"The most important task for Russia is withdrawal from the North Caucasus"In an interview for Prague Watchdog Dr. Dmitry Furman, senior research fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Europe Institute, considers the past, present and future of Chechnya and Russia.
Prague Watchdog: The book Chechnya and Russia: Societies and States, which you edited and which appeared right at the beginning of the second Chechen war, was imbued with anti-war sentiment. In that respect it was unique in the period of the late 1990s. Its mood contrasted totally with the prevailing social atmosphere, which was a mixture of Chechen-hatred, revanchism and complexes connected with imperial identity. Does that mean that when you were putting the book together you had absolutely no idea of how events were going to develop, the scenario they were going to follow? And could the situation really have turned out any differently?
Dmitry Furman: When we were putting the book together (and the situation was the breathing-space between the wars) my feeling was that even though a second war was approaching and was practically unavoidable, there was none the less some chance of stopping it. And so we tried to get the book out before the war started, and to do this in such a way that the book would become a factor, no matter how tiny, that might change the situation. Of course, hopes of that kind are always naive, but I’m talking about how it was at the time.
People always think that what has happened was bound to happen. Human consciousness is so constituted that we find it very difficult to find alternatives in the past. And yet I think there were some meagre chances that events could have taken a different turn. It is very hard now to say what those options might have been, when the opportunity was missed, but they certainly existed, even though by now they are very hard to see with the naked eye.
But what did in fact happen – the second war and its result – was the most likely scenario and the most natural one.
PW: And what were the reasons for that? Who was to blame? There are various explanations. The most common one is that Chechnya itself became a springboard for ungovernable and hostile forces, a source of aggression. Some talk of a political paradigm shift that began back in the days of Yeltsin, a transition from an authoritarian to a democratic orientation. This required a centralization of power. How would you yourself define the set of causes?
DF: The main one is undoubtedly that Russia has followed the path of centralization and the construction of an authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regime, in which any compromise with independent territories has been impossible. As soon as the vector of political change had developed in this way, it was impossible to leave Chechnya alone.
In addition, it must be borne in mind that Russia’s defeat in the first war was a terrible humiliation for the whole of Russian society. And among the elite, and possibly in the rest of society, too, a spontaneous consensus formed – the humiliation had to be wiped away, it had to be compensated for.
Chechnya’s ungovernable character, the provocative role played by Basayev in his Dagestan campaign – these are also causes, but they are secondary ones. To a very large extent we ourselves have contributed to the situation becoming uncontrollable – in theory it could have been more orderly. The fantastical, hysteria-charged plans that emerged from Chechen leaders of the Basayev variety were also a result of our rapid and very tangible evolution into authoritarianism and war.
PW: Present-day Chechnya has seen the development of a specific political regime which it seems quite correct to describe as a dictatorship, because it doesn’t presuppose any difference of opinions, the presence of an opposition. In Russia, on the other hand, a “soft” authoritarian regime, essentially different in architecture, holds sway.
What will happen as a result? Will Russia become a dictatorship like the Chechen one? Will the Chechen authorities be forced to adapt to the Russian political terrain? Or will a conflict break out between the two systems at some point where their interests diverge? And are those people right who say that Chechnya has become a laboratory for authoritarian technologies?
DF: I don’t think the technologies that are being applied in Chechen society can be put to use throughout Russia. After all, the Russian and Chechen peoples are very different from a social point of view. Where does the difference lie? One must take account of the particular features of a society that has a very strong tradition of military democracy; it’s a tribal society, a society fragmented into teips [clans] and tuhkums [unions of teips], with their internal cohesion; a society that has passed through a bitter war, a society in which a great many people are always ready to solve problems by means of armed violence. By now that’s the only way they are willing to solve them. In Russia there’s none of all that. Russia is quite different. In order to establish the kind of system he is now setting up in Chechnya, Kadyrov has had to use super-strength and place his reliance on brute force, and on people who are used to waging war.
Russian authoritarianism is more gentle and relaxed. Russian society is atomized – it’s pliant, unlike its Chechen society. We don’t need the sort of iron fist that Kadyrov has. The two societies are not comparable.
But I agree with the general drift of the question: that discrepancies are emerging between the Chechen and the Russian regimes. Similar controversies arose in the 19th century, though in reverse, when Poland had a Constitution and Finland had a Seym, but Russia had no constitution, only autocracy. There is always a natural urge to put an end to these discrepancies, especially as the rigid authoritarian regime that has emerged in Chechnya is more or less out of our control. It’s a regime that is to a considerable degree independent. For as long as Kadyrov has personal devotion to Putin, and for as long as Kadyrov is there, everything will be more or less calm. But as soon as the situation in Russia changes, Chechnya will explode, manifesting the real independence it already shows today by refusing to obey all laws and demands.
