260 Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, 148, 158, 161

389

INDEX

Democratic Party (Kazakhstan), 158 Demos Club (Frunze), 144 Derbent, 341 Derev, Stanislav, 348, 349, 355 Dicey, Albert Venn, 323 Dirafshi Kovien (Tajikistan), 248 Dostiyev, Abdumajid, 254, 258 Dudayev, Adam, 361 Dudayev, Johar, 111, 112, 116, 348, 361–70, 372n, 373n, 378 Dulatov, Myrzhakip, 26 Dushanbe, 144, 164n, 247, 248, 255, 262, 263, 263n; demonstrations (1991), 252; Popular Front takeover, 253 Dzasokhov, Aleksandr, 352 Dzhunusova, Zhanylzhan, 171, 172

49, 107, 121, 122, 156, 158, 307, 318, 323; in Azerbaijan, 269, 272, 280; Caucasus, 344, 351; Dagestan, 329–33, 339–40; Kazakhstan, 15, 17, 23, 24, 149, 159, 182n; Khiva, 55, 68, 69; Kyrgyzstan, 188, 192, 195, 196, 202, 203, 214, 216–29 passim; regional Central Asian, 124, 127, 128, 144, 161, 162; structures, 128–33, 135–7; Tajikistan,152, 161, 246–7, 248, 249–51, 252, 254, 257–60, 264, Tatarstan, 291, 292, 303; Uzbekistan, 97n Erk (Uzbekistan), 109, 115n, 154 Erkyn Kyrgyzstan Democratic Party, 151, 205–7 Ertisbayev, Ermuhamet, 2 Estonia, 80, 168, 187, 269, 310; currency reform, 80 Eurasia Foundation, 278 Euro-Atlantic Association (Azerbaijan), 278 European Union (see also Council of Europe), 278

ecology and ecological movements (see also Ekolog, Ekologicheskaia Initsiativa, Green Front, NevadaSemipalatinsk, Osh), 145–7, 159, 182n Economic Cooperation Organization, 98 economic aid, 3, 4–5, 77–99 economic liberalization, 130–1 economic reform, 119–38 passim; in Azerbaijan, 270–1; Bashkortostan, 322; Chechnya, 9; Dagestan, 106; Kazakhstan, 14, 17, 18, 20, 25; Khiva, 58; Kyrgyzstan, 6, 226–7; Tatarstan, 301; Uzbekistan, 109 Edinstvo, 153, 177 Ekaterinburg, 290 Ekhiei Khujand (Tajikistan), 248 Ekolog (Kyrgyzstan), 146 Ekologicheskaia Initsiativa (Kazakhstan), 146 El Party (Kyrgyzstan), 206 Elchibey, Abulfaz, 81, 270, 271, 273, 274, 283n Election Observation Mission, 210 élites (see also nomenklatura), 4,

Fahreddin, Rizaeddin, 50n al-Farabi State University (Kazakhstan), 170 Farsi, 240 Fedorov, Andrei, 313 Fedorov, Nikolai, 317 Fergana Oblast, 240 Fergana Valley, 107–9, 125, 129, 155, 189, 222, 223 Finland, 54, 308 Fitrat, Abdurauf, 50n Forum of Democratic Forces (Uzbekistan), 109 France, 333 Freedom House, 187 Frunze (see Bishkek) Gaidar, Egor, 79 Galazov, Aksharbek, 352 Gali Mahmutov, Muhammad, 46 Galiulla, Gabdulla, 288, 301, 302

390

INDEX

Galkin, A.S., 55 Gambar, Isa, 273 Gamsakhurdia, Zviad, 353 Ganiyev, Arkadii, 341 Gasprali, Ismail, 50n Gel’man, Aleksandr, 208 General Agreement on Peace and National Reconciliation (see Tajikistan) Georgia, 10, 80, 88, 188, 268, 353 minorities, 353 Germans (see Kazakhstan) Germany, 62, 77, 85, 97n, 187, 238, 310, 333 Ghazi-Ghumuq (Kazi Kumukh), 33 Gilayev, Vilayat, 266 Girey, 14, 23, 26n Girgil, 37n Godjamanli, Saida, 284n Golden Horde, 13, 288 Golovkov, Mikhail, 185n Gorbachev, Mikhail, 87, 97, 105, 107, 114, 129, 132, 143, 199, 207, 215, 216, 246, 311, 313, 326n, 376 Gorno-Badakhshon (see Badakhshon) Government of National Reconciliation (see Tajikistan) Great Britain, 2, 67, 98n, 333 Greece, 187 Greeks, 149 Green Front (Alma-Ata), 146 Grozny, 359, 361, 363, 366, 367; seizure by federal forces (1995), 368 GUAM/GUUAM, 88, 93 Gulistan, 240 Guliyev, Rasul, 273 Gulnar Khanim (see Lebedeva, O.S.)

