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Crises in the Post-Soviet Space

The breakup of the Soviet Union led to the creation of new states and territorial
conflicts of different levels of intensity. Scrutinising the post-Soviet period, this
volume offers explanations for both the frequency and the intensity of crises in
the region.
This book argues that the societies which emerged in the post-Soviet space
share characteristic features, and that the instability and conflict-prone nature of
the Soviet Union’s successor states can be explained by analysing the post-
independence history of the region and linking it to the emergence of overlapping
economic, political and violent crises (called ‘Intersecting Crises Phenomena’).
Transformation itself is shown to be a decisive process and, while acknowledging
specific national and regional characteristics and differences, the authors demon-
strate its shared impact. This comparison across countries and over time presents
patterns of crisis and crisis management common to all the successor states. It
disentangles the process, highlighting the multifaceted features of post-Soviet
crises and draws upon the concept of crisis to determine the tipping points of post-
Soviet development.
Especially useful for scholars and students dealing with the Soviet successor
states, this book should also prove interesting to those researching in the fields of
communist and post-communist Studies, Eurasian politics, international relations
and peace and conflict studies.

Felix Jaitner is a doctoral student at the Department of Political Science,

University of Vienna.

Tina Olteanu is a Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political

Science at the University of Vienna.

Tobias Spöri is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science, University

of Vienna.
Post-Soviet Politics
Series Editor – Neil Robinson

The last decade has seen rapid and fundamental change in the countries of the former
Soviet Union. Although there has been considerable academic comment on these changes
over the years, detailed empirical and theoretical research on the transformation of the
post-Soviet space is only just beginning to appear as new paradigms are developed to
explain change.
Post-Soviet Politics is a series focusing on the politics of change in the states of the
former USSR. The series publishes original work that blends theoretical development with
empirical research on post-Soviet politics. The series includes work that progresses
comparative analysis of post-Soviet politics, as well as case study research on political
change in individual post-Soviet states. The series features original research monographs,
thematically strong edited collections and specialised texts.
Uniquely, this series brings together the complete spectrum of work on post-Soviet
politics, providing a voice for academics world wide.
For more information about this series, please visit:
www.routledge.com/Post-Soviet-Politics/book-series/ASHSER1198
Systemic and Non-Systemic Opposition in the Russian Federation
Civil Society Awakens?
Edited by Cameron Ross
Autocratic and Democratic External Influences in Post-Soviet Eurasia
Edited by Anastassia Obydenkova and Alexander Libman
Religion, Politics and Nation-Building in Post-Communist Countries
Edited by Greg Simons and David Westerlund
Vocabularies of International Relations after the Crisis in Ukraine
Edited by Andrey Makarychev and Alexandra Yatsyk
Neighbourhood Perceptions of the Ukraine Crisis
From the Soviet Union into Eurasia?
Edited by Gerhard Besier and Katarzyna Stokłosa
Russia-EU Relations and the Common Neighbourhood
Coercion vs. Authority
Irina Busygina
Russian Foreign Policy in Eurasia
National Interests and Regional Integration
Lilia A. Arakelyan
The Politics and Complexities of Crisis Management in Ukraine
From a Historical Perspective
Edited by Mykola Kapitonenko, Viktor Lavrenyuk, Erik Vlaeminck and Greg Simons
Crises in the Post-Soviet Space
From the dissolution of the Soviet Union to the conflict in Ukraine
Edited by Felix Jaitner, Tina Olteanu and Tobias Spöri
Crises in the
Post-Soviet Space
From the dissolution of the Soviet
Union to the conflict in Ukraine

Edited by
Felix Jaitner, Tina Olteanu
and Tobias Spöri
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
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© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Felix Jaitner, Tina Olteanu and
Tobias Spöri; individual chapters, the contributors
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as the authors of the editorial material, introduction and conclusion; and
of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
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Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
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ISBN: 978-0-815-37724-5 (hbk)

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by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK
Contents

Figures ix
Tables xi
Contributors xiii
Preface by Peter Rutland xvii

1 Crises in the post-Soviet space: From the dissolution of the

Soviet Union to an area of ‘intersecting crises phenomena’? 1
FELIX JAITNER, TINA OLTEANU AND TOBIAS SPORI

PART I
Mapping post-Soviet crises 15

2 The dissolution of the Soviet Union and its consequences 17

D I ET ER S E G ERT

3 Divergent social and economic consequences of transformation

in post-communist states 39
DAVID LANE

4 Divergent political-economic trajectories: Russia, Ukraine,

Belarus 61
JOACHIM BECKER

PART II
Crises of belonging 81

5 Creating the history of the future: Russian historical

memory in the era of the Ukrainian crisis 83
VICTOR APRYSHCHENKO
vi Contents
6 Ukraine: The dynamics of cross-cutting cleavages during
quadruple transition 103
OLENA PODOLIAN AND VALENTYNA ROMANOVA

7 Ethnic divides in the Baltic states: Political orientations

after the Russian–Ukrainian crisis 121
JOAKIM EKMAN AND KJETIL DUVOLD

PART III
Crises of resource accumulation 137

8 Stability’s end: The political economy of Russia’s

intersecting crises since 2009 139
I LY A MA TV EEV

9 The making of Ukraine’s multilevel crisis: Transnational

capitalism, neoliberal kleptocrats, and dispossession 159
YULIYA YURCHENKO

10 Ukraine’s frozen transformation: State capture,

nationalising policies and shifting geopolitics 175
KLAUS MÜLLER

11 Decline of the demos: Latvia, the face of New Europe and

austerity’s return 195
JEFFREY SOMMERS

PART IV
Crises of political power 211

12 Chechnya: A study of a post-Soviet conflict 213

EMIL ASLAN SOULEIMANOV, JASPER SCHWAMPE
AND SOFIE BEDFORD

13 Azerbaijan between post-socialist crisis and fragile stability 225

HANNES MEISSNER

14 Kazakhstan’s political and economic development and the

role of the ruling elites 241
JULIA KUSZNIR
 Contents vii
15 The Ukraine conflict as a result of post-Soviet
crises development 255
FELIX JAITNER, TINA OLTEANU AND TOBIAS SPORI

Index 263
Figures

1.1 Post-Soviet “intersecting crises phenomena” (ICP) 5

3.1 European Union member states and enlargement 41
3.2 The extent of the capitalist market and privatisation: EBRD
indicators, 1999, 2003, 2009, 2014 43
3.3 Gross National Income (per capital 2005 US PPP) 1990–2013.
Post-socialist countries 45
3.4 HD indexes 1987–2007: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Armenia 47
3.5 HD indexes 1987–2007: Uzbekistan, Azerbaizhan, Kazakhstan,
and China 47
3.6 Human Development Indicators: Country ranks 1990, 2013 48
3.7 Gross National Product Index minus Human Development Index
1993–2012 49
3.8 Income Inequality: Gini coefficients selected socialist countries
1987–1988, 2004 50
3.9 Economic situation today compared to under communism 52
3.10 Who gained most from transformation? 53
8.1 GDP growth (annual per cent) 145
8.2 Gross capital formation (per cent of GDP) 145
8.3 Quarterly GDP growth 148
8.4 Poll numbers 148
Tables

2.1 Who benefited from changes since 1989/1991?

(per cent of answers: great deal/ fair amount) 28
2.2 What do you think is the best economic system for Russia? 28
3.1 Outcomes of transformation: types of regime 43
6.1 National vs. regional and local identities in Ukraine
(in percentage terms) 114
7.1 Performance-related political dissatisfaction (per cent) 126
7.2 When was this country best off? (per cent) 127
7.3 Perceptions of the EU (per cent) 128
7.4 Threat perceptions in the Baltic states (per cent) 129
7.5 Threat perceptions in Latvia in 2014 and 2015 (per cent) 130
Contributors

The Editors
Felix Jaitner is a doctoral student at the Department of Political Science, Univers-
ity of Vienna. His research is focused on uneven and peripheral development,
the transformation process in Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space and
state theory.
Tina Olteanu is a Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political
Science at the University of Vienna. Her research interests are democracy
and democratization, participation and corruption research mainly in Eastern
Europe but also in a European comparative perspective.
Tobias Spöri is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science, University
of Vienna. His research deals with political participation, the legacy of state
socialism and the transformation of post-socialist Europe since 1989/1991.

