The Parable of the Isms - a guest post by Matthew Rojansky



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The Parable of the Isms, as Applied to the Former Soviet Union
Guest post by Matthew Rojansky

My colleague Karim Sadjadpour recently published a satirical analysis of Middle East politics, "The Cynical Dairy Farmer's Guide to the New Middle East," riffing on a famous Cold War joke about communism and capitalism, known as "the parable of the isms."  As Karim noted,

 No one really knows how the two-cow joke known as "Parable of the Isms" came about, but most students of Political Science 101 have likely come across some variation of the following definitions:

Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one of them and gives it to your neighbor.

Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and provides you with milk.

Nazism: You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes the cows.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Satire it may be, but the essential truth of the "cow jokes" is what makes them funny. Karim's thirteen terse metaphors for Middle Eastern regimes cut to the heart of a complex region in which increasing American interest has followed increasing investments of blood and treasure, with very little added understanding of what's really going on.

The Soviet Union suffered no dearth of American attention over nearly half a century after World War II. Yet even the keenest observers, like Kennan and Kissinger, were focused almost entirely on Moscow, and within it mostly on the Kremlin. During the Cold War, that made good sense - after all, no one in Kiev or Almaty, let alone in Chisinau or Ashgabat, was making particularly important decisions for US foreign policy and global security.

But twenty years after the collapse of Communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, things work a bit differently in Eurasia. To understand why drugs flow so readily from Afghanistan through Central Asia and into Russia and Western Europe requires some sense of what's going on - and what's not - in places like Dushanbe and Astana. To see why a NATO-Russia impasse over missile defense is so serious requires an understanding of how the people, and the governments, in Kyiv and Tbilisi relate to their massive neighbor.

The former Soviet republics are no longer defined so much by being formerly Soviet, as by what they have become after twenty years of independence. Yet the old categories - socialist, communist, capitalist, fascist - don't easily work to describe a region where political cultures draw on everything from Rome and Byzantium to Baghdad and Beijing. Let's see how the "parable of the isms" might offer a convenient shorthand guide to the fifteen states that once made up the USSR.

Russia
You have six cows and four bulls. Two of the bulls die from alcoholism, and the remaining two form a "tandem" to take the cows' milk and sell it to Germany and China.

Ukraine
You have four of the most productive cows on the farm, two of which allow themselves to be milked by Russia, which upsets the other two so much their milk goes sour.

Georgia
You have two cows and one prize-winning bull. The bull is so distracted winning prizes that Russia runs away with both cows.

Belarus
You have one cow which you savagely beat until it produces milk. The milk dries up after your last savage beating, so now you must sell the cow to Russia.

Moldova
You have two cows and a calf, but the cows live in Italy and Russia and send milk home by Western Union. You ferment the milk into wine, and launch a frenzied campaign to join the EU. Meanwhile, the calf is stolen and sold by rustlers.

Armenia
You have four cows, but three of them live in Los Angeles and think they are horses. They send money for you to build stables.

Azerbaijan
You have one cow that produces lots of excellent milk. You sell the milk to Farmer Browne and buy cattle prods from Israel and Turkey.

Turkmenistan
You had one cow but you sold it to buy a golden statue of a cow that rotates with the sun.

Kazakhstan
You have two cows that produce vast quantities of milk. You sell the milk, buy each cow a gold-plated cow bell, and declare yourself bull for life.

Kyrgyzstan
You have two cows: one Kyrgyz and one Uzbek; they hate each other and refuse to be milked. Instead of hay, feed them tulips. Then sell one each to Russia and the United States. After six months sell them again.

Tajikistan
You have three cows: one Tajik, one Uzbek, and one Russian. You beat the Russian cow until it runs away, and use your misfortune to plead for international aid. Meanwhile Iran milks your remaining cows.

Uzbekistan
You have four cows. You let them drink all the water in the neighborhood swimming pool. Now no one can go swimming. You blame this on "corrupt and lawless elements," and volunteer to remain in power until the problem is solved.

The Baltic States

You have lost half your cows, for which you blame Russia and demand an apology. As consolation, the EU gives you a sleek Scandinavian-designed barn and NATO farmers teach you advanced milking techniques.

