DOCSLIB.ORG

Russia Turned Upside Down

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Russia Turned Upside Down RUSSIA TURNED UPSIDE DOWN ot Marx, but Machiavel- atavistic to the socialist view as li, has clearly been Mik­ Nationalism, it can simply fold up its hail Gorbachev's special tent and, at least in the shape of its study. The history of leader, attempt to retain office in these 20th-century politics has new conditions, in what did it consist? rarely afforded such a What was it all about? spectacle of political opportunism as he For this was no principled split or has displayed in these past weeks. Here assumption of a new direction - like is a man, born into a communist family, that among the Italian socialists after whose advance was at all times under the war, or for the German SPD at Bad the party's protective aura, who had had Godesburg in 1959, or in the British no other job than to work within its Labour Party when it produced the SDP ranks, who rose to be its leader and in 1980. These moments were properly remained so... until, using the powers of marked - in polemic, debate, bitterness his post as head of state, which leader­ lasting decades, all the paraphernalia of ship of the party had obtained for him, a proper fraternal dispute. There had he banned it. seemed to be something over which to In doing so, he cancelled the political argue. Yet the cancellation of the Com­ existence and in many cases the careers munist Party of the Soviet Union took of millions. To be sure, many were glad place with the stroke of a pen, 24 hours to be so liberated: many, perhaps the after the party's general secretary majority, held their cards from inertia, came back from internal captivity say­ or a residual fear of losing the few ing that the most urgent task he had in privileges they might have. But others mind was the party's democratization had been looking for some kind of trans­ and renewal. It took place while the formation, for a conscious working party still had about 15m members, at through of what communism could now least on paper; when it was still, in a become, how it should rid itself of the formal if neither in a legal or actual incubus of its own past, how it could sense, the ruling party of the Soviet take responsibility, at last, for the chaos Union. it did so much to create. They had beenj looking, in fact, for exoneration through Times change, of course. The CPSU was a Good Works. Gorbachev simply dropped dinosaur waiting to crash to the ground, them in the trash can, then got up the all hollow bones and wasting cells. It. next morning and went about his daily was stopping more vigorous forms of At a stroke, the major work - lightened, no doubt, by being life from reaching the vegetation. It shorn of the duties of being Stalin's was an idea whose time was up. But for politicians shaping the successor. all that, should it not have been given a He has since sat on a US chat show with more decent - or for that matter inde­ future of the Union are Boris Yeltsin, who had handed in Len- cent - send off? It has been so hole in nin's banner a little earler and actually the corner - save for the brilliant suddenly ex-communists. with rather more ceremony, and public act of taking Feliz Dzerzhinsky listened to his now close colleague in off his plinth before the headquarters of John Lloyd wonders where arms say that communism had been an the KGB he created and the further, the country is heading, and unmitigated disaster, without offering less telegenic, removals of such lumina­ the least protest. Nothing, it seemed, ries as Kalinin and Sverdlov from their does socialism have no part remained of a dedication to the party central Moscow bases. Nothing has which was the content of hundreds of been set in train which would purge it to play? speeches, thousands of obeisances to from society - all that has been done is the Gods of the ideology, hundreds of to knock it down and cover it up. thousands of routine acts of furthering lmost every major politi­ the party's grasp for all of his adult, and cian in power today, who even part of his childhood, life. aspires to recreate what Among the many marvels we have was the Soviet Union or seen in recent weeks in the Soviet Union Awho aspires to further its disintegra­ is the sight of a man who appears to give tion, was a communist, and often until the lie to any assumption that living and recently a leading one. For much of working for a political faith especially their adult lives they conducted their one as all embracing and ideologically political careers according to its rules - butressed as communism - was in the even if, as Eduard Shevardnadze claims end more than simply a calculation in his recent memoirs, or as Boris Yelt­ about power. Here, in the holy of social­ sin claimed in his, they were determi­ ist holies, we see that the same betrayal nedly iconoclastic and liberal, this was of a faith is possible as that which has not the impression others always had of been undertaken by most, if not all, of them. the western leaders of socialism in its The party intellectuals who have worthwhile democratic version: Mitte- now come to power, like Gavril Popov, rand, Gonzales, Hawke, Kinnock and the Moscow mayor, were indeed on the their circles. If, before a movement as reformist side - but reformism was 12 MARXISM TODAY OCTOBER 1991 until recently encapsulable in a relat­ decision taken by Popov on August 29 to worth preserving which pointed out ively