Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to welcome you to the Nationality and Siberian Studies Program's first annual conference on “The Soviet Nationalities and Gorbachev.” With so distinguished a collection of experts, I am certain that our discussion will prove to be both a stimulating intellectual experience and a permanent addition to the debate on Soviet nationality policy.

In determining what Gorbachev's policies are, I consider the topic of law a very congenial one because he is a lawyer. While he is no longer a practitioner, he attended the same law school as I did long ago. His attitude towards law is as an implementation of policy, and, therefore, I believe that by reading the law, we can, through what is sometimes called reverse engineering, determine what his policies are in the matter of national minority concerns as well as on other matters. We can look upon what is seen on the surface as an indication of what is more deeply enshrined in his thinking. I always remember that Lenin said (and I was taught this my first day of school over there) that law was a political instrument, and I think Gorbachev is very much influenced by Lenin and Leninism. Consequently, I believe he accepts the position that law is indeed a political instrument. He would never accept what is now so popular in Europe: the theories of Lumans, who said that law has a life of its own, not because of its natural-law base, but because of what Lumans states, biological analogy.

The regional and local dimension entered the debate over economic decentralization and perestroika as different republics or provinces provided laboratories for experiments with new forms of economic management, and as public officials below the all-union level were ordered to take more initiative in critical areas such as consumer goods production. Now, however, the regional dimension in economic reform has moved to the top of the political agenda. In part, it moved there after last year's Party Conference where regional leaders discussed economic strains in perestroika, in part due to economic strains that have become more visible at the local level. As Gorbachev told the Supreme Soviet, this year marks a new stage in perestroika, one that is to harmonize inter-ethnic relations and redefine the relationship—especially the economic relationship—between center and periphery.

My comments on ideology, unlike the two presentations that preceded mine, which were substantive and had something to report on, will be similar to the story about the dog that did not bark: a dog that barked incessantly in the Brezhnev era, ideology has literally stopped barking since then. In this sense, the most striking aspect of contemporary Soviet ideology is its silence. From one of the most insistent features of Soviet reality under Brezhnev, ideology has retreated into a dark corner, where, presumably, it is licking its wounds and plotting a return. Ideology is far from dead, however. The ace up ideology's sleeve is, of course, the Party. As long as the Party purports to play a leading role in Soviet society—and, as Gorbachev has suggested, its role will increase under conditions of perestroika—then something like ideology will be necessary to justify and legitimate the one-party rule of a party that, even by its own criteria, does not deserve to rule, let alone to rule alone.

As everybody is well aware, human rights is an extremely broad topic, so what I would like to do is make a few basic points with some illustrations and then sum up with some ideas and discussion. Much of the grand scheme for reforming the Soviet system has touched on issues that fall under the rubric of human rights, broadly construed. Human rights discussions are no longer constrained by the traditional Soviet emphasis on social and economic rights and now encompass a variety of civil and political rights. As I see it, the fundamental issue with respect to human rights is the propping up of the rule of law. The concept of the rule of law has been elevated to previously unknown heights and is extolled as a fundamental underpinning of the entire process of democratization. It lends itself to the reduction of arbitrary actions (or at least it should), it encourages glasnost', and it enhances support for perestroika because it is intrinsic to any process of democratization. This reliance on the rule of law is absolutely essential as a component of any process that is linked to de-Stalinization. The abuses of the Stalin years are routinely excoriated, and the message being conveyed is that constitutionally guaranteed rights of citizens will be upheld, constitutional reform will proceed, and legislation will be enacted to protect a host of rights not addressed by the Constitution.

I guess after the atmospherics of ideology and so on, Alexander Motyl thought that, like Anteus, we could not stay in the air the whole time, that we would have to come down to the ground with resources.

Charles Furtado

Professor Motyl, you mentioned that there seemed to be a lack of conception among the Soviet elite about the nature of ideology, or about the definition of ideology, as one that would lead the regime through perestroika. It seems to me that the regime, or the elite, is somewhat bifurcated on this issue and that there are elements of the elite who have a clearer idea of what they would like to see promulgated. That would be the Ligachev faction, which is more conservative in its orientation towards social change. My question is: do you discern any differences in the Ligachev variation on Brezhnev's developed socialism? And have they come up with anything that is different, or is it basically more of the same?

Michael Rywkin: Perestroika in Central Asia

I will cover only a few points. It is obvious that, as far as the nationalities are concerned, perestroika has affected them in different ways. It is very hard to say that there is a uniform situation as far as perestroika's impact is concerned. We know well what is going on with the national fronts in the Baltic; we also know about the Caucasian situation's being complicated by difficulties not only between the local nationalities and the Muscovites, but also among the local nationalities themselves, and minorities within minorities. We have still a different situation in Belorussia, and yet another in Central Asia. Some of the events in Central Asia are directly connected with republics, while other trends already started beforehand.

Since I work for the government, I must stress, by way of introduction, that whatever I say reflects my opinion and not necessarily the opinion of the U.S. government.

We have come to the human dimension in this discussion. It would, therefore, be useful for us to consider two different ways of approaching this. One is talking about people at arm's length, in the way we have been doing most of the day; to a certain extent we have had to do so, as social scientists or even as humanists. I am going to try the other approach, namely, to talk about a few individuals to see if there is anything there that might help us in understanding the nationality question. My subject is literature and language. First, I will cover literature as an instrument, as something of interest to social scientists; and then I will discuss certain important individuals. As far as the nationality question is concerned, the individual does matter, although, it seems, the Party places that aspect at the bottom of its list of nationality concerns deemed important.

As Paul Goble pointed out, it is hard to give historical perspective to recent facts. My own comments started out as a footnote or paragraph for a piece I prepared for The Harriman Institute Forum on the current political situation and the Soviet historical profession, in which I mentioned that Soviet historians put the nationalities issue, among others, high on their agenda for opening up the past. Presumably, they are trying to make themselves into a force for reformist politics on the nationality question. In some important ways, the nationalities offer all sorts of important changes to the picture I presented for the central Russian dialogue on history.

Rather than stress policy to explain the geographic and ethnic bases of nationalism in the USSR, my emphasis will be on the universal features of these processes, or what we can learn about these important aspects of nationalism from comparative investigation: logic should compel one to demonstrate that the processes under investigation are not universal before one accepts a unique approach to the study of a region, country, or nation. Clearly, not all societal processes in the USSR are universal. The centrally planned economy is directed by policy, which, of course, affects geography, demography, and nationalism indirectly, and the unique aspects of Soviet society and history also affect these processes. However, empirical research indicates that there is a considerable universality in demographic, geographic, and ethnic processes in the USSR. Marxist-Leninist nationality policy has not been very effective, largely because such processes are difficult to control in any society and are not well-understood in the USSR.

Motyl

Let me open by making one or two minor remarks and then raising a broader issue which, I believe, is relevant to all the papers and may lead to further discussion if the panelists are so inclined. The minor points speak to methodological and ideological concerns, and are addressed to Paul Goble's comments about the theorizing and the break-up scenarios of the 1970's and the 1980's. For what it is worth, that really is not the issue. From the 1970's through today, the central issue in interpreting the nationality question has been the stability of the system, whether one interprets this from a conflict model perspective or consensus model perspective, to put it simplistically. The conflict perspective has so far been validated. It has also been suggested that, if one removes the coercive apparatus—the influence of the police—and liberalizes society, conflict will become manifest. That should not happen according to the consensus perspective. Consensus is, as it were, a permanent feature.