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Conflict Cables: Georgia, and the acceleration of the breakup, 1989-1990

Thanks to the August 2008 war, the conflicts over South Ossetia and Abkhazia have come to be perhaps the best known of the post-Soviet conflicts in the West.  The roots of these conflicts, according to some accounts, go back centuries, but the immediate triggers as the Soviet Union collapsed included missteps by Moscow, rhetorical overreach by a Georgian leader on the verge of independence, and unease over how inter-ethnic deals which had been enforced by Moscow would fare in the post-Soviet reality.

This batch of cables tracks the beginning of the downward spiral into armed ethnic conflict.  The first of them are post-mortems on the violent dispersal of a public protest in Tbilisi in 1989 that came to be known as the "April 9 events."  Six cables describing those events and their immediate aftermath were summarized in an earlier post in this series (read more about the "Conflict Cables" series here).

A May 5, 1989, cable titled "Georgian Activist on Events in Tbilisi" recounts a US Embassy official's conversation with "a prominent Georgian activist...in the 'moderate' Chavchavadze society," in which the anonymous Georgian source suggested a tangled web of motivations which allegedly led to the authorization for the use of force against non-violent protesters.

The Embassy officials' response to their Georgian source's conspiracy theory shows a charming naivete about the capability of Eduard "Silver Fox" Shevardnadze to engage in such machinations for his personal benefit - or perhaps faith in Shevy, who was at the time involved in negotiations with the U.S. on a much bigger stage: "We doubt that Shevardnadze would have put Perestroyka at risk by allowing or even quietly encouraging an ally to destabilize the situation in Georgia in order to bring down a political foe."

A May 6 cable - "More on Tbilisi Demonstrations" - gives a blow-by-blow account of the protesters' tactics and of their demands, which originally focused on Abkhazia but which progressed, in part due to friction between different dissident groups, to demands for independence.

On June 5, a cable went out describing a May 27 "Conversation with [a] Georgian Dissident" - Zviad Gamsakhurdia - declassified here for the first time, as far as I know, which shows Gamsakhurdia's penchant for wild accusations and inflammatory rhetoric. Gamsakhurdia remains controversial to this day in Georgia. In mid-1989, he began by "ACCUS[ING] THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT OF WAGING "GENOCIDE" AGAINST THE GEORGIAN PEOPLE, THROUGH THE USE OF CHEMICAL POISONS AND "ECOLOGICAL WARFARE".

Later in the conversation, he discussed Abkhazia and South Ossetia:

IN DISCUSSING INTER-ETHNIC RELATIONS WITHIN GEORGIA, GAMSAKHURDIA SHOWED LITTLE TOLERANCE FOR THE REPUBLIC'S INDIGENOUS MINORITIES AND WARNED OF KARABAKH-LIKE SITUATIONS DEVELOPING IN THE ABKHAZIA AUTONOMOUS SSR AS WELL AS THE SOUTHERN OSETIAN AUTONOMOUS OBLAST'. HE DESCRIBED THE ABKHAZIANS AS "THE TRAITORS OF THE CAUCASUS" AND AS "CORRUPTED PEOPLE" WHO "WANT TO RUSSIFY THEMSELVES", CLAIMING THAT THE ABKHAZIAN NATIONAL MOVEMENT IS ACTUALLY PROVOKED BY MOSCOW AND LED BY "TURKISH MOSLEMS" AS A TYPE OF GEORGIAN "INTERFRONT". HE INITIALLY CHARACTERIZED THE POLITICAL POSITION OF ABKHAZIAN AUTHOR FAZIL ISKANDER AS "NEUTRAL" BUT NEVERTHELESS FELT IT NECESSARY TO POINT OUT THAT ISKANDER IS AN ETHNIC PERSIAN AND A "GREAT LIAR".

ACCORDING TO THE GEORGIAN NATIONALIST, A SECOND GEORGIAN "INTERFRONT" -- A REFERENCE TO THE PRO-RUSSIAN GROUPS WHICH HAVE EMERGED IN THE BALTICS -- WAS BEING EXPLOITED BY MOSCOW AMONG THE 60,000 OSETIANS IN SOUTHERN OSETIA. GAMSAKHURDIA CLAIMED THAT HE HAD JUST RECEIVED REPORTS OF GEORGIANS BEING BEATEN IN SEVERAL OSETIAN VILLAGES, CLAIMING THAT THE OSETIAN POPULATION IS "VERY AGGRESSIVE". GEORGIANS ARE BEING OPPRESSED ON THEIR OWN LAND IN ABKHAZIA AND OSETIA, ACCORDING TO GAMSAKHURDIA, WITH THE POTENTIAL FOR MORE VIOLENT CONFLICTS.

