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

which operated in accordance with a charter. 16 An AO had 5 seats in the Council of Nationalities of
the USSR Supreme Soviet, but no permanent representative in the leadership of the respective union
republic. As far as national education issues were concerned, an AO was not entitled to its own
national university or publishing house, but it could establish a pedagogical institute and a research
institute for the national language, literature, history and culture. Opportunities for national political
and cultural development were thus more limited for an AO than for an ASSR. 17
The Importance of National Sovereignty:
Although in practice the sovereignty of the individual administrative units was subordinate
to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Moscow in all aspects of decision-making, the
attributes of sovereignty—the councils of ministers, the supreme soviets, and national universities—
were of critical practical and symbolic, importance to members of the groups designated as the
“titular nationality” of their particular SSR, ASSR and AO. These attributes guaranteed a high
degree of political influence at the local level, a limited degree of political participation at the federal
level for the national elite, and access to key resources from education to employment for the general
population of the “titular nationality.”
The titular national group was guaranteed a percentage of the top positions in government,
key industrial enterprises, agricultural establishments and local universities, and preferential access
to employment, housing, and higher education. Those members of the titular national group in the
bureaucracy therefore saw the sovereignty of the republic as the guarantee of their positions and
were opposed to any changes in the system that might affect either the status of their republic or their
respective national group.
The importance of national sovereignty is most clearly illustrated by two cases. In the first
case, in Dagestan, no one group had a majority clear enough in the Soviet period to warrant the title
of “titular nationality.” As a result there was a constant jockeying among the elites of the constituent
peoples for control of key political posts and thus of decisionmaking in the republic. For example,
the national groups of the Avars and Kumyks frequently contested their respective shares of political
appointments at the republican level and in district councils. In 1991, the Kumyk national movement
16 Lacking these institutions, AOs also had no bureaucracy of their own and had to share cadres with the adjacent
territory of the union republic, i.e. the krai. Seeing as appointments were usually made at the krai level, the
titular nationality of the AO was at a disadvantage in competing for key jobs and influence. Capitals of AOs
were often, as a result, dominated by the population of the larger union republic. For example, in the North
Caucasus, according to the 1989 Soviet census, the capital of the Adygei AO (now the republic of Adygeia),
Maikop, has a majority ethnic Russian population. The titular nationality, the Adygei, account for only 10% of
the total population. By way of further example, in the Karachaevo-Cherkessia Autonomous Oblast which was
subordinated to Stavropol’ Krai, the Communist Party boss in the 1970s and 1980s, Valentin Lenichenko was
appointed by Stavropol’ and was not a member of one of the titular nationalities. See Marina Pustilnik,
“Karachaevo-Cherkessia: Caucasian Stresses,” in Transition, Open Media Research Institute, March 15, 1995,
pp.16-18 (p.16).
17 The native language in AOs was poorly developed as medium of communication. In the public sphere
preference was given to the language of the union republic, i.e. to Russian in the case of the North Caucasus
AOs. Native language instruction also rarely extended beyond the first grades of primary school.
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