Dr. B. Harasymiw

July 1991
Unclassified

Editors Note: This issue of Commentary was written in July 1991, by Dr. B. Harasymiw, Strategic Analyst in the Analysis and Production Branch (RAP) of CSIS.

Disclaimer: Publication of an article in the Commentary series does not imply CSIS authentication of the information nor CSIS endorsement of the author's views.

Whatever can be said of the evolution of the Soviet system, it is certain that the result will be utterly different from anything we have seen in the past.

A number of theories (historical facts organized as explanations) in political science do, however, manage to shed light on these various processes at work in the Soviet Union, and their likely outcomes: theories dealing with transitions from authoritarianism to democracy; consolidation of democratic régimes; breakdowns of democracy; coups d'état; civil war; and revolution. Not all of this has been based on the Soviet experience, but it may be instructive nonetheless.

These models emphasize that, in a period of transition, many factors all condition the outcome at different critical points in the process. By identifying which factors are present or are likely to develop, and which are absent or unlikely, it should be possible to project a reasonable course of development for the Soviet Union for the foreseeable future.

There is no doubt, for a start, either about the fact that the Soviet Union is undergoing rapid change (set in motion in 1985 by Gorbachev's policy of perestroika), or about the fact that this movement is generally away from the model of the communist party-state. It is also commonly agreed that the principal features of that political system included a monopoly of political power in the hands of the Communist Party; a claim to legitimacy based on Marxism-Leninism as interpreted to serve the party's interests and backed up by ready resort to coercion; a monopoly on the means of communication and cultural expression, also in Communist hands; a state-run command economy which pushed private enterprise and initiative into the sphere of criminality; a facade of constitutionality and public participation and support; and widespread political corruption stemming from the chronic shortage of political and material goods. Today the major preoccupation is whether or not the transition can be peaceful. Warnings of civil war are plentiful.

Neither a peaceful transition to democracy nor the violence of civil war is inevitable; there are a number of other possibilities. Before the consolidation of democracy, for instance, the Soviet Union could conceivably revert to authoritarianism. Or there could be a coup. Or a full-scale revolution could develop, following which democracy might be instituted. The path from the present situation in the Soviet Union to some future stability leads through a veritable Minotaur's maze.

Transition to Democracy

According to Dankwart Rustow (1970), the transition to democracy requires an essential background condition, then a phase of preparation, followed by a deliberate decision to institutionalize democratic procedure, and, finally habituation. The background condition essential at the very start is national unity. This element is manifestly lacking on a country wide level in the USSR, and is disappearing rapidly. The Union is breaking down into fragments which are able to define themselves as nations, and a core in which the majority of the people still sees itself as belonging to the entity known as "the Soviet people". The 17 March 1991 referendum confirmed this fragmentation, which the Baltic republics, Moldavia, Georgia and Armenia boycotting it, and just over half of the electorate in the remainder (by a vote of 3 to 1 with 80% participation) approving the question. A single, democratic state is improbable for the Soviet Union as a whole in the future.

Once the successor states to the Soviet Union have defined themselves and extricated themselves from the imperial Leviathan, there must ensue a period of conflict between what Rustow calls well-entrenched forces (like social classes) led by elites. For this to happen, there must emerge contenders with definite interests (more particularly, with grievances against tangible evils), elites to articulate them, and leadership to mobilize followers. There must, in short, be polarization in society. At the time of this writing however, identifying the contenders who might lay the basis for a democratic system is not simple.

The institutionalization of conflict and opposition, the next stage in the process, faces an uncertain outcome in the Soviet Union. The parties to the conflict itself are not clearly identifiable, let alone near to being institutionalized. Is the principal conflict to be Communists versus non- (or anti-) Communists, as some people, including Boris Yeltsin and the radical democrats in Ukraine have advocated? This is possible, although not likely: there are reformers as well as democrats in both camps, which blurs the dichotomy. Gorbachev and other political leaders have expressed anxiety over evidence of this communist/anti-communist polarization of society, and have warned of dire consequences. There is nothing inherently unhealthy about political polarization, however, so long as neither party is out to annihilate the other. Communists are especially fearful of conflict because of their belief that it can only be a zero-sum game (which it was when they had the upper hand). The ban on political demonstrations is indicative of the Soviet authorities' unwillingness to accept the institutionalization of conflict as normal.

