REGIONAL IDEOLOGIES IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA: IN SEARCH OF A POSTSOVIET IDENTITY

Ivan V. Gololobov

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Government University of Essex

Date of Conferment:

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................... 6 NOTE ON STYLE ................................................................................................ 8 ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................... 11

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 13 Setting out the problem........................................................................................ 13 Basic methodological assumptions...................................................................... 18 Regional ideology: defining the term.................................................................... 23 The method and sources to be adopted in the research...................................... 26 The structure of the thesis ................................................................................... 29

CHAPTER 1: RUSSIAN REGIONAL STUDIES AND THE QUESTION OF IDEOLOGY.......................................................................................................... 31 The structure of Chapter 1................................................................................... 31 The question of ideology in contemporary Russian social sciences .................... 32 Regional studies in pre-Revolutionary Russia ..................................................... 35 Regional studies in the Soviet Union: 1917-1991 ................................................ 37

Russian regional studies after 1991: gaining the material ................................... 38 Russian regional studies after 1991: regionalisation is rendered ideological ....... 41 Approaching regional ideologies: the primordialist paradigm............................... 48 Approaching regional ideologies: studies in regional political elite....................... 55 Regional ideologies in focus: Arbakhan Magomedov and the Mystery of Regionalism ................................................................................ 58 Conclusion to Chapter 1 ...................................................................................... 68

CHAPTER 2: IDEOLOGY, DISCOURSE AND SOCIAL CHANGE: INTRODUCTION OF THE METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK........................ 70 Introduction to Chapter 2 ..................................................................................... 70 Ideology as the greatest of arts [] regulating society and as obscure and shadowy metaphysics .................................................................. 71 The Marxist encounter ......................................................................................... 73 The post-Marxist critique ..................................................................................... 74 Michel Foucault.................................................................................................... 80 The IDA approach: basic assumptions ................................................................ 89 The concept of dislocation ................................................................................... 94 Social antagonism ............................................................................................... 99 Empty signifiers ................................................................................................... 102

Logics of equivalence and difference................................................................... 103 The notion of the subject ..................................................................................... 105 Hegemonic articulation ........................................................................................ 106 The rise and the fall of democratic hegemony in post-Soviet Russia................... 112

CHAPTER 3: THE IDEOLOGICAL PROJECT OF NIKOLAY KONDRATENKO AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE KUBANIAN REGIONAL DISCOURSE .... 120 Introducing the case ............................................................................................ 120 The structure of the chapter................................................................................. 125 Facing the 1990s as Russian ............................................................................. 126 What does to be Russian mean for Kondratenko?............................................. 132 Dislocation in context........................................................................................... 138 Naming the enemy............................................................................................... 145 Performing political subjectivity............................................................................ 148 Conducting the struggle....................................................................................... 152 Articulating the regional idea ............................................................................... 156 Drawing out regional difference ........................................................................... 162 Institutionalising the regional identity ................................................................... 163

Conclusion to Chapter 3 ...................................................................................... 171

CHAPTER 4: THE IDEOLOGICAL PROJECT OF YURIY LUZHKOV AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE MUSCOVITE REGIONAL DISCOURSE . 173 Introducing the case ............................................................................................ 173 The structure of the chapter................................................................................. 179 Facing the 1990s as a manager......................................................................... 180 What does to be a manager mean for Luzhkov? ............................................... 181 Dislocation in context........................................................................................... 189 Naming the enemy............................................................................................... 198 Performing political subjectivity............................................................................ 205 Conducting the struggle....................................................................................... 209 Articulating the regional idea ............................................................................... 217 Drawing out regional difference ........................................................................... 218 Institutionalising the regional identity ................................................................... 222 Conclusion to Chapter 4 ...................................................................................... 229

CHAPTER 5: REGIONAL IDEOLOGIES IN PUTINS RUSSIA ........................... 230

Introduction to Chapter 5 ..................................................................................... 230 The structure of the chapter................................................................................. 231 The limits of the regional imaginary ..................................................................... 231 Regional ideologies in the struggle for the post-Soviet Russian nation ............... 236 Strong state building and the decline of regional ideologies............................... 245 Losing the ideological battle: the political transformations of the regional ideologues........................................................................................ 254 Putins administrative reform: losing administrative resources ............................ 257

CONCLUSION..................................................................................................... 268

BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................. 274 Literature ............................................................................................................. 274 Sources ............................................................................................................... 287 APPENDIX .......................................................................................................... 294

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This thesis could not have been written without the financial support of the joint PhD programme run by the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (MSSES) and the University of Essex. It could also not have been produced without the people who contributed their knowledge, time and effort throughout the long period of my studies. They are: Dr. Igor Kuznetsov who was my first scientific supervisor at Kuban State University; Prof. Tatyana Alekseeva, from the faculty of the political sciences at the MSSES who advised my MA thesis; Dr. Helge Blakkisrud, the Head of the Centre for Russian Studies at the Norwegian Institute for Foreign Affairs where I gained my first experience in the field of political science. This thesis is itself a result of intensive study and research carried out at the University of Essex under the supervision of Dr. Aletta Norval. I am infinitely indebted to her for her precise and patient direction of my work. I would also like to thank the rest of the teaching staff of the Ideology and Discourse Analysis programme, most notably - Dr. David Howarth, Prof. Ernesto Laclau and Dr. Jason Glynos, as well as my colleagues, in communication with whom many ideas in this thesis were born. I am also grateful to the administrative staff of the joint PhD programme Lynn Baird, Anna Solodyankina and Gulnaz Kallimullina who excluded me, as far as possible, from the administrative problems associated with the writing of this thesis. Last but not least I want to thank my parents for their constant support of my academic plans. And finally, my sincere regards go to Nolle Qunivet whose love, kindness and

attention made the problems with constructing my argument the only ones I encountered during the writing of the thesis.

NOTE TO STYLE

Transliteration The text contains a substantial amount of original sources published in Russian as well as significant number of references to the Russian names and surnames. For this the following system of transliteration is adopted in this thesis.
Russian letters , , , , , , , , , , , Transliterated equivalents A, a B, b V, v G, g D, d Ye, e Yo, yo Zh, zh Z, z I Y,y except when in the end of a word it follows , then I; for example Zhirinovskiy (), but bednyi (); or when the proper name is written in a different way by its owner, like for example Lukoil (); or if this term became used in the other transliteration like perestroika. K, k L, l M, m N, n O, n P, p R, r S, s T, t U, u F, f Kh, kh Ts, ts Ch, ch Sh, sh Shch, shch Y, y unless the word is known in the other transliteration, then omitted, like in Yeltsin () Eh, eh Yu, yu Ya, ya

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Highlighting and bracketing Sometimes the original Russian expression does not have its adequate equivalent in English. Then this word or expression is given in round brackets and in italics transliterated. The square brackets contain authors interventions and comments to the quoted passage. The proper names of organisations, journals, newspapers, titles of the books and the articles are given in italics. In the text the original Russian terms of administrative and territorial division are untranslated but transliterated, for example: kray, oblast, gubernia, zemstvo etc. The international terms like republic are translated.

Quoting Quotations exceeding 60 words are given as a special paragraph in font 10. The other ones are marked in the text by single commas.

Footnoting The footnoting is done according to the system adopted in the British Journal of Political Sciences. Books are listed by authors, title, place and publishers, a year of publication and a page referred.

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References to the articles published in collections include author, title, book it is published in (including the editors), place, publisher, year, pages and a particular page referred. Articles in journals are referred through their author, title, name of the journal, number and the time published, as well as the pages of the articles and particular page referred. Newspapers articles are listed by author (if any), title, newspapers, date and the year. Some original Russian sources do not contain the full first name of the author. In such cases the first letters are given as they are in the original papers. Internet resources are given as they appear on the web-browser with indications of the date the resource was last visited.

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ABSTRACT

This piece of research is dedicated to the problem of the construction of a new identity in post-Soviet Russia. The genesis of regional identities is the main focus of the investigation. I argue that these identities were brought into being by a particular ideological practice, which in fact constituted regionalist ideas. The articulation of regionalist ideas is the result of a particular ideological response to the situation of social dis-identification generated by the dissolution of the USSR and the disappearance of the community of the Soviet people. The study focuses on two such concrete solutions, namely the ideological projects of, first, the Kubanian Governor Nikolay Kondratenko, the leader of the regional political organisation Fatherland, the Governor of of Krasnodar kray from 1996 to 2000, the kray representative in the Federal Council from 1994 to 1996 and from 2000 to the present; and of the Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov. Drawing on the new theories of discourse, mainly represented in the works of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, we will conclude that the articulation of particular ideas of Moscow and Kuban is a structural component of the projects, which was incorporated in order to retain the identities which had in fact been born within Soviet discourse and which were unachievable in the transformational atmosphere of the new Russia. On the basis of a wide corpus of texts produced by the aforementioned politicians the thesis demonstrates how regionalist ideas became a nodal point fixing an entire political logic. Deploying a number of supplementary historical sources I show that this articulation lies at the foundation of the policies which aimed to institutionalise the particular regionalities, and translated into legal and administrative privileges which were given to the subject of the regional population. The thesis concludes with a

12

discussion of the hegemonic potential of the regionalist ideologies in question, and their subsequent history.

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INTRODUCTION

Setting out the problem

Twenty-six attempts preceded the present genesis, all of which were destined to fail. The world of man has arisen out of the chaotic heart of the preceding debris; he too is exposed to the risk of failure, and the return to nothing. Lets hope it worksexclaimed God as he created the World, and this hope, which has accompanied all the subsequent history of the world and mankind, has emphasized right from the outset that this history is branded with the mark of radical uncertainty.1

It did not. And the twenty seventh attempt to create the world was not the last one. The entire subsequent history of humanity consists of eternal struggles between the organising reason seeking to bring a particular order in the world of humans and chaos dissolving this order into a stream of spontaneous, unpredictable and irreversible events. Our research is devoted to one example of such opposition, detected in a particular time and in a particular place, where a formerly stable social order falls into pieces, one more time proving the truth of the Creators concern. In 1991 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the first socialist state, which, like all other attempts, was thought to be the last response to the challenges of the chaos and the final organisation of the eternal world, ceased to exist.

Andr Neher, Vision du temps et de l'histoire dans la culture juive in Les cultures et le temps (Paris:

Payot, 1975), p. 179. Quoted from: Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order out of Chaos. Mans New Dialogue with Nature (London: Fontana Paperbacks, 1985), p.313.

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It goes without saying that this event changed the face of the world order. However, what is important to mention is that in the strongest way it affected the lives of those directly involved in this historical enterprise, those who were born in the USSR. Many things changed. Nevertheless, there was only one, which, in the most explicit way, expressed the challenge of uncertainty these people had to face. With the collapse of the Soviet Union the organisational unity of the Soviet people2 tied in a common state and guided by the mission of building communism, had lost its ground. The elements of this society were left on their own. To a certain degree, they became this debris, out of which the new world had to be constructed. But this should happen later. As of now they all are elementary entities left without any organising impulse. Quo vadim?, Who are we?, What are we living for now? were the vital questions they asked themselves. These questions were all the more difficult to answer for those in power, for those placed in the position of leading the people and meant to be able to

Many authors agree that the Soviet people was indeed the dominant national identity in the USSR,

see, for example: Frederick Barghoorn, Soviet Russian nationalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956). Indeed, the concept of the Soviet people was coined in the official texts of the Soviet state such as the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, see: Konstitutsiya (Osnovnoy Zakon) Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik in Yuriy Kukushkin and Oleg Kuznetsov, Ocherk istorii sovetskoy konstitutsii (Moscow: Politizdat, 1987), 315-365, pp. 315-317; the Bolshaya sovetskaya ehntsiklopediya (Moscow: Sovetskaya entsiklopediya, 1969-1978) - CD edition (Moscow: Bolshaya sovetskaya ehntsiklopediya - Glasnet, 2002), disc no. 3, entry - Sovetskiy narod; as well as being developed in numerous academic reflections in the Soviet social sciences, see for example: Mikhail Kim, Sovetskiy narod - novaya istoricheskaya obshchnost (Moscow: Politizdat, 1972). As an interesting indicator of the reality of the Soviet people one may point, for instance, to the fact that as far back as October 1972, a whole-union conference was held in Moscow, entitled: The Soviet people, a new historical unity of the people, and the literature of socialist realism.

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respond to the peoples actual needs and to provide answers to the peoples urgent questions. These questions inevitably led to the issue of the definition of a new identity one capable of embracing the population of the lost country in a new social form being put on the top of the political agenda in one-sixth of the land. Another attempt to master the chaos had started. Exactly this attempt to find a new organising reason capable of grounding a new, post-Soviet social order in Russia lays in the centre of our analytic endeavour. In the former Soviet republics the idea of national revival became the issue that brought together their peoples in the struggle against the empire. It became the ground for constructing new national societies in the New Independent States. However, in Russia, as in the mother country, this answer was, strictly speaking, problematic. In the absence of conquerors from which they should be freed, no struggle of national revival could emerge. It is interesting that June 12 - the day of Russian independence - originally set to celebrate the liberation from the Soviet Union, is to this day ironically perceived by many as the day on which Russia got independent from itself. This joke explicitly demonstrates the state of the identity crisis which captured Russian society after the dissolution of the USSR. The crisis was also stimulated by the behaviour of the state authorities in the new Russian state who, in fact, distanced themselves from the articulation of a new national idea able to set the new mission in motion and also to assist in creating a new form of social identity for the people of Russia. This distancing became translated into the strategy of de-ideologising the state, a strategy adopted by Yeltsins government

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and stated in the Constitution of the Russian Federation.3 When no ideology can be perceived as attached to the state, no ideas for, and concepts of, new identities can be articulated by the state authorities. By the beginning of the 1990s the search for a new identity appeared to be partially fixed in the ideas of the democratic opposition that reached the peak of their popularity in the time of dramatic resistance to the reactionary coup detat in August 1991. However, very soon (and due to various reasons, that will be visited in detail in the forthcoming chapters), this project failed to provide a stable frame for new social unity and by the mid-1990s numerous other prospects which responded to the task of looking for the new unity came forward in Russian society. These projects comprised the uneven choir of voices proposing fundamentally different paths in the quest for new identity. In order to see this variety one has to look at the suggestions articulated by the various political forces in the parliamentary elections of 1995: the Russians, the democrats, the agrarians, the communists, the Christians and even the beer lovers.4 Among the range of these various prospectuses, a number of political programmes constructed for and on behalf of social groups representing particular regions5 came forward in the 1990s.

No ideology may be established as the state ideology or as a compulsory ideology Article 13, Point 3.

Quoted from The Russian Constitution in Richard Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society (London: Routledge, 1996), 395-429, p. 397.
4

For the parties which ran for Parliamentary representation in 1995 see the database of the Centre for Studies in Norwegian Institute for Foreign Affairs, available at:

Russian

http://www.nupi.no/russland/elections/1995_state_duma_elections_Russia.htm (as of August 15, 2003).

5

In this work region is understood as a unit of the administrative-territorial system of a country (by the

end of the 1990s Russian regions were represented by the 89 subjects of the Russian Federation). It is crucial to say that the regional is neither the physical-geographical division (between, for instance, the North and the South, mountains and valleys, borders and midlands, forests and plains), nor the

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These programmes were constructed in different ways, among which, advocacy of particular regional interests are probably the most popular ones. As some authors mention, the dichotomies of: defends the interests of the Ryazanians does not defend the interests of the Ryazanians, represents interests of Kuryans does not represent etc. become the crucial points in the political programmes of the majority of politicians running for an elected position in the various regions, during the 1990s. Apart from the articulation of regional interests the political programmes uttered on behalf of a certain region aim at the defence of particular regional rights. One may refer to the example of the Moscow authorities who raised the issue of regional rights in probably the sharpest way ever detected in Russia. Thus, arguing their policy on the compulsory registration of visitors to the Russian capital, they link the priorities of their legal activities with the rights of Muscovites. Reflecting on the restriction of internal immigration, the Mayor Luzhkov said that it is not necessary to speak about human rights because for him the rights of the Muscovites are more important.6 The programmes where the issue of a region is put in the domain of social unity can be conceived as nothing other than an articulation of particular regional identities. These articulations become a form of response to the identity crisis which gripped Russian society after the disintegration of the community of Soviet people. Observing contemporary public debates further, it is possible to say that proliferation of these programmes grew to such a degree that - according to some authors - by the end of the 1990s, references to regional identities in the Russian mass media outnumbered
territorial-economic (between towns and villages, the city centre and the suburbs). Neither is it the cultural-territorial division (between the capital and the province, the Cossacks, the Pomorians, the Siberians and the midlands Russians etc.).

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citations of such identities as Russian and Soviet, democrat and communist, reformist and conservative, supporter of the President and Presidents opponent.7 The general problem of this research is thus best formulated in the question as to how a region becomes one of the dominant frames of social identification in the political debates of post-Soviet Russia.

Basic methodological assumptions This research departs from a constructivist methodological background. It is assumed that any arrangement of social organisation as well as the nature of the elements constituting the latter are perceived as historically and contextually created. It seems that the constructivist approach is especially relevant to studies as to the process of emergence and dissolution of social identities. In order to demonstrate this relevance I will oppose some arguments that may be put in order to argue the opposite, essentialistic, point of analytic departure. Thus one may say that regional identities always exist in society and what is described above is just another example of their quite regular representation in political debates, albeit one which is provoked by the specific historical circumstances.8 In response to this critique it has to be clarified that this is simply not true. The forms of regional
6

Kronid Lyubarskiy, Svoboda peredvizheniya. Pod konvoem in Novoe vremya, No. 10, (1996), pp. 10-

12, p. 11.
7

See: Alexandr Logunov, Rol SMI v razvitii protsessov regionalizatsii Rossii available at:

http://www.inguk.ru/biblio/roll-pressa/logunov.html (as of June 20, 2001).

8

The numerous researches referring to the regional self-consciousness fall in this group of voices.

See for example: M. Ilyin and I. Busygina (eds.), Regionalnoe samosoznanie kak faktor formirovaniya politicheskoy kultury v Rossii (Moscow: MONF, 1999).

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identity proposed in the political programmes of the 1990s were essentially specific and new creations, and it is possible to employ two arguments which support this conclusion. First of all, the particular system of regional difference was based upon the particular administrative-territorial division, created in the USSR. Literally, this means that contemporary regions in the way they are understood in this research did not exist always but were created in a concrete historical period. Therefore, it is hardly possible to speak about any long-term continuity between, for example, a transition between Cossack, or Siberian identities, which manifested during the civil war (1917-1922), and the articulation of regional rights and interests that came forward in the regions of Russia in the 1990s. The former refer to identities which are different from the ones approached in this research. On the one hand these are the Cossacks or the Siberians. On the other hand these are the Kubanians, the Krasnoyarians etc. Neither geographically, nor sociologically, can these identities be mapped on one another. Secondly, it is essentially wrong to say that the regional differences constituted within the particular system of administrative-territorial division of the country formed discrete social identities, in the strict sense of the word, in the USSR. As a matter of fact, regional populations were never regarded as a subject of particular demands in the Soviet Union.9 The special treatment of the Far Northern territories was based on their

According to the constitutions of the USSR (1924, 1936, 1977) and the RSFSR (1918) these were

peoples or various class actors, such as workers and peasants, working people or working and exploited people (1918) whose demands are reflected in the policies of the Soviet state. In public texts ones regional affiliation was recognised as nothing else but the specification of his or her class belonging like the Tumen workers, the working people of Leningrad or the peasants of Voronezh oblast etc. It was this way which was used to indicated the demands coming from a particular region,

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economic importance and their geographical differences from the mainland, both of which factors really had nothing to do with the reference to their regional specificity. The very notion of Far North territories was, in fact, a cross-regional one, as it united the parts of different regions located in the so-called 3rd price zone. Moscow obviously blessed with special rights in the Soviet Union - did not represent an example in which the regional population was the subject of particular regional demands either. In fact, these privileges were delivered to the capital as the capital and as a city which in the Soviet administrative system was subordinated to the Union authorities directly, but not to the oblast or even republic it was located in. This, again, had little in common with the articulation of the demands, rights and interests of the Muscovites as the Muscovites. Hence, here we again talking about social identities different from the ones regarded as regional, in the frame of our research. As an additional argument demonstrating the historical specificity of the outlined problem, one may refer to the fact that the crisis of social organisation does not automatically invoke a proliferation of programmes applying to regional identities and articulating their political representation. Thus, the Russian empire was - by the beginning of the 20th century - divided into gubernias which possessed the status of administrative-territorial creations within the state. However, none of them came out with proposals for specific gubernia or oblast demands, when the question of a new social unity became urgent after the October Revolution of 1917. These were proposals which had to do with class, party, nation, ethnicity - even estates, when it

like: The working people of the kray approve decision of the court in Krasnoyarskaya pravda (Septebmer 24, 1937). Or, another example, on the monument built in honour of the heroes of the World War II in Saint-Petersburgs Park Pobedy it is stated: In your honour, the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, we the working people [emphasis added] of Leningrad - opened this park in Autumn 1945.

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came to the Cossack resistance, but not the regional identities which dominated the competition for social re-unification in the changing society later on. In the light of these arguments it seems hardly possible to consider the prospects for regional identification as a kind of always-present social phenomenon. Therefore, it also seems especially relevant to examine this problem from a standpoint capable of accounting for the projects of regional identification as socially constructed phenomena. The accent on the social construction of a region therefore prescribes the specific focus of our research. It takes for granted that the activity of human beings has its particular organisation and that this organisation is not given neither by nature, not by the divine will or any other transcendental source. It finds its regularities in social interaction. The latter, in its turn, appears to be essentially grounded by the organisation of the communicative space where individuals receive their socially recognised places for speaking and places for hearing. Since in contemporary societies to be just a name is not enough to be heard, social communication is therefore based upon the political representation of an individual as a worker, as a member of the unemployed, as an immigrant, a president, as French etc. And therefore, since regional identification is regarded as a socially created phenomenon, it seems necessary to focus on the way the Muscovites, or the Ryazanians become socially recognisable places for speaking in relation to which the regional identities find their social reality. This implies a precise focus on the problem of politicising a region, of re-thinking its meaning so that individuals are ready to consider themselves as belonging to that region, rather than to other imaginary communities. And this is the material for a particularly useful intervention, we feel.

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As a preliminary hypothesis it is assumed that the articulation of regional identities in contemporary Russia was grounded in the re-thinking of the meaning of regions. As a result of this re-conceptualisation the latter ceased to be seen as pure administrativeterritorial units within the country but came to be perceived as something else precisely as, in their own way, unique social creations. I believe that the contemporary reconceptualisation of regions so that they come to be linked to unique social creations is embodied in the articulation of particular regional ideas. As an example of this idea one may refer to the slogans that like: the Maritime territories are Russias Far East outpost, Nizhniy Novgorod is the pocket of Russia, Krasnoyarsk is the centre of Russia, Yaroslavl is the centre of European Russia, Kuban is the granary of Russia etc.10 As an additional example of regional ideas one may point to the ongoing competition of various regions for the privilege to be called the capital of broader geographical areas. For instance Samara, Saratov, Kazan and Nizhniy Novgorod fight to occupy the place of the Volga capital i.e. the main city in the Volga area, Krasnodar the Southern capital, Yekaterinburg - as the Urals capital, Novosibirsk as the Siberian capital, Voronezh as the Black-soil one etc. It is these ideas which offer the frames for specifying a regional social identity. To a certain extent this kind of idea became the foundation for new historical missions, uniting the dis-identified people in a new social project. Precisely such a unity in common regional enterprises made relevant the constitution of particular demands uttered by way of pursuit of the mission given to a particular regional community and not to anyone else.

10

See: Logunov, Rol SMI v razvitii protsessov regionalizatsii Rossii.

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Regional ideology: defining the term The aforementioned approach to the process of regional identification in contemporary Russia specifies a particular object to be researched in order to approach it analytically. Insofar as it is generally assumed that the articulation of regional identities is essentially grounded in the construction of regional ideas, it seems reasonable to focus the research on the genesis of regional ideologies. From the very beginning it is necessary to mention that in contemporary social sciences the notion of ideology is far from being unequivocally agreed upon. The concerns of Robert Putnam, Clifford Geertz and many other scholars who argue that in social theory one can hardly find a term which is more blurred and undefined in its content than ideology11 are not so irrelevant. Indeed the following reviews demonstrate rather serious disagreements on this question. Thus, for example, Eagleton finds that more than a dozen of definitions of ideology are used in contemporary research.12 This work does not aim at bringing clarity to these debates and it does not set the task of finding a universal concept of ideology. However, in employing this term in accordance with a particular reading it is still possible to introduce a concise reasoning.

11

Robert Putnam, Studying elite political culture. The case of Ideology in American Political Science

Review, no.3 (1971), 651-681, p.651; Clifford Geertz, Ideology as a cultural system in Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (London: Fontana Press, 1993), 193-233, p. 193.
12

Terry Eagleton, Ideology. An Introduction (London: Verso, 1991), pp.1-2.

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I depart from what Eagleton calls the semiotic concept of ideology13, introduced by the Russian scholar Valentin Voloshinov.14 In general, Voloshinov, and the entire Bakhtin circle, consider ideology as a sphere of sign communication, which means that ideology is to be seen as a linguistic phenomenon. However, in frameworks of this research, I see ideology in a less general manner - that is, as a field of sign communication which has the power to structure the audience in a particular way, or, to put it in another way, to be engaged with the foundation of its particular mode of organisation. By the power of structuring its audience, ideology differs from other spheres of sign communication within a society. For instance, scientific texts also provide tools which render reality intelligible but it is hardly possible to say that, for example, Einsteins theory of relativity constitutes an ideology. According to the definition adopted in this research, ideas as such therefore become an ideology only insofar as they are being recognised as a certain manual for social action. To illustrate this assumption it is possible to take the following example. A particular academics conclusions as regards the way industrial production influences the condition of the biosphere, presented in the form of an experts report, does not constitute an ideology. However, once this conclusion appears to be linked to the social significance of the natural environment and the damage done to it by massive industrialisation, it becomes an ideological belief constituting a green movement, where its members become the Greens. In the same way the conceptualisation of anthropological difference between peoples of various ethnic and racial origins as such can hardly be considered an ideology. While

13

Ibid, p. 194. Valentin Voloshinov, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge MA: Harvard University

14

Press, 1986).

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a translation of these differences into actual prospects of social development by privileging one group and discriminating against another becomes a racist ideology. It is exactly through this capacity of transforming the audience into classes that the philosophical ideas of Marx and Engels comprised the ideology of Marxism - once individuals started defining themselves as workers or proletariat. In the same way the ideas of Tolstoy became the ideology of the Tolstovtsy movement, and No future! declared as a slogan by the Sex Pistols became the ideology for the punks towards the end of the 1970s. The power to structure the audience is concealed in the essentially public character of its message. The public character of any text is defined by the abstract image of the audience it is referred to. The abstract audience is an imaginary community whose members are personally unknown to the speaker. In this moment my research departs from the Bakhtinian account of ideological messages later developed in the Russian semiotic school. Mikhail Bakhtin regards as ideological those messages belonging to the realm of the secondary speech genres represented by complex texts different from simple everyday speech.15 The theorists of the Moscow-Tartu Semiotic School

consider the division between the primary (everyday) and the secondary (ideological) speech genres as that between the messages oriented to a concrete, known receiver and those addressed to an abstract audience.16 Being distributed to the listeners the ideological message has the power to recruit individuals in a particular political community. This recruitment is concealed in addressing the listeners not as private

15

Mikhail Bakhtin, Problema rechevykh zhanrov in Mikhail Bakhtin, Sobranie sochineniy v 7 tomakh,

vol.5 (Moscow: Labirint, 1997), 159-206, p. 161.

16

Yuriy Lotman, Tekst i struktura auditorii in Yuriy Lotman, Istoriya i tipologiya russkoy kultury (Saint

Petersburg: Iskusstvo-SPb, 2002), 169-174.

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persons but as members of a certain imagined unity regardless of its type - citizens, people, Muscovites, Saint Petersburgers etc.17 As Lotman comments, on the matter of the abstract message: [it] constructs an abstract interlocutor, a holder of simply a common memory devoid of personal and individual experience18, which at the point of alienating personal and individual experience corresponds to the Aristotelian idea of politea. In such a way, and in accordance with the outlined theoretical framework, regional ideologies are considered as political projects addressed to particular regional communities. It is assumed that through this address, the ideological messages recruit individuals into a certain imagined community and set the stage for the alienation of personal experience for the sake of the social unity of a region.

The method and the sources to be adopted in the research In the light of the task set by the research, the work requires a reliance on sources which are suitable for a deep analysis of the structure of ideological programmes and the place of the regional idea in these sets of beliefs. Thus the research has come to be designed in the form of a qualitative analysis, in which the main accent is placed upon the question of the internal regularities of the investigated phenomena rather than the examination of their sociological representation in society. Therefore the actual empirical endeavour is comprised by the case studies.

17

This assumption is based on the Aristotelian understanding of the political seen as the realm of polis

uniting individuals in a common unity which however is not derived to their separate interests falling into the realm of poiesis where an individual acts as a private person in his or her oikos.
18

Lotman, Tekst i struktura auditorii p. 171.

27

Due to the particular understanding of what ideology is, herein, the case studies are focused upon the consistent programmes extensively translated to their potential audience. The requirement for the programme to carry a relatively extended set of views and proposals will cause us to focus upon the authorised texts as it is only there that it appears possible to trace an extended political argument. The prerequisite of extensive access to the audience limits the investigation to the sphere of mass-media production. Together these requirements specify a concrete object of analysis that should be touched upon in terms of its details. These are the programmes of acting politicians that on the one hand contain a relatively elaborated set of proposals for social unity and on the other hand are extensively translated for the audience through the means of printed and electronic media. A brief review of contemporary Russian political debates demonstrate that amongst the range of public figures whose views have become widely advertised in the media only one group is especially interesting for this thesis. This group consists of the Governors or Heads of regional administrations. For it is in the programmes of these actors that the question of regional identity obtains its most advanced elaboration. At the same time as being the highest administrative authorities of their regions the Governors possess almost total control over the regional and local media which are the main channels translating their views to the audience in the Russian territories. In the light of the aforementioned assumptions the textual performances of Russian governors comprise the main empirical focus of this investigation. However, to analyse the entire corpus of texts produced by all Russian governors is an impossible task. The Russian Federation consists of 89 regions that by 2003 lived through 3 cycles of governors elections. Therefore this research is focused only on a few figures representing the spectrum of the Russian political elite. Notably, the study

28

deploys the programmes translated by two Russian Governors: the Mayor of Moscow Yuriy Luzhkov and the Head of the Krasnodar kray administration Nikolay Kondratenko. On the one hand this choice is explained by the fact that these figures are probably amongst the brightest regional leaders in contemporary Russian history. Thus, both of them obtained impressive public support during the regional elections of the 1990s. For example, Yuriy Luzhkov was elected Mayor three times in a row with 89.96% of votes in 1996, 68,89% in 1999 and about 75% of votes in 2003. Kondratenko also came to be regarded as an electoral champion, as in 1996 more than 82% of the voters gave their support to his candidature and only his personal decision to withdraw from the following regional elections in 2000 prevented him from achieving another impressive result. On the other hand, Luzhkov and Kondratenko are chosen for precise analysis because they address in the most distinctive way, the issues of the regions, in their political programmes. Even a brief review of their programmes indicates that the references to the object of a regional population, the Muscovites and the Kubanians, their rights, interests and historical mission constitute a substantial part of their two political programmes. The programmes chosen for detailed investigation are fixed in materialised manifestations which comprise public speeches, interviews, addresses and

declarations, as well as memoirs and other authorised works of literature produced by the aforementioned politicians. These texts form the main group of sources used in the research.

29

It is important to mention that personal interviews and other exclusive materials popular in some works devoted to contemporary Russian ideologies19 are not considered as a valid source in this research. The restriction of the source base to non-confidential public texts is explained by the specific understanding of the ideological, which constitutes the main sphere of the analytic endeavour. It is fair to say that we know of many cases in which a piece of inter-personal communication starts to play an ideological function as when, for example, the private correspondence of a public person is published as a work of art. However, these transformations usually occur a certain amount of time after these messages have been sent and the texts become ideological for the audience of another epoch. For their contemporaries they remain private and do not produce any ideological effect. This excludes the confidential information translated by the politicians in one-to-one conversations from the scope of valid sources for the given endeavour focused on the emergence of regional ideologies in post-Soviet Russia.

The structure of the thesis The argument of the thesis outlined in the introduction is evaluated in 5 chapters. Chapter 1 introduces existing literature devoted to problem of regional ideologies in contemporary Russia. The review of the available literature makes it possible to identify what is achieved and what lacks in existing literature devoted to the issues of Russian regional ideologies. Once identified, the gaps will allow for my research to be adequately situated, in order that it can contribute to the declared problematic in the
19

See for instance. Arbakhan Magomedov, Misteriya Regionaliszma: Regionalnye pravyashchie ehlity i

regionalnye ideologii v sovremennoy Rossii: Modeli politicheskogo vossozdaniya snizu (Sravnitelnyi analiz na primere respublik i oblastey Povolzhya) (Moscow: MONF, 2000).

30

most adequate manner. Proceeding further in this direction, I introduce my methodological framework in Chapter 2. This introduction opens the way for a translation of the outlined research trajectory into the particular steps of the subsequent empirical work. In accordance with the formulated programme, the empirical research is carried out in Chapters 3 and 4. In these parts I demonstrate the way a region comes to be one of the central points in the political programmes of the aforementioned politicians. It is in these parts that I show how regions are politicised. The historical destiny of such ideological interventions constitutes the main issue addressed in Chapter 5. There I visit the competition between the regional ideologies which had come onto the Russian political scene in the 1990s and Putins programme of strong state building articulated in the beginning of the 2000s. The results of the research are summarised in the Conclusion. The thesis includes a bibliography consisting of the literature used in the research, and - separately listed the sources employed in the empirical research.

31

CHAPTER 1: RUSSIAN REGIONAL STUDIES AND THE QUESTION OF IDEOLOGY

The structure of Chapter 1 This chapter is devoted to the introduction of literature that has emerged from the field of Russian regionalism. Particular focus is given to the question of the ideological in the context of regional studies. Reviewing extensive studies I indicate the advances and the gaps identified in their approach towards the issue of regional ideologies. The crucial gap detected in the reviewed texts is revealed in the tendency to ignore the aforementioned question or to leave it as highly peripheral to the main line of the analysis. Showing the place of regional ideology, discourse or mythology in the overall argument of the reviewed works I explain such indifference as a result of the basic methodological preoccupations of the authors. I argue that the inability to put the issue of regional ideology in the main focus of analytic endeavour is not an occidental misfortune. It is a logical consequence of the research conducted within the essentialist paradigm dominating these works. In this paradigm the object known as ideology becomes floating as the authors of these works unavoidably end up examining its underlying terrains - such as economic relations, cultural affiliations or the configuration of political regimes. Nevertheless, in this Chapter, special attention is devoted to the approach of a Russian scholar Arbakhan Magomedov, who makes the most decisive attempt to focus upon the question of regional ideologies. Analysing his texts I argue that although the author has an encouraging goal, that is, to describe the phenomenon of

32

contemporary Russian regionalism through the prism of its ideological dimension, he fails to provide a credible account of the declared problem. The reasons for this failure lie in the absence of a well-elaborated methodological foundation for his study. This tension underlines the necessity for a deeper endeavour in contemporary theoretical discussions on ideology, which leads the argument into the next chapter.

The question of ideology in contemporary Russian social sciences As mentioned earlier, a general review of the existing literature exposes a serious lack of works devoted to the problem of the emergence and constitution of regional ideologies in contemporary Russia. It is necessary to mention that this problem is not something specific to treatments of regional ideologies. As a matter of fact the academic community in Russia pays little attention to the ideological development of Russian society in general. This indifference is a consequence of the post-Soviet allergy to the very term ideology, which was heavily associated with, first of all, the defeated Marxist-Leninist tradition. As a result, by the beginning of the 2000s the studies in the ideological transformations of the new Russian society appear to be limited to a small number of investigations that mainly cover two general topics. The first one is nationalistic, xenophobic and other extremist ideologies which emerged in Russia during and after perestroika. In this group of works one could refer to the extensive research projects of the Panorama group1, and to the works on

Alexandr Verkhovskiy and Vladimir Pribylovskiy, Natsional-patrioticheskie organizatsii v Rossii. ideologiya, ehkstremistskie tendentsii (Moscow: Panorama, 1996), available at:

Istoriya,

http://www.panorama.ru/works/patr/p2.html (as of August 15, 2003).

33

contemporary Russian racism and nationalism written by Vladimir Malakhov2, Alexander Osipov3 and the scholars of the Saint Petersburg Centre for Independent Social Research.4 The second group of papers is comprised by the studies in the Western noncommunist programmes of social development and their implications as regards the Russian soil. This spectrum of issues is visited in the works of Boris Kapustin5 and some other authors6. However, neither the first nor the second group of researchers really address the problem of regional ideas and ideologies in the framework of their analytic endeavours. Neither is this problem adequately reflected in the work of those authors working in the field of Russian regional studies. Unsurprisingly, Neil Melvin and his colleagues from the University of Leeds, in their key bibliography of Russian regional
2

Vladimir Malakhov, Skromnoe obayanie rasizma i drugie stati (Moscow: Dom intellektualnoy knigi,

2001).
3

Alexander Osipov, Ofitsialnye ideologemy regulirovaniya mezhnatsionalnykh otnosheniy kak faktor

razvitiya ehtnicheskoy konfliktnosti (regionalnyi aspekt) in Identichnost i konflikt v postsovetskikh gosudarstvakh (Moscow: Gendalf, 1997), 250-272; Alexander Osipov, Krasnodarskiy kray: migratsiya, natsionalizm i regionalistskaya ritorika in Kavkazskie regionalnye issledovaniya, 1, (1996), 81-93; Alexander Osipov, Konstruirovanie ehtnicheskogo konflikta i rasistskiy diskurs in Viktor Voronkov, Oksana Karpenko and Alexander Osipov (eds.), Rasizm v yasyke sotsialnykh nauk (Saint Petersburg: Aleteya, 2002),45-69.
4

Oksana Karpenko, Kak ehksperty proizvodyat ehtnofobiyu in Rasizm v yasyke sotsialnykh nauk, 23 Oksana Karpenko, Yazykovye igry s gostyami s yuga: kavkaztsy v Rossiyskoy

30;

demokraticheskoy presse 1997 - 1999 gg. in Vladimir Malakhov and Valeriy Tishkov (eds.) Multikulturalizm i transformatsiya postsovetskikh obshchestv (Moscow: RAN, 2002), 162-193.
5

Boris Kapustin, Ideologiya i politika v poskommunisticheskoy Rossii. Izbrannaya sotsialno-

filosofskaya publitsistika (Moscow: Editorial URSS, 2000).

34

studies7, do not specify regional ideology, ideas, mythology or discourse as a thematic sub-section in their list. Likewise Gelman and Ryzhenkov, in their Russias Political Regionalism, do not mention any research projects focused upon the study of ideas and ideologies.8 Moreover, there is not one single reference to the word ideology in the aforementioned work of these authors, nor in their later project - Russia of the Regions, published in 2000.9 However, in the absence of an established academic tradition of studies in regional ideologies, by the end of the 1990s the concept of regional ideas, the language of regional politics and regional discourse crop up, in various interesting ways, in many works. And the further review is followed by the introduction of these works. This excursion aims at demonstrating the dominant tendencies in the understanding of contemporary Russian regional ideologies. This seems to be a necessary prerequisite for beginning a theoretically and methodologically credible investigation of the given topic.

Tatyana Alekseeva, Boris Kapustin and Igor Pantin, Perspektivy integrativnoy ideologii (tezisy) in

Politicheskie issledovaniya, no.3 (1997), 16-27.

7

Neil Melvin and Rosaria Puglisi, The Politics of Russias Regions (LUCRECES - Leeds University for Russian, Eurasian and Central European Studies), available at:

Centre

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/lucreces/regindex.htm (as of August 15, 2003).

8

Vladimir Gelman and Sergey Ryzhenkov, Politicheskaya regionalistika Rossii: istoriya i sovremennoe

razvitie in Politicheskaya nauka. Politicheskaya nauka sovremennoy Rossii: tendentsii razvitiya (Moscow: INION RAN, 1999), 172-255.
9

Vladimir Gelman, Sergey Ryzhenkov and Michael Bri (eds.), Rossiya regionov: transformatsiya

politicheskikh rezhimov (Moscow: Ves' Mir, 2000).

35

Regional studies in pre-Revolutionary Russia The history of regional studies in Russia goes back to the end of the 19th century, at which time a preliminary interest in the general problem of regionalisation or localisation of state power was articulated. In the 1870s, after the establishment of zemstvo the first institutions of local self-government in the Russian Empire - this problem enters serious academic discussions. However, these debates did not touch upon the problem of particular regional ideas and mainly focused on the conceptualisation of the region as an abstract entity in the system of state organisation. Together with the studies in local administrative reforms, another direction for regional studies emerged in Russia in the second half of the 19th century. The massive interest in provincial life articulated in the literature of Nekrasov and Saltykov-Shchedrin, along with the paintings of Venetsianov and the group peredvizhniki, diverted much public interest towards the question of cultural differences between territorial communities within the Russian society. The so-called local studies became a substantial branch of social research by the end of the 19th century. The journals like Russkaya starina, Reports of the Russian Geographic Society, various papers of local statistical committees and local newspapers published materials in which teachers, doctors, state officials and other educated people described the culture of the local population in various Russian provinces. Among the main subjects of these descriptions, the ideas of oneself and the perceptions of people from other sites, along with cultural translations of territorial differences became some of the main issues covered in the writings of these pioneering Russian fieldworkers.

36

Later this focus developed to form the basis of some profoundly interesting research projects. In the beginning of the 20th century, a Russian ethnographer Dmitriy Zelenin devoted several of his essays to the question of regional ideas in the lands of the Volga and the Russian North. Here he extensively studies the problem of the regional other in the folklore of Russian peasants.10 As may already be seen, the studies in Russian locality raised questions which stand in close proximity to the ones addressed in this research, since they focus on the particular ideas of regionally differentiated communities. However, the first Russian ethnographers did not evaluate their work beyond the terms of reasonably fragmented recordings of a territorially-based self-conception. The two directions of regional studies - the endeavours to localise the Russian state administration and the ethnographic encounters with territorial identities - characterise the state of regional analytics in the pre-Revolutionary period. It is possible to suggest that the further symbiosis of ethnographic studies in Russian localities and political analyses of local institutions could be a fruitful way to account for the problem of politicising the regions, but the October Revolution defined the destiny of the research in a different way.

10

Dmitriy Zelenin, Velikorusskie narodnye prislovya kak material dlya ehtnografii in Dmitriy Zelenin,

Izbrannye trudy. Stati po dukhovnoy kulture 1910-1913 (Moscow: Indrik, 1994), 38-58; Dmitriy Zelenin, Narodnye prislovya i anekdoty o russkikh zhitelyakh Vyatskoy gubernii (Ehtnograficheskiy i istorikoliteraturnyi ocherk) in Zelenin, Stati po dukhovnoy kulture 1910-1913, 59-104; Dmitriy Zelenin, Narodnye prislovya o vladimirtsakh in Zhivaya Rossiya, no. 151 (1903), 557-560; Dmitriy Zelenin,

37

Regional studies in the Soviet Union: 1917-1991 After 1917 the official Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the supreme power and historical significance of the supranational and supraterritorial classes seriously reduced the level of scientific interest which was addressed to the issues of regionalism. As Gelman and Ryzhenkov characterise this period in regional studies: The absence of regional political research in the USSR before perestroika is explained by the fact that the elements of the territorial political organisation of the society were regarded by the central power simply as chains connected to the ruling mechanism but not as independent subjects of social life.11 The ethnographic studies in territorial differences detected within the Soviet state faced the same problem. In the 1920s almost all societies and institutions dealing with studies in the locality of the Russian society as well as the journals publishing their materials were closed. Scientific interest regarding geographical diversity moved towards the study of peoples and nationalities, in accordance with the political request of the state, as announced in the programmes of Soviet nation building (natsionalno-gosudarstvennoe stroitelstvo). The theme of regional ideas in the folk culture, outlined by Zelenin, got transformed into a study of general issues of the language world picture. In this research the questions of regional and wider territorial criteria of social stratification was put at the level of lexicon, syntax, morphology, phraseology and other spheres of language organisation detected mainly in the

Prikamskiy kray v russkom narodnom yazyke, poslovitsakh i prislovyakh in Zhivopisnaya Rossiya, no. 124/125 (1903), 236-239.
11

Gelman and Ryzhenkov, Politcheskaya regionalistika Rossii, p. 174.

38

artefacts of the traditional culture. The works of Yakovleva represent a good example of this kind of literature.12 Despite the undoubted value of these endeavours for linguistic or broader cultural analysis, they drove academic attention away from the central question addressed in our research. More precisely, they do not see the question of regional ideas as a way to apprehend social reality. Moreover, they do not attend to the issues of how these modes of conceiving society affects actual practices and attitudes within the community in which they are produced. This is not surprising, because under the pressure of the official Marxist-Leninist ideology, no adequate studies in any other ideological formation in Russia, especially those which contradicted the one true reality of class unity, were possible.

Russian regional studies after 1991: gaining the material The dissolution of the USSR and the tasks of building the new Russia diverted massive levels of interest towards the regional dimension of Russian society. In response to this interest there emerged a huge number of centres and institutions which brought the problem of contemporary Russian regionalism to the centre of their scientific reflections. One of the first ones was the Centre for Ethno-Political and Regional Studies, formed in 1991 by Emile Pain, a Russian scholar and a high state official. From the very beginning of its existence, this organisation focused on reviewing political, economical and social processes in the hardcore of the Russian Federation. After 1993 the
12

Yekaterina Yakovleva, Fragmenty russkoy yazykovoy kartiny mira (Moscow: Gnosis, 1994).

39

Centre started to publish monthly chronicles of regional life based on mass-media and other publicly available sources in the Russian territories.13 In 1992 the analytic group monitoring the situation in the Russian regions was organised under the title: Informational-Analytic Centre of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation. The head of this group, a geographer Leonid Smirnyagin, soon joined the Presidential Council where he became responsible for regional counselling.14 Among the other research centres created for gathering information on the Russian regions, in the beginning of the 1990s, one may point to the Mercator Group formed in 1992 in the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences and led by Dmitriy Oreshkin.15 The Group also mainly conducted regional reviews. However, unlike the others the Mercator exclusively addressed its research to the Russian officials. Thus they have been hardly available to public view, even unto the present. Besides the Institute of Geography, some other projects run in the Russian Academy of Sciences should be noted. These projects, to a greater or lesser degree, deal with the problems of regional politics and social change, in the Russian regions. Thus we should here refer to the Network of Ethnological Monitoring, created in 1993 in the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of Russian Academy of Science under the
13

Among the main publication of the Centre for Ethno-Political and Regional Studies it is possible to konfliktnykh

mention: Ehmil Pain and Arkadiy Popov (eds.), Gosudarstvennaya politika Rossii v August 15, 2003).
14

zonakh (Moscow: TsEPRI, 1994). For general information see: http://www.indem.ru/ceprs/ (as of

Leonid Smirnyagin,

Rossiyskiy federalizm: paradoksy, protivorechiya, predrassudki (Moscow:

MONF, 1998).
15

More information on the Mercator Group is available at the official web-page: http://www.mercator.ru

(as of August 15, 2003).

40

leadership of Valeriy Tishkov. Tishkov managed to create a network of regional experts who became the main authors of the regular reports in Ethnic Tensions and Early Preventions of Conflicts - monthly papers published by the Institute.16 Unlike the other centres of regional studies located in Moscow, which observed the Russian regions via sources available in the capital, the Network published papers based on the authorised reports of local experts who had access to a broad number of local data. This was a crucial innovation of Valeriy Tishkov. The same principle of local expertise is employed in the work of the Political Monitoring run by the Institute for Humanities and Political Sciences in 1993-2000. By 1994-1995 the system of local experts had evolved into a huge academic network which united numerous experts from all over Russia including local scholars, journalists, officials and political activists.17 Besides extensive monthly reviews covering various aspects of regional life in Russia the IGPI also published thematic papers that contained statistical and empirical data on current political issues like Elections 95, Reviews of Russian Politics etc.18 All these academic initiatives were designed to gain primary sociological and historical material on Russian regional life. They produced a valuable corpus of sources for the introduction of the problem of the post-Soviet regionalism. In this group of writings the

16

General

information

on

the

Network

is

available

at

its

official

web-page:

http://www.eawarn.ras.ru/centr/eawarn/index.htm (as of August 15, 2003). The bulletins of the Network are also available online at: http://www.eawarn.ras.ru/centr/bull_c.htm (as of August 15, 2003).
17

Papers of the Politicheskiy Monitoring run by the IGPI are fully available only in forms electronic

archive, however Mary McAuley footnotes this archive as, for instance, Omskaya oblast v yanvare 1996 goda in Politicheskiy monitoring, Moscow: IGPI, January, 1996. For more information see the official web-site of the IGPI: http://www.igpi.ru (as of March 15, 2004).
18

Vladimir Gelman, Ocherki rossiyskoy politiki (Moscow: IGPI, 1994).

41

first references towards the problem of regional ideas and ideologies emerged. The latter were seen in terms of the public language performances of regional politicians: declarations, speeches, interviews devoted to different aspects of regional life. These issues constituted one of the most interesting topics to be reflected upon, in many of the observed texts. However, only a few, if any, of the works which emerged within the framework of these enterprises aimed at the problematisation and further theoretical conceptualisation of the material gained. Consequently, none of the works from this group raise the problem of regional ideologies in the post-Soviet society in a critical sense. It was rather the later studies in which the first analytical encounters, transcending the purely descriptive agenda of the first wave of Russian regional studies, emerged.

Russian regional studies after 1991: regionalisation is rendered ideological By the mid-1990s the question of ideology in the context of growing regionalisation came to be visited theoretically with greater frequency. However, this attention appeared to be limited by the question of juxtaposing regionalisation and the values articulated in liberal, communist or other programmes of social development. In other words, the main question addressed to the issue of ideology in this group of works can be formulated in terms of whether or not regionalisation stimulates the establishment of social relations advocated in relation to the prospects of democratic transition in Russia. A big group or authors working in this direction consider that the territorial fragmentation of state and society is a necessary step towards destruction of the totalitarian Soviet system. Smirnyagin, for example, argues that transformations of

42

political regime are the unavoidable prerequisite for a general modernisation of the Russian state. This assumption is grounded in the belief that the demands of maximal political and legal autonomy announced by territories serve as a mean to weaken the totalitarian state.19 The studies in Russian local self-government focused on the problems of institutional design of municipal and regional political systems in general comply with the same idea.20 Drawing extensive historical analogies with the organisation of local power in pre-Revolutionary Russia the authors regard the process of regionalisation as a sign of the democratic transformation of the society.21 The other group of works advocating the liberal character of contemporary Russian regionalism comes from studies in the issues of federalism. A large group of papers which emerged in this field were written by acting or retired politicians who were directly involved in the processes of the post-Soviet state building.22 In different ways, all of these authors have defended the positive role of real federalisation, which aimed to be constructed in the new Russian state. The studies in contemporary Russian federalism are further developed in the works that are focused, quite precisely, on specific issues. Thus a number of texts are

19

Leonid Smirnyagin, Rossiyskiy federalizm. Paradoksy. Protivorechiya, predrassudki (Moscow:

MONF, 1998).
20

Sergey Ryzhenkov, (ed.) Mestnoe samoupravlenie v sovremennoy Rossii: Politika, praktika, pravo

(Moscow: IGPI - MONF, 1998).

