But there is another problem, as Russian leader Vladimir Putin believes it was a mistake to break up the Soviet Union in 1991, and many Russians agree with him. The fourteen new nations created or revived when the Soviet Union was dissolved believe otherwise. Opinion surveys and migration patterns indicate mixed attitudes toward the old Russian Empire. The big problem is that half the people in the old empire were not Slavs, although ethnic Russians were the majority among the Slavic half. Despite centuries of living in the same country, whether Tsarist Russia or the Soviet Union, these ethnic groups never developed much affection or tolerance for one another. Most ethnic Russians living in non-Slavic parts of the Empire, especially Central Asia and the Caucasus, returned to Russia after 1991.
Most of those who stayed in non-Russian areas did so for economic reasons. That was also why non-Russians stayed in Russia, because what is now Russia has always had the most economic opportunities. A wealthier, better-educated population was a major reason Russia conquered those other countries. But after 1991, those who never got used to the conquest left and do not want the conquerors back.
There’s also the racism factor. For example, about 40 percent of ethnic Russians thought other Slavs like Ukrainians or Belarusians could become Russians if they lived in Russia for a few years and switched their loyalty to Russia. But fewer than ten percent thought people from the Caucasus or Central Asia could do that. This xenophobia, or fear of outsiders, is nothing new for Russia. For 70 years, the communists sought to eliminate this trait but only managed to suppress it and delude themselves into thinking it was gone. This pattern is common in communist countries and throughout Eastern Europe.
Xenophobia returned in the 1990s because of the collapse of the communist governments in 1989. It was worst in the Balkans, where civil war erupted as the communist police states collapsed and optimists hoped for a democratic Yugoslavia. While that had long been a cherished goal in the region, it was not to be. Several years of vicious fighting between Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and Albanians followed and was not halted until 1999. The Caucasus also erupted, and unlike Yugoslavia, NATO had no peacekeeping force to stabilize it. In the Caucasus, the usual Russian mix of carrots/bribes and sticks/violent suppression also failed. Eventually, in 1999, Russia had to reconquer parts of the Caucasus, especially Chechnya, to restore order.
Meanwhile, the Caucasus underwent a major ethnic shift. Russians and other people not native to the Caucasus were driven out of the region by terrorism, corruption, and a bad attitude towards outsiders. It was worst in Chechnya, where Russians made up 25 percent of the population in 1989 but only 2 percent in the 1990s. The decline was less severe in the rest of the Caucasus, but it was still massive, with more than half of the Russians living in the Caucasus having left by 2011. This trend began in the 1950s, right after tyrant Josef Stalin died in 1953, and Russia began to trim the power of the secret police. The departure of ethnic Russians from the Caucasus simply accelerated after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. In Central Asia, about half of the nearly ten million ethnic Russians living there in 1991 left.
The 2014 Russian operation to take the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine had a bracing effect on the other countries that, until 1991, were part of the ancient Russian Empire. The Crimean operation was the second such land grab Russia had undertaken since 2008. The first was against tiny Georgia. Many of these former Russian subjects feel that the Russians are trying to get their empire back. Ask many Russians that question and most agree that it would be a nice thing. Some Russians are more outspoken and bluntly call for the empire to be reassembled no matter what. Russian President Putin is one of those.
In response, the forlorn fourteen nations that were part of the Soviet Union until 1991, as well as many East European states that were subject to Russian control from the end of World War II to 1989, grew very nervous. Poland was particularly agitated because large parts of it had been part of the Russian Empire for most of the 18th and 19th centuries. Finland faced the same situation: it broke away after World War I, fought off a Russian invasion in 1940, and has faced many threats since then to stay independent. That makes the forlorn fourteen the scared sixteen. All these nations have noted what happened to Georgia and Ukraine with great trepidation and are responding in expected and unexpected ways.
The fourteen former Russian imperial possessions that regained independence are the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; Belarus; Moldova; Ukraine; Armenia; Azerbaijan; Georgia; and the five Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Poland, the Baltic States, and Finland escaped the empire after World War I, but only Finland remained free through World War II. The Baltic States were retaken during World War II, and Poland remained nominally independent but was occupied by Russian troops and took orders from Russia until 1989.
Poland and the Baltic States joined NATO after the Cold War ended and hope the alliance's mutual defense commitments will deter Russia. Nevertheless, all four, plus Finland, have increased their military readiness this year and are seeking assurances from the West that they will have help against Russia. Many Finns have called for Finland to join NATO, but a large minority has opposed it because they fear it would anger the Russians. That changed after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Russia justified the invasion because Ukraine, like most Finns, believed that NATO membership was preferable to trusting Russia to always behave. Even Sweden, never part of the Russian Empire and successfully neutral since the early 19th century, joined NATO for protection from an increasingly aggressive Russia.
The Stans of Central Asia have another option: China. The Stans have been very receptive to Chinese diplomatic and economic cooperation. This bothers Russia, but not enough to threaten its former imperial provinces to the west. The Stans also have a problem with never having been democracies. When the Russians conquered them in the 19th century, the local governments were monarchies or tribes. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, former Soviet officials held elections and manipulated the vote to get themselves elected president for life. But many people in the Stans want clean government and democracy, as well as continued independence from Russia. China is no help with that because the Chinese prefer dictators.
In the Caucasus, Georgia still seeks closer ties with the West. Armenia, because of disputes with Azerbaijan and long-term fear of Turkey, remains a close Russian ally. Azerbaijan maintains good relations with Russia mainly because Iran claims Azerbaijan was a lost province stolen by Russia in the 19th century.
Russia was quite open about wanting to rebuild the old Tsarist Empire that the communists lost in 1991 when the Soviet Union came apart, and half the population of that empire went off and formed 14 new countries. Russia proposed things like customs unions, military cooperation, and rebuilding the old Soviet air defense system that used to defend everyone in the empire. There’s been some progress, but most of the 14 nations want nothing to do with Russia.
Meanwhile, Russia must face the fact that when the Soviet Union broke up, half the population enthusiastically moved to the 14 new countries, and most of them were quite pleased with the Soviet Union's demise. Thus, if you asked all citizens of the former Soviet Union what they thought of the breakup, you would find that most had no regrets. That’s because the Soviet Union was basically the Russian Empire cobbled together by the old czarist monarchy over more than two centuries of conquest and expansion.
In the Soviet Union, more than half the population felt like conquered people, not part of any union. The Soviet Union dissolved quickly in 1990-91 because over half the population really wanted it to happen and had wanted it for a long time. Moreover, many ethnic Russians were tired of supporting a lot of the less affluent conquered people and were fed up with the economic failures of communism. Former Soviet Union citizens who regret the breakup tend to be older and disillusioned with how corruption and bad leadership made post-Soviet life less wonderful than expected.
Younger people are more realistic, having never lived as adults in the Soviet Union and being intimately familiar with the fact that freedom isn’t free and democracy is difficult. Younger Russians have more economic opportunities than under communism. While Russia lost half its population when the Soviet Union broke up, it kept most of its valuable natural resources, like oil and natural gas. The post-Soviet government was initially reluctant to increase state-supplied pensions, which were low during the Soviet period because there was little to spend on them and the state supplied housing and some health care; pensions did eventually increase. But not as much as the economy grew, and the working Russians were obviously doing better than the pensioners who had grown up under communism. In Soviet times, that meant little economic opportunity, and most everyone was equally poor. The old-timers never got used to the post-1991 changes, and most would prefer the communists to come back. That may continue for decades, despite the Russian defeats and losses in Ukraine.
James F Dunnigan
FP-7.x