Religion as Politics in Russia.
 
1999. The War with Chechnya: What else is new?

1999. Moscow's Stock Market: Crapshoot or Bargain? - The discussion of this article by Kaarina Ham (contra) and Yakov Krotov (pro).
 
 
 

The War with Chechnya: What else is new?

The battle between Chechnya and Russia goes back to the nineteenth century and is referred to in Russian classical literature. A quick reading of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Pushkin reveals that this traditional war with Chechnya has actually served as a type of spiritual inspiration for Russian soldiers and citizens over the years.

Russia just this year celebrated the 200th anniversary of Alexander Pushkin. This celebrated poet laureate idealized and romanticized war so much that he went to the front himself to participate in the war with Chechnya. But the generals didn't want to lose him and refused to let him fight. Today the romantic culture is lacking in Russia, but Russians still view war as a source of cultural inspiration. This is especially true with post-modernists who like to play with the idea of violence. The current celebrated author, Vladimir Sorokin, recently published a novel that has the main hero killing and then eating the other figures in the story, including his own bride and the priest who married them. This novel is currently a best seller in Russia.

The famous writer, Dostoevsky, was the son of an army officer.  He refers to the Caucuses region as the place for spiritual renewal for battle. Even in Brothers Karamazov, for example, the main staretz (elder) is a former military officer who participated in the Caucuses war. He later decides he doesn't want to kill anymore and repents and becomes a monk.

A good deal of Russian literature dealing with war portrays it as an endeavor of pure spiritual joy. Even the Russian existential philosophy of Berdyaev contains the idea that war has positive value, e.g., "cleansing the atmosphere." Most was written in the highly militarized society of nineteenth century imperial life. These books weigh heavily in the background of Russian cultural life and, of course, are in the curriculum of the schools of Russia.

During the current round of war with Chechnya, people of all ranks, from generals to juvenile conscripts, remember well the Russian classics and often refer to them to justify their cruelty. If the great Tolstoy fought in the Caucuses, (and he did), then why not we?--so the thinking goes. The majority of Russian soldiers believe that it is possible to be "real spiritual Russian men" and kill Chechens. This is not merely machismo; it is intellectual Russian Orthodox militarist existentialism of the nineteenth century that is still alive to a great extent-even if it is suppressed as a modus operandi. This thinking is partially what lies behind the current wars of Chechnya and Dagestan.

Dostoyevsky, Pushkin and Tolstoy wrote of these conflicts with Chechnya. Lermontov wrote The Hero of our Time, a novel dedicated to the Russian intellectual who participated in the historical conquering of Chechnya. Lermontov himself was killed in a dual during the same war in Chechnya. Tolstoy wrote the novel, Haji-murat, depicting a Russian officer who ponders the meaning of life during the war with Chechnya (which lasted on and off for 150 years).

When these classical writers wrote, the front was a place for cultural and philosophical deliberations. But it is not the same today. Today war is a cancer that is devastating the country. People may not be romanticizing the war as much these days, but they also have not become anti-militarist either. A new military ideology has gradually replaced the former Communist ideology. This is particularly dangerous today because of the economic crisis wracking the country.  Thousands of young men return home from the front and are not prepared to become members of society. Yet, these become the most active political force in Russian society.

The problem is that the war ideology they have been operating under is not for the cause of freedom. It is for the sake of the military complex itself. Under communism, the military industrial complex was based on the goal of conquering the world for Communism. Now this idea is dead and a new idea for creating military hardware is necessary. We must ask if it now is the religious idea that garners strength for the war mentality in Russia.

The Bolsheviks constructed the H-Bomb in a former monastery--in Sarov. Today Russian theologians say that it is not by chance and that St. Seraphim of Sarov, which is one of the most venerated of Russian saints of the nineteenth century, is the patron saint of those who constructed the H Bomb. This is now being discussed and written about in Russia.

The most active contacts with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch are with the offices of the military. In the last few years the Ministry of Defense has built 70 churches on state property with state money. The patriarchate has created a special faculty in the theological academy for military officers who are in charge of making strategic missiles. No one seems to paying much attention to these strange and risky phenomena. The harsh language of hatred is very much in use by both the Army and the Church and reference is made to the medieval saints who were once princes who defended Russia from European Teutonic knights. This is part of the practical ideology of Church and military complex today in Russia.

This past summer the Tatarstan Parliament put on record that they would not send conscripts to Dagestan to fight in the war. Tatar is a Muslim republic in Russia. They are actually communists. But they are tired of having Russian Orthodox ideology imposed upon them and they are rebelling to the point of violating the constitution.

In Buryantia near Baikal (Siberia) the post-communists have adopted Buddhism as their new ideology. And the people in Yakutia, (the only region in Russia producing jewels), descendants of the Eskimos, have taken paganism as their state ideology. There are at least four major conflicting religions in Russia and each part has its own separate army!  No one seems to be concerned about this scenario. When Patriarch Alexi went to Yakutia recently to consecrate the mines, he found the local Shaman in front of him preparing to pray according to the local pagan rite. His Holiness skipped his own rite and left town.

During the Communist era these groups intermingled to some extent because of the imposed Russification policy. But now there has been a good deal of ethnic cleansing in different parts of Russia such as in Georgia. And no one knows how to organize the living of different ethnic communities. Plus, with the destruction of moral values, there is moral emptiness, post-communist ethnic hatred and militarization, and they all co-mingle forming an explosive situation. It is much worse than in Yugoslavia where there was more economical production and occasional signs of European civility. There is no court system or division of powers in Russia. It is still very much a totalitarian country.

One of Russia's problems is the military psychology. It allows killing of its own citizens and the bombing of its own land. There is no clear distinction between peacetime realities and acts of war. It is unimaginable but the actual state of affairs in Russia.

 So the war continues in Chechnya today--only now it has escalated to the point of involving neighboring Dagestan as well. Russia has never conquered the Caucasus throughout its historical relationship with Chechnya and it is doubtful that she ever will. What is interesting is that this war is the first war to take place during the last 70 years that has a clear religious background. Russians take great pains to portray Muslims as the enemy. But what are ignored are the religious sentiments that underlie the conflict.

In 1996 the conflict between Chechnya and Russia ended with a "peace agreement" and the withdrawal of Russian forces. Chechnya has been 'independent' since that time, but was left in ruins and has an ineffective government. It is actually governed by warlords, and criminal gang elements. It is this element that Russia intends to crush. The recent bombings of four apartment buildings in Moscow and other cities that have killed approximately 300 people have been blamed on the Chechens, as most uprisings are.  However, there has been no conclusive proof that they actually did it. Whenever there is trouble in Moscow, a curfew is put on the Chechens (who have darker skin), and any Chechens found on the streets of Moscow are either jailed or expelled and forced to return to Chechnya.

Both Prime Minister Putin and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov (both presidential candidates), have launched security sweeps and identity checks that have resulted in the detainment of thousands of people, most of them dark-skinned natives of the Caucasus region. In one week 15,500 immigrants were denied permission to remain in Moscow.  There have been over a hundred arrests and 520 tons of explosives have reportedly been confiscated.

We are told that Russian tanks and infantry, supported by daily airstrikes, faced minimal resistance when crossing into Chechnya two weeks ago. Gas, water and telephone services have been cut, and 300,000 people and 5000 cars (half of Grozny) jammed the roads to the neighboring republic of Ingushetia to the West. Sixty thousand refugees set up at the camp in Sleptsovskaya alone where tents stand on bare land and there are no toilets.  Ingushetia officials say the number will soon reach 200,000 and complain that they do not have the facilities or aid to take care of them. Russia wants to set up a security zone along the rim of the renegade republic and 60,000 Russian troops wait on Chechnya's borders (though the Prime Minister denies Chechnya has 'borders'), ready to attack.  Over 300 air sorties since September 20th have been carried out, most being indiscriminant and some harming peaceful villages. They already have secured the northern third of Chechnya and the Spetsnaz are reportedly moving into the northeast. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin plans additional military operations aimed to cause the stubborn ethnic Chechens to succumb. On September 23rd they bombed the airport at Grozny. An oil refinery, an arms depot, and a radar installation were destroyed--which is pretty amazing considering the fact that there was not much left standing in Grozny after the 1996 debacle. Though there is little economic life left in Chechnya, there is no evidence of international economic aid reaching this devastated region.  Moscow has successfully blocked whatever aid has been sent that way.

President Clinton oddly compares the Russian blitzkrieg to the American Civil War, while refusing to criticize the brutal crackdown on the part of Russia.  The state department is encouraging 'constructive dialogue' through spokesman James Rubin.  "The use of force will make dialogue that much harder to occur," says Rubin. This sort of embarrassing nonsense from the sidelines belies our ignorance of the root sentiments of the war at large. Representative Dick Armey, the majority leader calls the administration's Russia policy "the biggest foreign policy failure since Vietnam." What is really happening is a return to the policies of Josef Stalin who deported the entire Chechen and Ingush peoples to Siberia from 1944 to 1957--a feat resulting in the death of half the population.

President Maskhadov of Chechnya has called for talks with Moscow and has reportedly been rebuffed.

How is one to make sense of a second Chechnyan war in five years after Russia was humiliated in 1996?  There are even more Chechen fighters this time and Russia's army has not pulled together any more than it did in 1996.  If anything, the Russian army has disintegrated even more and soldiers and officers are even more demoralized than they were the first time. Russian commanders have been described as corrupt, hideously organized and incompetent.  One report says that corrupt commanders allowed Chechen leader Basayev to buy his way out of Dagestan after a failed offensive, and of helicopter-gunship crews who were bribed by the Chechens to hit vacant areas of the mountains instead of guerilla positions. Certainly the mothers of the Russian boys fighting this war are fed up with the government's using their sons as fodder for this futile farce.  The Soldiers' Mothers Committee is a rare moral force that has challenged the military for sending inexperienced draftees into such difficult combat conditions.

The mothers say the law is on their side and cite a September 16 presidential decree that declares that soldiers are not obligated to participate in wars during peacetime unless they have more than a year's worth of experience and volunteer for combat. Since Russia has not formally declared war in Chechnya, it appears that the mothers have a case. The mothers say their sons are not 'professional.'  They believe that professional bandits are fighting the war and their children do not qualify to carry out the brutal deeds that are demanded of them. Prime Minister Putin claims that only "highly trained Russian troops would be used for 'cleanup operations.'"

The mothers have been told that they are violating Russian Federation law and their sons will be brought to trial and penalized if they leave army ranks. The mothers do not seem to care, however, and say that the army failed its soldiers during the 1994-96 war. Hundreds of soldiers are still not accounted for during that prolonged conflict and corpses of more than 300 lie unidentified in a morgue in southern Russia. Their bodies are mutilated beyond recognition.

