Prague Watchdog: The Chechen Republic of Russia (Weekly Review)

September 15th 2009 · Prague Watchdog / Vadim Borshchev

By Vadim Borshchev, special to Prague Watchdog

Some Russian experts have already used the phrase "embassies of an independent state" to describe the Chechen Republic's six planned representations in Europe, which will have to accept their incomplete status only because there is no other option. Indeed, in this area, too, Ramzan Kadyrov has once again managed to obtain preferential treatment on an unprecedented scale. No other entity of the Russian Federation can boast of that many foreign missions. Tatarstan and Bashkortostan are the only republics which even possess a single office in the countries of Europe.

Specialists in federal law are now carefully calculating the full extent of the attributes of statehood which the Chechen Republic has succeeded in acquiring. In an interview with Radio Liberty, political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin painted a grim picture: "The Chechen Republic has its own army, which is not in any way subordinate to the rules of the Russian constitution or to Russia's security agencies: the private guard (the `Kadyrovtsy') which Kadyrov has formed from ex-insurgents takes its orders personally from him. Kadyrov has his own foreign policy. He may conduct negotiations with Saudi Arabia, or with European countries. He decides who he will bring back from exile and who he will banish in disgrace. He has his own court of justice and his own system of retribution – an extremely effective one. And he has his own ideology. In fact, Chechnya is an almost completely independent state, with one exception – it depends on Russia's money."

In their assessment of Kadyrov's so-called "systemic separatism", Russian liberals are more or less at one with the concerns expressed in slightly cruder terms by Russian nationalists. With funding from the federal budget, Chechnya is building an independent state, and sooner or later the result of the republic's steadily increasing autonomy will be its final exit from Russia. Thus, while paying lip service to the maximum tightening of the "power vertical" in its relations with the regions, in reality the central government is contributing to the speedy collapse of the Russian state.

On the one hand, it is hard to understand the statist sentiments of the liberals, who might be thought likely to proceed not from the ideals of state socialism but from a correlation of social organization with elements of liberty for all, both people and nations. If for whatever reason the present system is unable to provide that liberty, then the liberals ought to support the efforts of the federal republics to find it on their own, regardless of the outcome. The regions' right to reject the political influence of an authoritarian Russia is indisputable, even if the divorce will result in even greater bondage. On the other hand, the regions need the money, especially when it is spent in the way that the Caucasian ethnocrats spend it.

But, having reduced Chechnya to ruins, Russia cannot very well just put its hands in its pockets and pretend that everything is fine. Russia has to answer for what it has done because it is under the watchful eye of the international community and does not want to become a pariah state. Even though it might have wanted to leave Chechnya alone with its lunar landscape and depart with a carefree whistle, Russia did not have the technical means to do so. While the theft and corruption in the Caucasus take a specifically Caucasian form, they are not a Chechen invention but an essential characteristic of Russia's system of power. Indeed, Kadyrov himself is not a product of Caucasian culture and social traditions but a mutant developed by the Kremlin to intimidate all living things within the boundaries of the territory entrusted to his control.

There is no reason to suppose that Kadyrov would ever deploy his bayonets against his masters, because, by and large, the structure of power in Chechnya is a concentrate distilled on the all-Russian model, in which all the lines of social bondage are taken to their logical limit. In that sense, Kadyrov is a thoroughly Russian politician who has managed to condense the spirit of the Putin era in an extreme degree. It is only the possibility of democratic reform in Russia that is not to his liking, as any movement in the direction of greater freedom would immediately raise the question of the admissibility of his totalitarian methods of control.

For as long as the political situation in Russia is poised between authoritarianism and a simulation of democracy, Kadyrov will be happy, for in the outcrops of this bondage he can experiment to his heart's content with increasing it to exponential values. His nationalism and obscurantism, which frighten the liberals, are merely active modifications of this experiment involving the techniques of mobilization and intimidation. Their national and religious content is important only in so far as it provides the ability to control society.

Kadyrov himself says that the task of the European missions is to bring about "the return of our compatriots to their homeland". Indeed, the analysts overlook the fact that in the course of the two Chechen wars a huge diaspora has formed in Europe, presenting a serious problem both for the Kremlin and for Grozny. By the very fact of their existence the refugees refute Kadyrov's claims that peace has been restored to the republic. In addition, the refugee community is a constant source of negative reports on what is happening in Chechnya, and something must be done about that unfortunate fact. It is logical that, having crushed the local population into total immobility, Kadyrov has now turned his attention to those Chechens who were naive enough to suppose they had managed to escape from his authority for good. The Chechen leader is at war not with Russia, but with those of his compatriots who are annoying Russia.

One other fact has fallen out of the experts' field of vision. On September 11 a press conference was held in Moscow at which the creation of a new film studio called "Chechen-film" was announced. Now that really is an attribute of statehood. The republics of the federation that have their own film studios can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

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