Translated material
Caucasus without a pen
While Caucasians cling to Russia with all their might, some of the elite in Moscow are already hatching plans to get rid of this difficult region
Ruslan Kurbanov
In Russia, more and more people are forgetting why the country needs the Caucasus. And the words of Rasul Gamzatov that we did not voluntarily join Russia and will not leave it voluntarily hang in the air like an absurd passage from an elderly highlander. The confidence of Caucasians that the destinies of the Caucasus and Russia are inseparable is finding less and less understanding among an ever-increasing circle of Russian experts and politicians.
Official Spells
As almost all Russian analysts write, recent events in the North Caucasus prove that the pacification of this region is still very far away. Specialists are especially concerned about the increasingly active use of suicide bombers in sabotage and terrorist attacks, the increasing frequency of terrorist attacks on Russian cities far from the traditional areas of militant activity - Moscow, Stavropol, the route between Moscow and St. Petersburg...
Many of them directly indicate that the Russian state is faced with a well-organized armed and ideological underground in the Caucasus, which enjoys the sympathy and support of a certain part of the local population. That is why today in the Russian political elite and expert community there is an intense search for what is the meaning of its preservation as part of the Russian Federation.
Almost all official federal, regional and republican politicians regularly pronounce mantras that the Caucasus is an integral part of the Russian Federation. Even Alexander Khloponin began his first steps as the plenipotentiary representative of the President of Russia in the North Caucasus Federal District by symbolically pronouncing his own formula of why Russia needs the Caucasus. As if he was reminding himself and his circle that the country still needs the Caucasus...
So, according to Alexander Khloponin, the North Caucasus is so important for Russia and should be considered a strategic region for four reasons. Firstly, in his opinion, “the development of Russia’s intellectual potential will go through the Caucasus.” Secondly, the plenipotentiary noted, “The Caucasus is a powerful buffer that restrains the penetration into Russia ... of terrorism, extremism, and false Islam.”
Thirdly, according to the plenipotentiary, the Caucasus is “a unique bridge to the Middle East, which is also a strategic territory for Russia.” Fourthly, Khloponin recalled, the Caucasus “today is our demographic potential, it is the only territory due to which the population of the Russian Federation is growing.”
Experts on getting rid of the Caucasus
However, the statements of Khloponin and other officials at the federal and republican levels are only an official picture. In fact, in Moscow circles close to the authorities, the perception of the Caucasus and its role in Russian politics has undergone a significant transformation. Here, options for getting rid of the boring and ever-problematic Caucasus or surrendering it in exchange for some preferences and dividends in the political game with the West are discussed without any hesitation. While the Caucasians themselves cling with all their might to Russia as a guarantor of stability, plans are already being hatched in Moscow offices to get rid of this difficult region.
A few examples. On the website of the Russian Journal, which is a resource of the Effective Policy Foundation, headed by the famous Kremlin political strategist and analyst Gleb Pavlovsky, in the material “What instead of the Caucasus Emirate?” It is openly admitted that the scenario of the separation of the Caucasus republics from Russia, subject to the establishment of regimes friendly to Russia there, is acceptable for Moscow.
If, for example, the sensational material of the famous Russian analyst Sergei Kurginyan, in which he reveals the alliance of the liberal political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky and Igor Yurgens, a famous financier, unofficial adviser to Dmitry Medvedev. This alliance, according to Kurginyan, speaks of a conspiracy between the Russian security forces and the oligarchs.
The purpose of the conspiracy is the forced separation of the North Caucasus from Russia with the subsequent dismantling of the Russian Federation itself for the sake of “full integration” of these segments into the “global community” led by Western countries. The very fact of the existence within the Russian elite of groups with similar goals, according to Kurginyan, is not subject to the slightest doubt.
There was an interesting discussion in the newspaper “Zavtra”, in which Sergei Kurginyan stated that anti-Caucasian sentiments in the elite and the promotion in the public space of ideas about the futility of attempts to integrate the Caucasus into the all-Russian space is the hidden ideology of some of the Russian special services.
But then Kurginyan somehow abandoned it and decided not to develop this topic further. The same Igor Yurgens and economist Evgeny Gontmakher, who are the leaders of the INSOR brain trust, which Dmitry Medvedev is guided by, expressed ideas about the possible separation of the Caucasus from Russia in their report to the President on the image of the future of Russia.
The Caucasus as the “yoke of Russia”
As Moscow analysts admit in informal conversations, Russia under Putin, until about the mid-2000s, thought of itself as a kind of mini-empire. The attitude towards the Caucasus in the Russian political elite was the attitude towards the conquered territory. Rhetorically, of course, routine phrases were uttered about Russian citizens, their rights and interests. But still, the attitude towards the Caucasus among the Russian political and military elite was not very different from the attitude towards it of the tsarist generals and officials.
