Back in 1991, the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States placed the final nail in the Soviet Union’s coffin. Since then, the CIS itself has proven mostly moribund, falling far short of fulfilling the aims outlined in its 1993 charter.
The results of the recent CIS summit in Turkmenistan marking the 35th anniversary of its formation offered more of the same, featuring lots of empty rhetoric about the organization’s relevance and happy talk about its future. Russian leader Vladimir Putin was perhaps the CIS’ biggest cheerleader at the conclave, held at the Avaza resort on the Caspian seashore.
At odds with the organization’s lengthy record of inactivity and dysfunction, Putin’s pumped up the CIS for “having come a long way, establishing itself as an influential regional integration association.”
Economically speaking, there is little justification for keeping the CIS around. But Putin has a very good reason to keep it alive. Despite its shortcomings, the CIS is a regional vehicle that the Kremlin can use to combat the erosion of Russia’s cultural and historical legacy in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
Underlying Putin’s speech at Avaza was a fear that Russia’s is losing its cultural grip over its erstwhile empire. He noted the CIS had enabled member states to “preserve, and in many areas even broaden … social, cultural and humanitarian ties our peoples forged over centuries of living together within a single state.”
He also cast the Russian language as “a powerful unifying force throughout the vast space of the CIS.” He went on to mention a Kremlin initiative launched this year to “preserve the common Russian-language cultural and humanitarian legacy, and to promote and popularize Russian.”
The Russian language is under growing pressure across Central Asia. It remains the primary means of interstate communication for business and diplomacy, but English is gaining ground. The same holds for a growing number of young people in major cities in the region, including Almaty, Astana, and Tashkent, who seems to prefer to speak English or their local languages, rather than Russian. Meanwhile, outside major urban centers, many under 35 show only a rudimentary grasp of Russian.
Central Asian governments are likewise legislating the erosion of Russian. Kazakhstan’s new constitution, for example, downgraded Russian’s status. Also this year, Uzbekistan introduced a revised Latin alphabet that has replaced Cyrillic. Kazakhstan is also moving towards the Latinization of its alphabet.
Moves to reduce Russia’s cultural influence extend to interpretations of history. Soviet historiography tended to cast Russian political, cultural and economic influence in Central Asia as a “civilizing” force. A revisionist trend now views Moscow’s legacy as oppressive, rather than beneficial.
Underscoring this change in attitude, the Uzbek government has opened a State Museum Devoted to the Memory of Victims of Repression during Tsarist and Soviet rule. Kazakhstan and other Central Asian states have also scaled back celebrations commemorating the Red Army’s triumph over Nazi Germany in 1945.
The historical revisionist movement in Central Asia strikes at a central pillar of Putinism, which views the Soviet collapse in 1991 as a calamity and the defeat of the Nazis as an eternal achievement reaffirming Russia’s greatness.
It is noteworthy, then, that among the 15 mostly perfunctory documents signed at the conclusion of the Avaza CIS gathering, one stands out for articulating an aim to “preserve historical memory.” That document was highlighted in a readout of the summit’s proceedings issued by the Kremlin. It is specifically intended to “preserve the memory of the Victory of the Soviet peoples in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945.”
In pondering whether such a document can help the Kremlin reinforce Russia’s cultural influence in Central Asia, one might recall a phrase uttered by then-Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin in 1993 when talking about Russia’s reform process: “We wanted the best, but it turned out as usual.”