POST-SOVIET RUSSIA

The U.S.S.R. legally ceased to exist on Dec. 31, 1991. Russia and 10 other former Soviet republics, having declared themselves independent, had founded the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on Dec. 21, 1991, with Minsk as its capital. This new loosely structured grouping is not a state entity, although technically the former Soviet armed forces are CIS forces. Control of these forces immediately came under dispute, especially between Russia and Ukraine. Russia retained the Soviet Union's nuclear superpower status, and, at independence, it controlled the largest conventional forces in the world. All Soviet embassies and consulates became Russian embassies and consulates. Russia also took over the Soviet Union's permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Russia dominates the successor states, which, to one degree or another, harbour historically founded suspicions of Russia's imperialist ambitions.

The new state, called the Russian Federation, set off on the road to democracy and a market economy without any clear conception of how to complete such a transformation in the world's largest country. Like most of the other former republics, it entered independence in a state of serious disorder and economic chaos. Russia was forced to seek aid from Western countries, and, when conditions did not improve, Yeltsin came under criticism.

The country emerged with formidable ethnic problems owing to the fact that it had formed an empire before 1917 and many of the autonomous ethnic regions that were part of the empire no longer wished to be under Russian hegemony. The Russian Orthodox church has reestablished itself as a force in the moral guidance of reborn Russia, but there are many other religions among the minority groups, particularly Isl am, which are becoming strong again after decades of Soviet repression. There has been a decentralizing flow of power to the periphery of Russia that accelerated after the union's breakup. In the early 1990s it became clear that Russia would have difficulty ruling its numerous ethnic minorities as many of them sought to take advantage of the new political freedoms of the era. Tatarstan and Chechnia (Chechnya) proved particularly difficult to accommodate, and, in the former case, Moscow conceded an advantageous treaty that afforded the republic considerable economic and political autonomy. Chechnia declared independence from Russia in November 1991, and fighting broke out between it and Russia in the autumn of 1994.

After the attempted coup in August 1991, Yeltsin had failed to move quickly to draft a new constitution that would confirm his presidential power. He also left in place the old Supreme Soviet, and the power struggle between them escalated until Yeltsin dissolved the parliament in September 1993. This led to armed conflict on October 3-4 and ended with Yeltsin's troops storming the parliament building. Fresh elections were held December 12, and a new constitution was approved that same day. The constitution--authored by Yeltsin--is based on the French model and hence confers great powers on the president. A new legislative structure was established, but Russian discontent was evident in mixed election results: the Liberal Democrats, led by the dynamic and erratic Vladimir Zhirinovsky; the Communists; and the Agrarian Party (rural Communists) formed the parliament's majority and subsequently rejected the rapid transition to a market economy favoured by First Deputy Premier Yegor Gaidar, of the coalition party Russia's Choice. Conservative Russian nationalism became influential in the new government. Yeltsin tried to come to an agreement with the State Duma (the lower house) but found this difficult. By the mid-1990s Russia dominated the CIS economically and militarily and referred to the former republics as the "near abroad." Considerable friction with Ukraine, which is economically dependent on Russia, continued, while Belarus (formerly Belorussia) entered into close economic union with Russia. Economically Russia followed the advice of the International Monetary Fund in order to secure Western funding. About three-fourths of Russia's enterprises had been privatized by the mid-1990s.