21

V. Abramov, Mestnoe samoupravlenie: ideya i opyt' in Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, no. 1 (1997),

120-125; A. Dement'ev, O sisteme Sovetov i zemskikh uchrezhdeniyakh v Rossii: vozmozhnye istoricheskie paralleli in Gosudarstvo i pravo, no. 8 (1996), 112-120.
22

Ramazan Abdulatipov and others, Federalizm v istorii Rossii, in 3 vol. (Moscow: Respublika, 1992-

1993); Vladimir Shumeyko, Rossiyskie reformy i federalizm: sotsialno-ehkonomicheskie ocherki (Moscow: Slavianskiy dialog, 1995).

43

devoted to the problem of asymmetric federation and the delimitation of power between the Federal centre and the subjects of Federation. For example, this question is emphatically raised by Drobizheva,23 Mikhaleva24 and Umnova25. Semenov26 and Bogachova27, in their turn, visit the issues of economic or budget federalism together with the problems of the financial regulation of relations established between the centre and the regions. Another big group of authors advocating the benefits of regional separation of the Russian state focus on the question of elections, and the regional varieties of voting behaviour. The theory of the bi-polar split becomes one of the most popular frameworks adopted to explain the regularities of the distribution of electoral priorities, between the Russian regions. This theory is based on a rather simplistic division of the latter into pro-reformists and conservatives. Such a typology finds its source in the differences between electoral attitudes demonstrated toward the reformist policy of the Russian authorities, manifested in the regions throughout several cycles of elections and referenda in the 1990s. The regions where pro-reformist candidates get more electoral support are considered the democratic blue belt of the Russian territories while the regions where the communist opposition receives more votes are perceived
23

Leokadiya Drobizheva (ed.), Assymetrichnaya federatsiya: Vzglyad is tsentra, respublik i oblastey

(Moscow: RAN, 1998).

24

Nadezhda

Mikhaylova (ed.) Pravovye problemy sovremennogo rossiyskogo federalizma.

Federativnoe ustroystvo Rossii, istoriya i sovremennost (Moscow: INION RAN, 1995).

25

Irina Umnova, Ustav oblasti (kraya): pervyi opyt (Moscow: INION RAN, 1995). G. Semenov, Ratsionalizatsiya vzaimootnosheniy mezhdu federalnym i regionalnymi byudzhetami:

26

puti obnovleniya nalogovo-byudzhetnogo mekhanizma in Voprosy ehkonomiki, no. 9 (1994), 38-51.

27

O. Bogachova, Stanovlenie rossiyskoy modeli byudzhetnogo federalizma in Voprosy ehkonomiki,

no. 8 (1995), 30-40.

44

as the conservative red one. General statements of this theory are given in the works of Kolosov,28 Sobyanin,29 McFaul and Petrov.30 The theory of a bi-polar split receives further elaboration in a number of works published to the end of the 1990s. Some authors, such as Slider, for instance,31 conceptualise the blue-red opposition in terms of the 55 parallel effect which divides the regions of the pro-reformist North and the conservative South. Petrov, Titkov32 and other political geographers extend this theory and draw the line between the reformist urban and the conservative rural areas. In development of this theme, some authors, such as Grigoriev and Malyutin33, study relations between the economic affiliations and the voting behaviour of Russian regions. The

aforementioned scholars link patterns of voting with the development of economic reforms and loyalty of the regions towards the Centre, which is seen by the former as responsible for the social and economic transformations of the 1990s. Establishing such a typology, the authors locate the trade-oriented areas, territories rich in natural

28

Vladimir Kolosov, Rossiya na vyborah: uroki i perspektivy (Moscow: Tsentr politicheskikh tekhnologiy,

1995).
29

Alexander Sobyanin, Politicheskiy klimat v Rossii v 1991-1993 godakh in MEMO, no. 9 (1993), 20-

32.
30

Michael McFaul and Nikolay Petrov, Politicheskiy almanakh Rossii, (Moscow: Gendalf, 1995). Vladimir Gimpelson, Darrell Slider and Sergey Chugrov, Political Tendencies in Russias Regions:

31

Evidence from the 1993 Parliamentary Elections in Slavic Review, vol. 53, no. 3 (1994), 711-732.
32

Nikolay Petrov and Aleksey Titkov, Vybory prezidentskie I vybory mestnye in Presdentskie vybory v

Rossii (Moscow: Gendalf, 1996), 12-14.

33

Oleg Grigoriev and Mikhail Malyutin, Regionalnaya situatsiya v Rossii posle dekabrskikh vyborov:

analiz novykh tendentsiy i politicheskikh itogov mestnykh vyborov 1994 goda (Moscow: Fond Diskussionnoe prostranstvo, 1995).

45

resources, and financially important regions with strong market economies at the one pole, and the agrarian areas, or regions where industry is down on the other. To some extent all the aforementioned authors argue that regionalisation of the Russian society is a positive process indicating transition. According to them, the state moves, through such a procedure, away from the totalitarian Soviet regime - which, in fact, represented a unitarian creation - to a democratic Russia, where the diversity of opinions and forms of economic organisation appear to be mapped onto the regional differences. However, very soon the thesis on the democratic and liberal character of Russian regionalisation starts to trigger a serious concern. First of all, numerous authors argue that geographical fragmentation generates a very diversified picture, hardly accountable in the simplistic framework of the totalitarian past and the light democratic and liberal future. In demonstrating such complexity, the authors refer to the analysis of regional political subcultures. Adopting the framework of Almond and Verba34, some authors identify different types of political subculture and then apply these types to explain the variety of policies performed in Russian territories. Thus, according to Biryukov,35 Kolosov and Krindach,36 big cities demonstrate the participant type of subculture, the subject type is relevant to middle towns, and rural areas represent the parochial political culture.
34

Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba, The Civic Culture (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University

Press, 1963).
35

S. Biryukov, Legitimatsiya statusa regionalnoy politicheskoy vlasti in Vestnik MGU, seriya 18, no. 4

(1997), 77-96.
36

Vladimir Kolosov, and Alexander Krindach, Tendentsii postsovetskogo razvitiya massovogo

soznaniya I politicheskaya kultura yuga Rossii in Polis, no. 6 (1994), 120-133.

46

In relation to this typology the authors systematise political development and electoral behaviour in the Russian regions in accordance with the dominant type of settlement. This brings forward a defensible alternative to the simplistic theory of the bi-polar split. Through the development of this mode of critique, many authors do not simply question the validity of the blue-red division of Russian regions, but they also step into a direct confrontation with the scholars defending the idea of the pro-democratic character of Russian decentralisation. By way of a further counter-argument, they suggest that political regimes established in the Russian regions after the dissolution of the USSR appear to be unable to solve the tasks of modernisation. Umnova radicalises this point and writes that uncontrolled regional authorities are more likely to perform anti-constitutional and conservative activities than to promote democracy in Russia.37 These views have indeed become crystallised in the relatively solid theory of the so-called nomenklatura revenge introduced by Burtin, Vodolazov38 and some other authors. They have also become fully grounded by Kryshtanovskaya.39 The main idea of these authors is that the newly-emerged political structures in the Russian regions are the result of the immanent transformation of the old communist nomenklatura into a new Russian elite. On the basis of biographical analysis, the scholars come to the conclusion that the key factor of regional politics is concealed precisely in this struggle between the communist old guard and the new progressive

37

Irina Umnova, Reformiruyem, reformiruyem a dvizhemsya nazad in Rossiyskaya Federatsiya, no. 21

(1994), 28-29.
38

Yuriy Burtin and Grigoriy Vodolazov, V Rossii postroena nomenklaturnaya demokratiya in Izvestiya

(June 1, 1994).
39

Olga Kryshtanovskaya, Transformatsiya staroy nomenklatury v novuyu Rossiyskuyu elitu' in

Obshestvennyye nauki i sovremennost', no.1 (1995), 51-65.

47

forces. Badovskiy and Shutov40, for example, believe that the territorial fragmentation of the Russian state creates the possibility of the restoration of totalitarian regimes within the borders of a region. This opinion appears to be rather popular not only among Russian scholars but also in some academic discussions abroad.41 The advocacy of the anti-democratic character of regionalisation in Russia obtains its further elaboration in the works of Afanasev who estimates this process through the prism of the growing clientism, a principally anti-democratic practice cultivated by regional elite communities.42 In such a way the bulk of the studies which emerged in the middle of the 1990s indicate the growing interest in the analytic encounter with post-Soviet regionalisation. However, these works are mainly focused on the problem of the region as an institution of the administrative-territorial organisation of the state and the relevance of this institution to the ideas postulated in different, traditional ideological projects. The question of regional ideologies permitting a re-conceptualisation of a particular administrative-territorial unit and providing it with a new and socially influential connotation, which constitutes its unique idea, are completely out of focus in this group of papers.

40

D. Badovskiy and A. Shutov, Regionalnye ehlity v postsovetskoy Rossii: osobennosti politicheskogo

uchastiya in Kentavr, no.6 (1995), 3-23.

41

Marie Mendras, How regional elites preserve their power in Post-Soviet Affairs, vol. 15, no. 4 (1999),

295-311.
42

Mikhail Afanasev, Izmeneniya v mekhanizme funktsionirovaniya pravyashchikh ehlit in Politicheskie

issledovaniya, no. 6 (1994), 59-66; Mikhail Afanasev, Pravyashie ehlity I gosudarstvennost posttotalitarnoy Rossii (Moscow Voronezh: Institut prakticheskoy psikhologii - NPO MODEK, 1996); Mikhail Afanasiev, Klientizm I rossiyskaya gosudarstvennost (Moscow: MONF, 1997).

48

Approaching regional ideologies: the primordialist paradigm The first works that combine the analytic interest in the broad theme of Russian regionalism with a particular focus on regional ideologies come forward only at the end of the 1990s. It is necessary to mention several groups of works written in this field. The first analytical project touching upon the problems of regional ideologemes is represented in the works of a Russian geographer - Vladimir Kaganskiy.43 This particular scholar, in his extensive research, elaborates a kind of hermeneutics of the landscape44 or its phenomenology45, endowed with the theory of cultural landscape. Kaganskiy himself summarises his account in the following way: The authors approach is in line with the Russian school of theoretical geography, which presupposes conscious life in cultural landscape, conceptual mastery of its variety and the reflection of the countrys space. The original landscape hermeneutics provides for an active comprehension of landscape, as well as for the active comprehension of all that could be interpreted as landscape space.46 In the framework of this theoretical focus Kaganskiy identifies the problem of the territorial separation of society as being one of the most interesting for him.

43

Vladimir Kaganskiy, Kulturnyi landshaft i sovetskoe obitayemoe prostranstvo. Sbornik statey

(Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2001).

44

Kaganskiy, Predislovie in Kulturnyi landshaft i sovetskoe obitaemoe prostranstvo,7-13, p. 7. Kaganskiy, Mir kulturnogo landshafta in Kulturnyi landshaft i sovetskoe obitaemoe prostranstvo,

45

24-43, p. 23.
46

Kaganskiy, Summary. Cultural landscape and Soviet habitual space (collected articles) in Kulturnyi

landshaft i sovetskoe obitaemoe prostranstvo, 572-575, p. 572.

49

Approaching this problem in closer fashion, he finds that this separation is nothing other than a translation of a certain universal principle of social organisation. This principle is expressed in the social implementation of a systematic territorial structure, perceived in terms of the centre-periphery dichotomy. The author introduces two more positions and portrays the geographical fragmentation of society in the form of a fourstep structure: centre-province-periphery-border.47 According to Kaganskiy each of these areas in a certain way structures the life of a community living there. The centre is a place of concentrated homogeneity of the culture. The borders, on the contrary, are the less typical of its representations. The province and the periphery are the medium phases. Evaluating this idea, the Russian scholar introduces the notion of regional discourse conceived as: a dialogue of expanded spaces, concepts, languages, schemes.48 According to Kaganskiy it is in discourse where the positions of the cultural landscape obtain their social objectivity. Explaining further the notion of regional discourse the author says that regional discourses are culturally and ideologically stipulated.49 Clarifying this stipulation he depicts it as a process employed in the notion of regionalism itself, which, in its turn, is regarded as: the ideology and practice of reaching a certain institutional status by real non-state areal communities (usually by

47

Vladimir Kaganskiy, Osnovnye zony i tipy kulturnogo landshafta: tsentr-provintsiya-periferiya-

granitsa in Kaganskiy, Kulturnyi landshaft i sovetskoe obitayemoe prostranstvo, 60-95.

48

Vladmiri Kaganskiy Regionalnaya analitika i videnie regionov in Kaganskiy, Kulturnyi landshaft i

sovetskoe obitayemoe prostranstvo, 319-342, p. 323.

49

Ibid.

50

ethno-cultural ones), i.e. the intention of the geographically and culturally real district to become an institutional one (administrative district, state).50 This assumption implies that regional separation is an objective factor in any relatively big social creation placed in the framework of the four-step territorial structure of the cultural landscape. Such a conclusion however, triggers a serious critique addressed to the entire approach of the Russian geographer. Thus, for example, Averyushkin, reviewing the Cultural Landscape and the Soviet Habitual Space, accuses Kaganskiy of a de-personification of the cultural landscape. Indeed, from the texts of the

Russian geographer it follows that the landscape divides itself, so to say, on its own without any human participation.51 The general critique of such an approach outlines a serious weakness in accounting for ideological performances within the frames of the cultural landscape theory. As a matter of fact, Kaganskiy suggests a treatment of ideology as a purely linguistic manifestation of the real positions of territorial differences explained through the organisation of cultural landscape. This thereby causes him to reduce the former to the pre-given cultural and geographical regularities performed by certain really existing communities.

50

Vladimir Kaganskiy Strana pobezhdayushchego regionalizma in Kaganskiy, Kulturnyi landshaft i

sovetskoe obitayemoe prostranstvo, 282-294, p. 286. This definition with insignificant modifications travels from one article of Kaganskiy to another, see: Vladimir Kaganskiy Metodologicheskie osnovaniya regionalnogo analiza kak kulturnoy praktiki in Kultura v sovremennom mire: opyt, problemy, resheniya, no.3 (1997), 4-29; Vladimir Kaganskiy, Osnovaniya regionalnogo analiza i gumanitarnoy geografii in Vestnik RAN. Seriya geografiya, no. 2 (1999), 42 50.
51

Alexander Averyushkin, Vladimir Kaganskiy. Kulturnyi Landshaft i Sovetskoe Obitaemoe Sbornik Statey in Znamya, no. 4 (2002), 222-225. Available at:

Prostranstvo.

http://magazines.russ.ru/znamia/2002/4/av.html (as of August 15, 2003).

51

However, when it comes to the problem of ideology, this approach demonstrates its clear inadequacy. When the idiosyncrasies of ideological formations are being reduced to the regularities of the underlying cultural and geographical factors, the very problem of the ideological reason becomes secondary and insignificant for the principal line of the research. Following this trajectory, Kaganskiy does not advance further in elaborating the question of regional ideologies, and regional discourses, than the aforementioned remarks suggest. Although he announces this theme as one of the central of Chapters III and IV of his book52, nevertheless in the articles comprising these parts he, in fact, persistently avoids this theme and concentrates on the general issues of ideology of regionalism, regionalisation in the context of liberal or other traditional ideologies, mythology of the post- and neo-Soviet society etc.53 It is necessary to say that the reductionist approach elaborated in the words of Kaganskiy is adopted in a number of other investigations. Thus, for example, Andrey Makarychev advocates rather similar views. In the report Comparative Regionalism: Russia CIS Europe, when defining the notion of regionalism, Makarychev and his collaborators repeat the same point.
Authors [of the Makarychevs project] suggest to distinguish two dimensions of the word regionalism. First, this is an organic principle of territorial organisation of social, political, economic and cultural aspects of the existence of human communities. Hence, regionalism is seen as intrinsically inherent in all types of contemporary nations regardless to their sizes, levels of development, political structures, etc. Regionalism may exist inside the society without being enveloped in any particular sort of governmental policy. The later is but a

52

Vladmir Kaganskiy Burzhuaznaya revolyutsiya? - Regionov! in Kaganskiy, Kulturnyi landshaft i

sovetskoe obitayemoe prostranstvo, 257-267, p. 260.

53

See: Chapter IV: K mifologii rossiyskogo prostranstva in Kaganskiy, Kulturnyi landshaft i sovetskoe

obitayemoe prostranstvo, 377-514.

52 reflection of the organic possibilities that stem from the existence if spatial distribution of the population. If encouraged, regionalism is seen as formation of different centres of regional gravity and contributing to democratic attainments. Second, regionalism might be used as a generic name of a variety of intellectual streams that are aimed at rational utilisation and implementation of the natural spatial and territorial division within modern societies. 54

Giving examples of these intellectual streams Makarychev divides regional ideologies into two groups. The first one consists of ideologies of the left wing, in which group the author puts English Fabianism - with its ideas of local socialism, the views of Andr Frank, the anarchists and other de-centrist ideological movements. The other group, the liberal wing, according to Makarychev, includes the ideas of Jean-Luc Migue and other supporters of regional economic individualisation.55 Not wishing to get into a deeper analysis of these remarks however, it is nevertheless already possible for us to say that the authors of Makarychevs project also fall into the trap of essentialising limits. More precisely - in their works, regional ideology and regional ideas appear to be secondary and insignificant problems, totally derived from the regularities of the organic principle of social organisation. This reduction is inscribed in the concept of the natural spatial and territorial division within modern societies, which in turn define intellectual streams. Thus it is these principles which their academic project becomes mainly devoted to.

54

Andrey Makarychev, Comparative regionalism: Russia CIS Europe. Final report presented to

INTAS administration by the Working Group of the Centre for Russian Philosophy, September 1995June 1997 in Andrey Makarychev (ed.) Sravnitelnyi regionalizm. SNG Rossiya Zapad (Nizhniy Novgorod: Mizhniy Novgorod State University Press, 1997), 255-295, p. 257 [The style as in the original].
55

Andrey Makarychev, Vliyanie zarubezhnykh kontseptsiy na razvitie rossiyskogo regionalizma:

vozmozhnosti i predely zaimstvovaniya in Makarychev, Sravnitelnyi regionalizm, 97-129, pp. 123- 126.

53

The essentialist perspective in the approach to regional ideologies is also advocated in the work of Shlapentokh, Levita and Loidberg.56 The authors conduct what they call a multidisciplinary analysis of the centre-periphery opposition in Russia, from the times of Feudal splitting to nowadays. In the course of this analysis they give a definition of ideology in the context of regionalism. They write: By regionalism we are referring to an ideology as well as to political and economic activity that is geared toward achieving greater regional autonomy, or greater particularisation of sub-state entities.57 And then they explain their view on regionalism as on the ideology as well as political and economic activity. Regionalism is always present in any society, even in a totalitarian one that suppresses any of its manifestations. If it does not manifest itself in real terms, it is nevertheless on the back burner of political actors - conclude the authors.58 There is hardly any need to argue that, in this conclusion, Shlapentokh, Levita and Loidberg totally follow the paradigm outlined in the works of the aforementioned scholars. As a result, the authors of From Submission to Rebellion do not elaborate the problem of regional ideology beyond some fragmentary remarks which merely support the other main lines of their analysis, represented, precisely, by the endeavours as regards an always-present regionalism. The reduction of recent ideological performances to a kind of universal principle of social organisation becomes rather popular among the authors approaching the phenomenon of regional ideas in contemporary Russia in the second half of the 1990s. As an additional example of this stream one may refer to the article Russian
56

Vladimir Shlapentokh, Roman Levita, Mikhail Loidberg, From Submission to Rebellion. The Province

Versus the Center in Russia (Oxford: Westview Press, 1997).

57

Ibid. p. 5. Ibid. p. 7.

58

54

Regional Mythology: the Three Ages written by one of the IGPI experts Ilya Malyakin.59 This article demonstrates, probably in the best way, the poverty of the essentialist account of regional ideologies. Unlike Kaganskiy, Makarychev and other authors mentioned above, Malyakin puts ideological performances in the centre of his analysis. Although he call them mythologies the issues raised by the authors clearly fit into the concept of ideology to be adopted in our research. In the course of his endeavour, Malyakin argues that the transformation of regional ideas is governed by the regularities of a cultural cycle consisting of creation, maturity and destruction. Justifying this proposal, Malyakin creates a number of contradictory analogies with the development of mythology in primitive societies, arguing that the constitution of particular regional ideas is a matter of underlying laws of cultural development. Needless to argue that such wide analogies as are drawn between contemporary Russian political mythology and the myths of the Stone Age is a quite weak fundament for any defensible conclusion. Summarising this excursion it appears possible to conclude that although by the end of the 1990s the question of regional ideology became an increasingly visited problem in the works of the Russian scholars, it is still hardly possible to produce any comprehensible model for conceptualising articulations of regional ideas and the construction of regional frameworks for social identification. Heavily relying on the essentialist paradigm, the authors appear to be incapable of bringing the aforementioned problem into the main focus of their academic investigations. Nevertheless, despite the outlined problems, the works of Vladimir Kaganskiy, Makarychev and other authors, which approach regional ideologies from the
59

Ilya Malyakin, Rossiyskaya regionalnaya mifologiya: tri vozrasta in Pro et Contra, vol. 5, no. 1

(2000), 109-122.

55

standpoint of the essentialist paradigm, definitely point to the necessity of further studies of regional ideologies. For not only do they bring the problem of regional ideologies to the attention of a rigorously analytic endeavour, but they also articulate the problem of regional ideas exactly as it is articulated in our research and precisely as a phenomenon of - region re-conceptualised. It is exactly this interest which lays at the foundation of another group of works devoted to the problem of contemporary Russian regional ideologies. Here I speak about the studies in Russian regional political elites.

Approaching regional ideologies: studies in regional political elite Being aware of the weaknesses of the essentialist approaches of the scholars studying regional elites in Russia, this type of analysis from the outset takes its bearings from a different methodological standpoint. They do not retain any presumptions as regards the ever-existing or always-present character of regional ideologies but consider these phenomena as particular and, in some sense, unique creations. They assume that their emergence is caused by the particular sequence of events intrinsic to the development of post-Soviet society. These events are found in the regularities of political struggle between different elite groups, which came onto the arena of public politics after the collapse of the USSR. As an example of these papers one may refer to the case study of Grigoriy Kosach, where the author directly refers to the problem of a region reconceptualised.60 In his work Kosach regards regional ideas as a complex of idiologemes like Orenburg is the
60

Grigoriy Kosach, Orenburg: regionalnaya mifologiya kak faktor vzaimootnosheniya s sosedyami in

A. Malashenko (ed.) Chego khotyat regiony? (Moscow: Gendalf, 1994), 78-91.

56

Southern Palmira or the gates to Asia, and considers these idiologemes as nothing other than an instrument utilised by political actors in their political games.
In the situation of nowadays internal state of Russia, the elites [] of regions, in reference to their memory, make an attempt to realise themselves as if they were the leading defender of the Fatherland. The interpretation of regional memory suggested by a regional elite not only underlines the weakness and instability of the central power, but opposes its own effectiveness to these weaknesses. Simultaneously, the same interpretation is invoked to attract the state to the side of a regional elite and to insist that the state legitimates their state initiatives []. 61

Thus, the regional idea of Orenburg as the gates to Asia or the South Palmira is accounted for as an instrument used by the regional elite to strengthen its power. The other passage from this remarkable article outlines this assumption even better: the most important element of the Orenburg memory - to be the gates to Asia - started to define not only the course of the local administrate [] [but] it became the main direction of its activity in the interests of strengthening its power [emphasis added].62 This approach becomes rather popular in Russian regional studies as many authors working in the perspective of elite studies refer to regional ideologies in the same way as Kosach does. Thus Mary McAuley in her well known-book approaches the ideological constructions of the regional elite through the prism of the struggle for obtaining a greater power.63 In this research the ideology as such is seen as an element of the negotiating table utilised by the regional elite in their bargain with the

61

Ibid. p.78. Ibid. p. 89. Mary McAuley, Russia's Politics of Uncertainty (Cambidge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1997).

62

63

57

Federal power. Vladimir Gelman in his later article also develops the same ideas.64 Notably, he writes that beliefs, values and whatever are called ideologies of regionalism, are nothing other than a rationally utilised tool in the political struggle of the elite. Needless to say that although the authors studying regional political elites shift the accent from the ever-existing trends of regional division to the particular, historically specific circumstances of political arrangement of Russian regionalisation, they also fail to provide a solid analytical account of ideology. It is obvious that the main focus of such endeavours gradually shifts towards the study, in relation to this notion of power and economic rationality, of ideological constructions employed in political struggles. This, in fact, indicates a serious weakness of the elite studies approach i.e. as regards the study of ideologies. Although they offer a different view on the matter of regional ideas and ideologies, the research coming from this camp suffers the same problem as the one addressed to the essentialist accounts. More precisely, like Kosach, Gelman and others, these authors also regard ideologies as a secondary phenomenon whose social role is limited by the rational strategies of the struggle for greater power. Consequently the object of ideology becomes to be moved out of the dominant focus in these research programmes, which mainly concentrate on the mechanisms of elite rational choice, as the sphere determining the emergence of regional ideologemes. However, it is the elite studies approach which nevertheless gives birth to the most extended analysis of regional ideologies. This is best represented in the analytic

64

Vladimir Gelman, Strategii regionalnoy identichnosti i rol politicheskikh ehlit (na primere

Novgorodskoy oblasti) in Natalia Lapina (ed.), Regionalnye protsessy v sovremennoy Rossii (Moscow: INON RAN, 2002), 30-50.

58

project of Russian scholar Arbakhan Magomedov, whose work deserves special attention.

Regional ideologies in focus: Arbakhan Magomedov and his Mystery of Regionalism Arbakhan Magomedov is a provincial Russian researcher who in 1999 defended a doctoral thesis titled Regional Elites and Regional Ideologies in Contemporary Russia: a Comparative Analysis; on the Example of Republics and Oblasts of the Volga area.65 By the beginning of the 2000s he had published a number of articles66 and a book based upon his thesis. 67 In these works the author elaborates a particular methodological model and evaluates his encounter, during a number of empirical investigations, with the field of contemporary Russian regional ideologies. However, as will be demonstrated below, despite the special attention given by Magomedov to the issue of regional ideologies his works are highly controversial. More precisely, they are very unclear in terms of

65

Reference number in the Russian State Library: 71:00-23/31-6. Arbakhan Magomedov, Politicheskaya ideologiya lokalnykh pravyashchikh ehlit v Rossii in Rossiya i

66

sovremennyi mir, no. 4 (1996), 152 - 176: Arbakhan Magomedov, Obshchestvo regionov in Pro et Contra, vol. 2, no. 2 (1997), 47-58; Arbakhan Magomedov, Lokalnye ehlity i ideologiya regionalizma: sravnitelnyi analiz v Rossii in Na putyakh transformatsii (politicheskie partii i politicheskie ehlity postsovetskogo perioda) (Mocsow: MONF, 1997), 36-66; Arbakhan Magomedov, Regional Ideologies in the Context of International Relations, working paper no. 12 (Zurich: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 2001).
67

Arbakhan Magomedov, Misteriya regionalizma: Regionalnye pravyashchie ehlity i regionalnye

ideologii v sovremennoi Rossii: Modeli politicheskogo vossozdaniya snizu (Sravnitelnyi analiz na primere respublik i oblastei Povolzhya) (Moscow: MONF, 2000).

59

terminology, methodology and conclusions which, all in all, and unfortunately, gives us few clues concerning the further implementation of his research. To demonstrate the aforementioned problems, the introduction of his intellectual project is begun with an initial remark on the term ideology. Surprisingly enough, throughout all his writings, the scholar in question employs several different concepts of ideology. A thorough analysis of his investigations allows for the division of these concepts into two big groups. On the one hand obviously influenced by the ideas of Clifford Geertz68 and Paul Ricoeur69, Magomedov considers ideologies as cognitive guides or maps of reality, which form the sense and conceptualisation of the modern world which influences policy-making.70 In accordance with this understanding, Magomedov accounts for ideologies by way of cultural systems consisting of symbols and images of regions where the latter represent various concepts such as the fatherland, economic wonder, historical centre etc. Thus the views in which Tatarstan becomes the new paradigm, the Euroislam, or the Tatarstanians become a Nation, the ideas of Kalmyk as the corporation of Kalmyk, economic and legal oasis, the views portraying Nizhnii Novgorod as the capital of reforms, the capital of the Volga area, the pocket of Russia, Russian Detroit, or Saratov, for example, as the capital of

68

Clifford Geertz, Ideology as a cultural system in Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures

(London: Fontana Press, 1993), 193-233.

69

The work cited: Paul Ricouer, Germenevtika, ehtika, politica, (Moscow: AO Kamil, 1995). Magomedov, Regional Ideologies, pp, 11, 13, 27, 29.

70

60

Volga area are all regarded by the author as typical examples of regional ideologemes.71 On the other hand, being seriously influenced by the theoretical scholarship of Robert Putnam,72 and Edward Shils73, Magomedov regards ideologies as flexible sets of ideas produced and disseminated by the elite and opened for interpretations and innovations by individuals or groups.74 Specifying the latter, the Russian scholar points to the elite which have the supreme capacity to influence ideologies.
A live mass ideology can emerge only on the ground of actual problematised values. [] This ideological assembling, together with an ensemble of illuminating slogans and a specific rhetoric can be completed only though the social elite proceeding in unison with a kind of uneven breath of the people, with its ontological inspiration.75 As it happened to be, ideological projects, becoming the formula of governing for local ruling groups, create the field of regional interests. These interests and stimuli bring the struggle for coherent ideals directly to the pragmatic purposes of reaching a greater of authority, security and wealth.76

There is surely no need to explain that this combination of concepts is rather controversial. Thus Putnam himself openly confirms that his approach to ideology has
71

Magomedov, Mysteriya regionalizma, pp. 111-112. Robert Putnam, The Beliefs of Politicians (New Heaven: Yale University Press, 1973); Robert

72

Putnam, Studying Elite Political Culture: The Case of Ideology in American Political Science Review, No. 3 (1971), 651-681.
73

Edward Shils, The concept and function of ideology in International Encyclopaedia of the Social

Sciences, vol. 7 (1968), 66-76.

74

Magomedov, Regional Ideologies, pp. 12, 20. Magomedov, Mysteriya regionalizma, p. 101.

75

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nothing to do with the one offered by Geertz. In his The Beliefs of Politicians Putnam states: I reject [emphasis added] [] conceptions of ideology that assume that everyone (or at least everyone in modern society) is equally ideological77, and pointing to the authors of the rejected concepts, he points at the work Ideology as Cultural System by Clifford Geertz. It is also possible to refer here to the work of Geertz, in which the author departs from the critique of Stark, Parsons and Shils who, according to him, approach ideology essentially negatively - as a pretty dirty river.78 In fact a thorough reading of Geertz demonstrates that the American anthropologist regards ideology in an absolutely different manner to the elite analysts. For Geertz, ideology is indeed a cognitive guide to a reality which comes to fill the gaps in the interpreting capacities of culture. Coming to an attempt to fix the chronic nonintegration of society invoked by the unsolved antinomies between liberty and political order, stability and change etc., ideology then is seen as a total system, spread in order to capture everyone in the society. In fact, Geertz argues that no one can really escape a particular ideology when it comes to a response the social challenges of the cultural failure. For Putnam, on the contrary, ideology is more an instrument used for the political socialisation of the elite. Being just a tool in political struggle, ideologies do not emerge from any kind of general cognitive strain but are born in the mind of ruling individuals. Coherently enough, for Putnam it is not a total system of knowledge, but rather a practice carried out by a particular social group. Above all, this practice is

76

Magomedov, Mysteriya regionalizma, pp. 121 122. Putnam, The Beliefs of Politicians, p.32. Geertz, Ideology as a Cultural System, p. 197.

77

78

62

optional - Putnam refers to ideology as a fig leaf79 which can be put on or taken off according to its value in a political game. It is especially interesting to mention that exactly this approach is heavily criticised by Geertz in his attack on interests theory.80 It is obvious that the synthesis of these two approaches therefore requires an adequate reconciliation of the contradicting views as regards the matter of ideologies. In the form in which it is reflected in Geertz and Putnam, ideology is either caused by general cultural strain and, in this sense, they affect everybody in society, or it is produced by the elite for the pragmatic purpose of reaching a greater authority. It is hardly possible to comprehend how the accent on cognitive breakdown caused by events of material character - by nature, so to speak - can be reconciled with the privilege of the pragmatic mind in governing the realm of ideas. The uncritical use of both concepts without any detailed elaboration of their (non-)correspondence does not seem to be justified. The unreflected contradiction between the two methodological pillars prevents Magomedov from successful completing his ambitious project in practice. And the further excursion in his work demonstrates the sharpness of this failure. As Igritskiy mentions in his review of The Mystery of Regionalism, the theoretical and empirical parts live their own life, in the book of Magomedov.81 However, this gentle remark does not fully uncover the depth of the tensions concealed in the works of Magomedov.

79

Robert Putnam, The Prosperous Community in The American Prospect, vol. 4, no 13 (March 21,

1993), available at: http://www.prospect.org/print/V4/13/putnam-r.html (as of August 15, 2003).

80

Geertz , Ideology as a Cultural System, pp. 201-207. See: Yuriy Igritskiy, A. Magomedov. Misteriya regionalizma [] (review) in Pro et Contra, vol. 7, no

81

3, (2002), pp. 245-249.

63

The main real weakness of his project is concealed in the shaky conclusion concerning the differences between particular regional ideologies. Magomedov says that regional ideologies vary between themselves because of the specific problematising of values performed by politicians. Reflecting further upon this criterion, the scholar argues that on the basis of such a mode of problematisation, regional ideologies can be divided into two groups. The first group of ideas appeals to a historical ground and systematises political views in a deductive way - from a theory to a problem. Thus in Tatarstan and Kalmyks respective conceptions of regional ideologies, political actors justify their perception of region through excursuses into the long term history of their people and territory. The ideologemes of Tatarstan as the ancestor of the ancient Turkic civilisation, or Kalmyk as the last redoubt of the steppes culture are the most obvious examples of these kinds of regional ideologies. The other group of views, on the contrary, departs from concrete socio-economic problems and categorises them in an inductive way - from a problem to a theory. Concepts of economic pragmatism, in which a region becomes the Russian Detroit or an economic and legal oasis, and which thereby result from the articulation of territorial benefits in economic and administrative management by a political elite, belong to the second type of regional ideologies. Having identified the two types of regional ideologemes, Magomedov faces tremendous difficulties in explaining the origins of this difference. From his analysis it remains highly unclear why different elites employ different modes of regional ideology. The argument of Magomedov triggers more concerns than it resolves. This argument consists of the following proposition - the emergence of particular ideologies

64

is a matter of political style: [] politicians analyse political problems through different means, but their means of analysis change in a more visible way in the dimension which can be called political style.82 Or: the index of political style performs the most truthful version of the reasoning writing (prichinnogo pocherka) of ideology.83 Uncovering what is to be taken as the index of political style, Magomedov says that the choice between the two modes of ideology is explained by the cognitive capacities of the politicians: the higher the cognitive capacities the politicians have the more deductive they are in their thinking, and the more they are in the territory of historical analogies. 84 The validity of this kind of conclusion seems to be extremely questionable. First of all, cognitive capacities is a highly immeasurable concept. The technical impossibility of a materialisation of cognitive differences is, however, only one counter-argument. The second and much more serious can be called a moral one and it is grounded in the profound vulnerability of the very idea of measuring human cognition in quantitative terms. As Levi-Strauss, and actually the already well-quoted Geertz too, along with other anthropologists working within the frame of Rousseaus moral project argue, the cognition of different people in no way can be captured quantitatively. What are usually considered as low or high abilities of understanding are nothing other than qualitative differences in the symbolic organisation of culture, based upon the dominance of different forms of knowledge: ritual, religion, science, arts etc. It is this idea which causes these authors sharply to deny the opposition between primitive and advanced societies widely exploited in social sciences previously. It is possible to
82

Magomedov, Mysteriya regionalizma, p. 86. Ibid, p. 92. Ibid.

83

84

65

assume that this critique was unfamiliar to Shils, who wrote his Ideology and Civility in 1958, but to rely, to such a degree, on such discredited ideas, at the end of the 20th century, does not compliment the relevant scholar. Not being able, then, to explain the difference between the various regional ideologies in any other way than through references to the vague argument of cognitive capacities of their authors, Magomedov faces serious difficulties in responding to the other crucial question - why is it only regional, as opposed to any other ideologies, which come to be employed by the elites in their race for greater power? In fact, Magomedov does not reflect on this question in any of his analytical excursions, interminably pointing out that regional ideologies just somehow appear or become the formulas of government for local ruling groups.85 All these and many other omissions lead the author towards a disappointingly superficial and generalising conclusion to his entire project.86
The structure and the style of elitistic systems of views seriously vary on the cross-regional basis. Each of the reviewed elites is distinct in its individual character. The latter is defined by various circumstances: historical legacy, the nature of regional and egoistic interests, the setting of concrete tasks, the relevant ideas of friends and enemies. All these circumstances are concentrated in, and translated into, ideology. In the end Russias local realities appear to be so heterogeneous that they do not fit into the far-fetched some main tendencies[] 87

85

Magomedov, Regional Ideologies, p.39. The overgeneralisation of the Magomedovs conclusion has already been mentioned by Yuri Igritskii

86

in his review of Mysteriya regionalizma. See: Igritskiy, A. Magomedov. Misteria regionalizma, p.249.
87

Magomedov, Mysteriya regionalizma, p. 128.

66 Finding the most deep, final explanation (predelnoe obyasnenie) of politics, ideology defines ideals, fundamental goals and other principles which constitute politics.88

In this way, in the very conclusion of his Mystery of Regionalism Magomedov brings the reader to the vital contradiction of his entire project based on the uncritical reading of structural hermeneutics and the elite analysis approach. Trying to escape from some far-fetched general tendencies, Magomedov comes out with more than some answers which, however, appear to be hardly compatible with each other. On the one hand he speaks about concrete tasks, regional and egoistic interests and other ideas that define ideological content simply by being translated in it. On the other hand he assumes that ideologies themselves define ideals, fundamental goals and other principles which constitute politics. Given that the concepts of translation and definition, the difference between concrete tasks and fundamental goals, as well as the ones between ideas and ideals are not explained in the work of Magomedov the academic value of this kind of conclusion seems to be rather doubtful. The question of what regional ideologies really are, what causes their emergence and what does really appear to be shaped by the latter, still remain totally unclear. In the light of these tensions it is impossible to answer the main question of this research - how regional ideas become the cornerstone of political programmes - within the analytical trajectories of Magomedovs project. It seems that just to put regional ideologies in the centre of analytical investigation, even in spite of the fact of having done extensive field research, is not enough to facilitate an adequate analysis of programmes of regional identification. What is necessary in this enterprise is a comprehensive methodological framework for the analysis. As aforementioned, the
88

Ibid, 129.

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failures of the Magomedovs endeavour are grounded in his inability to provide a clear synthesis of the two different methodological pillars of his investigation. In other words this means that the scholar has a weak methodological basis in general and it is this factor which seems to lay at the foundation of the tensions identified in his research. This reason, in its turn, seems to be explained by the rather selective attitude of the author towards current theoretical debates devoted to the issue of ideology. It is rather remarkable that, being written at the end of the 1990s, his works reflect the trends of social thought dominant in the beginning of the 1970s, or even before. Thus apart from the aforementioned papers of Shils, Geertz and Putnam, from the range of theoretical accounts available Magomedov relies on the works of Verba89, Mannheim90, Dahl91. Among the relatively recent works referred to, there is only McLellan92 and Hamilton93. This focus looks really strange because even a brief review of the literature demonstrates that the main debates on this problem start later, after the linguistic turn in social sciences and the revival of Marxist ideas in the West, after the Second World War, articulated a wide academic interest as regards the question of the ideological.94 Unsurprisingly, the amount of works which introduce the notion of the importance of the study of ideology drastically increase by the end of the
89

Sydney Verba, Comparative Political Culture in Lucian Pye and Sydney Verba (eds.) Political

Culture and Political Development (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1965), 544-548.
90

Karl Mannheim, Diagnoz nashego vremeni (Moscow: Yurist, 1994). Robert Dahl, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American city (New Haven: Yale

91

University Press, 1961).

92

David McLellan, Ideology (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1995). Malcolm Hamilton, The Elements of the Concept of Ideology in Poliltcal Studies, no.1 (1987), 18-38. See: Aletta Norval, 'Review Article: The Things We Do with Words - Contemporary Approaches to the

93

94

Analysis of Ideology' in British Journal of Political Sciences, no. 30 (2000), 313-346, p.314.

68

1970s and later.95 It is this process that is referred to by Andrey Zorin who, introducing the Russian translation of Ideology as a Cultural System, writes:
Interestingly, as early as 1929, in what became a classic work (Ideology and Utopia), Karl Mannheim complained that we do not yet posses an adequate historical treatment of the development of the concept of ideology, to say nothing of a sociological history of many variations and meanings []. Since that time the situation has shifted to the other extreme, and the problem now is more one of an overabundance of relevant works. See for example: John Larrain, The Concept of Ideology; G. Kendall, Ideology: An Essay on Definition [], John Thompson, Studies in the Theory of Ideology [], and others.96

Conclusion to Chapter I In this way then, the review of existing literature reveals that the problem of regional ideologies in post-Soviet Russia in general does not receive enough academic attention. It is either present in the form of simplistic description employed by various monitoring groups, or it is accounted for by way of a secondary phenomenon that does not deserve special analytical investigation, as is done in the studies of regional political elites, regimes and various forms of ever-existing regionalism.

95

From the general works see: Terry Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction, (London: Verso, 1991); David

Hawkes, Ideology, (London New York: Routledge, 1996); Mike Cormack, Ideology (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992); Jorge Larrain, The Concept of Ideology (Athens: The University of Georgia Press; London: Hutchinson, 1979); Chrisopher Pines, Ideology and False Consciousness: Marx and his Historical Progenitors (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993); Michael Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1996), Andrew Heywood, Political Ideologies (New York: St. Martins press, 1999).
96

Andrey Zorin, Ideology, Semiotics, and Clifford Geertz: Some Russian Reflections in History and

Theory, no. 40 (2001), 57-73, p.58, footnote 2.

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The only research which is specifically devoted to the study of contemporary Russian regional ideologies that of Arbakhan Magomedov, despite its noble ambitions, is still rather insufficient as it does not really give the answers to the questions articulated in the preamble of this work. The reasons for this failure lies in the weak methodological foundation of its intellectual endeavour. The main weakness is that Magomedov does not situate his approach in the broad debates on ideology, language and society opened within the linguistic turn and therefore comes to produce an overabundance of works devoted to this theme. The navigation of this overabundance of works is a difficult task. However, only this makes possible the avoidance of the methodological weakness that is to be detected in the only existing extended academic project dealing with regional ideologies in contemporary Russia. Following the aforementioned demand, we shall continue with an extended introduction of the methodological framework that is to be employed in the examination of contemporary Russian regional ideologies. This introduction aims at defining a clear concept of ideology, situated in relation to the other spheres of social life, such as the institutional organisation of the society and the normative regulations of social praxis.

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CHAPTER 2: IDEOLOGY, DISCOURSE AND SOCIAL CHANGE: INTRODUCTION OF THE METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

Introduction to Chapter 2 This chapter aims at introducing the methodological framework to be employed in the analysis of ideological practice. The introduction begins with an outline of a profound controversy in understanding ideology born of the discussion between Destutt de Tracy and Napoleon. Reviewing the later debates, notably those of Marx, Lenin, Gramsci and Althusser, I show how different authors try to reconcile this contradiction by providing new theoretical accounts of ideological communication. This excursion results in the introduction of discourse theory as it is this theory which seems to give the most credible means for solving the problem of the contradictory nature of the key concept of the research. In the scope of approaches offered in the field of discourse analysis I will focus upon the one elaborated by Laclau, Mouffe and the scholars of the Ideology and Discourse Analysis programme run at the University of Essex. I demonstrate that the analytic apparatus introduced by these scholars does not only give a theoretically clear picture of what ideology is, but also offers sufficient analytic tools to allow us to endeavour in the process of understanding the construction, functioning and dissolution of ideological creations. This, in its turn, allows one to identify the points that need to be addressed in the forthcoming empirical research, which, above all, opens the way towards a situation of contemporary Russian regional ideologies in the context of discursive transformations constituting contemporary Russian history.

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Ideology as the greatest of arts [] regulating society and as obscure and shadowy metaphysics As an initial remark, prior to the introduction of the methodological framework, we could refer to the debates mentioned in the previous Chapter, and most notably to those held between Clifford Geertz and Robert Putnam. For as far back as the beginning of the 1970s, the American anthropologist said that it is one of the minor ironies of modern intellectual history that the term ideology has itself became thoroughly ideologised.1 Interestingly enough, although he was in disagreement with Geertz as regards the conception of ideology, Putnam had the same doubt regarding the degree of the clarity of this term. He expressed this by saying that: diving into the cold and dark water of literature on ideology is a shocking and disappointing experience for any promising supporter of social science.2 Looking at the development of scholarly debates focused on the issue of ideology, it is possible to say that these remarks, in fact, were more than relevant to their time. This relevance is generally explained by a growing methodological ambivalence which encapsulated the concept of ideology since it became a topic for academic discussion at the end of the 18th century. Destutt de Tracy defined ideology as the knowledge as to the origins of abstract ideas formed in the mind, or a science explaining their formation. Moreover, as Thompson comments on this definition:

Clifford Geertz, Ideology As a Cultural System in Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures.

Selected Essays (London: Fontana Press, 1993), 193-233, p.193.

2

Robert Putnam, Studying Elite Political Culture: The Case of Ideology, in American Political Science

Review, no. 3 (1971), 658-681, p. 651.

72 Ideology [for Destutt de Tracy] was to be positive, useful and susceptible of rigorous exactitude. Genealogically it was the first science, since scientific knowledge involved the combination of ideas. It was also the basis of grammar, logic, education, morality and, ultimately, the greatest of the arts, that of regulating society in such a way that man finds there the most help and the least possible annoyance from his own kind.3

However, the social value of this art was very soon questioned by Napoleon who made his famous remarks on ideologues. The latter came to be seen as all men of ideas blind to historical realities and who were thereby totally enraptured by the research of abstract truth, irrelevant to the solution of actual social problems.4 Addressing the Council of State in December 1812 Napoleon declared that: We must lay the blame for the ills that our fair France has suffered on ideology, that shadowy metaphysics which subtly searches for first causes on which to base the legislation of peoples, rather than making use of laws known to the human heart and of the lessons of history.5 The polemics articulated by the critical remark of Napoleon set the ground for a profoundly deep split in the understanding of ideology and its role in society. The question of whether it is the art regulating society or it is just an obscure and shadowy metaphysics which brings society away from its real problems became the problem defining further academic encounters with ideology. And the first intellectual tradition where this dualism is clearly articulated is in Marxist social theory.

John Thompson, Ideology and the Modern Culture (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), p. 29. Isaac Kramnick and Frederic Watkins, The Age of Ideology: Political Thought, 1750 to the Present

(New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1979), p. 1.

5

Quoted through Thomson, Ideology and the Modern Culture, p. 31.

73

The Marxist encounter Marxism is clearly concerned with the dual character of ideology. On the one hand it is being perceived within the Napoleonian framework as false consciousness, which is to be opposed to a kind of true consciousness.6 Here ideology distorts and perverts the social affiliations constituted by real economic relations of production. On the other hand, speaking about proletarian ideology Marx assumes that unlike the bourgeois one it does not distort and pervert the real order of things but, on the contrary, legitimises the latter. By introducing the difference between bourgeois and proletarian ideologies Marx and Engels situate the ambivalent value of ideology within the framework of class theory, wherein the positive or negative nature of ideological performances appears to be defined by the class affiliations of their translators. If they are uttered by the proletariat, they legitimise the social changes defined by the objective run of history. If employed by the bourgeoisie however, they distort and pervert the former. However, by explaining the ideological controversy through class theory Marx and Engels, in fact, point to the social insignificance of this phenomenon. Insofar as ideological performances are completely defined by their instrumentality in relation to the class struggle, by their being used to distort or to legitimise a certain social order, they become necessary only in a situation of class contradictions. In a society where there are or will be no such contradictions and hence, no classes, such as the ideal communist one, there should therefore be no place for ideology. As a matter of fact, Marxism advocates the assumption that ideology is an accidental translation of the essential ground of economic relations.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985).

74

This assumption appears to be translated into many of the subsequent Marxist debates. Thus, for example, Lenin obviously thinks of ideologies in terms of their proletarian or bourgeois character - as purely reflecting the regularities of class composition. There is no middle course for humanity has not created a third ideology states the leader of the Russian Revolution. Moreover, for Lenin, in a society torn apart by class antagonisms there can never be a non-class or above-class ideology.7 In such a way, in Marxism, the methodological contradiction between the positive and the negative role of ideological practices appears to be solved by situating it in relation to particular social movements and policies undertaken by economically (or in some other way) pre-constituted social actors. For one class a particular ideology may be regarded as naturalising and legitimising a certain social order while for the others it becomes something which distorts and perverts reality, and drives consciousness away from the real problem of establishing another social arrangement.

The post-Marxist critique However, very soon this solution becomes revisited as voices appear which question the secondary character of ideological practices along with their total reducibility to the regularities of the underlying economic base. The first challenge of the original Marxist proposal is linked to the name of Antonio Gramsci.

Vladimir Lenin, What is to be Done? The Burning Question of Our Movement (Peking: Foreign

Languages Press, 1973), p.48.