rigid framework, with the reform­ shut down the museum by October 1 of that there had been exploitation: he did ists guarding their own idelogical fron­ this year, and move its displays to the not specify how far he thought him tiers, none of them very far over to the exhibition of the Russian Revolution in relevant today. Bikennin, a courtly man right. Now, they are the preachers of Tverskaya Street a few hundred yards who helped persuade Gorbachev to quit market and democratic principles of a away. Most of those taking part were the party because he believed, with quality so pure, so urgent, that western middle-aged or elderly; the basic Yakovlev, that the party had hopelessly liberals and social democrats chide themes of all the arguments was the compromised itself during the coup, is them, when they come to town for the view that the Popov decision was unde­ to replace Kommunist with a new ma­ Grand Tour, on their naivety: not every­ mocratic, against the opposing belief gazine from October, to be called Svo- thing on our side is wonderful, you that the communists had it coming. One bodnoye Misl - 'Free Thought'. Again, know! We have our problems, our poor, old man engaged in a long sarcastic quite a jump - even for one who, as he our injustices! (To which the answer, monologue at the expense of past CPSU had, consistently kept Kommunist on especially from those who do know leaders; around him, three old women, the side of the reformers since taking something about the West, is - give us with only a few teeth between them, the editorial chair in 1987. your problems, because to us they look jabbed at him angrily with their fingers, It is not, in fact, likely that the Move­ like solutions.) invoking 'our' party, 'our' Lenin, 'our' ment for Democratic Reform will be On a Sunday in the middle of this country. able to display much of a leftist ideolo­ month (September) I went to visit the t had something of the air of a gical stance - since it is not very likely main Lenin museum, which flanks an madhouse, or at least of the that it will be more than a top people's ' entrance to Red Square (on 'Historical eccentricity of those who were lifeboat out of the party. None of the Lane')- It is the largest exhibition of powerless and half-daft. Those intellectuals among the movements' I Leninalia in the world: it has many of whIo were left to pick up the baton for founders - Yakovlev himself, Nikolai 'The rich, his letters, books, even clothes, the Ilyich were not the men in the Volgas, Petrakov and Stanislav Shatalin, two the new chairs he sat on, even the fireplace from let alone in the Zils, who had owed hihi radical economists - have any vestige business the house in London in which he and his their ideological cover for so many of socialist belief left as far as can be wife lived. It has the Rolls Royce he years. It was those who were too silly or seen. Yakovlev spent some time before class, are not used in the last years of his power, with too stubborn or too possessed or too actually quitting the party musing attractive to the information that the car passed into angered to give him up, who did not aloud about whether bolshevism was Western the possession of the Crimean Fish realise that the modern style was to worse than nazism, coming to the con­ intellectuals, Workers party committee in the 1930s. pass by on the other side, to confine any clusion, on tv, that 'nothing is worse In every room there is a portrait of expression of former allegiance to him than bolshevism'. Neither Petrakov nor or indeed to Lenin, usually in heroic or heuristic or to a brief, humorous shrug; who were Shatalin have any time for even mildly Soviet declamatory mode: one shows him help­ still out there fighting.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Blaming Russia First, Foreign Affairs, November 2000
    Blaming Russia First Stephen F. Cohen, Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia, Norton. Chrystia Freeland, Sale of the Century: Russia’s Wild Ride From Communism to Capitalism, Crown Business. Paul Klebnikov, Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia, Harcourt. Pity the unpopular Russians! In July, Mexico elects its first president from outside the country’s ruling party, and The Economist magazine labels it a “real democracy”. Russia elects a president from the political opposition in 1991, then holds no fewer than five competitive, generally free national elections in the following years. The Economist labels it a “phoney democracy”. Colombia has a problem with organized crime, and Washington gives its government $1.3 billion to help fight the drug lords. Russia has a problem with organized crime, and American politicians lecture Moscow sternly not to expect any more aid until it cleans up its act. An American bank is accused of laundering money for Russian organized crime figures, and a leading senator accuses the Russian government of being “the world’s most virulent kleptocracy”. An undercover Customs Service operation finds several Mexican banks laundering drug money in the US, and Washington apologizes to the Mexicans for conducting undercover operations on their territory. When the Asian crisis scares foreign investors away from the Russian market and the ruble collapses, commentators declare this proof of the failure of liberal economic reform in Russia. When the Asian crisis scares investors away from the Brazilian market and the real collapses, commentators declare this a bump in the road.
