In many ways, the Russian military faces the same dilemma with regard to Russia as the old Soviet military faced with regard to the USSR. In both cases, unresolved center-periphery issues threaten the survival of the state.
Russia's center-periphery problems bear eery similarities to those of the USSR. First, like the USSR, Russia is ethnically, linguistically, and economically diverse. Second, as in the Soviet case, the demise of the Communist Party hierarchy removed a major centralizing institution; and no consensus on the division of authority between Moscow and the provinces has been worked out. Yeltsin also faces the same kind of power vacuum that frustrated Gorbachev. The levers of power are not working. Regional authorities frequently flout Moscow decrees. Finally, the economic problems that exacerbated Gorbachev's attempts to handle republic challenges have, if anything, intensified.
The pattern of provincial challenge and Moscow response has also been similar. In many cases, regional challengers to Russian authority have modelled their strategies after those of republic leaders who successfully defied Soviet rule. In 1990, many of Russia's autonomous republics (encouraged by Russia's own demands for a greater role in Soviet decisionmaking) adopted sovereignty declarations. As in the case of republic sovereignty declarations, most of these regional declarations demanded autonomy, not independence, calling for greater regional input into Russian decisionmaking and asserting provincial authority over local natural resources. (Note 58)
After the abortive August 1991 coup, continued economic deterioration and political turmoil sharply aggravated the regional challenges facing Russia's leaders, radicalizing regional autonomy drives within Russia. Some of Russia's regions escalated their demands, shifting their goals from local autonomy and less interference in regional economic affairs to complete independence. As was the case in republic resistance to Soviet rule, regional leaders used resistance to Russia as a rallying point to mobilize support.
Several areas have adopted another strategy borrowed from rebellious republic leaders: backing up their defiance of central authority by setting up their own military forces and declaring regional control over military assets within the region. Tatarstan recalled its citizens from areas of interethnic conflict in early 1993; it later adopted a measure on military service that was in direct conflict with federal military service legislation. (Note 59) The Confederation of Caucasian Mountain Peoples decided to set up its own army in early 1992; paramilitary forces who answered this call joined Abkhazia's war against Georgia. (Note 60) In late 1992, North Ossetia adopted a decision (later annulled by the federal legislature in Moscow) to set up its own republic guard. (Note 61) The Kabardino-Balkaria parliament announced the creation of a republican guard in early 1992. In late 1992, it recalled servicemen from its region who were serving in Armenia. (Note 62)
The most successful provincial challenge to Moscow was in the Caucasus, where Chechnya successfully defied Moscow rule in the fall of 1991 when Russia-still part of the USSR-had neither internal troops nor military forces to stem a revolt. Chechnya, now boasting its own military forces, including a rudimentary air force, has been operating as an independent state ever since. (Note 63)
The military's reaction to these developments has been much like its earlier reaction to analogous trends in the USSR. The army daily, Krasnaya zvezda, periodically runs editorials and articles arguing that provincial demands pose a huge threat to Russia's integrity and raise the possibility that the Russian Armed Forces may have to be partitioned province by province. "Have we really learned nothing," lamented one editorial, "from the bitter lessons of the USSR's collapse?" (Note 64)
The Defense Ministry's response to direct secession efforts and the breakdown of civil order on the periphery has also been similar to that of its Soviet progenitor. Defense Ministry forces have been employed to quell violence in several Caucasian provinces, much as Soviet forces were used in the now independent Caucasus republics. As with the Soviet Defense Ministry, there has been a great deal of military griping about the inappropriateness of these domestic missions, but no evidence that commanders or troops refused orders. So far, Russia's center-periphery problems have proven far more manageable than those of the USSR. This is partly because the new Russian center has key demographic and political resources that the old USSR center did not. Russians in the old USSR represented barely half of the overall Soviet population and their loyalty to the old center was not clear-cut. Russians throughout the USSR, but particularly within the RSFSR, had a competing center of loyalty: the emerging Russian state. Identification with Russia as a political entity coincided with ethnic and linguistic sources of identification and acted as a powerful competing center of loyalty, diluting Russian support for continuation of the supra-national Soviet state. By contrast, Russians within the Russian Federation constitute a much larger portion of the populace (82%). (Note 65) While there are some local and institutional claims on the loyalty of these Russians, none coincides with ethnic and linguistic identity.
Moreover, Yeltsin has been far less willing than Gorbachev to concede real power to the provinces. Despite periodic attempts (usually unsuccessful) to play the regional card against his opponents at the center, Yeltsin has been fairly rigid in his insistence on strong central authority. As a result, the military has not been forced to choose between acquiescence to a political deal between center and provinces that would undermine the integrity of the state or direct intervention in the political process that might risk civil war.