Russian leaders who are managing this war know better than to wage a war this close to winter, but stubborn hatred of the Chechens seems to blind them to caution. If the Russian troops survive, they can push the Chechen fighters into the mountains where they will starve. A hundred-thousand civilians and 4000 Russian troops died in the 1994-96 war, and this battle will be worse if ground troops become involved--a prospect which Prime Minister Putin has not ruled out. Two thirds of those dead so far in the latest round of fire have been women and children and most of the 60,000 wounded thus far have not been able to be treated. The United Nations has plans to help but is beholden to Russia for permission before it will aid the refugees. Russian officials have told the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees that the federal government "could deal with the refugee crisis on its own." Sergei Shoigu, the official in charge of emergencies, has stated that "…the situation is under control" revealing the stubborn pride of a hurting nation which can rarely admit its need for assistance when its people suffer.  After a one-day visit to the region, Shoigu said, "…it hasn't gone as far as to warrant talking about a humanitarian catastrophe," while officials in Ingushetia are literally screaming for aid for the thousands of homeless refugees that have stormed the republic.

What do the Chechens want? They want to create an exclusively Islamic state in the North Caucuses region in southern Russia, independent of Moscow's authoritarian power. Islamic militants, who have thrived under Chechnya's lawlessness, invaded the neighboring Islamic republic of Dagestan in August and September. With Dagestan they could enlarge their fledgling Islamic state and obtain access to the Caspian Sea. There is a rumor that Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden is aiding and abetting the Islamic uprising just as he aided and abetted the Kosovo uprising.  President Salan Maskhadov claims "Chechnya will not give up a single square meter of land." The Muslim radicals are serious about their aims and consider this a 'holy war' worthy of fighting to the death.

While most of our news sources come close to the truth by hinting at Islamic motivations for infuriating Russia, what is not commonly understood is the fact that this contention between Chechnya and Russia has been going on for longer than most of us can remember or account for. The Chechens will not be dominated by Russia even if they all die proving it. Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov vows that his people will repel the Russians. "We are accustomed to war and suffering," he said. "We will fight in the towns, in the mountains, and on the farm. This winter will be hard without electricity and gas, but we would rather eat dogs and cats than surrender independence."

What does President Yeltsin want? Besides the obvious desire to prevent incursions of Islamic militants from Chechnya into the Russian republic of Dagestan, he wants to eradicate the Muslim militants altogether. But Yeltsin wants something more. He wants protection from further investigation for money laundering--especially as he prepares to step down as President next summer. Swiss banks have already frozen $16.8 million in accounts that have been linked to U.S.-Russian money-laundering scheme.  By ensuring that Putin becomes the next president, this may be possible. He needs to make an immediate hero of Putin to accomplish this task, and Chechnya may be the arena he thinks he can accomplish this feat. If he can set up a puppet government in Chechnya, he may be able to give the appearance of 'controlling' this historically difficult place. Of course, if this fails, Yeltsin could declare a 'state of emergency' and hold on to power anyway thus avoiding parliamentary elections in December and presidential elections scheduled for next summer. Ariel Cohen, a Russia expert at the Heritage Foundation, says that xenophobic policies have begun "and it's going to get worse." Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev has said the bombing of Chechnya would continue "until the last bandit is destroyed."

One question that begs an answer is: How can Russia blame the 'militant Muslims' for conflict and then wonder why they don't want to be part of Russia? To accept the rationale of the Chechens means to say that Russia is 'guilty' of aggravating them at least. This cannot and will never be done by Russia. Pride and xenophobia run too deep. The Russian generals themselves tend to be atheists who don't believe that man can behave as devout believers. They will therefore never understand the Muslim Chechens. Since the collapse of the Soviet empire, this conflict is one where the Chechens are seeking a new spiritual identity. People stopped being communist and are now trying to become something else. The result is a desperate conflict of a religious nature.

Since the collapse of communism, countries are wondering about their traditions. It is like two orphans, a boy and girl, planning to marry. They have no parents to explain to them how to be man and wife. There are orphans who don't know how to make tea (a true oddity in Russia) because they have never been taught. It is the same with Russian politics...there is an absence of political traditions. The Communist political tradition was the ethics of criminal bands. They killed or simply took people away. This may help us to understand why Russians are afraid of the electoral process. It is not because they are bad democrats.  They simply do not resonate with the sense of free elections. They aren't accustomed to democratic ideals. Russian politicians have formerly all been clerks. They have no political training. They have grown up in a society without a science of politics. Russia is in a state of forming a political conscience. The problem is that the younger generation desires to be like the West but the power remains in the hands of the older generation that is actually unruly…my Russian friends call them "absolutely wild.'' Instead of throwing money at the East without forethought as to where it is going, we might do well to contemplate how to help Russian citizens learn to transmit power without war.

It is interesting to note that the war in Chechnya began on the eve of elections…it appears that they were afraid of them. They began the war in a crisis situation because then they feel 'free.' Russians are intimately familiar with crises, not peace. They prefer to move from explosion to explosion, crisis to crisis. How do you have a peaceful transition when all a culture has known is a constant history of crises--constant hysteria? The nomenklatura (ruling class) and the intelligentsia share the same political cynicism, lack of ethics and political experience as everyone else. Russia is like a big kindergarten with children who have no rules.

In this sense the 'new' Russians are no different from the old Russians or 'other' Russians and are a myth. The unequal distribution of wealth that creates the myth of the 'new Russians' is very unstable because there are no real property relations.  Chernomyrdin was the wealthiest of Russians when Prime Minister. But today he has lost his share of the 'oil money' and lives like any other Russian peasant. Wealth is not distributed in Russia, only power is. In this sense Russians are still 'communists.' Wealth is only the result of one's power. This helps to explain why they are not interested in productivity. That is why even if they were interested in productivity, there is no room for initiative. It is very easy to get rid of Communist ideas, but it is very difficult to create something new or return to 'normalcy' when there has never been normalcy. People are worse off now because even the false values of communism have been shown to be lacking. While they used to say, "they pretend to pay us; we pretend to work," now there is no work or pretense. They sit on the rivers of Babylon and cry.

Of course, in the end analysis, only Russians can teach themselves discipline, hard work, virtue, and peace. But how are Russians to deal with other Russians without hatred and xenophobia? This is the main problem Russia is facing in the wars of Chechnya and Dagestan--problems that are not going to disappear or be resolved any time soon. It is also easy for America to play into Russia's hands and give them what they think they want: money and power. The results have proven to be devastating.

The only source of hope for those living in bondage is to be confronted with the reality of their own freedom. By knowing their own presuppositions, they may begin the journey to freedom. But this must be done delicately. A horrible mistake Westerners make is to think that it is enough to show how their culture has become wealthy. They invite Russians to the States and then think that Russians will be glad to follow the American way of life. But the result is just the opposite. If a man doesn't feel strong enough in himself, he will loathe and detest what he has been shown. He will believe and say, "this is a bad way" rather than "this is a good society." "It is good for Americans, but not for Russians." He feels himself very weak. You cannot tell a weak man that he is weak. You must find another way to communicate with him. Since glasnost and perestroika, Westerners have tried inclusion…including corruption in the playing field of world activity--and the result was disastrous. The way was one of blood, greed, and violence.

After a fire when a person's skin is burned, he/she cannot be touched. It is the same situation in Russia. The problem is so delicate and people are too hurt and confused. You must not confront and instruct them directly, but create circumstances, a sort of labyrinth where they will feel free to move about, but with only one way out…

Americans must communicate with Russians with the knowledge of which themes can and cannot be addressed directly. Currently they do not comprehend much at all. Currently America is dealing with corruption and has no clue as to why the stock market fell. There must be some practical recommendations for American institutions and persons who are in contact with Russian institutions and people: recommendations on how to promote a culture of peace.

In the meantime the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has plans to send tons of sugar and vegetable oil as well as cooking equipment and bedding to Ingushetia for the Chechen refugees.  One can only hope that Russia will not hinder the aid from reaching the hurting Chechens.

Moscow's Stock Market: Crapshoot or Bargain?

 Westerners have a difficult time understanding the Russian economy.  They show their exasperation at every turn in the attempt to grasp the unpredictability and resistance of the economy to numerous and various ploys to change it.  Another error often made is the attempt to be overly confident in attempting to understand it.  A major difficulty is in the basic terminology used to understand it, terms such as "debt," "government," "companies," "banks," and etc. The temptation is to interpret these terms as they are used in the West. It is forgotten that Russia has not mastered the delicate nuances and major concepts of Western democracy and free market economy, much less "capitalism." Some banks in rural areas still use the abacus to tally up transactions.

 Until the collapse of the Russian economy last year, the dominant interpretation of Russian economic and political developed surrounded the "democratization paradigm." The Russian political system was supposedly undergoing a transition to democracy with the creation of a "democratic constitution" (all totalitarian constitutions sound democratic) and institutions, and the destruction of Soviet rules and regulations.  While Gaidar's 1991-92 economic policies of liberalization of prices were genuinely reformist, the result was not a market economy, but what Andrei Illarionov, head of the Institute of Economic Analysis calls a "monstrous hybrid of a system with powerful privately-owned monopolies in the place of powerful state-owned ones, and an all-pervasive use of barter instead of money." Along with this came a catastrophic drop in output and millions of people pushed into poverty that rivals pre-Bolshevik Russia. The result was that a U.S.-type economy was not achieved, but a form of socialism was achieved. While "social democracy" works reasonably well in Europe, Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Sweden, they do have functioning economies. To redistribute money, one first has to make it.

 There is a perception of a "market," but the barter system is pervasive because you can avoid tax if you have no cash accounts.

 The collapse of the Moscow stark market in 1998 should have served as a warning to Western investors as to the--not volatility--not instability--but the corrupt faзade of what attempts to parade as "stock market." Be sure that in every transaction that involves money is tainted by some sort of scam, designed to benefit some shady character that cares little for legitimate market transactions. Russian--and Western--"specialists" argue ad infinitum that it is necessary to invest in the Russian economy to keep the nation "floating" (it sunk long ago), and falling back into totalitarian hands, and thus returning to the nuclear threat to the West that it was once thought to be. Westerners think that they can understand and profit from Russia's stock market. But the main reason why economists cannot or will not explain the true state of the Russian economy to Westerners is because the real difference between the Western and Russian economy is of a non-economic nature.

