What is the "post-Soviet area"? At first sight, the answer to this question may seem obvious and the question itself, abstract theorizing. This phrase has become a convenient political and geographical definition, used in Russia, the CIS and Baltic countries and sometimes in the West, to describe the former Soviet republics.
But the phenomenon of the "post-Soviet area" cannot be limited to geography or politics. The determination of the borders of this "area" cannot explain its political essence or the meaning of its existence.
The "post-Soviet area" is not just an institutional but also a social, cultural, ideological and political area of the former Soviet republics. But it is not a mathematical constant, a quantity that does not change. It will exist until the inertia of the previous, Soviet, period runs out. In reality, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its present form and the political development of the "post-Soviet area" have become the last stage, an epilogue, of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
It has become good taste in Russian journalism to compare integration processes in the CIS and in the countries of Europe and Asia. But the trouble is that integration European, or British, style was not limited ideologically or politically to the affirmation of the system that developed after the collapse of the dominant European power of the 1930s and 1940s, Nazi Germany, or the dissolution of the British Empire. These integration projects did not entail a simple statement of the facts, but a constructive, political and ideological integration project, with common rules for every participant. Nothing of the kind has been offered in the "post-Soviet area" since 1991.
The integration processes that developed in the former Soviet republics after 1991disregarded the main thing - reasons for the dissolution of the union state. This explains the refusal to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the destruction of the "indestructible Union" and the community of the "Soviet people" and its consequences, as well as to find fundamentally new non-Soviet principles of uniting the newly independent states.
Since no other integration project was offered, the countries of the "post-Soviet area" began their own search for self-identity and forms of involvement in other integration projects.
The Baltic countries have withdrawn from the "post-Soviet area" completely, and the elite groups in Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan link the future of their countries to Europe and the U.S. Moreover, European integration seems inevitable also in Ukraine.
The countries of Central Asia (with the exception of Tajikistan, which is in the throes of a civil conflict) are implementing the Asian type of a "catch-up development" model, which means the introduction of market institutions in an authoritarian secular state.
So, the principle of connection with the Soviet Union as the basis for the common area is no longer working. In reality, the "post-Soviet area" is becoming an increasingly shrinking piece of leather.
Anyway, the dissolution of the "post-Soviet area" as a politically and ideologically vague substance is unavoidable and imminent. The only question is when, how and how fast it will fall apart.
In this situation, Russia should develop relations with the former Soviet republics proceeding from its national interests and egoism. Solidarity must not allow the leader of Turkmenistan to infringe on the rights of ethnic Russians, Ukraine to steal Russian gas, and Belarus to persecute Russian journalists. And Russia's geopolitical interests in the North Caucasus call for a showdown with Georgia.
At the same time, Russia should not just flex its military muscle, which is unavoidable in some cases, but also become an attractive economic partner, a military-political guarantor, and an intellectual center.
- The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not represent the opinions of the editorial board.
