Russia, the specter of integration and Ukraine: a look at new realities

by Volodymyr Zviglyanich

PART I

Nearly 150 years ago, in 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote in the "Communist Manifesto" about the specter of communism wandering around Europe, scaring the bourgeoisie and encouraging the proletariat to revolt. The end of the Cold War, reunification of Germany and dissolution of the Soviet Union, warmly welcomed in the West, seemingly coincided with the end of the communism and instability in Europe.

Unfortunately, the end of the Cold War did not bring about the end of communism. As the results of the December 1995 parliamentary elections in Russia (and earlier in some East European countries) have shown, the communist idea is still alive in Russia and in major states of the former Soviet Union. Only now it is dressed in moral and juridical clothes.

The Communists in the Russian Duma on March 16 voted for a non-binding resolution abolishing as "illegal" the ratification on December 12, 1991, by the Russian Federation's Supreme Soviet of the Belaya Vezha agreement of December 8, 1991, which dissolved the USSR and created the CIS. In so doing, they sent a powerful appeal to the traditional psycho-emotional sentiments of the bulk of the Russian populace, to its primordial feeling of "sobornost" (common will).

What is the CIS in reality? What is the essence of neo-integrationism in Russia? What will come after the CIS? What are the lessons that this emerging geopolitical and philosophical reality brings to the West and to Ukraine?

The CIS and legality

The recent decision by the Russian Duma has attracted public attention to a question obviously forgotten in post-Soviet Russia: What is the CIS? Did the treaty on its creation correspond to the body of laws in existence at that time in the USSR, or was it a radical break-up aimed at creating new laws corresponding to world practice?

Several arguments have been put forward by supporters of the CIS treaty:

• The time argument: St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoliy Sobchak, speaking at the December 12, 1991, Supreme Soviet session claimed: "The country's economic and political situation today is such that we can no longer allow ourselves to waste time on endless debates about our future....The agreement concluded does not at all cancel the possibility of creating a renewed union.
  
  
• The structural argument: The old union structure ceased to exist and, after the declarations of independence by Ukraine, Belarus, etc., in the aftermath of the August 1991 putsch, it virtually died. In order to "bring order to the chaotic disintegration of this union," as Ruslan Khasbulatov noted, the CIS was created. According to Boris Yeltsin, the main result of the pact in Belaya Vezha was that "three republics, founders of the USSR, have halted a process of a spontaneous and anarchic disintegration of the common space inhabited by our people."
  
  
• The military argument: Andrei Kozyrev, then Russia's minister of foreign affairs, maintained that "one of the reasons this Commonwealth of Independent States has been formed is to put a final and to the presence of Russian and other soldiers on territories which no longer recognize their being under the flag of the USSR." This aim was never implemented and since 1993 Russia has made the presence of its troops on the territories of the CIS countries one of its principal goals.
  
  
• The constitutional/legal argument: Mr. Yeltsin, trying to prove the constitutionality of the ClS's creation, purported that in forming the union in 1922, the founders did not lose their state sovereignty and retained their status and responsibility as founders of the union. This was enshrined in all USSR constitutions, including the last one (1977). He assumed that the Belaya Vezha treaty could have been arrived at by the republics even within the framework of the 1977 Constitution of the USSR. He concluded that "all charges that this step is unconstitutional are unfounded and pursue either political aims, which are essentially destructive, or openly personal selfish interests." He also blamed attempts of those who tried to cast doubt on the legality of the accords that have been reached as "simply immoral" and stressed that "to torpedo it at present is tantamount to entering into direct confrontation with those who made their choice, including in the union referendum."

The opponents of the treaty, e.g., the USSR Constitutional Oversight Committee, asserted that its major statement - "The USSR as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality has ceased to exist" - can only be regarded as a political assessment of the situation and has no legal force. The committee stressed that individual republics cannot take it upon themselves to resolve questions affecting the rights and interests of others and, therefore, the agreement's provision on the cessation of activity of organs of the former Soviet Union on the territory of the CIS states also has no legal force.

This analysis shows that the supporters of the treaty capitalized mostly on situational arguments of political expediency, which prevailed at that time over those of a purely legal nature. The opponents of the treaty stressed mostly its "illegal" nature and the non-binding character of the documents signed in Belaya Vezha. However, no serious public hearings or academic conferences devoted to the legality of the ClS's creation have ever been conducted, either in Russia or in the West.

Therefore, the treaty itself started to be interpreted in different ways by its signatories. For Ukraine it was a civilized means of "divorce" with the USSR; for Russia it was a means to achieve neo-integrationist aspirations; and for "underdog" Belarus it was a means of joining the "top dog," Russia, thus avoiding responsibility for its deep political and economic crises. This fact also prevented CIS legal bodies from elaborating significant laws to be respected and implemented by all member-states.