In the West the Rule of Law articulates and regulates the relation between the individual and society.  Russian tradition does not use the law to articulate this relation. The notion of "law" and "legality" has been abused and hasn't the respect that it has in the West.  The "law," is pretty much used as a tool for some other purpose (oppression, robbery) which frightens Westerners who have traditionally respected the law because of its long honored tradition in regulating democracies. The "law" in Russia is permanently semi-observed, semi-violated, and never clear. Russia has become a world leader in homicide, chalking up three times more murders per capita each year than the United States, five times more than France, and seven times more than Germany.  The Law does not regulate the relation of property to the individual even now. Who owns this or that piece of land, factory, house, or flat, has not yet been addressed by any act, and the rights of the proprietor cannot be defended in court. Government clerks remain the main judges in disputes. This puzzles foreigners who are accustomed to "right" and "wrong," clear "legalities," and clear "illegalities." Clear thinking on rights does not exist in Russia.  Different organs of power fight with each other over this or that piece of property without ever going near the courthouse. There is also the problem of "debt," but no one goes to court to get his or her money back on that issue either.  Respective battles take place in various low-level government offices.

Igor Arshinov, a psychologist at Moscow's Institute of Neuroses states that "There's been a massive catastrophe of values, a loss of goals…earlier society was building communism. People knew it was idiotic, but on some level they still bought into it." We know that Communism destroyed the morality of any people caught under its sinister web. When morality is subordinated to any other institution or regime, it ceases to exist. Iokov Krotov states that Communism spoiled even its opponents in Russia--take the Christians, for example.  Both Communists and Christians who opposed the regime lacked moral norms. And with the collapse of Communism, and pro-capitalist politicians, communism still has not disappeared. Krotov calls it the "communism after Communism" system.  "Everyone in Moscow knows that at any moment he could be killed--not merely jailed…killed without any trial, as if by chance. This system hasn't any moral regulations."  No Muscovite doubts that given the right (wrong) circumstances, the government would not hesitate to use army force to silence people."

Despite all the fuss over the supposed "privatization," few in the West really understand that this entire enterprise is "much ado about nothing." Practically the entire Russian economy now is still the "state economy." Privatization was a fictitious process, as well as the numerous organizations of private business. The only result of the mythic "reforms" was the complication of the state government system of industry. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, many inside Communist cronies simply divided states assets among this and called it "privatization." Thomas Graham, an American diplomat, argues that political power in Russia has been hijacked by a system of clans, loose-knit groups of industrial and financial interests with strong-arm men at their disposal. They carved up the wealth and power of the nation.  These clans raided government accounts and bought state assets in rigged privatization. Renfrew claims that as many as 80 percent of Russian businesses are paying for "protection." He quotes a figure of 567 contract killings during the first five months of 1999. Killers are rarely caught and prosecuted.

The "New Russians" which we hear so much about are not really "new" at all.  The "new" class of bankers or managers is the new version of the state bureaucracy. They are simply "old wine in new wineskins." The rise of "oligarchs," the financiers and industrialists who bankrolled Yeltsin's re-election campaign in 1996 still act as if they own the state.  Some think they do. A good economic example is the so-called "strikes" by communications personnel or mine workers. These "strikes" take place inside the 100% monopoly of the government. The same clerk in a particular ministry, as the head of the government department of television, leads a "strike" as the leader of the "independent" trade union of the television workers.  One and the same person strikes against himself as the head of the government department of television in his role as leader of the "independent" trade union of television workers.  This case was reported in the press, as it was puzzling even to the media. But nothing changes when one and the same person operates within one system while trying to make the impression that there are two systems.

A "salary" is not a salary in this system, and employment is not "employment" in the Western sense. People are not paid "lawful" salaries for nominal work but are permitted to get money by "unlawful" means such as speculation. (Russians have an old saying that "they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work.) Nobody fires anybody, nobody pays anything for real work, but everybody manages to get money for some unproductive or even destructive "work." There is no market, no competition, and no risk. Everybody, from the president to the petty thief, is guilty of something from a legal point of view.

The Kremlin has recently been renovated by a company called Mabetex, which deposited more than $1 million in a Swiss bank account.  This account has been linked to Yeltsin and his two daughters, who, of course, deny taking kickbacks. The nation's chief prosecutor, Yuri Skuratov, claims to be carrying out an investigation on Yeltsin and his offspring, while himself being investigated for accepting prostitutes in exchange for diverting criminal investigations. The major of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov wants Yeltsin investigated, while he himself, is accused of having indecent ties to the Russian mafia.

Russian law enforcement agencies are incompetent and corrupt. Taking kickbacks and bribes is commonplace. They have no experience in combating the sophisticated money laundering schemes.  If they could master it, bribes and kickbacks would increase, not decrease.

The most successful "business" in Russia is organized crime, which has spread worldwide. We now know that billions of dollars have been laundered through the Bank of New York by Russian mafia members, and the mafia's connections reach the highest places in government and can not be separated from the daily activities of government officials and business leaders.  Barry Renfrew of the Associated Press quotes Konstantin Borovoi, an independent liberal member of the Russian Parliament, that the "entire government system is corrupt and that corruption has drained the nation's resources beyond all imaginable limits."

While a mafia of sorts operates in most Western nations as well, a difference is that in most Western places organized crime controls only criminal activities like prostitution, drugs, and gambling. In Russia, it controls all types of activity and has its hands everywhere.

The Russian central bank lied to the International Monetary Fund in 1996 about the level of its foreign exchange reserves to encourage the agency to continue lending to the country. Nevertheless the IMF decided to activate an extra  $4.5 billion dollar loan program for Russia anyway.  The Central Bank reserves had been "overstated" by a "mere" $1.2 billion in the middle of 1996. At the same time the Central Bank revoked the licenses of four banks at a board meeting, Uneximbank, Mosbiznesbank, Promstroibank and Mezhkombank because they defaulted on obligations to their creditors. Between 1991 to 1995 the Central Bank issued 3,000 bank licenses. Less than 300 of them had auditors.  Russian banks appear to be THE vehicle for Russian organized crime to loot the country.  Bruce Zagaris, a lawyer specializing in international criminal law says it's "very hard to distinguish the legitimate from the illegitimate. It's the whole nature of the [Russian] economy.  Debt restructuring talks play favoritism and insider deals while transferring valuable assets to new financial institutions and leaving behind the old debts.  The IMF itself has been criticized for not disclosing enough information about the state of national affairs to those they lend money. The Fund's critics say that money is lent regardless of Russia's ability to pay, or its level of corruption in misappropriating loan moneys altogether.

Illarionov states that one of the most striking examples of Russian "reforms" was the privatization of a group of people of the Central Bank.  This group became the most powerful oligarch in Russia. While Alan Greenspan tends to set rules and calls the shots much like a referee in terms of the American economy, he does not play by a different set of rules than that which is set for the entire economy. But when you substitute the Russian central bank chief for Mr. Greenspan, you see that there are two sets of rules, one for himself, and one for everyone else.

The Central Bank's officials made excess profits on Russian T-bills through insider trading and then embezzled the profits.  Zero interest bank accounts were placed abroad while paying enormous bonuses to board members with ties to top central bank officials.  Under Natasha Kagalovsky, senior vice president for business in Eastern Europe, The Bank of New York specialized in setting up cash and securities accounts for Russian banks in the United States. Kagalovsky's husband is Konstantin, a prominent Russian banker, was Russia's representative to the IMF from 1992 to 1995 and later worked as a senior executive for Russia's Menetap bank. This modern Bonnie and Clyde duo are now accusing accusations to be a "anti-Russian campaign" by Westerners.  Also, a Mr. Peter Berlin and Ms. Lucy Edwards, an assistant vice president in the Bank of New York's Eastern Europe division, were found to have Bank of New York stationary in their private residences with their home addresses listed on the stationary. Mr. Berlin laundered $10 billion through his bank accounts, money derived from criminal activities in Russia. Both Berlin and Edwards were born in Russia and formerly married. Edwards neglected to mention the connection when vouching for Berlin as he opened his accounts years ago.  These accounts allowed Russian institutions (many which collapsed last year beneath piles of debt and speculative investments) to easily transfer money out of Russia.  One bank, Inkombank, transacted more than 250 payments a day through the Bank of New York and it is estimated that $4 billion moved through a single account with 10,000 transactions during a six-month period. Alexei Ulukayev, an economist at the Institute for the Economy in Transition, estimates that at least $10 billion leaves the country illegally each year…much of this is the money Russia receives from the IMF, so says Nikolai Gonchar, an independent member of Parliament. Russian businessmen, politicians, and mafiosi--none of them trust "their" money to Russian safekeeping. Ordinary Russians pay a 33% Russian "tax" on their incomes, and receive little in return.

For years the Central Bank sent billions to a secret bank account on Britain's Channel Islands. The official explanation was that "it wanted to hide the money from foreign creditors that might try to seize Russian assets." This is the model which wealthy citizens follow. Russian "law" limits the amount of funds Russians can take out of the country…but a different rule seems to function for those with connections. "Power corrupts." One senior U.S. official said, "the more we dig, the more we find…there seems to be no end to it." He said the probe points to a very high level of complicity within the Russian government. At least $15 billion has been laundered, much of it from IMF loans by at least 12 current or former Russian officials. One account set up by Yeltsin to deposit earnings from the sale of U.S. Grant to Russia is missing tens of millions of dollars. That money was diverted to an offshore bank by Yeltsin's government. Russia's acting prosecutor general (the third one in recent months) plans to "look into it."

The IMF itself has "repented" for not having checks in place to prevent the misuse of funds and has promised to put checks in place to "prevent misuse of reserves in the future." The Bank of New York had no "know your own customer" rules in place to detect the scheme.  Actually, two of their senior vice-presidents did know the money-laundering customer, but covered it up.  Attorney General Janet Reno promises to "pursue money laundering as vigorously as possible" and President Clinton will not reconsider revising its policy of lending money to Russia, though House Majority Leader Dick Armey says he and others on Capital Hill think it prudent to do so.  IMF officials are already denying the seriousness of the facts and are looking forward to the next $640 installment of the $4.5 billion IMF loan to Russia.  Allan Meltzer, a Carnegie Mellon University economist who chairs a congressional comission looking at the IMF says that the "IMF surely knew about it and did nothing about it. That speaks to a lack of concern that borders on the ridiculous."  Russian Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov said back in April that the IMF appears to be addicted to abusive relationships." Many Russians are mystified that the IMF would lend Russia any money because "none of it trickles down to the common citizens." Bribing the Kremlin into "good behavior" or keeping at a distance in the Kosovo crisis isn't sound or effective policy. Modern day Russia is an insatiable kleptocracy. Russia is asking lenders to write off 75% of its $100 billion Soviet-era debt…does anyone really think they intend to pay back any of the current IMF loan?

The IMF loan implies the institution's undeserved vote of confidence in the country's economy and is linked to further funding of $3 billion from the World Bank and Japan.  Additional loan will only feed Russia's credit addiction. One might ask why the West is so intent on handicapping Russia and aiding and abetting its weakness and irresponsibility. How are we thinking here? We attempted to buy Russia's neutrality in the Balkan war, a clear sign that the IMF is not independent from the U.S. government.