Hamidov, Hamid, 340 Hawwo, Sayyid, 248 Heydar, Jemal, 108, 114n Himmatzoda, Muhammad Sharif, 110, 262n Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami (The Party of Islamic Independence), 116n, 155 Hizballa (Uzbekistan), 155 Holm-Hansen, J., 176 Horowitz, Donald, 309 Hungary, 187 Huntington, Samuel, 1–2, 3, 101, 114n, 266–7 Huseyn Bek, 54, 55, 57, 58, 60–3, 65, 68, 69, 70, 72; execution of, 71n Huseynov, Suret, 269, 270 Huseynova, Irada, 279 Huwaidi, Fahmi, 115n Ibraimov, Osmonakun, 229n Idel-Ural region, 287 Il’minskii, N.I., 50n Ilisu, 33 Imanov, Nazim, 277, 281 Indian National Congress, 69 Ingush, 359, 361, 365, 372, 372n Ingushetia (see also ChechenIngush ASSR), 308, 343–6, 348, 352, 362, 364, 370 Ingush-Ossetian conflict, 351 inorodtsy, 40, 43, 49, 103 Institute of Peace and Democracy (Azerbaijan), 278 Institute of Soviet-American Relations, 277 International Committee on Human Rights, 365 international financial institutions (IFI), 77, 85, 86, 88, 90–3 International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 355 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 77, 79, 82, 83, 84, 88, 91, 94, 95, 96n, 97n, 98, 99n, 196

Haji, Makhachev, 340 Hajiyev, Arif, 277 Hajiyeva, Lala-Shovket, 273, 283n Hak Nazar, 16 Hakimov, Rafael, 291

391

INDEX

International Union of the Peoples of Uzbekistan, 153 Iran, 89, 92, 98n, 101, 151, 266, 268, 283 Irtysh, 26n Isfendiyar Khan, 56, 60 Ishakov, Damir, 290 Ishmuratov, Minirais, 320 Isinaliyev, Mikhail, 150 Iskhaki,Gayaz, 299 Islam (see also Akramiyya, Central Bureau of Muslim Affairs, Hizb al-Tahrir, Hizballa, Jadidism, jihad, medreses, Mecca, Nur, Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly, pan-Islam, qadi, Qur’an, Saf Islam, Shari‘a, Shiites, Sufism, Sunnism) 15, 43, 92, 104, 144, 150, 154, 161, 180, 216; in Azerbaijan, 266–8, 282; in Caucasus, 344; in Chechnya, 107, 364, 366, 367–70; in Dagestan, 34–5, 38; and democracy, 101–14, 125, 188; fundamentalist, 89, 93, 109, 239, 249, 300, 368; and glasnost, 107, 108, 239, 242; in Russian Empire, 39–50, 50n, 56–63, 66, 68, 74, 102, 103, 105; in Kazakhstan, 19–20; in Kyrgyzstan, 156, 189–91, 202–3, 206, 209, 216; radical, 137, 138; in Tajikistan, 110, 155, 189, 245, 247–8, 250, 252, 259–61; in Tatarstan, 288, 293–303; in Turkmenistan, 108, 109, 155; in Uzbekistan, 106, 108, 109, 129, 155, 156, 161, 189, 242, 248; and West, 296, 297 Islamic Democratic Party (Dagestan), 105 Islamic Cultural Centre (Kyrgyzstan), 155 Islamic Democratic Party (Kazan), 112 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, 191

Islamic political parties and movements (see also All-India Muslim League, All-Islamic Democratic Party, Ittifaq, Nur), 154–6 Islamic Renaissance Movement of Tajikistan, 248, 253 Islamic Renaissance Party (AllUnion), 155 Islamic Renaissance Party (Uzbekistan), 108, 154 Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), 110, 111, 116, 154, 155, 156, 164n, 248, 251, 252, 253, 255, 259, 260, 261, 262n Islamic Renaissance Party (AllUnion), 105, 107, 108 Islom Loshkarlari (Warriors of Islam), 155 Ismailov, Ilyas, 273 Ismankulov, Almazbek, 225 Isoev, Jumahon, 144 Israel, 89, 208, 238, 268 Issyk-Kul, Lake, 216, 224; Public Committee for the Salvation of, 146 Ittifaq (Tashkent), 162n Ittifaq Party (Tatarstan), 288, 289, 293, 294, 296, 298, 301, 304n Ittihod (see Civilian Patriotic Party) Izhevsk, 290 Jadidism, 41, 42, 44, 46, 49, 103, 104, 114, 162n, 233, 293, 296–300; and Bolsheviks, 105 Jalal-Abad, 145, 154, 190, 192, 205, 216 Jalal-Abad Oblast, 153 jama’ats, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 340, 342, 368, 372n Jamagat Karachai Movement, 347 Jambul (Jambyl), 146 Janibek, 23, 26 Japan, 187 Jarimov, Aslan, 352 jihad, 112, 299

392

INDEX

Jizzak, 238, 240, 243n Jumagulov, Apas, 204, 219

customary law (Seven Codes), 21, 22, 27n; ecological organizations, 146; economy, 83, 86, 87, 93, 130; ethnic composition and non-titulars, 86–7, 163n, 176, 177, 178; Germans, 77, 87, 99, 149; kazakhification policy, 169, 178, 180, 182nn; Law on Public Organizations, 148; political parties and movements (see Adilet, Alash, Azamat, Azat, National Democratic Party, Communist Party, Democratic Choice for Kazakhstan, Democratic Party, Edinstvo, Ekologicheskaia Initsiativa, Lad Slav Movement, NevadaSemipalatinsk, Party of National Unity of Kazakhstan, People’s Congress of Kazakhstan, Popular Cooperative Party, Republican Party, Republican People’s Party of Kazakhstan, Socialist Party, Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Union of Social Democrats, Women’s Union, Zheltoksan); religious associations, 116n; riots (1986), 165; Russians, 87, 152, 163n, 167, 168, 171; secular legislation, 156; Slavs, 106, 177 Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 169 Kazan, 40, 42, 43, 45, 46, 49, 50, 51, 112, 114, 116, 288, 292, 305n, 378 Kazhegeldin, Akezhan, 168, 170, 171, 179, 182n, 183n Keleb, 37n Kerimov, Ali, 276 Kerimov, S., 372n Khachilaev, Nadir, 340 Khadzhiev, R., 372n Khalim, Aidar, 304n Khanim, Najiya, 48 Kharuzin, A.N., 42 Khasbulatov, Ruslan, 364, 365