The Contributors
Victor Apryshchenko is Professor of History and Politics at Southern Federal
University, Russia. In his research, he focuses on the transformation of
European identities, security studies and collective memories including
management of historical memory. He is editor-in-chief of an international
journal, Новое прошлое/The New Past (http://newpast.sfedu.ru/en/). His
most recent publications include Scottish History of Modern Times: In Search
of Identities (Aleteya,2016) and Memory and Securitization in Contemporary
Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
Joachim Becker is Associate Professor at the Institute for International Economics
and Development of the Vienna University of Economics and Business. His
work is focused on crises and processes of integration and disintegration.
Dr Sofie Bedford is currently a visiting Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences
(IWM) in Vienna, Austria and a researcher at the Institute for Russian and
Eurasian Studies (IRES) at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Kjetil Duvold is a Senior Lecturer and an Associate Professor of Political Science
at Dalarna University, Sweden. His research is focused on democratisation,
xiv Contributors
political culture, ethnic relations and party systems in Central and Eastern
Europe, with a special focus on the Baltic states.
Joakim Ekman is a Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Centre
for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) at Södertörn University
Stockholm, Sweden. His research interests cover public opinion, democrati-
sation, and political participation.
Julia Kusznir has held posts at the Research Centre for East European Studies in
Bremen, and the Department of Comparative Political Studies at the University
of Regensburg. She was also a visiting research Fellow at NUPI in Norway.
Recently, she has worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Jacobs University in
Bremen. She received her doctorate in 2007 from the University of Bremen.
Her research interests include democratization in post-Soviet states, elite
theory, comparative authoritarian regimes, the relationship between business
and politics in post-Soviet states, geopolitics, the development of energy
markets and energy security in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
David Lane is an Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University,
prior to which he was Professor of Sociology at Birmingham University. He
is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. His recent publications
include The Capitalist Transformation of State Socialism, (2014) and, with
V. Samokhvalov, The Eurasian Project and Europe (2015).
Ilya Matveev is a Lecturer at the Department of Comparative Political Studies
NWIM RANEPA (St Petersburg) and a doctoral student at the European
University at St Petersburg. His research interests include neoliberalism, the
nexus between big business and the state, and left-wing politics.
Hannes Meissner is a Senior Researcher and Lecturer at the Competence Centre
for Black Sea Region Studies of the University of Applied Sciences BFI
Vienna and a lecturer at the University of Vienna. His research focuses on
informal aspects of rule in the post-Soviet space, political risks for inter-
national businesses and political risk management. In 2012, Hannes Meissner
received a PhD in political science with distinction (“magna cum laude”)
from the University of Hamburg. While working on his doctorate (2007–2012),
he took part in the PhD programmes of the German Institute of Global and
Area Studies (GIGA) and the Research Centre for East European Studies at
the University of Bremen. In 2008, he was granted a three-year full scholarship
from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Hannes Meissner has a long track-
record of carrying out field research, in particular on Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan,
Georgia and Ukraine.
Klaus Müller is a full Professor at the Department of Political Science and
Contemporary History at the AGH University of Science & Technology in
Krakow, Poland.
Olena Podolian is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science,
Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden. She holds MA in Political Science
 Contributors xv
from Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, and MSci in Russian,
Central and East European Studies from University of Glasgow, UK.
Dr Valentyna Romanova holds a PhD in Political Science and is a Lecturer
within a joint Masters Programme “German and European Studies” of the
University of “Kyiv-Mohyla academy” and Friedrich Schiller University
Jena. Also, she is a Senior Expert at the Institute for Strategic Studies “New
Ukraine”.
Jasper Schwampe is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science,
Aarhus University, Denmark.
Dieter Segert is an Emeritus Professor of the Department of Political Science,
University of Vienna. He held the chair for Transformation Processes in
Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe from 2005 until 2017. His research
interests are the transformation of political systems, the legacy of state
socialism and political parties in Central and Eastern Europe.
Jeffrey Sommers is a Professor and Senior Fellow at the Institute of World
Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Visiting Professor, Stockholm
School of Economics in Riga.
Dr Emil Aslan Souleimanov is associate Professor at the Department of Russian
and East European Studies, Institute of International Studies, Faculty of
Social Sciences, Charles University, Czech Republic.
Yuliya Yurchenko is a Lecturer in International Business and researcher at the
Public Services International Research Unit, the Centre for Business Network
Analysis, and Political Economy Research Centre at University of Greenwich.
She is contributor to the Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern
Europe, New Political Economy, Sustainability, and Commons.
Preface
Peter Rutland – Wesleyan University

This collection offers a bold overview of the post-Soviet landscape, covering

domestic and international issues across a broad spectrum of states. It brings
together authors from inside and outside the region, and mixes veteran observers
with fresh voices. The unifying theme is the way that “crisis” has become a
permanent way of life for large pockets of society. The crisis mode empowers
elites while disorienting the population.
An unspoken assumption behind much political science is that politics is a
positive sum game: that both elites and society can benefit from political stability
and institution building, which leads to improved state capacity and economic
growth. But in reality, what we see after 25 years of “transition” in the post-Soviet
space is the persistence of negative phenomena from decade to decade: weak state
capacity; unaccountable, kleptocratic elites; widening social inequality; and
unresolved regional conflicts, which were a response by ethnic minorities (aided
and abetted by Russia) to nationalising elites in the newly-independent states.
Conventionally, national independence is connected to democracy and to the
fulfilment of a historic pursuit of authentic national identity, oppressed by
Russian/Soviet rule. In reality, however, Soviet Communist Party ruling elites in
the republics embraced nationalism in 1990–1991 when they saw the opportunities
opening up due to Mikhail Gorbachev’s abortive economic reforms. They realised
that national independence would empower and enrich themselves because it
would give them control over the unfolding privatisation process.
After the collapse of central planning, the logic of comparative advantage in
the global economy kicked in. Within the Russian Federation, the world market
richly rewarded those elites who gained control over the export of oil and gas, and
punished those who tried to keep afloat manufacturing industries producing
unwanted goods with inefficient use of resources. A similar brutal calculus of
rewards and punishments was meted out by the invading market economy in each
of the newly-independent states. Resource-rich countries did well (Russia,
Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan), and vast wealth accruing to the elites, with enough left
over to provide a social safety net for the masses. Some of the resource-poor
countries could share in the oil and gas rents due to their role as transit routes to
European markets (Belarus, Ukraine, and to some extent the Baltic republics, at
least in the 1990s).
xviii Preface
At the same time, the Soviet collapse triggered a vigorous debate about how
the international order that would follow the breakdown of the bipolar Cold War
security system. Was NATO expansion and the eastern enlargement of the
European Union a legitimate and necessary response to the security vacuum and
the threat of Russian revisionism? Or was it an unnecessary powerplay by the US
and its Western allies, taking advantage of Russia at its time of weakness? To
some extent, these debates about international security can best be understood as
the external projection of the domestic social conflicts caused by the wrenching
market transition process. The loss of a sense of political identity that followed
the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the accompanying loss of social certainties
and economic security, got displaced onto broader macro narratives about
“belonging to Europe.”
One stark example of the “intersecting crises” phenomenon is the tragic situation
in Ukraine. For most Western (and Russian) authors, the Maidan crisis of 2013–2014
was just a regional manifestation of a tectonic struggle for control of Eurasia
between Moscow and Brussels/Washington, since the conflict was triggered by
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to sign an association agree-
ment with the European Union. However, Klaus Müller questions whether Ukrainian
oligarchs were really ready to give up their rent-seeking privileges, which association
status would necessarily curtail. Yuliya Yurchenko argues that the foot-soldiers of
the Maidan revolution were the “fragmented dispossessed” who stood to gain little,
whatever the outcome of the confrontation, apart from a fleeting sense of being part
of “history.” At another level, it is a conflict over the future of Ukrainian identity,
over the place of Russian-speakers and ethnic Russians in the Ukrainian state.
However, Olena Podolian and Valentyna Romanova argue that “The crisis of
belonging is not a cause but rather a consequence of the conflict in Ukraine,” since
these divisions significantly deepened in the course of the crisis. At the same time,
the war in Donbas is very much a reflection of specific local conditions: it is a coal
mining region with its own particular brand of local loyalties and historic identity.
The same goes for Crimea itself.
In the transition period, “crisis” became a near-permanent feature of the political,
economic, and social landscape in these countries. According to the dictionary
definition, a “crisis” is a period in a disease after which the patient either dies, or
recovers. So, a 30-year long crisis is something of a contradiction in terms. But
crisis clearly serves as an important tool for elites, justifying the suppression of
democratic accountability and frightening the populace into submission. And
even in mature capitalist societies, after all, we see the institutionalisation of
cyclical crises.
Most scholars agree that it is increasingly absurd to talk about these states as in
“transition,” three decades after the Soviet collapse. Perhaps for the Baltic republics
history “ended” with their accession to the EU in 2004, and a handful of others
may still aspire (however unrealistically) to follow their path (Moldova, Georgia
and Ukraine). But how to describe the others, if they are no longer in “transition”?
In most cases, the tightly coupled political and economic elites have managed
to achieve a degree of political stability, mostly through authoritarian means,
 Preface xix
despite the poor economic performance and rising social inequality. But the long-
term stability of these regimes remains in doubt. They are an uncomfortable
half-way-house between the democratic legitimacy of Europe and the full-blooded
party-state of the People’s Republic of China.
It seems that both advocates and critics of neoliberalism can agree that these
countries have now entered the global capitalist economy; but they disagree over
whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, and over what would have had to
happen for things to have turned out differently.
1 Crises in the post-Soviet space1
From the dissolution of the
Soviet Union to an area of
‘intersecting crises phenomena’?
Felix Jaitner, Tina Olteanu, Tobias Spöri

The strange normality of post-Soviet conflicts

The development in Ukraine since 2014 has caught the international community
as well as social scientists off guard. Since its independence in 1991, Ukraine has
displayed multiple crises among them sharp economic decline, frequent political
or cultural conflicts, such as the disputed status of Russian language. The outbreak
of open warfare and the transformation of the Donbass into a perpetual war zone
seemed, however, inconceivable, even at the beginning of the Maidan protests in
November 2013. Since the outbreak of the military conflict in East Ukraine,
scholars have tried to explain the underlying dynamics by taking the conflict as
an isolated event, independent from the regional context. With regard to the entire
post-Soviet space, this approach reveals some analytic shortcomings. Armed
conflicts in the post-Soviet space appear to be rather the norm than the exception.
The region´s development is shaped by a multitude of forgotten or frozen conflicts.
Against this backdrop, the recent developments in Ukraine follow a rather “typical”
pattern. Comparisons throughout the entire post-Soviet space are likely to reveal
common dynamics contributing to various and multiple conflicts.
A common history as well as remaining cultural, economic and political ties
between the respective countries are still powerful factors in the majority of the
cases. After the dissolution of the USSR, the post-Soviet space has experienced
an extensive transformation with similar characteristics. For a comprehensive
understanding of the causes of conflicts in the region, we need to look into
commonalities before and after 1989 that have shaped the region.
We argue that conflicts in the post-Soviet space share characteristic features
founded in the specific contours of the societal formations that have emerged in
the region over the past 25 years. Three contradictory processes stand at the core:
the (i) dissolution of the Soviet Union and the closely intertwined (ii) political and
(iii) economic transformation processes. We refer to them as the post-Soviet
“intersecting crises phenomena”. Due to this overlap, the post-Soviet space is
more prone to climax in conflicts. We claim that the political and economic
transformation processes intensify and intensified already existing contradictions
stemming from the dissolution of the Soviet Union (peripheral and uneven
development) instead of contributing to overcome them. The interconnectedness
2 Felix Jaitner, Tina Olteanu, Tobias Spöri
between the legacy of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the outcome of the
political and economic transformations help to explain the developments in
Ukraine, as well as other conflicts of the post-Soviet space. Latent crises are one
common denominator of the whole region, paving the way for the eruption of
conflict.