75

The Italian thinker introduces the interesting concept of historically organic ideologies understood as a necessary representative of material class interests which are organically related to social institutions and society in general. These ideologies have a psychological validity to organise human masses and create the terrain on which men move, acquire consciousness of their position, struggle, etc.8 Historically organic ideologies are then seen as the sets of commonsensical conceptions of the world which are implicitly manifest in art, law, in economic activity and in all manifestations of individual and collective life.9 In the concept of historically organic ideologies Gramsci, in fact, provides ideology with the same social importance as the relations of material forces. This transformation becomes intelligible after he articulates the distinction between organic and non-organic or coercive forms of social organisation. The first ones are established by the virtue of ideological domination through the cultural institutions or the institutions of civil society such as schools, churches etc., while the second type of government is based totally on the use of force, recruited to preserve established economic relations. The theoretical innovation endowed in the idea of the organic state inverts the Marxist base/superstructure dichotomy as the totality of social practices and institutions now appears to be determined not by the economic relations of the base but also by the development of the ideological superstructure of state and civil society. By admitting this alternative Gramsci designates the theoretical perspective in which it appears possible to account for ideology in terms of the sphere that can

Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebook (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971), p. 377. Ibid, p. 328.

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possess the same importance in the organisation of social relations as that which was earlier completely restricted to the realm of economy. The next wave of critique targeting the preoccupation with the accidental nature of ideology is presented in the works of Louis Althusser. The French scholar goes further than the Gramscian concern. Combining Marxist assumptions with the ideas elaborated by structuralists and advanced in psychoanalysis he comes out with a new approach. Following the direction of the linguistic turn Althusser attributes to ideology the character of a language system which forms identifiable phenomena from an indiscreet physical reality. It is this function which Althusser translates as any process of transformation of a determinate given raw material into a determinate product10. The transformation of raw material into determinate product occurs as a result of the transposition of particular imaginary relations onto the surface of the real world. And exactly these relations appear to be embodied in ideological practice.11 In development of this idea, Althusser introduces a particular concept of subjectivity based on the ideas of interpellation or hailing, seen as the manner in which social identities are constituted. This concept becomes the focal point of his entire

intellectual project. The French thinker argues that the process of social identification is a free subjection of individuals to the idea of a subject translated by means of ideological apparatus.

10

Louis Althusser, For Marx (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969), p. 166. Glyn Williams, French Discourse Analysis. The Method of Post-Structuralism (London: Routledge,

11

1999), pp. 70-71.

77 Ideology acts or functions in such a way that it recruits among the individuals (it recruits them all) by that very precise operation which I have called interpellation or hailing, and which can be imagined along the lines of the most commonplace everyday police (or other) hailing: Hey, you there! Assuming that the theoretical scene I have imagined takes place in the street, the hailed individual will turn around. By this one-hundred-and-eighty-degree physical conversion, he becomes a subject. Why? Because he has recognised that the hail was really addressed to him (and not to someone else).12

Thus it comes to be obvious that Althusser endows the material character of ideology with the notion of interpellation. Being hailed, subjects construct - in imaginary fashion - their real world, in which they can feel all right13 as workers, peasants or bourgeoisie. In the light of these arguments ideology comes to be treated as the sphere which lends organisation to society, by means of transforming raw individuals into subjects. In this proposal Althusser deploys the Gramscian hint regarding the defining role of ideology in organising social relations. Moreover, for the French thinker the ideological state apparatus ceases to be just a social alternative but becomes the axis of any social organisation. Yet, it is possible to say that Althusser, as well as Gramsci, fail to complete the project of rehabilitating the social value of ideology. Having advocated the notion of the profound importance of ideological practices, neither the first nor the second abandons the very basis of the Marxist theory, most notably the privileging of economy over other spheres of social life. And it is here that a new methodological
12

Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (London: New Left Books, 1971), p.174. Ibid. p.181.

13

78

tension emerges. Economy and ideology become contradictory in their function of lending an order to society. This contradiction remains quite visible throughout the entire work of Gramsci and Althusser, and this makes their approach to ideology rather vulnerable. And this tension causes David Howarth to summarise the Althusserian theoretical intervention in a rather critical way:
There is no question that Althussers theoretical approach reinvigorated the Marxist theory of ideology []. His stress on the relative autonomy of the three systems of practice [economic, political and ideological] that constitutes a social formation, and his emphasis on the overdetermined character of social contradictions, carried the promise of breaking with the reductionist and determinist model of society epitomised in the base/superstructure metaphor. However, his model is strongly compromised by his insistence that it is the economic system that determines which level is to be the dominant element in any particular society, and it is economic processes that still determine in the last instance the functioning and reproduction of society as a whole. It is evident that this conception fails to transcend the determinism of the Marxist theory of society.14

However, despite these problems in justifying the defining social role of ideology, Althussers theoretical intervention appears to be highly productive for further advances in this field. More precisely, it raises some key questions which effectively discredit the Marxist solution to the contradictory readings of ideology. If the two faces of ideology are determined by the character of economically constituted agents, how then should we treat the very idea that ideology can itself constitute these actors? The answer to this question, in fact, defines two further perspectives in the study of ideology.

14

David Howarth, Discourse, (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000), p. 97.

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Within the first one the Althusserian theoretical contribution is rejected or, at most, recognised as a deviation. Here it is proposed to stay with the classic Marxist materialism, wherein ideology is regarded as a translation of certain underlying social regularities. This perspective is realised in the so-called realist approaches. While within the second, on the contrary, the authors accept the assumption as to the defining role of ideology at the expense of the value which would otherwise be left to certain essential domains. This type of approach is generally regarded as constructivist. However, it is exactly this split which appears to be ignored in the studies of Russian regional ideologies. And it is this unawareness, which, to a great degree, defines their methodological vagueness. The split between the two profoundly different trajectories of apprehending ideologies appears to be unrecognised. It is obvious that theoretical debates on the true of false character of each approach requires a special, and far more detailed investigation than it is allowed by the restriction of this thesis. However, the following indifference as to the crucial methodological difference outlined above would lead the research into the same trap as, for instance, Magomedov (widely criticised in the previous chapter) finds himself. In order to avoid this trap, it is necessary clearly to indicate the authors position in this vital theoretical roundabout. Following this requirement I declare that the following endeavour is conducted within the second constructivist paradigm of examining ideologies. This authoritarian declaration seems to be the only way to avoid the tensions and shortcomings identified in the existing examinations of Russian regional ideologies. Nevertheless, once announced, the constructivist paradigm needs a clear introduction, as it is only afterwards that the general theoretical assumptions appear to be supplied with relevant conceptual instruments. To introduce this paradigm a further excursion into

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the theoretical literature will be carried out, using the intellectual project of one of Althussers disciples - Michel Foucault.

Michel Foucault Foucault starts his theoretical endeavour with a general critique of the essentialist paradigm. At the basis of his critique, Foucault places the thesis that things, whatever they are, are not pre-given to man, but are produced within particular social activity. This activity is seen by Foucault as the construction of a certain structure of the reality we live in. The French thinker assumes that objects exist as entities as far as they are structured by socially produced rules and norms that form a certain syntax of our world perception.15 The Foucauldian argument states that whatever we see, hear, feel and think as objects, things or events become what they are only in the realm of certain structural affiliations which make them thinkable.16 Yet, this does not mean that there is literally nothing outside a certain norm and that this norm is the only reality. What it means is that something becomes thinkable as a particular object only within the framework of a precise structural organisation. What lies beyond obviously exists but we cannot really objectify it unless it comes to be incorporated in certain structural affiliations by which we can distinguish it from the non-discrete reality of the surrounding world.

15

Michel Foucault, The Order of Things. The Archaeology of Human Sciences (New York: Vintage

Books, 1994), p. xvii.

16

Michel Foucault, The Order of Discourse in Michael J. Shapiro (ed.) Language and Politics (Oxford:

Basil Blackwell, 1984), 108-138, pp. 126-128.

81

Generally, the field of in which we distinguish is regarded by the French thinker as discourse understood as a socially produced structure which perceives the surrounding world. Arguing that the formation of objects emerge only in discourse he says that all objects obtain their identity or, literally, become what they are only in discourse. [T]here is no prediscursive providence which disposes the world - says Michel Foucault.17 Touching upon the regularities of this formation Foucault draws a detailed picture, which, however, is not always logically clear. The major incapacity is concealed in a certain lack of continuity in his thought which causes many authors to divide his entire intellectual project into two parts: the archaeological, covering the ideas formed in the time from The Order of Things and Archaeology of Knowledge to The Birth of the Clinic, and genealogical one which, in its turn, includes the idea which Foucault expresses in Discipline and Punish, History of Sexuality and other late works. During the archaeological period Foucault attempts to describe the discursive formations of the Modern Era in Europe. In so doing he elaborates the order of discourse which makes intelligible the bringing of objects into being. The way objects emerge in discourse in this phase of his intellectual endeavour can be presented in the following way. Objects as such are formed by knowledge which demarcates reality in a certain way and by this distinguishes what we call objects. Thus a schizophrenic or a mentally ill person is brought into being by the medical knowledge explaining why one person is normal and why the other is not. Literally the ill and the normal become objects to

17

Foucault, The Order of Discourse, p. 127.

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be distinguished from the social fabric insofar as they become objects of medical knowledge.18 The knowledge, whatever form it takes, manifests itself in the form of statements or enoncs which express a particular mode of demarcation.19 The conclusions and judgements of a doctor considering one as mentally ill represent a clear example of this knowledge. Drawing on the distinctions of enunciating linguistics Foucault considers that any meaningful utterance which relates to the relevant knowledge, is inseparable from the context in which it is made. This means that knowledge as such exists not only in texts but also in the context of its articulation. Conceptualising this context further, Foucault puts forward the idea of places of speaking understood as positions from where the statements are made.20 For example, the position of a doctor is the place which causes the relevant statement to be understood in a particular medical way. The place is also identified as an enunciative modality,21 specified in relations of difference with other modalities, like teacher, policemen or patient etc. The discursive modality, i.e. the place from which a particular voice is heard, defines whether or not this utterance can be considered as a statement and by this can form a kind of knowledge.

18

Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization. A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (New York:

Vintage Books, 1988).

19

Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (London: Tavistock, 1972), p. 117 Foucault, The Order of Things, p. 305-306. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, pp. 95-96.

20

21

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At this point Foucault understands discourse as the dispersion of statements made from different positions.22 The realm of the non-discursive, crucial for the intelligibility of discourse, put coherently, includes everything which lies beyond the field of statements. This includes the modalities constituting a particular dispersion of statements and relations established between them. What makes a doctor different from a patient, for instance, is, according to the archaeological Foucault, the nondiscursive. As Howarth indicates in his analysis of the Foucauldian archaeological project, at this stage of his research Foucault constantly refers to the situation where discourse affects, or establishes something outside itself.23 This outside is defined as practices, concepts, strategies and relations established between discursive modalities. This means that discourse in general appears to be defined in relations of difference to what may be regarded as the social, which, in its turn, comes to be seen as external to the discursive. However, having outlined the vital importance of the non-discursive, Foucault does not provide any positive definition of it, which probably results from the unintelligibility of this notion within the conceptual framework of his theory. As a matter of fact, if all objects are brought into being by a certain knowledge and this knowledge is what constitutes discourse, then the objects - doctor, patient, mentally ill become, ambiguously, both a discursive creation as far as they are thinkable, and nondiscursive insofar as they belong to the realm of social organisation external to discourse itself.

22

Ibid. p.37. Howarth, Discourse, 64-65.

23

84

And it is exactly this tension which causes Foucault to revisit the concept of discourse in his later works. The revision starts with the analysis of relations forming the discursive modalities. A thorough look at the way objects emerge in discourse, and especially at the examples used by Foucault for illustrating it, shows that, as a matter of fact, discursive modalities such as doctor, teacher, policeman are nothing else than indeed the objects recognised in a certain corpus of statements. However, these statements are not ones uttered by the modalities they specify, as the identities of subject positions presuppose the constitution of meaningfulness as translated by their enonc. This idea leads Foucault to the conclusion that discourse finds it limits not in relations of difference from the social, but in its difference from other discourses. It is the other discourses which distinguish the objects that serve as the discursive modalities for the given one.24 For instance the state discourse constituted by the bodies of government constitutes the modality of policeman whose statements bring into existence a criminal, etc. In such a way, the reality we live in appears to be presented as a configuration of different discourses where different objects, subject positions, relations and practices are placed in relations of mutual interaction. The specification that there is nothing outside discourse except another discourse leads Foucault to the idea that discursive organisation is inseparable from the relations of domination and power. One discourse penetrates the other insofar as I can dominate the latter or impose my power on it. Foucault argues that the interpenetration of dominated and dominating discourses plays a vital role in bringing

24

See: Discourses must be treated as discontinuous practices, which cross each other, are sometimes

juxtaposed with one another, but can just as well exclude or be unaware of each other (Foucault, The Order of Discourse, p. 127).

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objects into being.25 This means that the condition of struggle and antagonistic relations established between the powerful discourse and that of resistance form the axis of any discursive arrangement. Yet, it is necessary to remind that the concept of power in the works of Foucault differs from the traditional one, generally understood as a capacity of controlling the actions of individuals by means of various institutions of coercion like police, army, courts etc. This difference flows from the basic methodological preoccupation of Michael Foucault, translated into his strong disregard of any possibility of arguing for the pregiven objectivity of surrounding realities. Having dismissed the validity of the idea of an objective world in which individuals are perceived as pre-given objects, Foucault argues that insofar as discourse is the realm bringing objects into being, it is discourse which also provides power with the instruments of its existence, through powers recognition as to the dominated and the dominating entities.26 Moreover, since discourse is organised by in statements, understood as autonomous systems of knowledge, it is the creation of knowledge which becomes the main instrument in the execution of power. Power [] is not an institution, and not a structure, - writes the French author, - it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical relationship in a particular society.27 The discursive character of power grounds the essential role of knowledge in constituting social relations. Thus what is usually seen as the sphere of politics, social struggle and social dynamics, apprehended through the dichotomy of power and

25

Williams, The French Discourse Analysis, pp. 94-98. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison (New York: Pantheon, 1977). Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality, vol. 1 (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), p. 93.

26

27

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resistance, the dominating and the dominated, comes to be the sphere of competition between different knowledges. It is not economy or any other underlying terrain which defines the arrangement of social inequality and explains social struggle but the interaction of different pictures of the world that leads to the intelligibility of social dynamics. This conclusion brings ideology to the centre of the social, as the former is converted into nothing other than a particular form of statements, constituting knowledge. Being a pattern of political beliefs that introduce normative visions [] of ideal order, which include highly articulated attitudes about human nature, about society, about the relationship of the individual to the state and society, about the relationship of the economy and the polity28, ideology occupies a place equal to the one of science, religion or ritual and through this it is converted into a network of statements which organise social knowledge. Many authors argue that Foucault, indeed, avoids a clear separation of ideology and, for example, science, which for him, no doubt, constitutes the centre of social structurality. Bell, for example, advocating this point, writes that, for Foucault, the very division between science and ideology becomes insignificant, as in his theory they both belong to the realm of statements organising discourse.
Foucault systematically rejects the traditional opposition of science and ideology, a demarcation given absolute status in Marxist as well as positivist philosophy. Indeed he attempts to prosecute his critical archaeology of knowledge without recourse to any critical

28

Kramnick and Watkins, The Age of Ideology, p. 2.

87 theory of ideology, holding that this analysing of discourse practices made it possible to trace the formations of disciplines (savoirs) while escaping dilemma of science versus ideology.29

Cousins and Hussain, in their turn, write that: we are not dealing with a difference between science and ideology. The difference is established by different positions [] The difference between them is, as it were, a topographical difference not a difference between knowledge and pseudo knowledge.30 And as Foucault confirms himself, in his reference to Destutt de Tracy, ideology is not only inseparable from science and other material translations of the knowledge, but, moreover, it represents the supreme form of the latter.
Ideology posits itself both as the only rational and scientific form that philosophy can assume and as the sole philosophic foundation that can be proposed for the sciences in general and for each particular sphere of knowledge. Being a science of ideas, Ideology should be a kind of knowledge of the same type as those that take as their object the beings of nature, the words of language, or the laws of society. But precisely in so far as its object is ideas, the manner in which they are expressed in words and linked together in reasoning, it has validity as the Grammar and the Logic of all possible science. Ideology does not question the foundation, the limits, or the root of representation; it scans the domain of representations in general; it determines the necessary sequences that appear there; it defines the links that provide its connections; it expresses the laws of composition and decomposition that may rule it. It situates all knowledge in the space of representations, and by scanning that space it

29

Desmond Bell, Michel Foucault: A Philosopher for all Seasons? in History of European Ideas, vol.

14, no.3 (1992), 331-346, p. 336.

30

Mark Cousins and Athar Hussain, Michel Foucault (London: Macmillan, 1984), p.95.

88 formulates the knowledge [emphasis added] of the laws that provide its organization. It is in a sense the knowledge of all knowledge [emphasis added].31

Concluding the excursion into the Foucauldian intellectual project it appears possible to say that the French thinker suggests a credible alternative to the realist accounts for ideology. He shows that the theoretical perspective designated in post-Marxist studies allows for a response to the initial contradiction in reading ideology, and one which proceeds in a different but scientifically defensible way. By being a knowledge ideology brings objects into being and through this, it makes reality thinkable. Under these circumstances its distorted and false character appears to be defined by the inability to make the actually-happening events and actually-present things intelligible. While in fact, ideology may be regarded as organic and true if it manages to objectify and make thinkable the surrounding word, in all its actual materiality. Yet it is fair to say that Foucault himself does not elaborate the problem of the success or failure of particular knowledges in making reality thinkable. Rather, this perspective obtains its elaboration in the works of other authors like Levi-Strauss32, Clifford Geertz33 and Jaques Lacan. This makes it possible to conclude that the theoretical

31

Foucault, The Order of Things, pp. 240-241. See also: this foundation underlying all knowledge, this

origin expressed in a continuous discourse is Ideology, a language that duplicates the spontaneous thread of knowledge along the whole of its length, (Foucault, The Order of Things, p. 85).
32

Levi-Strauss investigates the case where the health problems that emerge during the process of

giving birth become an event unexplainable within the culturally given world picture of the future mother and then he displays how a re-conceptualisation of the reality through a shamans ritual assists the women in retaining spiritual and even physical health (See: Claude Levi-Strauss, The effectiveness of symbols in Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), 186-205.
33

The Geertzean concept of cultural strain is understood as the impossibility of apprehending actual

reality within the culturally given system of world perception (see: Geertz, Ideology as a Cultural System, pp. 203-205).

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advances of the Foucauldian intellectual enterprise set a solid ground for an adequate approach to ideologies from the constructivist standpoint. And the number of works departing from this theoretical ground prove this assumption better than any other argument.34 However, within the scope of the approaches elaborating the Foucauldian solution, the most prominent one in which the question of ideological success appears to be in the main focus of the research, is the ideology and discourse analysis (henceforth IDA) approach. 35

The IDA approach: basic assumptions Drawing on the problems visited in the post-Marxist debates, post-structuralism and psychoanalysis, the authors of IDA generally comply with the main concepts elaborated by Michel Foucault. Thus discourse is apprehended as a sphere [that] includes all the practices and meanings shaping a particular community of social actors. In these perspectives, discourses constitute symbolic systems and social orders, and the task of discourse analysis is to examine their historical and political construction and functioning.36 It is important to mention that at the point of defining what discourse is, IDA seriously differs from other schools of discourse analysis, generally known under the name of critical discourse analysis (hereinafter CDA) and deployed by Ruth Wodak and the

34

A basic search in the catalogue of the Library of Congress (Foucault in the Title field) indicates that

by the year 2004, more than 80 books devoted to Foucault had been published, excluding articles.
35

This approach is offered in the works Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, David Howarth, Aletta Norval,

Yanis Stavrakakis, Jason Glynos and other researchers in the Essex school of discourse analysis.
36

Howarth, Discourse, 5.

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authors of the Vienna school, Teun Van Dijk, Norman Fairclough, Gnter Kress and some other scholars.37 Despite some significant differences between these authors it is still possible to say however that there is a point where they clearly meet, in terms of their ends. They all regard discourse as language in use or language beyond the sentence. Clarifying this notion Coulthard and Sinclair write, in the article introducing their Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis: We see the level of discourse as lying between [emphasis added] the levels of grammar and non-linguistic organisation.38 And the majority of authors working in the framework of the CDA approach indeed regard discourse in the same way, as a sphere placed between language grammar and non-linguistic realities.39 In the framework of this definition discourse is regarded as a pure mediation of relations established in non-linguistic domains. As Van Dijk puts it in his Introduction to the Handbook of Discourse Analysis:
Discourse analysis provides us with rather powerful, while subtle and precise, insights to pinpoints the everyday manifestations and displays [emphasis added] of social problems in communication and interaction. It is here that we witness the realisation of the macrosociological patterns [emphasis added] that characterise our societies. Certainly, discourse features may only be symptoms or fragmentary enactments [emphasis added] of larger problems: inequality, class differences, sexism, racism, power, and dominance of course involve more than text and talk.40

37

For a review of these approaches see: Norman Fairclough and Ruth Wodak, Critical Discourse

Analysis in Teun van Dijk (ed.) Discourse as Social Interaction (London: Sage, 1997), 258 - 285.
38

John Sinclair and Malcolm Coulthard, Towards an analysis of discourse in Advances in Spoken

Discourse Analysis (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 5.

39

See: What Do We Mean By Discourse Analysis? in Discourse and Society official web page edited

by Teun Van Dijk, available at: http://www.discourse-in-society.org/whatisda.htm.

40

Teun Van Dijk (ed.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (London: Academic Press, 1985), p. 7. It

is also possible to mention that the phrases Discourse and Society or Discourse in Society, adopted for

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Thus Van Dijk obviously considers macrosociological patterns that characterise our societies as an autonomous terrain, lying outside discourse. Being apprehended in terms of larger problems of inequality, racism etc., this terrain is seen as defining its discursive manifestations and displays. The possibility for thinkable social reality to be pre-organised outside discursive affiliations and moreover, the assumption that this organisation defines discourse, qualify CDA as a method of sociological reductionism where a study in discursive practices unavoidably has to be reduced to an endeavour in social reality external to the discursive affiliations and pre-organised outside them, hence it is this reality which determines discourse.41 In accordance with this strategy, these are the issues of socially pre-organised communication which are mainly elaborated in the CDA. The authors of this approach focus on the issues of inter-personal interactions or public communication where given positions like man, woman, doctor, immigrant, teenager etc. manifest themselves through the text uttered, and mediate the position to the audience. The issues of their emergence and the constitution of particular relations between them are usually out of focus in this body of research. It is exactly this point at which CDA, as well as the
denomination of the field of the problem in CDA would be a nonsense from the point of view of IDA, as therein discourse and society are principally inseparable - discourse is society.
41

It is possible to say that in CDA it is assumed that discourse is a form of social practice (Fairclough

and Wodak, Critical Discourse Analysis, p. 258) while the authors of the IDA would say that society is a form of discursive practice (See Ernesto Laclau, Impossibility of Society in Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, vol. 15, no. 1-2 & 3 (1991), 24-27). It is also important to mention that the works of Siegfrid Jger and the Duisburg school of discourse analysis, often considered as a part of the CDA(,) differ on this point and stand closer to the IDA approach. As Jger states himself: discourse analysis is not (only) about interpretations of something that already exists, thus not (only) about the analysis of the allocation of a meaning post festum, but about the analysis of the production of reality which is performed by discourse (Siegfied Jger, Discourse and Knowledge. Theoretical and methodological aspects of a critical discourse and dispositive analysis in Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer (Eds.), Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (London: Sage, 2001), 32-62, p. 36).

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other positivist42 and realist43 approaches towards the analysis of discourse, stands in a clear opposition to IDA, wherein it is argued that society cannot be thought outside discourse. It is discourse which brings all objects of the social into being and makes society what it is. The fact that all objects are assumed to be the objects of discourse, however, does not drive IDA into the debates on the primacy of thought over matter or the other way around. As Laclau and Mouffe argue the focus on the discursive emergence of objects does not mean that there is no world external to thought. What is questioned is that the reality external to thought has its meaning independent from the discursive condition of its emergence. As the authors of the Hegemony and Socialist Strategy put it:
The fact that every object is constituted as an object of discourse has nothing to do [emphasis original] with whether there is a world external to thought, or with the realism/idealism opposition. An earthquake or the falling of a brick is an event that certainly exist, in the sense that it occurs, here and now, independently on my will. But whether their specificity as objects is constructed in terms of natural phenomena or expressions of the wrath of God, depends upon the structuring of a discursive field. What is denied is not that such objects exist externally to thought, but the rather different assertion that they could constitute themselves as objects outside any discursive condition of emergence.44

42

Doug McAdam, John McCarthy and Meyer Zald, (eds.) Comparative Perspectives on Social

Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Feelings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
43

Rom Harre, A Social Being. A Theory for Social Psychology (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979). Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical

44

Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 1985), p. 108.

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In the light of the aforementioned idea the main focus of IDA appears to be defined by the question of why the materiality of surrounding realities becomes interpreted in this way, rather than another. Why, for example, does the forest standing on the path of a proposed motorway becomes an obstacle to be passed by, the nations heritage to be saved or the object of naturalists interest?45 These differences are assumed to be constructed discursively through the production of a certain knowledge which constitutes the object of the forest. It is this process which entails the construction and dissolution of things, events, social identities and other things we can distinguish as objects from the surrounding realities. The discursive construction of reality, however, is an uneven process. In reference to this unevenness Laclau, in his Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory, distinguishes two types of social situation: the period of stability and the crisis.46 In general terms the periods of stability are characterised by the capacity of active knowledge to neutralise the contradictions invoked by certain social events, and also the ability of discourse to retain its ideological unity. In other words, stability is understood as the time when the totality of happening events is more or less explainable within a given system of knowledge. The crisis, on the contrary, is the time when actual reality and the structures of knowledge appear to be split. This makes events meaningless and meanings unable to be discerned in real practices and relations.47

45

Howarth, Discourse, pp. 101-102. Ernesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism,

46

(London:Verso, 1979), pp.102-103.

47

Ibid, p.103.

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The concept of dislocation Elaborating the question of discursive crisis Laclau and Mouffe introduce the notion of dislocation, understood as a disruption of the symbolic organisation invoked by real events which cannot or can be hardly symbolised within a given discursive order.48 To illustrate the concept of dislocation, one may refer to some well-known events from not-so-remote Russian history. For example, the proliferation of repressions and institutions of coercive work under Stalins regime were, undoubtedly, events that could be hardly symbolised within the framework of the liberated labour ideology which lay at the very foundation of the Socialist revolution.49 As a result, numerous sectors of the Soviet society, which had grown up during the time of cultural and economic liberalisation in the 1920s, faced serious dislocation under Stalins iron arm. The following period of the Khrushchev liberalisation, in its turn, caused a massive dislocation among the admirers of the Soviet dictator. The questioning of the untouchable ideas of Marx and Lenin undertaken by young scholars, artists and social activists could not be apprehended from the standpoint of the only correct social theory.50 In the 1970s, with the conservation of public debates there emerged the dislocation of ideological unity among the so-called new forces or the liberals,
48

See also: David Howarth and Yannis Stavrakakis, Introducing discourse theory and political analysis

in David Howarth, Aletta Norval and Yannis Stavrakakis (eds.) Discourse Theory and Poltical Analysis. Identities, Hegemonies and Social Change (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 1-24, pp. 13-14.
49

See Vladimir Lenin Speech at a meeting dedicated to the laying of the foundation stone of a

monument to liberated labour, May 1, 1920 in Vladimir Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition (Moscow: Progress, 1965), vol. 31, p. 126.
50

See Hugh McLean and Walter Vickery (eds.) The Year of Protest 1956: An Anthology of Soviet

Literally Materials (New York: Vintage Books, 1961); Rudolf Tokes, Dissent in the USSR: Politics, ideology and People (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1975); Andrei Amalrik, Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? (London: Penguin Books, 1970).

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formed during the time of the Khrushchevs thaw.51 Grown in the atmosphere of social, artistic and political liberalisation the generation of the 1960s (shestidesyatniki) appeared to be unable to reconcile the post-Khrushchev restrictions of public debates with the ideas of humanism, freedom of expression and other issues cultivated during the post-Stalin decade. This excursion aims at demonstrating that ideology becomes false in the situation of dislocation where the dissolution of ideological unity leads towards the inability to apprehend ongoing performances of the surrounding reality. It is the situation where the meanings appear to be unrealised in material grounds and things lose their meanings and fall out of the field of intelligibility. According to Laclau, this process invokes the crisis of identity, which is a crucial consequence of the dislocation.52 The actual events dislocating discourse make an actor incapable of representing the ideal frame of his/her self in a material fabric of social relations. Taken literally, this means that in the moment of dislocation the social agent is unable to be himself. Being unable to reach his/her identity within an actual social order the dislocated actor faces the impossibility of finding his/her place in society. It is possible to say that the dislocation does not just makes ones identity impossible but, paraphrasing Althusser, it transforms the social subjects, whatever they are, back into just individuals. Being devoid of any subject identity these individuals become excluded from the structure of social organisation. By this exclusion they lose their place of speaking
51

Frederik Barghoorn, The post-Khrushchev campaign to suppress dissent: Perspectives, strategies,

and techniques of repression in Dissent in the USSR, 35-95.

52

Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory, p.103.

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from which they can express their demands and realise socially accepted practices. This makes them into marginal figures and exactly due to this misrecognition, in the post-Marxist theoretical tradition, the marginalised elements are regarded as subaltern classes.53 In contemporary Russian history it is possible to identify several of such dislocations, resulting in the ongoing growth of the subaltern classes.54 As aforementioned the first one was the conservation of free public debates in the end of the 1960s. It was an event blocking the identity of many actors in the Soviet society. Thus, the liberal intelligentsia appeared to be prevented from being itself because it could not fulfil its social mission within the absence of open social debates and with the growing threat of being prosecuted for dissent. Painters, writers, and other artistic elites faced troubles in realising their artistic ambitions, in the time when socialist realism had again become the only form of art which was welcomed in the Soviet state. The blockage of identity and the impossibility of finding a place in the society, which caused the transformation of social actors into subaltern classes, triggered the process of massive dissocialising which, in fact, characterised the development of Soviet society in the post-Khrushchev era. First of all, this dissocialising took forms of

53

The term first introduced by Gramsci in his Prison Notebook (1971), pp.52-54. Rachel Walker believes that this dislocating energy is concealed in the very core of Marxism-

54

Leninism due to the ongoing struggle between two groups of demands addressed to a builder of the comunism. The first one is the demands of revolutionary activity, passion and creativity and the second is quite contradicting demand of almost religious admiration and unquestionable respect to the figures and the ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin, seriously restricting the very possibility of any creative debates. See: Rachel Walker, Marxism-Leninism as Discourse: The Politics of the Empty Signifier and the Double Bind in British Journal of Political Science, No. 19 (April 1989), 161-89.

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passive resistance55 and became translated in various kinds of activities aiming at minimising relations between an individual and the society s/he finds her/himself excluded from. One of the most effective, but not the most straightforward, was emigration. Still, the draining of socially active elements from the USSR in the 1970s and at the beginning of the 1980s, reached such a degree that it was considered the third wave of Russian emigration.56 Besides, many of those dislocated by the freezing of social life formed the flows of the internal emigration which drained socially active individuals out of the centres of public life, and towards the periphery of social activity. These were they who joined the famous communist building - cultivating the virgin lands, mastering the Taiga and exploring the Extreme North. The dissocialising among the Soviet people assumed a threatening scale by the mid1980s. To a large extent this process was forced by the deep economic crisis affected Soviet society by the end of the Brezhnevs governance.57 As is well known, back in the 1960s Khrushchev had announced his famous slogan that the next generation of the Soviet people will live in Communism. However, this ambitious declaration had few possibilities to be implemented in reality. Instead of the supposed communism, Soviet society was faced with a shortage of goods (defitsit), the disintegration of public services, and problems with the food supply. In addition, the impoverishment of the working people came hand in hand with the enrichment of the Party aristocracy. All this made the realities of the communism promised by Khrushchev quite different
55

George Feifer, No protest: the case of passive minority in Dissent in the USSR, 418- 438; Howard

Biddulph, Protest strategies of the Soviet intellectual opposition in Dissent in the USSR, 96-115.
56

The first one was caused by the revolution and the civil war of 1918-1922, and the second is related

to the time of the Second World War.

57

The economic crisis of the period of stagnation is unequivocally indicated by the absolute majority of

analysts writing on the development of the USSR in the last few decades of the 20th century.

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from what people expected it to be. Commenting upon this ideological disruption, Stayer says that by the mid-1980s even workers appeared to be unable to find satisfaction or even expression in the workers state.58 And the workers were not alone in this dissatisfaction. The massive proliferation of subaltern classes and further expansion of the desubjectivated elements in the society is a contradiction which can be resolved in different ways. Either dominant discourse keeps maintaining its ideological unity by internalising the subaltern classes as different forms of deviations (criminals, dissidents, mad or hooligans). This implies their re-socialisation through the educational system or isolation from the society by means of penitentiary institutions or by deprivation of citizenship. Or, it is also possible that the subaltern classes expand to a degree which is lethal to the dominant discourse. Under these circumstances, the false discourse becomes overthrown by the rapidly growing marginals, only for a new one to come into its place. As aforementioned, the politico-economic dislocation of the 1980s captured numerous sectors of the Soviet discourse and triggered an immense growth of the subaltern strata. The massive dislocation of the social order and the expansion of the marginal strata comprised by the flows from various de-subjectivated59 elements led to the deep disintegration of the dominant discourse. This resulted in the collapse of its political embodiment - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the profound

58

Robert Stayer, Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse? Understanding Historical Change (London: M.E.

Sharpe, 1998), p. 138.

59

For example Kozlova attributes the voices which came from the choir of the late Soviet everyday life

as exactly the voices of de-subjectivated people (Nataliya Kozlova, Gorizonty povsednevnosti sovetskoy ehpokhi. Golosa iz khora (Moscow: RAN, 1996), p. 59).

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discrediting of the Communist ideology united millions of people in a common social project. It is exactly this moment of dis-identification which was outlined in the

beginning of this thesis. It is this moment which sets the context for a search for a new, post-Soviet identity. Hence, the new identity is only possible in a new discourse. It is the construction of a new discursive formation which, then, becomes the way to retain the intelligibility of social relations in post-Soviet Russia. And the construction of a new discourse is paradoxically linked to the construction of a new social antagonism.

Social antagonism Laclau and Mouffe argue that any discursive unity as such is possible only in the presence of antagonistic relations.60 It is necessary to remark that they understand antagonism in a particular way. They do not agree that antagonism is a real opposition of two actors with autonomously constituted identities, as is advocated, for example, in the Kantian tradition. Neither do they consider antagonism as a logical contradiction. For them it is rather a situation where the actor A appears to be unable to reach his/her identity because of the presence of the actor B. Illustrating this situation Laclau and Mouffe refer to the peasants uprisings investigated by Wolf. As Howarth comments, regarding this excursion: [...] peasants expelled from their land by capitalist farmers and forced to become workers in the city, are literally prevented from being peasants and thus experience a blockage or failure of identity.61

60

Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, pp. 122-127. Howarth, Discourse, p. 105.

61

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Clarifying the importance of antagonism in constituting a discursive formation, Laclau argues that an identification of the other erects a frontier between the inside and the outside of a discourse, which reveals the limits of intelligible social organisation.62 A careful reading of this theoretical proposal uncovers a paradox in which the crucial role of the enemy in fact makes discursive order unachievable, because the necessary presence of the contradictory other unavoidably prevents the system from achieving complete closure. Reflecting on this tension Laclau, in fact, radicalises the paradox by suggesting that the very discursive organisation defining a particular social formation, is a never-ending process or an attempt63 rather than a state or a condition. The very objectivity of society as such is then thought as possible only by way of a strain which emerges between the necessity to complete its systematic organisation and the actual presence of this other, preventing this project from its final constitution. In such a way Laclau comes out with an interesting response to the task of defining the true and the false character of ideology. The latter becomes true and organic in the situation of a struggle for discursive unity, wherein identities become reachable and meanings come to be realisable in practice. The ideology is therefore false when the struggle dies and the intelligibility of the social gets dissolved. This means that society is real only in the process of its building and never in the chimerical state or substance of what is sought to be built. For instance, the constitution of Soviet society by way of a particular social formation in the 1920s can be regarded as a project run to attain the identity of peasants, workers and liberal intelligentsia blocked by the presence of the Tsarism. Once the
62

Ernesto Laclau, New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time (London: Verso, 1990), p. 17-18. Ernesto Laclau The impossibility of society, p. 27.

63

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other disappeared from the historical horizon the society therefore went into something rather different from what was originally planned: the communist terror and the establishment of the Stalins regime which, as aforementioned, had little in common with the ideals of the Socialist revolution. It is possible to argue that the workers and peasants state as a social formation really existed only as a project aiming at achieving the identity of peasants and workers, previously blocked by the presence of the landlords and bourgeoisie. Being, strictly speaking, an illusion, the state of workers and peasants, however, objectified the variety of social practices which made the realisation of the blocked identities possible in social struggle with the Tsarist regime. Insofar as the discursive construction of identity is possible only in social struggle, it is the concept of the struggle which causes the constitutive presence of the other to be reconciled with its blocking force. In the light of the aforementioned conclusions it is assumed that the creation of a new discourse, in which the subaltern classes receive the possibility of achieving their identities and of retaining their social agency, is endowed only in social struggle. It is this struggle which marks the construction of democratic Russia during the time of perestroika. It is also this struggle which opens the possibility for the sectors marginalised during the stagnation period to come back into the society. 64

64

This coming back is, in fact, indicated in many events. Re-immigration is one of them. At the end of

the 1980s/beginning of the 1990s many of the emigrants of the last wave, like Limonov, Solzhenitsyn and others came back, justifying their decision by citing the feeling that their Motherland needs them now.64 The liberal intelligentsia, formerly ignored by Soviet society, and who, as dissidents, had been prosecuted for their dissent, became more and more active and came to occupy leading positions in the anti-communist struggle (See: Michael Urban, The Rebirth of Politics in Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)). This book as such serves as an explicit example, since one of its co-editors Vyacheslav Igrunov is a former dissident who became one of the leaders of Yabloko - a Russian parliamentary party. As for the informal youth with their music and fashions - they come from the underground - the scene of numerous Rock-clubs, stadiums and pages of youth magazines. This

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The struggle for a new social order attracting the subaltern classes back into the field of discursive visibility is a phenomenon essentially constituted by ideological performances. A certain group of statements can effectively mobilise individuals into a struggling force by articulating events which were causing the failure of their identity, and the designation of an enemy, responsible for this failure. Explanation of the actual events lying at the foundation of ones identity failure, brought on by the presence of an enemy, makes possible the identification of the dislocated subject, in a negative way i.e. through specifying what it is not. As a matter of fact, in the democratic movement of perestroika, the enemy was generally represented in the Party-State apparatus, which created the space for the marginalized strata to be brought into society, since they were exactly the ones who were opposed to the common enemy. Being identified as non-Party-State apparatus, the subaltern classes became an integral part of the social antagonism. Informal youth, entrepreneurs, dissidents, liberal intelligentsia and other elements

misrecognised in the Soviet society became valuable for each other as partners in the same struggle.

Empty signifiers However, the pure identity of being different from the enemy inflicts a specific discursive transformation on the resisting sectors, as it sets the stage for the latter to be transformed into a tendentially empty signifier. This term stands for the capacity of

problem is pinpointed however in a negative sense by Dmitriy Revyakin, the leader of the music group Kalinov Most, one of the participants of this resocialisation who demanded the return of the pure negative identity of the rock-movement by calling for a Back to the Underground (Nazad v podvaly).

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a signifier to signify a pure absence, or the possibility for a thing to be nothing other than the absence of the other things.65 To illustrate the discursive energy of the empty signifier Laclau uses the example from Hobbes whose order in the situation of total chaos means literally nothing but the absence of disorder. In the presence of the actualised enemy the opposed forces obtain their discursive visibility by becoming a pure absence-of-the-enemy. The construction of purely negative identities is, in fact, a widely indicated historical phenomenon. For instance, Lotman, analysing the reforms of Peter the Great concludes that the so-called Westernisation of Russia in the beginning of the 18th century was nothing other than an inversion of the rules and norms of old Russia. The newly emerged westernised aristocracy had little in common with the aristocracy in the West as regards habits and everyday behaviour. However, simply to be different from the boyars, who represented the old rule, was enough for a nobleman to be considered Westernised.66

Logic of equivalence and difference The absence of positive content, or the emptiness of identities in struggle with one another allows the sectors opposed to the enemy to find their objectivity in the logic of equivalence to each other. This equivalence is concealed in the shared negativity of
65

Ernesto Laclau, Why do empty signifiers matter to politics? in Ernesto Laclau, Emansipation(s)

(London:Verso, 1996), 36-47, p.44.

66

Yuriy Lotman, The Poetics of everyday behaviour in Russian eighteenth-century culture in Alexander

Nakhimovsky and Alice Nakhimovsky (eds.), The Semiotics of Russian Cultural History: Essays by Iurii M. Lotman, Lidia Ia. Ginsburg, Boris A. Uspenskii (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), 6794, pp. 69-70.

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the antagonist. However, this tendency is counterbalanced by the opposite process of filling the empty space with a positive content. This filling is measured in the actualisation of certain practices and relations, which come to be associated with a particular sector of the wide oppositional movement. For example, the sectors interpellated by the anti-communist struggle in the USSR at the end of the 1980s carried out a variety of concrete practices in the course of their struggle. Informal youth put their effort into concerts, shows and other public performances. Entrepreneurs got involved in the black market and the exchange of goods, valuables and foreign currency. Dissidents and liberal intelligentsia found themselves in discussion clubs, circles, public organisations and attained the space for public debates in the mass media. All these institutions and practices caused the struggling forces to become identified not only as equivalently opposed to the enemy, but also as different from each other, according to the differences in their particular fighting strategies. It is in this filling of the empty space with a positive content that the sectors of the struggle fall into the process of mutual differentiation. As a result, the field of social opposition appears to be split into numerous clusters whose identity comes to be specified not only in terms of their pure negativity towards the antagonist but also in their difference from each other. This causes an oppositional sector to be identified both in the logic of equivalence and the logic of difference, specifying it according to particular practices undertaken in the struggle.67

67

Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, p. 127 134.

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The notion of subject A discursive transition from the pure negative identity of being confronted by the enemy to the positive identity of a particular sector in social struggle is regarded in the IDA approach as a process of identification which is, in fact, a decision taken in the undecidable terrain. It is assumed that the choice of ones own social sector is a performance of political subjectivity. In this point Laclau stands in opposition to the other post-structuralists who propose the death of the subject, in the sense that the actions of the individual and even his/her self-perception appear to be entirely defined by the surrounding symbolic systems.68 Having assumed that the Foucauldian subject positions exist as such, and that they are indeed provided by discourse, Laclau nevertheless considers that individuals take their decisions in choosing these positions and, in this procedure, perform political subjectivity.69
In this sense, the subject is not simply determined by the structure; nor, however, does it constitute the structure. The subject is forced to take decisions, or to identify with certain political projects and the discourses they articulate when social identities are in crisis and structures are need to be recreated. It is in the process of this identification the process of political subjectivities are created and formed. Once formed and stabilised, they become those subject positions that turn individuals into social actors with certain characteristics and attributes.70

68

Michel Foucault, The subject and power in Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault:

Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Brighton: Harvester, 1982), 208-226; Roland Barthes, The death of the auhtor in Roland Barthes, Image. Music. Text (London: Fontana, 1977),142-158; Jaques Derrida, Positions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 28-29.
69

Ernesto Laclau and Lillian Zac, Minding the gap: the subject of politics in Ernesto Laclau (ed.), The

Making of Political Identities (London: Verso, 1984), 11-39.

70

Howarth, Discourse, p. 109.

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When a person with a degree in physics opens his/her own shoe business; when a school teacher re-qualifies herself as a flea-market seller; when a schoolboy paints his/her hair in green, puts a sign of anarchy on his/her T-shirt and joins a punk band; or when a farmer enters a political party - all these are the performances of political subjectivity where individuals choose their differential positions in the indeterminate terrain of general negativity towards something they are not happy with. A stabilisation of these subject positions and establishment of a certain order in their interrelations results in a construction of a new discursive formation. The particular conception of the subject offered in the IDA approach identifies individuals but not any pre-given groups or identities as the agents of discursive transition. Here the authors of this approach propose a particular agenda for applying discourse theory. More precisely, it is the decisions of individuals, manifested in particular social performances, which, hence, comprise the main corpus of material sources for a study in particular discursive transformations.71 It is here that one can distinguish the practice of hegemonic articulation and, in this way, account for the next step in the process of constructing a new discourse.

Hegemonic articulation In very general terms the notion of hegemony can be described as Howarth does, in his Discourse: Hegemonic practices are [] an exemplary form of political practice, which involves the linking together of different identities and political forces

71

It is not surprising that the majority of works written in this tradition of discourse analysis depart in

their investigations from concrete authorised texts constituting certain political movements, but do not focus on the abstract impersonalised isms.

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into a common project, and creation of new social orders from a variety of dispersed elements.72 In other words, hegemony is the practice of stabilising a discursive formation through a successful mobilisation of social struggle, such that different resisting sectors appear to be united in a common project. The hegemonic articulation, the very possibility of an actor to stabilise discourse, is defined by two factors: ideological and, what may be called here - the extra-discursive. To introduce the ideological prerequisite of successful hegemonic articulation one has to recapitulate the principles of the systematic unity of a discourse. To be organised as a system a discursive formation has to invoke a certain homogeneity (for only in this way can it be a system), and at the same time, its inside has to be heterogeneous consisting of different elements. Laclau and Mouffe solve the task of reconciling the two states of discursive formation by elaborating the concept of hegemonic organisation. This organisation is based on the representation of the entire system by one of its differential elements.73 On the one hand, through this, the system keeps its homogeneity because particular sectors of the system appear to be placed in relations of equivalence as regards the representing unit. On the other, it preserves its internal heterogeneity, since this element is still identified in relations of difference with other particular elements of the system. As an example of hegemonic organisation Laclau refers to a historical situation, in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.
(a) in the situation of extreme oppression the Tsarist regime, for instance workers

start to strike demanding higher wages. The demand is a particular one, but in the context of

72

Howarth, Discourse, p. 109. Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, pp. 134-145.

73

108 that repressive regime it is going to be seen as an anti-system activity. So the meaning of that demand is going to be split, from the very beginning, between its own particularity and a more universal dimension. (b) It is this potentially more universal dimension which can inspire struggles for

different demands in other sectors students for the relaxation of discipline in education establishments, liberal politicians for freedom of press, and so on. Each of these demands is in its particularity, unrelated to others; what unites them is that they constitute between themselves a chain of equivalence in so far as all of them are bearers of an anti-system meaning. The presence of a frontier separating the oppressive regime from the rest of society is the very condition of universalisation of the demands via equivalents (in Marxs words: a social sector has to become a general crime for the aims of society as a whole to emerge). (c) However, the more extended the chain of equivalence, the more the need for a

general equivalent representing the chain as a whole/ The means of representation are, however, only the existing particularities. So one of them has to assume the representation of the chain as a whole. This is the strictly hegemonic move: the body of one particularity assumes a function of universal representation. We can present this set of relations though the following diagram: T ____________________ D1

=== D1 D2 D3 D4 where T stands for Tsarism (in our example); the horizontal line for the frontier separating the oppressive regime from the rest of society; the circles D1D4 for the particular demands, split between a bottom semi-circle representing the particularity of the demand and a top semi-circle representing its anti-system meaning, which is what makes their equivalential

109 relation possible. Finally, D1 above the equivalent circles stands for the general equivalent (it is part of the equivalential chain, but it is also above it).74

It is this emancipation of the representative sector which makes the construction of hegemonic relations an essentially ideological practice.75 As a matter of fact it completely relies on the production of certain ideas which in the state of dislocation and antagonism appear to be taken as a guide for social action by the particular segment of social struggle. This production entails two basic operations. The first one is the articulation of the aforementioned social antagonism, which, in Laclaus terms, constitutes the myth regarded as a metaphor of absent fullness [of social identity] that is a fullness which can not be realised at present.76 The second is the transformation of the myth into social imaginary, seen as the horizon in which not just one dislocated object receives its meaningful possibility of fullness, but potentially any identity appears able to obtain its social content. The crucial element in constructing the social imaginary is the disarticulation of the hegemonising sector from its particular content, identified in the difference between it and the other sectors in the social struggle. This disarticulation is viewed as a process of retaining the emptiness which becomes the key factor providing the capacity of the sector to be identified, via a logic of equivalence, to the other struggling positions. To still be seen as one of them.

74

Ernesto Laclau. Constructing universality in Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Zizek,

Hegemony, Contingency, Universality. Contemporary Dialogues on the Left (London: Verso, 1999), 281-307, pp. 301-303.
75

Jacob Torfing, New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe, Zizek (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), p. 113. Ibid. p. 115.

76

110

In such a way it appears possible to conclude that a social identity is a project fixed by a chain of ideological articulations employed to overcome the disruption of discursive order and the crisis of dominant identity. This chain consists of 7 elements: 1. Articulation of the dislocation depicting the situation in which one comes

to be incapable of reaching ones identity. 2. 3. Naming the enemy responsible for the identity failure. Articulation of antagonistic relations setting the ground for a strategic

struggle aimed at retaining the objectivity of ones identity. 4. 5. Suggesting a particular subject position occupied in this struggle. Articulation of a proposal for the tactical struggle in accordance with the

occupied subject position. 6. Articulation of the nodal point77 fixing the meaningfulness and giving

sense to the particular tactical struggle. 7. Articulation of the subject position to be occupied in the proposed tactical

struggle. The first 3 steps comprise the myth setting the condition of the unrealised fullness of identity while elements 4,5,6 and 7 are the steps towards constructing a social imaginary capable of constituting a hegemonic formation. In such a way, it is seen that

77

The term nodal point is a translation of the Lacanian point de capiton and it corresponds to the

signifer capable of fixing the content of a range of numerous objects by articulating them within a chain of equivalence (Torfing, The New Theories of Discourse, p. 303). Or as iek defines it: the point de capiton is [] a word which, as a word, on the level of signifier itself unifies a given field, constitutes its identity (Slavoj iek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (London: Verso 1989), p. 95).