Let us sum of the situation by quoting my friend and political analyst, Iakov Krotov: "In all economic matters Westerners are foolish to believe ANY figures, ANY statistics, or ANY laws which concern Russia. Everything is misrepresented, everything has double meaning, and all words are confused." Westerners doing business in Russia must understand that all kinds of lies, intentional and unintentional, flourish on every level. This applies to statements from the President, Prime Minister, economic advisors, dissidents, "democrats," and even Church officials.

Westerners should not attempt to force Russia to enter the Western world of linguistics, much less the industrial, political, and financial structures, as the IMF has done. First something must be produced. Falsely propping up a decayed faзade of an economy only enables the underlying corruption to feed off it. Russia is in one of the deepest depressions ever suffered by an industrialized nation and the government has already defaulted on innumerable domestic and foreign debts. Last August Russia defaulted on $40 billion in Treasury debt, missed a $362 million principal note payment to the London Club in December, and has more than $2 billion in arrears to the Paris club. Russia's total foreign debts have reached $150 billion, two thirds that are from the Soviet era. They are planning to ask us to dismiss 75% of those debts as they re-negotiate the terms of the IMF loans.  Krotov says "the West's current support to those in power in Russia represents the worst legacy of Communism. Such support makes Russian totalitarianism stronger and hampers those who wish to make the country less 'slavish.'" Everyone currently in power in Russia are former Communists which is "worse than former cannibals" in Krotov's opinion.

Western powers have a tendency to support corrupt regimes to "avoid open conflict." In 1922 they supported the Bolsheviks.  In 1938 they began their support of Hitler. Now they support post-Communists (crypto-Communists). The support of anti-Communist forces, of democratic opposition, has always been weaker than the support of those who tried to destroy the God-given rights of His people.  Less money has been spent supporting Russian dissidents or freethinkers than supported the Russian nomenclature. In Church affairs, the same pattern prevailed. European Christians, from the World Council of Churches to the Roman Pontiff, supported the power structures of the Russian Church, to wage "dialogue" with Marxism, thus appeasing it.  Too often theologians said that Communism and Capitalism were equivalent evils. My knowledgeable friends who suffered in Russia under the Communists and who currently suffer under the "anti-Communists" tell me that Western Capitalism may be a necessary evil, but it is far better than the absolute evil of Communism--an evil that destroys everything.

Why do Western politicians support the worst elements in Russian life? Russia can only be changed from within--if it is going to be changed at all. 

"Religion as Politics in Russia"

Sharon Linzey, Ph.D.
 

 Christianity in Russia has always displayed a strong political nature. The historic "Baptism of Rus" in 988 A.D. followed the "Constantinian" model of the establishment of religion in that it resulted in Christianity becoming the "majority" and official religion of the land. By the decision of one ruler it ceased being an oppressed sect and became a respectable faith. Christianity in Russia differs dramatically from the state churches of Western Europe and this is probably due to the fact that Russia has been cut off from Western civilization for most of this century, and, due to geographic limitations, long before that.

Orthodox "Sanctification" of the Social Order

 The Christianization of Russia has been a long and arduous process. In the thirteenth century Russian paganism was entrenched in Russia and resulted in rites of human sacrifice not far from Kiev, the capital of Russia at that time. The "Christianization" of this area was sometimes merely symbolic, but the former magical rites were replaced by Christian prayers. Christianity played a major role in social ideology, sanctifying the present order and giving its blessings to patterns of behavior. The church sanctified the power of princes, (as Marx would later note), and provided justification for war, as well as the career aspirations of the aristocracy (boyars). Of course, the peasants needed to have religious justification of their own need of land as well as procuring the necessary fertility of their livestock.

 The function of Christianity in Russia is not original but quite common for any religion dominating a country with a rigid social structure. Russia could have remained a pagan country and paganism could have "sanctified" the social structure. Foreign observers and Russian citizens themselves often state that the peculiarity of Russian Orthodox Christianity is the eulogy of patience and obedience to whatever current political power reigns, no matter how cruel. All impulses and longing for a better life and justice are generally focused on the afterlife. One can see how ripe Russia was for Marxism.

Christianity opposes Social Complacency

 Today only a handful of theologians, monks, and bishops in Russia have a respectable knowledge of the Bible, and a clear understanding of Christian dogma. Through the liturgy, pilgrimages, and the lives of the Russian saints, Orthodox believers have a reasonable understanding of the eschatological dimension of Christianity. Through its support and blessings of Caesar's Kingdom, the church functions as the official "state" religion. But this should not in any way be interpreted to mean a diminished understanding of God's kingdom on earth which is opposed to violence.

 The vitality of Russian Orthodoxy lies in its ability to simultaneously justify the social order and to reject it at the same time. The varieties of Christian opposition to the present social order is on record in the institution of monasticism and the faction of Christian dissenters. Let us look at these sources of opposition.

Monasticism: In Russia there is no system of differing religious orders as the West has. In one and the same monastery there were those supporting and opposed to feudalism. (In Europe the Benedictine order was a pillar of feudalism, and mendicant orders opposed it). The serfs had no right to leave their masters unless they became a monk or hermit. This form of opposition to the social order was not creative; it was a rejection of society in general.

Dissent: From a sociological point of view, any rejection of the state church is a form of social as well as religious protest. Russian religious dissent was and remains multifaceted. And it is not necessarily connected with the rejection of Russian Orthodoxy. Since the fifteenth century we are aware of different Russian Orthodox dissenters who organized their own confessions under the pretext of "purifying" the church. The sects of the fifteenth centuries have disappeared now, but the remnants of Russian Orthodox puritans of the seventeenth century (known as Old Believers) still exist. They never used violence, but there were many peasant riots which adopted the slogans of the Old Believers as their pretext to revolt.

 Since 1917 and up to the present, new Russian Orthodox dissenters have appeared. They have opposed the political collaboration of the church with atheistic regimes (which they think are still present) and they interpret the Moscow Patriarchate's behavior to be consistent with this line. Some of the dissenters of this type are organized within the Russian Orthodox Free Church. Many are dispersed and call themselves "The Catacomb Church."

 To be Protestant in Russia also means to be in a state of opposition to the dominating social order and culture, although the degree of this opposition is qualitatively different. Most Protestants don't conscientiously desire to oppose the political order. However, the position of Protestants in Russia may be compared with the position of the Russian Orthodox church in America: they are numerous but have no impact on political and social life. The very fact that they are religious dissenters makes them "outsiders" in most spheres of life. It was true in the sixteenth century when the first Protestants appeared in Russia, and it is true now. The same can be said about those Russians who convert to Roman Catholicism, Hare Krishnaism, or Mormonism. They tend to be judged by their neighbors as social outsiders who challenge normative ideals and behavior. These non-Orthodox believers have not yet been freed from the cultural opposition of the citizenry.

The Political Neutrality of the Russian Church

 Some of the phenomena mentioned above are common to other societies, but there are some features of the Russian situation which may seem odd to Westerners. For example, Russians show little, if any, interest in the political opinions of the church hierarchs. They do not expect political issues to be raised in the church liturgy or sermon. After the fall of communism Russian citizens did not demand that the church be purged of those who were guilty of collaborating with the KGB. Many collaborators, however, voluntarily left some of the smaller Protestant (unregistered) sects due to discovery and intense embarrassment. (Religion in Russia has never been the political force as it has been in the West.)

 In societies where the idea of personal freedom is underdeveloped (and all ancient societies belong to this group), religion is a major socializing agent. In Russia, participating in church rites is oriented not toward the individual, but toward the community. Being political, the church can operate as a political advisor on the societal level only, and has no knowledge of individual political subjects. It does not feel it is necessary to address politics to the individual, nor does it have the tools to do so. This, of course, corresponds to the communal psychology which most citizens participate in, as opposed to the individualistic oriented psychology of the West.

 As a result, the church generally supports those in power. Church leaders communicate with political leaders equal to them in rank, but they don't address their flock on a political basis, nor do they speak to them about political issues.

 Only in Western Christendom does the new model appear where individual spirituality becomes the key unit which constitutes society, the market place of ideas, and economics. The point of divergence between the two models appears to have taken place in the ninth century when St. Augustine laid the foundations of the Just War theory in the West. This theory demanded personal judgment about the justification of the participation of a man in war and therefore in politics in general. In the sixteenth century, it led Luther to enlighten each citizen as to the ethical dilemma following orders of his superiors, using religion as a foundation for decision-making.

 The East remained untouched by these developments and the people as a whole have been excluded from the decision making process. They therefore have been able to avoid personal responsibility for such actions. They don't expect religious leaders to address them on these matters and in this sense even modern Russians are more independent (if not free) of the political views of their religious leaders (even if they know what they are). Everybody understands that the political statements of the Patriarch are addressed only to the political elite, the only real decision-making group in the country. Elections have not yet become the political force it has in the West, and they is not yet powerful enough for the religious establishment to address believers as they do the nomenclature.

 Certainly the conception of personal responsibility has not been totally unknown in the East. Its main source would not be Augustine or any theologian, but the Gospel itself. Christianity as faith is based not only on community, but also on personal effort, urging a personal response. This must be a universal characteristic of the Gospel message: the personalization of the ethic based on Christ. But whether common Russian citizens are aware of the contents of the Gospel is another matter. Most do not take the Bible seriously, nor do they know what is in it. The very idea of "personality" appeared in Russia long before Westernization arrived, and even Russians opposed to the Western idea of "personality" still cannot avoid being personally responsible for their opposition. Currently in Russia people are not considered to be less "persons" than in the West, but the model of behavior for church leaders still tends to be medieval. The church still doesn't perceive and address the person. This creates a paradoxical situation because in Russia laymen are more independent from the political views of their church leaders than they are in the West. There is a lot of clericalism in Russia, but this clericalism works on a very broad scale. And personality remains in a kind of "dead zone." People do not simply ignore the political position of their church leaders; there is simply nothing to ignore because church leaders do not make political statements in terms addressed to the populace. And frankly, the populace do not bother themselves greatly about such matters.

Christianity and the Russian Revolution

 There are two different views on the reasons for the Russian Revolution. Westerners prefer to see it as the natural fruit of Russian soil, a logical continuation of the Tatar-like autocracy of the tsars. Russians prefer to see revolution as a fruit of Western ideology and materialism. Since the eighteenth century Russian culture and society has become quite secular, so the religious factor seems unimportant to social outbursts such as a revolution. Both Westerners and Russians tend to look at revolution as essentially an anti-religious phenomenon similar to the French revolution. Likewise these groups tend to see Russian Christians in a limited role as mere victims of their persecutors. But these perceptions don't explain why even under communism all Christian confessions survived. And after the downfall of communism, different unions and sympathies emerged between the neo-communists and the Christians. The oversimplified conception of the persecution of Christians doesn't help us to understand the similarities and differences between the Russian and Western experience.