Studying the conflict in Ukraine as a post-Soviet conflict

In the entire post-Soviet space, most contributions on conflicts emanate from the
field of security and conflict studies (Kanet and Sussex 2015; Liikanen et al. 2016;
Pourchot 2008). The debate focuses predominantly on the role of NATO and the
EU on the one hand, and Russia and its security interests on the other. Some
scholars emphasise the destabilising effects of the eastern enlargement of NATO
and the EU towards the Russian border, leading to increased tensions between
Russia and the West. Debates about potential NATO-accession of Georgia or
Ukraine, including intensified military co-operation, or the Eastern Neighbourhood
policy of the EU openly challenge Russia´s position in the post-Soviet space,
laying the foundation for further conflicts (Dzarasov 2016; Mearsheimer 2014).
Other scholars stress Russia´s geopolitical resurgence since Vladimir Putin´s
presidency as the crucial factor explaining increased conflicts in the region.
Accordingly, armed conflicts are regarded as closely connected to Russia´s imperial
ambitions to dominate the post-Soviet space (Giles 2016; Shevtsova 2015).
Pursuing “a massive revisionist agenda” (Wilson 2014: 162), Russia actively
seeks to revise the current international system (Major and Puglierin 2014).
The diverging approaches can be traced in the debate on the conflict in Ukraine
as well, which has been the topic of numerous publications since 2015 and has
stirred a controversial academic debate. Some stress the conflict in Ukraine itself,
its emergence, the geopolitical context and domestic developments as explanatory
factors.
A highly contested issue concerns Russia´s role and objectives in the conflict.
Yekelchyk (2015: 145) concludes that Russia´s primary goal is to prevent
Ukraine´s potential NATO-accession. The Russian Government prefers to contain
the conflict as a frozen conflict (Götz 2015). According to Menon and Rumer
(2015: 86), Russia prefers that Donbass remains an integral part of Ukraine while
the region should be granted an autonomous status in order to transform it into a
Russian protectorate. Other scholars, e.g. Thomas (2015), presume Russian actions
are motivated by expansionist aspirations attempting to control vast territories
(e.g. Transnistria, Odessa, and Mariupol). Others emphasise the EU enlargement/
Russia nexus with a special focus on Ukraine (Karolewski and Cross 2017; Kuzio
2017).
Although this short overview clearly indicates that scientific research on conflicts
in the post-Soviet space is an increasingly important field, the debate tends to
neglect contextual factors explaining the region´s crisis-prone development. The
most common approaches focus predominantly on external causes of the con-
flict, be it in terms of external actors such as Russia, the EU and NATO or as an
 Crises in the post-Soviet space 3
outcome of long-term historical and geopolitical developments. With regard to
the conflict in Ukraine, a variety of primarily domestic factors have been identified
contributing to the conflict, such as the split along ethnic, linguistic, cultural and
economic lines (Kudelia 2014; Zhukov 2016). Thus, the uprising in Donbass can
be understood as a specific regional reaction to the permanent crises in Ukraine.
Due to the country’s pronounced regional identities and social, cultural and
historical heterogeneity, diverging positions and reactions on crises can be observed
in different regions. The same observation could be applied to conflicts in
Chechnya, Central Asia, Transnistria and Transcaucasia. This argument does not
exclude a military entanglement of Russia in Donbass (on Russia´s role, see
Robinson 2016), but it ascribes to the conflict a local cause entrenched in the
specific contradictory societal development of Ukraine.
An attempt to grasp the complex interaction between the domestic and
international level is presented by Sasse (2016) in a special issue on “International
Linkages and the Dynamics of Conflict”. She understands the post-Soviet conflicts
as a dynamic process resulting from linkage and leverage factors between domestic
and international elites. Accordingly, external leverage increases the vulnerability
of an authoritarian system, whereas linkage factors are defined as the density
and diversity of linkages of a given authoritarian system to external actors. The
approach tends to neglect broad societal developments, such as the dissolution of
the Soviet Union or the transformation process. Moreover, the interaction between
state, elite and external actors on the one hand and the people of a respective
country on the other remains unclear.

Explaining post-Soviet ‘intersecting crises phenomena’

This edited volume explains the instability in the 15 successor states of the Soviet
Union by scrutinising the comparatively short history of the post-Soviet space
and links it to the emergence of overlapping transformation crises. Linking
specific regional conflicts to broader developments allows us to reveal the crisis-
prone contours of the comprehensive transformation in the region since the
dissolution of the Soviet Union. The literature on transformation starts from
diverse assumptions. One concept acknowledges at a very early stage the potential
for contradictory and conflictual developments within the post-Soviet space. The
so-called “dilemma of simultaneity” (Elster 1990; Offe 1991) stresses the multiple
challenges of the transformation process for the former state-socialist societies by
incorporating various dimensions shaping the spheres of politics, economy, society,
and culture. As prominently argued by Carothers (2002), the transformation does
not inevitably end with fully consolidated democracies. Countries might get
stuck in the ‘grey’, in the form of a hybrid between democratic and authoritarian
regimes. Transformation is, therefore, also closely linked to progress, stagnation
and deterioration. The last two terms already indicate that crises are an inherent
element of transformation.
However, the notion of crisis is usually perceived as a rather temporary con-
dition. Sociologist Olga Shevchenko (2009: 2) argues that the term crisis “typically
4 Felix Jaitner, Tina Olteanu, Tobias Spöri
evokes the connotations of a sudden rupture, of a breakdown in the natural order
of things, of all that everyday life is not.” Analysing the “everyday crisis” and its
effect on people´s life in Moscow in the 1990s, Shevchenko concludes that crisis
on the individual level becomes a routine, an unchanging and diffuse condition
blending with everyday reality (ibid.). Boris Kagarlitsky (2007) puts it in a similar
way. He describes the development of the post-Soviet space as “disaster manage-
ment”. Also on the macro level (society in general as compared to individuals),
crisis becomes a normal and permanent condition. The increasing social polar-
isation intensifies societal contradictions, producing tensions, instability, and,
subsequently, conflicts.
We argue that the transformation itself needs to be regarded as a decisive pro-
cess. It produces manifold, overlapping crises in different societal spheres.
Moreover, we claim that the dissolution of the Soviet Union is a crucial factor that
needs to be taken into account. Although we acknowledge specific national and
regional characteristics and differences, we claim that all respective countries
share similar trends stemming from the mentioned processes of dissolution of the
Soviet Union and the political and economic transformation. These three inter-
secting processes condense in crisis-prone societal formations. Following the
approaches of Shevchenko and Kagarlitsky, we argue that crisis becomes a
permanent condition, an integral part of societal development with varying
intensity. Therefore, we speak of crisis, and not instability, that produces conflicts.
However, it would be misleading to define conflicts exclusively as violent. Despite
the ongoing crises, some post-Soviet successor-states are remarkably stable. Our
understanding of conflicts incorporates struggles over resources, social rights and
political power. The violent escalation of conflicts is by no means a logical
consequence of post-Soviet development. It is rather a result of various factors
shaping the societal formations in the region.
The comparison across countries (including the Baltics, Ukraine and Russia,
Caucasus and Central Asia) and over time (since 1991) presents patterns of crisis
and crisis management, which can be found in all 15 successor states. The edited
volume disentangles these processes since the dissolution of the Soviet Union by
highlighting the multifaceted features of post-Soviet crises. The interdisciplinary
notion of crises is shared by all the authors. Applying the concept of ‘intersecting
crises phenomena’, we argue for a comprehensive perspective to explain (latent
and manifest) conflicts.
By post-Soviet ‘intersecting crises phenomena’ we mean three contradictory
processes that predominantly shape the post-Soviet development: the dissolution
of the Soviet Union and the closely intertwined political and economic trans-
formation processes. Each process sparked comprehensive societal change in the
spheres of politics, economy, culture, and society. Furthermore, these processes
are interconnected, which means that the transformation of one sphere affects
the remaining two. We claim that the political and economic transformation
processes intensified already existing contradictions stemming from the dissolution
of the Soviet Union instead of contributing to overcome them. The intersec-
ting crises emerge as societal contradictions, ruptures and conflicts. We seek to
 Crises in the post-Soviet space 5

Dissoluon of the
Soviet Union

Intersecng
Crises
Phenomena

Polical Economic
Transformaon Transformaon

Figure 1.1 Post-Soviet “intersecting crises phenomena” (ICP)

determine how crises emerge and what impact they have on the post-Soviet
countries.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union

