RUSSIA'S TINDERBOX - Belfer Center for Science and International ...

In almost every case in the North Caucasus there is an added complication. Members of the
individual ethnic groups and their traditional territory are located within the designated borders of
some other group. Every national movement therefore seeks to gather all the members of its group
under one political roof. Consequently, national movements in the North Caucasus demand the
realignment of administrative borders.
2. The Lack of Experienced National and Regional leaders:
This is the fundamental tragedy of the successor states to the Soviet Union and particularly
of the republics of the North Caucasus—they have few competent national leaders. Because of the
hierarchy of privileges in the USSR, smaller national units like the North Caucasian republics did
not have either the facilities to train national cadres or the context in which they could develop
experience of self-government. All directives came from the center, and the top leadership was
appointed by the center. Because all power was concentrated in Moscow in the hands of the CPSU,
the more ambitious members of non-Russian elites throughout the USSR gravitated there, leaving
few talented people behind in the localities.
With the dissolution of the USSR and the demise of the Soviet leadership appointed by the
center there was no nationally-trained elite to take its place–either in the new states or in the
administrative entities like the North Caucasus republics that demanded increased autonomy. The
old Soviet leadership that remains in place in the republics has no experience in self-government and
still looks to the center for guidance. The new national leaders who have emerged to challenge and
replace them have no practical political or administrative experience and often a poor grasp of
specific local conditions. In the North Caucasus, these new leaders have risen to prominence because
of their ethnic affiliation and perceived social standing, not because of proven competence.
Because there were no regional structures in the USSR, there are also no leaders capable of
appealing to all the different ethnic constituencies in the North Caucasus. The Russian political
parties that should assume this role are still in their infancy. They are Moscow-based, have few
regional representatives, and have no political platform for the North Caucasus as a whole. As a
result, politics in the North Caucasus centers on the parochial concerns of the various ethnic groups.
Where there has been an articulation of broader regional interests, it has been based on the
sum of the individual national grievances, collective opposition to Moscow, and the perception of
external threat to the North Caucasian peoples–as in the case of wide-spread support in the North
Caucasus for the Abkhaz and the Ossetians in their respective struggles with Georgia. This
articulation has also come from an extra-governmental group, the Confederation of Peoples of the
Caucasus, which is a coalition of nationalist movements led by new leaders with no practical
experience in government. In the vacuum created by the absence of political parties, the
Confederation has demanded the allegiance of the non-Russian peoples of the North Caucasus and
pursued a policy of regional secession from the Russian Federation.
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