Another possibility would be Communists versus nationalists, but this has already been subverted by the Communists donning nationalist attire; this division is becoming less, not more, clear. In some republics, the Communists have become nationalist parties by severing their dependence on Moscow; in others, the Communists have split into nationalist and centralist wings. Even the Russian Communists have formed their own party, separate from the CPSU. What is likely to develop further is the struggle between the nationalists and the Centre, but the outcome of that kind of competition, as Rustow rightly points out, will be secession rather than democracy.

Still other possibilities likewise are far from visible or of limited applicability. The rural versus urban polarization might come into play, but only in the predominantly agrarian southern regions. A social class conflict will be very slow to develop because of the absence of a middle class not tied to state service, and because of the collapse of the CPSU as a workers' party. A group such as the miners has some potential as a contender, but only in Russia and Ukraine. Furthermore, the working class demonstrations have been directed at the government, and an institutionalization of that conflict is improbable: either the government can ignore the workers' demands, or it must meet those demands, or it must step down. Reformers versus conservatives is the way the battle is usually pictured as developing, but again this is not the principal cleavage everywhere in the Soviet Union. Region versus centre is yet another possibility of conflict even within one of the republics, as, for example, between Western Ukraine and Kiev, but the outcome in such a case, as already stated, can ultimately be secession, not democracy.

The preparatory phase, the struggle against some tangible evil, according to Rustow, is the one in which evolution towards democracy can be most easily deflected. This can happen either through the conflict being endless (the key to achieving democracy being the acceptance and regularization-if not ritualization-of conflict), or by one side crushing its opponents. Not only is no end presently in sight to the various major political battles throughout the Soviet Union, but some of the contenders appear to have the distinctly predemocratic mindset in which they are determined to eliminate their political opponents. (Stalin's grisly understanding of politics as "who will do what to whom" comes to mind). The rise of the latter-day fascist Colonel Alksnis may be a harbinger in this regard; the possibility of KGB-Army rule, at least in parts of the USSR, cannot be discounted.

It still takes a deliberate decision to accept diversity and to institutionalize democratic procedure for democracy to take hold. This must be a conscious choice, and not something flowing automatically from the foregoing conditions. It may be aborted even at this stage.

The background condition-national unity-for a successful transition to democracy while maintaining the integrity of the USSR, does not exist. It was undermined by the collapse of Marxism-Leninism, by the surrender of the Communist Party's monopoly on power, by Gorbachev's embrace of "democratization", and by Moscow's half-heartedness in applying force as a substitute for unity. National unity is relatively more apparent in the border republics that in the USSR overall, but even there it is not yet secure, as the various intra-republican ethnic quarrels make clear. The development of independent democracies, based on the component republics of the USSR, rather than a Union-wide transition, is the more likely prospect if democracy is possible at all in the post-Soviet Soviet Union.

Reversion to Authoritarianism

Apart from the possibility of deliberate action by right-wing political leaders willfully to squelch the democratization process, the transition may also be derailed by the intractability of the economic problem. Not only is the command economy inefficient, not only is economic change more difficult than political change, but there is no precedent for the changeover from the command economy to a capitalist, market economy. The economic crisis already acknowledged as existing in the USSR-falling production, rising prices and inflation, growing unemployment, shortages of food and housing, increasing government deficit, and dropping standards of living-may prevent the stabilization of political change. As conditions worsen, the stage is set for the emergence of a charismatic "saviour".

