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<h1>Kremlin to Do Away With Non-Russian Republics, Presidential Representative Says</h1>
<h2>Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 159</h2>
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By: <span class="entry-author"><a href="https://jamestown.org/analyst/paul-goble/">Paul Goble</a></span>
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<span class="entry-date">December 7, 2017 06:31 PM</span>
<span>Age: 16 hours</span>
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<img src="https://jamestown.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Mikhail-Babich.jpg?x87069" class="gmail-attachment-full-thumb gmail-size-full-thumb gmail-wp-post-image" alt="" width="540" height="360"> <div><figcaption>Presidential plenipotentiary for the Volga Federal District Mikhail Babich (Source: Business-Gazeta)</figcaption></div>
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<p>Ever since President Vladimir Putin began his regional
amalgamation campaign in 2003, and especially since he launched his
attack on non-Russian languages last summer (see <a href="https://jamestown.org/program/language-fight-in-tatarstan-set-to-ignite-political-explosion-across-russia/">EDM</a>,
September 19), many non-Russians have regularly declared that the
Kremlin leader is plotting to destroy the non-Russian republics and
submerge them into regional entities in which Moscow and the ethnic
Russians will be predominant (Business-Gazeta, <a href="https://www.business-gazeta.ru/article/365714">December 2</a>, <a href="https://www.business-gazeta.ru/blog/365755">3</a>; <a href="http://www.apn-spb.ru/opinions/article27249.htm">Apn-spb.ru</a>, November 28).</p>
<p>Most Moscow commentators and any government officials who have chosen
to weigh in on this issue, however, have suggested that such charges
are overheated nonsense and that the Kremlin has no plans to move so far
with its language policy. But such statements, in turn, have angered
some Russian nationalists who want to see the non-Russian ethnic
republics destroyed and who believe that their existence represents a
threat to the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. At the
same time, those assurances have further infuriated many non-Russians
who see Moscow’s statements as yet another effort to conceal the
Kremlin’s real intentions.</p>
<p>Now, however, there can be little doubt that the Kremlin has decided
to do away with the non-Russian republics and is simply in the process
of deciding when, where and how to do it. Mikhail Babich, the
presidential plenipotentiary for the Volga Federal District, admitted as
much in remarkably frank public comments that were reported by Kazan’s <em>Business-Gazeta</em> (<a href="https://www.business-gazeta.ru/article/365961">Business-Gazeta</a>,
December 5). The Kremlin’s man said bluntly that the new language
policy Putin announced last summer, which makes the study of non-Russian
languages voluntary while the study of Russian remains compulsory, was
under discussion for two years before it was announced. Moreover, he
added that “the amalgamation of regions”—the Kremlin’s preferred term
for doing away with non-Russian republics—has “always been under
discussion.”</p>
<p>Babich alleged that both the language policy and moves to amalgamate
regions reflect the desires of the population and the imperatives of
defending the rights of all citizens of the Russian Federation, wherever
they live. These issues represent “a problem of our post-Soviet
history,” one that has only grown in size and become ever more
threatening, he claimed, leading many Russians to file protests with the
center, which Moscow is now responding to.</p>
<p>While some may think that “the main achievement” of the 1993 Russian
Constitution was its declaration that the subjects of the country have
the right to “establish state languages,” the plenipotentiary said,
Russians need to remember that “in no other country in the world is
there such a notion as ‘the state language of a region.’ ” That has
existed only in Russia, and it has created real violations of real
rights. “Of the 22 republics,” he continues, in 21, this right has been
implemented with state languages established.” In 17, it is the
language of the titular nationality; in 3, two [regional state languages
were established]; and in others, like Dagestan, more than that. In
many, these languages have been taught as is appropriate, he declared,
on a voluntary basis; but in others, they have been imposed on an
unwilling population. That is wrong, and Putin has now ended that
practice, Babich stated.</p>
<p>Asked about discussions regarding the amalgamation of regions and
republics, Babich gave the clearest indication yet that Moscow has
already gone a long way in in the planning process and that its
decisions will be based on economic and national security concerns
rather than the views of the population. To ensure that, he said, Moscow
is even now changing how it measures the economic strengths of
republics so that it can change the balance between the weak and the
strong—a fundamental premise that Putin has stressed in the past—as it
moves forward (<a href="http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/12/a-regional-amalgamation-moscow-will.html">Windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com</a>, December 5).</p>
<p>Responding to former Russian finance minister Aleksey Kudrin’s
proposal to combine Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in a regional
agglomeration including Kazan, Samara and Ulyanovsk, Babich argued that
such an idea violates all the principles of amalgamation. According to
the Kremlin plenipotentiary, what Moscow must do is combine weak regions
with strong ones, regardless of ethnicity and the interests of the
population; it should not seek to combine the strong with the strong and
leave the weak to fend for themselves or remain dependent on subsidies
from the center.</p>
<p>“Many regions have passed through the procedure of amalgamation,”
Babich claimed, an exaggeration given that fewer than a dozen in fact
have and many of those are currently trying to reverse those decisions (<a href="http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/08/997-percent-of-taymyr-people-say-life.html">Windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com</a>,
August 17). Nonetheless, he contended that this program has had only
positive consequences and not been as dangerous or risky as many in the
republics have suggested.</p>
<p>President Putin’s plenipotentiary to the Volga Federal District
clearly supports further amalgamations, which would require not the
folding of autonomous regions into surrounding Russian regions, as the
program has so far, but also the combination of entire non-Russian
republics with predominantly Russian oblasts and krais. Yet, most
importantly, he stated that Moscow will now insist that the republics
not be able to count the wealth produced on their territory by companies
with headquarters in Moscow as part of their economy, a change that
will shift the balance between places like Tatarstan and surrounding
ethnic Russian regions. In practice, the hyper-centralization of Russian
corporations means that the non-Russian republics will be treated far
worse in future amalgamations than they would if the old measures were
retained.</p>
<p>Babich has clearly fired an opening shot at the republics, and many
Russian nationalists and centralizers will be delighted. But his words
are likely to provoke a sharp reaction in all the non-Russian republics
whose elites will see their fiefdoms at risk and whose populations will
face being submerged in a largely undifferentiated Russian cultural
milieu. That reaction has the potential to create a serious threat to
the Russian Federation. As Putin and Moscow tend to forget, the Soviet
Union did not fall apart because of Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberalization,
but rather because the Communist leader tried to take everything back
after his liberalizing steps—and the union republics refused to
acquiesce.</p>
</div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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