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group of high-level Soviet functionaries who were opposed to the devolution of power, Yeltsin’s
proposal did not succeed in stabilizing the Russian Federation.
Tatarstan and Chechnya abstained from signing the Federal Treaty in March 1992, and a
number of the actual signatories, such as Yakutia and Bashkortorstan, made official declarations of
serious reservations. Russia’s oblasts also immediately protested what they perceived as special
privileges accorded to the national republics in the treaty and demanded equal rights.
The Dilemma of Post-Soviet Structural Reform:
The protests of the oblasts highlighted the fundamental dilemma of post-Soviet structural
reform in the Russian Federation:
• should the ethno-territorial principle be retained with its asymmetry and special privileges
given to the republics?
• or should the Federation be based on self-administering units organized according to
territorial size and economic principles, along the lines of the states of the USA and the
German Lands?
• or should the Federation be abolished altogether and a unitary, centralized state be created,
with only limited administrative devolution to units akin to the old Tsarist gubernias?
There is presently no consensus in Moscow on this issue and Russia’s politicians vacillate
between the three positions. 25 Retaining the current structure demands its rationalization, and a
coherent strategy for the devolution of an appropriate degree of power to the Federation’s non-
Russian ethnic groups. It is opposed by many Russian political leaders and oblasts. The territorialadministrative
principle, on the other hand, while facilitating the functions of the central
government, implies a radical departure from the status quo and is strongly opposed by the national
republics. The third option suggests an end to democratization and a return to the over-centralization
of functions in the Soviet period. While the latter is favored by officials of the central government in
Moscow and businessmen seeking a uniform legal framework for country-wide operations, 26 it is
opposed by all the constituent units of the federation.
The difficulties of reaching a consensus on the direction of structural reform are
compounded by the necessity of creating a post-Soviet political system for the Russian Federation.
25 For the most recent in-depth discussion and illustration of this dilemma see Rafael Khakimov, “Russia and the
Process of Federalization,” and “Appeal to President Boris Yeltsin from President M. Shaimiev, Tatarstan,
President M. Rakhimov, Bashkortorstan and President M. Nikolaev, Sakha (Yakutia): For a Consistent Policy to
Democratize and Federalize Russia,” in Bulletin of the Ethnic Conflict Management in the Former Soviet Union
Network on Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflict, Special Section, pp. 10-16, Conflict
Management Group June 1995 (hereafter CMG Bulletin).
26 This information was obtained in interviews with Russian businessmen conducted by the SDI Project in June
1994.
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