Charismatics come to the force in times of crisis. Charismatic leadership such as that of Hitler, Sukarno, or Khomeini involves the mass surrender of individual rationality and responsibility. The leader, seen as extraordinary (or made to seem so, as with the ersatz charisma of Stalin), casts a spell over his followers, suspending their critical faculties, believe explicitly in the leader's word. Charismatic leadership is the least stable form of political leadership; it invariably brings instability in its wake.

Because of cultural differences, a sole charismatic leader for the whole of the territory of the USSR is not now likely to arise. A Russian charismatic might emerge, and might appeal to the conservative Russian working class and bureaucracy, to the disenchanted Russians in the Soviet Army with its wounded sense of honour, and to the destitute pensioners and unemployed. No Russian leader would be able to harness the unquestioning loyalty of non-Russians, not even Belorussians or Ukrainians.

Other forms of authoritarianism are conceivable, and the concentration of greater power in the hands of Gorbachev at the centre, Yeltsin in the Russian Federation, and Gamsakhurdia in Georgia, is indicative of impulses in that direction. Gorbachev's motive in this process has been to hold the Union together while attempting to reform the economic system; the republic leaders' motive, to protect themselves against the collapse of the centre. If the Soviet public, or portions of it in some of the republics, gets tired of economic and political uncertainty, it may acquiesce in a return to authoritarianism.

Breakdown of Democracy

Even if in the foreseeable future democracy were successfully established in all or parts of the former Soviet Union, it might still break down. But how do democracies break down? According one account, stability hinges on the relationship between the régime's legitimacy, its efficacy and its effectiveness. Legitimacy (the belief that the government ought to be accepted as the least bad alternative) is reinforced or weakened by the other two factors. Efficacy is the problem-solving ability of the régime; effectiveness, its ability to enforce the laws, to implement policies with appropriate results. When these are in equilibrium, everything is fine. When challengers threaten a democratic régime which relies or counts on habitual compliance, and when the army stands aside or co-operates with the challengers, then that democratic régime is doomed.

The nature of the opposition-whether it is loyal, semi-loyal, or patently disloyal-is critical for the survival of democracy. The breakdown of democracy involves the transfer of legitimacy and a change of régime. This happens through the action of a disloyal opposition (such as anti-system political parties) in questioning the existence of the régime and working to change it. It is not possible to repress or isolate such oppositions; a crisis mobilizes support, for them and they then either take power or divide the population's allegiance, which leads to civil war. Anarchists, secessionists, nationalists, fascists, and communists are examples of disloyal oppositions. "Typically", says Juan Linz, "disloyal oppositions picture their opponents . . . as instruments of outside . . . groups". Some of the statements made by Soviet leaders, USSR Prime Minister Pavlov and KGB Chairman Kriuchkov among them, at the beginning of 1991 certainly fit this picture. It is not far-fetched to consider the Soviet Communist Party bureaucracy, the Soviet Army and the KGB, as a potentially disloyal opposition to the nascent democratic régimes, not only at the centre but especially in the regions and republics.

Thus, "breakdown is a result of processes initiated by the government's incapacity to solve problems for which disloyal oppositions offer themselves as a solution" (Linz 1978:50). The sequence is that an unsolved problem leads to the loss of power which in turn leads to a power vacuum. From that point, either the democratic régime breaks down and power is transferred (to the disloyal opposition), or there is a polarization of society (into supporters and opponents of the government) and civil war ensues.

In the case of the Soviet Union, hardly has democracy begun to be established than the conditions threatening its breakdown are already in place and growing. Legitimacy of the transitional political institutions is relatively, and surprisingly, strong. Indicative of this are, on the one hand, the generally high level of turnout for the various elections, referenda and plebiscites, and, on the other, the tendency for political demonstrations to direct their dissatisfaction at individual leaders rather than at the elected assemblies. This situation is not helped, however, by the Communist propaganda against political meetings and demonstrations, which it shortsightedly denigrates as wasting time, when in reality these are a schooling in democracy. Nor is the ban on political strikes helpful in terms of making a successful transition from Communist authoritarianism to democracy. If the Communists are right, and the restoration of order is a prerequisite for the solution of the economic crisis, and if they succeed in imposing that order by abbreviating democratic rights, then they may well snuff out democracy. Furthermore, if a state of emergency is introduced, then democracy is indeed doomed, since that is the way its breakdown is usually precipitated (Linz 1978:54).