In the post-Soviet space, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its memory is
still contested and heavily politicised. There, the range spans from anti-socialist
attitudes along with the feeling of being freed from the Soviet repression, to a
positive perception of the Soviet Union, sometimes nostalgic, whose disintegration
brought rather negative changes. The process contributes to the understanding of
post-Soviet crises and helps to explain the current conflict in Ukraine as well as
similar conflicts in the post-Soviet space. The abrupt and uncontrolled dissolution
of the USSR stimulated a secession-dynamic challenging the legitimacy of multi-
ethnic states, which quickly spread to a number of successor-states. Out of the
nation-building process in the 15 successor states of the Soviet Union emerged
new problems for various societal groups. Nationalism arose in the new political
6 Felix Jaitner, Tina Olteanu, Tobias Spöri
entities (Isaacs and Polese 2016). The so-called “great reconfiguration” (Brubaker
2011: 1786) describes the formation of nation states with a dominant core nation.
Ethnic belonging and social and political rights (e.g. citizenship, language politics)
became more salient, as well as their contestation. The strategy of the political
elites was twofold. They made use of identity politics in order to gain legitimacy
by portraying themselves as part of the core nation, and often also as anti-
communist. Nationalising discourses and policies were constructed, which often
resulted in exclusive politics towards minorities (ibid. 2011: 1789–1802). Often
this led to a reorganisation of the political space along national lines. An ethno-
cultural framing of a nation fosters distrust towards state institutions and impedes
the consolidation of a democratic system. At the same time, the emergence of
nationalism in the post-Soviet space is based on economic interests. National
elites in the Soviet Union favoured independence because it allowed them to
control the subsequent privatisation process. The formation of national entre-
preneurs was imperative in order to provide solid support for the new nation
states. Exclusive politics do not only affect political rights, but also materialise in
an uneven social development of certain regions or ethnic groups.
The analytic dimensions that result from the dissolution of the Soviet Union
are an increase of aggressive nationalism, the growing importance of ethnic
belonging, exclusive policies in terms of social and political rights (e.g. citizenship,
language politics), the connection between nationalism and economic interest,
and a new form of identity politics.

The political transformation

According to the dominant narrative, one of the greatest challenges of the political
transformation was to establish democratic institutions such as constitutions,
free elections, rule of law, pluralistic party systems, and free media (Ishiyama
1995; Kitschelt 1995; Lovell 2001: 28). In the early 1990s, the old regime or
nomenclature partly played an ambiguous role (Burton and Higley 2001: 187). In
general, the political and economic elites were the national promotors of the
transformation and respective reforms. Furthermore, the elite had the possibility
to “manipulate the transformation process in order to safeguard their individual
interests” (Albertus and Menaldo 2014: 577). Establishing democracy and its
institutions was not their primary aim.
In order to stabilise the economic and political development, the Russian
government propagated a new form of authoritarian state. Instrumental for the
consolidation was a centralisation of substantial resources within the state apparatus
and a transfer of powers to the executive branch, often referred to as “power
vertical” (Sakwa 2008). The authoritarian turn was backed by a compromise
among the ruling elite, the state bureaucracy and the oligarchs. With regard to
economic policy, the state pursued a more active, regulating role. In resource-
abundant countries the inflow of rents enabled the governments to repay debts and
partially support selected industrial branches. The resource boom in the early
2000s guaranteed high growth rates and mass consumption for the population. At
 Crises in the post-Soviet space 7
the same time, clientelistic policies reduced poverty and fostered the development
of a small middle class. These steps created support among certain social groups,
without challenging existing power relations. Such developments can be observed
since the 1990s also in other post-Soviet states such as Azerbaijan, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Countries, such as Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova or Ukraine, face continued
economic decline and instability. Elites were not able to unite diverging interests
in a common project stabilising economic and political development. In Ukraine,
the diverse and often contradictory interests of the oligarchs prevented political
consolidation (Yurchenko 2012). Even though frequent protests, on different
scales and tackling various issues (e.g. plant closures, neoliberal policies, or
student protests) occurred even before the second Maidan in 2013 (Varga 2012),
a broad discussion regarding privatisation, social inequality and uneven distribution
of wealth remained marginal. A comparable development occurred in Georgia
and Kyrgyzstan. Protests and even open revolts led to changes of government.
However, they rather replaced one elite faction with another. These groups may
differ in their economic interests, social base and even their geopolitical alignment.
Yet, as transformation profiteers, they share a deep suspicion of democratic values.
Subsequently, cleavages stemming from the dissolution of the Soviet Union and
the transformation process – social inequality or authoritarian rule – were pre-
served, inducing growing societal instability.
Institutional change or stalemate, continuity and change of the elite, conflicts
among different elite factions and growing authoritarian tendencies are under
scrutiny. Special attention is paid to reactions on the region´s crisis-prone develop-
ment. This includes the question of public support and legitimacy among the
population for a specific form of rule.

The economic transformation

The end of the cold war accelerated the integration of the former state-socialist
countries into the Western dominated capitalist world-system. The far-reaching
outcomes of this process have shaped the region up to this day.
A crucial driving force promoting the dissolution of the Soviet Union was
the Russian elite. During the 1980s, the technological gap between the Soviet
industry and the West reached its peak. Maintaining the relatively unproductive in-
dustry would have demanded high investments. In contrast to a modernisation
of the industrial base, a focus on extractive industries such as oil and gas appeared
very lucrative. Two factors seemed to confirm the position of the Russian elite.
First, Russia was rather weakly integrated in domestic trade during Soviet times
and, second, the countries´ powerful role as the dominating energy supplier
(Langhammer and Lücke 1999: 5). Accordingly, the preservation of the Soviet
Union restricted the successful global expansion of resource-extractive industries
and, subsequently, impeded Russia´s economic development. In fact, the dissolu-
tion of the Soviet Union enabled parts of the elite to influence the privatisation
processes that followed afterwards both in Russia and other new emerging states,
8 Felix Jaitner, Tina Olteanu, Tobias Spöri
such as Ukraine (Hale 1999). Despite all democratic declarations by new and old
actors, economic interests heavily drove this process.
In contrast to China or the Four Asian Tigers (South Korea, Taiwan etc.), the
governments in the Soviet successor states did not promote a strategy of industrial
development. Instead, they were keen to pursue a neoliberal economic policy,
including the reduction of price controls, liberalisation of foreign trade and the
development of a private financial sector (Desai 1997; Pomer and Klein 2001;
Roaf et al. 2014). The implemented agenda was clearly targeted against the
institutions of the planned economy. As former Russian president Boris Yeltsin
stated, the official goal of this policy was to make the reforms “irreversible”
(Yeltsin 1994: 235). Therefore, the implementation of these policies had to occur
as fast and as radical as possible (“shock-therapy”). The privatisation of state
property was central to the economic transformation process. It was mainly
organised in non-transparent and corrupt procedures, and produced a new class
of capitalist businessmen, especially in the post-Soviet space referred to as
oligarchs (Dzarasov 2014; Kolganov 2013; Yurchenko 2012). Their main
economic activity is centred on trade, the resource and the financial sector.
At the same time, the so-called “shock-therapy” led to a dramatic increase in
social inequality (for an overview see Lane 2011) and a severe economic recession.
According to the sociologist Nataliya Tichonova (2011), about one third of the
Russian population became impoverished as a direct consequence of the
transformation process. Jospeh Stiglitz (2002) has illustrated the whole extent of
the economic decline. Accordingly, the Russian economy, measured in terms of
GDP, suffered greater losses than during the Second World War. Other post-
Soviet countries were similarly affected by economic decline. However, the
intensity and duration of economic crisis significantly differs across the 15 Soviet
successors (see Myant and Drahokoupil 2011: 51–55).
Against this backdrop, the democratic reform process initiated during the
Perestroika came to a standstill. Already in the early 1990s, the majority of post-
Soviet states largely suppressed a public debate on alternative economic policy
and citizens’ control in the privatisation process, laying the foundation for
authoritarian rule and future conflicts. In the early 2000s, economic and societal
development in most post-Soviet states was stabilised. An integral part of the
aforementioned elite consensus in Russia (and other countries) was the state´s
acknowledgment of the new ownership structure emerging from the 1990s. In
return, oligarchs were incorporated as the national bourgeoisie in the new societal
formation, which allowed the state to regain a certain degree of autonomy.
Although the new societal order and dominant role of the state was fiercely
disputed by factions of the oligarchs (the case of Khodorkovsky is the most
prominent, but by far not the only example), a majority supported the stability-
paradigm creating a favourable business environment.
The precarious stabilisation, which by no means did succeed all over the region,
was endangered by the global financial and economic crisis in 2008. All countries
were hit by the economic decline. Imposed budget constraints gave rise to already
latent crises.
 Crises in the post-Soviet space 9
The economic transformation is the third pillar of the post-Soviet crises
phenomena. It consists of the impact of neoliberal reforms in terms of social and
economic inequality, budget constraints, in particular after the economic crisis in
2008, and the commodification of power. The notion of peripheral development
is an important analytic term, which allows one to embed the changes of the post-
Soviet space since the early 1990s.
To sum it up, it is apparent that the increasing steadiness, the normalisation of
crisis has become an integral part of post-Soviet development. Three processes,
the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the political and economic transformation,
fostered the peripheral integration of the region into the world-market. The
important features of post-Soviet societal formations are political instability,
economic dependence, high social inequality and a limited autonomy of the state.
Each aspect can be found in various degrees and different intensity in all countries.
In contrast to the common understanding of crisis, we define crisis as a perma-
nent condition incorporated in post-Soviet development. In fact, each successor
state emerged out of a contradictory process. The intensity of crisis, however,
varies over time. Following the disintegration process after the dissolution of the
Soviet Union and the encompassing societal transformation in the 1990s, crises
appeared to be more visible and acute, affecting all levels of societal development.
Whereas the 1990s were shaped by disintegration, economic decline and political
chaos, the 2000s stabilised the societal order emerging from the transformation
process. Despite undeniable efforts, dominant strategies rather selectively tackled
some of the most pressing issues (poverty, peripheral development, political
instability) by means of clientelistic policies. Precisely through their partial
modernisation, the crisis-prone societal formations were rather reinforced than
called into question.