Kabardino-Balkaria, 8, 343–58 Kabardins, 343–58 Kalininobod (now Sarband), 252 Kamalov, Sadyk (Sadikjan Hajj Kamaluddin), 190 Kamalova, Ummylgulsum, 49 Kan, Nikifor, 184n Kara-Bura, 210, 222; election violations, 211 Karachai (see also Jamagat), 8, 343–52, 355; deportation, 345 Karachai-Cherkessia, 8, 343–356n; 1992 referendum, 347; presidential elections, 355 Karamakhi, 33, 329 Karatau, 26n Karategin, 249, 253 Karategin Valley, 253 Karimli, Tahir, 273 Karimov, Islam, 6, 7, 88, 89, 108, 109, 135, 136, 156, 160, 162n, 165, 166, 180, 191, 242, 378; agrarian policies, 196 Kasym, 16 Katanov, N.F., 40 Kaufmann, K.P, 41 Kazakh Tili Society, 145, 159, 175 Kazakhstan (see also Alma-Ata, Almaty, élites, Koreans, Pavlodar, Petropavlovsk, Semipalatinsk, Taldy-Kurgan, Tselinograd, Turgay Oblast, Uralsk Oblast, UstKamenogorsk), 1, 5, 6, 13, 14, 18, 20, 26–8, 71, 78, 80–96, 106, 112, 115, 116n, 119, 120, 124, 126, 128, 130–8, 141n, 142n, 145, 146, 148, 150, 152, 154, 155, 157, 158, 161, 162n, 165–84, 188, 210, 218, 241, 375, 376, 378; administrative reform, 25; Assembly of Peoples, 173–8; constitution, 172; Constitutional Court, 173; Cossacks, 153;

393

INDEX

Khaydar, Mirza Muhammad, 14, 27n Khiv District (Dagestan), 341 Khiva (see also élites), 16, 53–73, 123, 189, 233, 308; conquest by Red Army, 71n; conquest by Russia, 57; constitutionalism, 61, 62, 69; democrats, 53, 68; Fundamental Laws, 63, mejlis, 61, 64; revolution (1917), 57; treaty with Russian empire, 326n Khivan Commission of the Muslim Bureau, 72n Khodjali massacre, 90 Khorezm People’s Soviet Republic, 62, 234 Khrushchev, Nikita 326n Khubiyev, Vladimir, 347, 348, 354 Khudonazarov, Davlat, 252 Khujand (Leninabad), 248, 254 Kim, Iurii, 172 Kirienko, Sergei, 318 Kishi, 14, 16 Kofarnihon, 256 Kokand, 233 Kokoshkin, Fedor F., 67, 72 Kokov, Valerii, 350, 351 kolkhozes, 33, 196, 197 Komsomol, 144, 246 Komsomolets Kirgizii, 144 Koreans, 149, 241; in Kazakhstan, 87 Kosanov, Amirzhan, 182n Kosovo, 323 Kozha-Ahmet, Hasen, 150, 167, 168, 182n Krachkovskii, Iu.I., 46 Krasnodar, 346, 357n Krasnov, Mikhail, 327n Kulob, 250, 259 Kulobi-Leninabad-Hissor coalition, 253 Kulov, Feliks, 204, 210, 211, 219, 220, 222, 225, 230n Kumyks, 335, 339, 340, 352 Kunanbayev, Abay, 28n Kurgan-Teppe, 254, 258

Kuropatkin, A.N., 55, 64 Kypchaks, 230n Kyrgyz, clan and tribal system, 200, 216; constitution on land ownership, 198; customary law, 59; language, 220; nomadic tradition, 59, 143 Kyrgyz Steppe, 71n Kyrgyzstan (see also Batken, Bishkek, Chuy, élites, Islam, Issyk-Kul, Jalal-Abad, Kara-Bura, Osh, Naryn, Talas, Uzgen), 5, 6, 7, 71, 78, 80, 81, 84, 86, 88, 92–7, 112, 116n, 120, 126, 128, 129, 135, 136, 138n, 142n, 144, 145, 147, 150–2, 155, 157, 159, 161, 163n, 166, 187–211, 215–32, 376, 377, 379; Assembly of the People of, 194, 206; currency reforms, 78, 81; economic aid to, 81, 85, 86; economic reforms, 85, 131, 196, 227; elections to legislative assembly (2000), 206, 207; elections to parliament (2000), 224; ethnic composition, 192, 193; Islamic Centre, 190; Land Law, 229n, 236; land reform, 196–8; language policy, 236, 244n; law on religious associations, 116n; local government reform, 198–202; Office of Human Rights, 215; opposition, 203, 204; political parties and movements (see Afghan War Veterans’ Party, Agrarian Labour Party, Agrarian Party, Ar-Namys Party, Asaba Party for National Renaissance, Ashar, Ata-Meken, Atuulduk Demilge; Coalition for the Democratization of Society, Communist Party, Congress of Local Communities, Congress of Kazakh and Kyrgyz Peoples, Cossack Centre in Kyrgyzstan, Democratic Movement of Kyrgyzstan, Demos Club,