Interestingly, this cable was apparently written by (or at least signed by) Richard Miles, later U.S. Ambassador to Georgia during the Rose Revolution.

During an August 1989 visit to Tbilisi, US Embassy officials spoke with a number of "Georgian intellectuals" (at a time when intellectuals still mattered politically), all of whom had "Abkhazia on their minds."  Their comments were summed up in an August 23 cable titled "Georgian Political Affairs." The Georgians were troubled by their portrayal in the Western press as "oppressors" of their national minorities.  One source saw the interethnic strife as "the work of a local Abkhazian mafia struggling to maintain its privileges in the face of a growing democratic movement throughout Georgia," which would leave the Abkhazians stripped of privileges as a result of being outnumbered  in their own autonomy.

Other interlocutors pointed suspicious fingers at Moscow, Turkey and Central Asia in explaining the unrest in Abkhazia.  None of the Americans' contacts was willing to entertain the possibility of satisfying the Abkhaz demands to elevate the Abkhazian ASSR to union republic status - "there were simply too few Abkhazians for that."  Georgians were already speaking about increased sovereignty and independence, though not necessarily of full-fledged secession from the USSR. 

The next few cables are roundups of "USSR domestic developments" and focus on other issues in addition to Georgia and other hot spots around the Soviet Union, which was by this point coming apart, though no one realized it at the time.  The first of these cables, dated November 9, 1989, includes a summary of a conversation with "noted Soviet pollster" Yuri Levada (paragraphs 15-16) as well as a synopsis of a familiar-sounding interaction with an opinionated taxi driver (para. 22), and quotes the "KGB press service" (para. 18) as stating that the "'present generation' of security officers dissociates itself from the Stalinist NKVD and condemns the arbitrariness of that period" (there appears to have been some regression in that regard since 1989).  Updates on South Ossetia (para. 27) and disruptions of Revolution Day celebrations in "Kishinev, Moldavia" (para. 31) and Tbilisi (para. 32), and the formal establishment of the "Soviet Interfront of Georgia," which swiftly demanded official status for the Russian language (para. 33).  There is also an interesting discussion of Soviet lawmaking (para. 34).

The November 17, 1989 "USSR Domestic Developments" cable melds old-school Sovietology (an extensive discussion of who stood on "the mausoleum" during the November 7 parade) with earnest discussions of the Soviet legislative calendar and priorities and comments from people like Anatoly Sobchak, and speculation like "Yel'tsin on the decline?" (para. 17).  Also interesting in light of current events are discussions of various popular front initiatives (paras. 20-21) and comments from Andranik Migranyan (para. 22) about domestic politics.  There is also a discussion of the "deteriorating" situation in Karabakh (para. 28) and of demands by Gamsakhurdia, whose organization is now referred to as "radical," that "Ossetians either support Georgian calls for independence from the Soviet Union or leave Georgia," and his forays into South Ossetia with busloads of armed men (para. 30).

The final roundup cable in this batch is "USSR Domestic Developments: December 1."  This one contains extensive discussion of Soviet domestic political developments, including some portions that apparently still merit classification and were redacted before the cable was released to me.  Not redacted, though, are some interesting points about the Karabakh conflict as it stood toward the end of 1989 (paras. 25-28), including some interesting comments by Yevgeny Primakov:

DURING A SPASO HOUSE DINNER NOVEMBER 29, YEVGENIY PRIMAKOV (PROTECT), A CANDIDATE POLITBURO MEMBER AND THE CHAIRMAN OF THE SUPREME SOVIET'S COUNCIL OF THE UNION, SAID, "THE ARMENIANS WILL SIMPLY HAVE TO COME TO TERMS WITH THE PRESENT SITUATION." HE IMPLIED THERE WAS NO HOPE NAGORNO-KARABAKH WOULD EVER BE UNITED WITH ARMENIA. ACCORDING TO PRIMAKOV, THERE IS NO SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM AND EMOTIONS ARE RUNNING TOO HIGH FOR ARMENIANS AND AZERBAYDZHANIS TO REACH A COMPROMISE.

GEORGIY TARAZEVICH (PROTECT), CHAIRMAN OF THE SUPREME SOVIET COMMISSION ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH, WHO VISITED THE AREA EARLY IN NOVEMBER, TOLD EMBOFF NOVEMBER 16 THAT HE BELIEVED THE SITUATION HAS DEADLOCKED.