Outline
Drawing upon the concept of “Intersecting Crises Phenomena”, we seek to
determine tipping points of post-Soviet development. The developments are traced
back in the book sections, dealing with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the
political and economic transformation of the post-Soviet Space.
The first section, “Mapping post-Soviet Crises”, gives an overview of the three
intersecting crises in a comparative perspective. Dieter Segert traces back the
reasons for the breakup of the Soviet Union and lays out political and economic
consequences that still prevail as recurring element of crisis in domestic and
foreign politics. David Lane compares the economic and political developments
in the post-socialist new member states of the EU and those not being part of the
EU enlargement process. Joachim Becker assesses the converging and diverging
results of the economic transformation in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, taking into
account the specific political/economic elite nexus.
The second section, “Crises of Belonging”, highlights the relevance of iden-
tity politics and development. In all three case studies, the dynamics of identity
formation are intertwined with legacies of the Soviet Union as well as processes
10 Felix Jaitner, Tina Olteanu, Tobias Spöri
of political steering and new societal dynamics perpetuated by various crises.
Victor Apryshchenko deals with the Russian perspective on the collapse of the
USSR and respective historical imaginations of the country, which are considered
as a “response” to the trauma. Olena Podolian and Valentyna Romanova tackle
the question of the contested nation-building process and diverse regional identities
in Ukraine. Joakim Ekman and Kjetil Duvold analyse citizens’ (and non-citizens’)
perceptions of citizenship, national identity and political equality in the three
Baltic states. The three case studies demonstrate the impact or the legacy of the
dissolution of the Soviet Union and the two transformations in various ways.
Moreover, all contributions add pieces to the overall puzzle – the emergence of
intersecting crisis phenomena – by analysing outcomes of the dissolution in terms
of citizenship, collective memories and identities, and the reinforcements of such
latent cleavages for political and economic power consolidation.
The third section focuses on the “Crises of Resource Accumulation”. All
contributions deal with the interconnectedness of the political and economic elites
in different post-Soviet countries. From the perspective of political economy, they
outline how the kleptocratic grip of oligarchs on the economy has rendered these
countries vulnerable to conjoined economic and political crises.
Ilya Matveev and Yuliya Yurchenko focus on the crisis-prone development of
Ukraine and Russia. Ilya Matveev analyses the “interlocking crises” (economic,
political and “geopolitical” crises) in Russia, which root in the countries trajectory
since the transformation process in the 1990s and the “stability-era” from 2000–
2008. Yuliya Yurchenko argues that the accumulation of capital is the driving
force for manufacturing socially destabilising dynamics in Ukraine. The systematic
failure of the state to effectively perform its administrative and governing functions
has hit its temporary peak in the course of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Klaus
Müller contributes to the discussion by analysing the geopolitical post-Maidan
dimension through the lens of political economy. He questions the “transformative
power” of the EU in Ukraine. Jeffrey Sommers focuses on financialisation
strategies of the Baltic states (e.g. Latvia).
The fourth section, “Crises of Political Power”, analyses the multiple crises in
the post-Soviet region from the perspective of consolidating political power
in hybrid political regimes. Emil Aslan Souleimanov, Jasper Schwampe and Sofie
Bedford deal with the specific case of Chechnya and trace the causes of the war
back to a set of multiple crises originating in domestic Russian political and eco-
nomic considerations. Hannes Meissner identifies clientelism and corruption as
the most important strategies of Heydar Aliyev to deal with inner elite competition
in Azerbaijan. Julia Kusznir analyses the strategic consolidation of political and
economic power under President Nazabayev in Kazakhstan and his authoritarian
reconfiguration of the state and related areas, such as the media and NGO sector.
In the conclusion, we discuss the findings of each section as well as the concept
of “intersecting crises phenomena” in the post-Soviet sphere as proposed here.
Furthermore, a tentative outline of crises patterns across the whole region is
presented.
 Crises in the post-Soviet space 11
Notes
1 We would like to express our special thanks and gratitude to Andreas Pigl and Claudia
Strate who helped us a lot in finalizing this project.

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Part I

Mapping post-Soviet
crises
2 The dissolution of the Soviet
Union and its consequences
Dieter Segert

The dissolution of the Soviet Union was followed by an intensive discussion of

the reasons contributing to its end in the early 1990s. Due to its speedy and
nonviolent character, the disappearance of the Soviet state appears, to some
scholars, as a puzzle or even as a miracle. Others emphasise the accidental nature
of this breakdown (see, among others: Cohen 2004; Ettrich 2005; Hale 1999;
Kamer 2003a). Based on the argument that the crisis and the failure of the social
order of state socialism is a sine qua non for any analysis of the decay of the
Soviet empire, the following chapter first summarises relevant branches of the
literature attempting to better understand the causes of the dissolution. A contra-
factual perspective highlighting group interests and socio-economic conditions
will be discussed. After developing the term ‘post-Soviet capitalism’, the final
part of the contribution stresses the economic and social outcomes of the dissolution
of the Soviet Union for its successor states and for international security.

The processes of dissolution, its causes and driving forces

Among the many analyses of the end of the Soviet Union in December 1991,
some are especially important. The Journal of Cold War Studies published special
issues in 2003 and 2005 on the subject. In the introduction to the first issue, Mark
Kramer differentiated between direct, indirect, and fundamental causes of the
dissolution of the Soviet Union (Kramer 2003a: 6). Other authors distinguish
structural and institutional reasons (Brown 2009; Ettrich 2005). This section will
use these authors’ analyses to describe the turning points and most important steps
of the decay.
In the foreground were, first, the failing reform attempts amid a deep crisis of
state socialism in the second half of the 1980s. The economic reforms led to a
drastic deterioration of most citizens’ daily life in 1990 and 1991. However, the
negative trend started already with the campaign against alcoholism in 1985. As
Brown stresses, the campaign seriously damaged the reputation of the party
leadership (Brown 2009: 496). A second important reason for the decline of the
multi-ethnic state was the rising of movements for national autonomy at the
margins of the empire. These protests against the centre were especially strong in
the Baltic states and in Georgia. Gorbachev tried to counterbalance these forces
18 Dieter Segert
by proposing a new treaty on the federation, but failed in 1991. Valerie Bunce
makes a specific argument about the institutional basis for the decline of the
multi-ethnic states of Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. She believes
that a specific type of federalism based on ethnic communities was the decisive
reason for the breakup of these respective states (Bunce 1999)1. A third factor in
the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the failed coup d’état in August 1991. It
did not succeed mainly due to the subordination of the military forces to the
civilian leadership. Because the president was the commander-in-chief of
the armed forces, and because Gorbachev did not support the coup, it failed.
If the Soviet generals engaged in the coup were to have ignored the formal chain
of command, the coup could have been successful (Dunlop 2003). Gorbachev’s
reluctance to use force against the anti-Soviet nationalist movements was one
important reason for the dissolution of the state (Kramer 2003a). Fourth, in
summer 1991, the disintegration of the COMECON and the Warsaw Pact treaty
following the downfall of the former political allies resulted in a deep unsettledness
of the Soviet elite (Kramer 2004). As a fifth factor, several authors have mentioned
the difficult relationship between the two Soviet leaders. The starting point of
these tensions emerged on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the October revolution
in fall 1989. Yeltsin wanted to accelerate the reinterpretation of the history of the
Soviet Union without considering the difficult situation of his comrade Gorbachev,
whom the conservatives had already attacked. Gorbachev dismissed Yeltsin from
the party leadership, but gave him a second-level position in the state apparatus.
After he returned to power in summer 1990, Yeltsin sought revenge. During the
crisis in 1990 and 1991, many observers thought the personal conflict between the
two leaders was one of the most serious obstacles for problem solving (Zlotnik
2003).2
So far, five general explanations have been given for the dissolution of the
Soviet Union. A sixth argument is not as widely accepted. Discussion continues
as to whether the political liberalisation during the perestroika years contributed
to the destabilisation of power. The liberalisation was relevant for the destruction
of the old regime, but it failed to legitimise the emerging new state structure of
the Soviet Union. Most of all, a strong civil society did not emerge (Howard
2003). Cohen uses the same argument when he assesses the weak public support
for Yeltsin’s resistance against the coup d’état: “There was, for example, no
response to Yeltsin’s call for a general strike against the putsch” (Cohen 2004:
466–467).
A last argument concerns the external reasons for the dissolution. How much
importance can be attributed to agents of the West? There are positive and negative
arguments. Some argue that the pressure against the Soviet Union was present at
earlier stages of perestroika, but without strong results (Kramer 2003b; Wallander
2003). However, there was, undoubtedly, indirect influence. The deployment of
intermediate-range missiles in Western Europe at the beginning of the 1980s
placed a new pressure on Soviet politics. Another indirect influence on Soviet
politics resulted from the United States’ military support of the “mujahedin” in
Afghanistan. Both initiatives weakened the hard-line opponents of Gorbachev
 The dissolution of the Soviet Union 19
and prepared the ground for his policy of “new thinking”. Also, Western pressure
influenced the internal Soviet politics, as Kramer has stressed, “by the end of the
1980s, Gorbachev’s policies towards human rights activists, dissidents, and
peaceful nationalist movements were increasingly constrained by his desire to
stay on good terms with the West” (Kramer, op cit.: 36). Another element of
Western influence was the lack of Western support for Gorbachev’s economic
reform. Only Germany had a certain willingness to support his policy through
economic aid (Cohen 2004: 463).

