Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia From the Bronze Age to the Present (64 page)

Culturally, too, Central Eurasia had been devastated by the long, oppressive rule of the peripheral states, especially those regions which had been, or continued to be, under the rule of the communist empires. The onslaught of radical Modernism had destroyed most of the traditional arts and sciences of the region and failed to provide effective replacements. With the coming of independence or capitalism, the long official suppression of full European Modernism in the arts was ended in much of Central Eurasia. Artistic Modernism thus spread, with almost no traditional cultural establishment to resist it. On the other hand, religious communities rejoiced, and many old churches, mosques, synagogues, and other religious buildings that still existed were repaired and reopened, while in other cases new ones began to be built.

The Beginnings of Eurasian Recovery

The worldwide Cold War between the communist and capitalist camps was won by the capitalists when the Soviet Union finally
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collapsed. The collapse was due partly to internal structural failure and partly to the crushing burden of supporting the increasingly impoverished countries of Central Eurasia while maintaining an enormous military and developing new military technology in order to keep up with the capitalists. When the Soviet Union’s federal republics, led by the tiny Baltic states, began declaring their independence, one by one, in 1990, the federal government attempted to clamp down on them. But after a failed coup in August 1991, still more of the federal republics declared their independence. Finally President Mikhail Gorbachev (b. 1931 [r. 1985–1991]) declared the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on December 21, 1991.
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The constituent federal republics, including those in the Caucasus and Western Central Asia, thus suddenly and quite unexpectedly
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became independent. The Russians also withdrew their military forces from Mongolia and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe that had been under Soviet occupation since the Second World War. However, unfortunately none of the “second-rank” autonomous Soviet republics or other autonomous regions were freed. Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Russians were determined to hold onto these conquests of their imperial czarist and socialist forebears, whatever the consequences. The Russian decision to accept capitalism was at first more theoretical than practical, considering that the government continued to consist almost entirely of former communists who only slowly allowed actual independent businesses to operate legally. With the reopening of China to international trade and investment, however, most of Eurasia had converted to capitalism as an economic system—if not true capitalism—by the end of the century.

The success of Modernism in twentieth-century politics was phenomenal. By 1951 populists
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had succeeded in instituting Modern nonmonarchist governments of one kind or another—ranging from totalitarian fascist or communist dictatorships to liberal “democratic” republics—in nearly all countries in Eurasia. By the end of the twentieth century, populism had completely replaced all other forms of government. Every country in the world (except for a few small, isolated countries) claimed to be a Modern democracy. In fact, none of them were actual democracies, and most were not even republics; they were dictatorships or oligarchies at best. The victory of Modernism was complete.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY OF CHINA

In 1978, only two years after the death of Mao Tse-tung, the Chinese leaders began slowly shifting their desperately poor country back to capitalism. They first allowed a small amount of capitalist investment, mostly by foreign companies using China as a cheap labor farm for manufacturing. The move was successful, in that it was extremely profitable for the foreign investors, as well as for the communist leaders, who suddenly became rich as well as powerful. The Chinese developed a kind of “state capitalism,” which quickly grew into state-supervised full-blown capitalism. The extremely rapid growth of the Chinese economy, as well as Chinese science and technology, allowed the country to move from the ranks of the poor, undeveloped states to one of the world’s leading economies, with a strong space program, within a mere three decades. The future for Chinese economic development looked bright. Unlike the Russians, however, the Chinese did not free any of the Central Eurasian nations they occupied. Instead, they oppressed them more grievously, especially East Turkistan.
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Even worse was the fact that while many Chinese seemed strongly desirous of joining the civilized world, the government leaders were at the same time threatening the independent nations around them, who, they claimed, “belonged” to China. This was the same language used for the countries that the Chinese had already occupied militarily. At the turn of the millennium the failure of the Chinese people to recognize, resist, and overcome their government’s brainwashing did not bode well for the rest of the world.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY OF INDIA

Though little noted, by the end of the twentieth century India was growing economically at almost as rapid a rate as China, at about the same time, and demographically it grew even faster. India’s economic and political presence in the world increasingly became an accepted fact. Unfortunately, the spread of Hindu fundamentalism threatened political stability and the possibility of cultural growth beyond the relatively primitive stage in which much of the countryside still languished. In addition, the growth of Maoist communism in Hindu-dominated Nepal, on the southern Himalayan frontier of Tibetan Central Eurasia, further threatened stability in the region. Nevertheless, India’s rapid economic growth and technical progress ensured that the country would have a major role to play in the world in the new century.

RECOVERY OF RUSSIA

In dissolving the Soviet Union, the Russians divested themselves of their peripheral liabilities but retained the most valuable conquests from czarist imperial times. The most important of these had been Russianized, including the port cities of St. Petersburg
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and adjacent territory on the Baltic Sea; the port of Sochi and the northeast coast of the Black Sea and the north coast of the landlocked Caspian Sea; the Russian Far East, with the port of Vladivostok on the Japan Sea of the Pacific Ocean; and Murmansk on the Barents Sea of the Arctic Ocean.