This cable also has a brief update on continuing tension in South Ossetia (para. 29) and some thoughts from an unnamed Moldovan economist about new First Secretary Petr Luchinsky, and about leadership in the republic in general:

THE ECONOMIST SAID MOLDAVIA'S LEADERS WERE GENERALLY INCOMPETENT BECAUSE, UNLIKE IN THE BALTIC REPUBLICS, THE BEST LEADERS IN MOLDAVIA ALWAYS MOVED ON TO MOSCOW.

The next cable in this batch is titled "Tension Mounts in Georgia as Nationalism Grows," and is dated February 13, 1990. Embassy officials visiting Tbilisi "found the sense of fear palpable," and one source told them that the situation was "like a volcano ready to erupt any time."

In the midst of an extensive discussion of Georgian domestic issues, upcoming elections and emerging political groups is this instructive summary of Georgian Popular Front (PFG) Deputy Chairman Avtandil Imnadze's view of minority rights in a Georgia that was lurching toward independence:

THE PFG'S NATIONALIST VIEWS LEAVE FEW RIGHTS TO OTHER REPUBLIC ETHNIC GROUPS. WHILE IMNADZE TOLD EMBOFF THAT "WE WILL NOT VIOLATE THE RIGHTS OF OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS," HIS UNDERSTANDING OF THOSE RIGHTS IS VERY LIMITED AND GIVES NON-GEORGIANS VIRTUALLY NO POLITICAL POWER. "AFTER ALL," IMNADZE SAID, "THEY DO NOT BELONG HERE. THEY ARE ONLY OUR GUESTS." SEVERAL OTHER GEORGIANS WHO WERE NOT PFG MEMBERS ALSO EXPRESSED THIS SENTIMENT.

There is also discussion toward the end of the cable of the Georgian response to the deployment of Soviet troops in Baku in January 1990.

A cable from November 2, 1990 titled "Georgian Elections - Opposition Round Table Defeats Communists" summarized the implications of the elections won by Zviad Gamsakhurdia's Round Table - Free Georgia group.

GAMSAKHURDIA'S BLOC ADVOCATED INDEPENDENCE FROM MOSCOW, MAINTAINING GEORGIAN TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY IN THE FACE OF MINORITY GROUP DEMANDS FOR AUTONOMY OR UNION WITH THE RSFSR.

There is also discussion of the way the election observation was conducted and the presence of foreign observers, noting some procedural flaws which did not in the estimation of the Embassy officials detract from the fairness of the elections. However:

MORE SERIOUS, PERHAPS, THAN THESE PROCEDURAL INCONSISTENCIES BEFORE AND DURING THE ELECTION WAS THE DECISION BY ABKHAZIA AND OSSETIAN NATIONAL GROUPS TO BOYCOTT THE ELECTIONS. INDEED, IN DISTRICTS WITHIN THE OSSETIAN CAPITAL OF TKHSINVALI LESS THAN TEN PERCENT OF THE REGISTERED VOTERS CAST BALLOTS. IN TWO DISTRICTS IN ABKHAZIA ELECTORAL COMMISSIONS DISINTEGRATED AND ELECTIONS WERE NOT HELD AT ALL.

The position of the election's victor on the Abkhazians and Ossetians also did not bode well for inter-ethnic harmony in Georgia:

GAMSAKHURDIA ALSO SAID HE BELIEVES IN RESPECT FOR THE POLITICAL, CULTURAL, AND RELIGIOUS RIGHTS OF THE MINORITIES LIVING IN THE REPUBLIC, BUT NOT THEIR INDEPENDENCE OR SEPARATION FROM THE GEORGIAN REPUBLIC. ANY SOLUTION TO THE MINORITY PROBLEM, HE STRESSED, MUST PRESERVE THE TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY OF GEORGIA AND TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE RIGHTS OF THE MAJORITY. [...]

GAMSAKHURDIA'S VICTORY COULD FURTHER FUEL ETHNIC TENSIONS AND CONFLICTS IN THE REGION. HE IS VIEWED BY SOME OF THE MINORITY GROUPS, PARTICULARLY THE ABKHAZIANS AND OSSETIANS, AS A GEORGIAN NATIONALIST AT BEST AND A CHAUVINIST AT WORST. HIS UNCOMPROMISING POSITION WITH RESPECT TO THE SOUTHERN OSSETIANS, WHOM HE HAS CALLED A MINORITY WITHOUT RIGHTS TO THE LANDS THEY OCCUPY, HAS BEEN ESPECIALLY TROUBLING EVEN TO OTHER MEMBERS OF THE GEORGIAN DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION.