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the character of an established hegemony appears to be essentially dependant on the character of these steps. It is here that a particular arrangement of equivalence and difference is established. These are also the steps through which a particular sector is re-defined in order to mobilise the social struggle in a hegemonic project. However, as aforementioned, a hegemonic project doesnt only depend on the character of an articulatory sequence but also essentially relies upon inter-discursive factors. Deploying the ideas of genealogical Foucault the theorists of the IDA approach assume that the only sphere which limits a particular discourse is the other discourse. As has been already indicated, a particular academic discourse, to take an example, relies on the presence of the enunciative position of a teacher, professor or scholar. Yet, these positions are fixed from outside, for example, by the discourse of state organisation where the professor is being regarded as a state servant receiving money from the state budget, provided with a particular power over the students and access to printed media. Only through having such enunciative opportunities can a person endeavour to mobilise academic debates and complete a successful hegemonic project, and form a school, or a scientific tradition. Without an enunciative position, or place of speaking, no one, even if s/he is the most intelligent person on planet Earth, can engage in such an enterprise in the field of academic discourse. In the light of the aforementioned assumptions it appears possible to suggest that any hegemonic articulation has to be accounted for not only through its particular internal organisation but also through its inter-discursive context. As an illustration of this type of account, it seems that it may be interesting to look at the establishment of democratic hegemony in Russia in the beginning of the 1990s. It is all the more

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interesting since this excursion can also serve as a good historical introduction to the main problem to be investigated in the forthcoming empirical chapters.

The rise and the fall of democratic hegemony in post-Soviet Russia The term democratic hegemony refers to the project mobilising popular protest to resist the reactionary government established in Russia during the putsch in August 1991. It is argued that the democratic revolution of August 19-21 is a result of a hegemonic move made by the first Russian President Boris Yeltsin. And the success of this move is grounded in the two aforementioned prerequisites: influential enunciative position and effective ideological articulation. As regards his place of speaking, it is necessary to mention that by the beginning of the 1990s Boris Yeltsin was obviously the leader of the democratic opposition in Russia. There can be no doubt about this. Since the rise of perestroika he always stood in clear opposition to the old communist guard gathered in the highest State and Party governmental bodies, regardless of whether he was the Chairman of the Moscow committee of the CPSU or the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic or the President of RSFSR. During all this time he remained a strong rival of the counter-reformist Union authorities and the acting ideologues of orthodox communism. Once he occupied the position of the highest republican authority Yeltsin utilised its institutional capacities for the purpose of further confrontation. As a result, any of Yeltsins public utterances and actions, as well as any initiatives of the new Russian government became significant events for those following the course of the anti-communist struggle. Needless to say, these events were widely translated by samizdat, the pro-democratic unofficial press, which

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by the beginning of the 1990s already constituted a substantial segment of the Russian market of mass-media, and also by some electronic media, more precisely by the second TV channel (VGTRK), a medium which was almost entirely subordinated to the Russian republican authorities. From this enunciative position, which caused his voice to be heard, Yeltsin articulated the project, and hegemonised the democratic resistance. It is this hegemony which mobilised the masses to overthrow the coup in August 1991. However, this mobilisation was possible not only because of the recognisable enunciative position of its prophet, but also (and this factor is key) because of the successful ideological articulation conducted by the new Russian president. It is this articulation which allowed him to represent the field of anti-coup opposition. To illustrate this move one may refer to the remarks of Stayer. He argues that at the time of Gorbachevs reforms :
No single voice emerged to represent this awakening of Soviet society. A democratic awakening spoke of those who sought a normal western society with its civil liberties and political competition. A labour awakening articulated the grievances of workers A cascade of national awakenings sought autonomy and then independence for subject peoples. An environmental awakening pointed to the vast ecological damages wrought by Soviet industrialization. A religious awakening sought to fill the spiritual void of discredited socialist and atheist worldview. Throughout Soviet history, from Lenin to Gorbachev, the Communist Party leadership had sought to mobilize society for its own grand purposes. Now various elements of Soviet society were mobilising themselves, and for purposes that were increasingly odds with those of the country leadership.78

78

Srayer, Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse? p. 138.

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And then, arguing as to the reasons why this range of diverse forces, with their different interests, were united in a single movement during the August revolt, he writes that: of far greater importance [emphasis added] was the emergence of Boris Yeltsin as a charismatic symbol of democratic resistance [emphasis added] to the coup.79 The transformation of Boris Yeltsin into the charismatic symbol of democratic resistance became possible after a number of successful articulations produced by the first Russian president. First of all, he drew a clear frontier between Russian republican power, institutionalising his enunciative modality, and the enemy. In his famous address To the Russian Citizens80, issued on August 19th 1991, Yeltsin drew the line of this opposition by associating the reference we, addressed to the bodies of Russian power, with the pure confrontation with the putschist regime.
[The putsch] forces us to proclaim that the so-called committees [the GKChP] ascendancy to power is unlawful. Accordingly we proclaim all decisions and instructions of this committee to be unlawful. We are confident that the organs of local power will unswervingly adhere to constitutional laws and decrees of the President of Russia. We appeal to citizens of Russia to give a fitting rebuff to the putschists and demand a return of the country to normal constitutional development.81

79

Ibid. p. 190. Putch: khronika trevozhnyh dney (Moscow: Progress, 1991), available at

80

http://www.russ.ru/antolog/1991/index.html (as of August 20, 2003).

81

The

English

translation

of

the

Address

is

available

at:

http://asia.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/24/documents/yeltsin (as of January 20, 2003).

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The decisive actions undertaken by the first Russian President in the first hours of the coup82 resulted in an effective promulgation of the links articulated in the aforementioned passage. This, in its turn, created the conceptual framework in which the totality of practices and events appeared to be clearly divided into pro-putschist versus pro-Yeltsin. This became a guide constituting attitudes, reactions and social activities during the days of August 19-21, 1991. First of all, the authorities and the elite were forced to take sides in this confrontation. One may refer to the words of Konstantin Borovoy who, in the days of the August putsch, made a speech in the hall of the Russian Commodity and Resource Exchange (Rossiyskaya tovarno-syryevaya birzha) arguing that if they, the business elite, would do nothing in this decisive moment, no one would save them because no-one needs cowards to be saved. As a result, the entire personnel and brokers of the Exchange went on the streets with a gigantic Russian three-colour Flag demonstrating their support for Yeltsins struggle.83 Second, the masses - ordinary citizens - were faced with a situation in which almost any public action, even doing nothing at all, came to be estimated in the framework of this opposition. It was this conception that doing nothing constituted passive support for the coup which drove thousands and thousands onto the barricades. It was this feeling which made people in Moscow erect the human shield around the building of the Russian Supreme Soviet - the headquarters of the democratic resistance. In the end, it was exactly this popular support given to the

82

This activity includes the famous declaration of the official addresses - carried out in front of the

numerous members of the public around the Russian parliament - as well as the well-known appearance on the tank, reading new decrees issued by the Russian government.
83

Nataliya Rostova, Znamya demokratii ostalos u Borovogo in Novaya gazeta, no.155 (August 23,

2001); Marsh brokerov napugal putchistov in Obshchaya gazeta, no. 33 (August 16, 2001). Now this flag is exhibited in the Check Point Charlie Museum in Berlin.

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Yeltsin and the Russian Supreme Council which brought about the inglorious end of the putsch. The success of Yeltsins hegemony, therefore, can be shown to be grounded in two factors. The first is the particular status of Yeltsins government, disassociated from any positive content in terms of implemented policies. This emptiness is grounded in the actual character of the republican power in the USSR. As a matter of fact, republican institutions were mainly decorative and never had real capacity of implementing their social projects. However, it was precisely this incapacity which deprived the object of the Russian power led by Yeltsin of its positive content. For many, before August 1991, Yeltsin and his supporters were associated with what was absent - democracy, freedom of expression, market economy etc. In no way were they defined in relations of equivalence as regarded what was actually happening in the country. No wonder for in the presence of the Soviet state Yeltsin could really do very little to influence the ongoing political and economic processes. This disengagement with whatever was actually being done opened the possibility of equality with those whose ambitions appeared to be unachievable, or absent, in the presence of the Soviet state. This equality, grounded by the weakness of the new Russian government and the strength of the Soviet bureaucracy, set the stage for Yeltsins hegemonic project to become successful. The second factor explaining the hegemonic success of Yeltsins political project was a properly selected nodal point articulated to stabilise the unity of the anti-communist opposition. This nodal point was democracy. Its relevance to the adequate representation of unity, sought by the protest field, was concealed in its actual

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emptiness. In the late USSR, quite few people could really say what democracy was. However, almost everyone could point at what it was not, where this not was obviously represented by the existing party-state apparatus of the Soviet state. Fixing the meaning of the democratic resistance through the objective of democracy, Yeltsin managed to hegemonise the entire field of popular protest. Having succeeded in the hegemonic representation of the anti-coup demands Yeltsin managed to stabilise the democratic project. Only for a short period of time however, as this unity of the democratic Russia was never attained again after the failure of the communist coup. Having destroyed the enemy, the democratic hegemony led by Yeltsin immediately fell into its dislocation. In the absence of the other, the discursive order projected onto the democratic struggle started to be realised in the practice of the routine organisation of a new society. The heroes of the barricades faced the tasks of filling their images with a positive content, by implementing what they have promised in reality. This, in its turn, led Yeltsin and the new Russian elite to a loss of their representative capacities. Their activity became positively filled and this caused numerous dislocations among those who supported the Russian President in August 19-21, 1991. The economic reforms were failing and the living wage in Russia was drastically decreasing. This grounded the impossibility of realising the material ambitions that many supporters of the anti-communist struggle put at the top of their demands. The growing disintegration of the state was expressed in the parade of sovereignties84, which inflicted massive irritation upon the democratic project. This was expressed by

84

According to Sakwa by 1992 about 23 regions of the Russian Federation in different forms articulated

the slogans of separatist character: Richard Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 215.

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those previously attracted by the Russian national and nationalistic ideas. Even inside the core of the democratic movement, the actual policies undertaken by Yeltsins government became confrontational towards the demands of its integral parts. This invoked a sharp confrontation inside the new Russian state power, which resulted in the armed conflict between the Parliament and the President. This uprising shows a drastic dissolution of the democratic imaginary in Russia. People with whom Yeltsin was shoulder-to-shoulder, defending democracy in the Russian White House in August 1991 - for instance, the vice-President Alexander Rutskoy and the chairman of the Supreme Soviet Ruslan Khazbullatov - appeared to be on the other side of the barricades in October 1993. This and many other indications, allow for a consideration of the post-Soviet development of Russian society as deeply affected by the crisis of the democratic hegemony.85 This crisis triggered numerous dislocations, and numerous identities appeared to be blocked by the new (dis)order established in Russia after 1991. Thus, the identities of workers and collective farmers (kolkhozniki) became hardly achievable in the situation of economic crisis wherein, due to the downfall of industry and agriculture, none of them could be properly paid for their work. Entrepreneurs faced the same difficulty, as they were unable to run their business because of the enormous criminalisation and financial instability of the society. Such identities as Russian or patriot appeared to be seriously damaged by the influx of anti-Russian attitudes in the national republics, actively exploited by the local prophets of

85

On the public verdict to the Yeltins reforms see: Lynn Nelson and Irina Kuzes, Radical Reform in

Yeltsins Russia. Political, Economic, and Social Dimensions (London: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), pp. 166167.

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sovereignty. Even the identity of the democrat became highly blurred in the situation of the sharp antagonisms between different liberal parties. All these failures generated a new field of social struggle, one which defined the political development of Russia in the last decade of the 20th century. However, this battle was rather different from the one against the Party-State monster driving Russian politics in the end of the 1980s-beginning of the 1990s. In the absence of powerful mechanisms to suppress the dissent during the democratic (dis)order86, few prerequisites for the emergence of a common enemy, recognised by different sectors of this struggle, could be found. This made the social protest essentially fragmentary and split between different dislocated strata. This, in its turn, invoked the emergence of numerous ideological proposals each of which, in its own way, tried to reorganise the disrupted unity of the society. And it is exactly this moment of democratic dislocation which inflicted the rise of regional ideologies upon contemporary Russia. These programmes can be generally viewed as a reaction to the filling of democratic expectations with a positive content. The construction of ideological projects based on the articulation of regional ideas, reflects an attempt to cope with the discursive trauma caused by the unrealised hopes of the post-Soviet transitions. In this situation, regional ideologues put forward particular solutions to the task of overcoming democratic dislocation. And it is these solutions which we shall turn to next.

86

As it is qualified by many authors, see for instance Neil Robinson, The Presidency: the Politics of

Institutional Chaos in Neil Robinson (ed.) Institutions and Political Change in Russia (London: Macmillan Press, 2000), 11-40.

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CHAPTER

3:

THE

IDEOLOGICAL

PROJECT

OF

NIKOLAY

KONDRATENKO AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE KUBANIAN REGIONAL DISCOURSE

Introducing the case Kuban is the unofficial name of Krasnodar kray, a southern Russian region situated in the North-Western part of the Caucasus.1 It is a relatively young Russian region. Although the first Russian settlements on the banks of the Kuban river emerged as far back as in the end of the 18th century, when the first group of the Cossacks founded their first stanitsas there, it was only in 1864, after the end of the 30-year Caucasian war, that the entire territory came under the full control of the Russian Empire. Administratively, in the beginning, it was divided into the Kubanian oblast and Chernomorskaya gubernia. Then, after the October Revolution, the territory was included in the North-Caucasian Republic. It was only in 1937 that Krasnodar kray, with its present external borders, was formed. In 1992 the Adygean autonomous oblast, which previously formed a part of Krasnodar kray, was recognised as a republic and obtained the status of separate subject of the Russian Federation. Krasnodar kray is a territory with a complex demographical history. The current kray population was formed from two unequal sources. The first one was comprised by the small group of the Adygs, the indigenous Caucasian people who survived after the Caucasian war. The second is formed from the migrants that settled in the region after

See Map 1.

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it became a part of the Russian state. This flow consists of the Cossacks; numerous groups of Russian peasants, soldiers, workers coming from different Russian regions; Armeinans and Greeks, who left Turkey at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century; small groups of Germans, Czechs, Polls, Italians; Meskhetian Turks, Kurds, Azeris, Abkhazians and other groups who found their shelter here after fleeing from the centres of the post-Soviet conflict zones. Krasnodar kray is one of the most populous Russian regions. According to the allRussian census of 2002, the population of the kray was estimated at 5,124,400 people, which makes it the third most populous region in Russia. A remarkable feature of Krasnodar kray, marking out the territory from the other Russian regions, is the substantial size of the rural population. Moreover, it is a rare region in Russian terms given that the rural population is constantly growing. The census of 1989 gave the number as 2,121,500, while the last one indicates a big increase, such that the figure now stands at 2,384,600.2 Krasnodar kray is a relatively developed territory. The Northern rural and predominantly agricultural part has a well-developed food industry. Sea ports, dense industry, centres of IT, natural recourses and the main Russian resort complex are also all situated in the Southern mountain the mainly urban part of Krasnodar kray. The unique geographical location, explained by the access to the Black sea linked to the Mediterranean basin, the soft climate, fertile soils, trade routes, and successful management of the territory made the kray into one of the most prosperous regions in the USSR.

The statistical data is taken from the official web-page of the Administration of the Krasnodar kray,

available at: http://admkray.kuban.ru/news/region/2003-19/9714.html (as of January 28, 2004).

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The high standards of living established during the Soviet times to a large extent defined the negative attitudes towards the reforms, which were expressed by the population of the region at the end of the 1980s and in the first half of the 1990s. As a matter of fact, many people saw the economic transformation as a threat to their relatively satisfactory well-being reached in the Soviet times, rather than as a prospect of improving their way of life. Unsurprisingly, in the 1990s Krasnodar kray was one of the brightest representatives of the red belt which persistently supported conservative communist forces. It is rather symptomatic that it was the leader of the Krasnodar Committee of the CPSU, the odious communist Polozkov, who in 1990 became the leader of the Communist Party of the RSFSR, representing the most conservative and anti-reformist forces in the late Soviet history. It was this vacancy, opened after the Polozkovs promotion, which was occupied by Nikolay Kondratenko, the main character in the forthcoming discussion. Nikolay Kondratenko was born in 1940 in stanitsa Plastunovskaya of Krasnodar kray. In 1956, after he finished secondary school in his own stanitsa, he started to work as an assistant to a tractor driver (pritsepshik) in the local kolkhoz Red Star. After the military service in 1966, he entered the Kuban Agricultural Institute in Krasnodar. Having graduated from this institute he came back to his own kolkhoz and worked there as an agronomist. In 1969 he started his party career and soon became a rayon secretary of the CPSU. Kondratenko obtained his first really high-ranking position in 1982 when he became the Director General of the North Caucasus Concern of the Sugar Industry. As part of this promotion he received a seat as the Head of the Department of Agriculture in the kray committee of the CPSU and afterwards he became a secretary there. Due to his successful party work he was appointed as a peoples deputies candidate, and he also took a seat in the kray Soviet in 1987 where

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he almost immediately became the Chairman. It is in relation to this institutional position that Nikolay Kondratenko entered political life in the 1990s. Like his predecessor, Kondratenko stood in sharp opposition to the reforms. His disregard of economic liberalisation and the proposed openness of the country is clearly evident in his early writings: This will be the power of the money-bags3 and The Hour of Choice.4 Unsurprisingly, in August 1991 Kondratenko was one of the few regional leaders who openly supported the reactionary coup detat. As a result, after the downfall of the communist revenge by the decree of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation he was dismissed from his position in the regional power. Moreover, due to his open loyalty to the anti-constitutional coup he was detained by the authorities. However, upon looking into the matter, the judicial authorities declared in 1992 that Kondratenko was not guilty of any crime and, hence, could be released. But this did not mean that he could take back his position in the kray council. Being deprived of power, Kondratenko took an active role in the movement of Cossack revival. He became one of the leaders of the Kuban Cossack Rada. This organisation united ex-members of the Soviet nomenklatura and represented the so-called red Cossacks standing in opposition to the democratic reforms, the democratic government of the Russian Federation, and to the Yeltsin-appointed regional authorities. At that time the region was faced with a number of serious problems related to the drastic impoverishment of the population, which coincided with new flows of migrants

Nikolay Kondratenko, Eto budet vlast' denezhnyh meshkov (Chto govoril dva goda nazad o rynke N.

Kondratenko) in Kubanskie novosi (September 23, 1992).

4

Nikolay Kondratenko, Chas vybora in Kuban, No.5 (1991), 2-6.

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coming from the former Soviet republics. By mid-1990s these flows were comprised by the victims of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, by the refugees fleeing from the escalation of the anti-Russian national extremism in Chechnya, by the Meskhetian Turks expelled from Uzbekistan,5 by the refugees from Abkhazia, and from Tadjikistan - torn apart by the civil war between the government and Islamic extremists. There are no solid statistics covering the general amount of migrants who settled in Krasnodar kray, but some research indicates that only after 1992 did the number of new-comers rise above a million: there were 347,059 in 1992-1993; 173,748 in 1994; 156,952 in 1995; 133,642 in 1996; 118,260 in 1997; 104,200; 111,355 in 1999.6 Very soon the uncontrolled migration became a big problem in regional politics as it caused some serious tensions between the local population and the newly settled communities. In this situation the Cossack organisations, and the Kuban Cossack Rada particularly, came out with slogans regarding the protection of the indigenous Russian population from the threat which came from the non-Russian guests. Riding the wave of this struggle, Kondratenko became one of the most popular opposition figures in the region. This popularity allowed him to unite the national-patriotic regional forces in a political organisation known as the Fatherland (of Kondratenko).

See: Alexander Osipov and Olga Cherepova, Narusheniya prav vynuzhdennykh migrantov i

etnicheskaya diskriminatsiaya v Krasnodarskom krae. Polozhenie meskhetinskikh turok (Moscow: Memorial, 1996).
6

Data from: Oleg Oberemko and Mikhail Kirichenko, Vynuzhdennye pereselentsy na Kubani:

institutsionalnaya perspektiva upravleniya (Krasnodar: Tsentr universitetskoy podderzhki razvitiya mestnykh soobshestv Kubanskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2001), p. 138. Although the exact number of migrants indicated by the authors may be reasonably questioned, since the increase of the population during the last decade of the 20th century is, officially, not that high, it is still rather significant from 4,620,800 to more that 5 million, which is about 500,000 people. Given that it was the time of demographic crisis in Russia, in which the number of deaths seriously outnumbered the amount of births, it is possible to consider that this increase is mainly due to migration.

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This institutional framework made Kondratenko rather recognisable in the field of anti-reformist protest. In a situation of growing dissatisfaction with the reforms and with the reformist Yeltsin-appointed regional government, Kondratenko became the herald of the communist-patriotic forces. Whatever was said and done by the leader of the local Fatherland immediately became an event reflected in the opposition media and discussed in the opposition circles. It is this from door to door communication of the counter-reformist forces which lays the foundation of the impressive performance Kondratenko had on the governors elections of 1996. The leader of the regional opposition had beaten Nikolay Yegorov, Yeltsins appointee, with more than 80% of votes. Having occupied the governors chair, Kondratenko took over the regional media, especially those supported from the regional budget and, therefore, was almost totally financially dependant upon the regional administration This group included the regional TV and radio company Kuban, the newspapers Kubanskie novosti and Kuban segodnya and some other media. All in all, the group occupied more than two-thirds of the media market in Krasnodar kray. Through this, Kondratenko gained almost limitless access to an incredibly effective channel for the dissemination of his views. It was this enunciative position which caused the voice of Nikolay Kondratenko to be heard in the choir of political proposals raised not only at the regional but also at the Federal level.

The structure of the chapter Our investigation into the ideological project proposed by Nikolay Kodnratenko will follow the steps outlined in the introduction of the methodological framework. We start with (1) a textual embrace of the dislocation captured the discourse of the Kubanian

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Governor. Examining such a process I, first, indicate the dominant identity declared by Kondratenko. Then I outline its meaningful context, and then I describe how Kondratenko reflects upon the moment of its actual disruption. After this I proceed to the programme of restoring the dislocated identity offered by the Kubanian Governor. This step aims at demonstrating the way Kondratenko draws up a social antagonism. More precisely, I am interested in (2) how he specifies the enemy and (3) how he sees its role in the identity blockage. Afterwards I describe the general field of equivalence opened by the particular arrangement of antagonistic relations and the perspectives of the struggle set to rebuild the dislocated identity. In the next step of the empirical work, I will touch upon the question of political subjectivity performed by Kondratenko. Notably, I visit (4) the moment in which Kondratenko comes to occupy a particular subject position in the field of general anti-enemy equivalence. Afterwards I describe (5) the strategy employed to conduct the struggle from the particular subject position proposed by the Kubanian Governor. Then, I display (6) the nodal point articulated to fix the meaning of the tactical struggle. It is this moment in which the regional idea comes into play as a political argument. And finally, in the concluding part of this endeavour, I will describe (7) some attempts to institutionalise the regional identity born in the struggle of the Kubanian Governor.

Facing the 1990s as Russian As aforementioned, from the very beginning of his public career Kondratenko represented a clear opposition to the democratic reforms. However, as Nezavisimaya gazeta mentions7 the reasons why he disregards democratisation are to a lesser
7

Kubanskie demokraty obedinyayutsya in Nezavisimaya gazeta (November 9, 1993).

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degree explained by his engagement with communist ideas but are rather defined by his sharp nationalistic background. As a matter of fact many authors consider Kondratenko as one of the most remarkable nationalists in contemporary Russian history.8 Indeed, the analysis of texts produced by the Kubanian Governor demonstrates that it is the nationalistic framework which defines his subject position, since Kondratenko displays a clear tendency of associating his public self with the fact that he is a Russian. This identification is evident in many of his texts as he very often operates with the constructions I am Russian (ya russkiy)9 and me, Russian (menya, russkogo)10. Besides, Kondratenko widely applies the characteristic Russian to the group he considers his own, by saying we, Russians (my russkie)11; we, the Russian

See for example: Yekaterina Mikhaylovskaya, Kondratenko natsionalist v senate in Alexander

Verkhovskiy, Vladimir Pribylovskiy and Yekaterina Mikhaylovskaya, Natsionalizm, ehkstremiszm i ksenofobiya v rossiyskom obshchestve (Moscow: Panorama, 1997), 106-119; Rodion Mikhaylov, Krasnodarskiy kray in Micheal McFaul, Nikolay Petrov and others (eds.) Rossiya v izbiratelnom tsikle 1999-2000 godov (Moscow: Gendalf, 2000), 218-231, p. 221.
9

Nikolay Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml: Razmyshleniya o bylom i nastoyashchem gubernatora

Krasnodarskogo kraya (Krasnodar: Sovetskaya Kuban, 2000), p. 55.

10

Ibid, p, 59. Federalnoe sobranie Rossiyskoy Federatsii. Sovet Federatsii. Zasedanie dvadtsat vtotoe. 14 iyunya

11

1995 goda. Stenograficheskiy otchet, p.15; Nikolay Kondratenko, Vystuplenie glavy administratsii Krasnodarskogo kraya N.I.Kondratenko na vstreche s delegatami uchreditelnoy konferentsii patrioticheskogo soyuza molodezhi Kubani 27 fevr. 1998 g. in Selskaya zhizn (April 14, 1998); Nikolay Kondratenko, Sionizm ne natsiya a politika in Gvardiya, no. 6 (1998), 227-238; Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 5, 9, 57; Nikolay Kondratenko, Narod Rossii ne ostavit v bede svoyu armiyu (Vystuplenie glavy administratsii Krasnodarskogo kraya v svyazi s 53-i godovshchinoy Pobedy sovetskogo naroda v Velikoy Otechestvennoy voyne) in Viktor Rotov and Petr Pridius, Kuban: Odin god s Batkoy Kondratom i ego Druzhinoy (Krasnodar: Sovetskaya Kuban, 1998), 91-96 p.94.

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men (my, russkie muzhiki)12 and, in different contexts - us Russians (nas, russkikh)13. Together with these direct references, used to express his views, Kondratenko often employs such constructions as to us, to Russians (nam, russkim)14; with us, with Russians (s nami, russkimi)15; our Russian (nasha, russkaya16; nashego, russkogo)17; on ours, Russian (na nashikh, russkikh)18; our, Russian (svoikh, russkikh)19; as in the phrase what do we have to do [] is to punish our own, Russian traitors.20 As an additional illustration of the source of his selfidentity, it is possible to find numerous other declarations from the Kubanian Governor, in which he clearly identifies himself with the concept Russian. Thus in his Hour of Choice he writes: total crisis grasped all spheres of our [emphasis added]

12

Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 82. Kondratenko Sionizm ne natsiya a politika; Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 90, 91, 94. Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 90. Nikolay Kondratenko, Vystuplenie glavy administratsii Krasnodarskogo kraya N.I.Kondratenko na

13

14

15

vstreche s delegatami uchreditelnoy konferentsii patrioticheskogo soyuza molodezhi Kubani 27 fevr. 1998 g.
16

Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml , p. 74, 94. Kondratenko, Vystuplenie glavy administratsii Krasnodarskogo kraya N.I.Kondratenko na vstreche s

17

delegatami uchreditelnoy konferentsii patrioticheskogo soyuza molodezhi Kubani 27 fevr. 1998 g.

18

Federalnoe sobranie Rossiyskoy Federatsii. Sovet Federatsii. Zasedanie tretye. 24 fevralya 1994

goda. Stenograficheskiy otchet, p. 22.

19

Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 90. Ibid.

20

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society []21 and a few paragraphs later he continues - you will, with no doubt, understand the tragedy of the Russian [emphasis added] people.22
Why it is only Kozyrev23 who defines Russian foreign policy? I have a serious suspicion... I do not see the Russians in the MID [the Ministry of Foreign Affairs] either. So what kind of Russian policy is it? The television is in the hands of the others. But we, Russians, [emphasis added] like calf, just keep silent as if nothing happens.24 What put us in these conditions? Why did we, Russians, [emphasis added] begin to destroy ourselves? [...] There is no such country in the World as ours, which is spread over eleven thousand kilometres. There is none. Except Russia. This is our peculiarity. We, the Russians, has lost our way in Europe, but the national treasures are in the East gas, oil, woods, jewels, gold, nickel, uranium and so on [] The Russians were expelled from the Baltic countries, they were expelled from Transcauscasia, from Kazakhstan, Balkariya. Why did everyone keep silent? Why did the democratic mass media shut their mouths, like it was not a nation, like there was no human rights anymore? Why is it shameful to say I am Russian? And we are - Russians by the way.25

21

Kondratenko, Chas vybora, p. 2. Ibid, p.4. From 1991 to 1996 Andrey Kozyrev was the head of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Due to

22

23

his open pro-Western policy he came to known, in some circles of the Russian political elite(,) as Mister Yes, in reference to Andrey Gromyko, who was called Mister No due to his sharp non-conformism in relations with the West.
24

Federalnoe sobranie Rossiyskoy Federatsii. Sovet Federatsii. Zasedanie dvadtsat vtoroe. 14 iyunya

1995 goda. Stenograficheskiy otchet, p.15.

25

Radio Kuban (March 20, 1998) in Vystupleniya GAKK N.I. Kondratenko in Alexander Osipov,

Rossiyskiy opyt ehtnicheskoy chistki: Meskhetintsy v Krasnodarskom krae (Moscow: Memorial, 1999) available at http://www.memo.ru/hr/discrim/meshi2/pril/Chapter18.htm#_VPID_77 (as of August 20, 2003).

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In addition one may find that in articulating the Russian affiliations of I, we and us, Kondratenko also directly points to the Russianness of the audience he talks to: Russians, look carefully, what they do with you!26; with you, Russians27; your, Russian28; Russian, you have29; if you are Russian you are already my brother30. Thus, it becomes obvious that Nikolay Kondratenko defines his political identity as Russian. And it is this identity which becomes dislocated by the democratic transformations of post-Soviet Russia. To demonstrate this dislocation in details one has to look at the meaningful content of the blocked identity, and to answer the question what does Kondratenko actually mean when he says Russian? It is possible to find that Kondratenko obviously links the term Russian to the category of nation. This link is evident in many of his remarks.31 For instance, the Kubanian Governor says: Russia always had, has and will have enemies. The question is in the other matter: who are we a nation [emphasis added] or an ordinary

26

Federalnoe sobranie Rossiyskoy Federatsii. Sovet Federatsii. Zasedanie devyatnadsatoe. 12

aprelya 1995 goda. Stenograficheskiy otchet, p.11.

27

Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 60. Kondratenko, Vystuplenie glavy administratsii Krasnodarskogo kraya N.I.Kondratenko na vstreche s

28

delegatami uchreditelnoy konferentsii patrioticheskogo soyuza molodezhi Kubani 27 fevr. 1998 g..
29

Kondratenko, Vystuplenie glavy administratsii Krasnodarskogo kraya N.I.Kondratenko na vstreche s

delegatami uchreditelnoy konferentsii patrioticheskogo soyuza molodezhi Kubani 27 fevr. 1998 g..
30

Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 90. Federalnoe sobranie Rossiyskoy Federatsii. Sovet Federatsii. Zasedanie shestoe. 1 iyunya 1994

31

goda. Stenograficheskiy otchet. pp. 23-24, Radio Kuban (March 20, 1998) Vystupleniya GAKK N.I. Kondratenko; Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 76.

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crowd?32; we, in fact, represent a miracle-nation33; what is this kind of democracy? I would like to see this democracy dead (khotel by v grobu videt) if there is no care of my nation! [emphasis added]. 34 Apart from the direct references to the national affiliations of the Russians, some other remarks demonstrate that, in defining his subject position, Kondratenko indeed thinks in terms of the national division of society. Otherwise, it is hardly possible to explain why, when speaking about the Russians, the Kubanian Governor divides them from other nations.
[A]ll this comes to be seen as an international plot against Russia and first of all against the Russian nation. The name of this policy Zionism. No need to be scared, no need to put our head down. We are internationalists. We are educated in respect of other nations. 35 In Spain where there was a time when corruption was eating (razedala) the country, in the next elections people were standing hand in hand around the voting stations the entire night until the results of the voting were counted. This is a nation! But we Russians, we run away like rats from a sinking ship 36

It is fair to say that the nation is not the only domain categorically embracing the notion of the Russians for the Kubanian Governor. Together with this concept

32

Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 4. Federalnoe sobranie Rossiyskoy Federatsii. Sovet Federatsii. Zasedanie shestoe. 1 iyunya 1994

33

goda. Stenograficheskiy otchet, pp. 23-24.

34

Rotov and Pridius, Kuban: Odin god s Batkoy Kondratom, p. 88. Kondratenko, Vystuplenie glavy administratsii Krasnodarskogo kraya N.I.Kondratenko na vstreche s

35

delegatami uchreditelnoy konferentsii patrioticheskogo soyuza molodezhi Kubani 27 fevr. 1998 g..
36

Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 5.

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Kondratenko relates the Russians to a more general concept of people37: the technology of destroying the Russian people is not visible in its nature.38 More precisely, Kondratenko refers to the concept of indigenous people:39 we, Russians, and other indigenous peoples.40 However, these references should not be conceived as a tension as for Kondratenko, for the concepts of people and nation are strictly contiguous with one another. I was educated under the flag of internationalism, in passionate love to my people, the one specified in its national disposition (tot, kakoy on est pri ego natsionalnom rasklade) - comments the Kubanian Governor.41

What does to be Russian mean for Kondratenko? Applying the concept of his political identity, Kondratenko without doubt departs from the background of the official Soviet social theory. There this concept had an absolutely precise connotation. It is essentially grounded in the basic Marxist assumption that society is essentially formed through the class relations that appear to be translated in a particular ethnic organisation defined by the development of means and forces of production. On the basis of these ideas Stalin gives his classic

37

Kondratenko, Vystuplenie glavy administratsii Krasnodarskogo kraya N.I.Kondratenko na vstreche s

delegatami uchreditelnoy konferentsii patrioticheskogo soyuza molodezhi Kubani 27 fevr. 1998 g.; Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, pp. 28, 62, 72, 76.
38

Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 12. Ibid, pp. 88-89. Ibid, p. 9, 68. Kondratenko, Vystuplenie glavy administratsii Krasnodarskogo kraya N.I.Kondratenko na vstreche s

39

40

41

delegatami uchreditelnoy konferentsii patrioticheskogo soyuza molodezhi Kubani 27 fevr. 1998 g..

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definition of the nation which forms the foundation for the concept of a nation as it appears to have been adopted, in Soviet social science, for decades:
The Russian Marxists have long had their theory of the nation. According to this theory, a nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of the common possession of four principal characteristics, namely: a common language, a common territory, a common economic life, and a common psychological make-up manifested in common specific features of national culture. This theory, as we know, has received general recognition in our Party.42

This definition comprises the basic but, however, not the final Soviet understanding of nation. The final constitution of this term is deployed in the debates on the question of political representation of a national community, raised by the Soviet scholars in the 1960s. Stalin, as is well known, stood against the idea that nations need any political representation. Arguing this point, he gives the examples of the Poles and the Finns under the Russian Empire, the Irish under English governance and other nations that do not posses any political representation of their unity. It is obvious that this negativity as regards the political property of nations is to a great degree grounded in the doctrines of world revolution, international workers movement and the ideal nonstate communist society. However, by the middle of the 20th century the ideas of the world workers international appeared to be rather seriously discredited. The fire of the proletarian revolution did not seem to succeed in uniting the working class all over the world. World War II

42

Iosif Stalin, Natsionalnyi vopros i leninizm. Otvet tovarishcham Meshkovu, Kovalchuku i drugim in

Iosif Stalin, Sochineniya (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo politicheskoy literatury, 1949), vol. 11, 333-355, p. 333.

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showed that the workers of different countries were more than able to kill each other in the interests of their states. This demonstrated the crucial vulnerability of the communist international. Above all, the geopolitical situation current at the end of the 1940s and 1950s, defined by the growing tensions between the USSR and the Western block made the idea of the non-state world society quite outdated. This, in the end, set new tasks for the Marxist theorists. The concept of nation had to be inscribed in the realities of the state-based configuration of the world community. In response to these tasks the Soviet scholars provided the original, Stalinian, definition of national unity with an additional element of its political consolidation. This innovation is encapsulated in a number of concepts generally known as the theory of ethnos. This theory is a product born of the Soviet ethnography specified by many authors as a special discipline.43 The term ethnos was first introduced by Levin and Cheboksarov in 1957. Then it was further elaborated by Tokarev44 and finally conceptualised by Bromley who defined it as a socio-cultural organism, which is:
[H]istorically constituted on a territory, stable, multi-generational community of people, who have not only common features, but also relatively stable idiosyncrasies of culture (including the language) and psyches, in addition to the awareness of their unity and difference from other identical creations (self-consciousness), fixed in the self-nomination (ethnonym)45

43

The term is first used by Sergey Tolstov in 1946. Sergey Tokarev in his turn considers that Soviet

ethnography emerged even earlier in the 1930s (see: Sergey Tokarev, Ehtnografiya narodov SSSR (Moscow: Moscow State University Press, 1958), p.87.
44

See: Sergey Tokarev, Problema tipov ehtnicheskoy obshchnosti (k metodologicheskim problemam

ehtnografii) in Voprosy filosofii, no. 11 (1964), 43-53.

45

Yulian Bromley, Ocherki teorii ehtnosa (Moscow: Nauka, 1983), p. 58.

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In the beginning this account did not owe much to the political dimension of ethnic composition. However, later, the essential importance of the political representation of any national unity became a cornerstone in many debates. Thus, Bromley came out with an argument defending the importance of state organisation for the constitution of what he calls ethno-social organism writing that this community and state are in indivisible unity.46 Deploying this idea further Bromley linked the ethnosocial organism with the notion of nation demonstrating the vital role of the state factor in constituting the national identity.
Does nation represent a socio-economic unity? Understanding nation as an ethno-social organism we obviously have to answer this question positively. Even in the case when a nation does not have its own state it has a certain dominating type of relations of production and coherent social affiliations in its characteristics (for example, the Ukraynian nation in the Russian Empire in the 19th - beginning of 20th century). Though it is possible to argue that if a nation is divided by political borders (i.e. is situated in the two states) the nation can have different types of dominating relations of production. However, we already had to answer that in this case we have two ethno-social organisms (and, consequently, not one nation in our understanding of this term, but two nations belonging to one ethnos in a narrow sense of this term). 47

Concerning state sovereignty, Bromley writes that states as the macro-elements of the social consist of politico-territorial (potestarian) communities48. The term potestarian, which becomes a synonym of the politico-territorial or the state, is derived by the author from the Greek potestas (power) and refers to power

46

Ibid, p. 70. Ibid, pp. 78-79. Ibid, p. 62.

47

48

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institutions which consolidating particular communities (or a particular community). In states - the main political units of the class society - these institutions are represented by government, understood (in general terms) as the supreme body of authority, regardless of whether this body is a president and his government, king and his court, prime-minister and his cabinet or secretary general and politburo.49 In this way, Bromley finally fixed the vital importance of the political embodiment of any national community. Immediately after these debates, the notions of socialist and bourgeois nations, differing according to their political representations, came into the lexicon of Soviet social science.50 Summarising this brief excursion, it seems necessary to recapitulate the final convention which was set as regards the term nation, as the latter operated within official Soviet social theory. Nation here is recognised as a group of people that has five features in common: Stalins territory, language, culture, economy and the common government translating the principle of the political representation of the community, as advocated in the Soviet theory of ethnos. It is not surprising that precisely these aspects of national unity are emphasised in the Soviet historical textbooks. The unyoking from the Tatars in 14-16th centuries and the construction of the independent Moscow, and then Russian, state; the collecting of the Russian land, establishment of the common national market in the 17th century; unification of the common Russian culture and constitution of the Russian language

49

Ibid, p. 35. See for example early-bourgeois nations etc. in the work of Sergey Arutyunov and Nikolay

50

Cheboksarov, Peredacha informatsii kak mekhanizm suschchestvovaniya ehtnosotsial'nykh i biologicheskikh grupp chelovechestva in Rasy i narody. Sovremennye ehtnicheskie i rasovye problemy (Moscow: Akademiya Nauk SSSR, 1972), 8-30, p.29.

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on the basis of the Eastern Slavonic dialects were the key themes in history taught in the Soviet school. It is this knowledge which constituted the object of the Russian nation for the audience of Soviet social theory. And it is this knowledge which provides Kondratenko with the particularly meaningful connotation - Russians as they are in their national disposition. Perceiving the Russian nation as a community of people that have in common the five aforementioned factors - land, government, economy, culture and language, Kondratenko faced tremendous difficulties in identifying these prerequisites in postSoviet Russia. In a situation of drastic economic decline, disorder in the institutional establishment of the new Russian state, and the internationalising of Russia, combined with massive flows of migrants coming from the former Soviet republics, Kondratenko refuses to consider the land he is living in, the government he is subjected to, the economy, the culture and even the language enjoyed in contemporary Russia, as truly Russian. The impossibility of realising the Russian nation in post-Soviet Russia dislocated the political identity enacted by Nikolay Kondartenko. This becomes the point of departure for constructing a regional ideology, seen as an attempt to reach a Russian national identity in the situation of post-Soviet (dis)order. Looking for the discursive fullness of the Russian nation, Kondratenko first constructed the myth, understood as a reference to the Russianness which was impossible to realise at the time. This articulation is embraced by the pinpointing of events which caused the dislocation. As a matter of fact, this theme occupies one of the central positions in the political programme of Nikolay Kondratenko.

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Dislocation in context The most obvious aspect of the blockage is the loss of the common territory. This loss is indicated by the fact that this land becomes someone elses land, and in particular - the land of other nations or foreign forces. Kondratenko widely articulates these facts which indicate the transformation of his land into a non-Russian one. Among those who would pretend to subject this land, the Kubanian Governor indicates various actors. One of them is the foreign powers, notably, Europe and the USA: the Russian people was always an obstacle in the way of Europe, and now the USA, who declared the lands left to us by the will of our fathers and grandfathers as a zone of their interests!51 Besides these forces Kondratenko nominates different flows of migrants, refugees and other new-comers by way of a threat to the authenticity imposed upon his land. Where, in which country, do visitors feel themselves to be masters, to the degree that they do in Russia? concretises his fear:
I am not exaggerating. The situation with refugees looks like a time-bomb, it can explode at any moment. Let us look into this problem more deeply. The local people complain because here, on Kuban, the prices of real estate run up in comparison to the middle Russian average, food is getting more expensive etc. The tension is progressing because the migrants expect not only a place to live but also jobs, land, social security etc.53
52

- asks Kondratenko, and then

51

Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 28. Ibid. p. 39. Ibid. pp. 33-34.

52

53

139 I want you to pay attention to the fact that nowadays the great migration of peoples, the mass migration, is an action carefully planned by the enemies of the Fatherland. 54

Articulating the general danger of migrants and refugees the Kubanian Governor calls concrete peoples whose presence causes the land to which they come to be seen as their land. They are, first of all, the Armenians.55
According to the data of State Statistic Commission [Goskomstat] of the RF there are 241 thousand Armenians on Kuban, but in reality according to the estimations of demographers, including even those of the Armenians themselves, there are about 800 thousand Armenians living in the kray. The intensive population of the kray territory, and especially the Black Sea coast, by the Armenians leads to the violations of the rights of the indigenous population, including the ones of Armenian nationality.56

Apart from the Armenians the governor of Krasnodar kray attacks the Meskhetian Turks.57
The problem with the Meskhetian Turks causes a constant fear. The situation in the places of their compact residence is dangerously unpredictable. As is known, they came to Kuban in 1989 after the bloody events in Fergana. A part of them (more than 20 thousand) came to Kuban in fear and risk and in violation of existing laws, instead of the places specially given to them (whilst previously, their special representatives visited Kuban and chose places for their settling in Krymsk, Abinsk and other territories). 58

54

Ibid. p. 30. Ibid. pp.34-35. Ibid. p. 35. Ibid. pp. 34-39. Ibid. p. 36.

55

56

57

58

140 Furthermore: first, so to speak, they asked to stay for a while now some of their leaders even claim the territory of Krasnodar kray, considering it as originally Muslim. They already openly declare to the Slavonic population that they will massacre everyone who will not go away from their land! 59 In the places where they live, the Meskhetian Turks captured the markets and they behave like the masters, dictating their prices and allowing for offensive references to the local population. 60 The Slavonic population decreases and in families of the Meskhetian Turks 10-12 children is considered as a normal situation. Thus in the village of Kholmsky and in other places, a half thousand of the new born children belongs to the kin of the Meskhetian Turks. As a result, from the academic year 1993/1994 3-5 classes are formed every year in which there are only 2-3 Russian children. Given the low birth rate and high death rate among the Slavonic population, even now it is not difficult to make a simple count - the ethnic composition in the places where the Meskhetian Turks live benefits the latter. 61

Besides the Meskhetian Turks, Kondratenko complains about the Greeks, the Germans, the Kurds and the Assyrians living in Krasnodar kray.62 The presence of these peoples together with the aforementioned foreign powers prevents Kondratenko from a full recognition of the land in which he lives as truly Russian. Along with the common Russian land, the government under which the Russian nation is supposed to be united becomes an object which is unachievable, according to the perspective of the Kubanian Governor. This loss is indicated in his remarks on

59

Ibid. p. 38. Ibid. pp. 37-38. Ibid. p. 38. Ibid. p. 34.

60

61

62

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the contemporary institutions of state power, where Kondratenko obviously shows that for him the latter are seen as essentially non-Russian.
Who governs us? Look in the faces of those who defines the destiny of Russia now, take a listen to their voices, compare what they say with what they do, and how they live. You will understand who governs us. Will the Japanese, or the Jews keep patience if there were only Russians in their governments? If all channels of their national TV would be in the arms of the Koreans or the Turks. But in Russia it became a norm.63

Among those who govern or governed Russia, Kondratenko often empathises with some concrete personalities: Judo-Masson Tukhachevskiy, Judo-massons, tribemates of Yagoda, Judo-masson Sverdlov, Judo-masson Kaganovich etc.64 And then he specifies their group affiliation:
Almost all of them were non-Russians, because among hundreds of narkoms [peoples commissars] and other commissars and their ancestors there were no Russians by kin and tribe [po rodu-plemeni] and if still they were - only in the secondary roles. Exactly as the Russian democrats today gave the first roles in the government of the state to the Zionists of the new generation.65

The Russianness of Russian culture also appears to be seriously questioned by the Kubanian Governor. Thus Kondratenko mentions several areas in which other nations dominate the Russian culture. This, according to him, results in the distortion and destruction of the latter. We see less and less Russian faces on the television, we see less and less Russian language and Russian music. The culture of the other

63

Ibid. p. 69. Ibid. p. 67. Ibid. p. 67.

64

65

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indigenous peoples of Russia has disappeared from the Moscow screens66 says the Kubanian Governor. In the field of literature instead of Russian faces we see the Jews. Thus, Kondratenko places the blame on the ethnic composition of Russias writers calling Rasputin, Bondarev, Belov, Likhonosov, Znamenskiy the bloom of the Russian nation and opposing to them such authors as Solzhenitsyn, Aksenov, Bukovskiy, Abram Terts, Voynovich and Iosif Brodskiy who, in his opinion, do not deserve the public attention they have.67 The accent on the Jewish names Abram and Iosif, along with the omission of the typically Russian names of Alexander (Solzhenitsyn) and Vasiliy (Aksenov) demonstrates that, for Kondratenko, the Jewish origin of these authors is of great importance. Deploying the concept of the them of the Jews, in Russian culture, Kondratenko says:
[A]ll this [the destruction of the Russian Fatherland] is against the background of limitless hymns to the chosen people and holy land, genius Rostropoviches, Brodskies, Pasternaks, Tseretelies And in general: everything theirs is good, everything Russian - bad. They spoiled [literally shitted on - obgadili] Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Sholokhov. We cannot get books of Russian writers Rasputin, Bondarev, Belov, ProskurinWe do not hear Russian music and real Russian language. The blockage of Russian cultural values and the values of other native people by mass-media may be compared with the occupational regime.68

Apart from in literature, Kondratenko also notes the collapse of the Russian culture in everyday life. However, this collapse appears to be linked with the influence of migrants. Thus, the Kubanian Governor accuses the Meskhetian Turks of subverting the Russian cultural values.

66

Kondratenko, Narod Rossii ne ostavit v bede svoyu armiyu in Rotov and Pridius, Kuban: Odin god s

Batkoy Kondratom i ego Druzhinoy, p. 94.

67

Kondratenko, Chas vybora, p. 4.

143 They smoke hash [anasha] it is considered as normal among them, as well as the transportation and distribution of drugs, which leads to a mass spread of drugs among the local youth. After the Meskhetian Turks, murders, robbery, rapes and hooliganism in public places became more frequent. An idea of the so-called sexual availability of the Slavonic women, typical for Middle Asia is widely spread among the migrants from Fergana, which results in a coherent behavioural setting. 69

This attitude toward the Slavonic women confuses Kondratenkos own perception of his people, as he stands clearly against any kind of sexual liberation, and negatively regards recent TV programmes showing sex, violence and porn as a great sin of his generation in relation to its predecessors.70 The fourth pillar of Russian national unity, which appears to have been lost in the current social situation, is the common Russian economy. Kondratenko consistently repeats that in his opinion Russias economy is totally captured by other nationals. Indicating those conquerors he mentions, among others, the Crimean Tatars: when we tried to change the head of the state enterprise Novorossiysk oil product (Novorossiysknefteprodukt) we found out that he had run away to America with his cheat companions, and in charge, he left behind him a Crimean Tatar, a former tank driver. The latter employed a security service of 11 people, 8 of which were Crimean Tatars also.71 The Meskhetian-Turks: And the Turks, firmly settled in a prosperous region, have not thought of planting vegetables - as they promised when they settled here. Trade! This is their target. The Novorossiysk port is closed, there is a lot of

68

Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 89. Ibid. p. 38. Ibid. p. 77. Ibid. p. 4.

69

70

71

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space to work!72 According to the Kubanian Governor, the Americans and the Europeans also belong to those capturing the Russian economy. Thus, speaking about agriculture, Kondratenko mentions that the American foundation Skuner (Boston) bought the Timashevsk milk factory73 and that the Americans occupied the Russian market of chicken, rice and grain.74 The European distributors of beef cleared the market for themselves: Canada [as in the original] imports 250 thousands tons, Scotland - 150 thousands tons etc. The quality of the European meat is indicated by the discovered diseases that have infected English cows75 - states Kondratenko. The common language becomes the fifth point of the identity blockage. It also loses its Russianness for the Head of the Krasnodar kray administration. This loss reveals itself when Kondratenko appears to be confused by the fact of the non-Russian affiliations of those who teach Russian to children. In one of his speeches the Kubanian Governor blames the fact that in some of the regional schools the Russian language is taught by the Armenians.76 Indicating the failure of each of the five pillars of Russian national unity, Kondratenko concludes by putting forward the argument as to the actual absence of the Russian nation and the Russian man. There is no Russian nation;77 and: there is no Russian man (Russkogo muzhika net) 78 says the Kubanian Governor.

72

Ibid. p. 36. Ibid. p. 21. Ibid. pp. 23-25. Ibid. p. 27. Ibid. p. 34. Nikolay Kondratenko Svoy kray kriminalu ne sdadim! in Kubanskie novosti, (April 13, 2000).