At that time, the question of a tough solution to the Caucasian problem was still raised by marginal politicians and public figures of an ultra-nationalist persuasion. However, in the mid-2000s, both in society and in the minds of the political elite, the perception of the Caucasus began to change. The problems in the region were not resolved in any way, the threats emanating from there multiplied...
And Russian politicians began to increasingly raise questions about whether it was even possible to integrate Caucasians into the fabric of the socio-political space of Russia? And how can this be achieved if the majority of Russians perceive Caucasians themselves and their influence on all-Russian processes not as the influence of a full-fledged element of domestic Russian political discourse, but as the influence of an external and alien element?
That is why today quite recognized Russian politicians are beginning to voice tough decisions. For example, the vice-speaker of the State Duma of the previous convocation, in fact, one of the leaders of the Russian parliament, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, in his speech on the Ukrainian Internet portal, stated that the only solution to the Caucasian knot of problems is the separation of the Caucasus from Russia. “The Caucasus is the yoke of Russia,” he said.
And these are not just Zhirinovsky’s ridiculous jokes. His jokes too often come true, such as the proposal he voiced 10 years ago to introduce the practice of appointing governors in Russia. Everyone laughed at him then, but then this practice became the norm for Russia for several years (and only now is there a return to direct elections of regional heads). Behind Zhirinovsky’s words there is always a desire of more cautious politicians to test the public reaction to statements and initiatives that are too bold for now.
The topic of budgets provided by the Kremlin for the management of the Caucasian republics is becoming increasingly acute and painful for political figures on the nationalist spectrum. This topic is especially acute in relation to Chechnya. And the Caucasian theme for modern Russia is no longer just a theme of terror and separatism.
This is the problem of the presence of Caucasians in the political space of Russia, as a socio-political group, whose political behavior differs significantly from that generally accepted in the rest of the country. Increasingly, statements are being made in the media and even in the comments of famous politicians that “we are too different”... “it still won’t work out together”...
Cut off, right across the North Caucasus Federal District
The same turn of the LDPR towards ethnic nationalism from the imperial project is a trend in the mid-2000s. This reversal was first indicated by some LDPR activists, like Nikolai Kuryanovich, and now by Zhirinovsky himself. This tilt towards nationalism is not an internal ideological transformation of the party. This is a reaction to the emergence of such sentiments among the political elite. The emergence in this environment of an awareness that the Caucasus is not being integrated into the federal, all-Russian political and cultural space.
At the same time, some analysts even consider Dmitry Medvedev’s project to separate the republics of the North Caucasus into a separate, North Caucasian district as undermining the unity of the Russian Federation. These sentiments are primarily represented by Alexander Dugin, who constantly criticizes Medvedev from the standpoint of Putin’s fundamental principles of government.
This position argues that a secular and liberal project, sharply contradicting the norms of the Caucasian traditional society, imposing liberal unification on the Caucasus, will ultimately lead to the collapse of the federal project and the achievements of the Putin era. And the borders of the North Caucasus Federal District are called the borders along which the Caucasus will be separated from the rest of the country.
According to some ideas, the Kremlin's relations with the separated Caucasus should come to the model of the Kremlin's relations with South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This is a model of semi-satellite, non-binding relations between the Kremlin and dependent and non-viable territories. And such an approach to the Caucasus is becoming increasingly understood by the dissatisfied and protesting part of Russian society.
Moreover, one of the major Russian experts, on condition of anonymity, said in a personal conversation that Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are elements of the same strategy. Strategies for moving the entire Caucasus into semi-satellite relations with Russia. But this same strategy is a strategy of throwing the Russian Caucasus into the third world.
The dead will to integrate
If there were a real attempt to integrate the region with the rest of Russia, we would see powerful initiatives and projects within Russia itself aimed at preparing the consciousness of Russians to perceive the Caucasus as a full-fledged Russian territory, Caucasians as full citizens of a common country, to promote a new and a positive image of the Caucasus...
But today this is not even feasible, because a powerful process of nationalization of Russian consciousness has now begun in the country. Today, in the wake of the rise of ethnic nationalism in the Russian environment, especially at the everyday level, it is increasingly clear that the will to integrate the Caucasus among the Russian elite has died.
And it died because the supranational ideology and supranational projects died. This will to unite with the Caucasus, first of all, died among many Russians, who, after a series of experiments and national catastrophes of the 20th century, for the first time felt themselves not a bundle for super-state tasks, but simply a people.
By the beginning of the 21st century, Russians felt the age-old fatigue of carrying out a great mission and carrying out large-scale state projects, pumping social energy and meaning into the national outskirts. For the first time, Russians felt their need for their own national project, for their own national place in the sun. That is why today, throughout Russia, nationalist social and political movements, ultra-nationalist groups and gangs have flourished so magnificently.
This was largely due to the fact that for today’s generation of Russians, external challenges have gone away - the former threats from the United States, NATO, and the Western bloc, with which Soviet people were accustomed to living. It was external threats that supported Russia’s imperialism and kept its integration potential in good shape.
