Window on Eurasia

Special Privileges for Ethnic Russians Said “a Path to Chaos”

Paul Goble

Vienna, June 22, 2006 – Attempting to give special privileges to ethnic Russians who form up to 80 percent of the population of the Russian Federation, as some advocates of the slogan “Russia for the Russians” would like, is “a path to chaos” that undermine any chance that Russia could survive and prosper, according to one Moscow analyst.

In an online essay, Aleksei Roshchin argues that giving special
privileges to ethnic Russians might make a certain kind of sense if
they formed “51 percent or still better 35 to 40 percent” of the
population, but given their numbers, Russia -- like other mono-ethnic
states -- is doomed to be “extra or even anti-national” in its
policies.

Roshchin makes his case by pointing to the ways in which various ethnic
groups have organized themselves in the Soviet and now Russian armies.
Even in Soviet times, soldiers from the Caucasus or Central Asia
routinely formed themselves into informal alliances to defend
themselves or get special privileges.

They were successful in doing so, he argues, only because they were a
relatively small percentage of all soldiers. Now, in the post-Soviet
Russian military, there are similar informal groups uniting soldiers on
the basis of nationality, republic, or even region
[http://www.russ.ru/comments/121294284?mode=print].

But in neither the Soviet military nor its post-Soviet successor,
Roshchin points out, have ethnic Russians organized themselves in this
way. “Almost never can one find a Landsmanschaft-type organization of
[ethnic] Russians” – an informal grouping of soldiers whose
membership is based on Russian nationality.

Sometimes Russians themselves blame their own national character for
that, Roshchin says, arguing that “well, what can you do? You see, we
Russians are incapable of uniting” or saying that “with us
Russians, the principle is that ‘everyone is out for himself.’”

In fact, Roshchin continues, the explanation is “much simpler and not
so much biological as ‘social-economic’ in character.” It
reflects the reality that in most units, ethnic Russians form three-quarters or
more of the soldiers, and “how can 80 percent of the soldiers’
collective ‘have privileges’?”

If ethnic Russians within the military tried to demand privileges for
themselves, the Moscow analyst says, this would almost certainly look
to their officers like some kind of “revolt” and be suppressed as
such. And the officers would be right to do so if they wanted to ensure that
the military would survive as unit capable of action.

“The secret of ‘the privileged status’ of this or that Caucasus
community in the army,” he writes, “lies above all in their small
numbers.” Even if they succeed in withdrawing from one or another
activity, the military can still function, but if the Russians were to
withdraw the situation would be both “absurd” and “chaotic.”

The same thing would be true were the principle of “Russia for the
Russians” to be implemented more generally, Roshchin insists. If
eight out of every ten people have privileges, he asks, what could that mean
for the broader society – especially if the eight have to compete for
fewer than eight places?

On the one hand, it could lead to efforts by some Russians to prove
that they are “more Russian” than others and thus more deserving of such
“privileges.” But on the other, it could lead to “the fascist
model,” which would work against the interests of Russians themselves
and end any chance for the modernization of their country.

But in addition to these domestic consequences, Roshchin says, there is
a foreign policy dimension to such appeals as well. Not only would
moves in this direction isolate Russia from the international community, but
they could lead to a new aggressiveness in Russian foreign policy.

Up to now, he writes, “as far as one can judge, the advocates of
‘Russia for the Russians’ have not manifested open aggressiveness
in foreign affairs. [Instead,] they seem to be sincerely convinced that it
is possible “to re-establish the rights of the Russian people in a
single country’ – Russia.”

That may be where such people are positioning themselves now, Roshchin
writes, but they are unlikely to remain there, especially when they
discover how impossible it will be to realize the kind of special
privileges they want for the ethnic Russian community within the
Russian Federation.

Consequently, “’the victory of the Russian people’” that many
of the backers of the slogan “Russia for the Russians” want will
quickly prove to be not only “absurd” but “anecdotally cruel.”
And among the first victims of this cruelty will be, as has been the
case in the past, the ethnic Russians themselves.