A contra factual perspective – the dissolution as an avertible

or an irreversible event?
By noting so many events and processes, I do not intend to suggest that the
dissolution was irreversible from the beginning of the crisis of state socialism, as
suggested by some of the presented arguments about the end of the Soviet Union.
Other multi-ethnic states, such as India or the post-Soviet Russia, have been able
to resist separatism and decay. “Relatively small alterations in circumstances,
events, or political choices in the Soviet Union might have led to a different out-
come” (Kramer 2003b: 24). However, Kramer argues mainly that coercion was
successfully used against movements striving for separatism3.
By taking a contra factual perspective on the end of the USSR, one should most
notably reject the central role of individual, personal decisions. This is possible
in two ways; first, to concentrate on group interests more than on individual ones.
Hale follows this path as he points to economic interests (Hale 1999: 36). Second,
one can examine the societal conditions of the late Soviet Union and identify their
transformative potentials. This perspective of Stephen Cohen will be considered
comprehensively in this section. Unlike Kramer, Cohen connects the study of the
decay of the Soviet state with the analysis of state socialism as a specific society.
His central question is: “Was the Soviet system reformable?” (Cohen 2004).
Cohen starts with criticism of counterarguments. Numerous scholars see the
demise of the Soviet Union as an inevitable event caused by an incurable disease
(see, among others, Cohen 2004: 460; Malia 2002; Pipes 1994). Cohen believes
that several of these authors use theological patterns of argumentation. He refers
especially to Martin Malia who regards the illegitimate coup (revolution) in
October 1917 as a kind of “original sin”. This iniquity would have doomed all
other developments in the country. It was the original “evil” which was not
reparable later by the reforms of Khrushchev or Gorbachev (Cohen 2004: 461).
A second argument for the widespread conviction that the disappearance of the
Soviet Union was unavoidable consists of the normative power of the factual. The
collapse appears as inevitable if history is interpreted from its end. It is the per-
spective that matters: It is possible to interpret all events as an unavoidable step
towards the result. Finally, a third argument for the necessary breakup builds upon
an assessment of the power structure of state socialism. Supposedly, a totalitarian
authority can never be reformed. He quotes Peter Rutland: It is because “the
political system had been constructed along totalitarian lines . . . its institutions
20 Dieter Segert
could not be retooled to serve pluralistic goals” (Rutland 1998: 43). A fourth argu-
ment consists of the claim that, after political liberalisation, the subjects had their
first opportunity to show their real relationship to socialist politics. It is argued
that the Russian people were inherently anti-Soviet “and swept away the system
in favour of a radically non-Soviet one” (Cohen 2004: 465). Cohen refuted this
last argument by stressing that such an “anti-Soviet revolution from below” never
took place. In general, Cohen does not believe that Soviet citizens were inherently
anti-socialist (ibid). In order to reinforce the argument, Cohen quotes Stephen
White (2001: 75): “Russians, it seemed, wanted a ‘socialism that worked’”.
After this criticism of other perspectives, Cohen comes now to the substance
of his argument. The Soviet Union’s unintentional disintegration was complex
and included possibilities of alternative results. The collapse of both the state and
the Soviet system was not inevitable: “We found no conceptual reasons for
believing the Soviet system was unreformable, there are no empirical ones either”
(ibid.: 487).
This section will discuss his arguments in more detail because they help increase
our understanding of the heritage of Soviet state socialism. You can easier detect
the vestiges of state socialism if you know the former entity and its – albeit not
implemented, not completely unrealistic – alternatives. The causes of the path of
transformation after 1991 are manifold and even puzzling. They cannot be reduced
to the intended paths. Neither the aims of the three presidents, the Russian, the
Ukrainian and the Belarussian, that met in the Biełaviežskaja Pušča National Park
near Minsk on December 8, 1991, nor the neoliberal zeitgeist alone shaped an
inevitable future. State socialism left its marks, especially within the expectations
of bigger parts of the population. Of importance were the interests and identities
of the numerous Soviet “nomenklatura”.
Cohen relies mainly on theoretical arguments and adds empirical evidence. In
his opinion, four elements were the cornerstones of a reformed Soviet system.
Those were, first, a socialist idea that includes national, pre-soviet Russian
traditions. Second, the “soviets” were to be specific representative institutions of
the citizens. Third, he notes a “state-private, mixed-market economy with enough
social entitlements to be called socialist”. Finally, the list includes a federal or
confederal state with Russia and at least some of the former republics of the old
Soviet Union (Cohen 2004: 469). These elements were connected with others.
Hale described the direction of transformation as one from “an ethnofederation
founded on force into one based primarily on consent” (Hale 1999: 6).
Cohen’s predominantly theoretical intention is visible from the fact that he
does not equally emphasise all four elements. He concentrates on the second and
fourth aspect. Additionally, he points to the destruction of the power monopoly
of the Communist Party as the starting point of transformation. This deterioration
is, at the same time, the birth of a new system. The proto-parties of a pluralistic
party system emerge from within the monolithic Communist Party.
Cohen then recaps Gorbachev’s and his supporters’ long process of serious
reforms directed against the authoritarian and inflexible system. Their endeavour
 The dissolution of the Soviet Union 21
started by destroying both the state ideology and the party’s monopoly on public
opinion. Then, they abolished the Communist officials’ primacy at every level.
He summarises: “In only five years . . . the Soviet political system had ceased to
be Leninist” (ibid.: 471). “The apparat’s control even over its own party had been
substantially diminished” (ibid.: 473).
After all that, the party disaggregated. At least two embryonic parties emerged
from within the party, the “proreform or radical perestroika wing” (“now all but
social democratic”), and “the amalgam of conservative and neo-Stalinist forces”
(Cohen 2004: 476). As Petra Stykow wrote earlier, the split of “the party” into at
least two parties was the origin of the post-Soviet, multi-party-system (Stykow
1992: 25). The only great mistake of Gorbachev was not to create a political party
before summer 1990 (see also Brown 1996: 206). The institutional basis of the
political system, the reformed soviets as political representative institutions,
developed simultaneously with the founding of a new structure of soviets at the
national and federal levels and the half-free elections in 1989 and 1990.
Like Cohen, Brown has stressed the fundamental changes within the Soviet
system after Gorbachev came to power (Brown 2009). Even the terms used to
justify politics have changed. “Perestroika” became synonym for “radical reform”.
The ideological ties that held together the system originally started to fray between
1985 and 1988 (ibid.: Chapter 24). A main driving force was the liberalisation
of art and culture. Brown stresses the importance of the publication in 1989 of
Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago. However, he argues that the first signs of
the liberal openings were still earlier: the publication of Anna Akhmatova’s poem
“Requiem” and of the books Doctor Zhivago (Boris Pasternak) and Life and Fate
(Vasily Grossman) in 1988 (ibid.: 492, 508). These cultural events were both very
important for the Soviet intelligentsia and for the West.
Brown, like Cohen, states that the Soviet system had changed radically before
it was completely dissolved. However, unlike Cohen, he stresses the break but
does not identify the timing of the changes. The agent of this clear discontinuity
was Gorbachev. At the latest, the Soviet Communist Party conference in summer
1988 is regarded as the point of no return. Gorbachev had become a social
democrat, therefore the opposite of a Communist (ibid.: 596).
This leads us to the relevance of economic reform. Brown stresses that there
could not be a third way between market economy and command economy and
does not elaborate on this topic in more detail (ibid.: 661). In contrast, Cohen
underlines the reformability of the Soviet economy. He argues against the perceived
antagonism between planned and market economies. “All modern capitalist
economies have been mixed and regulated to various degrees.” (Cohen 2004:
480). Concerning the late Soviet economy and its reforms, he stresses the gradual
widening of the old system. Gradually, market forces were expanded, and it was
intended to increase further.
He provides various pieces of evidence for this argument: Gorbachev had
launched economic reform by 1990. He pushed through the legislation needed for
economic reform; he had converted “large segments of the Soviet elite to market
22 Dieter Segert
thinking”; he “had freed the economy from the clutches” of the party apparatus;
and “state property was already in effect being privatised” (ibid.: 481).
Still, he ignores that these economic reforms did not lead to a viable new
economic system. This can be explained by the narrow focus. When the reforms’
catastrophic outcome is seen through the lens of the majority of the population’s
struggle in its day-to-day life, it is not possible to call them a (even a potential)
success. It was the failure of reforms in this field that constituted the main
obstacles for the survival of the Soviet system (see Brown 2009: Chapter 29).
There is no doubt about the deep economic crisis of 1990 and 1991. I know the
poor consumer situation in the 1970s and 1980s and can compare it with the
situation in Moscow in the year 1991: the shelves in the food stores had never
been as empty as they were during my last stay in December 1991.
Cohen himself offers an argument against his hypothesis that reforms had
started that could have led to a renewed kind of socialist economy. He noted that
during these reforms the process of “nomenklatura-privatisation” began, which
led to the recent kind of brutal capitalism in Russia. It could be argued that
Gorbachev unintentionally established the ground for a new society of high social
inequality and the central role of the so-called “oligarchs”. Yet the nucleus of new
property relations could develop only later, after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
The last point of Cohen’s argument concerns the reformability of the Soviet
Union’s state structures. Cohen delivers an important counter-argument against
the allegedly inevitable dissolution. He criticises the assumption that the state was
bound together only by the party apparatus. If that was the case, it is self-evident
that there would be no way out of the crisis. However his arguments – concerning
mainly the additional cohesion of the society – remind us of the legacy of state
socialism: “The role of the party should not be minimised, but others factors also
bound the Union together” (ibid.: 483). He mentions several branches of admin-
istration (specific ministries and the military), and adds the “single Soviet economic
space”. He later lists a major factor of the Soviet heritage, “human elements”,
such as the millions of mixed families, but also that nearly one third of the
population lived outside their ethnic territories (ibid.). One part of the ‘societal
glue’ consisted of shared historical experiences, notwithstanding that they were
triggered by relentless agitation and propaganda. Equally important was the
common language within the Soviet Union, the Russian language: “more than
60 per cent of non-Russians spoke Russian fluently” (ibid.: 484). After the dis-
appearance of political institutions such as the state party, other connections
remained through administrative branches and the military. The economy continues
to exist in the form of a division of labour and trade between the national econo-
mies of successor states. The ability to communicate in Russian remains in the
generations that grew up in the Soviet Union and within the transnational families.
The common historical memory has remained for a longer period and serves as a
basis for the ongoing effectiveness of Russian television in the “near abroad”. The
emergence of national states based on a specific ethnos became an important
trigger for post-Soviet emigration of ethnic Russians from these new states towards
the Russian Federation.
 The dissolution of the Soviet Union 23
Cohen’s second argument is based on a chronology of the events during 1991.
After the referendum on a renewed union in March 1991, the leaders of the federal
republics began the “Novo-Ogarevo” negotiations and prepared a new treaty. A
group of presidents (Russia and eight other republics) were going to sign it on
August 20. The proclaimed name for the new state should have been “Union of
Soviet Sovereign Republics”. Only six republics at the margins of Soviet Union
had refused to sign: the three Baltic republics, Georgia, Armenia, and Moldavia
(see Hale 1999: 13–16).
The coup d’état on August 19 prevented the signing ceremony. “In other words,
the treaty did not fail because the Union was unreformable but because a small
group of high-level of Moscow officials staged an army coup on August 19 to stop
its successful reform” (Cohen 2004: 486). Moreover, even after the failed coup,
the politicians continued the negotiations. Still, at the end of November, at least
seven republics were open for signing of a new treaty on their union. However,
on December 8, 1991, the three presidents of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia
prevented the signing. Cohen calls it a second coup d’état; this time, a successful
one (ibid.).
Felix Jaitner gives an interesting interpretation of the three presidents’ decision
(see Jaitner 2014: 55–56): Yeltsin and his allies were driven by the attempt to
forestall a democratic revolution of the masses. As a proof, he quotes his memoires
(Yeltsin 1994: 165–166).

