Smoldering Ethnic Tensions Threaten Gorbachev Regime

The recent student riot in Alma Ata, protesting the replacement of a Kazakh by a Russian as the political leader of the Kazakhstan republic, has brought to the surface a factor in Soviet politics that thus far has remained in the shadows during the turmoil of Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s economic and cultural reforms. It is the smoldering ethnic tensions--a factor that the new Soviet leader cannot afford to ignore, one that, if left unchecked, could threaten the foundations of Soviet society.

In some respects Russian communists share the fate of those who ruled the old Western empires. They created a national intelligentsia and bureaucracy that has repaid them with ingratitude. The national cadres in Central Asia--having become used to modern civilization, thanks to Moscow, and longing for full autonomy--feel a deep, if studiously concealed, hatred of Russians comparable to that of natives of English and French colonies in the years preceding independence.

The maintenance of some national traditions with the consent of the Kremlin, as well as improvements in education (Moscow has been much more considerate toward the national cultures of its republics than London and Paris were toward the Indians or the Algerians), can only enhance ethnic identities and animosities toward the Russians. It is not Moscow’s suppression of national cultures, but its support, that has multiplied the enemies of the empire.

Gorbachev’s attempts to rejuvenate Soviet society, eliminate corruption in the party and liberalize cultural and political life are more likely to exacerbate rather than soften ethnic antagonisms. Thus, ironically, they could slow or even halt the modernizing process.

Corruption has flourished, especially in the republics where private relations based on kinship and tribalism always have played a dominant role in local government. While feelings of Russian patriotism provided some, though very limited, motivation to Russian party officials known as apparatchiks , such feelings were absent in their counterparts in outlying republics. Thus unrestrained, Kazakh or Tadzhik apparatchiks have become absorbed with self-enrichment, no longer seeing any reason to act in the interests of the Soviet Union.

The bureaucracy’s gradual saturation with national cadres, accomplished with Moscow’s blessing, has led to its almost total corruption in the republics. In the 1970s Georgia was the symbol of a region plagued by enormous corruption. By the mid-1980s it had been replaced by Uzbekistan, the largest Muslim republic in the Soviet Union, where everything from a minister’s position to the job of sales clerk could be bought and sold, where high officials could pass their time in bordellos maintained for them by the Young Communist League, and where critics could simply be sent to prison.

As they began their attack on corruption, Gorbachev’s team concluded that Moscow could no longer trust “national cadres.” Attempting to reverse the seemingly unshakable order in Alma Ata and in Tashkent, they began to replace indigenous apparatchiks with ethnic Russians in many key positions. A new slogan, “the interregional exchange of cadres,” was put into currency, as if the replacement of Uzbek officials with Russians would be balanced by an increased presence in Moscow or in Leningrad of party officials from Central Asia.

Yet there is more than the fight against corruption and the mistrust of national apparatchiks behind recent ethnic conflicts. Moscow’s liberalization has led Russophiles to be more outspoken than before, and Viktor Astafiev, a prominent novelist with a strong anti-Marxist undertone, is becoming their main spokesman. In his “Georgian Stories,” Astafiev, in an impudent and almost racist manner, denigrated Georgians, while in his “Sad Detective” and especially in his recent samizdat publication he demonstrated his deep hatred of Jews.

Another event is of great significance in this connection. Under pressure from public opinion in Moscow, and particularly from Russophile writers, the government canceled a project rerouting Siberian rivers toward Central Asia that would have benefitted that region. Whatever its ecological justification, this decision could only make the ethnic intelligentsia and bureaucrats furious, further convincing them that their interests and Moscow’s have little in common.

The further liberalization of the Gorbachev regime, if it continues, will inevitably encourage not only Russophiles but also ethnic nationalists in all republics. This will increase the danger of more serious ethnic conflicts in many Soviet regions. Such conflicts would provide conservatives with their most convincing argument--that democratization within the Soviet empire is impossible, and in fact suicidal.

Gorbachev’s regime is just beginning to shape its national policy. Important policy questions remain unanswered, including the regime’s position toward the various forms of nationalism--Russian, Muslim, Ukrainian, Lithuanian and many others--and toward strong anti-Semitism. The future of the regime depends on the answers that it finds to these questions.