Window On Eurasia: Stalin’s Downgrading Of Abkhazia from Union Republic Status Decried
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posted by eagle on July, 2009 as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, July 7 – Among Stalin’s many mistakes as a ruler, according to a reviewer of an émigré book on Stalin republished a few years ago in the Russian Federation, was the Soviet dictator’s decision to lower the status of Abkhazia from that of a union republic (SSR) like Ukraine or Kazakhstan to that of an autonomous republic (ASSR) like Tatarstan or Udmurtia.
Had he not done so, Andrey Yezerov suggests in a review of S.V. Dmitriyevsky’s “Stalin. The Forefather of a National Revolution” (1931, 2003), Abkhazia would have gained its independence along with other union republics in 1991 and been widely recognized rather than as a result of Russian military action in 2008 and recognized only by Russia and Nicaragua.
Yezerov makes this suggestion in an almost offhand manner as evidence that even though he liked ...
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Window On Eurasia: Europe’s Reaction Shows Moscow’s Miscalculation On ‘Falsification Of History,’ Russian Commentator Says
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, July 6 – A decision by an OSCE Parliamentary Assembly committee to declare August 23 an international day of memory of the victims of Nazism and Stalinism underscores just how much Moscow miscalculated with its campaign against “historical falsification” of the Soviet role in World War II, according to a Moscow commentator.
In an essay posted on Grani.ru today, Boris Sokolov who writes frequently on historical and political questions, said that it is “extremely likely” that this call remain in the final text of an OSCE resolution on the reunification of a divided Europe and be approved by a plenary session of that body (grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.153296.html).
And when that happens, he continued, Russia will bear “a large share of the blame because now the OSCE has dotted the ‘I’ and equated to one another ...
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Window On Eurasia: Another Obstacle To Putin’s Plan To Amalgamate Russia’s Regions
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, July 6 – Vladimir Putin had little difficulty pushing through the amalgamation of two Buryat federal subjects into the predominantly ethnic Russians surrounding them, but now a new problem has arisen: the residents of one whose status has been reduced to that of an ordinary district want the same special privileges the residents of the other that has received them.
And this demonstration effect suggests that both Moscow and regional governments are going to be challenged to come up with a more acceptable definition of “an administrative-territorial unit with special status” that they have promised the six national districts that have been folded in to five now “united” federal subjects.
Last week, deputies from the Ust-Orda Buryat District which since January 2008 is part of Irkutsk oblast complained that they had not been given the rights ...
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Window On Eurasia: Moscow, Not Kadyrov’s Chechens, Should Stabilize Ingushetia, Duma Leader Says
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, July 5 – Moscow should introduce “direct presidential rule” in order to stabilize the situation in Ingushetia, according to a senior member of the Russian Duma, rather than relying on forces from neighboring Chechnya whose introduction into Ingushetia has already further exacerbated the situation there.
But the Kremlin is likely to be reluctant to do so not only because that would make it rather than regional elites responsible for what happens in Ingushetia and could become an unwelcome precedent but also because Moscow would have to employ massive force or face the likelihood that its campaign would simply swell the ranks of those fighting against it.
After militants killed nine members of a Chechen intervention force in Ingushetia on Saturday, Gennady Gudkov, the deputy chairman of the Duma’s security committee, said that “it is completely ...
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Window On Eurasia: Non-Russians In Russian Cities Increasingly Conscious Of Their Ethnicity
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, July 2 – Non-Russians coming to major Russian cities not only are not assimilating to the Russian nation as many had in the past and as many Russians even now expect but rather are becoming increasingly attached to their own national identities, in some cases to the point of overcoming Soviet-sponsored divisions within them.
Last week, for example, a round table on “The Preservation of Cultural Values of the Ingush in the Conditions of the Megalopolis” jointly sponsored by the Ingush Representation in the Russian capital and the Ingush National Cultural Autonomy there focused attention on this trend (www.ingushetia.org/news/19849.html).
In his opening address, Visan-Girey Gagiyev, the permanent representative of the Ingush Republic to the Russian President, said that public reaction to the assassination attempt against President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov demonstrated that the Ingush are becoming ever more ...
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