The cable's author(s) reached this unfortunately prescient conclusion:

THE RESISTANCE OF COMMUNIST PARTY APPARATCHIKI, AND THE RESENTMENT AND FEAR EXPRESSED BY MINORITY GROUPS IN ABKHAZIA AND SOUTHERN OSSETIA MAKE FOR A VOLATILE MIX: WITHOUT RESOLUTION OF THE PERSONAL ANIMOSITIES AMONG THE FORMER OPPOSITION LEADERS AND THE CONSENT OF THE ENTRENCHED COMMUNIST BUREAUCRATS, GEORGIA WILL, AT BEST, REMAIN CRITICALLY DIVIDED AT A TIME OF GREAT POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INSTABILITY, AND, AT WORST, MAY SLIDE INTO FACTIONAL FIGHTING AND CIVIL WAR.

The final cable in this batch, from December 18, 1990, is titled "Union Treaty Negotiations: The Caucasus, Moldova, and the Baltics." This one is worth embedding in full, as it is laden with interesting observations about the internal situations in the republics of the Caucasus and Moldova, e.g. "INTERESTINGLY, FORMER COMMUNIST PARTY LEADER GElDER ALIYEV, FAMOUS FOR HIS CORRUPT POLITICAL PRACTICES, HAS MADE A POLITICAL COMEBACK AS A REBORN NATIONALIST."

Union Treaty Negotiations: The Caucasus, Moldova, and the Baltics (Dec. 18, 1990)

 

Conflict Cables: Moldova-Transdniester Nov-Dec 1991

Mircea Snegur votes for himself - Dec. 8, 1991

As the Soviet Union formally fell apart, Moldovan President Mircea Snegur had his leadership validated an uncontested election in December 1991.  It was an eventful month, with the election preceded by independence referendums in Transdniester and Gagauzia on December 1 and followed by renewed violence in Transdniester and then Moldova's signing of the Alma-Ata Protocols under which it joined the Commonwealth of Independent States.  This post summarizes seven newly State Department cables newly declassified and released through the FOIA process, which I have made available on Scribd - read more about the Conflict Cables series here.

The stage is set by a November 5 cable from U.S. Embassy Moscow assessing the "Moldovan Political Scene as Foreign Minister Tiu Visits U.S.," in which the "principal political issue in Moldova" was described as "whether to unify with Romania or set out on the path of full independence." 

On December 8th, as three men signed away the USSR in a forest outside of Minsk, Moldova held elections.  Embassy Moscow had sent officials to observe, and they sent a brief cable on the 9th reporting Snegur's unsurprising victory which concluded with the following comment:

The vote appeared to be more a mandate for Moldovan independence and national unity than a reflection of support for Snegur as an individual.  While many Moldovan officials encountered had high expectations that Snegur would somehow be able to solve the separatist problem once he had a popular mandate, the task looks to be a hard one.  Trans-Dniester and Gagauz officials appear remarkably rigid, and, according to Moldovan government officials, the Trans-Dniester "government" is backed by Soviet military arms provided by forces based in Tiraspol.

A more detailed report on the elections, including difficulties faced by voters in Transdniester, followed several days later:
Moldovan Elections: Snegur Wins While Separatist Regions Obstruct Voting Process (Dec. 12, 1991)

This cable reported on the Embassy observers' visits to Comrat and to Tiraspol, where they learned about "the difficulties and discrimination faced by [ethnic] Moldovans in everyday life in the Trans-Dniester," and noted the following:

In both the Gagauz and Trans-Dniester regions, poloffs heard repeated claims of fraud during the previous week's [December 1] independence referendums and presidential elections.  There were numerous reports of attempts to force people to vote, including the use of armed militia who attempted to force villagers into mobile "bus polls" which went from village to village.  Some said they were threatened with loss of jobs if they did not vote.

Shortly after the elections, a December 13 cable summarized increasing Moldovan concern with alleged Soviet military support for the secessionists in Transdniester, including charges that Soviet troops were participating directly in the conflict, that military equipment being withdrawn from Eastern Europe was being diverted to the region, and in general that the secessionists were "receiving material and political support from mainline Soviet military forces...with the knowledge and perhaps approval of military and political leaders in Moscow."