 The quest for social justice in Russia and the West has been based in large part on the Christian ethic. The force of this quest has been strong because social justice and purity has been seen as a necessary condition for communal adhesiveness or "spiritual brotherhood" in Russian terms. The Russian revolutionary movement was under the strong influence of the French Christian socialist movement and the national thirst for better realization of the Gospel. Communist messianism was impossible without knowledge of the Christian heritage, just as Marx's kingdom of God on earth (without God, of course) was taken from St. John the Apostle's revelation of a "new heaven and a new earth".

 Two quite different notions stemmed from the Christian tradition and both have been embodied in the literary works of the great Russian classics of the nineteenth century. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky were two forerunners of the revolution and counter-revolution. Their focus was above all an attempt to solve the eternal question about the existence of evil in the world. If God was almighty, isn't he responsible for the existence of evil? Might it then be more "Christian" to leave God altogether and fight social vices without Him? The confused Christian might then feel obliged to pick up a machine gun and become a revolutionary.
 
 Another interpretation may be that evil is too deeply rooted in the spiritual world and cannot be reduced to social evil. If so, it would be "wrong" to become a revolutionary and "right" to oppose the ideas and processes of revolution.

 One may see that there is more than one view on the ethics of revolution from a Christian perspective. Christian opponents of revolution are divided. Some oppose revolutionary means under any circumstance, and are pacifists. Others oppose the goal. Prominent Russian Christian thinkers such as Nicholas Berdyaev have criticized both types of revolutionaries for their false messianism and materialism, and likewise counter-revolutionaries for materialism and the manipulation of Christian ideals for protection of their wealth and social status. Atheistic materialism was characteristic both of socialists and their opponents (past and present). It is more precise to speak not about atheism of the Russian revolution but about her secularism. This explains why even under communism religion was tolerated, and more importantly, it explains why now in Russia religion is often praised as a new state ideology by former communists. The majority of communists have remained atheistic, but some have converted to Christianity. However, all of these former communists still see prosperity as the main and only goal of existence.

The Political Elite and Religion in Modern Russia

 Russian communism and German Nazism alike have been hostile to Christianity. But the circumstances under which they originated differed greatly. Hitler came to power without a bloody revolution and his regime used their power and authority to persecute minorities and the powerless. Their means seemed "normal" at the time and the medical profession, the post office, the arts, the transportation system, and many other standard elements and institutions of society supported the aims of the regime. They didn't look like criminals, and when war ensued they looked and acted like any military regime would have looked and acted in time of war: they supported their leader.

 In Russia the social norms were completely destroyed in 1917. The new political elite created a new set of behavioral norms which were more persistent and lasting than many communist ideas were. The demise of Nazism and communism differs in that the Russian regime was crushed not by the Allies, but by its intrinsic weakness--economic, moral and otherwise. As a result, no one has dared to condemn communist leaders as criminals. Western democracies have taken for granted--much to their chagrin--that former communist leaders were sincere democrats. Moreover, Western support of Gorbachev was stronger and more emotional than was necessary, and it deeply discredited the West in the eyes of Russians who never saw Gorbachev as any less shrewd or cunning than Hitler--though absolutely his moral equivalent.

 In order to understand the relations between religious confessions and the political elite in modern Russia, it is necessary to remember that nothing has changed in Russia as far as the economy is concerned--despite the press attention given to the mythical "privatization" plan. The common peasant remains poor and deprived, only the slogans and names have been changed. But it is also important to point out that Russian ideas are not as important as patterns of social behavior in determining what happens in Russia.

 In America politicians dress in suits, they don't use dirty words (at least publicly), and they try to avoid accusations of drinking or adultery. You must listen to their words to distinguish them from one another, though this is not always easy. In the 1996 presidential race, Democrats and Republicans sounded remarkably similar.

 In Russia, the communist nomenclature adapted a special lifestyle: Western suits, wide use of dirty words, addressing each other and subordinates in pejorative ways (singular "ty" instead of the polite and plural "vy"). Drinking in company is the main way to express solidarity. Adultery is publicly proclaimed as a virtue and to steal or take a bribe is expected if you can get it.

 In America such behavior is typical for small isolated communities, such as in private all-male schools or life in the military. Abnormal behavior becomes the norm in these groups and it gives these men the feeling of self-sufficiency and independence from "normal" society which created them. In communist countries people feel themselves to be opposed to "capitalist" societies with their normative expectations and consequently they behave like "bad boys" are expected to behave.

 The principal immorality or anti-morality of the Russian political elite is only a projection of the immorality of the Russian "silent majority." This is the sad result of seventy years of forced elimination of any attempt to behave morally. (In private life, communists kept very Victorian patterns of behavior). It is unfortunate that religious leaders who wish to have working contacts with the ruling elite must use their language and manners, or be ready to dispense with the distinction between "communist" lifestyles and "capitalist" ones still existent in Russia. The political elite is still not oriented toward Western social norms (except for the wearing of the suit), but towards the communist one. The present state of the Russian economy, which is still government-oriented, maintains a criminalized support for the order of things. This explains why Western suits are still associated not with prestige and ethics, but with communists and now with financial frauds of the Russian mafia. (Russian Baptists also have adopted the use of Western suits and this explains why they are also alienated from the people.)

 This may help us to understand the real sense of the political game. Democrat Yavlinsky is opposed to Yeltsin--not in ideas only (ideologically he may not be opposed to the regime at all), but in lifestyle. This is typical for the dissident or the intellectual and makes Yavlinsky alien to the nomenclature and close to dissidents Andray Sakharov and Sergey Kovalev, the human rights activist. Gaidar is more pro-establishment in his behavior though he still has and is alien to former communist officials like Yeltsin and Chernomyrdin.

 People may favor underdogs but they follow top dogs. The intelligentsia enjoys her alternative lifestyle. They despise the nomenclature, but the majority of the intelligentsia followed and is following, not the democrats, but totalitarian regimes and its present embodiment. Intellectuals despise the Moscow Patriarchate for its triumphalistic life style and its connections with the government, but they still prefer to collaborate with the Patriarchate and the government.

Moral Values and the Value of the Person in Modern Russia

 Ethically speaking Russia is in a catastrophic state. But it would be wrong to reduce Russian social problems to lack of ethics and the minor role of religion in modern society. On the eve of perestroika it was very popular to reduce Russian problems to a lack of ethics. Five years ago it was very popular to compare perestroika with the Exodus. As von Heidt has said:

 The children of Israel wandered forty years in the  wilderness, unlearning the traits of slavery...Russians may  be entering their wilderness years in their exodus from the  slavery of communism.

 This comparison implies that it is enough to wait for an ethically corrupted generation or two of Russians to die off. Then a new generation instilled with moral and ethical ideals will replace it. But the social problems of Russia cannot be reduced merely to ethical problems. Even those Russians whom Westerners think to be "moral reformers" only call for a return to the pre-Revolutionary past with its dictatorship of tradition over creativity. There is a contradiction when those who preach repentance and a return to moral values fight against "Americanism"--democracy, religious freedom, individualism, and the free market.

 Russia now is very much like those countries of Latin America which hate capitalism as an economic principle though they only have experienced "wild capitalism." Christians of Latin America (mostly Roman Catholics) have also experienced persecution at times. It doesn't matter because in general their leaders are not expected to repent. They preserved the good old moral values. But these societies still have problems because they have maintained the negative "low" understanding of the person which must coincide with nearly feudal social expectations. The problem for Russia as well as Latin America, is not the restoration of moral values, but the transformation of man/woman into free and responsible human beings. You can possess a fine sword (and the Decalogue is the sword), but if you are inspired by hate and aggression, you will use it improperly. I think Russia needs not a simple return to Christian moral values, but the progression of an understanding of the person with creative powers and individual responsibility. A question in this vein is, will a better understanding of the person with creativity and responsibility necessarily bring it about? Do we always get what we expect, or must we do something to instigate what we hope for?

The Moscow Patriarchate and the Government

 In Russia there is no civil society. The "government" and "state" are synonymous. Government officials are included in the list of 100 of the most prominent politicians, and they occupy 90% of this list, including all top positions.

 Currently the government enjoys the full support of the Russian Orthodox church including the Moscow Patriarchate. The Patriarchate usually demonstrates its full support of the government unless there is a contest for power as there was during the 1993 coup attempt by House speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov and vice-president Alexander Rutskoi. At that time the Patriarchate was aiding and abetting the opposition, refusing to silence the church's more outspoken hierarchs, such as Bishop John of St. Petersburg who openly spoke for the communist putsch instigators. The Patriarchate refused to take a public stand for Yeltsin, instead pretending to pose as "mediator" between the factions while all the while buying time for the opposition to gain momentum. Of course once President Yeltsin emerged as the certain victor, despite a burned out white house where the Parliament was housed, Patriarch Alexi was at Yeltsin's side as usual. He would be on the winning side no matter who won.

 The Moscow Patriarchate receives a good deal of financial help from the government, and in fact functions as a state office. She also receives aid from the "capitalists" of Russia who maintain their enterprises as a conditional investiture of the government. The Patriarchate is invited to all prominent political events and it is as though the government "owes" the Orthodox church a measure of allegiance for its years of persecution at the hands of the communists (many of whom are still in power).

 The Religious Freedom Act has been in force since 1991. However, in spite of any "constitutional" or written "policies" guaranteeing religious freedom during or since the communist era, all rivals of the Moscow Patriarchate continue to be discriminated against by the government as well as the Orthodox church itself.

 There are conditions determining the borders of official church influence. The church can be infinitely brave in demanding restitutions of its property (confiscated during the communist era). The mass media will be in favor of it. But the church will be limited by the commercial interests of state officials. For example, church buildings may be occupied by commercial structures who bribe the clerks who control the buildings. The church may be very brave in persecuting its ideological rivals. Here it is limited by external legalities (as the attempt to legally prohibit foreign missionaries showed) and by the inner diversity of state officials. Different clerks sympathizing with Protestants or with religious freedom may to a great degree maintain real religious equality in certain venues. But the greater number of clerks will do everything they can, which is quite a bit, to maintain the monopoly of rights for the Moscow Patriarchate.

 The government will never give to the Moscow Patriarchate full and undivided support. The behavior of church leaders in critical situations during the last two coup attempts demonstrates this perfectly well. In August of 1991 Patriarchate Alexi issued two letters which later were announced to be proclamations in support of Yeltsin. But a close reading shows that if a certain coup-d'etat actually succeeded, these very letters could easily be interpreted as proclamations condemning Yeltsin. This was done again by the Patriarchate in October 1993. He issued a most neutral declaration in the "all-you-need-is-love" style, organized negotiations between the two factions in his residence, and as soon as he was sure that Yeltsin would win, he began speaking about Yeltsin's enemies pejoratively.