394

INDEX

Ekolog, El Party, Erkyn Kyrgyzstan Democratic Party, Islamic Cultural Centre, Manas, Moia strana, Osh Aimagy Movement, Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan, Party of Economic Revival, Party of Kyrgyzstan’s Unity, People’s Unity, People’s Unity Party of Kyrgyzstan, Republican People’s Party, Slav Diaspora, Slav Foundation, Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan, Union of Kyrgyz Writers, Unity (Birimdik) Party, Women’s Party); Popular Front, 145; relations w/Uzbekistan, 129, 154, 221, 222; Wahhabism, 191; Zhogorku Kenesh, 192, 193, 194, 198, 204, 206, 210, 212n, 213, 215, 223, 224, 226

Dagestan, 310, 325, 336, 338, 341; Kazakhstan, 15, 174–5; Kyrgyzstan, 192–4, 196, 198–203, 211, 215–18, 221–8; Tajikistan, 249, 252–5, 257, 260; Tatarstan, 289–90 Luzhkov, Iurii, 318, 327n Macedonia, 188 Madumarov, Adakhan, 204 mahalla, 109, 111, 125, 200 Mahkamov, Qahhor, 163n Maikop, 344 Makhachkala, 33, 335, 340 Maksudi, Sadri, 42 Malaysia, 333 Malov, E.P, 50n Mamayusupov, Muhammadsadyk (Mufti), 108, 111, 114n Mamedov, Etibar, 273–5 Manas (electoral bloc), 207 Manas-Ata, 222 Marifat, 262n Masaliyev, Absamat, 157, 192, 203, 219, 222, 225 Masanov, Nurbulat, 173 Mashanov, M.P., 50 Maskhadov, Aslan, 368, 369, 370, 373n Maudoodi, Abu-l ‘Ala, 248 Mazar-i-Sharif, 89 McChesney, R.D., 140n Mecca, 156, 359 Mederov, Sultan, 227 medreses, 111 Mehk Kel (Chechnya), 112, 361, 365, 366, 369, 371n Memorial Society, All-Union, 145, 147 Merjani, Shihabeddin, 46 Midhat Pasha, Ahmed, 58 Mikhailov, Viktor, 169 Mirsaidov, Shukrullo, 115n Mirsayev, Rafail, 320, 324 Mogolistan, 26n Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly, 42, 103

Lad Slav Movement, 153, 169, 174 La’li Badakhshon, 151, 252, 253, 255, 260 Lad Slav Movement, 153, 177, 178, 185n Laks, 335, 339, 340, 352 Latvia, 80, 168, 187, 310; currency reform, 96n Lebanon, 183n, 333 Lebedeva, O.S., 45, 46, 51 Lenin, V.I., 312 Leninabad Oblast, 259 Levitin, Leonid, 229n Lezgin, 335, 339, 340, 352 Liberal Party of Azerbaijan, 273 Lijphart, Arend, 309 Linz, Juan, 121, 290, 304n Lithuania, 80, 187, 310; currency reform, 96n local politics (see also akims), 7, 53, 55, 59, 66, 122n, 124–6, 128–31, 142n, 143–4, 161–2, 243n, 307, 313, 316, 320; in Azerbaijan, 265, 272, 276–8, 281–2; Bashkortostan, 320; Chechnya, 359, 363, 370;

395

INDEX

Moia strana (Kyrgyzstan), 207 Moldova, 80, 88, 188, 353; currency reform, 83 Mollazade, Asim, 278 Moscow, 226, 307, 309 Movement for Electoral Reforms and Democratic Elections (MERDE, Azerbaijan), 275 Movement for Peace and Accord (Tajikistan), 258 Mugojar Mountains, 14 Muhammed Divan Begi, 57 mullas, 104, 109 Muraliyev, Amangeldy, 210 Murav’ev, N.K., 71n Musavat, 2, 277, 281, 282; (1911–13), 282, 284n Mustafi, A., 45 Mutalibov, Ayaz, 269, 273, 283n

Nevada-Semipalatinsk Movement, 146, 159, 182n Nigeria, 333 Nikanor, Archbishop, 42 Nikitina, Elena, 182n Niyazov, Saparmurat, 82, 108, 161, 162, 165, 166, 236; on Western democracy, 125 Nogay, 40, 335, 339, 356 Nol’de, Boris A., 67, 72 nomenklatura, 106, 160, 197, 215, 216, 219, 220, 223, 224, 246, 249, 250, 291, 302, 330, 343, 352, 359, 363, 367 Norak Hydroelectric Power Station, 246 North Caucasus, 344 North Ossetia, 343, 345, 346, 352, 360 Novolak Region, 329 Nukhayev, Khoj-Ahmet, 369, 373n Nur Uulu, Dosbol, 225 Nur, All-Russia Muslim Public Movement, 116n Nuraly, 15 Nuri, Said Abdullo, 248 Nuriyev, Alimamed, 281 Nuriyev, Ziya, 326n