Whether the Soviet Union or any parts of it will make a successful transition to democracy is, therefore, still an open question. What is not open to question is that the future stability of that democracy will depend greatly on its inauguration. If the new régime consolidates support and draws citizens into the new experiment, then it will be stable and able to deal with crises.

The continued existence of the KGB, even if it is not overtly opposed to democracy or does not deliberately subvert democracy, can be a hazard in the process of transition. Can the KGB, even if decoupled from the Communist Party, distinguish between loyal and disloyal opposition? It probably cannot, and in any case a secret police, a political police, which properly speaking belongs in and characterizes a police state, has no real place in a democracy. A major task in the transition, therefore, is the dismantling of the KGB, but the problem is to find someone brave enough to bell that particular cat.

Coup d'État

In every state, the government has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. In normal politics, there is a contest to win the mantle of the state, to win legitimacy, which then invests the governing party with the right to use the state's power. Ordinarily, this contest goes on in the civic or non-violent arena. Extraordinarily, it goes into the military arena, where the struggle for authority involves more directly a struggle for the control of the instruments of force. When the political process is bypassed, and the means of force become the object of tussle between a government and its opponents, when power dictates legitimacy instead of vice versa, there is a high probability of violence (Janos 1964:132-34).

The scale of violence and political change is usually smallest in the case of a coup d'état, greater in the event of a civil war, and greatest of all in a revolution. A coup d'état, as Andrew Janos has said, involves the retention of old social objectives as well as the framework within which the struggle for authority takes place (Janos 1964:134). This disturbs the political system least of all; the army, simply takes charge of the government.

The intrusion of violence into political life, with the likelihood of its cutting short the transition to democracy, is a currently viable, indeed visible, threat in the convulsive post-Soviet states. This intrusion is not unexpected, considering the force used in the past to hold the Union together in the unacknowledged absence of legitimacy. Short-circuiting the democratic process and impatient with the time-consuming nature of the transition, some people might possibly seize the state's instruments of force directly.

Throughout Gorbachev's rule, there has been speculation about the possibility of his being unseated by a coup staged by the army. This possibility has been based on an unexamined and frankly unwarranted assumption of a similarity between the present condition of the Soviet Union and the preconditions for military dictatorship in Third World countries. The same possibility has also been dismissed using the equally oversimplified argument that such a thing has never happened before in the history of Imperial Russia or the Soviet Union and therefore cannot do so now (Foye, 1991).

For a military coup to take place, there has to be a good probability that the forces taking over will be able to control the country. The Soviet Army simply does not have the capability of controlling the whole country-the USSR is too large, and the armed forces are neither trained nor equipped to control the population and to run the country. Its prestige is declining, not mounting, as the crisis escalates. The generals have no political experience and no role models as "national saviours". They cannot count on support from their officers or unquestioning obedience from the other ranks. The dissatisfaction and morale problems in the military might well serve to make of it an amorphous "disloyal opposition", but not to motivate it to take political power. Even the outspoken Colonel Alksnis has said that Gorbachev will be toppled not by the military, but by the pressure of popular dissatisfaction.

While the possibility of a military coup cannot be ruled out categorically, it may be worth considering whether a sort of coup has not already taken place. "In effect", as Stephen Foye put it at the beginning of 1991, "a right-wing, authoritarian ?coup' may already be underway, led not by a group of generals but by Gorbachev himself" (p.5). Gorbachev's long-standing reliance on the KGB, his turn to the right in the autumn of 1990, his strengthening of the dictatorial aspects of the presidency, his placement of KGB and army men in charge of the police, the creation of a body co-ordinating the means of repression-the so-called law-and-order-preserving organs-directly subordinated to him, and his declaration of states of emergency in various quarters (not to mention the practice of ruling by decree), all give him that direct access to the means of force which usually is the result of a coup d'état. Far from a mere possibility, it could be a fait accompli.