The December 13 cable also described Moldovan allegations that Moscow was also already beginning to deploy its potent media weapon:

Moldovan officials also claim to see a pattern of bias in official statements and media reporting from Moscow which focuses excessively on Moldovan ethnic and economic problems.  They contend this is an attempt to portray Moldova as a hotbed of ethnic strife with massive economic problems; such an image could later be used to justify interference in Moldova under the guise of protecting ethnic Russians or preventing economic chaos.  On December 2, the presidium of the Moldovan Parliament issued an official statement charging Moscow-based news organizations with a prejudiced attitude toward Moldova.  One Moldovan official cited a November 30 TASS report of electrical shortages in Moldova as an example of inaccurate reporting.  The report claimed Moldova was short of fuel for electrical generation and was therefore alloting only four hours per day of electricity to residences.  The official said this was completely false; during their December 6-9 visit poloffs observed no unusual electricity problems and heard no one mention any such problems.

A "late development" - renewed violence on Dec. 13 in the city of Dubossary - was described in the last paragraph of the cable, including details about Transdniestrian authorities' accusations that the fighting was provoked by the Moldovan Popular Front and involved "Romanian weapons."

A subsequent cable on December 17th went into more detail about the flare-up in Dubossary and related Chisinau's side of the story - that "the fighting was an intentional provocation by the Trans-Dniester leadership designed to sabotage impending Russian recognition of Moldovan independence." The diplomats in Moscow, however, concluded that the violence so soon after elections in both Transdniester and right-bank Moldova "may also have been the result of a new assertiveness on the part of the leaderships of both areas, anxious to exercise their new mandate." Shying away from assigning blame, the cable concludes with the possibility that this was "simply a case of two increasingly assertive forces finally colliding, with both sides equally at fault."
Violence in Trans-Dniester: Complications for Moldovan-Russian Relationship (Dec. 17, 1991)

Also on December 17th, Moscow relayed to Washington that the Moldovan Foreign Minister had urgently requested a meeting to discuss the Transdniester issue with Secretary of State James Baker during the latter's scheduled visit to Kiev, and again summarized Moldovan concerns that the situation could turn into an "inter-republic" confrontation with Russia.

A third December 17 cable from Moscow describes a conversation with a Moldovan official in Moscow "as the Moldovan delegate to the Bilateral Relations Committee" (name redacted in the version released by the State Department, but they didn't redact his position which should make him easy to identify). This one is perhaps the most interesting of this batch as it summarizes a the candid views (in a conversation at an embassy reception) of a high-level Moldovan at the time about the country's aspirations for reunification with Romania, discussing things like potential territory swaps with Ukraine and the fact one of the factors slowing down reunification is that Snegur "enjoys being 'President' of a separate country and is not eager to give up that role." The source also trash-talks Moldovan Foreign Minister Tiu toward the end of the cable - see for yourself:

Aide to Moldovan Foreign Minister Describes Moldovan Political Picture (Dec. 17, 1991)

As this challenging month of a challenging year came to a close, Moldova after all signed up to join the new Commonwealth of Independent States. The cable below is interesting because it describes Russian and Central Asian reactions to the Alma Ata agreement as well as Moldovan reactions and is worth reading in full for any student of the Soviet collapse:

Reactions to Alma Ata Accords: Russia, Central Asia, Moldova (Dec. 26, 1991)

As a postscript, I can't resist sharing this photo from a later moment in President Snegur's career (presumably some time in 1992), mainly because I can't resist sharing something that shows our current Secretary of State in her previous life as an Arkansas political wife.

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Conflict Cables Series: Abkhazia and the April 1989 Events in Tbilisi

 

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Unfortunately, I do not have too many cables on Abkhazia to share (read more about the "conflict cables" series here).  I'm still awaiting a response on my FOIA request covering the years of the actual conflict; therefore the Abkhazia-related material I'll be uploading for now is from 1989-90, when people were still trying to figure out what was going to happen to the USSR.

One of the clarifying events - at least viewed from a distance of a couple of decades - was the violence of April 9, 1989 in Tbilisi, Georgia.  The demonstration that Soviet troops broke up by hacking their way through a crowd of protesters with sappers' shovels was at least in part a response to a gathering the previous month in the Abkhazian village of Lykhny calling for the Abkhazian ASSR no longer be a part of the Georgian SSR. This tragedy still serves as a rallying point for Georgians who see the country's future free of Russian influence.