Naberezhnye Chelny, 292 Nabiyev, Rahmon, 252 Nadir Shah, 33 Nagorno-Karabagh, 81, 90, 91, 98n, 268, 270, 280, 281, 325 Najot, 253 Najoti Vatan, 253 Namangan, 156; Islamic Centre, 109, 115n Naqshbandiyya, 33, 34, 35, 37n Naryn, 216, 226 Nasiri, Kayyuim, 46 National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), 274, 277 National Democratic Party (Kazakhstan), 154 National Independence Party (Azerbaijan), 275 Navoy, 236, 238 Nazarbayev, Nursultan, 2, 6, 7, 83, 86, 87, 97, 106, 125, 128, 135, 136, 157, 159, 162n, 165–71, 173–80, 182n, 185n, 378 Nazran, 359 Netherlands, 332

O’Donnell, Guillermo, 290 October revolution (see Bolshevik Revolution) Oftobi Sogdien, 154 Oinayi Sikandar, 253 Oirat (Kalmyk), 189 Omet Movement (Tatarstan), 288, 300, 301 Open Society Institute (OSIAzerbaijan), 278 Orenburg, 28, 41, 42, 48, 49, 162 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 183n, 274, 275, 355, 368; negotiations in Azerbaijan, 269; Lisbon summit, 281

396

INDEX

Organization of Independent Uzbek Youth, 115n Organization of Islamic Conferences, 268 Orion, 253 Orta, 14, 16 Osh, 150, 154, 190, 191, 192, 205, 216, 225; riots (1990), 145, 151; ecological movement, 146; land disputes, 221 Osh Aimagy Movement, 150, 205, 221 Oshkoro (Tajikistan), 248 Osmonov, Bekmamat, 219 Ossets (see also Ingush-Ossetia, North Ossetia), 353 Ostroumov, M.A., 43 Ostroumov, N.P., 45, 50n, 51 Otrar, 18, 27 Ottoman Empire, 5, 60, 68, 267

People’s Congress of Kazakhstan, 147, 159, 168, 181n People’s Democratic Party (PDPT, Tajikistan), 158, 254, 255, 258 People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan (PDPU), 109, 157, 160, 164n People’s Party of Tajikistan, 253, 254, 258 People’s Unity Movement (Kyrgyzstan), 159 People’s Unity Party of Kyrgyzstan, 160 Petropavlovsk, 153 Platonov, M., 43 Pobedonostsev, Konstantin, 50n Poland, 187, 308 Polatov, Abdurahim, 108 Popular Cooperative Party (Kazakhstan), 160, 236 Popular Front (Tajikistan), 253 Popular Front (Tatarstan), 302 power-sharing treaties, 307–16, 317, 319, 320 Prigorodnyi Raion, 345 Primakov, Evgenii, 313 Public Council of the Republic of Tajikistan, 254, 258 Pushkin, Aleksandr, 40 Putin, Vladimir, 8, 287, 313, 316–20, 325, 327n, 328n, 349, 351, 379; administrative reforms, 317; and sovereignty of the republics, 316

Pakistan, 89, 98n, 267 pan-Islam, 234, 282 Pan-National Congress of the Chechen People, 366, 367 pan-Turkism, 162n, 234 Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan, 157, 206, 207 Party of Economic Revival (Kyrgyzstan), 225 Party of Justice and Development (Tajikistan), 254 Party of Kyrgyzstan’s Unity, 159 Party of National Unity of Kazakhstan, 158, 159 Party of Political and Economic Renovation (Tajikistan), 160, 253, 254, 259 Party of Popular Unity (Tajikistan), 254, 259 Party of Social Progress (Uzbekistan), 160 Pashayev, Hafiz, 275 Pavlodar, 141, 146 Penza, 290 People’s Assembly of Dagestan, 334

qadi, 34 Qaraqaytaq (Kaitag), 33, 36 Qaumzod, Abduqaum, 262n Qazi Girey, 40, 41 Qori, Hikmatullo, 248 Quebec, 323 Qur’an, 2, 45, 104, 108, 156, 296–300, 303 Qursawi, Gabdenasr, 299 qurultay, 15, 17, 21, 23, 27n Qutb, Sayyid and Muhammad, 248

397

INDEX

Radio Liberty, 238 Radlov, V., 46 Raduyev, Salman, 369 Rahimov, Murtaza, 316, 317, 319–21 Rahmonov, Emomali, 111, 154, 158, 258 Rashidov, Sharaf, 235; russification policy, 242n Rastokhez (Tajikistan), 110, 151, 154, 246–8, 252, 253 Rasulzade, Mamed Emin, 282 Red Cross, 355 Republican Party (Kazakhstan), 150 Republican People’s Party (Kyrgyzstan), 160 Republican People’s Party of Kazakhstan, 168 Res Publica, 208 Revue du monde musulman, 48 Rogun Hydroelectric Power Station, 246, 252 Romania, 187 Rondeli, Alexander, 353 Ru ba Ru, 144, 246, 248, 262n ruble zone, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 96n, 99n; 1993 collapse, 83 Rudov, Georgii, 193 Russia, (pre-1917) 2, 4, 17, 18, 28n, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39–41, 43, 45–9, 50n, 54, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 67, 68, 69, 268, 269, 310; colonialism, 189, 196; conquest of Muslim countries, 103, 104; Decree on Religious Tolerance (17 April 1905), 41 Russia, Provisional Government (1917), 54, 57, 62, 68; Juridical Council, 57, 67, 73n Russian Community (Russkaia obshchina), 153 Russian Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets), 66, 103 Russian Federation (see also Bashkortostan, Chechnya, Chuvashia, Ekaterinburg,

