After negotiations in Moscow between the administrations of the presidents of the Russian Federation and Tatarstan, a non-binding agreement was signed about mutual relations that served as a pressure valve, that is, for comforting the Tatar people and for keeping the colonial status of Tatarstan.
In March of 1993, at the invitation of the All-Tatar Public Center, I participated in the congress of this organization. To do so I had to write an appeal to my investigator asking for permission to go to Kazan, because I was still under a written court order not to leave Moscow. Shkarin was happy about this turn of events, because after I had refused to take part in the investigation, I had completely ignored him and refused to sign any papers.
Unfortunately, I soon found out that many people in Kazan were still strongly under the influence of their Communist leaders, who had only one enemy – President Boris Yeltsin, who they felt had to be defeated at any cost. Early in 1991, it was Yeltsin who had offered the Tatars as much independence “as they could swallow”. I am certain that as a natural politician, Boris Yeltsin knew that the Russian Empire was an unstable form of governing colonies, and that it had become obsolete, both economically and politically. So a new federal system was necessary that would take into consideration the colonized peoples’ hunger for independence. It’s not surprising that after such a suggestion, President Mintimer Shaimiev[156], [157], [158] of Tatarstan, viceroy of the Russian Empire, and the former First Secretary of the Regional Committee of the C.P.S.U., zealously participated in the Bolshevik coup in August of 1991. The Tatar people, led by their usual short-sighted and naive activists-idealists, saved the unlucky coup supporter from becoming a cellmate of Vladimir Kryuchkov (chief of the KGB), the U.S.S.R. Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, and others in the infamous Matrosskaya Tishina Prison.
What elements of freedom offered by Boris Yeltsin did the ruling elite in Kazan make use of? Perhaps it was only the “market” possibility – to use the wealth and resources of the Republic of Tatarstan without any control and to secure permanent places at the top for themselves, trampling on what remained of the system of democratic elections. As for the rest, they didn’t even bother to change the names of the streets and the cities which still bear the names of the Bolshevik butchers. Lenin’s beloved bronze scarecrow is still displayed in the center of Kazan. It was Mr. Shaimiev, President of Tatarstan, who instructed the people’s deputies from Tatarstan like Renat Mukhamadiev to form a bloc in the Supreme Soviet of Russia with extremists like Vladimir Rutskoi, Ruslan Khasbulatov, and Sergei Baburin, inveterate enemies of the democratic development in Russia. In my speech I reminded my audience about this fact, and my appeal to the congress was welcomed with long applause.
After that, I had to calm down a nervous BBC correspondent for a long time, who was asking if I wasn’t afraid that Tatar nationalists and separatists would use my authority for bad purposes. I replied that I know my people very well. Tatars distinguish themselves as hard working people. No matter where they settle, they start by building a house and a banya (bath house), but they never buy weapons, even if someone threatens their lives. However, this doesn’t mean that Tatars are cowardly. Tatars are among the first of the peoples of the U.S.S.R., who hold the greatest number of the highest award for heroism in the Second World War – the title of “Hero of the Soviet Union”. I also said I was certain that after the Tatar people became truly independent, they would live in real friendship with the Russian people.
Less than two years later, a new Russian-Chechen war broke out.
I deeply condemn any war, since I think that no wars are waged to achieve noble goals – not liberation wars, and not wars waged to bring “civilization” to people. I am against solving any problems with the help of military force, no matter whose initiative it is, because in the end innocent people die, although nobody ever asks for their opinions. For this reason, I can’t imagine, even theoretically, my people fighting the Russian people. Both peoples are still in a state of poverty and slavery, and they can’t be liberated from these problems on their own, because civilized peoples have left them far behind. Any possible conflict will only drag them backwards, which in turn will lead to their natural wasting away. Finally they will just disappear from the historical scene as has happened to many other nations…
However, when the Chechen Republic claimed independence, the behavior of the democratic public and press changed drastically! Long before the armed conflict, nobody ever thought to censure the separatist demarche of General D. Dudaev. Such “tolerance” by itself probably wasn’t that bad, because it said something about the maturation of the democratic outlook of our society. Now I am convinced that the statement of the Chechen leader was a concentrated expression of protest of a colonial people of the Russian Empire against keeping their colonial status at the end of the 20th century, but it took on the form of extremism. However, nobody in the press or in the Supreme Soviet thought to speak out against the colonial nature of Russia, nobody supported its quick decolonization, and nobody suggested that negotiations with all the colonies should be started.
Then almost everybody started struggling against the Russian-Chechen war, but on the side of Dudaev. There were even some “democrats” who were sitting in the besieged palace of the rebel general, when fire from there was killing young Russian soldiers. Everybody extracted political dividends from this struggle, even the Communists, many of whom had clearly Fascist views about the non-Russian population.
For some reason, I think that most of those who censure this senseless war of annihilation are sincere, but I can’t understand why people have a double standard regarding different peoples. It looks like the Tatar people are the enemy, even if they conduct a peaceful referendum. They asked “How did they dare to do this while they oppressed us for more than 400 years?” However, from the point of view of democrats, “our” nation, which irresponsible politicians have involved in armed escapades is right and should be defended.
I am greatly sorry, but there is nothing else I can do except contemplate the source of such a double standard. I suppose the phenomenon of a defective slave mentality that subconsciously sanctions the creation of a common enemy – the Tatar – is responsible. Another point is that the Russian Nation, which agreed to relinquish control over “Kiev Russia” in the form of Ukraine, doesn’t want to understand that Kazan, that is Tatarstan, has exactly the same rights to be the master in its own republic as the Russians do in Moscow. So far the concept of equality doesn’t go any further than allowing a Tatar surgeon to operate on the Russian president’s heart and to providing the Black Sea Fleet with oil. I don’t think it is just by chance that during the past 400 years not a single Tatar has ever been Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs or has held any other important position for Russia affairs. At the same time many Jews, Ukrainians, and representatives of other nations have held these positions. Doesn’t it mean that Russians do not have a more bitter enemy than the Tatar?
157
Celestine Bohlen, “Regions Wary as Putin Tightens Control”,