As soon as arguments of the CIS creation's political expediency came under increasing fire from the victorious Communist opposition, the weakness of the ClS's legal basis became especially obvious. This explains the relative ease with which the Communists managed to revoke, on their first attempt, the decision of the Supreme Soviet of Russia of December 12, 1991. They used the same set of arguments ("illegality" and "immorality") that Mr. Yeltsin had used in 1991 to prove the legality of the Belaya Vezha pact. Such switching of sides has only reinforced the ambiguity of neo-integrationist tendencies in Russia, all started after 1993, and suggests that the communists have only driven to its logical conclusion the spirit of Yeltsin's "real" integration.

The temptation of neo-integrationism

The dissolution of the USSR and the emergence on its territory of new independent states, especially Ukraine, has caused several blows to the Russian national identity. First, the emergence of Ukraine as an independent state designated Kyivan Rus' as the starting point of new independent Ukraine rather than Russia, thus compelling the latter to search for its historical roots and to ponder whether these should be attributed to Europe, Asia or Eurasia. It also focused attention on the fact that, historically, Russia and Ukraine existed as two different nations with complex relations rather than as one "single" brotherly people.

The loss of Ukraine in 1991 signified for Russia its physical removal from the European mainstream, thus causing a blow to the Russian self-image and necessitating its search for new strategic partners in the region. Thus, Russia's interest in Belarus as its No. I strategic partner emerged at that time. The eventual removal from power of the democratic-minded Stanislau Shushkevich, one of the signatories of the Belaya Vezha pact, and the accession to the presidency of Alyaksandr Lukashenka (January 1994), an ardent proponent of neo-integrationist ideas, apparently coincided with the efforts of the Russian special service to mastermind a plan for new integration.

After the forceful dissolution of the Russian Parliament in October 1993, Mr. Yeltsin expressed the main idea of this plan in a vague, albeit comprehensible, fashion in a speech on October 23, 1993. Appearing in Yaroslav, a city that is one of the historical pillars of Russian statehood, he spoke about its significance as a city of Russian glory, and focused on the necessity of "gathering all Russian lands" around Russia proper.

The victory of the nationalists and the Communists in elections to the Russian Duma in December 1993 compelled the presidential administration to strike first. In September 1994 the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia headed by Yevgeniy Primakov, prepared a document titled "Russia-ClS: Does the Position of the West Need to be Corrected?" This document concentrated on two major ideas: the course on reintegration of CIS countries was deemed "objective" and inevitable, and the West was warned against interfering. This document was primarily of a consultative nature, however, and it did not contain direct recommendations to executive bodies.

On September 14, 1995, President Yeltsin issued Edict No. 940, titled "The Strategic Course of Russia with the States of the CIS," which contained directives to state institutions such as the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Defense Ministry, the Ministry on Cooperation with Countries of the CIS, etc. Edict No. 940 declared the CIS countries the principal target of Russia's geopolitical ambitions because that is where "are concentrated our [Russian] vital interests in the domain of economics, defense, security, protection of the rights of Russians, the guarantee of which constitutes the basis of the country's national security." The document contained a broad range of measures limiting and eventually eliminating CIS member states' independence and equality.

The economic part of this forthcoming integration presupposes the following measures: enlargement of the Customs Union through the involvement of members of the CIS Economic Union; integration of national economic systems with the help of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS states; enhancement of the Payments Union with the aim of using the ruble as a "reserve" currency; and creation of juridical and economic conditions for "joint property" in the CIS countries.

The military part of the document presupposes: establishment of a system of collective security on the basis of the Treaty on Mutual Security of the CIS countries of May 15, 1992; establishment of Russian military bases; creation of a joint system for CIS border protection and legal guarantees for the presence of Russian border troops in these countries; introduction of joint peacekeeping activities; and notification to third parties and international organizations involved in peacekeeping operations that this region is the "zone of Russia's interests."

The final aim of this plan is to create a new confederation that would include Russia and three of the other 12 former Soviet republics that today are members of the CIS: Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. As early as 1991, then First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Gennadiy Burbulis deemed the formula about a confederative state contained in Mikhail Gorbachev's version of a new union treaty "hypocritical." So far, both the Communist and Yeltsin versions of "reintegration" of CIS countries support a "voluntary" union. The difference between them is purely verbal: the Communists openly call this a "union" by analogy to the USSR (i.e., sticking to ideological motives), whereas Mr. Yeltsin's team prefers such words as "real union," "new confederation," "profound integration" (i.e., clinging to the vision of Russia as a "great power").

Leaving aside the economic costs of such a "confederation" for Russia, the hectic moves of both the Communists and the Yeltsin team reflects the fact that the idea of renewed grandeur implied in a Soviet revival has a mighty psycho-emotional appeal to vast segments of the Russian electorate. It looks like both connect their electoral success to the matter of who will be first to actually revive some sort of a union inside (or instead of) the CIS.

Dr. Volodymyr Zviglyanich is adjunct professor of East European area studies at George Washington University.

CONCLUSION

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 31, 1996, No. 13, Vol. LXIV

| Home Page |