I think this situation can be compared with an analogous one that existed in the late Soviet era, societies like Aliyev’s Azerbaijan or Rashidov’s Uzbekistan were virtually independent. The rulers of those societies demonstrated total devotion, complete and absolute loyalty, but Moscow didn’t know what was going on inside. Those societies were practically ready for secession, and that took place after the jolt that was given by Gorbachev’s reforms and the break-up of the USSR.
It looks very much as though in the future any similar jolt from inside Russia or otherwise will bring about a similar result.
PW: What about Kadyrov? Does he have a chance to develop from being a regional politician into a federal one? He obviously has ambitions along those lines.
DF: I think it’s very unlikely that Kadyrov will become a real factor in Russian politics, though I’ve no doubt that he has plans to do so. Those plans are a little like Lukashenko’s unrealized dreams – which never got the chance to be fulfilled – of becoming the head of a Union State.
While it’s hardly possible that those plans can be realized, they can in themselves be a destabilizing factor, in so far as they become a source of conflict between the centre and Chechnya in the future. Kadyrov’s interference in the affairs of neighbouring republics, his ambitions as a regional leader, will inevitably generate opposition.
PW: Let’s try to reconstruct Putin’s logic. What is that leads him, year by year, step by step, to gradually transfer the total government of one of Russia’s territories into Kadyrov’s hands Is it that Putin realizes the only way the republic can be governed is by force, or is he simply satisfied with outward loyalty? Either way, the logic lacks perspective, a view of the future.
DF: In the first place, I think that this is a perspective which we all lack. There is no clear image of what Russia may become in 25 or 50 years’ time. Putin doesn’t think in very long perspectives, though he claims to have plans for many years ahead. For him, any complication with Chechnya – God forbid, the beginning of a new Chechen conflict – would be a terrible tragedy. He apparently sees the peacemaking in Chechnya as one of his major achievements. Any cataclysm there would be a blow to his prestige, and also a blow to his self-esteem. Just as in many other respects we’ve returned to the late Soviet order, so we’ve returned to it in this one - a quest for outward stability and outward peace.
PW: Many experts prophesy that Chechnya will withdraw from the Federation. But can one turn the question around a little, and ask: Is it possible for Chechnya to remain in Russia?
DF: The answer is no. To be quite honest, though I have never spoken about this in public, I think that one of the important tasks for Russia – one which it doesn’t recognize, of course – is withdrawal from the North Caucasus republics. This is a very difficult decision. We should not simply leave, but do so in such a way that it doesn’t cause a bloodbath. The North Caucasus is incredibly difficult to organize. The North Caucasus is the set of fetters that hinders our modernization, our movement forwards. In a truly democratic Russia, which will exist sooner or later, this will either remain a constantly debilitating disease, or the problem will be solved through separation from the Caucasus.
PW: You mean that Chechnya is a bit like the Central Asian republics, which stand in the way of the development of a democratic Russia?
DF: No, just that Chechnya will be far easier to modernize if it’s independent, though that will still be an incredibly painful process. What’s needed is some acceptable, civilized level of regional and clan loyalty. When those start to go off-scale, it tears society apart. But when society is atomized, as it is in Russia, that’s also bad. What’s needed is a middle way.
I mean, why are things more or less okay in Ukraine now? Because there you have this average regional loyalty level. As soon as you make a move towards Galicia, the Donbass rises up, and vice versa. Arbitrary behaviour by the centre is constantly limited by that. And it seems to me that in Chechnya, even if this average level doesn’t exist yet, it’s perfectly achievable. The Mongols were able to build a relatively stable democratic system because they also came from a nomadic democracy that didn’t have an aristocratic class of masters. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia are more dynamic than, let’s say, Uzbekistan. Kazakhs say of themselves: "We have always elected our khans."
Dr. Dmitry Furman is a senior research fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Europe Institute. He is the editor of a series of collections of scholarly and analytical articles on the relations between Russia and post-Soviet countries. The collection Chechnya and Russia: Societies and States was published as part of this series in 1999. (Translation by DM) (T,P) RELATED ARTICLES:
· An interview with Dmitry Furman (Grani.ru, 22.2.2008)
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