    [Show full text]
  • Lukyanov Doctrine: Conceptual Origins of Russia's Hybrid Foreign Policy—The Case of Ukraine
    Saint Louis University Law Journal Volume 64 Number 1 Internationalism and Sovereignty Article 3 (Fall 2019) 4-23-2020 Lukyanov Doctrine: Conceptual Origins of Russia’s Hybrid Foreign Policy—The Case of Ukraine. Igor Gretskiy [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Igor Gretskiy, Lukyanov Doctrine: Conceptual Origins of Russia’s Hybrid Foreign Policy—The Case of Ukraine., 64 St. Louis U. L.J. (2020). Available at: https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj/vol64/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Saint Louis University Law Journal by an authorized editor of Scholarship Commons. For more information, please contact Susie Lee. SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW LUKYANOV DOCTRINE: CONCEPTUAL ORIGINS OF RUSSIA’S HYBRID FOREIGN POLICY—THE CASE OF UKRAINE. IGOR GRETSKIY* Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kremlin’s assertiveness and unpredictability on the international arena has always provoked enormous attention to its foreign policy tools and tactics. Although there was no shortage of publications on topics related to different aspects of Moscow’s foreign policy varying from non-proliferation of nuclear weapons to soft power diplomacy, Russian studies as a discipline found itself deadlocked within the limited number of old dichotomies, (e.g., West/non-West, authoritarianism/democracy, Europe/non-Europe), initially proposed to understand the logic of Russia’s domestic and foreign policy transformations.1 Furthermore, as the decision- making process in Moscow was getting further from being transparent due to the increasingly centralized character of its political system, the emergence of new theoretical frameworks with greater explanatory power was an even more difficult task.
    [Show full text]
  • Background Information on Chechnya
    Background Information on Chechnya A study by Alexander Iskandarian This study was commissioned by UNHCR. The views expressed in this study by the author, Director of the Moscow-based Centre for Studies on the Caucasus, do not necessarily represent those of UNHCR. Moscow, December 2000 1. Background information on Chechnya Under Article 65 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Chechnya is mentioned as one of the 89 subjects of the Federation. Chechnya officially calls itself the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. It is situated in the east of the Northern Caucasus, with an area of around 15,100 square kilometres (borders with the Republic of Ingushetia have not been delimited; in the USSR, both republics were part of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic). According to the Russian State Committee on Statistics, as of January 1993, Chechnya had a population of around 1,100,000. There are no reliable data concerning the current population of Chechnya. Chechens are the largest autochthonous nation of the Northern Caucasus. By the last Soviet census of 1989, there were 958,309 Chechens in the USSR, 899,000 of them in the SSR of Russia, including 734,500 in Checheno-Ingushetia and 58,000 in adjacent Dagestan where Chechens live in a compact community.1 The largest Chechen diaspora outside Russia used to be those in Kazakhstan (49,500 people) and Jordan (around 5,000). One can expect the diaspora to have changed dramatically as a result of mass migrations. Chechnya has always had a very high population growth rate, a high birth rate and one of the lowest percentages of city dwellers in Russia.
