THE CENTRALIZING RUSSIAN STATE MEETS THE NORTH

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 004316

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/21/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL PBTS RS
SUBJECT: THE CENTRALIZING RUSSIAN STATE MEETS THE NORTH
CAUCASUS

Classified By: Minister Counselor for Political Affairs Kirk Augustine.
Reason 1.4 (b, d)


1. (C) Summary: The lesson of 500 years of Russian
statecraft is clear: when the Center is strong, it
centralizes, eliminating alternative power structures.
Putin, seeking to show that he -- and Russia under his
leadership -- are strong, is seeking to centralize. He is
doing so by eliminating ethnically based autonomies, starting
with those that have caused no problems for the Center. The
net effect is to give Slavs more control over former ethnic
homelands. While some ethnic homelands have disappeared in
Siberia, the strategy has run into resistance in the already
troubled North Caucasus. Adyge President Sovmen resigned
April 14 rather than preside over the incorporation of his
Republic into the surrounding Krasnodar Kray. He drew
support from the other Adygh peoples, including the
Kabardians and Cherkess and their large overseas diaspora.
Strong ethnic nationalism in the Caucasus, the legacy of
Soviet nationality policies, and the realization that Moscow
was unswayed by local concerns promoted an upsurge of
resentment and unrest throughout the region, already
suffering from the rapid growth of religious extremism.
Faced with this prospect, the Kremlin backed down April 17 --
for now. End Summary.

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Who are the Adyghs?
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2. (C) Adyghs are the indigenous population of the Northwest
Caucasus. Sub-groups include the Kabardians, Cherkess,
Shapsugs and Ubykh. The Abkhaz, further south, are cousins.
The Adyghs were long linked to the great Middle Eastern
empires -- Adygh boys became Mamluk Sultans in the 14th and
15th centuries, and the Adyghs were nominally under Ottoman
patronage until the Treaty of Kuchuk Kaynarja in 1774. The
Russian conquests of the 19th century led to mass migrations
of a majority of Adyghs to the Ottoman empire. Adygh
("Cherkess" or "Circassian") communities are significant
today in Turkey, Jordan, Syria and Paterson, New Jersey.


3. (C) Descendants of those who remained in Russia are
scattered through the North Caucasus, and are a majority only
in Kabardino-Balkaria. The Cherkess are a titular, but
minority, nationality in Karachayevo-Cherkessia. The
Shapsugs of the Black Sea coast were unsuccessful in
obtaining a titular homeland in their native area, near
Sochi. The Republic of Adygea was created in 1991 as a
titular homeland for Adyghs, carved out of the Krasnodar Kray
that completely surrounds it. Though Adyghs make up only 20
percent of the population, legal guarantees give control of
the political system to Adyghs, including Shapsugs who moved
in.

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The April Events
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4. (C) For three years, the Kremlin has been promoting the
"amalgamation" ("ukrupneniye") of regions. Several Siberian
ethnic homelands have been incorporated into neighboring
regions, starting with the incorporation of Komi into Perm
three years ago. The first attempt to implement this policy
in the North Caucasus ran into resistance. On April 4 Adyge
President Khazrat Sovmen publicly denounced plans to hold a
referendum on re-incorporating Adyge into Krasnodar -- a
referendum that would easily carry on the votes of the
majority Slavic population. Two days later demonstrators
poured into the streets of Maykop, Adyge's capital, in
support of Sovmen. Joining the demonstration was the Adyge
Khase, a Shapsug nationalist organization -- Sovmen is
himself a Shapsug. Sovmen gave interviews blaming the crisis
on Putin's Plenipotentiary Representative in the Southern
Federal District, Dmitriy Kozak. After several days of
jockeying and an April 11 meeting between Sovmen and
Presidential Administration chief Sobyanin -- with Kozak
present -- Sovmen on April 14 submitted his resignation to
President Putin, leaving in charge Dr. Murat Kudayev, head of
one of the Republic's sub-districts.

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Dire Warnings
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5. (C) The prospective swallowing of this small ethnic
homeland by a larger Slavic entity sent shock waves through
the North Caucasus. Small nations there have kept their
identities for thousands of years, despite invasions by
Indo-European and Turkic peoples, by retreating to the
region's mountains and forests and developing tightly-knit

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societies, extraordinary toughness and languages no outsider
can pronounce. Locals feared this was only the first step.
The shock waves first hit the other Adygh enclaves,
Karachayevo-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria, whose Adygh
populations participated in the Maykop protests. Kabardians,
especially, are quick to defend their co-ethnics -- they sent
hundreds of fighters to Abkhazia in the early 1990s; today's
Abkhaz "Defense Minister," Sosnaliyev, is a Kabardian.