In the aftermath of April 9, the Soviet government attempted to demonstrate its openness by conducting a public investigation - above is a clip from Vremya in 1989 in which a the country's deputy general prosecutor is interviewed about the progress of the investigation, and here is the final report of the "Sobchak Commission" - constituted by the Congress of People's Deputies and headed by Anatoly Sobchak, who later became better known as the mayor of St. Petersburg and as a supporter of his former subordinate and protege, Vladimir Putin (Sobchak's name has lived on after his untimely death in 2000 as his daughter, TV personality and Paris-Hilton-like waste of space Ksenia Sobchak, has grown ever more infamous).

But I digress.  The six cables I've uploaded today are dated between April 6 and 13, 1989, and contain descriptions of the events in Abkhazia that motivated the Tbilisi demonstration and of the aftermath of the April 9 violence.

They also show the difficulties U.S. diplomats based in Moscow faced in monitoring rapidly developing situations in far-flung republics and the degree to which they were forced to rely on potentially unreliable sources in informing Washington, as well as the surprising fact that aspirations on the part of some Georgians to join "NATO" were causing problems in Tbilisi's relationship with Moscow as far back as 1989.  Click on the titles below to view scans of the full cables (I decided to experiment with not embedding them from Scribd, as I think doing so may make the page load slower).

Political Turmoil in Georgia over Abkhazia (April 6, 1989)
ACADEMICIAN SAKHAROV (PROTECT) TOLD A NATO AMBASSADOR APRIL 3 THAT GEORGIAN SOURCES HE CONSIDERED RELIABLE REPORTED THAT TROOPS FROM TBILISI WERE DEPLOYED TO ABKHAZIA OVER THE APRIL 1 WEEKEND TO FORESTALL POSSIBLE ETHNIC DISTURBANCES AS A RESULT OF RISING ETHNIC TENSION THERE. GEORGIAN DISSIDENT SOURCES REPORTED THE SAME. SAKHAROV ALSO REPORTED HE HAD HEARD THERE WERE ANTI-GEORGIAN DEONSTRATIONS IN SUKHUMI MARCH 31, AND HE DREW A PARELLEL WITH THE SITUATION IN ABKHAZIA AND THAT IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH IN LATE 1987, I.E., BEFORE THE KARABAKH CRISIS BLEW UP.

Abkhazia First Secretary Removed; Tbilisi Demonstrations Continue (April 10, 1989)
DEMONSTRATION ORGANIZERS HAVE SPLIT OVER THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF GEORGIAN INDEPENDENCE AND THE ABKHAZIA ISSUE. MODERATES IN THE IL'YA CHAVCHAVADZE SOCIETY AND RUSTAVELLI [SIC] SOCIETY, AS WELL AS RADICALS IN THE SAINT IL'YA SOCIETY, HAVE SOUGHT TO FOCUS PUBLIC ATTENTION ON ABKHAZIA. WHEREAS RADICALS IN THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY (NDP) AND NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE PARTY (NIM) INVOLVED IN ORGANIZING THE DEMONSTRATIONS HAVE REJECTED CALLS FOR A MASS INFLUX OF GEORGIANS TO ABKHAZIA AND HAVE EMPHASIZED THE GOAL OF GEORGIAN INDEPENDENCE FROM THE USSR. MODERATE GEORGIAN NATIONALIST ZURAB CHAVCHAVADZE, ADDRESSING DEMONSTRATORS APRIL 5, REPORTEDLY CALLED FOR ADLEYBA'S REMOVAL. HUNGER STRIKERS IN FRONT OF THE GOVERNMENT HOUSE NUMBERED 170 ON THE EVENING OF APRIL 7, ACCORDING TO GEORGIAN DISSIDENT SOURCES.

Soviet Troops Break up Tbilisi Demonstration; at Least 16 Dead (April 11, 1989)
ACCORDING TO GEORGIAN DISSIDENT SOURCES, SPECIAL RIOT TROOPS DISPERSED WITH FORCE ABOUT 8000 DEMONSTRATORS IN FRONT OF THE TBILISI GOVERNMENT HOUSE AT 3 A.M. APRIL 9. THE TROOPS REPORTEDLY USED TEAR GAS, CLUBS AND SPADES (LOPATKY).