    [Show full text]
  • Ethnic Violence in the Former Soviet Union Richard H
    Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2011 Ethnic Violence in the Former Soviet Union Richard H. Hawley Jr. (Richard Howard) Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES ETHNIC VIOLENCE IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION By RICHARD H. HAWLEY, JR. A Dissertation submitted to the Political Science Department in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2011 Richard H. Hawley, Jr. defended this dissertation on August 26, 2011. The members of the supervisory committee were: Heemin Kim Professor Directing Dissertation Jonathan Grant University Representative Dale Smith Committee Member Charles Barrilleaux Committee Member Lee Metcalf Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii To my father, Richard H. Hawley, Sr. and To my mother, Catherine S. Hawley (in loving memory) iii AKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people who made this dissertation possible, and I extend my heartfelt gratitude to all of them. Above all, I thank my committee chair, Dr. Heemin Kim, for his understanding, patience, guidance, and comments. Next, I extend my appreciation to Dr. Dale Smith, a committee member and department chair, for his encouragement to me throughout all of my years as a doctoral student at the Florida State University. I am grateful for the support and feedback of my other committee members, namely Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • The Nagorny Karabakh Conflict
    A demonstration in Yerevan, 1988. Source: Ruben Mangasaryan/Patker The Nagorny Karabakh ll conflicts have a pre-history. Few have as clear conflict a beginning as the Nagorny Karabakh conflict. AThe basic positions – the Karabakh Armenians’ determination to secede from Azerbaijan with the support of Armenia and Azerbaijanis’ resolve to stop origins, dynamics and misperceptions that happening – were adopted in February 1988 and that month saw turmoil erupt as if out of the blue in the form of demonstrations, strikes, political quarrels, flights of refugees and pogroms. That full-scale Armenian- Thomas de Waal Azerbaijani fighting only broke out at the end of 1991 is more a matter of weaponry than of intention. The events of February 1988 were dramatic, sudden, and almost universally unanticipated in a Europe that had all but forgotten the power of nationalism as a political force. In that sense, by being the first serious nationalist quarrel of the late Communist era, the Karabakh conflict can be called both the most unexpected and the most predetermined of all these disputes. More than any others in Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union, the conflict was all but inevitable because its causes lay in the ‘deep structure’ of the relationship between its two parties in late Communist times. Four elements – divergent national narratives, a disputed territorial boundary, an unstable security arrangement and lack of dialogue between the two parties – had made fissures that would break Armenia and Azerbaijan apart, as soon as trouble began. Yet because the problem was both so new and so profound, no mechanism was found – or has yet been found – to repair the damage.
    [Show full text]
  • The Limits of Leadership
    Issue 17 2005 A ccor d 17 Concilia tion Resourc es The limits of leadership:elites and societies in the Nagorny Karabakh peace process Since the ceasefire of 1994,the conflict between Azerbaijan and a n i n t ern a t i o n a l re v i e w o f p e ace i n i t i a t i ve s Armenia over the region of Nagorny Karabakh has remained firmly deadlocked.An internationally-sponsored peace process based on closed talks between Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders has yielded several proposals but no significant agreement.Rather than preparing populations for possible compromises,leaders in the region have long sought to bolster their domestic ratings with hardline stances.Their zero-sum approaches to the competing principles of territorial integrity and self-determination make renewed violence as likely as a peaceful resolution. With insufficient space in either society for the articulation of T constructive solutions or the identification of common ground, h e The limits of leadership:elites and societies in the Nagorny Karabakh peace N process highlights the obstacles to a sustainable agreement.In a go particular,it explores the central challenge of bridging the gap between r potential for agreement at the negotiating table and popular resistance ny to the compromises this entails. K a r a With distrust in the present process so widespread,could a more b inclusive and multi-faceted approach address the dynamics of ak h polarization and provide greater chances of reaching a solution p acceptable to all? ea c e Featuring contributors from diverse constituencies,this issue of p r Accord presents perspectives on the peace process and analysis of o c the impacts of the conflict.It explores the roles of civil society and the e media,the economics of war and peace,and the challenges for further ss democratization.It also contains key texts and agreements,profiles of key actors and a chronology of the peace process.
    [Show full text]
  • Russia: Business and State
    ’Ifri ’Ifri _____________________________________________________________________ Russia: Business and State _____________________________________________________________________ Igor Bunin, Alexey Makarkin November 2015 . Russia/NIS Center Ifri is a research center and a forum for debate on major international political and economic issues. Headed by Thierry de Montbrial since its founding in 1979, Ifri is a non-governmental and a non-profit organization. As an independent think tank, Ifri sets its own research agenda, publishing its findings regularly for a global audience. With offices in Paris and Brussels, Ifri stands out as one of the rare French think tanks to have positioned itself at the very heart of European debate. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Ifri brings together political and economic decision-makers, researchers and interna tionally renowned experts to animate its debates and research activities. The opinions expressed in this article are the authors’ alone and do not reflect the official views of their institutions. ISBN : 978-2-36567-475-1 © All rights reserved, Ifri, 2015 Ifri Ifri-Bruxelles 27, rue de la Procession Rue Marie-Thérèse, 21 75740 Paris Cedex 15 – FRANCE 1000 – Bruxelles – BELGIQUE Tél. : +33 (0)1 40 61 60 00 Tél. : +32 (0)2 238 51 10 Fax : +33 (0)1 40 61 60 60 Fax : +32 (0)2 238 51 15 Email : [email protected] Email : [email protected] Website : Ifri.org Russie.Nei.Visions Russie.Nei.Visions is an online collection of articles dedicated to Russia and the other new independent states (Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan). Written by leading experts, these policy-oriented papers deal with strategic, political and economic issues.