 There were only two bishops in the Moscow Patriarchate who made definite political choices during the past few years. First, Metropolitan Pitirim closely aligned himself with Gorbachev and the post-communist establishment in general. Second, Metropolitan John (now deceased) published a series of articles of pro-monarchist, anti-democratic, and anti-Semitic sentiments and even met with Khasbulatov in July, 1993, shortly before the coup attempt. That is why both became suspicious and incongruous characters before the eyes of their colleagues. It is a bad practice for a bishop to have a definite political position and articulate it publicly. It is exercised for the purpose of demonstrating a snobbish benevolence to those who are now in power. It would be preferable to have the option of choosing what position to side with at all times. Many bishops are very active. Metropolitan Cyrill is a nice example. But they are concerned only with their own careers, not with a particular political or church interest.

The Intelligentsia and Religion

 The intelligentsia doesn't appreciate the coalition between the government and the church. From time to time it tries to attack the church in the mass media for its pretensions to be a new state ideology. The anti clericalism and atheism of the Russian intelligentsia makes it look very much like her Western counterpart. But there is one big difference: for three generations the Russian intelligentsia served as an ideological department of the communist government. Its present attacks on the church looks very much like a fight with a rival for a better position in her master's favor. The intelligentsia still cannot bear to think of life without the government. Sometimes intellectuals express sympathies towards the Roman Catholic church for its "Western" independence from secular powers. Quite often intellectuals express contempt towards the "Baptists" (all brands of Protestantism are called by this name) as being even more "uncultural," unsophisticated, and isolationist, than Russian Orthodoxy. Russian Orthodoxy is thought to be too nationalistic, and Protestantism to be too internationalistic-- deprived of any Russian flavor at all.

The Moscow Patriarchate and the Silent Majority

 Statistics of religious adherents show that in the last five years the number of people who claim to be Christian believers has grown from 20 to 50-60%. (Dr. Sergei Filatov of the Russian-Canadian Institute gives statistics of 10% of the populace who are informed adherents of Russian Orthodoxy.) Two out of three believers are women. Out of this number the following can be found: 51% are Russian Orthodox, 20% consider themselves to be nominal Christians, .4% are Roman Catholics, and .3% are Protestants. Russian Orthodox Catholics (Uniats) make up .1%

 The percentage of people who attend church are: 47% never darken the door of a church, 5% go once per month, and 2% go once per week. The official statistics state that 25% of the army population are believers, but only 4% pray regularly and 2% attend church regularly. (This is despite the fact that the Patriarchate is making an all-out concerted effort to recruit army believers to the church through an alliance with the military.)

 The Moscow Patriarchate always states that 80% of the Russian population of 140 million people are Russian Orthodox. This is certainly not the case. Actual church attendees constitute 2 to 12% of the population, and the larger numbers are achieved in the large cities. During the Russian Orthodox Easter in the Spring of 1996, only 150,000 Muscovites attended church, a scandalously small number for Moscow with her 9.5 million population. While overestimation is admittedly a Russian tradition, the Roman Catholic Bishop Tadeush Condrusevich similarly stated in the Spring of 1996 that there are 60,000 Roman Catholics in Moscow. This is an interesting finding in light of the fact that there are not more than 15 Sunday masses served in three Moscow Roman Catholic churches attended by not more than five thousand people each Sunday. Of course, identification with a given church will always be larger than the actual numbers of those attending, but in Russia it is difficult to calculate exact figures.

 Many people who consider themselves to be believers cannot be called "orthodox" Christians in the strict sense of the word. For example, only 33.8% from these numbers believe in the immortality of the soul, and 15.6% believe in the Second Coming of Christ. These are two examples of traditional orthodox beliefs. (When "orthodox" is written with a lower case letter "o", we are not speaking of the Russian Orthodox faith as we are of the traditionally accepted teachings of the ancient historical church [i.e., "creedal Christians".])

 The Central Institute of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) in April 1995 conducted a poll of 1,500 people. Results showed that 33% of the respondents thought that it was the responsibility of the Russian Orthodox church to save its country--as it must in all tough times. Twenty-three percent were opposed to this notion and 44% hesitated in answering the question at all. Fifty percent thought that the church has little influence on politics and morals, and 19% think this influence is large. Sixty-eight percent felt that people want to show their links with the church and faith, but the number of actual believers is small.

 In general, for the majority of people the church is an important social institution which (1) embodies nationality. And development of church institutions is connected with the general development of the country. (2) Tolerance of religion is an important aspect of state deference to religion, and the Moscow Patriarchate is the cultural symbol of religion in general. The state deference to religion shows the degree of the state deference to freedom in general these days. (3) The church embodies an all-embracing ideology and as such is a peril to secularism, freedom, and rationalism. (Cults are the symbol of this side of religion, but Russian Orthodoxy and Christianity are looked upon as potential enemies to freedom of thought and personality.)

 These three attitudes embody three different values of the mass conscience: the value of nationality, the value of religious freedom, and the value of secular freedom. The order or hierarchy of these values, however, is uncertain.

 In general the "simple people" are not as anxious as are the intellectuals regarding secular freedom. They don't see in the church a real danger to freedom of thought. They feel that there is a safety device which will prevent the Moscow Patriarchate from becoming fully identified with the state. Inside the church itself the necessity of faith is obvious now even to the most nationalist elements, but in this culture it is thought to be out of control and without any sense of order. (This may be due to the communist mentality which is accustomed to controlling all expression and activity.) Outside it is Western standards of secularism which are not denied by anybody in Russia, though nobody understands quite what that means.

 The ambiguity of mass thinking as it pertains to the various cults and sects is evident. During the last presidential campaign some political campaigning and maneuvering revealed an attitude of open enmity toward all non-Russian "cults." (All non-Russian Orthodox religious groups are considered to be "cults" whether or not they fit the sociological description.) While some politicians demonstrated tolerance, public opinion is always against "cults" and non-Russian religions, against demonstrative tolerance, and against attempts to use the state force against them. Yeltsin embodies an ideal position regarding religion: he gives formal signs of respect to the Moscow Patriarchate, but nothing more.

 The Patriarchate may demonstrate its contempt of public opinion by defrocking Fr. Gleb Yakunin (a former Parliamentarian) or refusing to expel agents of KGB from the hierarchy (when it became clear who they were). Although the majority of clergymen are anti-Semitic and anti-intellectual, the church cannot be officially or openly anti Semitic nor can they openly condemn the books of Fr. Alexander Menn whom they loath.2 Public opinion will criticize the Moscow Patriarchate, but people (even intellectuals trained by Bolsheviks) tend to subordinate theoretical criticism to practical passivity. Simple people or commoners will be strongly anticlerical as in any other century of Russian history, but they will all baptize their children in the churches of the Moscow Patriarchate (now that it is no longer forbidden), and will overwhelmingly look to the church as the symbol of their national and cultural identification. On the whole, Russia remains a country of atheists, but nonetheless, they all look to the church in general, and the Moscow Patriarchate in particular, to which they maintain a modest respect, as the cultural leader of Russia.

The Loss of National Conscience

 The national conscience in the former Soviet Union is developed geographically and socially in a very erratic fashion. Let us first look at the matter geographically.

 Geographical loss of national conscience:  Geographically speaking, those parts of the former Soviet Union which have been influenced by communism since 1917 differ from those countries (i.e. the Baltic states), which were annexed only before the second World War. Communist propaganda has deeply influenced people's way of thinking for seventy years. But fifty years was an insufficient time to complete the process of thoroughly brain-washing a populace. In Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, people preserved their national feelings as a European society would have done for nineteen or twenty centuries. For them nationality remained one of the main features of personal identification, a context necessary for a civil society to remain intact. In Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, countries of the Caucuses and Middle Asia, the propaganda of the "proletarian revolution" yielded its fruit. Just as people lose interest in productive labor, they lost their ability to identify nationally with their native ethnic groups.

 The loss--or at least the primary importance--of the national conscience can be explained by several factors. First of all, communism repressed national feelings by force. They repressed nationalism, and they repressed dreams of national independence. National culture (dance, fine letters, arts) were permitted only under the strict control of the government. Any public initiative was persecuted. As a result, anything "national" became only stiffly formalized, but of little interest to any particular part of the communist propaganda machine.

 Secondly, besides this negative factor, there was a positive, more profound factor. People really believed that anything "national" was contradictory to the "human", and incompatible with the ideals of equality. This was especially true of the mass consciousness of the first third of the twentieth century. The quest for equality and justice was not as much the result of communist propaganda as the main source of the communist revolution. For many years the USSR had been the country (maybe the only one in history) where "nationalism" was a pejorative word, not only for communist officials, but for all people.

 Obviously, the development of national feelings are inversely related to the adherence of communist ideals. This adherence has been strong in the Slavonic part of the USSR, but it was weaker in the Caucasus and Middle Asia. (By Middle Asia, I am referring to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazahkstan.) In the Baltic part of the former Soviet Union communist enthusiasm was as low as in Western Europe, mainly because these countries saw the fruits of communism in the USSR. So in these countries nationalism became the main remedy against communism.

Nationalism and Communism

 The point must be stressed, because often the feeling against communism is substituted by anti-Russian slogans. There is a long and unfinished dispute as to whether communism is a specifically Russian phenomenon, another example of the Russian barbaric character, and whether Stalin was a new Ivan the Terrible. This dispute is hot because it is a part of a more general dispute: whether the communist revolution would have been possible in the United States, Lithuania, or France. It seems that very often communism is identified with Russia because of a subconscious fear of communism in one's own country: the United States, or Estonia for example. Could it be that all fears of communist growth in one's own land has been projected onto Russia?

 As part of this reaction against Russia, a unique phenomenon took place: russophobia--even among Russian citizens themselves. This means that those Russian citizens who were disappointed in, and consequently opposed to, Russian communism also came to oppose the Russian nationalistic type of person. Some of these people became ardent pro-Westerners, some simply tried to ignore the national dimension of their lives. Today, such self-censure, or self definitions of the Russian character as addicted to laziness, disorder, and dirt, is widespread among Russians themselves together with their anti-communistic feelings. Disappointment in communism led to the disappointment in Russia as a main source of political reality. It is important to mention that the communist revolution in the Russian empire has been done not only by Russians, but with the general support of Ukrainians and White Russians. Among revolutionaries there have been more Jews and Latvians than among the population of the Empire (and thus Jews and Latvians have tended to be anti-nationalist communists with cosmopolitan attitudes.) Still, even Russia came out to think of themselves as the only nation guilty of promoting communism, although this is not the full truth.

 The Social Dimension of loss of national conscience:  Usually in society there is one basic and widely accepted "normal" type of national conscience, and at least three secondary or marginal types. Let us look at them.