ACCORDING TO AN AM[ERICAN] CIT[IZEN] (PROTECT) IN TBILISI, THE CROWD WAS DEMONSTRATING PEACEFULLY WHEN THE TROOPS MOVED IN. ONE GEORGIAN WOMAN REPORTEDLY THREW HERSELF IN FRONT OF AN APPROACHING TANK AND WAS CRUSHED. AN APRIL 9 TASS STATEMENT PUT THE DEATH TOLL AT 16 AND CLAIMED THEIR DEATHS RESULTED FROM BEING TRAMPLED BY THE CROWD WHEN SECURITY FORCES CLASHED WITH THE DEMONSTRATORS. [...]

WE HOPE TO GET SEVERAL EMB[ASSY] OFF[ICIAL]S TO GEORGIA BY THE END OF THE WEEK TO TRY TO GET A CLEARER PICTURE OF WHAT APPEARS TO BE QUITE A TENSE SITUATION

Georgian Update: Situation April 11 (April 11, 1989)
SEVERAL GEORGIAN DISSIDENT SOURCES AND AM[ERICAN] CIT[IZEN] OBSERVERS HAVE SHARED WITH US THEIR VIEW THAT THE DECISION TO SEND IN TROOPS STEMMED FROM CONCERN THAT THE DEMONSTRATION, WHICH HAD BEGUN IN PROTEST AGAINST CALLS FOR ABKHAZIA'S SECESSION FROM GEORGIA, HAD TAKEN AN ANTI-SOVIET AND ANTI-RUSSIAN TURN.

DEMONSTRATION LEADERS DEMANDING GEORGIAN INDEPENDENCE AND BANNERS CALLING FOR REMOVAL OF RUSSIANS FROM GEORGIA HAD TOUCHED A RAW NERVE IN MOSCOW. IN THESE SOURCES' VIEW, CALLS BY DEMONSTRATION SPEAKERS FOR AN INDEPENDENT GEORGIAN REPUBLIC'S ADMISSION INTO THE "UN" AND "NATO" MUST HAVE PROVOKED THE SOVIET LEADERSHIP TO AGREE TO USE TROOPS TO DISPERSE THE DEMONSTRATORS.

Georgia Update: April 13 (April 13, 1989)
GEORGIAN INTELLECTUALS WERE CONCERNED OVER THE GROWING DISPARITY BETWEEN THE COVERAGE OF THE SOVIET CENTRAL MEDIA AND THE GEORGIAN MEDIA. FOR EXAMPLE, AN APRIL 12 ARTICLE IN "KOMMUNIST", AN ORGAN OF THE GEORGIAN CC, DESCRIBED THE APRIL 9 DEMONSTRATION AS "PEACEFUL AND NO THREAT TO PUBLIC SECURITY," WHILE THE CENTRAL PRESS (SEE TASS APRIL 12) ACCUSED DEMONSTRATION LEADERS OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE TRAGIC DEATHS, STATED OUR SOURCE. [...]

THE QUESTION OF INDEPENDENCE FOR NON-RUSSIAN REPUBLICS IS A SENSITIVE ONE FOR SOVIET LEADERS. GORBACHEV MADE CLEAR IN HIS APRIL 12 APPEAL TO THE GEORGIAN PEOPLE THAT HE REJECTS CALLS FOR GEORGIA INDEPENDENCE. SO FAR, HOWEVER, THE SOVIET MEDIA HAS REFRAINED FROM PUBLICLY ACCUSING WESTERN STATES OF FOMENTING NATIONALIST UNREST IN GEORGIA.

Abkhazian Accusations Against Georgians (April 13, 1989)
EMBASSY HAS RECEIVED FROM A DISSIDENT SOURCE A COPY OF WHAT PURPORTS TO BE THE TEXT OF A STATEMENT NOW CIRCULATING IN ABKHAZIA ACCUSING GEORGIANS OF VIOLATING THE RIGHTS OF THE ABKHAZIAN PEOPLE. THE STATEMENT HAS REPORTEDLY BEEN SIGNED BY OVER 30,000 PERSONS, INCLUDING B.V. ADLEYBA, A DEPUTY TO THE CONGRESS OF PEOPLE'S DEPUTIES WHO WAS OUSTED AS ABKHAZIA OBKOM FIRST SECRETARY APRIL 6. [Text of statement follows].