With the end of the Soviet Union, Russians turned their attention to their devastated economy. The country officially adopted a noncommunist “democratic” political system and with great difficulty, due to the opposition of the mostly communist politicians, very slowly allowed some legal capitalistic economic activity. The promising early beginnings of recovery were crushed when members of the government of President Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007 [r. 1991–1999]) embezzled billions of dollars of foreign aid intended to help stabilize Russia’s currency and fledgling banking system. The result was collapse of the banks, severe inflation of the currency, and inability of the government to pay either its officials or the tens of millions of people still paid by government-owned enterprises. For several years in some areas, especially parts of Siberia and the Far East, many people starved or froze to death in the winter, making the Russian population decrease at the fastest rate in the world.

The country was saved by the continued existence of the unofficial parallel economy, essentially the same as a black market, which as a natural economy had already developed the essentials of capitalism during the communist period. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the new Russian economy was booming, despite persecution of businessmen by the government, damage from widespread organized crime (which was not clearly distinguishable from the government), the spread of ultranationalism (including an increase in racist attacks on Russian Jews, non-Russians, or anyone who did not look sufficiently “Russian”), and the restoration of many Soviet-era political policies and military programs.

REEMERGENCE OF MUCH OF CENTRAL EURASIA

When the non-Russian federal republics became independent, the Caucasus countries of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan became independent along with much of the rest of Soviet Central Eurasia. In what was once the western Pontic Steppe, Ukraina
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became fully independent, but the eastern part of the Pontic Steppe down to the Sea of Azov in the Black Sea, as well as the North Caucasus Steppe down to the Caspian Sea at Astrakhan, remained part of Russia. Some of these regions had by then been largely Russified, but many areas, especially those in the North Caucasus region, including the Mongol-speaking Kalmyk Republic in the North Caucasus Steppe between the lower Volga and the Caucasus, remained culturally non-Russian.

In Central Asia, Kazakhstan, a vast country with a large Russian population, along with Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kirghizstan
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all became independent. These countries were barely able to stay afloat economically, and mostly fell prey to rapacious politicians who kept them poor, weak, and in desperate need of help in every way. Nevertheless, independence gave them hope, and access to the wider world.

The peoples of many non-Russian “autonomous republics” and “autonomous regions” also clamored for independence. The most successful were the Tatars of the former Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the Sakha of the former Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, whose status had already been close to that of the federal republics because they were large and endowed with natural resources, which gave them a strong bargaining edge with the Russians. They acquired a semi-independent status that would have been better for them than full independence, because they did not have to bear the heavy burden of developing a military and some other expensive attributes of a fully independent country and could thus devote their energies to development. However, along with the recovery of Russia’s economy went the restoration of Russian nationalism and political-military imperialism, threatening the Tatar and Sakha peoples’ control over their own resources and endangering their existence as distinctive peoples and cultures.

Others, such as the Chechens of Chechnya, had much less success. The former Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic had been abolished, and the entire native population exiled, in 1944; they had been “reinstated” only in 1956–1957. When their neighbors in the Caucasus became independent, the Chechens sought full independence too. After an initial conflict with Russia, the Chechens signed a treaty that promised them independence after five years. Instead, the Russians invaded the little country, initiating a long, bloody, highly destructive war that killed many Chechens and destroyed much of Chechnya, while Chechens killed many Russian soldiers and civilians.
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Although Mongolia was already formally independent, as a Soviet ally and satellite the country had long been occupied by Soviet troops. Its continued poverty and backwardness, as well as the danger posed by China—which continued to threaten Mongolia—kept its relationship with Russia very close.

THE EUROPEAN UNION

One of the most remarkable developments of this period is the formation and rapid growth of the European Union.
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When Soviet power collapsed, the countries that had been occupied by the Soviet military became fully independent again. East Germany was rejoined to West Germany, one of the founding European Union members, on October 3, 1990.
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Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, and Malta were admitted in 2004,
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followed in 2007 by Romania and Bulgaria. The European Union thus included nearly all European states west of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraina. Even without a true central government the European Union became a major political power in the world. Despite setbacks caused mainly by the demagoguery or greed of populist politicians, the European Union continued to grow in influence and prosperity.

THE CONTINUED WEAKNESS OF CENTRAL EURASIA

While many Central Eurasian countries had regained their political independence, and set out to restore their cultural independence as well, the extreme poverty in the entire region, coupled with the long Soviet legacy, conspired to establish repressive dictatorships—all of which claimed to be democratic republics—throughout the area. Only slowly did some of these states overcome this political legacy and become less repressive and more open.

East Turkistan and Tibet, especially, suffered from repression, since they remained under Chinese military occupation. The nationalists in both countries were crushed whenever and wherever they were discovered by the Chinese. The rapid growth and prosperity seen in much of China was largely missing in East Turkistan and Tibet except among the aggressive, nationalistic Chinese colonists there.

Despite the appearance around the world of secularly oriented commercial trading blocs, no such union developed in Central Eurasia. In 2007 it still did not seem likely that one would develop soon, due to the continuing instability of Afghanistan caused by fanatic fundamentalists (primarily the Taliban and their allies), the establishment of repressive pseudo-capitalist or crypto-communist regimes in Russia and the other former Soviet states, and the continuing Chinese military occupation of East Turkistan and Tibet. Consequently, Central Eurasia as a whole remained characterized by continued weakness, poverty, lack of economic and cultural development, and political repression.