6. (C) The concerns were shared in the rest of the North
Caucasus, where disputes over territory claim lives to this
day. No one considers current territorial boundaries
optimal, but all fear that attempts to change them could be
pulling the thread that unravels the whole cloth. As
Makhachkala Duma Deputy Gadzhi Makhachev (an Avar) told us,
"What are they going to do? Unite us with Chechnya? Unite
Chechnya with Stavropol? It will all end in blood."
Makhachev himself was involved in a dispute several years ago
with Chechen warlord Sulim Yamadayev, who drove ethnic Avars
out of their homes in north-east Chechnya; Makhachev fears
that attempts to change the boundaries will mask similar
land-grabs.


7. (C) Many Moscow commentators were mystified by Putin's
insistence on this course of action. Even Russian
nationalist commentator Sergey Markedonov -- who is
virulently opposed to "ethno-territorial formations" and the
"exceptionalism" granted to the Chechens and other satraps in
the Caucasus -- told us he regarded the tactics as
heavy-handed and likely to lead to destabilization. He would
have favored a demand that the Russian constitution apply in
Adygea -- meaning that the special privileges given to Adyghs
would be abolished by administrative action, allowing the 70
percent Slavic majority to dominate without changing
administrative structures. Markedonov challenged the
strategy, as well, in a recent publication, asking, "Why is
"amalgamation" viewed as tantamount to saving the country
from collapse, and equated with the strengthening of the
state?"

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The Climb-Down
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8. (C) Faced with such prospects, this week the Kremlin
climbed down. On April 17 Putin met with Sovmen, and on the
18th a brief announcement reversed Sovmen's resignation. On
April 20 Kozak met in Rostov with the Speaker of Adyge's
People's Assembly, Ruslan Khadzhibiyekov. In remarks
afterward he acknowledged that Sovmen would serve out his
term, but "we will correct him" if his initiatives go too
far. Asked about the referendum on unification, Kozak
back-pedaled fast: it was a local concern, he said, not a
federal question at all. The Speaker, however, was strident.
Unification? "Don't you believe it. Not today, not
tomorrow, not in the future."


9. (C) It is unclear whether the climb-down is permanent. An
official of the Presidential Administration, Aleksandr
Machevskiy, reminded us April 21 that Sovmen's current term
is up in a year. After that, he predicted, the referendum
would be held and the Slavic population would vote for
unification with Krasnodar. He believed that Putin could
calm regional fears by declaring that this would be the only
such unification in the North Caucasus. Indeed, Machevskiy
said, no other amalgamation would be possible in the region.

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Comment
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10. (C) In our view, Markedonov put his finger on the
ideological mindset that sees "amalgamation" as the solution
to seemingly unrelated problems. To an American observer
watching the rapid and unchecked spread of jihadist Islam in
the North Caucasus, the Kremlin's insistence on making
administrative changes that reduce the number of local
governments without changing governance itself looks like
rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic -- or worse, since
the move will predictably fan local resentment of Russians
and exacerbate other inter-ethnic problems. To Putin,
however, the prominence of autonomies may have been a
reminder of Russia's weakness in the Yeltsin era. As one
bible-quoting Russian official told us, "There is a time for
casting away stones and a time for gathering stones together;
now is the time for gathering stones."


11. (C) In gathering together the stones of the Caucasus
Mountains, however, Putin is also trying to reverse the
effects of 70 years of Soviet nationalities policy. After
initial failures (the Soviet "Mountain Republic," including

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all the North Caucasus except Dagestan, broke up after only
six months),the Soviets developed a policy of giving
"titular" nationalities their own homelands. The policy of
"korenizatsiya" meant that the "root" ("koren") population of
any territory received special rights to dominate that
homeland. That legacy has become so deeply rooted in the
already nationalist local cultures that an attempt to abolish
those privileges is perceived as Russification and cultural
genocide -- and evokes bitter memories of repeated wars,
exiles and deportations. It is that legacy, rather than a
calming Presidential statement, which is likely to dominate
regional emotions. But Putin appears to be following the
book of Russian statecraft and the 500 year-old dream --
never quite realized -- of a unitary Russian state.
BURNS