MOSCOW. (Sergei Markedonov for RIA Novosti) - On July 27, Transdnestr celebrated the 15th anniversary of the arrival of a peacekeeping force in this troubled corner of the post-Soviet space.
Unfortunately, today's approaches to examining the present state of and future prospects for this republic show the absolute inadequacy of the major world players.
In Russia, Transdnestr is seen as a matter of domestic policy. After 1991, many politicians and experts in Russia viewed Transdnestr as a sort of socialist paradise lost to the rest of the former Soviet Union, a desirable utopia for Communists and an alternative to Gaidar-type privatization.
Unfortunately, this image, cultivated in the newspapers Zavtra and Sovetskaya Rossiya, was readily and successfully exploited by Chisinau and then "brought to the notice" of Brussels and Washington. In Europe and the United States, any movement that advocated the fall of the U.S.S.R. was automatically considered democratic. Since it was Moldova that came out against the Soviet Union in 1989-1991, and Transdnestr that supported the central authorities, Chisinau, rather than Tiraspol, was branded "democratic". Hence the choice of a pattern for settlement by which Chisinau is to play the key role, while Tiraspol is forced to accept a secondary role, agreeing to whatever its wise advisers tell it to do.
Meanwhile, to debunk myths about Transdnestr, you need only to make a couple of trips to the region and regularly read publications on the subject.
The first myth concerns Transdnestr as a "Communist preserve". Yet neither the local presidential administration nor its parliament has any Communists in them. Two local Communist parties are in opposition. In "democratic" Moldova, by comparison, Communists make up the ruling majority in parliament, and Communist leader Vladimir Voronin has been elected president of this "rapidly Europeanizing country". It might also be added that his predecessor was Petru Lucinschi, a former first secretary of the Communist Party of Moldova.
To understand the "Communist" and "Soviet" nature of the Transdnestrian movement it is necessary to recall the conditions that attended its birth. The separatist movement sprang up in 1989 in response to Moldova's official decision to Latinize the Moldovan language, proclaim it Romanian, renounce the use of Russian as a state language, and change state symbols. The movement was no more "Soviet" than any other in the former U.S.S.R. Romanization of Soviet Moldova was a utopia from the very start. The breakup of the U.S.S.R. revealed that newly ascendant ethnic elites gave up the Soviet past but did not mind using such Soviet heritage as artificial borders drawn up by Moscow, and the territories it carved up.
In this sense, the only "Soviet" aspect of the movement was an appeal to central authorities to help them not to become a dispossessed and non-indigenous nation. Set up as opposition organizations, strike committees on the left bank of the Dniester, then the United Council of Working Collectives and later the authorities of the unrecognized republic resisted the attempts by party committees to suppress ground-roots activity.
Igor Smirnov, the current leader of Transdnestr, is no Liberal. He believes in a state-directed economy and has little faith in the benefits of a multi party system. But if Europe showed more understanding in dealing with Transdnestr, new leaders with wider perspectives on democracy and the liberal market could appear on the left bank. Tiraspol takes care to emphasize that in the conflict with Moldova in 1992, ethnic Moldovans defended, and died defending, Transdnestr.
An equally dangerous myth is the view of Transdnestr as nothing more than a Russian vassal. Today, Tiraspol genuinely links its hopes for the future with Russia. Smirnov's flirtations with Ukraine in the spring and summer of 1991 are now well forgotten. At that time, many on the left bank of the Dniester hoped for a separation from Moldova with Kiev's help. Probably afraid of setting a precedent for its Crimean and Donbass provinces, Ukraine decided against restoring the former "Moldovan ASSR". This made a pro-Russian orientation the only viable option for Tiraspol. Nevertheless, it is enough to recall conflicts between the republic's leadership and the commanders of the Russian 14th army - Yuri Netkachev, Alexander Lebed, Valeri Yevnevich, and sharp words spoken by Transdnestrian leaders against Russian politicians, to understand that Smirnov is not a Kremlin-appointed governor.
Myths about Transdnestr could fill a book. But the main problem is not so much the debunking of Russian and European dogmas. Political conflicts on former Soviet territory should be addressed in a new way, discarding the obsolete "Communist-anti-Communist" dichotomy. For how much longer can any Russian initiative be seen as "imperial re-integration", and any show of pro-Russian sympathy as a "rebirth of Communism" and "totalitarianism"? In settling conflicts one should be guided by compromise, rather than playing "for one team" and giving priority to the "most democratic" one.
Sergei Markedonov is the head of the inter-ethnic relations section at the Institute for Political and Military Analysis.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