Civil War

However variable the course of civil wars may be, and however much scholars may disagree about their causes, there is no doubt about the ingredients of civil war. Its preconditions include massive discontent; the parties to it have to be clearly identifiable as "incumbents" and "insurgents", there has to be a widespread social acceptance of force as the only effective political tool; and the dissidents must not have been suppressed in the early stages (Eckstein 1980:137 and 162-63).

Although a great many knowledgeable people have expressed the opinion that the Soviet Union is on the verge of civil war, their cause has not been convincingly enough made. Among those offering such a prediction have been Gorbachev himself, Colonel Alksnis, and various Western experts (including Time Magazine). They do not identify the ingredients that are supposedly present for civil war, but extrapolate from today's disorder to civil war as the next inevitable step.

There can be no argument that political discontent already exists on a massive scale in the Soviet Union, nor that it will likely increase with the deterioration of the economic situation. But this one condition alone cannot bring on civil war. A civil war involves the government fighting-at war-against some group which wants to take over the government, or it involves two groups fighting over which one will be the government. If civil war is imminent in the Soviet Union, the identity of the putative insurgents is not at all clear. Neither in Moscow itself, nor in the countryside, is there an armed group ready or getting ready to take on the central government. Gorbachev's fear, therefore, of a clash between "democrats" and Communists is factually unfounded. Furthermore, it requires the public to accept force as the only effective means of resolving political differences, which is far from the case as indicated by opinion polling. Political discontent is still expressed by such non-violent means as strikes, and even these are sometimes much less massive than their organizers have hoped they would be.

What seems to be particularly worrying to people like Alksnis is not the situation at the centre, but in the border republics. Although civil war on a Union-wide scale between communists and radicals is possible, what he seems to have more particularly in mind is some combination of the army, the Russians and the Communists versus the rest. But such a conflict would hardly be plausible in Moscow, or even in Russia. Alksnis's idea of civil war, which he has said is unavoidable, boils down to a battle of the advocates of independence in the border republics versus the non-indigenous of those republics, a fight between the Russian-controlled army and the separatists. This would be indeed civil war, but not on the general, Union-wide scale so often assumed. If the separatists are not armed, then this sort of conflict would more properly be termed a military coup than a civil war.

In fact, as in the case of the potential coup which might already have happened, there already is civil war in the Soviet Union. It is not lapping at the gates of Moscow, but is taking place with real immediacy in the Transcaucasus, principally between the Azeris and Armenians, and between the Georgians and their co-habitants, the Ossetians and Abkhazians. The question is why, if civil war is such a great danger, Moscow is not intervening to stop the conflict. It seems that the Russian-dominated security forces are reluctant to turn a Georgian-Occetian war into a Georgian- Russian one (Globe and Mail, 15 April 1991).

Boris Yeltsin, in contrast to other Soviet political leaders, has said that civil war is "unthinkable" in the USSR, that "the country is not threatened with a civil war", and that "there will be no civil war". His explanation for all the talk about civil war is that it is motivated by "a desire to use the myth of a civil war to intimidate the population, to distract, . . . to justify, . . . and to put pressure [on the democratic opposition]". Lacking evidence for the existence of the general conditions of civil war, especially of insurgents threatening Moscow, and of Moscow's reluctance to put an end to real civil war situations where they do exist locally, it is difficult to disagree with him. That Prime Minister Pavlov has also discounted the possibility of civil war when talking to European bankers makes it plausible to assume talk of such a possibility by Soviet leaders as being meant for the domestic political audience.

Revolution

A full-scale revolution would be the most apocalyptic scenario for the development of political change in the USSR. Revolution has had a great attraction for romantically inclined politicians and political observers throughout the past two centuries, ever since the overturn of the ancien régime in France in 1789. The phenomenon has also attracted the attention of scholars trying to explain its causes, course, and consequences. A useful model, synthesizing the approaches of others and basing itself on the notion of contingency, has been proposed by Chalmers Johnson (1982).