    [Show full text]
  • Nato Mw Report 2004-2005
    Final Report - Manfred Wörner Fellowship 2004 / 2005 Prospects For Regional Cooperation on NATO’s South Eastern Border Developing a Turkish-Russian Cooperation in South Caucasus Submitted on 30 June 2005 By Dr. Burcu Gültekin Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council In consultation with the Economy & Conflict Research Group of South Caucasus (ECRG) / International Alert 1 Acknowledgments This report has been possible thanks to NATO’s Manfred Wörner fellowship. I am profoundly grateful to the Public Diplomacy Division at NATO Headquarters, notably to Deputy Assistant Secretary General for External Relations Dr. Jamie Shea and to Dr. Stefanie Babst, Head of NATO Countries Section. My special thanks go to Despina Afentouli, Information Officer Greece and responsible for South Caucasus, whose friendly support has been particularly valuable throughout all the research process, and to Ioanna Synadino. I have benefited from conversations with Robert Simmons, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Security Cooperation and Partnership and with Amb. Daniel Speckhard, Director of Policy Planning at the Office of the Secretary General. My deep thanks go to Ünal Çeviköz, Ambassador of Turkey to Bagdat, who has actively supported my work on the South Caucasus for many years and to Ertan Tezgör, Ambassador of Turkey to Tbilisi for his continuous help and multiple in-depth discussions during my research in Tbilisi. Brigadier General Muzaffer Çarpan, Turkish Armed Forces Attaché at the Turkish Embassy in Tbilisi, David Sikarulidze, Deputy Minister of Defense of Georgia and General Melkunian from the Ministry of Defense of Armenia have been gracious with their time and insights. I am grateful to Henry Cuny, Ambassador of France to Yerevan for his valuable support to my Turkish-Armenian initiatives, and to Amb.
    [Show full text]
  • Russian Policy Towards the Cis, 1991-1996: Debates About
    1 RUSSIAN POLICY TOWARDS THE CIS, 1991-1996: DEBATES ABOUT THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT IN THE MOLDOVA-TRANSDNIESTRIA, GEORGIA-ABKHAZIA AND TAJIKISTAN CONFLICTS Nicole Janine Jackson Ph.D. Dissertation London School of Economics UMI Number: U150835 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U150835 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 T h £-s £ S F -T\SH Ufi-o OF POLITICAL AIMD t*. 7^0Lt i l sC*r. 2 Abstract The most serious foreign policy challenge that the Russian Federation faced from 1991 to 1996 was whether and how to respond to outbreaks of conflict within its neighbouring states. Unlike under the Soviet Union, there were open, diverse and complex debates about whether Russia should react to these conflicts, and if so, by what means. These foreign policy debates among the political elite and the ensuing policies form the subject of this thesis. The thesis asks what the dominant ideas expressed in these debates about foreign policy were, and whether they were reflected in Russia's policies towards specific military conflicts in the CIS States.
    [Show full text]
  • Putinism in Its First Year
    China-Russia Relations: Putinism in Its First Year by Yu Bin Associate Professor, Wittenberg University At the end of Putin’s first year in office, Sino-Russian relations had clearly changed from a year before when the younger and largely unknown former KGB colonel suddenly found himself in the Kremlin. After an initial hesitation in pushing forward with his predecessor’s overtures to China, the Russian president pursued a balanced and pragmatic approach to Russia’s largest Asian neighbor through the last quarter of the year 2000. Bilateral relations were enhanced by regular and frequent contacts by both top leaders and bureaucratic functionaries across the diplomatic, economic, and military areas. More Summit Diplomacy and Pragmatic Dealings High-level contact between Russian and Chinese leaders continued as Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Russian President Vladimir Putin met during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting in Brunei in mid-November. This was the fourth meeting between the two heads of state in 2000, all in the second half of the year. The brief encounter in a multilateral environment focused on a few major issues, including that of “strategic stability;” i.e., their mutual opposition to the U.S.-led anti-missile defense program. The two presidents agreed to bolster their coordination in this area as the Russian president publicly stated his country’s unchanged anti-missile stance. Annual Premier Meeting. While summit diplomacy has become routine for both sides, substantive issues were hammered out and implemented at lower levels. During the fourth quarter, the fifth regular premier talk was perhaps the most instrumental in furthering bilateral cooperation in various areas.