The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the emerging type of

post-Soviet capitalism
It has already been noted that the transformation towards capitalism started during
perestroika. However, the basic institutions of capitalism such as banks, insurance
companies, and labour bureaus did not yet exist. A class of entrepreneurs was
only in its embryonic phase. I agree with David Lane’s view that this transition
was not merely a change from one type of capitalism to another. The state social-
ism was not just a type of state capitalism: “The transformation of state socialism
into a form of market capitalism required the creation of a capitalist economy and
superstructure, as well as a capitalist class” (Lane 2006: 144). The development
and diffusion of a cultural orientation, which Lane called “market ideology”,
helped prepare for the formation of the basic institutions and agents of capitalism.
In my opinion, consumer socialism was a special period of preparation for this
change. (See for the concept Boyer 2008; Hübner & Hübner 2008.)4
Aside from this general cultural preparation, it was important to encourage
entrepreneurs. From which field of practice did this group emerge? First, it was
the administrative elite of state socialism, as Lane mentioned. They supported
“the extension of their administrative control of the means of production to its
ownership” (Lane 2011: 145). A main path of entrepreneurial development during
privatisation of former state enterprises was via “management buyout”. This way
of privatisation was significant in most post-socialist states, including Russia and
Ukraine (see Kalotay and Hunya 2000: 41).
24 Dieter Segert
Another trigger for the change towards capitalism was the “intelligentsia’s”
desire for a meritocratic rewards system. This interest led to more inequality. It
“furthered a market system of exchange and market valorisation of labour” (Lane
2011: 146). During Gorbachev’s perestroika, as the party apparatus lost its grip
on political power, the “intelligentsia” became proportionally more powerful.
“This set off a tipping process whereby previously loyal ‘within system’-reformers
felt able to shift their support to . . . radical market reform” (ibid.: 147). The mass
support of this politics came from the population that wanted to satisfy their
consumer needs.
So far, I have concentrated on the phase preceding the breakup. Now I will turn
to the development of capitalism in the post-Soviet space.
The core was the reconstruction of the economic system. Both the intended and
unintended transition towards capitalism started during the times of “perestroika”.
In 1991, there was neither a functioning market nor a planned economy (Brown
2009: 694). The economy was in a deep crisis. The state tried to manage the
shortages with food ration cards (Kornev 2010: 25).
The international financial institutions initiated various programs to support the
restart of the economies after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. “The approach
was based on three main pillars: liberalisation of prices, restrictive fiscal and
monetary policies including public spending, and speedy privatisation” (Shmulyar
Gréen 2009: 188–189). Some responsible actors (like Yegor Gaidar) called the
path of transformation in Russia a “shock therapy”. Its preparation started already
in the summer of 1991, just after Yeltsin was directly elected as president of
Russia and thereby acquired the formal legitimacy for radical political changes.
His team of leading advisors consisted of both liberal oriented Russian economists
(mainly Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais) and Western consultants (like Jeffrey
Sachs and Anders Åslund). Nevertheless, Yeltsin was the most important political
actor behind this policy change.
Yeltsin appointed, in autumn 1991, Gaidar as the Minister for Economic Affairs
and Deputy Prime Minister in the Russian government. Gaidar was deeply
convinced that the first and foremost economic policy target should be just the
liberalisation of prices:

Free market and a large service sector came to form the primary aims of the
Russian liberals. At the same time, any elements of planning in the market
economy, rejection of economic determinism, and incorporating Russian
cultural traditions and public opinion became anathema to their vision
(Shmulyar Gréens 2009: 192)