Ingushetia, Krasnodar, North Ossetia, Penza, Sakha-Yakutia, Tatarstan, Samara, Saratov, Udmurtia, Ulianovsk) , 2, 8, 9, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 87, 89, 91, 93, 94, 95n, 96n, 112, 132, 157, 188, 209, 226, 235, 238, 239, 242, 268, 269, 282, 287, 288, 290, 302, 307–25, 327, 330, 346, 347, 356, 367; All-Russia Congress for Constitutional Restructuring, 324; currency reforms, 80, 82, 83; federalism and federation structure, 309, 312, 313, 315, 316, 325, 326n; migration, 238; military power, 88, policy towards regions (see also local politics) 311, 316, 317, 318, 320; religious associations, 116n; trade with Central Asia, 79; Russians as minorities and nontitulars, 9, 149, 152–4, 309; in Bashkortostan, 321, 323, 327n; Caucasus, 344, 348, 349, 352; Chechen-Ingush ASSR, 365, 367; Dagestan, 335, 339; Imperial Russia, 18, 25, 39, 40, 42, 43, 46; Kazakhstan, 6, 87, 100, 163n, 167, 172, 174, 177, 178, 183n; Kyrgyzstan, 192, 193, 197, 220; Tajikistan, 252; Uzbekistan 233, 237–8, 242n, 243n russophones, 6, 144, 145, 147, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 163n, 165, 168–70, 174–6, 177–8, 180, 182n, 184n, 185n, 207, 234, 237–8, 240–1, 242n, 243n, 252, 297, 301, 302 Rustamov, Muhammad Hindustoni (Hoji Domullo), 248 Rustenbekov, Jenish, 225 Rutuls, 335, 339, 341 Saadanbekov, Jumagul, 224 Sadykov, Sheraly, 204 Sadykov, Usen, 205

398

INDEX

Sadykova, Zamira, 209 Sadyrbayev, Dooronbek, 203, 220, 221 Saf Islam, 300, 305n Safin, Rashat, 295 Sakha-Yakutia Treaty, 314 Saikal Society (Samarkand), 154 Sairam, 18 Sajak, 216 Sakharov, Andrei, 105, 207 Samara Oblast, 318 Samarkand, 41, 70, 151, 154, 196, 236, 238, 240, 242n Samoilov, Sergei, 328n Saratov, 290, 318 Sarsenbaev, Altynbek, 158 Sarygulov, Dastan, 195 Saudi Arabia, 89 sayyids, 15 Scientific and Industrial Union of Tajikistan, 160, 259 Semenov, Vladimir, 347–9, 355 Semipalatinsk (Semei), 177 Semipalatinsk Oblast, 28n Semirech’e, 14, 27n, 28n Serbia, 188 Shaikenov, Nagashbai, 172 Shaimiyev, Mintimer, 291, 304n, 317 Shakhanov, Mukhtar, 159 Shakhrai, Sergei, 327n Shakirov, Midkhat, 326n Shamil, Imam, 34, 57 Shanyrak Society, 145 Sharg, 279 Shari‘a, 9, 20, 33, 34, 35, 45, 48, 61, 66, 103, 113, 293, 296, 367–70 Sharifzoda, Fathullokhon, 111 Sheinis, Viktor, 226 Sherimkulov, Medetkan, 205 Shiites, 104 Shymkent, 145, 146 Siberian Brotherhood of the Gor’kaia Liniia (see Cossacks) Silk Road revival project, 269

Sisk, Timothy, 309 Slav Diaspora (Kyrgyzstan), 153 Slav Foundation (Kyrgyzstan), 153 Slovakia, 187 Slovenia, 187 Social Democratic Party (SDPA, Azerbaijan), 273 Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan, 147, 207, 225, 226 Social Democrats of Kirgiziia, 147 Socialist Party of Kazakhstan, 157 Socialist Party of Tajikistan, 253, 259 Soembika, 46 Soviet Union, 2, 33, 35, 71n, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 87, 122, 143, 268, 269, 299, 307, 308, 309, 310, 347; control of Central Asia, 122, 134–5; Law on Citizens’ Associations, 251; Law on public associations, 147 sovkhozes, 196, 197 Speranskii, Mikhail, 25 Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, 106, 108, 114 Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Checheno-Ingushetia, 359, 373n St. Petersburg, 290 Stalin, Iosif, 234, 326n, 345, 346 Stavropol, 357n Sufis and Sufism (see also Naqshbandiyya), 103, 104, 111, 112, 189, 296, 297, 299 Suleymenov, Nizami, 275 Suleymenov, Olzhas, 146, 159, 168, 170, 181n, 182n Sultanov, Alimbay, 211 Sultanov, Kuanysh, 158 sultans, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 23, 25, 27, 59, 140n Sunnism, 2, 104, 108, 298, 300 Supreme Kenges (parliament, Kazakhstan), 171; dissolution of, 173

399

INDEX

Svobodnye gory, 208 Svoik, Petr, 169 Switzerland, 209, 332 Sydykov, Usen, 219 Sygnak, 18 Syr Darya Oblast, 28n, 56, 58 Syr Darya Steppe, 26 Syrtlanov, Shakhaidar, 48