It is important to emphasize that violence is an essential component of a revolution. A radical change achieved by peaceful means is not, in the strict sense, a revolution. (This is not to deny for the Soviet Union the possibility-indeed, desirability-of a rapid but relatively non-violent transformation of the political system as happened in Eastern Europe in 1989).

Revolution also has to be distinguished from civil war and from a coup. It is a situation in which there is no legitimacy or authority, except that which can be claimed by force; civil war presupposes some existing legitimacy and hence authority. A coup is sometimes staged to provoke a revolution, or is claimed to have been one, but they are not the same thing.

The most important elements of Johnson's contingency model of revolution are: (1) societal values out of sync with social structure; in other words, values changing at a rate that outstrips the rate of change of the structure of society itself; (2) a power deflation, such that force replaces legitimacy and so that anyone's forceful means is morally equivalent to anyone else's; the resort to violence becomes rational; (3) not merely incompetent (and thereby undermining its own legitimacy), but intransigent, leadership; (4) disarray or weakness in the military; and (5) the insurrection itself, key to its success being the attitude of the military, this constituting the final prop of the régime.

Too many of these crucial elements were missing in early 1991 to talk meaningfully about a revolutionary situation existing in the USSR. The régime was not intransigent; it may well have been characterized as incompetent, and as half-hearted in its use of force or its commitment to reform, but hardly as intransigent. Only on the question of separatism could Gorbachev have been termed intransigent, but that raised not the possibility of revolution; it meant secession or civil war, not revolution.

There was certainly a disequilibrium between societal values (desire for a better life) and Communist promises (a better future). But with the disintegration of Communism and its social structures, the basis for social conflict that might eventuate in revolution evaporated also. In its stead appeared a general dissatisfaction which might overturn the government of Gorbachev, but not the whole social system. Similarly, while the central government, and especially Gorbachev, appeared impotent to affect the actions of the republic governments, it could not be said that this was a power deflation. It was rather a redistribution of power-from the Communist Party to the councils (soviets), and from Moscow to the republics. Even if there was dissatisfaction with government, there was still an acknowledgment that government-maybe not the one in Moscow, or even in the republic capital, but some government-had the right to a monopoly of the legitimate use of the means of violence.

"True revolution is neither lunacy nor crime. It is the acceptance of violence to cause the system to change when all else has failed, and the very idea of revolution is contingent on this perception of societal failure" (Johnson, p.13). Although there has been an increase in the reported incidence of violence in the Soviet Union, it was still as of 1991 clearly distinguishable as either criminal or inter-ethnic rather than revolutionary. Force as the very last resort, as the common currency of political power-that point has not yet been reached.

The big question mark in the revolutionary formula as applied to the Soviet Union has to do with the military. If all of the foregoing conditions were to change and revolution ensure, threatening to overthrow by force the entire socio-political order, could the military be relied on to save the régime by defending it against the revolutionary insurrection? The Soviet régime has three lines of defence, rather than one, which complicates any attempt at prognosis: the police, the army, and the KGB.

Indicative of the régime's own ranking of the reliability of these armed formations was the appointment of former KGB man Pugo as Minister of Internal Affairs, and army general Gromov as his deputy. We can assume that the regular police under the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) is not fully up to the challenge-of defence against present disorders, let alone full-scale revolutionary violence-because of having to be backed up since the beginning of 1991 on anti- crime patrols in the major cities by the army. The army is not fully reliable because of internal inter-ethnic hostilities, divisions between senior and junior officers, and demoralization brought on by the retreats from Afghanistan and Eastern Europe. Mutiny would not be too far-fetched a possibility. But if the army collapses before the insurrection, that would be a gentler kind of revolution.