These major threats went away with the collapse of the USSR. Minor threats, such as those from Poland, orange Ukraine, Georgia under the leadership of Mikheil Saakashvili, do not count. And in the last 2 years, many of these minor threats have gone away with the death of Polish President Kaczynski and the change of the political regime in Ukraine.
That is why the external environment of Russia has turned into some kind of completely indecent and in no way mobilizing jelly for anything. President Medvedev is even ready to look for at least some serious threats and challenges in foreign policy in order to keep the country on its toes, and does not find them.
And the imperial framework, imperial projects somehow in this situation themselves disappear as unnecessary. And Russians, in a situation where external threats and great mobilization projects have disappeared, are left with purely earthly desires - to live calmly, carefree, to get away from the annoying problems of the Caucasus and uncontrolled migration, to forget themselves in a sweet consumer paradise...
And all this is desirable among one’s own people, in one’s own familiar world, without this terribly annoying invasion of migrants. The elite have the same sentiments. Well, in such a situation, why does Russia need the Caucasus as a southern outpost? From whom should they fence themselves off and defend themselves? Why keep him? Why invest in this region?
Such a situation and such sentiments work, of course, against the integration project. And the sublimation of power and the topic of external threats under Vladimir Putin, naturally, played into the integration of the country. And Russia’s preservation of the Caucasus, of course, continues to give the country the feeling that we are, after all, a power. As for the alternative models of the future of the Caucasus discussed in the expert community, they are as follows:
Merging into one edge
Before his statement about the impossibility of further coexistence of the Caucasus and Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky offered his own version of a way out of the Caucasian crisis, which involves several points:
1. Only Russians should lead the republics.
2. Unite Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan into a single Gorsky region.
3. Introduce a permanent regime of counter-terrorism operation (“This is an inconvenience, but there will be less terror”).
4. Complete blocking of the borders, and the border guards should also be exclusively Russian.
5. Closure of the international airport in Grozny, since in the absence of strict control, the arrival of militants and the import of drugs “from Saudi Arabia, from Afghanistan, from everywhere” is possible.
6. Pressure on the families of militants.
However, it is worth noting that if at least three republics unite into one Mountain region, not to mention the rest of the Caucasian republics, the entire region, where an unresolved ethnic conflict smolders along each administrative border, will lead to an inevitable explosion.
In the event of the elimination of national borders, the unbridled social, economic and demographic expansion of some more active peoples, like the Chechens and Avars, into the lands and space of others will lead to an explosive escalation of ethnic conflicts. And the narrowing of the political elite to the administration of one region instead of several republics will extremely aggravate the political competition of different peoples and the intensity of the political war for places in the apparatus.
Separation of the Caucasus and the establishment of a secular regime
This model was voiced in the already mentioned article by Boris Sokolov, “What instead of the Caucasus Emirate?”, published on the resource of Gleb Pavlovsky. In this material, the author characterizes the scenario of the North Caucasus republics gaining political independence and establishing regimes friendly to Russia there as acceptable for Moscow.
However, the hope that in the event of the separation of the Caucasus from Russia, any capable regimes will be established there at all is incredibly elusive. If Russia leaves the Caucasus, it will not even be Afghanistan, but the worst version of Somalia before the arrival of the Union of Islamic Courts. This will be a decaying state, a degrading society in the stage of a permanent civil war of all against all - clans, factions, nationalities, religious groups.
There is no common consolidating force in the Caucasus that is ready to take responsibility for the fate of the region, that can offer a clear project for its development both inside Russia and outside it. It takes time for this force to emerge and take responsibility for solving the problems of this region.
The Caucasian peoples, who during the Tsarist and Soviet periods completely lost the experience of both independent and joint coexistence, will be able to coexist peacefully only within the framework of some larger system that stands above national squabbles and problems. Today this system is Russia.
Separation of the Caucasus and the creation of an Islamic state
In the event of the separation of the Caucasus from Russia, a more likely scenario is that the strengthening jamaats of militants will take power in most of the Caucasian republics and establish the power of a single Islamic emirate in them, following the example of the Taliban. Islam is the only alternative system to Russia for today's and tomorrow's Caucasus that is capable of neutralizing ethnic conflicts and clashes. It is also obvious that the regime that will be established in the independent Caucasian Emirate will be extremely hostile to Russia.
One of the reasons for this is that Moscow itself was the reason that in almost all Caucasian republics, all the sprouts of the moderate Islamic opposition were destroyed by the hands of law enforcement agencies. But it was the moderate Islamic opposition that was the only force that could at least somehow restrain the process of radicalizing peaceful jamaats and their transition to the position of an irreconcilable struggle with Russia.
Be that as it may, in the event of an Islamic Imrat region on the map, it can be sure that he will decisively suppress all internal resistance and establish a single system of Sharia rule here. Following this may be followed by a foreign intervention, following the example of an invasion of Afghanistan, which will ensure a bloody massacre on the southern borders of Russia for several decades to come.