McNair Paper 34, The Russian Military's Role in Politics, January 1995
In many ways, the Russian military faces the same dilemma with
regard to Russia as the old Soviet military faced with regard
to the USSR. In both cases, unresolved center-periphery issues
threaten the survival of the state.
Russia's center-periphery problems bear eery similarities to those
of the USSR. First, like the USSR, Russia is ethnically, linguistically,
and economically diverse. Second, as in the Soviet case, the demise
of the Communist Party hierarchy removed a major centralizing
institution; and no consensus on the division of authority between
Moscow and the provinces has been worked out. Yeltsin also faces
the same kind of power vacuum that frustrated Gorbachev. The levers
of power are not working. Regional authorities frequently flout
Moscow decrees. Finally, the economic problems that exacerbated
Gorbachev's attempts to handle republic challenges have, if anything,
intensified.
The pattern of provincial challenge and Moscow response has also
been similar. In many cases, regional challengers to Russian authority
have modelled their strategies after those of republic leaders
who successfully defied Soviet rule. In 1990, many of Russia's
autonomous republics (encouraged by Russia's own demands for a
greater role in Soviet decisionmaking) adopted sovereignty declarations.
As in the case of republic sovereignty declarations, most of these
regional declarations demanded autonomy, not independence, calling
for greater regional input into Russian decisionmaking and asserting
provincial authority over local natural resources. (Note 58)
After the abortive August 1991 coup, continued economic deterioration
and political turmoil sharply aggravated the regional challenges
facing Russia's leaders, radicalizing regional autonomy drives
within Russia. Some of Russia's regions escalated their demands,
shifting their goals from local autonomy and less interference
in regional economic affairs to complete independence. As was
the case in republic resistance to Soviet rule, regional leaders
used resistance to Russia as a rallying point to mobilize support.
Several areas have adopted another strategy borrowed from rebellious
republic leaders: backing up their defiance of central authority
by setting up their own military forces and declaring regional
control over military assets within the region. Tatarstan recalled
its citizens from areas of interethnic conflict in early 1993;
it later adopted a measure on military service that was in direct
conflict with federal military service legislation. (Note 59)
The Confederation of Caucasian Mountain Peoples decided to set
up its own army in early 1992; paramilitary forces who answered
this call joined Abkhazia's war against Georgia. (Note 60)
In late 1992, North Ossetia adopted a decision (later annulled
by the federal legislature in Moscow) to set up its own republic
guard. (Note 61) The Kabardino-Balkaria
parliament announced the creation of a republican guard in early
1992. In late 1992, it recalled servicemen from its region who
were serving in Armenia. (Note 62)
The most successful provincial challenge to Moscow was in the
Caucasus, where Chechnya successfully defied Moscow rule in the
fall of 1991 when Russia-still part of the USSR-had neither internal
troops nor military forces to stem a revolt. Chechnya, now boasting
its own military forces, including a rudimentary air force, has
been operating as an independent state ever since. (Note 63)
The military's reaction to these developments has been much like
its earlier reaction to analogous trends in the USSR. The army
daily, Krasnaya zvezda, periodically runs editorials and articles
arguing that provincial demands pose a huge threat to Russia's
integrity and raise the possibility that the Russian Armed Forces
may have to be partitioned province by province. "Have we
really learned nothing," lamented one editorial, "from
the bitter lessons of the USSR's collapse?" (Note 64)
The Defense Ministry's response to direct secession efforts and
the breakdown of civil order on the periphery has also been similar
to that of its Soviet progenitor. Defense Ministry forces have
been employed to quell violence in several Caucasian provinces,
much as Soviet forces were used in the now independent Caucasus
republics. As with the Soviet Defense Ministry, there has been
a great deal of military griping about the inappropriateness of
these domestic missions, but no evidence that commanders or troops
refused orders. So far, Russia's center-periphery problems have
proven far more manageable than those of the USSR. This is partly
because the new Russian center has key demographic and political
resources that the old USSR center did not. Russians in the old
USSR represented barely half of the overall Soviet population
and their loyalty to the old center was not clear-cut. Russians
throughout the USSR, but particularly within the RSFSR, had a
competing center of loyalty: the emerging Russian state. Identification
with Russia as a political entity coincided with ethnic and linguistic
sources of identification and acted as a powerful competing center
of loyalty, diluting Russian support for continuation of the supra-national
Soviet state. By contrast, Russians within the Russian Federation
constitute a much larger portion of the populace (82%). (Note 65)
While there are some local and institutional claims on the loyalty
of these Russians, none coincides with ethnic and linguistic identity.
Moreover, Yeltsin has been far less willing than Gorbachev to
concede real power to the provinces. Despite periodic attempts
(usually unsuccessful) to play the regional card against his opponents
at the center, Yeltsin has been fairly rigid in his insistence
on strong central authority. As a result, the military has not
been forced to choose between acquiescence to a political deal
between center and provinces that would undermine the integrity
of the state or direct intervention in the political process that
might risk civil war.