TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=91TT2763> <title> Dec. 09, 1991: Soviet Union:Final Dissolution </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991 Dec. 09, 1991 One Nation, Under God </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> WORLD, Page 34 SOVIET UNION Final Dissolution </hdr> <body> Ukraine's independence and Bush's decision to recognize it may touch off the ultimate splintering--but into how many new fragments? By George J. Church--Reported by James Carney/Kiev, Sinting Lai/New York and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington Top-heavy with significance, the referendum was almost devoid of suspense--so much so that President Bush provided the main surprise by acknowledging its expected outcome in advance. As Ukrainians trooped to the voting booths on Sunday, polls predicted that anywhere from 65% to 85% would choose to make Ukraine an independent nation--and Bush leaked word that the U.S. would recognize it as such. The import of the vote went beyond the imminent creation of the fifth most populous country in Europe--52 million people, slightly fewer than in France. More broadly, the ballot seems likely to trigger the final dissolution of the Soviet Union. The possibilities for a replacement run from a new Russian empire absorbing the 10 other, non-Ukrainian republics to a score or more of squabbling sovereignties, if a Ukrainian breakaway inspires secessionist movements not just by but within the remaining republics. Various recombinations, like a federation of the five Central Asian republics, could also emerge. One outcome, though, seems impossible: the resurrection as a true central authority of the Kremlin government, headed by Mikhail Gorbachev, that still calls itself the Soviet Union. Even now it is only a shell that some diplomats assert fails the test for diplomatic recognition--it does not control the territory it claims. Last week the central bank ran out of cash; starting this week the Gorbachev government may be unable to pay its employees, including the more than 3 million members of the military. If that does not finish off the flimsy creature, Ukrainian independence may. "Russia can do without Ukraine, Ukraine can do without Russia," says a State Department official. "But the Soviet Union can't do without Ukraine. It's over!" Which brings the U.S. and other Western governments up against a task they had hoped to avoid: how to deal with a plethora of former Soviet states instead of just one. Washington and other capitals have so far focused on encouraging the republics to preserve, or reconstitute, some kind of central government. Now they must think about a policy toward Kiev--and other emerging centers of authority--on such matters as distribution of aid, repayment of the U.S.S.R.'s foreign debt and control of nuclear weapons. The START treaty calls for destruction of some of the nuclear arms on Ukrainian soil, which can no longer simply be ordered by the Kremlin, and Ukrainian officials have demanded a say-so. At the same time, the West must strive to encourage a peaceful and democratic transition to whatever replaces the old union, lest the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. be accomplished in part by civil wars. "Imagine Yugoslavia with nuclear weapons" is the new catch phrase. It is a task the West has only begun--and haltingly so. As recently as Aug. 1, when he was in Kiev, Bush warned Ukrainians against "suicidal nationalism." Then last week the White House leaked word that the President was prepared to grant "expeditious" recognition of Ukraine as a separate nation. Meaning when? "Longer than two weeks, shorter than six months," said one official. Best guess: one or two months, depending on how convincingly the Ukrainians pledge to respect human rights; to carry out a share of treaty obligations incurred by the old Soviet Union, including the destruction of nukes; and to fulfill other conditions laid down by Washington to achieve what the State Department calls "earned recognition" of independence. Nonetheless, the reports brought an expression of pain from Gorbachev, who complained--perhaps rightly so--that the shift in U.S. policy was premature. It certainly came at a particularly awkward moment for the Soviet President, who had already been rebuffed last week on his latest efforts to shore up the union. British officials charged that Washington had made public a significant change without any attempt to coordinate policy with friends and allies. But Bush's lieutenants were more concerned that some of those allies, notably Germany and Canada, might hurry to recognize Ukraine and make Bush seem to be following the pack rather than exercising leadership. However clumsily the U.S. move was handled, Western recognition of Ukraine seems inevitable; at this point, probably only war could keep the republic in any kind of union. The chances of preserving a union-wide central government dwindle almost daily. Last week leaders of seven of the remaining republics were to initial a treaty setting up a new political association, the "Union of Sovereign States," so loose that it would have no constitution. Nonetheless, Gorbachev