Backing up the police and the army is the KGB with its battalions of informers and troops. Although the KGB is certainly the most reliable of the three enforcement bodies, and is committed to defending the integrity of the Soviet Union (which means that it would fight secessionists), it is by no means immune to internal divisions or capable alone of withstanding a massive revolutionary insurrection. In the early stages of such an assault, it might be able to hold its own, but it is so fundamentally a part of the discredited Soviet régime that it should eventually be swept aside. It has too many enemies, on both sides of the state-society divide, to last indefinitely as a shield of one against the other.

No military forces, not even with the troops of the KGB at their backs, not those troops themselves, would be big enough to control 290 million people in revolt. A revolutionary insurrection could occur, therefore, in the Soviet Union, if the precedent contingencies were met. If there were leaders of the revolutionary forces, if people were desperate ("people rebel when they believe it is right to rebel and that rebellion will pay off" [Muller, 1980:97]), if governments had lost power, and if violence were everybody's last resort, then a revolution might take place and succeed due to the weakness of the military. Whether or not the military might collapse, a revolution is impossible in the absence of its preconditions.

End of Empire

It is time to stop thinking of the Soviet Union as a single political system. Failing that, we condemn ourselves to endless frustration in trying to understand the apparent paradoxes of developments there: democracy, authoritarianism, coups, civil war and revolutions are all possible, and yet impossible; they are potential and at the same time actual. This entity called the USSR was an imperial domain the components of which are breaking away from the centre. These components are different from each other, and from the centre, and are evolving in different ways. The Soviet empire is coming apart.

The prime question is whether the end of the Soviet Empire is going to be peaceful or violent. The key variable in forecasting an answer to that question is the nature of Russian nationalism and the reaction of the Russians to this breakup (Nahaylo and Swoboda, 1989:358). With Gorbachev in power, that reaction will be less than sensitive to the nationalistic sentiments of the non- Russians, and less than accommodating to the demands of the separatists. If even two small islands in the Kuriles Chain are too great a sacrifice for the national self-esteem of the Russians, then how much more is an entire non-Russian republic?

Gorbachev's rationalization and appeal to non-Russians to remain in the Union is characteristic of the authoritarian personality: you should want to remain part of the USSR because it is a great power. This is that totalitarian impulse to which so many people vainly succumbed in this century, giving it its timeless notoriety. The Gorbachev leadership, and its backers in the army, the police and the KGB, will not surrender the mantle of empire peacefully.

Russian Insecurity and International Security

Centuries of enculturation have bred in the Russians feelings of inferiority and insecurity vis-à-vis the outside world. Hence the need for empire, territory, expansion and control. Hence also the conception of security as pertaining to external threats, and the buildup of the military and intelligence services (Rubanov, 1991:3-4). All of this contributed to making the USSR into a superpower. The status of a superpower is not easily given up.

It will take some time before the Russians accept the idea that internal threats to security are at least as important as external ones, that military means of assuring security actually produce greater insecurity and must be assessed in terms of economic cost, that economic security is at least as important as military (Rubanov, 1991:4-8), and that the jackboot in the face is not a satisfactory long-term solution to the problem of national security. Rational voices will long contend with institutional interests before a different conception of national security prevails in Moscow. It will take even longer for security policy to be taken out of the hands of the military and KGB, where it has until now exclusively rested (Rubanov, 1991:11-12). A major setback in this regard was the Gulf War in the first part of 1991.

It takes a rare individual like Gorbachev to appreciate the imperative of change and to feel comfortable with rather than threatened by the world outside the Soviet borders. But even Gorbachev shrinks from contemplating a dismemberment of his Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics, despite the fact that Russia shorn of its dependent vassal-states would still be a world power. Only after the Gorbachev leadership, as well as the Communist party and state apparatus, the panoply of "heroes of the Soviet Union" who so successfully brought the USSR to its knees, and the entire transitional Gorbachevian generation has been pushed aside in favour of a community of independent states with legitimate governments, will there be stability. In the meantime, Gorbachev's reluctance to follow through with the policy of democratization-to its logical conclusion in the dissolution of the empire-will compound the chaos.

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