    [Show full text]
  • “Failing State”: the Legacy of Gorbachev and the Promise of Putin
    Addressing the Challenges of Russia’s “Failing State”: The Legacy of Gorbachev and the Promise of Putin JOHN P. W ILLERTON,MIKHAIL BEZNOSOV, AND MARTIN CARRIER Abstract: Concerns about the prospects for democratic consolidation in Putin’s Russia have been heightened with the further expansion of the hegemonic presi- dency and the strengthened position of the federal authorities vis-à-vis the regions. Such developments, mirroring earlier institutional reforms of the Gor- bachev period, are strongly tied with late Soviet and post-Soviet political regime efforts to address the challenges of Russia’s “failing state.” The authors focus on the political dimension of Russia’s “failing state,” illuminating Putin’s and Gor- bachev’s efforts to reinforce the state capacity for implementing those structural reforms necessary to sustain democratization. They contend that Putin’s efforts to control federal-level institutional rivals and to rein in regional elites are designed not to recreate an authoritarian system but to bring balance among pow- erful political interests and to raise policy-making efficiency through “managed democracy.” A strong parallel can be drawn with the objectives of Gorbachevian reformism, intended to bolster the “failing state” by enhancing the accountabili- ty and effectiveness of political executives throughout the country. They assert a sort of organic link between Putin’s and Gorbachev’s political-institutional reforms, albeit granting significant contextual differences between the ossified Soviet system of the 1980s and the corruption and post-Soviet system weaknesses of the early 2000s. The authors conclude that many judgments offered by West- ern (especially American) observers about the weakening of democracy have been more guided by a projection of those observers’ own conceptions of democ- racy than by an understanding of Russia’s traditions or thinking in establishing the necessary conditions for democratic consolidation.
    [Show full text]
  • Nagorno-Karabakh: War Fails to Resolve the Conflict
    ISSUE 1, SUMMER 2021 THE CAMBRIDGE JOURNAL OF LAW, POLITICS, AND ART ISSN 2754-0294 Issue first published 2021 © 2021 The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the Journal or any future publisher of the Journal. cjlpa.org Editor-in-Chief: Alexander (Sami) Kardos-Nyheim Managing Editor: Joseph Court Front cover illustration © 2021 Sir Quentin Blake: published with permission of AP Watt at United Agents on behalf of Sir Quentin Blake Logo © 2021 Gabriella Kardos Designed by Sienna James, Uma-Johanna Shah, and Jana Lulovska (lulovska.com) Typeset in Mrs Eaves XL (Emigre), Crimson (Sebastian Kosch), Calluna (exljbris Font Foundry), Source Han Sans CN (Adobe Originals), and Times New Roman (Stanley Morison) Referenced in lightly modified OSCOLA Printed in the UK Print: ISSN 2754-0286 Online: ISSN 2754-0294 CJLPA is committed to minimising its ecological footprint. The print run of this issue has been fully carbon balanced for both paper and print production through the World Land Trust, ensuring a carbon neutral product. All issues are released online. www.carbonbalancedprinter.com Healeys Print Group - Reg. 2108 iv Nagorno-Karabakh: War Fails to Resolve the Conflict Dr Hratch Tchilingirian Dr Hratch Tchilingirian is a sociologist specialising in religion and conflict in Asia and the Caucasus. He is a member of the Oxford Faculty of Oriental Studies. magine Boris Johnson ordering the bombing of Edinburgh Baku has portrayed the war as a ‘last resort’ response to decades-long because the Scots voted for independence in a referendum, or Armenian intransigence to negotiate a settlement.
    [Show full text]