73

74

75

76

77

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Naming the enemy Having rendered the dislocation textual, Kondratenko defines the enemy responsible for the collapse of the Russianness in Russia. This is the second step in constructing the national myth. The Kubanian Governor assumes that the impossibility of realising the Russian nation in post-Soviet Russia is explained by the presence of the other, which is generally seen as the Zionists who, according to Kondratenko, organised a plot to destroy the Russian nation. Zionism is politics. A politics which is cruel, crafty and dangerous - writes Kondratenko in his The Hour of Choice.79 Then, he puts a question: [s]o what is this force which commits its devils business in Russia during the whole 20th century? and then - replies: The name of this force is Zionism.80 In other works Kondratenko explains the character of this politics by citing the aims of the Zionist leaders:
The goldsmith of the Tsars court Aron Simanovich quotes, in his Memoirs, the words Trotskiy-Bronshtein stated, in a Zionist group: We have to turn Russia into a desert inhabited by the white Negroes, to whom we will give such tyranny the horrible despots of the East could not even dream aboutWe will shed such currents of blood that all human losses of all capitalistic wars would pale and shudder in front of it. The biggest overseas bankers will work in close contact with us. If we win the Revolution, we will crush Russia, and the power of Zionism with be strengthened on her sepultural ruins and the whole world will go down on its knees in front of this power []

78

Ibid. Kondratenko, Chas vybora, p. 4. Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 78.

79

80

146 By means of terror, bloodbaths [krovavye bani] we will turn the Russian intelligentsia to ultimate stupidity, to idiotism, to an animal stateOur young guys in leather jackets the sons of horologer from Odessa and Orsha, Gomel and Vinnitsa they can hate everything Russian. With such pleasure they physically exterminate Russian intelligentsia, officers, academicians, writers!81

Given that, according to Kodnratenko, Trotskiy is one of the main Zionists it becomes clear that the matter of this politics appeared to be expressed through the words of the Russian revolutionary. Being an essentially destructive force, Zionism becomes further apprehended as: the force that captured everything in Russia and which functions to erase Russia from the planet Earth82; as an aggressive and insidious force willing a new world order83; as an international organisation which occupied Moscow84; or as the force that made its own deal disguising it under the slogans of revolution85 etc. The Zionists themselves are being presented as: the ones responsible for the destruction of Russia86; the Russians who betrayed their national interests87; the ones who created fairytales about the prosperous Russia before the revolution88 etc.

81

Ibid. pp. 80-81. Ibid. p. 78. Ibid. p. 58. Ibid. p. 93. Ibid. p. 81. Ibid. p. 4. Ibid. p. 90. Ibid. p. 80.

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

147

Having identified the enemy in general Kondratenko personalises this notion by calling concrete persons and institutions - Zionist. Among the latter Kondratenko mentions the Russian Federal authorities, and, more precisely, the Russian President - Yeltsin and his administration, the Russian Government, the Federal TV channels and Federal mass media. These became some of the most oft-mentioned agents of the Zionist plot.89 Personification of the enemy in concrete actors and institutions makes the former real and actually present. They may be, literally, pointed to with ones finger: Here is the enemy, here he is! The materialisation of the enemy creates a situation of social antagonism, in which the Zionists become the ones whose existence prevents the Russians from being themselves. In the situation of social antagonism the very identity of Russian becomes emptied, for Nikolay Kondratenko. By this it transforms itself into an empty signifier or a signifier of a pure absence of the actually present enemy. This opens the way to the achievement of Russianness through the specification of ones opposition to the Zionists. Such a perspective, in its turn, opens the gates for the social struggle where the national identity which is sought appears to be conceptualised in the confrontation with the Zionist enemy. Within this discursive horizon, Kondratenko comes forward with the original proposal of transforming the national myth into a social imaginary, Which is not one among other objects but an absolute limit which structures a field of intelligibility and is thus

89

Nikolay Kondratenko, Ostanovit' chernyi peredel: Obrashchenie glavy administratsii kraya

N.I.Kondratenko k zhitelyam Kubani in Kuban' segodnya, (September 21, 1999), Nikolay Kondratenko, Politika: kormyatsya edinitsy, a stradayut milliony in Vol'naya kuban' (March 20, 1999).

148

the condition of possibility of the emergence of any object.'90 Within this horizon of intelligibility Kondratenko finds the possibility of a rebuilding of the discursive objectivity of the Russian nation. In doing so, he sets the framework for social struggle against the specified enemy.

Performing political subjectivity To indicate the specificity of his project it is necessary to mention that in contemporary Russia the struggle against Zionism, and for the restoration of the Russian nation is rather popular. Since the end of the 1980s many voices have been raised which call for a fight against the Zionist plot, in order to restore the Russianness of Russia. Within the spectrum of these voices a variety of programmes were proposed. A brief analysis of the extreme right-wing movements allows for an identification of a variety of proposals to be put forward as part of this struggle. Thus, the Union of the Veneds, for instance, calls for the gathering of all the Russians inhabiting Eurasia in a united empire with a gubernia division and for the subsequent consolidation with all the Veneds of Eurasia91. The Orthodox Russian National Sobor, clearly articulating its task as the struggle against Zionism92, came out with the idea of rebuilding the entire system of government in Russia and argued for the redistribution of the highest governmental functions to the all-Russian Council, seen as an analogue of zemstvo, which represented the organs of self-government in pre-Revolutionary

90

Ernesto Laclau, New Reflections on Revolution of Our Time (London: Verso, 1990), p. 64. Programnye printsypy Soyuza venedov Rossii in Rodnye prostory, no. 3 (1992). Yevgeniy Shchekatikhin, 10 let Siono-Fascisma v Rossii in Nashe Otechestvo, no. 40 (1995).

91

92

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Russia.93 Za Russkoe Delo - another right extremist organisation, in its turn, appeals for the construction of the caste-ethnocratic Russian state, where 87% of the Russians (excluding foreign mercenaries) possess all the power.94 Having formulated the programmes for the restoration of Russianness, in the struggle with Zionism, various political forces articulate specific subject positions, from which they may conduct the struggle. Thus the Orthodox Russian National Sobor identifies the position of orthodox as the modality of the fight with the Jewish government.95 Za Russkoe Delo puts the white race in the domain of the anti-Zionist struggle96, while the Right-Radical Party specifies the notion of the North, which comprises a nation, as a position from which to fight the Zionism incarnated in the South.97 As is mentioned by the Panorama research group98, the building of the international North community uniting the Slavs and, for example, the Germans, becomes the main point of such a programme. Also, there are some quite exotic positions which emerge in this spectrum of social struggle. The Union of the Veneds suggests, for instance, the identification of those opposing the Jewish governance - such as themselves with

93

Russkiy Natsionalnyi Sobor. Programmnoe zayavlenie o sudbe russkogo naroda in Alexander tendentsii (Moscow: Panorama, 1996) available at

Verkhovskiy, Vladimir Pribylovskiy, Natsional-patrioticheskie organizatsii v Rossii. Istoriya, ideologiya, ehkstremistskie http://xmir.eu.org/xeno/kng2F.asp?FN=79 (as of August 20, 2003).
94

Vladimir Avdeev, Pravo na vlast in Za Russkoe delo!, no. 9 (1996). Kakoy dolzhna byt prgramma russkogo kandidata in Nashe Otechestvo, no. 46 (1995). Roman Perin, Ot natsionalizma - k rasizmu in Za Russkoe delo!, no.1 (1994). Chto takoe pravoradikalnaya partiya i chego ona khochet in K toporu, no. 5 (1993). Pribylovskiy and Verkhovskiy, Natsional-patrioticheskie organizatsii, available at

95

96

97

98

http://xmir.eu.org/xeno/kng2F.asp?FN=20 (as of August 20, 2003).

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the Slavonic tribe mentioned in the ancient Russian chronicles and noted in a number of historical studies devoted to the Russia of the early Middle Ages.99 Thus it will be seen that in the struggle with Zionism, for the restoration of Russias national authenticity, various forces propose different positions to be occupied for conducting the combat. According to these positions the struggle appears to be particularised between different sectors: the Whites, the Veneds, the Orthodox etc. Those who fight Zionism as orthodox follow quite different proposals from the ones fighting as the Veneds, those who struggle on behalf of the white race or the North do not necessarily share the goals of those arguing for Russian Euro-Asian unity against the sons of the Zion. However, in the spectrum of this struggle the Kubanian Governor comes with his own particular proposal, which to a certain degree represents a new word in the development of contemporary Russian anti-Semitism. In his struggle Kondratenko posits himself first of all as the head of the region. An analysis of his text shows that the Kubanian Governor utilises exactly this position in order to engage in combat. Thus he fights Zionism not as an Orthodox or as a white man but as the highest regional authority. Indeed, Kondratenko repeatedly mentions that he generally addresses, acts or acted as the head of the region.100 Dear countrymen! For many years I have been in charge of the kray and occupying this position I posses a huge amount of information,

99

Programmnye prinstipy Soyuza Venedov Rossii. Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 4; Rotov and Pridius, Kuban: Odin god s Batkoy

100

Kondratom, p.95.

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which is unfortunately unavailable for you says the Kubanian Governor.101 Then, in one of his passionate attacks on Zionism, Kondratenko asks: I am in power, which means that I share responsibility [for the Zionism-inspired catastrophe] Why am I torturing myself? Why have I taken this cross upon myself - to be engaged in everything? Sometimes I even think: maybe I should leave this position.102 Above all, Kondratenko regularly states that he acts as a governor and demands an estimation of his activities, first of all, in terms of the duties of the highest regional authority. Thus, for example, commenting on the idea of the regional newspaper Volnaya Kuban to nominate him person of the year, he says: The circumstances that allow me to possess great power can shake the trust of my country-men as regards the objectivity of the results of this kind of survey I understand: the truth about me will be said only when I leave this high position.103 It is interesting to note that after the first years of his governing Kondratenko, he received the nickname - father-Kondrat (batko Kondrat). One may stress the fact that this is not just a journalists clich, applied to the image of Kondratenko by artisticallyminded columnists. For Kondratenko, in fact, fully accepts this obligation as one finds in his own reflections on the title:
[T]he main things for any leader are the soul, the attitude towards the people, the business, the conciousness. It is like in a family where the father, who is not a boss appointed by

101

Nikolay Kondratenko, Vstan'te, grazhdane Rossii, za Rossiyu!: Obrashchenie k zemlyakam v

preddverii vyborov v Gos. Dumu in Pravda (December 16, 1999).

102

Rotov and Pridius, Kuban: Odin god s Batkoy Kondratom, p. 247. Ibid. p. 90.

103

152 someone, but from the nature, from God - he is the patron, the protector, the oldest, in whom they believe and whom they take as an example. 104

Commenting on the nickname, the Kubanian Governor says: Personally I think that I am raised up too high - to be a father of the people, in the opinion of the public, one has to deserve it really. I think that in the critical political situation the people seek to be defended.105

Conducting the struggle Having occupied the position of regional father, Kondratenko comes out with a specific programme of reviving the Russian nation. In general terms, this programme involves a proposal to preserve Russian national authenticity in his fathered territory. Several actions of the Kubanian Governor indicate further this strategy. The first one goes back to the beginning of the 1990s when Kondratenko was the Head of the kray Soviet of the Peoples Deputies. In August 1991 he issued a regulation restricting the internal export of food from Krasnodar kray to the other regions of Russia. Advocating this initiative, Kondratenko said:
I was compelled to supply the Northern regions with deliveries until August 23 i.e. until navigation is closed, at the expense of the kray dwellers [] I declared that I will not accept this discrimination against the kray dwellers. There I declared the absence of a wish on my part to be related with the genocide of my own people.106

104

Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 15. Ibid. p. 51. Nikolay Kondratenko Spasat nado Rossiyu ne sotsialisticheskuyu i ne kapitalisticheskuyu, a

105

106

svobodnuyu in nezavisimuyu in Krasnodarskie izvestiya (April 9, 1993).

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As a matter of fact, Kondratenko repeatedly stresses the threats of this kind. The latest ones date from the last year of his governorship. Thus when making a speech in the Council of Federation, he says: If I come back from the session and find that the mass disconnection [of electricity] is continuing, on an absolutely legal basis I am going to prevent the construction of the KTK [The Caspian Pipeline Consortium] pipeline, I will stop the export of oil and oil-products through the ports of the kray.107 Moreover, in April 2000 Kondratenko warned the vice-prime minister of the Russian Government: We should close the pipeline [the KTK pipeline], to blow it to hell [vzorvat k chortovoy materi], to put Cossacks there, and see how you will deal with it [kak vy budete vykruchivatsya].108 For Kondratenko - insofar far as the Zionists are sitting in the Kremlin and organising a plot to destroy Russia, the initiatives to disobey their orders and to use the governors power in the name of a prevention of the internal food export, or for sabotaging projects of Federal significance, come to be fully justified. This policy totally fits with the logic of fighting for the lost Russianness, and being the one who cares about the regional population and defends their interests. Another example of this logic comes later, and is related to the affairs Kondratenko has with the officials of the Chechen republic. In the mid-1990s Kondratenko had quite close relationships with Maskhadov, the leader of the separatist government of the unrecognised Republic of Ichkeriya. First of all - next to the building of the kray administration there appeared an official consulate (predstavitelstvo) of the rebellious
107

Arbakhan Magomedov, Politicheskoe liderstvo i formirovanie regionalnykh politicheskikh system v

sovremennoy Rossii in Regionalnye protsessy v sovremennoy Rossii (Moscow: INION RAN, 2002), 115-147, p. 130.
108

Ibid. p. 131.

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republic. Moreover, in April 1997 the Kubanian Governor visited Chechnya and met Maskhadov and some other leaders of the rebels.109 This situation is especially

interesting if one looks at the status possessed by the Chechen republic at that time. As is well known, after the Hasavyurt agreement of August 30, 1996 it was de jure recognised as a subject with postponed status. However, de facto it was independent, as there were no bodies of Russian authorities present there and the power was entirely possessed by the armed gangs, religious fanatics and numerous groups of mercenaries.110 Above all Maskhadov himself openly declared that in as much as we gained independence Chechnya was an independent Islamic republic.111 The question which arises next is - who then visited Kondratenko? The president of the subject of the Federation with postponed status or the leader of the independent state? The answer is neither the first nor the second. The question of Chechen independence was absolutely insignificant for the Kubanian Governor. Other things were much more important for Kondratenko. The Chechens were fighting with the Federal government, seen as the bastion of Zionism in Russia. This was important for the Kubanian Governor. One may refer to some interesting remarks addressed by Kondratenko to the Council of the Federation, wherein he openly associates himself with the highland fighters:

109

Dmitriy Dolgov, V vykhodnoy den gubernator letal k Aslanu Maskhadovu in Komsomolets kubani

(April 8, 1997); Poezdka N. Kondratenko v Chechnyu in Kuban segodnya (April 8, 1997); Pochemu gubernator Kondratenko stal luchshim drugom vsekh chechentsev in Komsomolskaya pravda (December 19, 1998).
110

See:

Istoriya

Khasavyurta.

Khronologicheskiy

ocherk,

available

at:

http://www.polit.ru/docs/475709.html
111

Zayavlenie Aslana Maskhadova in Nevskoe vremya, (November 6, 1997) available at:

http://www.nvrem.dux.ru/arts/nevrem-1607-art-6.html as of (August 25, 2003).

155 No way, sirs! The Cossacks will not shoot their brothers-highlanders [] It is likely that we, the Russian men, will turn our weapon against those villains from politics. This will be the highest and the most just response to the instigators of war, destroyers of our Fatherland.112 I had plenty of talks with men on Kuban. Not a single Kubanian will raise his hand against a highlander. If you want, send your children and grandchildren from the zone of the Sadovoye ring, call them from America, from Switzerland, and throw them under Elbrus, and we, together with highlanders, will catch them.113

The second crucial thing in the contacts with the Chechen rebels is that these actions, as Kondratenko mentions himself, aimed at assisting in the rescue of the Kubanian prisoners held by the Chechens. It is exactly for these purposes that there was created a position of advisor for rescuing the Kubanians held by the Chechen separatists in the Administration of Krasnodar kray. Who other than the head of the region, therefore, would display a fathers care to the regional population by rescuing them from Chechen slavery? These actions clearly indicate the particularity of the position occupied by Kondratenko in his political struggles. As a matter of fact, it is hardly possible to realise the initiative of restricting the food supply to the Russian North, on the part of one who is demanding the unity of Russians who are part of the North, against the Zionist South. Moreover, this demand is quite irrelevant for those who are calling for the unity of the people against the Zionist corrupted government etc. At the same time it is of
112

Nikolay Kondratenko, Narod Rossii ne ostavit v bede svoyu armiyu in Rotov and Pridius, Kuban:

Odin god s Batkoy Kondratom, p. 95.

113

See also: Pochemu gubernator stal luchshim drugom vsekh chechentsev.

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great concern that the ones fighting Zionism as the Orthodox would ever make any alliances with the Chechen rebels, who to a great degree are organised by radical Islamic fundamentalists. However, for the father of his countrymen these actions became more than possible. If one looks at the history of the Chechen uprising, their leaders expressed hatred towards Russia, the Russians and the Russian government in general but never towards particular regions and their population. Therefore, to befriend the anti-government rebels, whoever they are, suits the strategic political goals of Kondratenko. On the same basis, to cut the food supply of other Russian territories supporting the Zionist government, for the good of the population of his region, also becomes an option, in the context of the anti-Zionist struggle of the Kubanian father.

Articulating the regional idea The particular position occupied by Kondratenko defines the object which fixes the demands articulated in the course of his struggle. This object is Kuban - the name of his region - which, in fact, comes to represent the project of restoring social reality to the dislocated object of the Russian nation. It is possible to say that, at this moment, it becomes a nodal point, fixing the discursive unity of Kondratenkos struggle for Russia. Thus the Kubanian Governor very often means Kuban when, whilst identifying himself as a Russian, he speaks about his fatherland. For instance, expressing his attitude toward the crisis in Russia Kondratenko says: Who, then, went though like Mamay over our Fatherland? Jeudo-masson Kaganovich! Tens of Kubanian stanitsas

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and farms have died then from starvation.114 Or: We were proud of our Fatherland. My generation of the Kubanians used to pull its vein out [tyanulo zhyly iz sebya] for decades to create industry and agricultural complexes in the kray.115 The other evidence is concealed in the references to the Kubanians as his own people. For example, when he speaks about the tough talks he had in the Federal Government, after refusing to organise the food supply of the Northern regions, the Kubanian Governor says: thats all, I quit, I do not want and I will not participate in the genocide of my own people.116 This passage shows that own people for Kondratenko is the Kubanians, rather than the Russians in general, because the latter are those who appear to be negatively affected by the food export problem. Following this conceptualisation, Kondratenko unites the aforementioned problem of restricting internal export of food with defending Russian national interests.
Let us take as an example the restriction of sunflower seeds, the high-protein culture, export of the kray. To export sunflower, protein, which is in constant lack in Russia. Without protein cattle farming can not be competitive, this is a crying mismanagement! And I was thinking in such a way: why should I save the Turkish children exporting sunflower to Turkey? It is better to feed our own, Russian kids Or if we take woods of valuable kinds like the oak and the beech. A tree is growing for hundred years and we send it for nothing to the same Turkey! We stood like a wall against it117

In these lines Kondratenko, in fact, makes no difference between to export from Kuban and to export from Russia, as well as to save the Kubanians and to save our
114

Kondratenko, Khodil kazak v Kreml, p. 83. Ibid. p. 85. Ibid. p. 57. Ibid. pp. 44-45.

115

116

117

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own, Russian kids, confirming the hypothesis that saying Kuban he, in fact, means Russia as such - this ideal state he is trying to build. In addition one may mention that regarding Kuban being the last redoubt of Russianness - Kondratenko widely puts it on display in his numerous historical excursions. Thus, he says: All the time the Germans if not the Khazars, the Tatars, the Germans, the Swedish, the Tatars again, the French, the Poles and others tried to take over the Russian throne. It was always like this. The main thing is in us, in Russians. In our behaviour, in what and how we do it.118 And then he continues, a few paragraphs later:
[I]f you do not want to clarify this now when another election in the cities and the districts comes to Kuban, villains again climb straight into power - they are more active than we are, the Russians, they are insolent, without regard for others [bespardonnye], they have big money, - if you this time again do not sort them out and do not send them away, do not make things clear for yourself [] I have nothing to tell you it looks like a destiny for us, for the Russians! 119

It is obvious that here Kondratenko unites the Russian throne, the destiny of the Russians and the Russian government, with the elections in the Kubanian cities and districts and the decision of the Kubanians in the forthcoming elections. It is not surprising, next, that after reducing the notion of the Russian to the notion of the Kubanian, Kondratenko is rather sceptical towards the slogans regarding Kubanian independence. How may Kuban be separated from Russia if it incarnates the true Russia in itself? Emphasising the fact that these proposals are irrelevant,

118

Ibid. p. 94. Ibid. p. 94.

119

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Kondratenko openly confronts related ideas: Some hot Cossack heads, not being able to find the exit, already speak about separation from Russia: as if we need to play with sovereignty. I want to say that those who set the question in this manner take a great sin on their shoulders. Neither God nor the Russians will forgive us for this120. However, it is fair to say that the question of separation as such is not completely alien to the Kubanian Governor. This theme is permanently raised by Kondratenko but in an absolutely different manner. In fact, what Kondratenko really wishes is to separate the wrong, corrupted, Russia of betrayal, which is incarnated by Moscow, from the true one preserved in Kuban. Thus, he says: Maybe we should discuss it, whether or not to give more sovereignty to a Moscow occupied by international Zionism? [] And for us, the rest of the Russians, [rossiyanam], to be united in our own Motherland and to elaborate our own economic laws and political approaches.121 It is also quite interesting to mention how Kondratenko divides Moscow from Kuban,

symptomatically considering the latter as the object representing the people: We do not like Lukoil and other Moscow Rockefellers! We do not like their favorites! The treasures of the kray, including the oil, should belong to the people!122 In such a way it appears possible to conclude that Kondratenko represents the sought fullness of the object of the Russian nation in the object of Kuban. This sets the stage for a construction of a social imaginary in the political project of Nikolay Kondratenko.

120

Ibid. p. 93. Ibid. p. 93. Sergey Markedonov, Vestfalskaya Rossiya. Cherty rossiyskogo regionalizma rubezha XX XXI

121

122

vekov in Novyi Mir, No.2 (2004), available at: http://magazines.russ.ru/novyi_mi/2004/2/m8.html (as of February 13, 2004).

160

Thus, for Kondratenko, the true and real demands appear to be expressed only by the Kubanians, as these are the Kubanians who, according to the Governor, see the danger of Zionism. For instance, in the list of the most urgent political tasks which will rescue the Russian nation, Kondratenko writes: To stand openly on the terrain of a denunciation of Zionism. You do not have to beat them, but just to speak openly and loudly: we see you, we know you, we hate you!123 The ones who are able to handle this task are the Kubanians, about whom Kondratenko mainly speaks, as he does about those who opened his eyes to some problems i.e. those who see the Zionist threat. The Kubanians write to me that everything is sold, everything is caught - says Kondratenko.124 In such a way Kondratenko opens the way for numerous forces who share these regional affiliations, such that they might find their lost social reality to be renewed in his struggle. Thus, for example, in the elections to the regional Legislative Assembly in 1998, numerous candidates from very different backgrounds - collective-farmers, businessmen, Cossacks, teachers, former nomenklatura members and others advertised the fact that they belonged to the struggle of Father-Kondrat, as a means to ensure their victory. At that time it was absolutely normal to see the posters of two competing candidates equally referring to their ideological, professional or personal affiliation with Kondratenko. And the posters Hands off Father-Kondrat - the protector of all the Russians! were normally displayed in numerous opposition meetings in the region.125 No wonder that in debates structured by the question of who is closer to Father, there was no place for those who disagreed with the Kubanian Governor. In
123

Ibid. p. 91. Ibid. p. 22. See the photo album in Kondratenko, Khodil Kazak v Kreml, pp. 48-49.

124

125

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the end, the Fatherland of Kondratenko took 37 out of 50 seats in the regional Legislative Assembly.126 Moreover, in the elections of 2002 the candidates supported by this organisation took about 40 seats in the new deputy corpus. Commenting on these results, Kondratenko wrote: The electoral campaign has shown that the public political movement Fatherland (Kondratenko), which unites all patriotically-minded citizens of the kray, still remains the most authoritative and influential political force in Kuban.127 It might be added that, in these lines, Kondratenko seems to be right. By the beginning of the 2000s his political organisation, based on the idea of reconstructing the Russian nation within a separately-taken region, was the biggest social movement. This regional implication of the social struggle makes possible the designation of the entire ideological project of Nikolay Kondratenko as a transition from national myth to regional imaginary. The pure literality of the Russian nation, translated into the material perspective of regional struggle opens the way for many political forces to find their social objectivity in the struggle of the Kubanian father.

126

Timofey Bagrov, Vybory Zakonodatelnogo Sobraniya Krasnodarskogo kraya in Politicheskiy

monitoring, no.11 (82) (Moscow: IGPI, 1998). As Alexander Kynev mentions: In the situation [] candidates themselves were not known enough - it was impossible to be mentioned and remembered [] Therefore the support given by the regional movement Fatherland (Kondratenko) became the main firelight for the voters. (Alexander Kynev, Krasnodarskie vybory 2002: smena politicheskikh ehpokh available at: http://intellectuals.ru/cgibin/proekt/kynev/kynev.cgi?action=articul&statya=viewstat&id=id10 (as of February 20, 2004).

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Drawing out regional difference The meaningful horizon opened within the social struggle of the Kubanian Governor grounds the emergence of the Kubanian regional discourse seen as the practice and meanings shaping a particular community of social actors128 - which are the Kubanians. The regional idea, constituting the Kubanian regional ideology, consists in the representation of the sought reality of the Russian nation through the notion of Kuban. However, the representation of the sought domain of the national identity in the regional imaginary has it sharp limits that define the particular arrangement of the Kubanian regional discourse. These limits are defined through the correspondence of the struggling sector to the geographical particularity of Kuban. To be Kubanian is a relatively fixed quality strongly associated with being born in Kuban or living on the territory. One cannot be considered as a Kubanian if one is not born or if one has another place of registration written in ones passport. In this way, to be a father for the Kubanians will never include being a father to those living outside the region. Kondratenko does not intend to transcend the particular connotation of Kuban. Moreover, he stresses its geographical particularity by drawing a line between the good Kuban and other bad territories. For example, describing his trip from Moscow to Krasnodar he underlines the differences between Tula, Rostov, Moscow oblast

127

Nikolay Kondratenko, Doverie opravdaem in Kubanskie novosti (December 4, 2002). David Howarth, Discourse (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000), p. 5.

128

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and other regions which are in decay and Kuban, which is still struggling and where the population still preserves the good of the country.129 It is interesting to mention that that the frontier between good Kuban and other bad territories prevents Kondratenko from establishing a reasonable dialogue with many of the non-Kubanian sectors in the anti-Zionist opposition. Thus, he openly criticises Russian National Unity - probably the most well-known Russian anti-Semitic organisation - for being Zionistic, because they come from the other Russian regions and more precisely - from the rotting Moscow. I swear to you that in the kray there is no RNE - this Zionist creation, invented as a means of discrediting all patrioticallyminded people. The Cossack population of Kuban cannot allow either RNE nor skinheads nor other carrion in its home. This is the destiny of Moscow and other rotten territories130 - says Kondratenko.

Institutionalising the regional identity By drawing a clear frontier between the Kubanians and people from other sites, Kondratenko opens the way for a further institutionalisation of the Kubanian regional identity. Notably, it is this division which becomes connected with some interesting legal and administrative initiatives in the Krasnodar regional administration. The most remarkable examples of this activity are embedded in the legislative policies of the regional authorities. Introducing these activities, one must stress the fact that in
129

Ibid. p. 19. Komu vygodna lozh o situatsii na Kubani. Zayavlenie chlena Soveta Federatsii Federalnogo

130

Sobraniya Rossiiskoy Federatsii N. Kondratenko na zasedanii 24 aprelya 2002 g. In Kubanskie novosti (April 26, 2002).

164

the Russian Constitution, it is said that: Each citizen of the Russian Federation possesses all rights and freedoms on its territory []131 regardless of his regional affiliations. However, the regional legislators by-passed this principle and introduced a number of privileges for the regional population in Krasnodar kray. To demonstrate these privileges one may refer to some of the laws adopted by the Kubanian regional authorities in the second half of the 1990s. One of the most symptomatic legal initiatives is buried in the regional Law on Culture signed by Kondratenko on November 3, 2000. This law articulates the cultural selfbeing (samobytnost) of Krasnodar kray and privileges the development of a cultural particularity, as is seen in a number of the major aims mentioned in the law. Thus, the cultural legacy of peoples and ethnic groups living on the territory of Krasnodar kray is defined as: Material and spiritual values, created in the past, as well as monuments and historico-cultural areas and objects, significant to the conservation and development of the self-being (samobytnost) of Krasnodar kray and all peoples and ethnic groups living on its territory as well as their impact in the Russian and the world civilisation.132 Needless to say, according to this formulation the relevance of a cultural monument or a cultural performance to the process of stipulating the selfbeing of Krasnodar kray becomes the dominant criterion, as regards a supposed cultural legacy. Moreover, the accent on the peoples and ethnic groups living on the territory of Krasnodar kray does not actually recognise as part of a cultural legacy, which would thereby be subjected to the protection of this law, the monuments

131

The Russian Constitution, Article 6, Point 2, cited through Richard Sakwa, Russian Politics and

Society (London: Routledge, 1996), 394- 429, p. 296.

132

Zakon Krasnodarskogo kraya o kulture, No. 325 - Z (November 3, 2000), Chapter 1, Article 1.

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produced by those who do not live there, even if they contribute to the development of the Russias self-being in general. Apart from the privileging of the Kubanian self-being, the law on culture clearly identifies the priorities for those actors in the field of cultural production who demonstrate clear Kubanian affiliations. An interesting passage is contained in Article 4, wherein it is stated that the task of the law is: creation of legal guaranties for the free cultural activity of civil organisations and ethnic communities of Krasnodar kray.133 According to this statement any civil organisation and ethnic community which is not from Krasnodar kray in fact appears to be excluded from the sphere of application of this law and, hence, cannot demand legal protection in Krasnodar kray. Another illustrative example of the construction of an institutional frontier between the regional population and the rest is translated in the regulations which deal with the ownership of land and commercial operations with flats and houses. It is necessary to mention that after 1993, when the Russian Constitution declared the existence of a variety of forms of property, no Federal law or Charter which might regulate this variety was issued.134 Due to this lack of a clear legal interpretation coming from the centre, the regional authorities filled this legal gap with their own regulations. In the course of this law-making, in 1995, the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnodar kray, controlled by the political organisation Fatherland, led by Kondratenko, adopted the Law prescribing a particular procedure of registration for those staying and living on the territory of Krasnodar kray. This law has already become the subject of numerous debates. In fact, it draws a clear line between the Kubanians and the
133

Zakon Krasnodarskogo kraya o kulture, Chapter 1, Article 4. The Land Codex of the Russian Federation was adopted only in 2001.

134

166

people from other regions, by imposing clear restrictions upon any official commercial operation, in relation to the residential areas, which is carried out by the people from other regions.135 Article 35 states: Access to the piece of land for the individual residential construction is provided only to the citizens of the Russian Federation, permanently registered [postoyanno propisannym] in Krasnodar kray. In support of these privileges, the Kubanian legislators introduced the category of those continuously living within the territory of Krasnodar kray, as separate from the rest of Russias population. The execution of the right of citizens of the Russian Federation, foreign citizens and individuals with no citizenship, when choosing their place of living on the territory of Krasnodar kray, should not violate the legal rights and interests of individuals continuously living within the territory of Krasnodar kray says the law.136 However, the innovations which have institutionalised the regional differences within the Russian population very soon got objected to by those who have actually been discriminated against, on the basis of this law. The complaints came from those who did not fit into the category of continuously living within the territory of the kray. Thus in 1998 a group of citizens rejected by the officials of the Sochi notary district, during the official registration of their commercial operation with regard to blocks of flats, addressed a protest to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. In response to these protests the highest juridical body of the Russian state confirmed that in at

135

Zakon Krasnodarskogo kraya O poryadke prebyvaniya i zhitelstva na territorii Krasnodarskogo

kraya, adopted on June 23, 1995, Articles 14, 15, 35.

136

Zakon Krasnodarskogo kraya O poryadke prebyvaniya i zhitelstva na territorii Krasnodarskogo

kraya, Preamble.

167

least 4 articles this law violates the Federal laws and, hence, should be revised by the regional administration.137 Another interesting example of the division of legal policies is dated back to 1995, when the regional authorities adopted The Law on the Special Order of Using the Lands of Krasnodar kray which with insignificant modifications was reasserted by the Legislative Assembly of Krasnodar kray in 1998. In addition to the restrictions outlined above, this law placed a prohibition upon the ownership and possession of the land of Krasnodar kray by those who have no permanent residence permit in the region.138 Defending this restriction, the deputies of the Assembly argued that it was being done to protect the interests of the wide strata of the kray population139 which appeared to be translated, in the preamble to the law, as this:
The lands of Krasnodar kray are a unique and most valuable resource, they comprise the basics of life and the activities of its populations and they have: - to be guaranteed to be used in the interests of the kray population.140

137

Opredelenie Konstitutsionnogo suda Rossiyskoy Federatsii no. 116-O (October 7, 1998) Po delu o

proverke konstitutsionnosti polozheniy statey 14, 15 i 35 Zakona Krasnodarskogo kraya O poryadke prebyvaniya i zhitelstva na territorii Krasnodarskogo kraya in Rossiyskaya gazeta (November 3, 1998), available at http://ks.rfnet.ru/opred/o031198.htm (as of March 15, 2004); See also: Opredelenie Konstitutsionnogo suda Rossiyskoy Federatsii no. 147 - O (June 23, 2000) Po zhalobe grazhdanina Manukyana Sogomona Oganesovicha na narushenie ego konstitutsionnykh prav statey 36 zakona O poryadke prebyvaniya i zhitelstva na territorii Krasnodarskogo kraya in Rossiyskaya gazeta (August 15, 2000), available at http://ks.rfnet.ru/opred/o150800.htm (as of March 15, 2004).
138

Zakon Krasnodarskogo kraya Ob osobom poryadke zemlepolzovaniya v Krasnodarskom krae, no.

13 - KZ (August 8, 1995), Article 16, Part 1., in Kubanskie novosti (August 25, 1995).
139

V Zakonodatelnom sobranii Krasnodarskogo kraya: Informatsionnyi bulleten k gorodskim rayonnym

gazetam, vol. 9, (June 2000).

168

The ones who did not fit into the category members of the kray population - appear to be discriminated against, in commercial operations regarding the land. Very soon this became the subject of other complaints filed to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. A lady from Moscow who wanted to buy a house in Krasnodar kray was refused the right, on the basis of the absence of the regional residence permit. Due to the obvious contradiction between the regional Law on the Special Order of Land Use, and the federal laws and the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the former got objected to, by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation.141 After this protest the deputies had to exclude this restriction from the regulations as to the use of regional land.142 These cases are rather symptomatic. They show that for the regional political elite, the issue of the Kubanian land was seen as a matter of the interests and rights of the Kubanians, rather than the Russian citizens in general. It is not surprising that in the regional Law on Land adopted in October 23, 2002 it was stated that: The privileged direction of the land policies of Krasnodar kray are: [] - realisation of the rights of the population of Krasnodar kray in the land.143

140

Zakon Krasnodarskogo kraya Ob osobom poryadke zemlepolzovaniya v Krasnodarskom krae, no.

13 - KZ (August 8, 1995), Preamble.

141

Opredelenie Konstitutsionnogo Suda Rossiyskoy Federatsii no. 41-O (February 3, 2000) po zhalobe

grazhdanki Medikovoy Niny Petrovny na narushenie eyo konstitutsionnykh prav polozheniem chasti pervoy stati 16 zakona Krasnodarskogo kraya Ob osobom poryadke zemlepolzovaniya v Krasnodarskom krae in Rossiyskaya gazeta (May 16, 2000), available at: http://ks.rfnet.ru/opred/o160500a.htm (as of March 15, 2004).
142

Arbakhan

Magomedov, Krasnodarskiy kray in Konstitutsionnoe pravo: Vostochoevropeiskoe

obozrenie, no.3 (2000), 105 - 108.

143

Zakon Krasnodarskogo kraya Ob osnovakh regulirovaniya zemelnykh otnosheniy v Krasnodarskom

krae, no. 532 - KZ (October 23, 2002), Preamble.

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These examples demonstrate a clear tendency towards the institutional division of the regional population, or the Kubanians from the rest of the Russians, through the provision of the former with specific rights on cultural activity, land and commerce. This indicates that the very idea of the Kubanians as a specific social identity, as a people entitled to special legal treatment, became a defining one in the activities of the regional political elite. By transforming the regional population into an independent object of institutional policy, the authorities of Krasnodar kray brought the material ground under the symbolic construction of the Kubanians and constituted the object of the regional identity. This regionality even received its particular name - the Kubanian people. One of the first references to this object can be found in the speeches of Nikolay Kondratenko. Thus, addressing the new corpus of deputies of the kray legislative assembly in December 2002 he encouraged the members of his organisation - to leave the party interests aside and to look in the interests of the Kubanian people.144 As a result, the rights and interests of the Kubanian population were designated as the primary goals of the Kondratenko-led Fatherland in its recent programme published in 2002.145 The notion of the Kubanian people, endowing the subject with its particular rights and interests, arose in many of the public debates in the beginning of the 2000s. This notion became rather widely accepted not only among the highest authorities of Krasnodar kray but also by the population of the region. For example, the local TV
144

Yelena Chernaya, Ideya Partii rastvorilas v interesakh Kubanskogo naroda in Kommersant -

Rostov-na-Donu, (December 6, 2002).

145

Predvybornaya platforma Krasnodarskogo kraevogo obshchestvenno-politicheskogo dvizheniya

Otechestvo (Kondratenko) in Golos Otechestva, A special issue (November 2002).

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company gave a report on the situation in the Belorechenskiy district of Krasnodar kray where a Cossack, presenting a gift to the Governor, commented that what he is promoting is no less than: the spiritual strength of the Kubanian people.146 Thus, it becomes obvious that the ideological texts of Nikola Kondratenko did shape a certain social order by constructing the Kubanians and identifying their social mission of preserving Russianness. Once adopted as a mode of self-identification, it, in a particular way, constituted the strategies relating to the political actions of those thinking of themselves as of the Kubanians, in Kondratenkos sense. These actions comprise the movement towards the institutional continuity of the symbolic uniqueness and clarity of a particular regionality. This, in its turn, resulted in the introduction of specific rules and norms regulating social interaction which completes the emergence of the Kubanian regional discourse understood as a sphere constituting the social particularity of the Kubanians. The constructive potential of this discourse becomes evident not only in the number of references to the identity of the Kubanians and the Kubanian people but also in voices coming from the other side of the discursive frontier. In fact, the Kubanian regional ideology implies a powerful discursive exclusion. Surprisingly enough, although the debates of Nikolay Kondratenko are rather odious, some from the involuntary audience of the Kubanian Governor find themselves interpellated by his proposals, from the other side. As an example of such interpellation one may refer to the letter of a Kubanian girl, called Anya Kovaleva, sent to a Russian journal Ogonek.

146

GTRK

Kuban,

Novosti

kraya

from

October,

26,

2002.

available

at

http://www.kubantv.ru/news/?newsid=196 (as of January 5, 2003).

171 I am 17 years old, my mother is a Jew, father Russian. It was my family [emphasis added] the governor of our kray Kondratenko was talking about recently when he made a speech at the forum of Kubanian youth. He declared that Zhydy [a pejorative and offensive version of the Jews] and Judo-Massons are guilty of everything, that young Jewish women get closer to Russian guys, that a 19 years-old Jewish girl spread her legs in front of the 40 year-old Bukharin. He said that in the government and in the mass media there are only Zionists who destroy the Communist party and the church. You dont believe me? I heard it myself. Isn't it fascism coming again? 147

A careful reading of this message allows one to see how the symbolic construction of the Zionist threat causes the girl to identify herself with the rivals of those fighting for the survival of the Russian nation, which makes her consider the position she occupies in society as excluded from this social project.

Conclusion to Chapter 3 In the conclusion to this Chapter, it is possible to recapitulate the main results revealed by the empirical investigation. Thus it becomes obvious that for Kondratenko the regional order, and the idea of region-based social agency, is the perspective designed to achieve the Russianness dislocated by the social and political perturbations of the post-Soviet Russia. Being unable to realise his Russian identity, Kondratenko constructs a national myth which renders textual the Russian nation, by way of an impossible object, through the articulation of the dislocatory events. Then he depicts the situation as one of social antagonism, by naming the Zionist enemy, responsible for the collapse of the Russian national authenticity. This sets the stage for a social struggle wherein the pure literality of the lost Russian nation comes to be
147

Ogonek, no. 12 (1998), p.2.

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transformed into a social imaginary which gives meaning to the anti-Zionist social resistance. Within the horizon of this opposition Kondratenko performs an act of political subjectivity and employs his position as highest regional authority by way of a subject position from which to wage the articulated struggle. It is this modality which serves as a bridgehead, through which the translation of a strategic demand, related to the saving of the Russian nation, becomes translated into tactical policies, decisions and actions. The tactical struggle adopted by Nikolay Kondratenko represents an attempt to reconstruct the framework of Russian national authenticity within the region of which he is in charge. Fixing the meaning of this struggle, he introduces the Kubanian regional idea, wherein Kuban comes to be seen as the only authentic Russia, as opposed to the rest of the country, which is consequently seen as corrupted, rotten and betraying the people. The regional idea becomes an interpellator, capable of recruiting individuals into a community of the Kubanians, seen as the proper Russians and as conducting a proper anti-Zionist struggle. It is this interpellation which obtains its institutional response in the policies of regional authorities, aiming at providing Kubanian regionality with a specific legal, administrative and then economic status. Combined with the ideological performances of the Kubanian governor, these activities support the prospect of constructing the Kubanian regional discourse in places where the regional society appears to be organised by the difference between the Kubanians and people from other sites. The benefits of being a Kubanian and the misfortune of coming from the other regions came to be socially objectified in the fields where the discriminatory policies of the regional administration were applied.

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CHAPTER 4: THE IDEOLOGICAL PROJECT OF YURIY LUZHKOV AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE MUSCOVITE REGIONAL

DISCOURSE

Introducing the case Moscow is a historical capital of Russia, situated in the heart of the old-Russian lands.1 In the 14th century Moscow was the city which united divided principalities in a common state, known as Moscovia or the Moscow Rus, after the lifting of the Tatars yoke in 15 century. It was the main Russian city until 1712 when Peter the Great moved the capital to the newly built Saint Petersburg. Moscow became the capital again in 1918 when Lenin decided to emphasise the break with the Tsarist Russia by moving the Soviet government from the city of palaces to the old capital. To Moscow. Moscow was given the status of special subject of the RSFSR only in 1931 when it was excluded from the Moscow oblast. In the Soviet system of territorial and administrative division Moscow was a city of direct state subordination, which meant that it was directly subordinated to the highest Union authorities but not to the republican ones like oblast, kray or republic.2 The special status of the city was given due to the high concentration of financial, cultural and, which is the most important, governmental institutions in its territory. The concentration of actual and potential jobs in the capital and the prestige of living in the capital made Moscow one of the centres

See Map 2. Apart from Moscow such status was given to Leningrad, Sevastopol and all capitals of the Union

Republics.

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of internal migration. The movement of people led by the already idiomatic slogan to Moscow, to Moscow! defined an immense demographic explosion which the Russian capital experienced in the 20th century. In the beginning of the 20th century there were about 2,000,000 people living in Moscow. In 1922 this went down to a million. However, by the end of the 20th century the Russian capital became one of the biggest worlds cities. According to the last census conducted in the Soviet Union in 1989 the population of Moscow comprised 8,967,000 people. In 2001 this number went down slightly, to 8,538,000 people.3 In the Soviet Union migration to Moscow was generally limited to two big flows. The first one was the movement of the elite. Numerous state servants and party officials, artists, scientists and other intellectual workers, received the promotion to come to Moscow to work. The second flow was comprised by the low-skilled personnel invited to Moscow on the basis of short-term limited contracts: the so-called limita or limitchki. These people were supposed to provide the working hands for the growing city infrastructure. An absolute majority of those promoted to Moscow or who came within the limit (po limitu) by different means, stayed in Moscow and became the ones who by the end of the 20th century call themselves Muscovites. Despite the fact that in the times of the Soviet Union Moscow was one of, if not the richest city in Russia, in which the word deficit was known much less than in the other places, by the end of the 1980s it became the centre of democratic struggle. On the one hand this situation was grounded in the expectations of the intellectual elite

According to the data of State Statistic Committee (Goskomstat) on June 1, 2001, available at

http://demoscope.ru/weekly/029/strimir01.php#6 (as of March 12, 2004).

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concentrated in Moscow, who were inspired by the perspectives of liberalisation and democratisation opened in the struggle with the party-state apparatus. On the other hand, for the low-skilled workers, suffering the discriminatory policies of the Soviet administration and sometimes devoid of elementary human rights, the anti-regime struggle opened the way to fulfil their economic and civil ambitions. The popular protests in the Russian capital were stimulated by the actions of the Moscow City CPSU committee, in which the newly appointed 1st secretary - Boris Yeltsin started to raise the demands of radical democratisation. Soon, at the legendary 19 Party conference held in June 1988, Yeltsin came out with his famous speech, objected to by the orthodox communist Yegor Ligachev with the famous: Boris you are wrong! (Boris, ty ne prav!). In March 1989 the Muscovites elected Yeltsin as their representative on the congress of the peoples deputies of the USSR. It was at this time that he started to become the leader of the democratic movement, as the latter has been described in one of the previous chapters. The transformation of the social and political system, debated in the time of perestroika, became then a matter of institutional implementation. The reform of local self-government was one of the first steps in de-Sovetising society. Moscow and Saint Petersburg became the bridgeheads where, in the course of these reforms, mayoralty was introduced, to replace the old system of city soviets. According to the new

regulations the mayor of the cities had to be elected directly by the population. And in the first elections for mayor in June 1990 the people of Moscow voted for Gavriil Popov, a passionate Yeltsin supporter and one of the experienced activists of the democratic movement in Moscow. Together with Popov, the Muscovites voted for a

176

vice-mayor, presented to them as a person responsible for the economic aspect of the city governance. At that time few people could see, in this short energetic man who always wore a cap, a person whose name would be inseparably related to the following 15 years in the history of Moscow. This man was Yuriy Luzhkov, the main character in the forthcoming investigation. Yuriy Luzhkov was born in 1936 in Moscow. After secondary school he became a student in the Oil Institute named after I.M. Gubkin from which he graduated in 1958. From that time he started to work in the chemical industry. In the beginning he was a research fellow in the Institute of Plastic Masses. Then from 1964 he became a leading specialist at the State Committee of the Chemical Industry and afterwards he obtained a position of the Head of the Department of Automatisation in the Ministry of the Chemical Industry of the USSR. From 1974 till 1980 he led the Experimental Construction Bureau in the Concern Khimavtomatika and in 1980 he became the acting head of the Concern. In 1986 Luzhkov joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Although since 1974 Luzhkov had been a deputy in both Moscow City and the Russian republican soviet, he nevertheless obtained his first really significant public position only in 1987 when he became vice-chairman of the Moscow city soviet. There he took over the city committee of cooperative and individual activities and later he was promoted to the administration of the agro-industrial complex of the city. From this time onwards Luzhkov became seriously involved in the public life of the Russian capital. In 1990 he was elected chairman of the Moscow city soviet. In 1991, after Gavriil Popov became the first mayor of Moscow, Luzhkov occupied the position

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of the vice-mayor. On June 6, 1992 Popov retired and through the special decree of the Russian President, Luzhkov was nominated Mayor of Moscow. The new Mayor found a city in which all the troubles and benefits of a country in transition met together. On the one hand Moscow had lived through the period of massive dissolution of old economic and social affiliations. The old Soviet rules were abandoned but the new ones were not created yet. This led to the disintegration of the social security system, and infrastructure of the city. Moscow industry was declining. The gigantic factories such as AZLK, or Moskvich (which produced the cars) and ZIL (which made the trucks) were cutting jobs. The construction sector, machinery and other modes of complex production were stagnating. However, on the other hand, Moscow experienced an incredible influx of new forms of economic activity. The cooperatives, extensively created in Moscow during the time of perestroika, grew - in the banks, exchanges, trade companies, and joint enterprises. Thus according to Mikhail Vyshegorodtsev, the chairman of the budget and finance committee of the Moscow city duma, there were, by 1998, more than 220,000 small commercial enterprises4 and 959 banks5 registered in the capital. Moreover, according to the holding agency Sindica, by 2002 there were more than 4,000 offices of foreign companies and more than 2,500 of joint enterprises registered in Moscow.6 The decline of the state sector and the growth of the private business initiative took place everywhere in Russia, but in the Russian capital these processes were more distinct and their contradictions were more sharp. Unsurprisingly, it was Moscow
4

Radio

Ehkho

Moskvy

(November

9,

2000),

available

at:

http://www.echo.msk.ru/interview/interview/2159.html (as of March 15, 2004). 5 According to the data of the Bankovskoe delo v Moskve, available at:

http://www.bdm.ru/arhiv/1998/02/21.html (as of March 15, 2004).

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which became the centre of the political battles between reformist and reactionary forces, which evolved into the bloody confrontation in October 1993. Initiated by the communist majority of the Russian Parliament and supported by the numerous nationalistic movements, the revolt identified the Moscow Mayors office as one of the first targets to be captured. According to them, it was, together with the Kremlin and the Ostankino TV-centre, one of the centres of Russian capitalism, which therefore had to be destroyed. As part of these dramatic events, Yuriy Luzhkov took the side of the Russian President and offered the municipal police for the suppression of the revolt. It was this event which marked the beginning of a truly political career for the Moscow Mayor. Afterwards, he ceased to be seen as a man who was in charge simply of the economic affairs of the Russian capital but also as a politician addressing such vital issues as democracy, reforms and the future of the country. Through this, Luzhkov created a discursive position recognised by an audience much wider than just a group of his direct subordinates. As a matter of fact, since that time onwards Luzhkov became one of the most widely-noticed regional politicians in Russia. He became a frequent guest at public meetings, on TV-shows and at other public events. Such discursive visibility was to a large extend explained not only by his clear engagement with the ideas of radical democratisation, but also in the last instance by his particular answer to the demands of the post-Soviet transition. constitutes the theme of the following sections. It is this answer which

See: http://www.sindika-holding.ru/market.php (as of March 15, 2004).