1.  "Normal" nationalism consists of national feelings of the silent majority, middle class people. For these people the nation is an essential dimension of civilization. It is the foundation of the economic labor and moral bond. This type of nationalism is based not on theories but on practical behavior, supported by an elaborate set of national peculiarities in mentality and customs.

2. "Creative" nationalism is promoted by the social, cultural and political elite. It is not directed against other nations, but is first of all directed towards the development of its own national state. It is basically indifferent to the problems of other nations.

3.  "Wild" nationalism is pre-civilized nationalism or xenophobic nationalism which consists of petty common hatred experienced daily and directed towards "aliens". (We could use the less pejorative term, "foreigners," but the former term captures a bit more precisely just how this type of nationalist feels toward non-natives in general).

4.  The fourth type of nationalism is a type of "ideological" racism or nazism, in which "wild" xenophobia comes attached to some political or cultural theory and becomes a part of an organized effort to restructure society.

 During the communist era the first two types of nationalism were deliberately eliminated. The usual national peculiarities were destroyed because of (a) radical and quick industrialization, and more importantly because (b) normal economic relations were destroyed. National peculiarities were based not so much on ancient traditions as on private property, which makes people active agents of social, moral and cultural behavior. The centralized economy, along with the abolition of any economic privacy, served to destroyed the foundations of national consciences, and succeeded in reducing people to subject material for ideological influences. Communist ideology was substituted for national ideals.

 During and after the Second World War, the communist regime diminished persecution of exhibitions of national consciences, and began encouraging an ideal of "friendship of nations." However, it was too little, too late and too formal. "National" had become absolutely foreign to the majority of the population, and national traditions became only a museum phenomenon, artificially fed by the government.

 Only two types of nationalism remained; the daily xenophobia and numerous adherents of Russian nazism ("Black hundred" or chernosotentsy). But even these have mostly remained in their latent state, never fully developing.

Models of Ethnic Politics after Communism

 After the downfall of communism, different parts of the former Soviet Union assumed one of three models of ethnic politics or ethnic behavior. In the majority of cases there was no politically planned or consciously implemented dynamic, but it was rather a spontaneous unplanned development of events.

1.  The Eastern model.  In Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, and five republics of Middle Asia, slogans of national liberation became the main justification for the move for separation and independence from Russia. The political elites of these countries (mainly the same as the communist nomenclatura) simply substituted nationalism for communism. But it was mainly the very aggressive "wild" nationalism, and Russia became its main scapegoat.

 The population of all these countries suffered from economic rape and disaster, but Russians suffered more than any other group and were pressured from all corners to migrate back to Russia. The percentage of the Russian population in these countries, some quite high before 1991, is quickly moving to zero. The anti-Russian sentiment has understandaby been fomented by their respective governments. Usually Russians have been excluded not by the "silent majority," but by government officials. At the same time political leadership of these countries on the official level try to maintain formal friendship relations with Russia. This is still economically profitable, because Russia is still their main economic partner and Russia can still cause difficulties in the event of "non-cooperation." These countries have maintained the centralized economy, where all spheres of economic activity are connected with the government using either open or hidden ties. In Russia such an economy is usually compared with the Bolivian model, and private initiative is still absent.

 This model works not only in the countries which became absolutely independent, but in those regions which formally are still part of the Russian Federation. In Chechnya the anti-Russian government ideology and political practices is combined with the most primitive indigenous nationalism. This type also prospers in Tatarstan, Dagestan, Yakutia-Saha, and Udmurtia.

2.  Western model.  This model works in the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and also Moldova. In these countries, "civilized" nationalism was not totally destroyed. All of them were annexed to the Soviet empire only in 1939, and served to strengthen the anti-communist zeal. This is why Russian intellectuals supported the effors of these countries against "Russian" or "communist" occupation. There was not very much of the "wild" nationalism present. The governments of these countries consciously and with full approval of their populations led a politic of restriction of the rights of Russians. The degree of severity of such politics depended upon the percentage of Russians remaining in their population, which was maximum in Estonia (nearly 50%). In Latvia Russians made up 30% of the populace, and in Lithuania only 8%. But these countries differ from the countries in the "Eastern" model because the anti-Russian feelings and politics were restricted by the rule of law which was totally absent in the Eastern part of the former Soviet Union. There also was a common high level of European culture which included a good measure of tolerance, and free market economics. As a result, Russians in these countries very loudly cry about persecutions, appeal to the Council of Europe, and other international authorities. But Russians do not wish to leave these countries. This makes a sharp contrast to the Eastern model under which Russians dare not protest against discrimination, but simply and quickly return to Russia. In the Baltic states even with discrimination, life is better for Russians than it ever was in Russia. It must be mentioned that in Russia there is the continual discrimination and humiliation of all inhabitants by the state machine--regardless of heritage--and an outrage of officialdom (nomenclature, bureaucracy).

3.  Slavic model.  This model is typical for three Slavic countries: Russia, White Russia, and Ukraine. The model is characterized by the absence of any determined ethnic politic. The national conscience in these countries was undeveloped before the revolution because of the despotism of the tsars. Even after the revolution it was nearly eliminated. In all these countries there are small and marginal groups of ultra-nationalists. These were weakest in White Russia, and strongest in Ukraine. They had no political influence and always were in opposition to any government. The population of these countries lacked any sense of national conscience, and even the level of xenophobia was very low. (In Russia, anti-Semitism is still weaker than it is in Western Europe, according to the polls.) This is also true of the political elite. The difference is that while the masses are indifferent to nationalism, the political elite tries to revive nationalistic ideas as a new ideology, a substitute to communist ideas. To date this effort has had little success. Xenophobia is stronger among politicians of all sorts than among the silent majority. But this "strength" is totally artificial. It is only an imitation of national feeling, practically annihilated by the communist regime. The economic base for a revival of the normal national conscience is still absent because these countries still maintain a state controlled economy and lack private property (to speak of).

Nationality and Religiosity in the former Soviet Union

 In order to understand the complex and complex relations between national and religious problems in the former Soviet Union it is reasonable to divide the participants of these relations into three main groups: (1) the state establishment (SE) and the church establishment (CE). The relation of the public establishment (PE) to the religious has already been discussed.

State establishment and religion

 In all countries of the former Soviet Union the relationship of the state establishment to the religion did not change in the years after the downfall of communism. During the first years of perestroika the state establishment did not and could not have any information about the political influence of religion. Contrary to the stated ideology of seventy five years of communist rule, it was now supposed that religion was very important politically because (1) religion was the symbol of freedom of conscience, and opposed to the mono-ideology of communism, and (2) Russian Orthodoxy was also a symbol of the national self-consciousness, and opposed to the internationalistic drives of communism. That is why during the first years of freedom the state establishment demonstrated great consideration to religion and avoided direct involvement in religious conflicts.

 But in three or four years it came out that (1) although religious freedom remained very important for the public, people don't usually associate this freedom with this or that confession. (2) The importance of the national conscience diminished rapidly when national independence is conquered. Consequently the appreciation of religion in public opinion has also sharply diminished. The state establishment felt that it was free of all constraints and could manipulate religion without fear of losing political clout.

 The state establishment in all countries of the former Soviet Union began constructing an artificial ideology of the national state, using religion as one of the components of such an ideology. It is interesting to note that "real" nationalists came out to be rivals of the state establishment, not partners. Actual nationalists were too out of control, usually opposed to the former communists now pretending to be nationalists. In the term "nationalist state" nationalists have interest in the first word, but the state establishment has interest in the second. "Real" and "artificial" nationalists have one common feature: they perceive religion to be a commodity to be manipulated.

The State Establishment and Religion in Countries with a "Western" Understanding of Nationalism

 The degree of manipulation varies. The state establishment of "civilized" Lithuania gave essential privileges to the Roman Catholic church which has always been the religion of the majority. But they do not discriminate against other religions, whether indigenous or "new." Still, not all church property has been returned to the Roman Catholic church because the lion's share of this property is now "state owned." While the majority of Roman Catholic hierarchs in Lithuania supports the state establishment in its struggle with communist opposition, some Catholics criticize the nationalistic urge as being incompatible with Christianity (eg., Fr. Stanislav Dobrovolskis, who is very authoritative in Lithuania), and point out that immorality and greediness of the state establishment cannot be justified in the confrontation with the communists.

 The Russian minority in Lithuania is very small and dissociated. It doesn't dare express hostility to Lithuanian nationalism. It also doesn't have the ability to unite around the Russian Orthodox church which is led by Archbishop Chrysostom, a man with the psychology of a Russian intellectual: tolerant and democratically oriented. In 1991 Chrysostom supported the Lithuanians in their conflict with communist-Russian rule. He is hated by many Russians in Lithuania and there was even one attempt to kill him. This makes the situation a dead end: neither party can nor desires to overcome the other.

 In Latvia and Estonia, where Russians are more numerous and active, the state establishment attempts to use religion as a means of demonstrating its faithfulness to the national idea. In Riga (the capital of Latvia) in 1994-95, the government painstakingly engendered internal strive in the largest Russian Orthodox denomination: the Old Believers. The resulting schism resulted in an infinite number of suits, and as a result the influence and unity of the Russian population was thoroughly weakened.

 In Estonia the government also managed to initiate a schism among the Russian Orthodox. This scandal came out to have world-wide repercussions. The government used as a bridle the fact that after the occupation of Estonia by the Soviets in 1939, the hierarchs of the Estonian Orthodox church (then under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople) fled to Sweden. During the fifty years that followed, the Moscow Patriarchate led the politics and the policy of "russification" of the Estonian Orthodox church. The long-term head of the Russian Orthodox church in Estonia was Alexi, the current Patriarch of Moscow. In thirty years the church held to the practice of refusing to ordain anyone but Russians and didn't permit worship in the Estonian language. By 1995 only one old priest who was an immigrant from Sweden was still alive. Several Estonian nationalists with the support of the government declared that the Moscow Patriarchate is an illegal organization in Estonia, and insist that the Estonian Orthodox church falls under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople. They insist that it must be restored to that See and given all her rights. The See of Constantinople agreed. As a result, the Moscow Patriarchate has broken relations with the Patriarch of Constantinople. The state Duma of Russia discussed the issue and supported the Moscow Patriarchate, blaming the Estonian government for violating human rights. Now the conflict is at last resolved, and Russian Orthodox parishes in Estonia have been divided on their own free will between the Moscow and Constantinople seats of the church. Usually parishes with a dominant Estonian composition adhere to the Constantinople See.
 