had to confess that at the last minute the republics' leaders balked, at least until their parliaments ratified the treaty--which could take months, years, or forever. Meanwhile, the institutions still maintained by the central government are falling apart. Ethnic tensions have sparked secessionist movements inside as well as between republics. Says Michael Mandelbaum, director of East-West studies at the Council on Foreign Relations: "If you did a map showing all these conflicts, it would have to be 5 yds. long." In the southern part of the Russian Federation alone, Chechens, Bashkirs, Tatars and Cossacks have been making noises about more autonomy, if not full independence. There are secessionist movements in Yakutia in the Far East, in South Ossetia in the Georgian republic and among ethnic Russians in the Moldavian republic--and elsewhere. Some secessionists are prompted by economic desperation as much as ethnic resentment and possibly could reverse course if a recovery got under way. One hopeful sign is that inside the Russian Federation, President Boris Yeltsin has at last decreed the kind of reforms that nearly all specialists have identified as essential: freedom for prices to find their own level, and a rapid conversion of most agricultural and industrial property from state to private ownership. Unfortunately, there is also the strong possibility of a vicious circle in which republics and even smaller units would try misguidedly to wall off their economies from the general chaos. Such actions would intensify shortages and inflation, and those troubles in turn would give another boost to secession. Though 10 republics, including Ukraine, have initialed a treaty of economic cooperation, it is far from certain that they will agree on the detailed arrangements needed to put it into effect. Some Ukrainian politicians have assailed the accord on the ground that any kind of coordination with Russia would involve submitting to Russian domination. The resulting split-ups may not stay peaceful either. Georgia and Azerbaijan have issued decrees "nationalizing" all military property on their soil. In response, the Soviet Interior and Defense ministries have pledged that the army will shoot if necessary to repel attempts to seize military property. What can or should the West do to smooth the transition? It does not have a great deal of leverage. Still, U.S. experts think even simple preaching does some good; they have been surprised by how much importance the republics' leaders attach to American opinion. "We have a kind of moral authority," says a State Department official, "and we need to use that." One obvious necessity is to expand contacts with the republics instead of continuing to talk mostly with the Kremlin. A start has been made: the seven major industrial powers last month agreed to a suspension of repayments of principal on Moscow's foreign debt for the next year and negotiated the accord with the republics rather than with Gorbachev's vanishing center. The U.S. embassy in Moscow has started a "circuit rider" program, sending junior diplomats to the republics to contact local leaders, listen to their problems and explain U.S. policy. Economic aid will have to be expanded, in the hope of helping the republics weather what threatens to be a winter of food and fuel shortages. Bush is moving in that direction; last month he announced an additional $1.5 billion in food aid, bringing the total pledged since January to $4 billion. That is still minor compared with the efforts of some European countries; Germany alone puts its total aid to the U.S.S.R. at $40 billion. Congress nonetheless grumbles about feeding Russians while Americans go hungry during the recession, and there is a real possibility that the aid might be wasted or stolen. Private relief efforts, which are burgeoning rapidly, may point to one way around that trouble. The Russian Winter Campaign, a project coordinated in the West by the nonprofit International Foreign Policy Association, plans to airlift 300 tons of medical supplies into Moscow on Dec. 16 and similar quantities in each of the next five months. "We're not giving any goods over to any Soviet relief agency," says I.F.P.A. president Jim Garrison. Americans pick out the hospitals to be helped and physically deliver the supplies. In general, critics of Bush and, to a lesser extent, other Western leaders fault them less for their specific acts than for a general timidity and lack of imagination in appreciating that the old policy of propping up Gorbachev and the central government will no longer work, as well as in devising a new one to replace it. That cannot be delayed; chaos is not the only possible calamitous result of the Soviet turmoil. There is a frightening possibility that hunger and cold could bring to power a fascist government in Russia that would seek to reunite the old union by force, under the pretext of protecting Russian minorities in Ukraine and neighboring republics. The world is well rid of the Soviet Union's old communist totalitarianism, but that could all too easily be replaced by a new authoritarianism--or chaos--almost as threatening. </body> </article> </text>