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The structure of the chapter Having entered the field of political debates, Luzhkov was faced with the necessity of wearing a public face. In other words, when addressing the abstract audience of his potential supporters or rivals he had to declare his position through the configuration of various identities. He had to identify who he was, apart from the individual Yuriy Luzhkov, hypothetically equal in his individuality to any other person. In accordance with this issue, the chapter starts with an investigation in the dominant political selfidentity declared by Yuriy Luzhkov. An introduction of the meaningful context of the political Self deployed by the Moscow Mayor allows a specification of the moment of dislocation and the points where his identity becomes disrupted. Then the research proceeds to a treatment of the programme of restoring the damaged self-identity. In this step the construction of social antagonism is visited in details. First the investigation deals with (2) the constitution of the enemy pointed to as the one responsible for the identity blockage. Then it describes (3) how Luzhkov articulates the struggle that aims at confronting the outlined antagonist. In this step I specify the field of equivalence set by the Moscow Mayor in his struggle with the enemy and (4) the performance of his political subjectivity, wherein Luzhkov occupies a particular subject position offered in the general area of anti-enemy confrontation. After this I investigate (5) the particular strategy of confronting the antagonist employed by the Moscow Mayor in accordance with the subject position occupied. Then I display how Yuriy Luzhkov fixes this struggle by articulating (6) a particular regional idea. And in the conclusion to the second empirical investigation I visit some attempts undertaken by the Moscow regional administration to institutionalise the regional differences imposed by the particularly articulated regional idea.

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Facing the 1990s as a manager From the very beginning of his public career the Moscow mayor defined himself first of all as a khozyaystvennik, a term which is usually translated in English as manager.7 As far back as 1990, at the session of the Moscow soviet on April 26 the future Head of the Moscow administration was asked by the deputies: which platform are you loyal to? Are you a democrat or a communist? Or maybe you are independent?. The reply of Yuriy Luzhkov was: I have always been loyal and I remain loyal to one platform. The managers one [] I do not see any political aspects in this business. I am from the party of managers!8 In fact, Luzhkov rather often calls himself a manager in the speeches, interviews and memoirs. I, as a manager;9 I have already said that in my nature I am not a dissident, I am a practical person [praktik], a manager10 etc. In one of his interviews, when being asked by a journalist from Moskovskiy komsomolets to clarify his identity and precisely to give an answer to the question of whether he is a politician or a manager Luzhkov replies: Of course a manager!.11 Along with the identification of I, one finds references to the group identity of us as managers, in the discourse of the Moscow mayor, for example: For us for
7

Timothy Colton, Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of

Harvard University Press, 1995); Gregory Feifer, Yuri Luzhkov and Continuity in Russian Bureaucratic Behavior, Harvard University, Paper prepared for the 13th Annual Graduate Student Symposium, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, April 4-5, 1997; David Hoffman, The man who rebuilt Moscow in Washington Post, February 24, 1997.
8

Yuriy Luzhkov, My deti tvoi, Moskva (Moscow: Vagrius, 1996), pp. 177-178. Olga Dmitrieva, Yuriy Luzhkov: Rossiya proela i razvorovala zapadnye kredity in Komsomolskaya

pravda (October 5, 1998).

10

Luzhkov, My deti tvoi, Moskva, p. 165. Yuriy Luzhkov : Ya tolstokozhiy in Moskovskiy komsomolets (June 6, 1999).

11

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managers (Dlya nas - khozyaistvennikov).12 Moreover, in his address to the deputies of the Moscow city soviet Yuriy Luzhkov rather clearly defines the group he feels himself belonging to as managers: You - deputies, be politicians. Discuss, defend your positions, form new mechanisms. But we, managers, will introduce them and, until everything will be adequately worked through, we will keep the city from the decay.13

What does to be a manager mean for Luzhkov? The references to the opposition between managers and politicians, indicated in the aforementioned passages, are not accidental. They in fact reflect a particularly meaningful connotation of the term manager employed in contemporary Russian political debates. Therein, a proper manager is strictly differentiated from those generally recognised as politicans - a pejorative rephrasing of politicians who, in their turn, are seen as demagogues, the ones who cannot do things. This opposition is clearly indicated by many key persons in Russian political life of the 1990s. Thus, for example, the leader of the The Union of the Right Forces - Irina Khakamada, commenting on the electoral situation in Russia, refers exactly to this opposition: manager politician: This image [of the manager] is the most popular [in Russia], for

12

An opening remarks by Luzhkov on the interregional conference The role of social partnership in

social and economic development and regulation of social and labour relations, 1998. Stenographic report, available at: http://info.mos.ru/mer/doc5.htm (as of October 28, 2002).
13

Luzhkov, My deti tvoi, Moskva, p. 143.

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exactly through this did our governors win all the elections - we are not big politicians, we are managers, we solve problems.14 The difference between a manager and a politician appears to be translated in the idea that the first gets the thing done while the second just talks about it. It is exactly this doing of things, which becomes the dominant idea of a manager, in political debates of the 1990s in Russia. As, for example, is stated in the report Moscow: the system of city management 1991-2001: When approaching the term firm manager [krepkiy khozyaystvennik] correctly from the positions of administration, we may suggest that [] a man, a manager who succeeds in doing things can be defined by these words.15 The Moscow mayor quite clearly reflects this opposition between managers and politicians. Apart from the aforementioned frustration invoked by the unawareness of the correspondent as to his credo: a manager or a politician? Of course a manager!, one finds a remark from Luzhkov in which he blames the politicians precisely for not doing things. Unfortunately, there has been formed a group of politicians after whom no one can remember any single concrete thing done - neither a tree planted, nor a bridge built, nor a pavement asphalted. Just words, intrigues, rumours.16

14

Mozhno li shchitat otstavku Yevgeniya Nazdratenko rezultatom ego konflikta s rukovodstvom RAO

YEEhS? Interview with Irina Khahamada in Temya Dnya (February 6, 2001), available at http://www.temadnya.ru/interview/06feb2001/206.html (as of September 1, 2003).
15

Mehr goroda in D. N. Bobryshev (ed.) Moskva: sistema upravleniya gorodom 1991-2001. Simptom,

no. 12 (18) (2001), availbale at: http://www.mos.ru/gor/gor020204001.htm (as of September 1, 2003).

16

Larisa Voloshina, Yuriy Luzhkov: Esli uchitelya vovremya ne poluchat zarplatu vsem nam pridetsya

uyti in Uchitelskaya gazeta (December 17, 1999).

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Hence it becomes clear that to be a manager for Luzhkov is to get things done. This capacity provides the meaningful connotation of his managers identity. However, it is necessary to mention that the doing of things, which clarifies the meaning of being a manager, is a specific form of activity rather different from what may, at first sight, be understood under such terms. To underline this specificity one has to remark that the very notion of khozyaystvennik as it came into the active vocabulary of contemporary Russian political debates is a product of the Soviet epoch. The Soviet origins of the term khozyaystvennik are clearly reflected by many scholars. Thus, for example, Mikhail Krasnov, the president of the INDEM Foundation, says: the notion of firm manager [krepkiy

khozyaystvennik], which is quite popular among the corpus of governors, is a notion from the Soviet period.17 The Moscow authorities confirm this continuity as well. As is stated in the guidelines to the management of Moscow: we are used to this term [krepkiy khozyaystvennik] from the Soviet times.18 Hence, it is the Soviet past of the term khozyaystvennik which identifies a certain framework for doing things prescribed to a manager. Precisely this framework defines Luzhkovs understanding of being a manager. As Jensen, for example, mentions: Luzhkovs education and career path mark him as a product [] of the Soviet administrative apparatus.19

17

Interview on the radio station Ehkho Moskvy (December 20, 1999, 13:15-13:45), Correspondent:

Irina Merkulvova, available at: http://www.echo.msk.ru/interview/interview/925.html (as of September 1, 2003).

18

Mher goroda in D. Bobryshev (ed.) Moskva: sistema upravleniya gorodom 1991-2001. Simptom, no.

12 (18) (2001), availbale at: http://www.mos.ru/gor/gor020204001.htm (as of September 1, 2003).

19

Donald Jensen, The Boss: How Yuriy Luzhkov runs Moscow in Conflict Studies Research Centre, E (December 1999), available at:

105

http://da.mod.uk/CSRC/Home/Russian_Politics_and_Economics/E105 (as of November 25, 2003).

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Therefore, to find the particularities of what is really understood under being a manager one needs to look at the system of Soviet administration. Most notably, it is necessary to focus on the system of economic organisation as the building a bridge, asphalting the pavement or planting a tree, mentioned above. For the examples Luzhkov gives of doing things, are obviously also examples of economic activity. The system of Soviet economy was essentially organised on the basis of the total penetration of the state in all spheres of economic activities. According to Shubin: the political and economic structures of the USSR were created as super-state and overcentralised, [where] the monopoly of power aimed at being absolute.20 The overcentralised system of economic administration was clearly expressed in the wellknown forms of the planned economy and the command-administrative rules of economy-creation, in which all business initiatives were totally designed through the orders of the highest Party-state apparatus. It is this character of economic organisation which caused some authors to translate the term khozyaystvennik as economic executive21, as indeed, execution was the dominant demand addressed to a manager in Soviet economy. Due to the subordination of economic activities to the decisions of the Party-state apparatus the things to be done by a manager appeared to be specified as the orders given from above. To build a bridge or to asphalt a pavement would not be considered as things to be done if this activity were not to be articulated as a task for a manager. Moreover, personal initiatives in economic activities were considered a
20

Alexander Shubin, Ot zastoya k reformam: SSSR 1917-1985 (Moscow: Rossiyskaya politicheskaya

ehntsiklopediya, 2000), p. 718.

21

Ilya Milstein, Luzhkov in the bears clutches in New Times (Autumn 2003). Available at:

http://www.newtimes.ru/eng/detail.asp?art_id=93 (as of September 5, 2004).

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deviation and even a crime. Using public property in their personal interests was a crime in the USSR and given that there was no other big property apart from that of the public, any use of it in relation to personal interest became prohibited. As a result of this factor, a manager in the Soviet economy appeared to be totally restricted, in his activities, by the tasks and demands articulated by the highest authorities. Since the business of a manager was in no way perceived as his own, but rather that which had been entrusted to him by the state, the demand of a masters attitude towards the given public business became one of the main requirements addressed to economic executives in the USSR. The vital importance of the masters attitude was clearly translated in the official documents promoting the masters feeling: The party will persistently form the feeling of the master over the public possessions in working collectives and in each worker22 or it is important to cultivate the communist attitude towards labour, the desire to treat public property after the manner of the master, in each worker.23 The principle of the masters attitude grounded the demand for coherent care and responsibility for the administered business, which was addressed to a Soviet manager. This demand appeared to be translated via many of the official texts of the Soviet state. For example, in the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU passed during the 24th congress: We have to increase the level of responsibility

22

Programma Kommunisticheskoy Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza. Ptinyata XVII sezdom KPSS (Moscow:

Politizdat, 1988), p. 32.

23

Iz direktiv 23 sezda KPSS po pyatiletnemu planu razvitiya narodnogo khozyaystva SSSR na 1966-

1970-e gody in KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh sezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK , vol. 11 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1983), p. 38.

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placed upon personnel for the running of a well-ordered business24. And the programme of the CPSU adopted in the 27th congress, in 1988, repeated this point: each manager has to be fully responsible for running a well-ordered business.25 In the light of the aforementioned remarks it is possible to say that responsibility for the entrusted business was what defined the proper doing of the things for a Soviet manager. If a manager cares and demonstrates enough responsibility for the business delegated to him by the highest authorities, he may be considered as the one who really gets things done. Jensen mentions that whilst getting things done is a crucial feature characterising Luzhkov, these things will be done and never mind how.26 This never mind how reflects the difference in understanding the concept of doing between a Western person and a Soviet manager. A road may have plenty of holes a week after it has been asphalted. However, if a manager demonstrated enough personal care and responsibility in every little detail of this process, the task of asphalting the road is considered as done. Thus it appears possible to conclude that this particular idea of doing things has constituted the meaning of being a khozyaystvennik implied in its application to a person who can carefully and with enough responsibility administer business entrusted to him by the highest authorities. This idea prescribed a specific realisation of the actual economy in which a manager is working. More precisely, the latter was perceived in the form of a certain bi-

24

24 sezd KPSS 30 marta - 9 aprelya 1971. Iz resolyutsii Po otchetnomu dokladu tsentralnogo

komiteta KPSS in KPSS v resolyutsiyakh, vol. 12, p. 36.

25

Programma Kommunisticheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza (1988), p. 77. Jensen, The Boss: How Yuriy Luzhkov runs Moscow.

26

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dimensional terrain, in which the subject position of a particular concrete manager was specified. In order to introduce this system one may refer to the remark of Shubin. Defining the entire Soviet society as industrial and clarifying this intervention of the economic sphere in the organisation of the society as a whole, the author writes: one cannot deny that in the USSR industrial society was built. Under this term I mean a society in which industrialism or a social system based on narrow specialisation [emphasis added] and administrative hierarchy [emphasis added], spread over the sphere of production, dominates.27 Narrow specialisation and administrative hierarchy were those two dimensions that constituted the terrain in which one locates the position of a particular manager. To demonstrate how this location was made, it is necessary to present this system in detail. The narrow specialisation specified the sphere of ones business or ones area of responsibility in which the latter was, so to say, horizontally differentiated from the businesses of other managers. In this terrain the competence of a particular manager was outlined: steel but not agriculture, chemistry but not trade etc. Interestingly enough, Luzhkov also demonstrates a clear apprehension of his sphere of professional competence. As he writes in his memoirs, the re-appointments he had to face at the beginning of his public career invoked substantial frustration and brought real discomfort for the future Mayor of the Russian capital. The new positions he was offered hade little in common with his direct speciality. For example, concerning one of

27

Shubin, Ot zastoya k reformam, p.90.

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his re-appointments, Luzhkov says: when I was torn out from chemistry, it was the first mistake.28 Apart from the horizontal delimitation of ones duty the Soviet economy was marked by the systems vertical subordination, wherein an executive hierarchy was established. Within this system a clear idea of the body whose orders a manager had to follow was established. This system constituted the second dimension of economy for a Soviet manager. The importance of this system is evident for Luzhkov as he obviously regards many of his own activities in reference to the highest authorities whose orders and tasks he is actually following. It is enough to look at the vocabulary the Moscow Mayor uses when speaking about the things he does: I am just a deputy, so they [the Moscow soviet - the highest authority (at that time) for Luzhkov] shunted [vparili] [] to me this commission to public service29, or Saykin [his boss at the time] determined [emphasis added] me as the main engineer of his enterprise.30 Thus it is possible to conclude that within the bi-dimensional system of the Soviet economy, constituted by a clear realisation of ones sphere of competence and ones position in the executive hierarchy, the clarity of a managers position appeared to be dependent upon the clarity of this system. In other words one might call him a manager only as far as he was able to realise his sphere of narrow specialisation and his position in the system of subordination, wherein it would be made clear as to whose orders to follow.

28

Luzhkov, My deti tvoi, Moskva, p. 136. Ibid, p. 141. Ibid.

29

30

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However, precisely this clarity in the realisation of the bi-dimensional system of economy appeared to be seriously damaged during the social transformations of perestroika and the following transition to the market economy.

Dislocation in context One has to mention that the forms of economic management became one of the main issues of the Gorbachev reforms started in 1986. As Sokolov and Tyazhelnikov comment, in relation to this process: [] the idea [of the Gorbachev reforms] was the removal of party conservatives from power and the substitution of the commandadministrative socialism with a kind of a Soviet model of democratic socialism employed to emancipate the economic and social potential of the society.31 The economic liberalisation lead to a gradual dissolution of the framework for doing things established in the Soviet economy. This in its turn prevents Luzhkov from reaching his managers identity in the realities of the transformational society. His first appointments did not bring many problems. Despite the fact that, generally speaking, he did not appreciate these changes in his career much32, having been put

31

A. Sokolov and V. Tyazhelnikov, Kurs sovetskoy istorii, 1941 - 1991 (Moskow: Vysshaya shkola,

1999), p. 251.
32

Such was my surprise when in the end of 1986 I left my favourite speciality and came to the

executive power. [] Me - an engineer-mechanist, a specialist on the machinery of chemical production. When I was the director of Khimavtomatika, I considered it as my business. I did not want to leave. But here they suggested the department of science and technics - fine. But you may shoot me and I will not go further []. Tell me [] why the state has to put in so much effort, spending money preparing a person for a work in a particular field, only then to send him into city management where he has knowledge like that of a fish as regards umbrellas! [smyslit kak ryba v zontikakh] in Luzhkov, My deti tvoi, Moksva, pp. 137-138.

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in charge of the food supply and the organisation of a co-operative system in the capital, Luzhkov was still able to operate in accordance with the framework of the Soviet economy. Thus, as aforementioned, he obviously recognised an instance higher than him, which was the head of the Moscow city administration and the highest state authorities. For example, reflecting on his first re-appointments Luzhkov presented the situation in the modality of a dialogue between his current boss Bespalov - the minister of chemical industry and the supposed new one - Yeltsin, who was the chairman of the Moscow city soviet. They were deciding who would take Luzhkov. This demonstrates that the knowledge to whom he was or was going to be subordinated was of vital importance for Yuriy Luzhkov. Moreover his first activities in the organising of co-operation in Moscow were clearly described in the mode of having a meeting with the Chairman of the executive committee - receiving a task and then - executing the latter.33 Here one may object that Luzhkov did not necessarily always precisely follow the highest orders and, on the contrary, demonstrated personal business initiative (delovaya initsiativa) in doing things. However, the business initiative shown by Luzhkov in the end of the 1980s - beginning of the 1990s should not be regarded as a form of disobedience to a higher instance or any other revolutionary inventions in economic management. Contrariwise, it was a careful execution of the demands formulated by the highest state authorities in the rise of perestroika. More precisely, these were the demands of acceleration (uskorenie), self-financing (khozraschet)

33

Ibid, pp.137-145.

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and increasing the role of the main element in production which constitutes the enterprise as such.34 Along with the recognition of the executive hierarchy, Luzhkov is able to find visible limits to his field of competence while working in the Moscow soviet. Thus he clearly reflects on the business he is ordered to do: the business is simple: launderettes, cemeteries, chemical launderettes or I received everything which was unclear, dangerous and unsettled. Administration of the city plan. Machinery, sciences. Labour resources. In brief - a bunch of 26 enterprises most important to the city. Plus here came the individual labour activity and other novelties of the perestroika.35 Thus it can be seen that Luzhkov faced few problems in realising the bi-dimensional framework of the Soviet economy as an executive official in the Moscow soviet. However, the new appointment36 of Yuriy Luzhkov created substantial obstacles to his seeing himself as a manager that of mayor of Moscow. Invoking the bidimensional universe of Soviet economy in relation to his new position, Luzhkov failed in specifying the horizontal frontiers of the area he was responsible for, and he also

34

The principle of uskorenie was formulated in the Programme of the CPSU (Moscow: Politizdat, 1988):

the rise of the public economy on the principally new scientific and technical, organisational and economic level, transition to the rails of intensive development; achievements of the highest world level of production of public labour; quality of products and effectiveness of the production (p. 25). The strengthening of the role enterprises and their managers have to play in the rebuilt socialist economy is translated in the following way: the party will actively introduce the means of raising the role of the main chain - concerns and enterprises, consequently leading the line of the extension of their rights and economic independence [samostoyatelnosti], strengthening responsibility and motivation in achieving high final results (p. 35).
35

Luzhkov, My deti tvoi Moskva, p. 142. Interestingly enough, some authors also qualify this event in terms of an appointment. See for

36

example Jensen The Boss: How Yuriy Luzhkov runs Moscow.

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faced serious problems in identifying the authorities whose orders he was supposed to follow in order to get things done. First of all, the horizontal delimitation of the business for which he was responsible appeared to be blurred. Thus it is possible to say that Luzhkov quite clearly

apprehended the sphere of responsibility as the city, asking and what, in your opinion, does a mayor have to be in charge of if not the economy of the city?37 Clarifying the notion of the city he is in charge of, Luzhkov says: the city is like a child which needs constant care. Someone has to supply its shops with bread regularly, warm the heating system in the houses, clean the roads. And it is like this to the end the city consumes food, services, energy.38 Commenting on this notion further, the Moscow mayor states that: If the mayor is guilty in everything happening in the city he is not a formal head of the executive power, but a master, obliged to feel his personal, almost homely involvement [domashnyuyu prichastnost'] in every single problem, every single centimetre of the territory, each crack in the asphalt.39 These remarks indicate that Luzhkov assumes his personal responsibility for, basically, everything happening in Moscow, from city services, food and energy supply to every crack in the asphalt, regardless of whom this asphalt actually belongs to. However, having assumed his personal engagement with everything happening in the city, Luzhkov encountered severe problems in mastering his sphere of responsibility, as there emerged numerous actors questioning his authority of being a master of every problem and every centimetre of the Moscow territory.

37

Yuriy Luzhkov, Filosofiya svobodnogo vybora in Moskovskiy komsomolets (March 7, 2000). Luzhkov, My deti tvoi, Moskva, p. 174. Ibid, p.207.

38

39

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The main flow of such actors came from the sphere of private business, which reemerged in Russia after the adoption of the market course (rynochnyi kurs). Being the masters of their own businesses, enterprises and properties, private actors created the sphere of independent management within the borders of the Russian capital. Through this, they entered into the field of competence, since, being situated in Moscow, any enterprise is perceived by Luzhkov as his responsibility. In such a way the set of independent economic actors was converted into a kind of competitor to the Moscow Mayor, in relation to his supposed care over each centimetre of the city territory. Apart from the dissolution of the horizontal contours of his managers position Luzhkov faced serious difficulties in identifying a system of subordination, in which a higher instance giving orders and formulating the things to be done was supposed to dwell. It has been already mentioned that Luzhkov quite clearly recognised the highest authorities when he was an executive manager in the Moscow city soviet. It was the Chairman and later - the Head of the Moscow city administration. However, once he becomes the highest executive official in the city himself, the identification of an instance whose orders have to be followed became difficult. This difficulty was grounded in the very idea of being a mayor - seen as a head of the peoples selfgovernment, in which it is the people to whom a mayor is supposed to be responsive. It is this idea which to a great degree conveyed the demands of the democratisation of the state apparatus in post-Soviet Russia, and it was this idea which distorted the executive hierarchy a manager had to be part of in order to get things done. This distortion was concealed in the ambiguous position of the people seen simultaneously as the instance which orders the mayors activity and those whom a mayor had to take care of.

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Thus Luzhkov indeed understands the local population as the instance whose orders he is following: If we want to build the city power acting in the interests of the population, we have to recognise citizens as the clients [zakazchiki]40 of the power service.41 In some other remarks Luzhkov sees the local population as the ones responsible for someones appointment to be a mayor. Looking back in history he relates the appointment of Chicherin, the head of Moscow in the 19th, with the needs of the Muscovites. So which kind of public needs a liberal leader (democrats as we used to say not a long time ago), if already on the next day the Muscovites offer the position of the citys head to the professor []! And one week later they officially suggest his candidature.42 In addition one may refer to the well known remark of the Moscow mayor made in the Russian parliament where he openly discarded the attempts of the deputies to give him orders, indicating that these are the Muscovites whom he was subordinated to. Luzhkov reflects, in a rather picturesque way, upon this episode in his memoirs.
And then one of the peoples electives takes a word: What if we dismiss this Luzhkov! Right now! I put forward this suggestion! I ask to bring

this to the vote! Who is for this! And I started to laugh.

40

In Russia the term zakazchiki, translated in English as customers or clients, is derived from the

word zakaz - order and directly means the ones who order something.
41

Dlya togo, chtoby ponyat koren oshibok nuzhno ponyat rol gosudarstvennoy sobstvennosti v Obraz tseli rossiyskikh reform i strategiya upravleniya tendentsiyami social'no-

doreformennoy Rossii. Vyderzhki iz intervyu Mehra Moskvy YU.M.Luzhkova zhurnalu Vlast in Yuriy Luzhkov, ehkonomicheskogo razvitiya Rossii (lektsii, doklady, vystupleniya, interv'yu 1994-1997 gg.), available at: http://www.mos.ru/major-lujkov/doklad-1994-7-7.htm ( as of September 5, 2003).
42

Luzhkov, My deti tvoi,Moskva, p. 199.

195 They say that very loudly. Straight to the microphone. Which means that for the entire country.

I am sorry, you cannot do this. It was not you who elected me but the Muscovites! Now

only they can dismiss me.43

However, despite the obvious privileging of the Muscovites as the clients of his activities, this instance did not completely fulfil the function of the highest authorities. Together with the assumption of their ordering role, Luzhkov perceived the local population as an object of care mastered by the highest city official. One may refer to the aforementioned analogy where Luzhkov regards the city as a child. In the development of this idea he says:
Once the settled supplement [of the city] with the benefits of civilisation is broken, he [the city] becomes so to say capricious, he does not look into our difficulties, he does not listen to explanations. He is quick to panic, to phantom fears, to hysteria. Once you cannot get it on time - and instead of the reasonable city dwellers you meet a crowd with its mad aggression.44

Thus it is seen that Luzhkov, in fact, draws a clear line between the city dwellers. As an additional example of this separation one may refer to another passage from the memoirs of the Moscow mayor, in which he reflects some peculiarities of his work: I feel it every day visiting remote districts, meeting the people [] The specific close distance in relations [] which is spread in both directions and touches upon the

43

Ibid, pp. 209-210. Ibid, p. 174.

44

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population and [emphasis added] the authorities.45 The division drawn between the city dwellers and their authorities, in which the latter is seen as the instance responsible for the local population distorts the idea of the Muscovites as those giving orders to the mayor and regulating the mayors activities. This ambiguous attitude to the local population, seen as the ones who entrust power and, simultaneously as the crowd with its mad aggression, with whom he has to deal as a boss, prevents Yuriy Luzhkov from a clear identification of the hierarchical system of subordination. The identity of the higher authorities formulating the things to be done appears to be damaged for the Moscow Mayor. This becomes the second point of dislocation impeding Luzhkov from reaching the identity of a manager, in his position as Head of the Moscow city administration. Facing the impossibility of finding the foundations of his managers duty in the realities of the changing Russia, Luzhkov creates the ground for retaining its discursive fullness. In so doing he starts with articulation of the managers myth, seen as the construction of the literate space for the economy - seen as an object that cannot be realised at present. This articulation commences by pinpointing the dislocatory events, notably the dissolution of the old system of soviet management and the proliferation of independent business, thereby causing the impossibility of founding a proper economy. In accordance with its particular understanding these events touched upon the clarity of the bi-dimensional structure of economy. Among these events Luzhkov indicates that the process of de-nationalisation led to the proliferation of private business and resulted in the diversification of formerly unified public property:

45

Ibid, p. 206.

197 Our formerly all-people possessions did not disappear without trace, but almost entirely went to the hands of parasitic capital, which cannot use it effectively except to export its biggest part abroad (directly or indirectly), or to rebuild it in terms of a primitive system giving straight profit (factory plant - into warehouse, factory office - into a complex of offices etc.)46

Needless to say, under parasitic capital Luzhkov understands the sphere of private business. Private owners work not better but worse than the state officials in the past - says Luzhkov.47 This attack demonstrates the irritation invoked by the dissolution of the clear-cut system of responsibility implied in the principle of unified property. Apart from the events threatening the horizontal dimension of economy, the Moscow Mayor pinpoints the general mismanagement of the state officials, who failed to execute their function in state administration. It is due to their mistake that the managers are faced with tremendous difficulties in doing their job. It is rather interesting but Luzhkov blames for example the Russian prime-minister

Chernomyrdin, precisely for not being able to fulfil the duty of the highest authorities by being a subordinate to the decisions of Albert Gore or Michel Camdessu. Concluding his attack the Moscow Mayor estimates the situation in state administration in Lenins terms i.e. as the ones who are above cannot and the ones who are below do not want (verkhi ne mogut a nizy ne khotyat) - indicating the inability of the high strata of the Russian power to execute their direct duties.48 This translates
46

Davayte, nakonets, vozmemsya za um! Promedlenie mozhet dorogo oboytis. Doklad Mehra

Moskvy YU.M. Luzhkova na zasedanii uchenogo soveta MGU im. M.V Lomonosova 26 fevralya 1997 goda in Yuriy Luzhkov, Obraz tseli rossiyskikh reform, available at http://www.mos.ru/majorlujkov/doklad-1994-7.htm (as of November 20, 2003).
47

Privatizatsiya ne samotsel, a sredstvo povysheniya blagosostoyaniya naroda. Vystuplenie Yu. M.

Luzhkova na nauchno-prakticheskoy konferentsii Pyat let vauchernoy privatizatsii 17 dekabrya 1997. in Obraz tseli rossiyskikh reform.
48

Ibid.

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the growing chaos in the system of executive subordination which is the second pillar of economy in the eyes of Luzhkov. The articulation of the dislocatory events is again embraced in the remarks on the collapse or crisis of the economy and management in the state. These remarks translate the belief in the actual impossibility of economy-building (khozyaystvo) in present Russia. The general reflection that everything is in the decay [vsyo v rasvale] are followed by the concrete remarks: In the Spring of 1990, at the very peak of the decay [razval], breakdown [razlad].49 Commenting further on the collapse of the economy and management in Russia Luzhkov states that according to his opinion: Everything went according to the books of Gaydars grandfather: Down to the basement and then .50 Down to the basement are words taken from the Russian version of The Internationale, in which the entire line runs - We will destroy the whole world of violence, down to the basement, and then we will build our own new one.

Naming the enemy Once he had articulated the dislocation and the impossibility of economy-building Luzhkov announced the project of restoring proper management which in its turn starts with naming the other as responsible for the recent crisis. This other appeared to be generally embodied in the image of the Federal authorities who come to be seen as the enemy answerable for the chaos in the system of management which emerged during the years of reforms. Thus Luzhkov openly opposed the Federal

49

Ibid, p. 174. Ibid, p. 233.

50

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authorities to the camp of managers. For example, on his lecture in the Financial Academy on December, 27, 1999 he accuses the Russian powers of not listening to the managers voice. This, according to him, leads the former to the terrible mistakes in the organisation of state management.51 The further attack on the federal authorities was focused on the issue of their mismanagement and it put an accent on the fact that, according to the Moscow Mayor, the officials of the Federal Government did not behave themselves in a managers way.
The first thing that the new authorities did was to refuse using experienced employees in every sphere of state management and the peoples economy [] practically all industrial and economic managers were banned from their work. Authorities regarded them as the ones who bare the outdated, reactionary ideology. Their places were occupied by the representatives of, as a matter of fact, bookish, false education [obrazovanshina], radicalmonetarists not knowing real economy, and not knowing the value of their own people.52

Apart from the Federal authorities the Moscow Mayor blames the Kremlin administration53 for state mismanagement. Thus, characterising current socio-political situation in Russia, he states: Rapidly losing the trust of the Russian population, the Kremlin administration tries to find support in a narrow circle of people devoted only to

51

Obraz tseli rossiyskikh reform i strategiya upravleniya tendentsiyami socialno-ehkonomicheskogo

razvitiya Rossii lektsiya YU.M. Luzhkova v Finansovoi Aakademii 29 dekabrya 1997 g in Luzhkov, Obraz tseli rossiyskikh reform.
52

Rossii - byt! I byt protsevatyushchey svobodnoy stranoy. Doklad Yu. M. Luzhkova na uchreditelnom

sezde obshcherossiyskoy politicheskoy obshchestvennoy organizatsii Otechestvo 19 dekabrya 1998 goda, available at: http://www.mos.ru/major-lujkov/doklad-19-1998.htm (as of September 5, 2003).
53

In different forms in many of his speeches and interviews Luzhkov accuses the Kremlin. See for

instance: Yuriy Luzhkov: davayte smelo glyadet pravde v glaza in Trud (August 20, 1999).

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them, and in the structures of force [silovye struktury].54 Furthermore, since Luzhkov regards his relations with the Kremlin as those of enmity: [] now in the Kremlin they are ready to support anyone just to cut the wings of Luzhkov [] There is only one enemy [for them] - Luzhkov and the Fatherland.55 Above all Luzhkov criticises the Kremlin story-writers in terms of the dirt spread on the rivals of the Federal Government and a wrongful attitude towards their own people:
The Kremlin story-writers, working hard for their bread, expect that someone will believe them. No need to be a prophet to understand that this is the end. They have many stones in their pockets which they will take out once needed. Its a pity that the whole country is obliged to observe this dirt. And this is another example of the real attitude of current power to its own people.56

The general critique addressed to the Federal authorities and the Kremlin appeared to be personified in the names of several officials who in different times and for various reasons were linked to the Kremlin. Boris Berezovskiy became one of the main targets of Luzhkovs personal assault. To illustrate this attack one may refer to an interview given by Luzhkov to the newspaper Tribuna:
[Journalist:] It looks like the campaign against you continues? [Luzhkov:] It continues. [J.:] Why? [L.:] They wanted me to retire. They feel some sort of pathological hatred towards me.

54

Yuriy Luzhkov, My budem borotsya za kazhdyi golos, za kazhdyi region in Nezavisimaya gazeta

(October 13, 1999).

55

Yuriy Luzhkov: Ya - tolstokozhiy in Moskovskiy komsomolets (June 11, 1999). Yuriy Luzhkov , My budem borotsya za kazhdyi golos.

56

201 [J.:] Why do they attack you? What did you do to them? [L..:] They have another goal, but a concealed one. All this is organised by Berezovskiy.57

In one of the other interviews Luzhkov expresses his attitude towards Berezovskiy in a much sharper manner:
[Journalist:] Not long ago you called Berezovskiy a Satan, a diablo whose evil forces examine Russia. Decipher this thought please. [Luzhkov:] Well, I think that everything Boris Berezovskiy does, including, his politics, his activities, his work in the zones of armed conflicts, in Chechnya have already been shown and estimated. [] [J.:] [] What is the concrete damage done by Berezovskiy? [L.:] What? It is enough to remind oneself how the first part of the Chechen problems was solved. The macabre shadow of Boris Abramovich was standing behind the Khasavyurt agreements. [] We were saying that the Khasavyurt agreements were a capitulation, the betrayal of the Russias interests. Unfortunately, we were not heard.58

Blaming Berezovskiy the Moscow mayor introduces some powerful epithets which he applies to the antagonist: the aforementioned Satan59, the person whose macabre shadow is standing behind the Hasavyurt agreements, or, as in the following remark:

57

Yuriy Luzhkov: oni ispytyvayut ko mne nenavist in Tribuna (February 29, 2000). Yelena Korostashevskaya, Skandalnyi chelovek Luzhkov uzhe davno ne poluchaet nikakikh

58

priglasheniy ot Yeltsina in Segodnya (November 17, 1999).

59

Luzhkov nazval Berezovskogo satanoy i dyavolom in Lenta.ru, November 10, 1999, available at:

http://www.lenta.ru/russia/1999/10/11/luzhkov/berezovsky.htm (as of September 1, 2003).

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generally I consider Berezovskiy as a horrible examiner sent to our state. And if we pass the examination, the state will become better and cleaner.60 Apart from Berezovskiy Luzhkov condemns the other persons who at different times had surrounded Yeltsin. According to the Moscow mayor they are the authors of the total disorder in Russian state and society. These persons were - the former Head of the Presidents security service Korzhakov61, the Head of the Kremlin complex Borodin and some other figures. However, Luzhkov convicts in the most crushing way the authors of the privatisation conducted in Russia under the Yeltsin governance. Among those who failed the reforms in Russia Luzhkov expresses a precise critique toward several politicians. One of them is the Head of the Joint Company of United Energy Systems of Russia, the former Vice Premier and the former Head of the Presidential Administration Anatoliy Chubays. Thus Luzhkov openly confirms his negative attitudes towards this person and his politics: Indeed, if you remember, I used to criticise Chubays sharply for the development of the privatisation he represented the authorities at that time. I said then that vouchers were a great speculation [afera]62 or: Everyone knows the struggle of the Moscow Government with the principles that were realised by mister [gospodin] Chubays regarding the privatisation of the state property. Indeed, the principles at the base of that

60

Yuriy Luzhkov: pochemu by mne ne druzhit s Putinym? in Komsomolskaya pravda (June 18,

2000).
61

Ya razoryu Dorenko! - Skazal Yuriy Luzhkov v heksklyuszivnom interview MK in Moskovskiy

komsomolets (November 5, 1999).

62

Korostashevskaya, Skandalnyi chelovek Luzhkov uzhe davno ne poluchayet nikakih priglasheniy ot

Yeltsina.

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privatisation are sinful []63 In his Image of the Aims of the Russian Reforms Luzhkov opposes himself and the Moscow government in general to the principles of the Chubays privatisation, regarding the latter as the biggest swindle of the century, destroying the economy of the country.64 The privatisation in a moment broke all these [economic] connections and practically paralysed the economy - says Yuriy Luzhkov.65
I think that enterprises that were privatised even in violation of those bastard laws introduced by Chubays in 1992-1993 need to be back within the state property. The results of the privatisation have to be an object of analysis for state services, responsible for this area, including the General Prosecutors Office, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of State Property etc.66

In his speech Five Years of the Voucher Privatisation Luzhkov pinpoints that Chubays was the one who was guilty in the overall failure of the Russian economic transitions, calling his politics a Judahs plot. Moreover in one of his interviews the Moscow mayor calls the laws adopted by the Chubays administration bastard

(ublyudochnye).67 Along with Chubays the Moscow Mayor put the blame on Yegor Gaydar, ex-prime minister in Yeltsins government. Since the times of Gaydar and Chubays economy and the whole social organisation of Russia are steadily collapsing
63

Vestuplenie Mehra Moskvy na sobranii prepodavateley i studentov MGU 11 oktyabrya 1995 goda,

available at: http://www.mos.ru/major-lujkov/doklad-1994-7-4.htm (as of September 5, 2003).

64

Obraz tseli rossiyskikh reform i strategiya upravleniya tendentsiyami sotsialno-ehkonomicheskogo

razvitiya Rossii. Lektsiya Yu. M. Luzhkova v Finansovoi Academii 29 dekabrya 1997 goda in Luzhkov, Obraz tseli rossiyskikh reform.
65

Oborona Moskvy in Ehkspert (December 13, 1999). Yuriy Luzhkov: pochemu by mne ne druzhit s Putinym? Yuriy Luzhkov: Pochemu by mne ne druzhit' s Putinym?

66

67

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- writes Luzhkov.68 These figures became the ultimate incarnation of the managers enemies. Generalising the name of the antagonist - apart from the failed reformers or failed managers who drove economy and social organisation in decay Luzhkov categorises the names of Gaydar and Chubays by introducing such terms as gaydarisation,69 or he uses them as an ordinary noun the chubays-styled privatisation70, each gaydar knows,71 figures of Gaydars sense (vykrutasy gaydarovskogo tolka)72,

gaydaronomics 73 etc. Having identified the forces responsible for the collapse of the economy in Russia, Luzhkov articulated a social antagonism through which his own identity appears to be unachievable because of the presence of the other. The personification of the antagonist made the latter real, objective and actually present. It is this actual presence which prevented managers from getting things done. In this situation the notion of economy becomes empty as, when the former is in decay, to think of it in positive terms becomes impossible. However, in the presence

68

Moskva - Rossiya na rubezhe tysyacheletiy. Vystuplenie Mehra Moskvy Yu. M. Luzhkova na zasedanii Mezhdunarodnoy Konferentsii 19 noyabrya 1999, available at

plenarnom

http://www.mos.ru/major-lujkov/doklad-991119.htm (as of November 10, 2003).

69

Rossi Byt! I byt protsvetayushey i svobodnoy stranoy. Vystuplenie Yu. M. Luzhkova na

Uchreditelnom sezde OPOO Otechestvo.

70

Obraz tseli in Obraz tseli rossiyskikh reform. Ibid. Yuriy Luzhkov : Nelzya vnukam peredavat svoi problemy in Trud (February 22, 2001). Luzhkov, My deti tvoi, Moskva, p. 231.

71

72

73

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of the enemy this notion could be realised as a pure absence, or the lack of the actually present antagonist responsible for the collapse of the economic affiliations. This empty space opened a perspective in which might be retained the reality of economy by restricting and confronting the enemies in their Judahs plot. This, in its turn, set the stage for the organisation of a struggle aimed at restoring the positive character of economy in its opposition to the failed reformers. It was exactly this struggle which formed the context of Luzhkovs political enterprise.

Performing political subjectivity Introducing the strategy attached to the Moscow mayors struggle, it is necessary to state that the struggle against the failed reformers, Gaydars, Chubayses and the other figures of the Kremlin was probably one of the biggest forms of social protest in post-perestroika Russia. It is enough to indicate that these enemies constituted the programme of the Peoples -Patriotic Union of Russia74, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia75 led by Zhirinovskiy and even the democratic opposition represented, for

74

In the Kremlin, in the heart of Russia, there still operates a savage and irresponsible group of

favourites [vremenshchikov] surrounding an incapable president. To satisfy their own ambitions these people are ready to put to a bet the whole of Russia. For power and money they are ready to start a huge massacre in Russia. [] That struggle conducted today by the Russians against the yeltsins, chubayses, kokhs and berezovskiys still continues in Andrey Zyuganov Manifest NPSR. Politicheskiy doklad vtoromu sezdu narodno-patrioticheskogo soyuza Rossii in Zavtra (November 21, 1998).
75

Compatriots! The time of reforms, which impoverished our country is unavoidably coming to its end.

The political death of the reformers is not so far away. As a result of the betrayal unprecedented in history, our country has become dismembered and defenceless in Programma LDPR (adopted on the 8th congress of LDPR on April 25, 1998).

206

example, by Yabloko76. In different ways, all these forces identify the collapse of the national economy as the main sin of the antagonists, which puts the task of restoring the system of economic management at the top of their political agenda. This created a huge area of discursive equivalence where numerous forces find their likeness in the struggle against the failed reformers. They all became equal in their antagonism as regards the Kremlin government. However, to achieve the set goal various sectors of political opposition propose different programmes for reconstructing the collapsed economy. The LDPR, for

example, insisted on the reestablishment of the state regulations and state control of production.77 The Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the institutional core of the Peoples-Patriotic Union of Russia, also identified the re-nationalisation of economy and reestablishment of the states leading role as ones of the main priorities in their political programme.78 Yabloko, being a democratic opposition, puts forward

76

We are an opposition to the President [] we remain in opposition to the economic course of the

Government. [] We stay in opposition to the majority of the Federal congress in Obedinienie Yabloko. Reformy dlya bolshinstva (Moscow: EPIcentre, 1995), p. 10-11. Or The privatisation was conducted in an economically senseless and socially broken nomenklatura variant [] The behaviour of the reformers was defined by: strict engagement with theoretical schemas along with the negligence of the economic realities of Russia [and] an absence of attention to the social consequences of economic transformations [which indicates] the failure of all plans and promises of the President and the Government of Russia Obedinenie Yabloko, p. 33.
77

LDPR principally stands for the strengthening of state control and the management of economic

processes. The state regulation is a norm of the modern economy and not an artefact (perezhitok) of the totalitarian past as the failed-reformers of the democratic wing try to prove to us (Programma Liberalno-Demokraticheskoi Partii Rossii, available at: http://www.ldpr.ru/programm_ldpr.htm (as of October 25, 2002).
78

To reestablish state control over the production and income [] To change the economic course, to

introduce urgent means of state regulation in order to prevent the decrease of production, to fight inflation and to raise living standards in Programma politicheskoy partii Kommunisticheskaya partiya

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the idea of structural modifications to Russias economy, understood as the decentralisation of economic management and the gradual extension of market relations into new spheres of production and services.79 This diversity of concrete proposals for fighting the failed reformers has torn the field of the oppositional movement into a number of different, particular projects. In the competition between the programmes aimed at restoration of the state economy there have appeared numerous subject positions to be occupied by the struggling forces. These positions corresponded to the identity of those on behalf of whom the particular combat was actually conducted. Thus, the Peoples-Patriotic Union of Russia, in proposing the nationalisation of state economy, declared that they carry out their struggle on behalf of the people which was further specified as the working people80. Zhirinovskiy and the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia indicated that they would fight those reformers whose political death was inevitable on behalf of the people as

Rossiyskoy Federatsii, available at: http://www.kprf.ru/about/program.shtml (as of September 10, 2003).

79

In the free market, in private property, in liberal economy we see the creative force able to mobilise

the huge labour and natural resources of Russia for the creative work in Obedinenie Yabloko, p. 15.
80

It is time to define: with whom, on which side, is the state power? On the side of the working people

or on the side of a group of robbers? in Gennadiy Zyuganov: Tezisy o privatizatsii in Polit.ru (February 17, 2002), available at http://www.polit.ru/docs/544292.html (as of September 10, 2003). Or On this base the CPRF marching in the avant-garde of the peoples-patriotic forces of the country is able to fulfil its historical mission - to return the power in the country to the working people in Postanovlenie Prezidiuma TsK KPRF O 85-letii Velikoy Oktyabrskoy sotsialisticheskoy revolyutsii. Press-sluzhba TsK KPRF 07.10.2002 in Pravda (October 7, 2002). Or since 1993 the Russian communists have their faction. They honourably represent and defend the rights of the working people in the Russian parliament in Gennadiy Zyuganov, Postanovlenie o 10-letii 2 chrezvychainogo available sezda at: Kommunisticheskoy partii Rossiyskoy Federatsii 28.11.2002,

http://www.kprf.ru/articles/3652.shtml?print (as of September 10, 2003).

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well.81 However, in their version this people was more the Russian people. Thus, the programme of the LDPR repeatedly refers to the state-forming character of the Russian nation and the defence of interests of Russians in Russia and abroad is indicated as one of the main priorities of the party. Yabloko, in their turn, calling for a greater marketisation of economic relations, argued for the supposed benefits to the majority, represented in the title of their programme - Reforms of the Majority - issued in 1995, which represented another subject position offered in the struggle. In this variety of subject positions offered in the spectrum of opposition to the failed reformers82, Luzhkov undertook an original move and devoted himself to the struggle which ought to be conducted by a Moscow mayor. He openly accepted exactly this obligation by declaring that: I am the Mayor of Moscow and therefore I need to take care of the Muscovites.83 Identifying further his position in the battle for proper economic management Luzhkov says: And you think that in this situation I as a mayor [] of Moscow city, of the capital was capable of experiments that could bring harm to the Muscovites? 84

81

LDPR is a party of all people but not of a group of the new Russians who lost control of what they

are doing (zarvavshikhsya nuvorishei) or professional revolutionaries fallen into an senile decay [vpavshikh v starcheskiy marazm professionalnykh revolyutsionerov] in Programma Liberalno demokraticheskoy Partii Rossii (Prinyata na VIII sezde LDPR 25 aprelya 1998), available at: http://www.ldpr.ru/prog/prog.htm (as of December 5, 1998).
82

Of course this spectrum is much wider and it includes many more sectors than those embodied in the

aforementioned forces. However in this research it is important to demonstrate the variety of possible strategies rather than to conduct an extensive endeavour as regards the simple extent of these sectors.
83

Larisa Voloshina, Yuriy Luzhkov: Esli uchitelya vovremya ne poluchat zarplatu vsem nam pridetsya

uyti in Uchitelskaya gazeta (December 17, 1999).

84

Mehr i Kreml: prichiny razdora. Yuriy Luzhkov pervym otvechaet na nepriyatnye voprosy nashego

korrespondenta Yeleny Afanas'evoy, razoslannye vsem uchastnikam informacionnoy voiny in Novaya gazeta - ponedelnik (August 16, 1999).

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Conducting the struggle As Moscow mayor, Luzhkov undertook specific actions in order to confront the enemy. These actions could be generally characterised as attempts to organise reforms alternative to the ones organised by the enemy and designed by the Federal government. Luzhkov called this alternative our own model elaborated in Moscow: In Moscow we elaborated and tested by practice our own model of economic reforms and management, different from the Federal one.85 Or as a different way chosen by the capital: Such a component as a real productive experience in developing a number of cities and regions is, undoubtedly, within the political power of the Fatherland. Here, of course, I mean the experience of Moscow. People can see with their own eyes the differences between the ways chosen by Moscow and by Russia [].86 Moving forward in this different way Luzhkov initiated some effective steps in reconstituting the lost domain of the economy. Thus, he proposed some initiatives to retain the clarity of the bi-dimensional model which led to a restoration of narrow specialisation and to a rebuilding of the hierarchical system of subordination in the environment in which he is working.

85

Yuriy Luzhkov, Dorogaya moya stolitsa' in Moskovskiy spravochnik 2000, available at:

http://www.mos.ru/moscowsprav/moscows2000/moscows2000_002.htm (as of November 15, 2003).

86

Yuriy Luzhkov, O politicheskoy is sotsialno-ehkonomicheskoy situatsii v strane I zadachakh

organisatsii Doklad na vtorom sezde OPOO Otechestvo, April, 24, 1999, available at: http://www.mos.ru/major-lujkov/doklad-240799.htm (as of September 5, 2003).

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The executive hierarchy appeared to be reconstructed through its reduction to the structures of the Moscow administration. In fact, facing the problem of identifying the highest instance of the administration, Luzhkov solved this tension by attaching to his position the status of highest authority in the system of Moscow management. Through this step Luzhkov in fact eliminated the very necessity of specifying the highest instance whose order he had to follow, as he then occupied the top of the hierarchical pyramid himself. Climbing to the top of the system of executive subordination Luzhkov redesigned the structure of Moscow administration in order to facilitate the acquisition of maximal power resources within the city. The first steps in this redesigning date back to 1992, straight after Luzhkov became a mayor. Although the City Charter provided for the positions of both Mayor and Premier, after Luzhkov was promoted from Vice Mayor to the position of the highest Moscow official he kept the premiership he had held under Popov. This allowed Luzhkov to accumulate so much authority that some authors87 have designated the system of Moscow governance as supermayoral, wherein the head of the city has enormous power. The Moscow supermayorate becomes further empowered by the declaration of the double status of Moscow introduced in the middle of the 1990s. On June 28, 1995 the regional authorities adopted a Charter of Moscow city wherein it was stated that Moscow held a double status, being both a component of the federation and simultaneously - a municipal creation.88 This step was aimed at the acquisition of a

87

Jensen, The Boss: How Yuriy Luzhkov runs Moscow. Article 6 of Ustav goroda Moskvy adopted on June 28, 1995, available at:

88

http://housing.mos.ru/dmg?show&nd=3607978&prevDoc=303094&mark=0D0HBML3CN1QR40NTFVA 30000O0003OHGBD279E0SF3V3D99S1H96316 (as of September 10, 2003). See also the comments

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greater independence from the Federal authorities, since, being the Head of the municipal creation, Luzhkov now represented the level of self-government which, according to the Russian constitution included bodies of self-government which do not form part of the system of bodies of state power. Moreover, [w]ithin the limits of its powers local self-government is independent89. By imposing the status of local selfgovernment upon the system of Moscow administration, Luzhkov in fact now had the opportunity to be highly independent in his decisions. This move completed the elimination of any highest authority standing above the Moscow mayor as he, in fact, became an actor who was highly independent in his decisions, in relation to any branch of the Federal power. In this way, the disruption invoked by the dissolution of the clear idea of whose orders to follow becomes neutralised as Luzhkov himself becomes the highest authority within his sphere of responsibility, thenceforth giving such orders to his subordinates. Once occupying the position of the supreme instance in the Moscow economy, Luzhkov started to restore the second blocked element of his manager identity, which is the clarity of horizontal delimitation. In his case it meant the unification of Moscows economy which had to reduce the presence of economic actors independent from the Moscow authorities and thereby keeping Luzhkov from full
of the Moscow vice-premier on the self-government in Moscow in Moskovskiy spravochnik 2000, available at: http://www.mos.ru/moscowsprav/moscows2000/moscows2000_023.htm (as of September 10, 2003). It is necessary to say that, as Rabko and Fyodorov mention, this double status is in no way prescribed by the article on the special status of the capital of the Russian Federation, which means that it is totally the initiative of the Moscow government. See: T.A. Rabko and A.V. Fyodorov, Gorod Moskva: problema izmeneniya konstitutsionno-pravovogo statusa in Pravo I politika. Mezhdunarodnyi nauchnyi zhurnal, No.5 (2001), available at http://www.law-andpolitics.com/paper.shtml?a=5_2001&o=310551 (as of March, 12, 2004).
89

The Russian Constitution, Article 12, quoted from Richard Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society

(London: Routledge, 1996), p. 397.