 This conflict has had great international ramifications throughout the world because it addresses the papal claims of both the Patriarch of Constantinople and the nationalistic tendencies of the Moscow Patriarchate. But the Moscow Patriarchate was absolutely correct when she stated that without the support of the Estonian government, the whole affair could not have happened. Still, even in this extreme case, the Estonian state establishment did not violate the rights of the Russian population in her domain to be under the jurisdiction of whomever they want. The Moscow Patriarchate kept everything that belonged to her in Estonia before perestroika, but the Russian population in Estonia (especially in Tallinn and Narva, towns with practically a homogenous Russian populace) looked at this situation as one more manifestation of Estonian nationalism. In Tallinn there are three Russian Orthodox churches with no more than two or three thousand parishioners. But when Metropolitan Corniliy, representing the Moscow Patriarchate, organized a demonstration of protest against the decisions of the Estonian government to support the "Swedish" Orthodox church, more than ten thousand Russians participated. For the majority it was the only way they could express their dissatisfaction with the new Estonian nationalism, something they had never experienced before.

 In Moldova the state establishment supports the Russian Orthodox church. (It is important to remember that in Slavic languages they do not say "Russian Orthodox" but simply "Orthodox" [pravoslavny]. So there is no direct connotation with Russia when naming the church.) The key problem of this country was to choose between reunion with Romania (ethnically the two countries are similar) or independence. At first some Orthodox parishes were in a hurry to reunite with the Romanian Orthodox church. But in the past few years, it has become evident that Moldovans prefer to remain a separate country. Then supporters of reunification have been marked as "ultranationalists." The church followed the way of the state establishment and retained its independence.

 It is interesting to note that the situations in all these countries are very similar, though different branches of Christendom (Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Russian Orthodox) have the upper hand there.

The State Dstablishment and Religion in Countries with the "Slavic" Model of Nationalism

 In Russia, White Russia and Ukraine, the state establishment is supported by the Moscow Patriarchate. It looks quite natural in Russia where this confession can pretend to represent nationalistic religion. But in Ukraine, where only in the eastern part of the country is where the Russian population dominates, the same is true. Nationalists of central Ukraine have chosen the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church as their representative; nationalists of the Western Ukraine and White Russia have supported "uniatism" (the Catholic Church of the Eastern Rite). In Russia the nationalists freely criticize the Moscow Patriarchate and some of them support the revival of Slavic paganism (eg., the Russian Orthodox Free Church). In White Russia President Lukashenko (a kind of Zhirinovsky) ardently supports the Moscow Patriarchate. This is part of his anti-Western campaign, and his battle with indigenous nationalists. (At this state of development White Russia nationalism is mingled with democratic zeal.)

 The situation in Ukraine is most odd. Under communism the Russian Orthodox church was headed by Metropolitan Filaret who was deeply entwined with the state establishment. In 1991 Filaret broke with the Moscow Patriarchate and organized an independent (autocephalous) Ukrainian church. He was supported by nationalists, some of which were quite influential in Ukraine. But in the course of the latest events the state establishment preferred to lead a middle-of-the-road course of alienation both from Russia and from nationalists (which have since been known as "ultra-nationalists). Even though Filaret kept informal good relations with the state establishment (with both former President Kravchuk and current President Kuchma, and even more importantly the "middle nomenclature"), he did not manage to obtain state support for his ambitious plans. The slightest effort of the state was enough to make the Ukrainian independent (autocephalous) church dominant. But the government preferred to remain neutral, inadvertently throwing weight in support of the Moscow Patriarchate. The same is true in Russia: the state establishment prefers to remain distant from nationalists of all sorts and to preserve a balance.

 The politics of the state establishment in these countries differs from the Western model countries in two respects: (1) in the Baltic states the state establishment gives privileges not so much to the church establishment, but to the church as a whole. Tax privileges, returned property, the opportunity to teach in schools as before communism were all granted. In the Slavic model the state establishment has given some privileges, but only to the church establishment, to high ranking church officials and their projects. But generally even the Moscow Patriarchate has no substantial state support, though it functions like a state office. (2) In the Baltic states the state establishment doesn't discriminate against "new religions" (whether American missionaries or Korean cults). In Slavic countries discrimination is a reality for all non-Orthodox groups.

The State Establishment and Religion in Countries with the "Eastern" Model of Nationalism

 Five countries of Middle Asia's portion of the former Soviet Union and Azerbaijan are Muslim. Georgia and Armenia are Christian. Still, just as with countries on the Western model, the situation has developed similarly. Its distinctive features are: (1) the state establishment gives one religious group (Islam or Orthodoxy) the position of "state religion". (2) The state establishment not only discriminates against all new religions, but it avidly persecutes them.

 Where Islam has been made state religion, it signifies the "nationalist idea." The problem is that all these countries have not only artificial nationalism as the post-communist state establishment, but also people's nationalism, using religion as one of its tools. (Christian Armenia and Georgia are exceptions. In these countries religion was never used by ultra-nationalists.) So the state establishment in these countries at one and the same time implants a crude form of Islam as the religion of the minority and a fight with Islamic "ultras" ensues. It is important to note that the degree of "ultraism" is measured differently here than in Algeria, Turkey or Egypt. From the point of view of the state establishment for post-Soviet Islamic countries, the "ultras" are those who oppose making Islam the successor to communist ideology. They oppose the power of the post-communist elite and cynically readjust Islam to fit their own needs. In all six Islamic countries since 1991 the state establishment practically leads the fight with those Islamic organizations which tend to be independent. The degree of their Islamic fundamentalism doesn't matter or is of secondary importance. In Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Khirgistan, and Turkmenistan, the battle is over and the state establishment has won. In Tajikistan there is a civil war between the post-communist ruling regime and Islamic fundamentalism. It is most typical that the Russian state establishment supports post- communist regimes in Tajikistan. At the same time the Russian Orthodox church has been established on the Russian army base there. Russian Orthodoxy has been made a national symbol for the Russians--as it has been in numerous other arenas.

 The struggle in Kazakhstan continues in peaceful forms and is most elaborate and interesting in its religious dimensions because the population of Kazakhstan is nationalistically quite varied. The north of the country has a great proportion of Russians, Poles and Germans (descendants of those exiled) from Catholic and Lutheran communities. As early as January 1990 the leaders of the Islamic community of Kazakhstan rebelled against the inclusion of Kazakhstan Islamic organizations in the Spiritual Government of Middle Asian Muslims, which was created by the communists in order to have centralized control over all Muslims. The then communist government of Kazakhstan supported this riot and Muslims of the country created an independent national Spiritual Government of Muslims of Kazakhstan (SGMK). In the next few years the leaders of SGMK with the approval of the state establishment began talking of the politics of "cleansing" the imams of non-Kazakhs. Before 1991 nearly half of the imams were Tatars, Uzbeks, and Uygurs. Now practically all imams are Kazakhs, and those "cleansed" left the country. This is part of the common governmental politics of creating a "nationally clean" ruling elite. At the same time the state establishment, led by the dictatorship of President Nazarbayev, is quite removed from ideas of pan-Islamic solidarity. He speaks about Islam in terms which previously have been applied by the same people to communism: the religion "of humanism and brotherhood of the people."

 In December 1990 a party of nationalists, known as "Alash", tried to remove the pro-government oriented Mufti from power. The government, with the help of the armed forces, dispelled the movement. Its leader, Aron Atabek, migrated to Moscow where the militia came to him and took from him a written promise to return to Kazakhstan. He then left for Azerbaijan. Since 1992 the "Alash" has been a clandestine movement.

 There are three Russian Orthodox dioceses in Kazakhstan and a strong nationalist movement of Russian cossacks. It is interesting to note the differences in attitudes toward government and Russian nationalism. The bishop of Alma-Ata, Alexi Kutepov, has managed to maintain good relations with President Nazarbayev. He refrains from supporting the cossack movement. As a result, Nazarbayev has returned to his diocese several churches and donates money from government coffers for the restoration of church buildings. But the center of the Russian nationalistic movement is in the northern dioceses where bishops are more favorable to the movement. It is sure that the cossacks use the Russian Orthodox church only as a platform for their separatist intentions. Bishops of these parts of Kazakhstan look more favorably towards Russian nationalists because for them this movement is of the same spirit as the Russian Orthodox integrism.

 It is important to note that in the Slavic group foreign missionaries are discriminated against. In the "Eastern" group they are persecuted, often with crude force. In Armenia some Krishnaites have been beaten with iron bars, and their books burned. In Georgia the leader of the Krishnaites was shot. In Tajikistan several Russian Orthodox churchmen have been killed. The general picture of these persecutions is very sad indeed.

The Behavior of Church Elites (CE)

 In regard to the interpretation of national problems, the attitudes of leaders of different religious confessions in the former Soviet Union differs. Some openly stress the connection of their religion with a particular nation. This is true not only for Russian or Ukrainian Orthodox, but also for Lutherans (which tend to be exceptionally German or Scandinavian), and even of Roman Catholics, which direct their intentions first of all toward Poles and Germans. Non-traditional (to the former Soviet Union) religious groups--Christian and non-Christian--stress their non-national character.

 As a result in White Russia, for example, there is a battle waging between the Russian Orthodox and the Roman Catholic church. One group promotes "russification" with worship in "old Church Slavonic", and the second promotes polarization. Many White Russians who desire to worship in their own language become Uniates, and submit themselves to the Uniates of Western Ukraine. The same process takes place in Russia: the Roman Catholic church restricts development of its indigenous variant. The official explanation is that this is done because of the "love and deference to the Russian Orthodox church." But unofficially it may be that Roman Catholics are pleased to offer to Russians the opportunity to participate in their own national (French, Polish, etc.) expression of Christianity they merely refrain from active proselytization because of the volatile politico-religious sentiments.

 The same may be said about Protestant missionaries, among which Americans constitute the majority. The most interesting phenomena is that these missionaries often think of themselves as absolutely free of nationalistic tendencies, and consequently may feel superior to the Russian Orthodox. They may interpret the natural hostility of Russians toward them as xenophobic "anti-Western" sentiments. But often these feelings are aimed not toward the Westerners in general but towards the narrow-mindedness of Western missionaries, who don't see that they themselves are quite nationalistic in their stubborn desire to preach the only model they know of the Gospel and church life. Foreign missionaries may think that it is enough to be oriented toward preparing indigenous spiritual leaders to maintain clear consciences in regard to the nationalist temptation. But the problem is that they inadvertently impose upon their Russian successors their own national conceptions, thus making Russians at least "psychological emigrants" in their own country. The same may be said of many Roman Catholics. They block the creative energies of native Russian citizens with their negativistic attitudes--intentional or unintentional--toward Russian (or any other nation of the former Soviet Union) peculiarities and its corresponding social and cultural context.
 

Notes

1.  If there has been any privatization it has only been a transfer from the collective to the pockets of the communist leaders who got their feet in on the ground floor of "capitalism" first.

2.  Fr. Menn was assassinated on the way to church in 1989. This act is widely thought to have been done by the KGB.

3.  Despite positive press reports on the "privatization of property" in the West, less than 5% of property is truly privatized.