Tajikistan, Council of National Reconciliation, Democratic Party of Tajikistan, Ekhiei Khujand, Islamic Renaissance Movement of Tajikistan, Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, La’li Badakhshon, Movement for Peace and Accord, Oshkoro, Party of Justice and Development, Party of Political and Economic Renovation, Party of Popular Unity, People’s Democratic Party, People’s Party of Tajikistan, Popular Front, Public Council of the Republic of Tajikistan, Rastokhez, Ru ba Ru, Scientific and Industrial Union of Tajikistan, Socialist Party of Tajikistan, Tajdid Movement, Union of Democratic Forces, Union of Progressive Forces of Tajikistan, Union of Tajikistan’s Industrialists and Businessmen, United Tajik Opposition, Vahdat Party); reconciliation process, 261; relations with Russia, 89; Soviet rule, 248, 249; Uzbeks in, 259 Talas, 210, 217, 219, 226, 230n Taldy-Kurgan, 146, 153 Taliban, 89, 156 Tarbagatai, 26 Targhu (Tarki), 33 Tashkent, 10, 21, 45, 49, 51, 55, 56, 59, 67, 71, 72, 82, 108, 115, 119, 132, 153, 162, 235, 236, 240, 241, 244; demonstrations (3 February 1989), 106 Tatar Codex (Tatar Qanuny), 293–6; World Congress, 292 Tatar Public Centre of Bashkortostan (TOTs), 302, 321 Tatars (see also All-Tatar Public Centre, Azatlyk, Bashkortostan, Volga Tatars), 42, 241, 287–303; (1917), 103

Tabasarans, 33, 335, 339, 341 Tadevosian, Eduard, 316 Tajdid Movement (Tajikistan), 248 Tajik, 233 Tajikistan (see also Badakhshon, Chkalovsk, Dushanbe, élites, Islam, Kalininobod, Karategin, Kulob, Kurgan-Teppe, Rogun, Vakhsh Valley, Zarafshon), 1, 7, 80, 82–5, 89, 92–5, 98, 107, 110, 111, 115n, 116, 137, 138n, 140n, 144, 151, 152, 154, 156, 158, 160, 161, 163, 188, 191, 193, 239, 241, 242, 245–62, 376, 377; civil war, 125, 144, 253; Constitutional Court, 259; constitutional referendum (1999), 260; Council of National Reconciliation (CNR), 256; currency reform, 83n; delegated democracy, 256; ethnonationalism, 247; General Agreement on Peace and National Reconciliation, 255, 260; Government of National Reconciliation, 253; intelligentsia, 246; Language Law, 247; language policy, 262n; Law on Political Parties, 256; Majlis Oli, 111, 254; multiparty elections, 256; Platform for Peace, 258; political parties and movements (see Adolat, Agrarian Party of Tajikistan, Civilian Patriotic Party, Communist Party (CPT), Congress of National Unity, Consultative Council of Parties and Movements of

400

INDEX

Tatarstan (see also élites, Kazan, Islam, Ittifaq, Naberezhnye Chelny, Omet), 7, 114, 287–304, 307, 308, 310–13, 315–18, 322, 324, 325, 378; decree on public associations, 292; Milli Mejlis (National Assembly of the Tatar People), 292, 293, 296, 304n; muftiate, 301; parliamentary elections, 292; rejection of Russian constitution by, 311; sovereignty, 289, 291; treaty with Russian Federation, 314 Tats (Mountain Jews), 335, 339 Tauke Khan, 16, 18, 21, 22 Tawhid Islamic Centre, 108 Tekebayev, Omurbek, 206, 213n Tengrianism, 27, 297, 305 terrorism, 90, 107, 138, 156 Tien Shan Mountains, 26, 189 Tolkachev, Konstantin, 319 Toygonbayev, Adil, 195 Tret’iakov, Vitalii, 188 tribalism (see also clans), 128, 143 Trizna, B.P., 54, 56–66, 68, 69, 71n, 72n Tsakhurs, 335, 339 tukhum, 342n Tumaris, 115n Turajonzoda, Akbar, Qazi-Kolon, 110, 111, 116n, 261 Turgay Oblast, 28n Turkestan, 18, 28n, 43, 55, 56, 58, 59, 70, 71n, 150; Muslim Council, 71n; revolt (1916), 70n; and Steppe krais (see also Semirech’e, Syr Darya Steppe), 71n Turkestan ASSR, 234 Turkestan Committee of Provisional. Government, 57, 61, 63, 71n Turkey, 87, 89, 92, 98n, 205, 209, 266, 268, 277, 283, 298, 344 Turkmen, 56, 143 Turkmenistan (see also Ashgabat, Islam), 1, 3, 80, 82, 83, 85, 88,

92–5, 98, 112, 123, 138n, 140n, 156, 160–2, 165, 178, 180, 188, 209, 210, 228; and language policy, 236; law on religious parties, 116n; political parties and movements (see Agzybirlik, Azadliq, Communist Party, Democratic Party, Khalq Maslakhaty); restrictions on political organization, 148 Turkmenistan National Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, 125 Udmurtia (see also Izhevsk), 318 Ufa, 48, 49, 50, 103, 112, 379; Conference of Mohameddan Spiritual Assembly (1914), 41 Ukraine, 54, 70, 78, 88, 188, 226, 243n; currency reform, 80 Ul’ianovsk, 290, 318 Ulama Jamiyati (Tashkent), 162n ulus, 15, 26 Union of Bashkir Youth (SBM), 321 Union of Democratic Forces (Tajikistan), 252 Union of Independent Kazakh Youth, 145 Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (Kazakhstan), 160 Union of Kyrgyz Writers, 146 Union of National Unity (Kazakhstan), 158 Union of Progressive Forces of Tajikistan, 160 Union of Social Democrats (Kazakhstan), 147 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (see Soviet Union) Union of Tajikistan’s Industrialists and Businessmen, 259 United Nations High Commission for Refugees, 84, 96n United States, 77, 78, 82–94 passim, 98nn, 99n, 138, 187, 188, 210, 238, 270, 274, 310, 333

