Russia and Eurasia - October 1996

October Article Abstracts

Title: Russia Chooses--and Loses
Author: Boris Kagarlitsky
"Half-starved teachers and factory workers voted for Yeltsin, not because they were scared of the Communists, but because for hundreds of years such people in Russia have had instilled in them a love of the authorities--any authorities. July 3 marked a historic triumph for social apathy, for the traditional love of bosses and fear of freedom, for conformism, and for an authoritarian political culture."

Title: Internal Security and the Rule of Law in Russia
Author: Amy Knight
"Terrorism and street crime have grown to alarming proportions. Yet instead of trying to stem the tide of lawlessness in cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, the Russian security services devote their resources to subduing the Chechens, fighting Western spies, harassing outspoken journalists, and defeating Yeltsin's political enemies. Far from being apolitical guarantors of Russia's internal security, the KGB's successors are deeply involved in power politics."

Title: The War in Chechnya
Author: Vera Tolz
"Yeltsin justified launching the war against Chechnya by citing the need to preserve the integrity of the Russian Federation. But Moscow's mangled operations in the republic make the possibility of any voluntary Chechen union with Moscow extremely unlikely."

Title: Russia's Unsteady Entry into the Global Economy
Author: Peter Rutland
"The [Russian] economy has been opened up to the influence of international economic forces, and many key decisions are being driven not by the whims of planners in Moscow but by price signals emanating from London, Frankfurt, and New York. It is the international dimension that [explains] how Russia can simultaneously experience a boom and a slump in economic performance, and reform and stagnation in institutional change."

Title: Russian Foreign Policy in the Near Abroad and Beyond
Author: Karen Dawisha
Talk of a post-Soviet empire "has resurfaced and Western policymakers are considering whether an enlarged NATO will have to stand once again as a bastion against Russian expansion. In the weak and divided international community of the early 1920s, the Soviet Union succeeded in establishing itself and incorporating by force many of the territories of the former Russian empire. Would the international community allow a similar process to repeat itself today?"

Title: Imperial Understretch: Belarus's Union with Russia
Author: Ustina Markus
The integration accord Belarus and Russia signed this April raised fears of a revanchist Russia. But "[w]hile there is little doubt that Yeltsin was making political capital out of the accord by presenting himself to the Russian electorate as the reintegrator of the former Soviet states, it is uncertain how forcefully he will pursue such a course now that he has been reelected."

Title: Georgia's Return from Chaos
Author: Stephen F. Jones
"Politically, Georgia has reached a level of stability unimaginable in 1994, when parliamentary crises, assassinations, bombings, and hunger strikes were the order of the day. Parliament is now busy passing new laws, relations between the executive and legislature are good, and crime has fallen dramatically. The streets of Tbilisi are lively and traffic is once again noisy and dangerous."

Title: Russian Election Postcard
Author: Andrew Solomon
During the presidential elections this summer, "Russians understood that they were choosing the path their country would take into the twenty-first century. If just for one moment, they seemed to know they mattered more than the politicians, bankers, and mafioso who dominate television screens across the country every night. As one voter [noted], 'Tomorrow, let them play their games, but today they listen to us.' "