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control over his area of competence. In so doing he introduced the idea of alternative privatisation, different from that conducted by the Federal government. In general terms the alternative Moscow privatisation was designed to maintain a bigger part of the privatised enterprises within the city property. As Gafurov comments: In the Moscow model of privatisation from the very beginning not 29% [as was done in the rest of Russia] but 12-15% of shares were put on the cheque auctions. The city kept big shares which later were sold on the special auctions and investments competitions90 Luzhkov did not conceal the fact that this initiative aimed at keeping a greater control over the privatised enterprises. This was supposed to be the means to prevent the mismanagement of the property in the capital. Moreover, in one of his interviews the Moscow Mayor openly named de-privatisation as one of the strategies adopted by the Moscow authorities.
[Journalist:] Honestly, what did the Chubays-style privatisation give us and what will be the results of the Luzhkov-style privatisation? [Luzhkov:] I have been talking a lot about the results of the Chubays-style privatisation. And concerning the Luzhkov-style privatisation - it is absent. We do not deal with privatisation as such. We conduct commercial operations with the city property and as a result we increase the effectiveness of its use. But whether it goes from public sector into private or the other way around - it is a question of accounting and profit with respect to the interests of the city.91

Municipal control over the process of privatisation allowed the Mayor to keep in hand the independent economic actors who, in the end, were seriously limited in their

90

Said Gafurov, Opyt sravnitelnogo analiza privatizatsii i formirovaniya rynka korporativnykh tsennykh v razvivyushikhsya i post-sotsialisticheskikh stranakh. 1991-1996, available at:

bumag

http://www.libertarium.ru/old/library/gafur_4.html (as of September 1, 2003).

91

Iz otvetov Mehra Moskvy Yu.M. Luzhkova na voprosy chitateley gazety Trud (sentyabr 1997 goda)

in Luzhkov, Obraz tseli rossiyskikh reform.

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activities. Reducing further the sphere of uncontrolled business in Moscow, Luzhkov introduced various restrictions and innovations aimed at monopolising the Moscow market. As the research group The Moscow Alternative mentions:
Since 1996 one may notice a gradual expulsion of market relations from the spheres of land rights, investment processes, huge food contracts etc. The number of GUPs (state unitarian enterprises) is being increased in the spheres in which such monopolisation is not implied at all. Such exotic structures as Glavmosotdelstroy receive the status of GUP. The GUPs eject privatised enterprises in the sphere of book-trade, but the true masterpiece in this regard is the Decree of the Moscow Government No. 626, 013.07.1999 On the creation of the state unitarian enterprise The Centre of Design and New Technologies in the Production of Sport and Special Clothing, adopted in a situation in which several firms that have already proved their effectiveness in this field are already operating in Moscow. It is absolutely obvious that the formation of GUPs aims at monopolising the market and restricting free competition as regards the quality of services and prices in the customers market of Moscow.92

By taking control of the independent business initiative in Moscow Luzhkov moved forward in nurturing the reality of Moscow city as being the sphere of his competence wherein he became fully in charge of every centimetre of its territory and every crack on the asphalt. The relative success achieved by Yuriy Luzhkov in his project of reconstructing the bidimensional universe of the Soviet economy in Moscow, causes him to bring this issue to the centre of many of his appeals. Thus, for example, in the introduction to the Moscow Manual (Moskovskiy spravochnik) - 2000 Luzhkov writes:

92

Moskva: tendentsii 90-kh i alternativnye puti razvitiya. Doklad expertnoy gruppy Moskovskoy Chapter 4: Ehkonomicheskaya politika gorodskikh vlastey, available at:

Alternativy.

214 The phenomenon of Moscow, the results achieved by the city dwellers in the hard times of the reforms are mentioned by friends of Moscow, critics and political opponents. It is well known that the capital is the most dynamically developing region in the Russian Federation. Ancient Moscow transforms into a modern megalopolis one of the centres of European post-industrial civilisation. The most comfortable conditions for business and a high quality of life are made in the city.93

The success of the Moscow model allows Luzhkov to represent the forces devoted to the struggle for proper economy-building or, in other words, all those loyal to the managers platform. The first signs of this mode of representation can be dated back to the mid-1990s, when Luzhkov, with some success, established numerous horizontal economic links between the Russian capital and other regions.94 To a great extent these links were based on the personal popularity of Luzhkov among the managers in the power structures of other regions. This popularity was rooted in a definite admiration of the results achieved in preserving proper economy-building in Moscow. The loyalty to the Moscow experience in preserving the proper economy created a relatively wide range of support of the Luzhkovs policies. As a matter of fact, along with Kondratenko, Luzhkov is one of the electoral champions in post-Soviet Russia. In

http://www.glazychev.ru/habitations&cities/moscow/doclad/doklad_04-econom.htm (as of September 10, 2003).

93

Yuriy Luzhkov, Dorogaya moya stolitsa' in Moskovskiy spravochnik 2000, available at :

http://www.mos.ru/moscowsprav/moscows2000/moscows2000_002.htm (as of November 15, 2003).

94

As a matter of fact Luzhkov was one of the main supporters of the idea of horizontal co-operation

between the regions(,) established without any participation of the Federal centre. By the end of October 1998 Luzhkov had concluded economic cooperation agreements with more than 70 of Russias 88 other regions. Former Prime Minister Kirienko alleged that between 1994 and 1998, the Moscow mayors office guaranteed almost 2 trillion roubles in city loans to other regions.

215

the mayoral elections of 1996 he gained more than 90% of the vote. In the next elections in 1999, the head of Moscow received more than 70%, which, despite the slight decrease of popularity, is still a rather remarkable result. The dry numbers may be supported by the remarks of Leionid Radzikhovskiy, a popular Russian publicist, who writes that:
The creative reason behind that criminal-nomenklatura capitalism [prescribed to Luzhkovs Moscow but in Radzhikhovskiys opinion - reflecting the development of the whole of Russia] has fully expanded in Moscow in particular. There are many symbols of nomenklatura, it is - a face, I repeat - a generalised one. But the symbol of the nomenklatura which creates is this one - Yu. M. Luzhkov personally. And if he will indeed build 70,000,000 square metres of residential accommodation as he promised (and Luzhkov keeps his promises, as horrible it may sound), the history of Moscow will be divided into three periods: from Yu. Dolgorukiy [the Prince who founded Moscow in 1147] to Yu. Luzhkov, the period of Luzhkov - and the period after Luzhkov. So what are the reasons for not being proud []?!95

By hegemonising the managers struggle Luzhkov sets the stage for the establishment of a new equivalence which now becomes positive. The range of this equivalence becomes a social base for constructing an all-Russian political movement Fatherland96 - formed by the Moscow Mayor in 1998.97 Its public support is indeed quite fascinating. In the official brochure it was stated that by the end of 1999 the

95

Leonid Radzikhovskiy, Apologiya Luzhkova in Vremya MN (September 5, 2001). Surprisingly enough, the political organisation of the Moscow Mayor has the same name as the one

96

of the Kubanian Governor Nikolay Kondratenko, mentioned in the previous chapter. However, it is important not to confuse the Fatherland of Luzhkov, which is a all-Russia political organisation, with the one of Kondratenko - which is a Kubanian regional public-political movement.
97

It is interesting to note that the emblem of Luzhkovs Fatherland consists of the contours of Russia

drawn in an oval with a huge star whose centre outlined by a circle indicates the geographical location of Moscow.

216

organisation brought together about 380,000 individual members and 22 collective members, including the Union of Labour, The Battle Brotherhood, Great Power (Derzhava) and others. The offices of the Fatherland were organised in every region apart from Chechnya. In the spectrum of the political parties, this movement defines itself as centrist. Specifying their position in the spectrum of Russian politics the Fatherland clearly differentiated themselves from the Communists, Liberal-Democrats and Yabloko. The crucial point dividing the organisation of Luzhkov from the biggest social movements on the federal scale was that Fatherland, unlike the others, gets things done. This assumption appears to be later translated in the main electoral slogan of the united block Fatherland - Whole Russia: trust only what is done (verte tolko delam). Due to this specificity the organisation very soon came to be regarded as the party of managers (partiya khozyaystvennikov). In this ensemble of managers the figure of Yuriy Luzhkov was definitely the central one and its constituting role was to a large extent based exactly on the value of the Moscow experience, gained in the reconstruction of a proper economy. This value was intrinsically translated in the programme of the Fatherland by the slogan: we did it in Moscow we will do it in Russia too!98 The same formula was repeated in other documents: We did it in Moscow, so we will do it in the whole of Russia! - said Luzhkov in one of his interviews.99 Elaborating this proposal further he gave some recommendations for the bringing about of the smooth transmission of the Moscow model:

98

Yuriy Luzhkov, O politicheskoy is sotsialno-ehkonomicheskoy situatsii v strane I zadachakh

organisatsii Doklad na vtorom sezde OPOO Otechestvo, April 24, 1999.

217 To reproduce our model of economy-building for the entire country will be difficult. Only after providing it with necessary, but recently lost, levels of governance of Russias economy. Therefore, the new economic model will be, unfortunately, less effective then the Moscow one. But incomparably more effective than the current Federal one.100

Articulating regional idea The regional imaginary put forward by the Moscow Mayor in his struggle over the economy lays the foundation for the regional idea articulated by Yuriy Luzhkov. This idea portrays Moscow as the proper and in some sense ideal Russia. Indeed, the idea to transmit the economy-building which had been successfully restored within the limits of Moscow city to the rest of country causes some authors to suggest a deeper conclusion as to the way in which Luzhkov constructs relations between the capital and the rest of the country. According to Mikhaylovskaya, Luzhkov does not perceive Moscow through the prism of Russias interests but on the contrary Russia is being regarded as a certain extension of Moscow as it comes to be incarnated in the capital.
It is always like that when a man who is proud of his ability to manage [hozyaystvovat] the land (in particular in the city) [] perceives Russia though the prism of his own Moscow. It is possible to suggest that Moscow in the eyes of Luzhkov, obviously reflected in certain remarks, incarnates (in direct sense becomes the face of) Russia. That is why the view of

99

Bitva za Mosckvu Bitva za Moskvu

100

218 Luzhkov as regards an ideal Moscow may be clearly imposed upon his view of an ideal Russia.101

Given that for Luzhkov society in general is seen as, first of all, a large economic organism or as a system, whose organisation is measured by the perspectives and conditions of economy102 the correspondence between Moscow, as the only place of economic revival, and an ideal Russia becomes clear. Honestly speaking, Mikhaylovskaya pinpoints an incredibly important conclusion to be borne in mind when approaching the public speeches of Russian politicians as regards the search for an ideal Russia. In fact, for Luzhkov, the idea of Moscow as a certain oasis of proper economy lays the foundation of the social imaginary in which society is perceived in terms of an economic organism. Moscow becomes an ideal society or in some sense ideal Russia.

Drawing out regional difference The regional idea of Moscow as an ideal Russia, which materialises the myth of economy, lays at the foundation of the Muscovite regional discourse. This discourse is seen as a totality of practices and meanings shaping a particular community of social actors. In the case of the Muscovite regional discourse this community appears to be represented in the Muscovites, representing the ideal Russia and the most

101

Yekaterina Mikhaylovskaya, Idealnaya Rossiya v tekstakh politikov. Proektirovanie mifa in Vladimir Aleksandr Verkhovskiy, Yekaterina Mikhaylovskaya, Politicheskaya ksenofobiya.

Pribylovskiy,

Radikalnye gruppy. Predstableniya liderov. Rol tserkvi (Moscow: Panorama, 1999), available at: http://xmir.eu.org/xeno/KNG6F.asp?FN=205 (as of September 10, 2003).
102

Luzhkov, My deti tvoi, Moskva, p. 184.

219

successful economy-building, in contrast to the rest of the Russians who, using Luzhkovs terms, grumble but do not work, who regret the past and do not take care of the future. Thus, for example, advocating their well-known policy of compulsory registration of visitors to Moscow103, the Moscow authorities first link this restriction to state interests:
The head of the passport office of the GUVD [City Department of Internal Affairs] in the capital - Mikhail Serov - is in agreement with Luzhkov: First of all the state [emphasis added] needs the residence permit; the entire infrastructure dealing with the control of the crime situation, the population level, decisions on how much food, schools and transport the city needs [emphasis added] is related to it. 104

Then announcing the task of protecting Russia they indeed defend its ideal version from the corrupted influence of the imperfect rest of the country. In other words they protect Moscow from visitors. As Alexander Braginskii, the vice-premier of the Moscow government comments, regarding the introduction of compulsory residence registration in the capital:
I believe that although this decision [] is explained by extraordinary circumstances it is the only one which is possible and relevant to international practice. The borders of Russia [emphasis added] today are just symbolic, transparent and we have to start strengthening them from the capital. It is here that the country in practice starts bringing to order its important sphere of internal life - control over the migration of other nationals on its territory [] Our only desire is to protect Moscow from the uncontrolled entrance of people dangerous

103

This policy will be discussed below in detail. Propisku otmenyayut in Gzt.ru, available at: http://gzt.ru/headline_text.gzt?id=12550000000003894

104

as of (September 10, 2003).

220 for stability and law here. Moreover, the statistics evidently say that the visitors [emphasis added] play the main role in the increasing number of crimes in Moscow.105

Since Moscow became, strictly speaking, the only force that succeeded in preserving the society-constituting perspectives and conditions of economy, the Muscovites came to be seen as the best in the competition for restoring the state economy. It seems that Luzhkov sincerely believes in a certain superiority of Moscow over the Russian State. For example, as Interfax reports on May 1, 2003, in a particular tradeunion meeting he declared that Moscow does not live at the expense of Russia, on the contrary, Russia lives at the expense of Moscow.106 The superiority of Moscow appeared to be translated in the outlining of the exclusive honours of the capital dwellers in comparison to results (mis-)achieved by the population of the other regions. Thus Luzhkov states: Among other regions of Russia the capital, through its successful combination of political and social stability, the constantly improving infrastructure, the high professional and intellectual level of working people, and the hospitality of Muscovites, is the most attractive place to start projects of huge scale, thereby hinting at the qualitative superiority of Moscow over the other territories.107 Since Moscow became the ideal Russia, the rest of the country appeared to be divided from the capital on the basis of its imperfection. As a matter of fact, this

105

Cited through: Oksana Karpenko, I gosti nashego goroda in Otechestvennye zapiski, no 6

(2002), available at: http://www.strana-oz.ru/?numid=7&article=328 (as of November 15, 2003).

106

Yuriy Luzhkov: Moskva ne zhivyot za shchet Rossii, naprotiv, Rossiya zhivyot za shchet Moskvy in http://lenta.ru/russia/2003/05/01/luzhkov/ (as of September 1,

Lenta.ru (May 1, 2003), available at 2003).

107

Yuriy Luzhkov, Dorogaya moya stolitsa' .

221

frontier is clearly evident as in his public debates Luzhkov persistently draws the line between Moscow and the other Russian regions. This line divides Moscow and Russia economically: Moscow earned from privatisation one-and-a-half times more than the whole of Russia!108 or The whole country in 1994 got about 900 billion roubles from privatisation. We took the other way. We privatised our city property in small quantities and earned the city budget 1.5 trillion roubles.
109

Also socio-psychologically, for

these are the very Muscovites who appear to be included in the system of proper management constructed by Yuriy Luzhkov: Today Moscow experiences not less, and maybe to some extent even more problems than any other city. But the Muscovites overcome difficulties with their own work. They do not grumble [read - like in other cities] but they work, they do not regret the past [again read - like in other cities] but take care of the future.110 The division between Moscow and the rest of Russia is emphasised in the conclusion that: Moscow has demonstrated in the preelectoral period that it has an autonomy [samostoyatel'noe] of thought, it takes decisions, estimates these or those events, that information, autonomously. It is not engaged in the common psychosis, the enforcement of opinions, positions. And in this regard it radically differs from Russia.111

108

Vystuplenie Yu. M. Luzhkova na sobranii prepodavateley i studentov MGU 11 oktyabrya 1995

goda, available at: http://www.mos.ru/major-lujkov/doklad-1994-7-4.htm (as of September 5, 2003).

109

Ibid. Yuriy Luzhkov, My budem borotsya za kazhdyi golos, za kazhdyi region in Nezavisimaya gazeta,

110

(October 13, 1999).

111

Yuriy Luzhkov: ya gotov na kompromissy in Argumenty I fakty (February 2, 2000).

222

Institutionalising the regional identity The Muscovite regional idea articulated by Yuriy Luzhkov becomes an interpellator through which the new social identity may be recruited. The identity of Muscovites, privileged due to their more successful performance in restoring the proper economy, receives its prospects of institutionalisation in the actions and policies of the Moscow authorities. In general terms these policies aim at fixing the Muscovites, or the persons of Moscow nationality112 by the institutional division of the Moscow population from the rest of the Russians. It is this strategy which appears to be embodied in the policies of protecting Muscovites from the visitors, a policy widely advertised by the regional authorities and indicated in some of the aforementioned passages. The most remarkable example of this policy is the compulsory registration, in the Russian capital. The Russian constitution confirms the freedom of movement for the citizens and legally present foreigners within the country.113 However, in Moscow this freedom becomes seriously limited by the decisions of the regional authorities.114 Although the Russian laws imply the system of notification-based registration, the

112

Yelena Egorova, Litso Moskovskoy natsionalnosti in Moskovskiy komsomolets (April 13, 2001). Each person who is legally present on the territory of the Russian Federation has the right to travel

113

freely and choose a place to stay and residence says Article 27, Point 1 of the Russian Constitution (Quoted through Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, p.400).
114

Postanovlenie pravitelst Moskvy i Moskovskoy oblasti no. 1030-43 O registratsii i snyatiya

grazhdan Rossiyskoy Federatsii s registratsionnogo uchyota po mestu prebyvaniya i po mestu zhitelstva v Moskve i Moskovskoy oblasti (December 26, 1995), with some insignificant changes from December 17, 1996 and May 6, 1997; Rasporyazhenie Mehra Moskvy N. 1007-RM, O neotlozhnykh merakh po obespecheniyu poryadka registratsii grazhdan, vremenno prebyvayuschikh v g[orode] Moskve (September 13, 1999), available at: http://www.mos.ru/cgi-bin/alpha/con_law?6,31,8407 (as of October 20, 2002).

223

Moscow regulations leave the right to prevent one from registering, and by this to make ones stay in Moscow illegal, to the regional officials.
When a non-Muscovite arrives in Moscow, he or she must register with the City Department of the Interior within three days. The rules allow for two types of registration: temporary and permanent, depending on whether one is visiting or planning to live in the city. Registering temporarily in Moscow requires payment of a small fee and proof of residence. Proof of residence may be in the form of a lease, if one is renting a place in Moscow, or written permission from the owner and everyone registered at the residence, if one is staying with relatives. There is also a space requirement, whereby the registrant must prove that there is a certain amount of space available for each person in the residence.[] In 1996, the space requirement in Moscow was fifty-four square feet of living space per person] The requirements for permanent registration are similar, except that one must show either a lease or deed, proving that he or she either rents or has purchased an apartment. 115

If a visitor fails to pass through one of these requirements, an official in the city administration may easily deprive him of the right to stay in Moscow. It is necessary to mention that the policies of permission-based registration established by the Moscow authorities in the capital became an object of protests to

115

Damian Schaible, Life in Russias Closed City: Moscows Movement restrictions and the Rule of

Law in New York University Law Review, vol. 76:344, (April 2001), p.353.

224

the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation116. However this did not make the Moscow government change their way of registering visitors to the capital. Yuriy Luzhkov openly declares that despite the protests of the Constitutional Court the system of compulsory permission-based registration will be preserved in Moscow. Advocating this decision the Moscow Mayor argues:
What we are doing in Moscow absolutely corresponds to the norms of the laws and the Constitution and falls within what any civilised country has [] The registration is undoubtedly justified because it has the purpose of protecting the Muscovites from chancecomers [gastrolery] and bandits in a situation in which the borders of the Russian Federation are transparent and Russia still remains the communicating yard [prohodnoy dvor] of the world.117

The institutional division between the Muscovites and the visitors leads to the establishment of a real social frontier between these two groups. As Shaible mentions in his Life in Russias Closed City: the restrictions result in a class of Moscow inhabitants who effectively are treated as non-citizens. This class of people whose civil rights are violated by the registration regime is not a small one; as mentioned, widely varying estimates place the number of unregistered in Moscow somewhere between
116

Postanovlenie Konstitutsionnogo suda Rossiyskoy Federatsii No. 4-P (February 2, 1998) Po delu o

proverke konstitutsionnosti punktov 10, 12 i 21 Pravil registratsii i snyatiya grazhdan Rossiyskoy Federatsii s registratsionnogo uchyota po mestu prebyvaniya i mestu zhitelstva v predelakh Rossiyskoy Federatsii ot 17 iyulya 1996 goda No. 713, available at: http://ks.rfnet.ru/pos/p4_98.html (as of March 15, 2004); Postanovlenie Konstitutsionnogo Suda Rossiyskoy Federatsii No. 9-P (April 4, 1996). Po delu o proverke konstitutsionnosti ryada normativnykh aktov goroda Moskvy I Moskovskoy oblasti I goroda Voronezha, reglamentiruyushchikh poryadok registratsii grazhdan, prebyvayushchikh na postoyannoe zhitelstvo v nazvannye regiony, available at: http://ks.rfnet.ru/pos/p9_96.html (as of march 15, 2004).

225

100,000 and three million.118 The discriminatory policy of the Moscow administration is also indicated by Jensen who mentions that in November 1997 the regional authorities threaten severe fines for firms hiring unapproved residents who do not have permission to live in the capital.119 Thus, it seen that having distinguished the Muscovites from the rest of the Russias population, the Moscow authorities institutionalise this difference by introducing the system of legal privileges that materialises the line between the Moscow dwellers and the visitors. This in, its turn, grounds the social objectification of the Muscovites as an actually existing social identity which through various means, and first of all in the access to certain rights, differs from the rest of the population. The legal privileges of the Muscovites, in fact, has become a cornerstone of many debates initiated by the Moscow administration and aimed at introducing various specific rights for the regional population. Thus Dobrov, member of the Commission of the Moscow administration and the Administration of the City Duma on the Normative Base of Land and Estate Legal Relations (Komissiya administratsii Moskvy I Moskovskoy gorodskoy dumy po normativnoy baze zemelnykh I imushchestvennykh pravootnosheniy) openly calls for legal protection of the rights of the Muscovites on the land.120 Some other officials
117

Yuriy Luzhkov: registratsiya priezzhikh ne protivorechit zakonu in Lenta.ru (October 4, 1999),

available at: http://www.lenta.ru/russia/1999/10/04/migration/_Printed.htm (as of September 15, 2003).

118

Schaible, Life in Russias Closed City, p. 358. Jensen, The Boss: How Yuriy Luzhkov runs Moscow. Petr Dobrov, Prava Moskvichey na zemlyu - pod zashchitu zakona in Obozrevatel - Observer, no.

119

120

12 (1997), available at: http://www.nasledie.ru/oboz/N12_97/12_5.HTM (as of September 5, 2003). Interestingly enough, the deputies of the Moscow City Duma, in the debates devoted to the regulation of home improvements in Moscow - adopted by the Duma on January 31, 2001, argue that by introducing the 10-year limit upon permanent residence they merely defend the rights of the Muscovites whose efforts the city is being built with. (Moscow. The deputies are not agree with the decision of the court in

226

argue for state guarantees as to other rights of the Muscovites. Thus Lyubov Kezina, a Moscow city official, calls for the state to guarantee the special rights of the Muscovites regarding education.121 Besides these rights the Muscovites become the object of rights to living conditions122. To make the access to the special rights of Muscovites more effective, the city authorities announced the idea of introducing the card of a Muscovite. This document, according to Luzhkov, aims not at the better management of communal transactions but is also designed to substitute for proof of a persons identity.123 Needless to say, one can hardly find a better way to institutionalise the division between the Muscovites and the rest than to provide a special proof of identity for the regional population. Many authors agree that the policy of the Moscow mayor, which is strongly orientated towards the privileging of the Muscovites, leads towards the establishment of inequality between the regional population and the visitors. Some of them radicalise this inequality to the degree of ideological deprivation of citizenship, as regards those

Rambler-media

(June

26,

2001),

available

at:

http://www.rambler.ru/db/news/msg.html?mid=1741391&s=2 (as of September 5, 2003)).

121

S 1-go sentyabrya v Moskve mozhet byt vveden ezhegodnyi personalnyi uchyot vsekh detey v the Russian Federation, available at:

vozraste ot 6 do 18 let in Rossiyskiy obshcheobrazovatelnyi portal hosted by the Ministry of Education of http://moscow.school.edu.ru/default.asp?wci=doc&tmpl=text&d_no=153 (as of September 5, 2003).
122

Lyubov Fomina, 21 iyunya v Moskovskoy gorodskoy dume sostoyalos zasedanie komiteta po

zhilishchnoy politike at the official web server of the The Moscow City Duma, available at: http://duma.mos.ru/cgi-bin/pbl_web?vid=2&osn_id=0&id_rub=1&news_unom=4454 (as of September 5, 2003).
123

V Moskve vvedut kartochnuyu sistemu! in Cnews, (October 2, 2002). Available at:

http://www.inmarsys.ru/news/news.asp?filename=rad9F977.xml (as of September 1, 2003).

227

who have no Moscow registration permit. Thus, commenting on the personal TV show of Yuriy Luzhkov, Pribylovskiy says:
Its a pity that in the province few people watch the personal TV programme of Luzhkov Meeting the people [Litsom k lyudyam], formerly Meeting the city [Litsom k gorodu] on the TVC [TV-Centre], due to its boredom. The name of the programme has changed, but the lexicon of the Mayor did not, even a little bit. He is still meeting the city and the people for him are only the Muscovites. If the provincials would watch this programme, without even visiting the capital they would understand that they are not citizens in Moscow, not people, no-one at all. 124

In general Pribylovskiy is right. In the society portrayed in the Muscovite regional ideology and institutionalised in the policies of the city administration the nonMuscovites came to be perceived as nobodies. The negative preposition of not - [] is, in fact, clearly apprehended by those identified as the guests or visitors. This constitutes a second subject position of the Muscovite regional discourse. This position is clearly reflected in the documents of the outlaws or illegals (nelegaly)125 - the organisation of those who do not follow the discriminatory obligations of the Moscow authorities concerning compulsory registration in the capital.
ADDRESSED TO EVERYBODY The outlaws of Moscow address you. We are about three million in Moscow and we have no intention to keep silent any longer. We are the people who on various accounts have to live in

124

Vladimir Pribylovskiy, Separatist Luzhkov in Russkaya mysl (October 7, 1999). The documents of this movement are presented on their own web-page http://www.nelegal.ru or

125

http://www.nelegal.net (as of March 15, 2004). There are also some other internet resources vocing the position of the outlaws, see for example: http://doloypropisku.narod.ru/index.html (as of March 15, 2004).

228 Moscow without registration; we are the people who are deprived of human rights. We are people of various age, sex, parentage and nationality.
126

It is necessary to notice that this subject position differs from the one known from the Soviet times as limita or limitchiki legally-qualified industrial workers from the provinces employed in industry situated in Moscow. In sociological terms the notion of limitchiki corresponds to a particular group of those working, on a time-limit, in the Moscow enterprises, while the category of the outlaws basically covers anyone who has no permit of registration in Moscow, regardless of the purpose of his being there. It is interesting to note that the remark of Pribylovskiy on the non-citizen status of the outlaws in Moscow seems to have come to be heard by the Moscow authorities. On July 29, 2003 they adopted a regulation On the order of employing the people from other sites and foreigners in Moscow. According to this regulation the enterprises were prohibited to hire the non-Muscovites without official permission being given by the Moscow authorities in the same form as it is given to the foreign workers. In some papers this law has already been described as the law on the Ryazanian foreigners127 as in fact, this legal innovation renders the visitors in the Russian capital as equal to foreign citizens. As Maksim Sokolov comments on this decision the Moscow authorities, tough though it may sound, inscribe within the framework of the law [] an extortion and humiliation [] of the second-class Russians.128

126

An Open Letter of Moscow Organization of Outlaws, available at http://www.nelegal.ru/letter.html

(as of December 20, 2000).

127

Maksim

Sokolov,

Durnoy

vkus

vedet

separatizmu

in

Globalrus.ru,

available

at

http://www.globalrus.ru/all_actions/moscow/134429/ (as of September 1, 2003).

128

Ibid.

229

Conclusion to Chapter 4 By way of conclusion to this second empirical investigation it is possible to say that, paradoxically enough, despite the huge difference in socio-economic context between the regions, and their quite different underlying political views, Yuriy Luzhkov in general follows the steps of Nikolay Kondratenko in the issue of re-thinking the region. Departing from a different basic identity than does the Kubanian Governor, Luzhkov experiences a different kind of dislocation and comes to the articulation of a different enemy and the construction of a different antagonism. However, then he makes the same moves as Kondratenko and employs his position as highest regional authority in order to conduct a struggle and to articulate a similar kind of regional idea. Seen as the transmission of the sought national order, seen through the prism of economic organisation, this idea becomes the nodal point fixing the struggle of the Moscow Mayor. In the course of this struggle Luzhkov advocates a programme which establishes an institutional division between the Muscovites and the rest of the population. It is this programme which appears to be translated in the aforementioned initiatives concerning the residence and work permits introduced by the Moscow authorities in the middle of the 1990s. Along with the ideological performances of the Moscow mayor, such activities constitute the prospect of constructing the Muscovite regional discourse. In this sphere the difference between the Muscovites and the new-comers comes to be objectified in the moments translating the discriminatory policy of the city government. Therein, a person experiences the material character of his regional identity.

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CHAPTER 5: THE REGIONAL IDEOLOGIES IN PUTINS RUSSIA

Introduction to the Chapter 5 Our empirical research demonstrates that, some visible differences aside, the regional ideologies under examination have many things in common. They show identical structural organisation, which seems to be inherent to any chain of ideological articulations. However, they also share a similarity in the form of the response given to the tasks raised by the dislocations which captured the Russian society in the beginning of the 1990s. Looking for the framework of a new, post-Soviet identity, the regional ideologues constructed programmes wherein the desired popular - one might say national - unity appears to be represented in the unity of a region. As a result of such re-conceptualisation, a region begins to signify not just an administrative territorial unit of the Russian Federation, but comes to substitute for an ideal and desired Russia. The regional ideologues seek the social basis for national unity. In some sense they both wish to be Russians. But in the collapse of the old framework of national identity and in the absence of the existential other, in relation to which Russian-ness may be defined, this identity becomes heavily dependent upon the subjective choices of the politicians. The gap in which it was possible to take decisions in an undecidable terrain was remarkably wide. And it is this gap which made it possible for Nikolay Kondratenko and Yuriy Luzhkov to articulate a programme which called for the construction of an ideal Russia in their governed regions.

231

The wish to express the meaning of the national unity, regardless of whether the latter is seen through the prism of an ethnic disposition or of economic affiliations, identifies the next task which will be addressed in our study. Qualifying regional ideologies as projects looking for an articulation of new national unity it becomes important to show the place of the regional ideologies in the general field of the struggle for the Russian nation, a struggle which had expanded in the Russian political scene by the end of the 1990s.

The structure of the chapter In order to carry out the aforementioned task, what I am first going to do in this chapter is to analyse the hegemonic capacities of the examined regional ideologies. Precisely put, I will demonstrate the limits of the regional imaginary, which prevented various regional programmes from joining a really popular national struggle conducted under the regional slogans. I show that, in fact, the Kubanian and the Muscovite regional ideologies became parts of rather fragmented debates that in a different way addressed the issue of the post-Soviet Russian national unity. Then I describe the gradual dissolution of these debates which followed the strengthening of Putins ideology of strong state building. I argue that it is this programme which defined the destiny of the Russian regional ideologies in the middle of the 2000s.

The limits of regional imaginary As is assumed in discourse theory, the success or failure of an ideology is related to its hegemonic capacities. The latter are understood in terms of the capacity to

232

structure a community of social actors, which is primarily defined by the articulation of nodal points put forward to fix the project of social struggle. It is these nodal points which put into action a certain way of conceptualising realities which in the end results in the construction of a particular social discourse. Hence, the hegemonic potential of the regional ideologies, and notably their limits, appears to be defined by the character of the nodal points articulated to fix the tactical struggles of the governors, most coherently seen as the struggle for the Russian nation, in Krasnodar, and a proper economy, in Moscow. Looking at the nodal points articulated by the regional ideologues it appears possible to see that, in fact, the imaginaries set by such articulations have their clear limits. These limits are concealed in the particular social exclusions drawn by the regional ideologies. First of all, in situations where an ideal Russia is expressed through the idea of a particular region, the forces incapable of identifying relations of equivalence with a concrete region appear to be excluded from the particular struggle, even if this struggle is shaped by the same general slogans expressed in the proposals of the strategic combat. This sets the stage for the regional ideologues to dissociate, respectively, the non-Kubanian or non-Muscovite movements from their own struggles. Such dissociation becomes even sharper for, being detached from the regional ideas, quite similar programmes appear to be more and more fixed in relations of equivalence with the enemy. Precisely such a consequence is explicitly

233

demonstrated by Kondratenko in his attack on the Russian National Unity (RNE), in terms of a force which comes from Moscow and other rotten territories.1 This exclusion prevents the establishment of proper relations of equivalence between the various comparable kinds of political programmes. The popular character of the struggle for preserving the Russian nation or constructing a proper economy comes to be strictly tied to the regional affiliations of a particular combatant. A force in region A may consider itself as really fighting for Russia. However, at the same time it may be considered a true enemy of Russia by the fighters of region B, if the former does not share the ideas of the particular regional uniqueness of B. Such a contradiction directly leads to the establishment of antagonistic relations between supposedly identical regional political projects. If, for example, the construction of a proper economy succeeds in Moscow and the Moscow model becomes the ground for retaining the identity of an economy as such, the success of the other regional models in the same competition becomes antagonistic. It is interesting to illustrate this kind of antagonism with reference to a conversation held in Yekaterinburg between the Moscow Mayor Luzhkov and the Sverdlovsk Governor Eduard Rossel. As Peskov reproduces it:
[] Rossel was showing and Luzhkov was observing. But after the phrase: We have everything in the Sverdlovsk oblast he could not stand it anymore and he replied: But we have a better situation with honey-production. Right now I am going to send to children the honey harvested on the bee-gardens near Moscow, including my own one . However,

Komu vygodna lozh o situatsii na Kubani. Zayavlenie chlena Soveta Federatsii Federalnogo

Sobraniya Rossiyskoy Federatsii N. Kondratenko na zasedanii 24 aprelya 2002 g. in Kubanskie novosti (April 26, 2002).

234 irritated, Rossel cut off this attack: This year we harvested 600 tons of honey. Do you need it?2

This dialogue is an excellent illustration of how Luzhkov gets irritated by the presence of the other-regional project of constructing a proper economy, even in relation to an aspect as minor as honey-production. This antagonism is concealed in the experience of the other regions which puts into question the exclusive capacities of a particular regional management. In other words, if economy is properly constructed only in the capital, a factor which causes Luzhkov effectively to propose his candidature for hegemonising the struggle of all managers, any other successful example of rebuilding economic affiliations becomes a serious irritant to this properness. This, in its turn hits the managerial confidence of Yuriy Luzhkov and causes the authors of the alternative projects to be perceived as antagonists, because their presence becomes an obstacle in fixing the exclusive success of his own management. The same is relevant to the struggle of Nikolay Kondratenko. If the real Russia is preserved only in Kuban, any proposal for a proper Russian national disposition which comes from other regions would trigger serious doubts in the exclusive Russianness of Kondratenko. Therefore, the Kubanian Governor, blaming his rivals in the anti-Zionist wing of Russian nationalism, stresses their Moscow affiliations. Therefore, any otherregional force articulating a programme of Russian national revival comes to be antagonistic to the author of the Kubanian regional ideology. There can be no two one

Quoted in: Yevgeniy Minchenko and Irina Vyboyshchik, Psikhologicheskaya kharakteristika Ehduarda

Rosselya in Yevgeniy Minchenko, Kak stat i ostatsya gubernatorom (Chelyabinsk: Ural LTD, 2001), available at: http://www.newimage.ru:8101/flashversion/publication/rossel_characterization_3.htm (as of march 15, 2004).

235

true Russias in different regions, even when this Russia is understood in the same way. The social exclusion, unavoidably implied in the examined regional ideologies, makes it necessary to revise the notion of regionalism as it is applied to the post-Soviet history of Russia. Traditionally, this term is understood as a policy aiming at achieving a greater autonomy for the regions. In the light of this definition it may seem that regionalism represents a kind of unified project fixed by common goals, which is, to a greater or lesser extent, shared by all regional leaders. However, this view of Russian regionalism seems to be rather incorrect. In the conditions of reciprocal antagonism growing between various regional movements, all aiming at an adequate representation of the national idea, contemporary Russian regionalism is more likely to be an ensemble of isolated programmes rather than a unified movement of the regions for obtaining a greater autonomy from the centre. In this sense the term society of regions which is applied in some endeavours in contemporary Russian politics3 seems to be slightly incorrect. The social exclusion of the other-regional does not create a space in which the other identical programmes coming from the other territories might enter a particular political project. The other regions become, so to speak, discursively invisible and the society aiming to be constructed by the regional ideologues is designated as the society of a region. It consists of an enemy and a mother-region incarnating the ideal social order, with no place for other projects of regional uniqueness. In such a way it is possible to see that the social imaginary constructed by the regional ideologies becomes seriously limited by the unavoidable reduction of the universal

Arbakhan Magomedov, Obshchestvo regionov in Pro et Contra, No. 2 (1997), 47-58.

236

claims for national unity to the particular regional representation of the latter. The social exclusion born in this tie prevents any possible political reciprocity between particular regional ideologies and other politically similar projects. This blockage affects relations with the possible allies which have either grown in the field of common opposition to the enemy or in the argument in favour of special regional rights and defending particular regional interests. In the end all possible relations come to be either antagonistic or absent, in a situation where identical projects are discursively invisible. To a large extent the inability of establishing non-antagonistic relations with other identical programmes has defined the political weakness of the regional ideologies. As is demonstrated in the previous chapters, the Moscow and the Kubanian regional ideologues, in fact, aim at nothing other than the reconstitution of the social reality of Russianness, seen, respectively, either as a certain national disposition or as an economic organism. However, by the end of the 1990s, in the Russian political arena, this issue became a focal point in many other political programmes. Being unable to establish solid inter-regional inclusion by the end of the 1990s, they variously entered into competitions with the other groups of programmes which dealt with similar issues of post-Soviet Russianness. In order to situate the examined ideologies in the corpus of these programmes, it is necessary to introduce the latter first.

Regional ideologies in the struggle for the post-Soviet Russian nation Looking at the debates which convey the sense of trying to find a new meaning of Russianness one may specify several dominant tendencies. These tendencies are defined according to the differences in identifying the enemy to whom the Russians

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are thought to be opposed. In introducing these trends, it is possible to divide them into five big groups: ethnic nationalism, export nationalism, popular, economic and state nationalism. Each of them now has to be introduced in detail. The first one can be called ethnic nationalism. This field of the struggle for the Russian nation includes the programmes that situate the meaning of being Russian in the framework of the struggle with the enemy endowed in the objects of other nations or other ethnically and racially specified groups. Mainly these are the ethnic minorities which embrace the image of rivals, preventing the Russians from achieving social harmony. Apart from the aforementioned Russian National Sobor, the Union of the Vendes and other relatively marginal organisations, this form of nationalism is represented by extreme-right movements, such as the Russian National Unity (RNE), leader Alexander Barkashov4; the communist-patriotic opposition including the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF)5; the short-term movement of nationalist

General information is available at the official web-page: http://www.rne.org (as of February 18, 2004)

and http://www.rnebarkashov.ru (as of February 18, 2004). See also: Vyacheslav Likhachev, Natsizm v Rossii (Moscow: Panorama, 2002), pp. 9-62.
5

General information is available at the official web-page: http://www.cprf.ru (as of February 18, 2004).

See also: Luke March, The Communist Party in Post-Soviet Russia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002).

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centrists Motherland, leaders - Rogozin and Glazev6, some Cossack movements7 and some regional leaders.8 Looking at the programmes of these movements it is possible to see that in a grand articulation of the threat brought by other-ethnic elements is included a certain constitutive axis. These enemies appear to be personified in the images of the Jews, with variations the Judes, the Judo-Massons and the Zionists; the Caucasians and Middle-Asians, seen as blacks, beasts, churki9, or as market-sellers. One may quote some passages from the Textbook of the Russian Nationalist, written by Barkashov, in order that we might understand the prospect of Russian national revival which is articulated in this perspective:
The main aim of our movement is to prove the present and the future of the Russian Nation, [] which is to return to the Russian People its historical place in the state and in the World []. Insofar as the Russian People was deprived of its historical role artificially and forcefully, according to the same logic, the Russian People has to see returned everything which was taken out in the same way. The enemies of Russia understand this and try finally to destroy the national unity of the Russian People.10

See the official web-page of Sergey Glazev, one of the most distinct nationalists in Rodina: http://

www.glazev.ru (as of February 18, 2004).

7

Alekey Malashenko and Galina Vitkovskaya (eds.) Cossack Revival: Hopes and Fears, Carnegie

Moscow Center, Occasional Papers, No. 23, September 1998.

8

For further information see: Vladimir Pribylovskiy, Russkie national-patrioticheskie (etnokraticheskie)

organizatsii I pravo-radikalnye organizatsii. Kratkiy slovar-spravochnik (Moscow: Panorama, 1995).

9

The pejorative and offensive nomination of the Asians and the Caucasian peoples. Quoted from: http://www.rnebarkashov.ru/azbuka05.htm (as of March 15, 2004).

10

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Specifying the enemies Barkashov indicates the personae of, first,

Jewish

nationalities responsible for the genocide of the Russian people and, more generally, all Slavs.11 There is hardly any need to indicate the remarkable similarities between the programme of RNE and the agendas of other anti-Semitic nationalists mentioned in the previous chapters.12 It is possible to say that despite his personal confrontation with rotten Moscow, RNE, Nikolay Kondratenko and his political organisation the Fatherland (Kondratenko)13 clearly fall into this category and form a particular sector in this area of political debates. The second type of nationalism articulated in post-Soviet Russia can be regarded as export nationalism. This form of nationalism is represented in the programmes that are in some sense inverse to the ones of ethnic nationalism. More precisely, they do not seek to fix the meaning of Russianness by fighting with the national minorities, but call for struggle against the national majorities of the New Independent States. These are the non-Russian majorities that, according to them, oppress their respective Russian-speaking populations, which appeared as minorities after the dissolution of the USSR.

11

Quoted from: http://www.rnebarkashov.ru/azbuka08.htm (as of March 14, 2004). Notably those mentioned in Chapter 3. Ivan Gololobov and Indra Overland, We Russians versus Us Russians. Patriotic Discourse and

12

13

Electoral Support in Krasnodar kray, NUPI working papers no. 604, (August 2000).

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This form of nationalism was first translated by the Congress of Russian Communities (KRO) leaders Alexander Lebed and Sergey Glazev,14 dissolved after the electoral failure in 1995 and finally disappeared after the death of its leader in 2002; the leading force now is the National Bolshevik Party (NBP) with their leader Eduard Limonov15. The national ideology of NBP can be expressed by the slogan popular among many of its members: Russia has always been and it will always be, but at the moment there is no Russia. The natsbols, as they call themselves, consider that at the moment Russia is being sold to world capital, therefore Russia as such is the target for the struggle. Russia has to be recreated. Articulating the programme of its recreation Limonov suggests that at the moment there is no ground for the national revolution inside Russia. Therefore its rebuilding has to start in one of the New Independent State where Russians have become an oppressed minority.
Today we cannot start the rebellion in Moscow due to many reasons. First of all the flame of rebellion has to be set outside Russia. The ideal place for this is Crimea. However, we have to understand that the emergence of the conflict between the Russian population and the Ukrainian occupation forces is not the final aim but just an unavoidable first step of the armoured uprising to change the government in Moscow [] The Crimea will be our SierraMaestra from where we will come to our Havana, to Moscow.16

It is in the framework of such proposals that the natsbols organised their antigovernmental actions in Crimea, Russian autonomy in Ukraine; in Minsk, the capital of
14

See: Alan Ingram, A Nation Split into Fragments: The Congress of Russian Communities and

Russian Nationalist Ideology in Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 51, No. 4, 687-74.

15

See the official web-page http://www.nbp-info.ru (as of February 18, 2004). See also: Likhachev,

Natsizm v Rossii, pp.63 107. It is important to mention that neither personally nor institutionally the NBP has nothing to do with the KRO of Lebed and Glazev.
16

Ehduard Limonov, Anatomiya geroya (Smolensk: Rusich, 1998), pp. 465-472.

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Belorussia; in the Baltic countries; and - the most famous project the Russian revolution in Northern Kazakhstan, predominantly populated by Russian speakers. After the failure of this attempt, Limonov was arrested and spent 2 years in prison. However, this did not put out his revolutionary flame and after his release he came back to active political activity. Thus, it is possible to say that the natsbols, in fact, found a very powerful ideological tool for mobilising the Russian national movement outside Russia. There are several tens of millions of Russians living abroad and in many different countries such as Latvia, Estonia and Middle Asian countries, where they indeed face open or concealed discrimination. In this situation their opposition to the national majorities of the New Independent States contains a huge amount of social energy that can be used in the struggle for the Russian nation. It is not surprising that the NBP have departments in Western Europe - Sweden17, France18, United Kingdom19 and Spain20, and even in Israel21. And indeed, the exported activity of the NBP outside the CIS countries is not limited to formal party building. These were the natsbols who, implementing their policy of direct action, threw tomatoes at George Robertson, the NATO secretary general, during his press-conference in Prague in 2002. It is also possible to outline populist nationalism as a specific field of political debate, formed in Russia in the 1990s. This programme is an eclectic project which, looking

17

See: http://www.nazbol.se (as of February 18, 2004). See: http://www.pcn-ncp.com/CNB/index.htm (as of February 18, 2004). See: http://www.nationalanarchist.com (as of February 18, 2004). See: http://www.bolcheviques.org (as of February 18, 2004). See: http://nbp.up.to/ (as of March 14, 2004).

18

19

20

21

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for short-term popular support, re-articulates the issues raised in various other spectrums of ideological struggle. In accordance with the flexibility of its political platform, populist nationalism refers to various Enemies, which become relevant in different communicative contexts. The main force expressing the ideas of populist nationalism is the aforementioned Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR); leader Vladimir Zhirinovskiy.22 In the very beginning of his political career Zhirinovskiy came forward with sharp nationalistic slogans directed against as many enemies as possible. He threatened to store nuclear products on the borders of the new Baltic states. In accordance with his promise that if he became Russian president the Russian soldiers will wash their boots in the Indian Ocean, he published a book - The Last Charge to the South23. Blaming the West, Zhirinovskiy does not limit himself to the parliamentary lexicon. Many can remember his speech - Dont even dare to shoot Baghdad, its better to f***k up Tbilisi altogether, which has been mixed into a techno-song by an unknown person24. Accusing foreign and other-ethnic powers, the leader of the LDPR specifies the Caucasians, the Jews, the Chinese and many other ethnic groups as being those who have brought threats to the Russians.25 However, together with the hard-right nationalist rhetoric Zhirinovskiy exploits the other grounds for nation-building, i.e. economic priorities, the states leading role etc.
22

Official web-page http://www.ldpr.ru (as of February 18, 2004). Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, Posledniy brosok na yug (Moscow: Pisatel, 1993). Available at: http://mp3.utl.ru/DON%27T%20SHOOT%20BAGDAD%21/tbilisi.mp3 (as of February

23

24

18, 2004).
25

See: A. Altunyan, O sobiratelyakh zemli Russkoy. Zhirinovskiy kak publitsist: analiz politicheskikh

statey in Voprosy literatury, No. 2 (1996), 59-82.

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In this area, old enemies cease to be antagonists and rather become allies. No wonder that in some of his speeches Zhirinovksiy finally reveals his famous my Mother is Russian and my father is lower, signifying that on the fathers side he comes from the Polish Jews.26 Now, in order to make clear the difference between ethnic nationalism, regardless of its internal or export versions, and the economic and state programme of building the Russian nation, it is necessary to touch upon the latter in detail. Economic nationalism is a project drawing the object of the Russian nation against the background of economic unity, which is sought in order to fight the failed reformers who are driving the country into a state of economic collapse. These are the forces whose mismanagement lies at the foundation of the current crisis the Russian society is living through. It is exactly this kind of nationalism which appeared to be translated in the regional ideology of the Moscow Mayor. Apart from the the Fatherland of Yuriy Luzhkov, identical ideas concerning the meaning of being Russian were translated by the other clusters of the parliamentary block Fatherland Whole Russia (OVR) and their leader Yevgeniy Primakov; also by some of the governors, like the Governor of Saint Petersburg Vladimir Yakovlev, the Governor of Yaroslavl oblast Anatoliy Lisitsyn and some influential mayors of big cities, for example, the ex-mayor of Saint Petersburg Anatoliy Sobchak, the Mayor of Krasnodar Valeriy Samoylenko and others.

26

Interview given to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, quoted by vokruginfo.ru available at:

http://www.vokruginfo.ru/news/news531.html (as of February 18, 2004). For an extended review of Zhirinovskiys transformation from a clear anti-Semite, boycotting the minute of silence devoted to the Holocaust victims announced in Russian parliament, into a passionate defender of all Jews see: http://www.jewish.ru/994174519.asp (as of February 18, 2004).