401

INDEX

United Tajik Opposition (UTO), 252, 253, 255, 260, 261, 263n Unity [Birimdik] Party (Kyrgyzstan), 225 Upper Irtysh Cossack Community of Old Believers, 153 Ural, 26, 28n Ural–Bashkir National Centre, 321 Uralsk Oblast, 28n Uruguay, 333 Urus-Khan, 13 Usenov, Daniyar, 204 Usmon, Davlat, 110 Ust-Kamenogorsk, 153 Uzbekistan (see also Andijan, Angren, Bukhara, élites, Fergana Oblast, Fergana Valley, Gulistan, Islam, Jizzak, Kokand, Namangan, Navoy, Syr Darya, Tashkent), 2, 5, 6, 71, 80, 82–5, 88, 89, 92–6, 96n, 97, 99, 111, 112, 115, 116, 119, 120, 123, 124, 126, 128, 130–6, 138, 139, 140n, 141, 147, 152, 154, 155, 161, 162, 165, 178, 180, 188, 191, 193, 196, 210, 218, 223, 233–42, 277, 376, 378; delimitation (1920s), 151; economic reforms, 88, 131; emigration from, 237, 238, 221; ethnic minorities, 142n, 233, 242n; language and orthographic policy, 233–42, 243n, 244n; Law on Freedom of Conscience, 115n; Law on Language, 235–7; Law on Public Associations, 108, 148; political parties and movements (see Adolat, Birlik, Communist Party of (Soviet), Erk, Forum of Democratic Forces, International Union of the Peoples of Uzbekistan, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Islamic Renaissance Party, Islom Loshkarlari, Ittifaq, Organization of Independent Uzbek Youth, Party of Social

Progress, People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, Watan Taraqqiyoti); regionalism, 129; relations with Tajikistan, 242; relations with US, 89; Russians in, 238, 240, 243n; russification, 234, 235; secularism, 89; Tajiks in, 142n Uzgen, 221 Vagapov, Sabir, 326n Vahdat Party (Tajikistan), 248, 273, 278 Vainakh Democratic Party (VDP), 360, 362 Vakhsh Valley, 246, 262n Valikhanov, Chokan, 22, 24, 28, 189 Vaqt, 48 Vasilenko, Mikhail, 182n Voice of America, 238 Vol’kenshtein, O.A., 48 Volga region, 310 Volga Tatars, 7, 49, 189 Volga-Ural region, 303 Vorontsov, M.S., Prince, 41 VTOTs (see All Tatar Public Centre) al-Wahdat, 108 Wahhabis, 33, 190, 368, 370 Watan Taraqqiyoti Party (Uzbekistan), 160 Wax, General Charles, 92 Wittfogel, Karl, 122 women (see also All Russian Congress of Russian Women, Tumaris), 90, 142n, 159; in Dagestan, 337, 342; Kazakhstan, 22, 30; Tatar, 43–52 Women’s Party (Kyrgyzstan), 207 Women’s Union, (Kazakhstan), 159 World Bank, 77, 78, 81, 84, 85, 91, 94–8, 212, 232 World Congress (Qurultay) of Bashkirs, 321

402

INDEX

Yandarbiev, Zelimkhan, 360, 362, 368–70, 372n, 373n Yaroromi Bozsozi (Tajikistan), 262n Yassy, 18 Yavlinskii, Grigorii, 226 Yazdi Mesbah, Ayatolla, 115 Yeltsin, Boris, 82, 83, 209, 308, 313, 318, 322, 324, 327, 347, 363, 365, 379 Yeni Azerbaijan Party, 272 Yeni Musavat Party, 273, 279 Yeni Nasil Association, 279 Yenikeev, Zufar, 320 Young Bukharans, 162n Young Turks, 58, 60 Yunusova, Leyla, 278 Yusuf, Shodmon, 252 Yusupov, Palwan Niyaz, 62

Zavgayev, Doku, 359–61, 363, 364, 370 Zeki-Velidi, Ahmet, 321 Zemelianov, Valentin, 169 Zhanibek Khan, 14, 18, 26, 27 Zhaqiyanov, Ghalymzhan, 141n Zheksheev, Zhypar, 225 Zheltoksan National Democratic Party, 149, 150, 167, 168, 181n Zheltoksan Public Committee, 149 Zhenskii vestnik, 48 Zheyenbekov, Satybaldy, 204 Zhirinovskii, Vladimir, 171, 213, 318, 327n Zhuchi Khan, 13 Zhuchids, 13 Zhukeev, Tulegen, 158 Ziuganov, Gennadii, 318, 327n Zubahir ibn Abdurahim, 191 Zviagintsev, Aleksandr, 318

zakat, 109 Zarafshon, 236

403