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The Most Important Struggle
| Article
# : |
10182 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1993 |
1,497 Words |
| Author
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Jack F. Matlock, Jr.
Jack F. Matlock, Jr., was appointed U.S. ambassador to the
Soviet Union in March 1987. This was his fourth assignment in
Moscow, having earlier served there as chargé d'affaires,
deputy chief of mission, and vice consul and second secretary.
He is currently working on two books to be published by Random
House. |
The struggle to define the Russia of the future hinges on the outcome of the conflict between the reactionaries, who want to rebuild the empire, and the democrats, who want a freer Russia with a representative government.
When the Soviet Union shattered into 15 independent countries, most Russians were happy to see the communist empire collapse. They would have preferred a voluntary union of the former Soviet republics, but when a majority of the other republics demanded independence, Russian political leaders also opted to go it alone. With independence they could pursue reforms without negotiating with other republics and sidestep demands for economic subsidies to the less developed ones.
Boris Yeltsin, the only elected president in Russian history, had an additional reason for disbanding the Soviet Union. His feud with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had become intensely personal. The quickest way to remove Gorbachev was to eliminate the Soviet Union, and that superpower disappeared from the world's map on Christmas day in 1991. Over half the people who lived in the Soviet Union at the beginning of the year now lived outside the borders of Russia. More than 30 million of them were ethnic Russians.
The dissolution of the Soviet empire happened so rapidly after the failed coup d'etat in August 1991 that most citizens had trouble keeping up with the events. There was no comprehensive public debate on the key questions and no referendum in Russia to confirm the decision to give the country a new identity.
For centuries Russians and foreigners alike had regarded Russia as synonymous with the Russian empire and its successor, the Soviet Union, an empire of a different nature. This image of an imperial Russia had deep roots in the Soviet military conservative Communist Party officials, and a small but vocal group of chauvinistic intellectuals who called themselves patriots. To them, the collapse of the Soviet empire was a catastrophe, and those responsible for it were guilty of treason.
President Yeltsin and his democratic supporters held an opposite view. They considered the former empire a burden that had drained Russia and prevented the development of a democratic, open society. Furthermore, communist rule had colonized Russia itself, forcing it to serve the military-industrial complex rather than meet its citizens' needs. Russia, they argued, was better off without the colonial appendages of the former Soviet republics.
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