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Due to the obvious priority of concrete things done, accompanied by an attack on the empty talks, the prophets of economic nationalism failed to create a clear corpus of ideological messages embracing their political platform. Still it is possible to illustrate their view on the nature of the new Russian nation with the words of Anatoliy Sobchak: For him the nation is:
A conscious will of individuals to be a united people and to live together. However, this intention emerges [] not only on the basis of common language, culture, tradition etc., but on what can be defined as prosperity of life, a general atmosphere of satisfaction with life and the country you are living in. So far, unfortunately, we do not have it. Therefore so many Russians of all nationalities want to leave the country (at least for some time). It is not the absence of the national idea, but the lasting poor quality of life which is the main danger for the future of our country, for its unity.27

Thus, it becomes obvious that by the end of the 1990s the regional responses to the dislocations of the post-Soviet transition, being particular in their regional reference, also form part of different strategic proposals regarding the creation of a Russian identity. The Kubanian regional ideology generally followed the perspective of ethnic nationalism, while Moscow joined the struggle for a nation economised. However, such discursive composition did not last long. Due to the essentially fragmented character of ethnic and economic nationalisms, torn apart from inside by regional and other antagonisms, the aforementioned debates on the Russian nation did not form a stable popular movement. As a result, they lost out in relation to the fifth prospect of national unity - Putins ideology of strong state building, which came to be the most powerful political project in Russia in the beginning of the 2000s. Although many disputed the very existence of a clear political platform on the part of the new Russian

27

Anatoliy Sobchak, Impreskaya nostalgiya in Nezavisimaya gazeta, (February 13, 1998).

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President,28 after the first years of his government, it has become obvious that these doubts are rather irrelevant, and the growing amount of special research devoted to various aspects of Putins ideology illustrates the inadequacy of these concerns.29 The role of Putins political project in the historical destiny of Russian regional ideologies is crucial. Therefore it seems important to visit this programme in depth as this introduction will allow for a demonstration as to how the regions politicised gradually came to meet their decline in the Russian political debates of the 2000s.

Strong state building and the decline of regional ideologies In order to situate Putins political project within the general methodological framework adopted in this research, the main components of his programme will be discussed in the same way as was done in the case of the analysis of the regional ideologies. Following from this, I start with the identification from which Putins political enterprise arises. I then discuss the dislocations and antagonisms defining the limits of this identity. Finally, I analyse Putins reaction to this situation and the way it reconstructs the reality of his original subject position in contemporary social circumstances.

28

Christian Caryl, Putins pragmatism in Newsweek (November 16, 2001); Andrey Makarkin,

Prezidentu Putinu potrebuetsya ideya in Segodnya, No. 62 (March 22, 2000); Upravlyayemaya demokratiya v Rossii: stala li ona pri Putine effektivnee chem pri Yeltsine? The materials of the round table in Literaturnaya gazeta (April 17, 2000), available at: http://www.lgz.ru/roundtable/art2.htm (as of October 10, 2003).
29

See: Yekaterina Mikhaylovskaya. Govoryashchiy Putin: Informatsiya k razmyshleniyu in Alexander

Verkhovskiy, Yekaterina Mikhaylovskaya and Vladimir Pribylovskiy. Rossiya Putina: Pristrastnyi vzglyad (Moscow: Panorama 2003), pp. 4-79; Marius Vahl, Putins Russia in CESP Commentary. Thinking Ahead of Europe. The Centre for the European Policy. http://www.ceps.be/Commentary/March%202000/Vahl.php (as of August 12, 2003).

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It appears possible to say that throughout his entire political career Putin clearly presented himself according to the official position he occupied. This happened when he worked in the office of Saint Petersburgs mayor, or as an official in the presidential administration. This continued after he was promoted to the position of Prime Minister.30 The same, no doubt, can be said about the first years of his presidency. Here, Putin clearly recognises his identity as head of state or as Russian President. As he reflects on this matter in his first address to the Russian parliament: only an effective head of state has the right to set policy tasks for the bodies of power, and he alone has the real possibility to organise their effective fulfilment31, confirming that it is his position as Russian President which conditions his current political performance. In accordance with this subject position, it is Russia and more precisely the Russian state, which serves as a meaningful predicate for being its President. And it is exactly this object that appears to be dislocated, as Putin obviously regards the state he received as weakened. Another serious and persistent problem is the economic weakness of Russia. The growing gap between industrialised countries and Russia is pushing us into the ranks of Third World countries - says the Russian President, and

30

Thus Putin briefly describes his life, indicating first of all the positions he occupied: As a matter of fact

I have had a very simple life [] I finished school and went to university. Finished university - went to the KGB. Finished the KGB - again to university. Then - to Sobchak [the Mayor of Saint Petersburg]. After Sobchak - to Moscow. To the Presidents office [upravlenie delami]. Then - to the administration of the President. Then I was appointed the prime-minister. Now I am the acting [i.o.] President. That's all! (Vladimir Putin, Ot pervogo litsa: razgovory s Vladimirom Putinym (Moscow: Vagrius, 2000), available at: http://www.dosye.ru/putin_book/putin_book.htm (as of November 15, 2003).
31

Vladimir Putins State of the Nation Address to the Federal Assembly The State of Russia: A Way to Effective State presented on July 8, 2000, available at:

an

http://www.russiaeurope.mid.ru/RussiaEurope/speech6.html (as of October 20, 2003).

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then adds: If Russia remains weak, we will indeed have to make the choice. But it will be a choice of a weak state, the choice of the weak.32 Apart from the general remarks on the current weakness of the Russian state Putin specifies numerous precise problems which embrace this weakness. They include the criminalisation and informalisation of the economy, financial dependence upon the developed state, the ageing of the population, weak civil society, weak army, etc. The ensemble of the troubles blocking the development of the Russian state makes Putin consider the real danger of the total disintegration or even dissolution of the state as such. Having articulated the moment of dislocation capturing the very object of the Russian state, Putin announces his strategic goal, which consists of building a strong or effective state in Russia. This task is clearly formulated in his address to the Federal assembly: The strategic task of the previous year was to strengthen the state33. This is also repeatedly stressed in The State of Russia:
Russia's only real choice should be the choice of a strong country, strong and confident. [] Our stand is absolutely clear. Only a strong, effective - if someone does not like the word strong, we will say that only an effective and democratic state can uphold civil, political and economic freedoms. It can create conditions for a prosperous life for the people and for the prosperity of the Homeland.34

32

Putin, The State of Russia: A Way to an Effective State President Vladimir Putin's Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the Moscow, presented on April 3, 2001, available at:

33

Kremlin,

http://www.russiaeurope.mid.ru/RussiaEurope/speech7.html (as of October 20, 2003).

34

Putin, The State of Russia: A Way to an Effective State

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Having specified the project of constructing the strong and effective state, the Russian President outlines the situation of antagonism, articulating the obstacles that prevent an immediate achievement of the sought results. These obstacles comprise the ineffective taxation system, bureaucratisation of the state institution, ineffective relations between the Federal and regional authorities etc. However, among these problems Putin explicitly points to one which is especially worrying the Russian President. It is the problem of Chechnya.35 This obstacle obtains the most precise articulation in Putins speech. For in these remarks he renders material the enemies directly responsible for the weakening of the Russian state. These enemies are terrorists or separatists conducting the anti-constitutional combat activities in the Southern Russian republic. As a matter of fact, from the very beginning of his career as a politician of national weight, Putin expresses his radical antipathy towards these forces. One may recall the picturesque expression he coined: to flush away [the terrorists] while they sit on their toilets36 (uttered in September 1999). Later, in the same passionate way, the Russian President repeats his attitude towards them in many other well-known speeches and interviews. Thus, answering the question of Susan Glassner from the Washington Post in the interview with the chiefs of the leading American media he says:
Well, you and I very well know what was happening over the previous decade in the Caucasus. In 1995 Russia did not recognize de jure, but actually accepted the independence of Chechnya, by completely withdrawing from there, entirely. It dismantled all its bodies of

35

Many authors mention that this problem is the constitutive one for the political programme of the new

Russian President. See for instance: Mikhaylovskaya, Govoryashchiy Putin, p. 26.

36

Translation taken from Putins Chechen Remark Causes Stir, BBC news. World edition. Europe,

(November 13, 2002), available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2460305.stm (as of August 12, 2003).

249 power and administration there, pulled out the army, police, prosecutor's office, the courts. Absolutely everything was dismantled. I must tell you that this looks like a national humiliation, but Russia did that in order to attain reconciliation. Russia encountered other problems. We encountered in fact the physical destruction of the Russian-speaking population in Chechnya, but Russia failed to react to this as well, it was in about the same condition as America had been after the Vietnam war. Essentially it was in shock after 1995. More serious processes began. From the territory of Chechnya, which had turned out to be absolutely beyond the control of any authorities, there began the criminal development of the economy of Russia itself, because there were no borders there. But Russia again failed to react. Practically at once there began in almost daily mode, each day, attacks on the contiguous territories of Russia: Dagestan and Russias other regions. People simply began to sell their houses and leave. There was absolutely no one to talk with, as there was no authority in Chechnya. There was no one with whom to raise the matter of grievances. And our law and order bodies there were absolutely powerless, they even feared crossing the border when hot-pursuing criminals. What did it end in? It ended in a large-scale attack of several thousand armed people on Dagestan under the slogan of tearing away from Russia some additional territories and creating a new state from the Black to the Caspian Sea, creating, as they call it, united states of Islam. But, look, thats certainly going to extremes, its simply an outright aggression! [] To us it is absolutely of no fundamental importance as of now, the question of Chechnya's dependence or independence from Russia. Only one matter is fundamental to us. We will no longer allow this territory to be used as a bridgehead for attack on Russia. We wont allow it!
37

37

The President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. Interview with Bureau Chiefs of Leading

American Media. the Kremlin, Moscow, Russian Federation. Monday, June 18, 2001, available at:

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In the situation of sharp social antagonism, where the identity of the strong state appears to be to a large extent blocked by the presence of the terrorists Putin sets a wide field of equivalence for anyone dissatisfied with the current impossibility of building a strong Russia. The inclusiveness of this field appears to be stipulated by the informational policies of the Russian mass media. It is necessary to mention that the latter, unlike the majority of their Western colleagues, throughout the entire second military campaign in the North Caucasus, widely displayed the brutalities committed by the so-called rebels.38 The confiscated films documenting tortures, murders and public executions of Russian soldiers, civilians loyal to the Federal power and hostages39 became the best instruments for materialising the enemy, and presenting it to the Russian population. This materialisation underlines the popular character of the slogans uttered by the Russian President. Needless to say, the articulation of the existential enemy has generated a strong public protest against the growing power of the terrorists in the North Caucasus. The protest arose after the explosions in the civilian buildings in Moscow and some other Russian cities, committed in 1999 by terrorist groups coming from Chechnya.

http://www.russianembassy.org/NEWS/Reports/Putin_US_Media.htm (as of October 20, 2003). Almost the same opinion is represented in Putins response to one of the questions in direct line with the President held on December 19, 2002 (Vladimir Putin: Razgovor s Rossiey: Stenogramma Pryamoy linii s Prezidentom Rossiyskoy Federatsii V.V. Putinym (Moscow: Olma-politizdat, 2003), pp. 41-44), and in his response to one of the questions raised on the joint press-conference with Jaques Chirac held in Paris on January 17, 2002 (the transcript is available at: http://www.russiaeurope.mid.ru/RussiaEurope/speech9.html (as of October 20, 2003)).
38

Ogonek. Chechnya (The special issue) (February 23-28, 2000); Chechnya: Belaya kniga (Moscow:

RIA Novosti - Rosinformtsentr, 2000), available at www.rian.ru and at www.rosinformcenter.ru (as of October 20, 2003); Boris Karpov, VV: Kavkazskiy krest (Moscow: Delovoy ekspress, 2000).
39

See for instance the photo albums in Chechnya: Belaya Kniga and Chechnya: Belaya kniga II.

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The struggle against terrorism and the criminal power of the warlords set a huge field of social equivalence, uniting everyone in hatred towards the terrorists. Precisely this field became hegemonised by the steely policy of the Russian President, aimed at defeating the stronghold of the armed gangs in Chechnya. However, the adequate response to the public demand of confronting the terrorists is the main but not the only explanation of the social success demonstrated by the Putins political enterprises. Another factor laying at the foundation of its popularity is the effective re-articulation of the object of Russian power. This sets the prerequisites for the actual popular struggle to be hegemonised precisely by this sector, represented in its entirety by the President. This re-articulation consists of breaking the equivalence established between the Federal power and the enemies, specified in numerous debates in Yeltsins Russia, including the ones investigated in this research. Such a divorce results in the effective emptying of the object of power from its personified connotation, obtained in the previous years. In Yeltsins Russia - as, for instance, the regional ideologues demonstrate - this object was strongly identified with the names of concrete persons: Yeltsins family, his favourites, or the brightest oligarchs like Berezovskiy, Gusinskiy and others. Putin rids the highest executive branch of the Russian power of this remarkable content. The elimination of the corrupted content starts with the attack on the oligarchs. For some this attack may be seen as an attempt to limit freedom of

expression or to restrict free economic initiatives. These views probably have some merit, since the alienation of the oligarchs from power does affect their media empires, as in the case with the ORT or the Most media group. In some cases this reform leads

252

to a radical transformation or even disappearance of some of them. However, not wishing to enter the debates on the correspondence of these actions to human and economic rights, it is simply necessary to say that as a component of a hegemonic operation, these initiatives are highly effective. They result in the dissociation of state power in Russia from the negative figures of the corrupted oligarchs. This process goes hand in hand with the distancing of the Russian President from the other marked figures of the Yeltsins epoch. Thus Putin never identifies his personal affiliations with any of the existent parties and movements, even with those declaring themselves as pro-Putin, like the Union of Right Forces or Marching together (Idushchie vmeste). The detachment of the object of Russian power from any figures engaged with the disposition of Yeltsins epoch is strengthened by the maximal de-personification of the executive power, as the Russian President equips the new Government with faces absolutely unknown before. The names of Gref, Kasyanov and other politicians promoted to the highest executive structure of Russian power could have said very little to the majority of the Russian population in the time of the Putins political growth. They were grey horses. However, precisely this personnel policy makes it possible for the state power to represent the wide popular demands raised in the antagonistic confrontation with the enemies. The revolt of Putins majority against the expert minority, announced by Pavlovskiy, gains its discursive possibility, since now the widest sector of this majority receives a suitable representative. It is this representation that is sought by the Russian President when he says: We have grown used to regarding Russia as a system of the bodies of power or as an economic

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organism. But Russia is above all its people. The people who regard it as their home. Their prosperity and befitting life is the main task of power. Any power.40 By promoting the popular character of the state power in Russia, Putin includes in his project numerous particular struggles for Russia which have flourished in the last decade of the 20th century. The Russian President directly calls for this inclusion: We must do everything so that we all - businessmen, the power structures and all citizens - will deeply feel our responsibility to the country.41 Above all, he connects this proposal with the particular concepts of broad social agreement and common goals, which he widely advertises: I would like to speak about one more major subject. I am convinced that the development of society is inconceivable without accord on the common goals. [] A policy based on open and honest relations of the state with society will protect us from repeating past mistakes and will become the fundamental condition for a new social agreement.42 These declarations make the policy of the strong state, confronting the brutal expansion of terrorism, the proliferation of poverty and further disintegration of the society, into a project uniting the wide range of Russias population under the leadership of the state power with the President at its top. This lays the foundation for the successful hegemonic move undertaken by the Vladimir Putin, and makes his political enterprise highly inclusive and popular, in the direct sense of this word. As a matter of fact, at the beginning of the 2000s Putin obviously became one of the most popular politicians in Russia. On this occasion some authors even introduce the

40

Putin, The State of Russia: A Way to an Effective State. Ibid. Ibid.

41

42

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term putinomania to indicate the degree of public sympathy towards the Russian President. Indeed, Putin becomes a favourite character in poems, songs and other works of the political folk art. Moreover, he becomes a successful commercial brand. Thus, for instance, in Chelyabinsk some students opened a restaurant called Putin. In this place everything - from its interior to the menu - was linked to the image of the Russian President. Thus a guest could try a meal The Vertical of the Power (Vertikal vlasti) consisting of seven pieces of meat according to the number of federal districts introduced by Putins federal reform, or an alcohol free milk-cocktail When Vovochka [diminutive from Vladimir] was a little boy. On special occasions a visitor could demand a chop [otbivnaya] Boris Berezovskiy.43 As it is reported, the restaurant was very successful, but unfortunately the city officials did not understand the humour and did everything in order to get it to close, probably being afraid that Putin himself would not like it.44

Losing the ideological battle: the political transformations of the regional ideologues The incredible popularity and inclusiveness of Putins project defines its unbeatable advantage in the competition with other identical programmes. In fact within the growing success of Putins hegemony, the other political forces playing the game of national identification were faced with two options.

43

In Russian the word otbivnaya is used as a synonym of beaten enemy: To make otbivnaya from

someone - to beat him down.

44

Vladimir Pribylovskiy, Putinoslavie: Khronika proslavleniy Putina Vladimira Vladimirovicha in Rossiya

Putina, pp.193-204, p.201.

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The first one was to go into sharp opposition to the new Russian President. In the clearest manner, this option was taken by the NBP, articulating the programme of Russia without Putin. In the end such a position drove the national-bolsheviks to the extreme margin of the political field, since the boycotting of any elections became their official policy by the mid-2000s. The same marginalisation struck the RNE and other extreme nationalists who did not manage either to propose their own representatives in the electoral circles of the 2000s or to delegate their support to the ones coming from the other sectors. Along with deliberately ignoring formal politics, their political demands were also expressed by voting against all candidates. The other option opened in the new political arena was to join Putins struggle for the strong state. Looking at the arrangement of Russian public debates in the first half of the 2000s it is possible to say that many of the forces leading various struggles for the Russian nation indeed fell into the hegemonising stream of Putins policies. Thus by the presidential elections of 2004, the movements that in the 1990s formed the opposition to Russian state power - the LDPR, a part of the Motherland and, personally, Dmitriy Rogozin, plus some former allies of the KPRF in the Peoples Patriotic Union of Russia, the OVR and all its organisational components became loyal supporters of Vladimir Putin. To a certain degree the same destiny was prescribed to the regional ideologues. Providing a particular response to the task of looking for a new Russianness in the post-Soviet society, they lost their individuality in the highly inclusive project of the new Russian President. It is rather interesting how Magomedov reflects on the procedure, in one of his latest articles, which takes the example of the Kubanian Governor:
[] Kondratenko had nothing to put up against Putin [] Both of them applied the ideas of mobilising the bureaucratic apparatus and the population [] Kondratenko defended the

256 Kubanians from the external symbols of evil: world backstage [zakulisa], Yeltsins policy, Moscow oligarchs, uncontrolled migration. In the same way the Russians supported Putin [] The mobilisation and consolidation of the Russian society around the figure of the future president under the slogans The Fatherland is in danger was achieved [] Then there was a shift in the public consciousness of the Russians: for millions of citizens Putin became a kind of a doctor playing the role of defender of the people and fighter against terrorism [] Pulling the public sympathy towards himself, Putin rendered naked the charisma of Kondratenko and narrowed the latters field of public politics. It seems that the Kubanian leader [] has understood that, with the emergence of Putin, his place of the peoples defender has become occupied.45

Once covered by Putins struggle, the regional ideologies, contradicting each other in their separate existence, find themselves on the same side of the discursive frontier and become equivalent participants in the unified project driven by the Russian President. Being transformed from the forces oppositional to the Federal state power into the participants in the latters own struggle, the regional ideologies lose their discursive independence and become highly subordinated to the regularities of the strong state discourse. In this situation, both governors move from clear opposition to the Federal power, to becoming its loyal supporters. Luzhkov clearly demonstrates that he is on the one side with the new Russian President, asking: Why shouldnt I be a friend of Putin?46 And in his latest book he openly declares his devotion to the Presidents policy. The very title of this book is rather interesting: A way to an Effective State a copy from

45

Arbakhan Magomedov, Politicheskoe liderstvo i formirovanie regionalnykh partiynykh sistem v

sovremennoy Rossii in Natalya Lapina (ed.), Regionalnye protsessy v sovremennoy Rossii: ehkonomika, politika, vlast (Moscow: INION RAN, 2002) 115-147, p.128.
46

Yuriy Luzhkov: pochemu by mne ne druzhit s putinym? in Komsomolskaya pravda, (June 18,

2000).

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Putins key speech.47 Kondratenko, despite his sharp confrontation with the Zionist Government, also demonstrates his loyalty to the new Russian President, admiring the fact of Putins attention to his problems. Thus, reflecting on his meeting with the President he says:
In Sochi, having a cup of tea with the President of Russia, I said: Vladimir Vladimirovich, if in real life you conduct a policy considering the national interests, I mean not only the Russians, but all indigenous people, then we, the Kubanians, will support you. Even if your rivals will place an obstruction in front of you, we, the Kubanians, we will come to Moscow [] Vladimir Vladimirovich looked at me and said: Well, thanks for this at least. It's true, there was a talk like this. 48

The structural subordination of the struggle for the Russian nation to Putins project of strong state-building pushes away the strategic relevance of the regional responses to the post-Soviet identity crisis. The ideological attack on regional ideologies becomes strengthened by some institutional transformations, which have resulted in the discrediting of the intermediate subject position of the highest regional authority. In order to demonstrate the peculiarities of this attack, some issues in Putins administrative reforms are to be visited in detail below.

Putins administrative reform: losing administrative resources The crucial matter in Putins reforms is the policy of strengthening vertical power, leading towards the gradual reduction in the status of the heads of regional

47

Yuriy Luzhkov, Put k effektivnomu gosudarstvu. Plan preobrazovaniya sistemy gosudarstvennoy

vlasti I upravleniya v Rossiyskoy Federatsii (Moscow: MGU, 2002).

48

Nikolay Kondratenko, Nas razdelyayut nashi vragi in Zavtra (March 27, 2003).

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administrations. This reduction, seriously limiting their capacities to conduct a regionally specific struggle, is shown in several initiatives include in Putins federal reforms. The first one is the construction of the system of federal districts, introduced in 2000.49 These districts are supposed to form the intermediate level of power between regions and the Federal centre. The heads of these districts are not elected, like governors, but directly appointed by the President. Although formally the appointees have not much power over the governors, their presence becomes a serious factor in limiting governors in their decisions. The heads of the newly created institutions, in fact, become the instance observing the activities of the regional leaders and relaying the wishes of the President directly to the administrations of the Russian territories. To a certain extent the heads of the Federal districts become the tsars eyes50 in the Russian provinces. The second attack on the institutional benefits of the regional leaders is shown in the actual removal of governors from active participation in the political life of the state. This initiative gets developed in the project of reforming the Council of Federation. Previously, this body of the parliament was formed by governors and leaders of regional legislatures. Rejecting this principle, Putin suggests the equipment of this chamber with the professional senators elected separately in the regions. Once adopted, this initiative leads to the actual removal of governors from direct
49

The decree from May 13, 2000. In general this issue is discussed in: Robert W. Orttung and Peter

Reddaway (eds.), Dynamics of Russian politics : Putins federal-regional reforms (Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).
50

Alexandr Tsipko, Putin rebuilds a unitary state in Russia in Prism, vol. 6, issue 11 (November 28,

2000), available at: http://www.jamestown.org/pubs/view/pri_006_011_002.htm (as of October 20, 2003).

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participation in the process of law-making. As a matter of fact, this disconnects them from a significant channel through which they might promote their political programmes, a channel which, in its turn, clearly follows Putins intention of restricting the governors to building roads the purely economic affairs of the regions. The third innovation of Putins reforms as regards the elimination of the institutional base of the regional ideologues, is expressed in the law signed by Putin on February 1, 2001. According to this law the President of the Russian Federation obtains the right to dismiss any elected governor, albeit through an application to the procurators offices. Although until now51 no governor has been sacked by the President, the very legal possibility makes the leaders of the regional administrations much more careful in their expression of the Russias one true will. The policies of restricting the institutional resources of governors power find their further translation in the well-advertised campaign of making regional legislation correspond to the Federal. This campaign results in the revision of numerous regional laws. The laws fixing the differences between a particular region and the rest of Russias population have become one of the main targets of this revision. These transformations, in fact, eliminate the institutional grounds for the social continuity of the regional ideologies. Together with the structural subordination of these projects to Putins programme of strong state-building, these factors condition the gradual decline of the regional ideologies in Russia in the beginning of the 2000s and the political defeat of the regional ideologues.

51

Valid for October 13, 2003.

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Facing the impossibility of competing with Putins programme of building the strong state, and being incapable of organising a strong protest movement to defend his political proposals, Nikolay Kondratenko left public politics. He withdrew his candidature from the next election for Governor, of 2000, explaining his decision, strangely, as having to do with health problems. Despite a massive social request, expressed in numerous letters from the people and voiced in a number of meetings organised to indicate public support for his candidature, Kondratenko did not change his decision to leave. Although he kept his position as a professional senator in the Council of Federation for the next couple of years, Kondratenko no longer enters any serious public debates. As Magomedov says, in his aforementioned article published in 2002: [] today his [Kondratenko] role in the political life of the region is visibly decreasing.52 Thus Kondratenko has lost the institutional grounds for conducting his tactical struggle as a Kubanian father, but keeps up his engagement with the strategic struggle for the Russian nation. This devotion cropped up in 2003, in his unexpected return to public politics. In the electoral campaign of the forthcoming parliamentary elections, he was included in the Federal election list of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Moreover, he rose to number two in this list. However,

representing the CPRF Kondratenko does not articulate any ideas of regional exceptionality anymore. He almost completely takes the regional theme out of his political language and returns to the situation of dislocation, persistently stressing, in his latest appearances, the Zionist threat to the Russian nation. The Kubanian regional theme appears to be employed by Alexander Tkachev, the descendant of Nikolay Kondratenko, in the position of the Kubanian Governor. Thus, for example, Tkachev widely refers to the identity of the Kubanian people, when
52

Magomedov, Politicheskoe liderstvo i formirovanie regionalnykh partiynykh sistem, p. 127.

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advocating his political proposals. The Kubanians are a talented people [] says the new head of the kray administration, in one of his addresses.53 Speaking about the Meskhetian Turks he adds: It looks like the traditions of these people to a certain degree differ from those of the multinational Kubanian people.54 In addition, it is possible to point at the speech made by Tkachev on the occasion of the flood-damage to many districts of the krai, at the beginning of the 2002: Altogether, with all our Kubanian people, we will overcome this disaster, this common trouble.55 However, the new Kubanian Governor seriously revises the regional idea inherited from his predecessor. This revision is triggered by the different ideological context of the Tkachev political enterprise. Tkachev is obviously indifferent to the struggle with the Zionist threat and is not that inspired by the idea of reviving the Russian nation. In the entire corpus of his speeches there is not one single reference either to the problem of the Zionism or to the tasks in the struggle of the Russian nation. In general the new Kubanian Governor defines his political mission as patriotic, but patriotism is seen not as declarations from pedestals [s tribun] but a concrete business aimed at improving the living standards of our compatriots [although under compatriots Tkachev means first of all regional population]. And Kuban has all the conditions for its further development.56 As a matter of fact, economic development
53

Alexander Tkachev, V budushchee Kubani smotryu s optimizmom in Volnaya Kuban (September

11, 2002).
54

Anatoliy Melnikov, Kuban segodnya - odna bolshaya stroyposhchadka at The Official Web Page

of the Administration of Krasnodar kray, available at: http://admkrai.kuban.ru/news/region/200228/7164.html (as of August 20, 1993).
55

Alexander Tkachev, Vmeste protiv bedy at The Official Web Page of the Administration of Krasnodar

kray, available at: http://admkrai.kuban.ru/news/region/2002-03/4125.html (as of August 20, 1993).

56

Tkachev, V budushschee Kubani smotryu s optimizmom.

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constitutes the cornerstone of Tkachevs political project. Formulating the tasks for the future and reflecting on the things done, he does not list the battles won and lost to the enemies, as his predecessor did, but points to the numbers as regards the economic growth of his region: the number of registered firms and enterprises, amount of harvest, quantity of investments etc. In the absence of the strategic devotion to the confrontation with the Zionists, Tkachev is not interested in the idea of Kuban as it had been articulated by his predecessor. In the situation where the task of further development is articulated as the main one, the opposition between the Zionist centre and the only true Russia, which had been constructed in the region, becomes unproductive. As a result, Tkachev never opposes himself to Moscow and, moreover, he seeks support there, as it is from Moscow that the investments or state protection are coming. One may mention that in the years of Tkachevs governance Krasnodar kray has experienced an incredible increase in investments coming from Moscow and foreign companies.57 Moreover, Tkachev personally promotes his region in Moscow and abroad, visiting investments fares and economic forums.58 Where Kondratenko accused foreign capital of capturing Russia and Kuban, Tkachev proudly says: There are more than 300 joint enterprises on the territory of the kray. Among the biggest one may cite Chevron, Philip Morris, Knauf.59 Moreover, responding to one of the questions,

57

For the year 2001 Tkachev himself estimates these investments as amounting to 60.7 billion roubles,

which is approximately 2 billions of dollars (Tkachev: V budushschee Kubani smotryu s optimizmom).

58

One may refer to the Economic forum Kuban-2002, and The Days the Krasnodar krai in Germany

(March, 2003) organised and led by the Krasnodar regional administration and Tkachev personally.
59

Tkachev, V budushchee smotryu s optimizmom.

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addressed to the Kubanian governor by his compatriot, Tkachev, in a rather harsh way, distances himself from the isolationist ideas of his predecessor.
[The question]: [] The Kubanian lands are actively bought by Russias oligarchic structures. Aren't we going to stay with nothing, under Moscows thumb. I hear that Deripaska has already bought the entire Ust-Labinsk district. But what about the economic security of Krasnodar krai? [Tkachev]: [] I am not worried about this, especially if we take into account that we speak not about buying but about renting the land. Deripaska has invested [] 100 million roubles [3,3 millions of dollars] in the district, this is almost the yearly budget of Ust-Labinsk. He does not kick people out from kolkhoz, the material basis of the enterprises gets improved, the holding is run by a respectable person, as khozyaystvennik experiences. We are glad to see those investors who come to the krai with money.60

And in another part of the same interview Tkachev advances this theme even further: We have to open our potential to the whole world [] Why it is bad when an investor builds a factory on Kuban? He gives jobs, pays taxes to the regional budget, develops the economy of Kuban.61 In the context of this policy Kuban ceases to replace Russia for Tkachev and again becomes one of its regions. Kuban is a strategic region of Russia62, Kuban is a special region63, Krasnodar kray is one of the most significant regions of Russia64 -

60

Gubernator Krasnodarskogo kraya Alexander Tkachev: Kuban stanovitsya interesna miru - znachit,

budem, zhit luchshe in Komsomolskaya pravda - Kuban (July 23, 2003).

61

Ibid. Kuban - strategicheskiy region Rossii in Kubanskie novosti (September 25, 2002). Alexander Tkachev: Nelzya vse regiony strich pod odny grebenku in Kubanskie novosti (July 5,

62

63

2002).

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says the new Kubanian Governor. Or, for example, on the TV show Without a tie he stresses that Kuban is a Russian region, albeit the best of them. Although for him Kuban is a special region, the most , the best etc., it is still a region, rather than the unique material incarnation of the desired Russia. The only one cannot be the best. If it is the best, it means that there are other entities of the same kind. The modality of one of is evident in the remarks in which Tkachev compares Krasnodar kray with other regions. Unlike Kondratenko, whose comparison is drawn in the opposition of dead and alive Russia, Tkachev employs purely quantitative parameters - the amount of investments, built houses etc. By being a region, Kuban finds itself on the same level as Russias other territories and to a great extent retains its original meaning as an administrative-territorial unit of the state. The social exceptionality of Kuban becomes reduced to the geographical and economical peculiarities of the territory: Kuban is a significant transport junction, Kuban is situated between two seas65, Kuban has a fertile soil66, On Kuban we have grown an incredible harvest, We are glad to notice that our krai is among a number of regions [emphasis added] which are developing in the most dynamic way67 etc. Luzhkov lives through Putins reforms in a different way than Kondratenko did. He keeps his position as Moscow Mayor and, moreover, in 2003 he puts forward his candidature for the third term. However, in the course of his political survival, the

64

Krasnodarskiy kray - terriroriya ehkonomicheskogo rosta: Doklad Aleksandra Tkacheva na

ehkonomicheskom forume Kuban-2002 in Kubanskie novosti (October 5, 2002).

65

Krasnodarskiy kray - territoriya ehkonomicheskogo rosta Tkachev, V budushchee Kubani smotryu s optimizmom Alexander Tkachev and Vladmir Beketov, Slavsya otechestvo nashe svobodnoe in Kubanskie

66

67

novosti (June 11, 2002).

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Moscow Mayor in fact changes his political platform and abandons the Moscow regional ideology for the sake of the ideology of the effective state. As has been already mentioned, he even reproduces Putins key message, in the title of his book, published in 2002. Moreover in the main text of this work he openly declares his devotion to the ideas of state-strengthening. It is not surprising that the second chapter of this book is called The ideology of state-building in the new stage of Russian history.68 It is also possible to find that in his latest texts Luzhkov indicates the same symptom of de-ideologising a region, earlier to be found in the speeches of the new Kubanian Governor. More precisely, the Moscow Mayor does not regard the capital as the only incarnation of an authentic Russia, but as one out of many subjects of the Federation. As a matter of fact, in Luzhkovs The Way to an Effective State, there is not one single reference to the unique Moscow experience and special Moscow interests anymore. Moreover, there is no reference to Moscow as such. The only modality for the region there, is a subject of Federation.69 In his latest text, called - An Instruction for the Next Mayor, Luzhkov repeatedly mentions the one-off character of Moscow. He says: Even now Moscow does not represent an independent actor in the global economy: it belongs there only as a part of Russia, only through the Federation, only through a careful execution of our laws70. And in the next passage he openly discards his own idea on the economic exceptionality of the Russian capital, formulating a new

68

Luzhkov, Put k effektivnomu gosudarstvu, p. 5. Ibid, pp. 41-48. Yuriy Luzhkov, Posobie dlya budushchego mera. Dvenadtsat besed v biblioteke (Moscow:

69

70

Moskovskie uchebniki, 2003), p. 280.

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regional idea: Moscow is not an island of stability, during the last twelve years Moscow was a bridgehead for decisive, purposeful but not bolshevik reforms71. Having put the Moscow regional ideology aside from the main line of his new political programme, Luzhkov appears capable of integrating his struggle into the project of strong state-building. However, it is necessary to state that due to his status of being the defeated, Luzhkov does not receive any leading positions in this project. Thus, in 2001 his political organisation the Fatherland founded an alliance with the pro-Putin movement Unity. This integration has resulted in the creation of the new block United Russia, in which Luzhkov, honestly saying, has a place which is quite far away from the top of its power hierarchy. It is rather remarkable to note that before the parliamentary elections of 2003, on the occasion of the congress of the United Russia, Putin makes a speech where he says: In the last elections I voted for your party. The trick in this situation is concealed in the fact that in the elections of 1999 there two competing parties - the pro-Putin Unity and the oppositional Fatherland Whole Russia. I believe that here Putin means the Unity party, and the remark itself indicates the distribution of roles in the new political party, where it is Unity which is assumed to be the political and institutional axis of the new party. This decline of Luzhkovs regional political project is indicated even in the media loyal to the Moscow Mayor. Thus even Moskovskiy komsomolets questions the relevance of Luzhkovs political experience in the beginning of the 2000s: Now even Luzhkov himself does not know why he came to power.72

71

Ibid. Vechno molodoy, vechno trezvyi in Moskovskiy komsomolets (September 21, 2001).

72

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Conclusion to Chapter 5 In such a way it is possible to conclude that the transformations of the Russian political scene in the beginning of the 2000s seriously affected development of the regional ideologies. Due to the aforementioned limits of the regional imaginiaries articulated by the regional ideologues, these projects failed to contribute to consolidation of wider political projects of, respectively, ethnic and economical nationalism. Forming dis-attached parts of these rather disorganised projects they failed to enter an adequately competition with the growing programme of the strong state building, articulated by the new Russian President. The prospects of its ideological inclusion together with effective institutional limitations of governors power made Yuriy Luzhkov and Nokolay Kondratenko incapable of maintaining their struggles for an ideal Russia built in frames of a separate region. As a result, they put aside regional ideas as the key points of their political programmes. This permits the conclusion that by the mid-2000s, the time when these lines were written, regional ideologies as programmes aimed at shaping the imaginary communities of particular regions, which had dominated political debates in the 1990s, arrived at their historical defeat.

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CONCLUSION

Ideology has the power to shape society by recruiting individuals into a certain imaginary unity. This recruitment is the process of creating social identities. The analysis of the two Russian regional ideologies demonstrates that this process is, however, not given in a simple Athusserian interpellation of individuals, but represents a rather complex phenomenon. The empirical research undertaken as part of this project demonstrates that the regional ideologies, selected for detailed investigation, consist of a subsequent chain of articulations. They depart from the dislocation of the existing identities of the regional ideologies and end up in the discursive construction of a new, regional identity. This process includes seven components, or steps: 1. An articulation of the dislocation preventing the actors from achieving their identities, or, in other words, preventing them from being themselves. This component empties the domains of self-identity and sets the scene for an articulation of the situation of social antagonism. 2. Naming an enemy, responsible for the failure of the identities. This step completes the articulation of the antagonistic situation. 3. An articulation of the strategic struggle aiming at retaining the social objectivity of the lost identities of the politicians. 4. An identification of a particular subject position occupied by the actors in confrontation with the enemy.

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5. Specifying the tactics in order to conduct the strategic struggle in accordance with the occupied subject positions. 6. An articulation of the regional idea, serving as a nodal point fixing a particular strategy in relation to the struggle. 7. A designation of a particular subject position for the regionality offered for occupation, in the articulated struggle. These steps, or components, may be depicted in the following table: Table 1. The components of the Kubanian and the Muscovite regional ideologies
The Kubanian regional ideology of Nikolay Kondratenko Articulation of the dislocation: The collapse of the national authenticity of the society Naming the enemy: The Zionists Articulation of the strategic struggle: restoring the Russian nation Articulation of the subject position occupied in the strategic struggle: the Kubanian father Proposal of the tactical struggle in accordance with the occupied subject position: restoration of Russian national authenticity to Kuban and defending this - the last redoubt of Russianness Articulation of the nodal point, fixing the tactical struggle: Kuban is the only (authentic) Russia Articulation of the subject position offered for occupation, in the strategic struggle: The Kubanians, the Kubanian people The Muscovite regional ideology of Yuriy Luzhkov Articulation of the dislocation: The crisis, decay and collapse of the national economy Naming the enemy: The failed-reformers Articulation of the strategic struggle: restoring a proper economy Articulation of the subject position occupied in the strategic struggle: the Moscow Mayor Proposal of the tactical struggle in accordance with the occupied subject position: construction of the economic oasis in Moscow Articulation of the nodal point, fixing the tactical struggle: Moscow is the ideal Russia Articulation of the subject position offered for occupation, in the strategic struggle: The Muscovites

Within this structure it appears possible to respond to the question of how regional ideas became constitutive points in the political programmes of some Russian politicians. These ideas displayed the capacity to fix the tactical struggle by giving it a

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material shape and by opening the possibility for an institutionalisation of this struggle in material policies. However, the question of how the idea of a region came to dominate the search for a new identity, a question which inspired this research, requires additional clarification. The filling of the nodal point with a particular content, resulting in the articulation of regional identities, was influenced by a specific arrangement in the discursive context of these ideological projects. This context consists of two main components. 1. Soviet discourse, which, in its different translations, provided the regional ideologues with the points of departure for their political enterprises. These points are their original subject positions. The Soviet theory of ethnos and the praxis of ethnic disposition, adopted in the Soviet Union, create the basis for Kondratenkos identity as Russian, while Luzhkovs identity as manager was brought into being by the normative and institutional organisation of the Soviet economy. It is the dislocation of this discourse, in the time of post-Soviet social transformations, that triggers a search for new frameworks of social unity. This, in its turn, prepares the ground for the forthcoming emergence of social antagonism, translated in the impossibility of the political actors achieving their identities, which had been constituted within the Soviet discourse. 2. The discourse of Federation-building, governed by the idea of the regional dissemination of power, in the new Russian state. Within the framework of this process, the positions of the Heads of regional administrations, which become the subject positions employed by the politicians in their tactical struggle, are created. Once occupied, these positions direct the programmes - of retaining the lost identities - towards the strategies of region-based struggle with the antagonists. This conditions

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the emergence of the region-based proposals to reconstruct the national arrangement and economy precisely in terms of this discourse of Federation building, which sets the perspective of institutionalising the social projects of the regional ideologies, in the governed subjects of Federation. The discursive context of the regional ideologies may be presented in the form of the following table:

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Table 2. The regional ideologies, construction of regional discourses and their discursive context
Discursive context The Kubanian regional ideology and the construction of the Kubanian regional discourse Articulation of the original self-identity: a Russian The Muscovite regional ideology and the construction of the Moscow regional discourse Articulation of the original self-identity: a manager Discursive context

The Soviet discourse: Soviet theory of ethnos, the ideas as to the national disposition of the society and the identity - Russian Dislocation (intervention of the non-discursive): The impossibility of reaching the identity of Russian

Articulation of dislocation: The collapse of the national authenticity of the society Naming the enemy: The Zionists Articulation of the strategic struggle: restoring the Russian nation

Articulation of dislocation: The crisis, decay and collapse of the national economy naming the enemy: The failed-reformers Articulation of the strategic struggle: restoring the proper economy Articulation of the subject position occupied in the strategic struggle: the Moscow Mayor Proposal of a tactical struggle: construction of the economic oasis in Moscow

The Soviet discourse: Soviet economic theory, the structure of economic activity and the identity of manager (khozyaystvennik) Dislocation (intervention of the non-discursive): Impossibility of reaching the identity of manager

Russias discourse of Federation building: the ideas of separation of power between the Federal centre and the subjects of Federation and the position of the Head of the regional administration

Articulation of the subject position occupied in the strategic struggle: the Kubanian father Proposal of a tactical struggle: restoring the Russian national authenticity in Kuban and defending this the last redoubt of Russianness Articulation of the nodal point, fixing the tactical struggle: Kuban is the only (proper) Russia Articulation of the subject position offered for occupation in the strategic struggle: The Kubanians, the Kubanian people

Russias discourse of Federation building: the idea of the separation of power between the Federal centre and the subjects of Federation and the position of the Head of a regional administration Constitution of the Moscow regional discourse: Introduction of the system of institutional privileges to the Muscovites and discrimination against the peoplefrom-other-sites: freedom of choosing a place to live, freedom of movement, access to jobs, education and social services.

Constitution of the Kubanian regional discourse: Introduction of the system of institutional privileges to the Kubanians and discrimination towards the people-from-othersites: freedom of choosing a place to live, commercial interactions with real estate

Articulation of the nodal point, fixing the tactical struggle: Moscow is the ideal Russia Articulation of the subject position offered for occupation in the strategic struggle: The Muscovites

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Thus we see how particular responses to the task of re-identification were developed. The given research demonstrates that the emergence of regional ideologies in postSoviet Russia, and their particular character, is defined by the interplay of the individual experience of the ideologues and the institutional context of the new Russian state-building. Due to many circumstances outlined in the previous chapters, these responses did not appear to be satisfactory for the majority in Russia. They did not manage to win the battle to set the new framework for social unity and were defeated by the successful hegemony of the new Russian President and his programme of strong state-building. However, this does not undermine the value of the research. At least we know what we have lost, and in the end - who knows maybe in other circumstances, in other places, at other times, precisely this response will dominate the search for a new identity in a dis-identified society. In this regard, let us conclude our endeavour with the words of Prigogine and Stengers who say:

We know now that societies are immensely complex systems involving a potentially enormous number of bifurcations exemplified by the variety of cultures that have evolved in the relatively short span of human history. We know that such systems are highly sensitive to fluctuations. This leads both to hope and a threat: hope, since even small fluctuations may grow and change the overall structure. As a result, individual activity is not doomed to insignificance. On the other hand, this is also a threat, since in our universe the security of stable, permanent rules seems gone forever. We are living in a dangerous and uncertain world that inspires no blind confidence, but perhaps only the same feeling of qualified hope that some Talmudic texts [the ones mentioned in the preamble of our thesis] appear to have attributed to the God of Genesis.1

Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order out of Chaos. Mans New Dialogue with Nature (London:

Fontana Paperbacks, 1985), p. 313.

274

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gosudarstvennykh finansov i usloviyakh okazaniya finansovoy pomoshchi byudzhetu Krasnodarskogo kraya za schet sredstv federal'nogo byudzheta in Kuban' segodnya (August 4, 1998). Ostanovit' chernyy peredel: Obrashchenie glavy administratsii kraya N.I.Kondratenko k zhitelyam Kubani in Kuban' segodnya, (September 21, 1999). Pochemu ya ne mogu voyti v blok gubernatorov "Yedinstvo": Zayavlenie glavy administratsii Krasnodarskogo kraya N.I.Kondratenko in Kuban' segodnya (September 25, 1999). Privatizatsiya ne samocel, a sredstvo povysheniya blagosostoyaniya grazhdan. Vystuplenie YU.M.Luzhkova na nauchno-prakticheskoy konferentsii Putin, Vladimir, President Vladimir Putin's Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the Kremlin, Moscow, presented on April 3, 2001, available at: http://www.russiaeurope.mid.ru/RussiaEurope/speech7.html (as of October 20, 2003).

292 Putin, Vladimir, The State of Russia: A Way to an Effective State the State of the Nation Address to the Federal Assembly presented on July 8, 2000, available at: http://www.russiaeurope.mid.ru/RussiaEurope/speech6.html (as of October 20, 2003). Putin, Vladimir, Ot pervogo litsa: razgovory s Vladimirom Putinym (Moscow: Vagrius, 2000). Putin, Vladimir, Vladimir Putin: Razgovor s Rossiey: Stenogramma Pryamoy linii s Prezidentom Rossiyskoy Federatsii V.V. Putinym (Moscow: Olma-Politizdat, 2003). Radi protsvetaniya Otechestva: Beseda s gubernatorom Kubani N.I.Kondratenko in Krasnaya zvezda (April 18, 1998). Razrushitel'nye protsessy, k sozhaleniyu, znachitel'no operezhayut prozrenie lyudey: Beseda s glavoy administratsii Krasnodar. kraya N.I.Kondratenko in Kuban' segodnya, (September 17, 1997). Soobshcha ostanovit' katok, pod kotorym pogibnet rossiyskiy tovaroproizvoditel': Beseda s glavoy administratsii Krasnodarskogo kraya N.I.Kondratenko na otkrytii sobraniya Associatsii gorodov yuga Rossii in Krasnodarskie izvestiya (February 21, 1997). Tkachev, Alexander and Beketov, Vladmir, Slavsya otechestvo nashe svobodnoe in Kubanskie novosti (June 11, 2002). Tkachev, Alexander, V budushee Kubani smotryu s optimizmom in Volnaya Kuban (September 11, 2002). Tkachev, Alexander, Vmeste protiv bedy at The Official Web Page of the Administration of Krasnodar kray, available at: http://admkrai.kuban.ru/news/region/2002-03/4125.html (as of August 20, 1993). Uglublenie delovogo sotrudnichestva: Interv'yu gubernatora Kubani in Kubanskie novosti, (November 04, 1997). V odinochku - propadem, vyplyvem tol'ko vmeste: Interv'yu s gubernatorom Kubani N.I.Kondratenko in Kubanskie novosti (January 5, 1997). Vladmirir Putin: Razgovor s Rossiey: Stenogramma Pryamoy linii s Prezidentom Rossiyskoy Federatsii V.V. Putinym (Moscow: Olma-politizdat, 2003. Voloshina, Larisa, Yuriy Luzhkov: Esli uchitelya vovremya ne poluchat zarplatu vsem nam pridetsya uiti in Uchitelskaya gazeta (December 17, 1999). Vypustiv iz ruk neft', gosudarstvo otpustilo ehkonomiku: Beseda s gubernatorom Krasnodar. Kraya N.I.Kondratenko in Kuban' segodnya (September 25, 1999).

293 Vystuplenie glavy administratsii Krasnodarskogo kraya N.I.Kondratenko na vstreche s delegatami uchreditel'noy konferentsii "patrioticheskogo soyuza molodezhi Kubani" 27 fevr. 1998 g. in Selskaya zhizn' (April 14, 1998), 2. Ya razoryu Dorenko! - skazal Yuriy Luzhkov v ehksklyuzivnom intervyu MK komsomolets (November 5, 1999). Yuriy Luzhkov: dvenadtsatiletka shkole ne po rostu in Trud (September 21, 2000). Yuriy Luzhkov: my v osnove svoey gosudarstvenniki in Trud (March 31, 2000). Yuriy Luzhkov: oni ispytyvayut ko mne nenavist in Tribuna (February 29, 2000). Yuriy Luzhkov: pochemu by mne ne druzhit s Putinym? in Komsomolskaya pravda (June 18, 2000). Yuriy Luzhkov: Ya - tolstokozhiy in Moskovskiy Komsomolets (June 11, 1999). Yuriy Luzhkov: ya Putina ne boyus! in Komsomol'skaya pravda (June 8, 2000). Yuriy Luzhkov: davajte smelo glyadet pravde v glaza in Trud (August 20, 1999). Yuriy Luzhkov: nel'zya vnukam peredavat' nashi problemy! in Trud (February 22, 2001). Yuriy Luzhkov: ya gotov na kompromissy in Argumenty i fakty (February 2, 2000). Yuriy Luzhkov:"bezopasnost' grazhdan v Moskve - vopros vzaimnykh deystviy" in Vremya MN (March 14, 2001). Yuriy Luzhkov:u nas net nikakikh ambitsiy in Segodnya (March 13, 2001). Zashchishchat' lyudey perveyshee trebovanie k vlasti: Press-konferentsiya Gubernatora in Moskovskiy

N.I.Kondratenko, pred. kraev. pravitel'stva V.A.Mel'nikova i chlenov pravitel'stva in Kubanskie novosti (January 21, 1999). Zhal', chto ne pridumali katapul'ty dlya neradivykh nachal'nikov: Beseda s gubernatorom Krasnodar. Kraya N.Kondratenko in Kuban' segodnya (October 26, 1999).

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APPENDIX

Map 1. Krasnodar kray

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Map 2. Moscow

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Statistics: Ivan V. Gololobov REGIONAL IDEOLOGIES IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA: IN SEARCH OF A POSTSOVIET IDENTITY A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Government, University of Essex Words: 70. 643 without footnotes 82.530 with footnotes As of August 11, 2004.