This was a very ignorant treatment of the expectations and moral concepts of
the population. The resulting policy has led to deep tensions and conflicts within
the Russian society and between the citizens and the political class.
On January 2, 1992, all consumer prices were liberalised except for bread, milk
and tickets for public transport. Personal saving accounts were frozen by the state.
The huge destruction by the hyperinflation affected the accounts of 75 million
Another random document with
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Diamond H as long as he was running it. So you might say the trip
was more or less of a holiday.”
Hinman allowed his gaze to rove through the window and settle upon
a covered wagon crawling slowly southward.
“He’ll be crowded clear off the map inside another year,” Hinman
said. “I don’t suppose you told him about how glad I’d be to have him
swarm over here on my grass with all his cows whenever he’s finally
ordered out down there; now did you?”
“I did sort of intimate that your range would always be wide open,”
Carver stated. “I was straining every little point to save the taxes on
that bunch of cows. I’ll bet it would have totalled up to anyhow six
hundred dollars, those taxes would.”
“Well, that’s all you agreed to do,” said Hinman. “And I guess I’d
better pay you off and have it over with, even if you did get me into
considerable of a snarl. Only one thing I can do now, since you made
all those arrangements, and that’s to back up anything you told Nate.
I never figured you’d let me in for anything like this.”
“I’d prefer to take my pay in some other form than cash,” Carver
announced as Hinman produced his check book. “Suppose you give
me a bill of sale for a hundred head of coming yearlings instead of
nine hundred cash and let ’em range with your stuff up on the west
place till November.”
“You can’t spend calves,” said Hinman.
“I could borrow against them if I was needing money,” Carver
explained.
“But coming yearlings are worth twelve dollars a head,” Hinman
objected.
“I’ll owe you the rest,” Carver offered.
“And when I deliver in November they’ll be worth more’n that. They’ll
bring round sixteen dollars a head by then.”
“That’s what I was counting on,” said Carver. “I like to feel every
morning that I’m worth just a little more than I was the night before.”
Hinman laid down the check book and regarded him.
“Now it’s always struck me that you put yourself out to be worth just
a mite less each morning than you was the night before,” he stated.
“Surely you haven’t gone and deserted the ranks of the tumbleweeds
in favor of the pumpkins. I never knew you to set a value on a dollar.”
“That’s because I never chanced across just the right sort of dollar,”
Carver explained. “Now this is different.” He produced his lucky coin
and handed it over for inspection. “I’m aiming to accumulate a
number of others just like this to keep it company.”
Hinman inspected the silver dollar.
“Yes,” he said. “This is a right unusual appearing sort of coin. Don’t
know as I ever see one just like it. Now if you really think there’s a
chance for you to collect some more like this and take an interest in
holding on to them, why we might make a deal. You’ve just effected
quite a saving on my taxes, so I can maybe stretch a point. But if I
don’t deliver till November, and run ’em meantime on my grass,
those critters will cost you fourteen apiece instead of twelve. You’ll
be owing me five hundred in place of three.”
“I don’t mind owing you,” said Carver. “We’ll close the deal.”
As he rode away from the Box T he sang:
“Oh, I’ve risked many dollars
On the rambling tumbleweed
And only one on pumpkins
But that one went to seed.”
 III
The crest of the watershed separating the flow between the Salt
Fork and the Cimarron was also the dividing line between Crowfoot’s
range and the leases of the Half Diamond H. Carver crossed over
this low divide and angled toward Turkey Creek to intersect its
course at a point near Crowfoot’s place. Here the majority of the
range stock wore the straggling brand intended to represent a bird’s
claw, the badge of Crowfoot’s ownership.
Carver viewed the ranch buildings from the shoulder of a hill, noting
particularly the corral which was fashioned as a solid stockade some
ten feet high. Crowfoot had entered into a beef contract with the
railroad and his slaughtering was conducted within this small
enclosure. Carver entertained positive convictions as to the purpose
of this arrangement but in common with others of his kind he made a
religion of remaining strictly incurious regarding the calling or
customs of acquaintances except in so far as they might affect his
own immediate affairs.
He turned his horse up the Turkey Creek bottoms and followed that
stream for a dozen miles, then angled away to the right toward the
Half Diamond H range. When well up the gentle slope he rode out on
to the rim of a pocket. The scattering trees in the bottoms indicated
the presence of water. A spring branch probably headed in the
pocket and drained back toward Turkey Creek, he reflected. He
pulled up his horse as a woman’s voice floated up to him.
Somewhere down below him a girl was singing, and Carver headed
his horse down the slope toward the sound.
A sod house nestled under the hill beside the trickling spring-creek.
The singing ceased abruptly and a girl appeared in the door of the
sod house at the sound of his horse’s hoofs in the yard.
For the second time Carver saw her framed in a doorway and he
was conscious of a sudden pleased conviction that she should
always choose a similar setting. The drab surroundings served only
as a background to hold her vivid youth and charm in more startling
relief. Carver recollected that he had mauled one brother in no gentle
fashion and was held accountable for another’s day of
transgressions; in consequence he feared a cool reception from the
sister. Instead, her face lighted with sudden recognition.
“Oh, it’s you!” she greeted. “Bart will be coming home any time now
and he’d be so sorry if he missed you. Won’t you step down off your
horse and wait?”
She sat on the doorsill and motioned Carver to a seat on a bench
against the cabin. He removed his hat and tilted back against the
sod wall as she explained that Bart was even now overdue. As they
talked it was quite evident that all her thoughts centered round the
younger brother. Carver found the tones of her voice as pleasant to
his ear as the sight of her was pleasing to his eyes, and he was
content to listen, hoping meanwhile that Bart would never come.
He knew this for a Crowfoot line camp, recently installed, which
accounted for the fact that he had not chanced across it the year
before. The Lassiters, therefore, must ride for Crowfoot, he decided.
“Bart and I only came down last week,” she said. “We’ve been living
in your little house in Caldwell. Did you know?”
“I gave him the key and told him the place was his,” Carver said. “But
I’d have straightened it up a bit if I’d known he was going to install
you there.”
“It was supremely tidy,” she complimented. “Which was a distinct
surprise. Most men’s housekeeping is rather the reverse.”
Her gaze kept wandering off down the bottoms for some sign of
Bart’s return.
“I do hope he comes,” she said.
“I’m real anxious to see Bart,” he confessed. “I certainly hope he
turns up sometime inside of the next three or four hours for this is my
busy day and I couldn’t conscientiously wait on him longer than that.”
His tones expressed only a mild anxiety over the possible non-arrival
of his friend.
“Do please stay the very limit, at least,” she urged, and laughed up at
him. “You know, you’re like Bart in a great many ways.” Carver
someway felt that he knew her better after that laugh. “Don’t you
think you two are somewhat alike?”
He had divined the close bond between this girl and her brother and
now made swift use of the knowledge.
“Bart and I are so similar that we might easy be mistaken for twins,”
he admitted. “You might say we’re almost identical.”
“He means a lot to me Bart does,” she said. “In most ways he’s a
lovable youngster, but——”
Carver leaned back with an audible sigh.
“Tell me all about Bart,” he urged.
“I will,” she agreed. “In most ways he’s likable but he’s as wild as a
hawk. He is absolutely irresponsible and will commit any reckless
folly on a second’s notice without a thought of future consequences.
The future means not one thing to him. He’s sublimely confident that
every new day stands by itself, entirely unrelated to either yesterday
or to-morrow. And he’s too easily led. Now don’t you think you two
are considerably alike?”
Carver considered this at some length.
“There’s some few particulars wherein our make-ups branch way out
apart,” he testified. “On those points we’re altogether dissimilar. Now
me, I just can’t be led. I’m sometimes misled, maybe, but never plain
led. And so far as the relation of one day to another”—he produced a
silver dollar and regarded it—“why nothing could possibly convince
me that five weeks ago last Tuesday wasn’t close kin to to-day.” The
girl’s mind flashed back to that first meeting as he smiled across at
her and continued: “And I’m hoping that there’ll be other days in the
future that’ll belong to the same family group. You’d be downright
surprised to know how far my mind wanders into the future—and you
accusing me of not looking ahead.”
“He’s told me a lot about you,” she said. “You’re the supreme chief of
the tumbleweeds, from what I gather; openly irresponsible.”
“On the contrary, I’m apt to take my responsibilities too much to heart
if I don’t watch myself,” he defended. “Do you consider a state of
responsibility one to strive for?” Then, as she nodded, “Hereafter I’ll
track down responsibilities like a duck collects Junebugs, and
assume one after the next.”
“I’ve raised Bart from a baby,” she said. “And I don’t want to see him
go over to the wild bunch. He likes you a lot. Use that influence to
steady him, won’t you, instead of the other way?”
“Just what is the main thing you want Bart to stay clear of?” he
asked.
“I want him to run straight,” she said.
Carver rose to take his leave, his departure hastened by the sight of
a horseman through the trees far down the bottoms. And the rider
was not Bart. He had no desire to meet Noll Lassiter during his first
real visit with the girl, and he somehow knew the identity of the man
who approached.
“Maybe I can do Bart a trifle of good in spots,” he said, as he stood
before her. “And I’ll guarantee not to do him any great amount of
harm.”
“Thanks,” she said, rising to face him and extending her hand. “I
knew you’d do it.”
Carver retained the hand and leaned to kiss her as she stood looking
up at him. The girl stepped back and studied him, evidencing no
annoyance but seeming rather to try to determine the thought which
had occasioned the act and searching for a possible trace of
disrespect. Carver met her eyes fairly.
“You oughtn’t to have smiled just at that particular moment,” he said.
“You see, you are irresponsible,” she pointed out. “That’s exactly
what Bart would have done. You yield to any passing whim.”
“That wasn’t any passing whim,” he corrected. “It was one powerful
impulse; and it’s permanent—not passing. It’s related to to-day and
five weeks ago Tuesday, and I’m hoping it’s related to to-morrow.”
She disregarded this except for an almost imperceptible shake of her
head.
“But you will remember about Bart,” she urged.
“I’ll try and collect all Bart’s loose ends and shape him up into one
solid pattern of propriety,” he promised. “You won’t hardly know him
for the same party after I’ve worked him over.” He swung to the
saddle. “But I’ll have to put in considerable time over here conferring
with you if we’re going to make a success out of Bart.”
He turned his horse to leave but the approaching rider had hastened
through the last belt of trees and he now held up a hand and
signalled Carver to wait. Lassiter pulled up his horse abruptly as he
discovered Carver’s identity.
“I thought it was Wellman,” he stated surlily. “Who asked you here?
This is a little off your range.”
“I travel on a roving permit,” Carver said. He explored his pockets as
if seeking the document and an expression of mock concern
overspread his face. “I declare, I must have mislaid it somehow. But I
believe I showed it to you once before; and anyway, I’m going now.”
He nodded a casual good-by to the girl, turned his back on Lassiter
and departed. As he mounted the cow trail leading out of the head of
the pocket he met Bart Lassiter coming down.
“I’ve just been over to your house visiting round with Miss Molly,”
Carver greeted. “Noll came riding up and I someway gathered the
impression that he wasn’t glad to see me.”
The two lolled sidewise in their saddles. Bart looked down the
bottoms toward the sod house.
“I’d keep an eye peeled for Noll,” he advised. “He’s out for you if he
sees the right chance. If you don’t watch sharp your horse will come
dangling in some day without a rider.”
“Sho!” Carver deprecated. “It’s been against the law to kill folks for a
long time now.”
“I know,” said Bart. “But the mere fact that we’ve got a law like that
proves that maybe some one did get killed once and there’s a
chance it might happen again.”
“He’s been telling you things,” Carver guessed. “Likely he was just
easing his mind.”
“Noll didn’t tell me a word,” Bart denied. “He don’t need to. I know
him. He rode hard on me with a club, up until I outgrew him, and I
can read what’s going on in his mind. I put in all my early years
dodging, until one day he cuffed Molly; then I forgot my timidity and
pulled down his meat house. It was weeks before he was up and
around. He’ll bear watching. I don’t mean to infer that Noll’s all
charged with valor, which he’s not, but he’s certainly loaded to the
ears with meanness and he’ll take a chance if the odds are all his
way and no one looking on.”
“Then I’ll take to surveying my back track,” Carver promised.
“Because if we meet it will likely be from the rear.”
“That’s where,” Bart agreed.
“What’s to hinder my taking you on as a bodyguard, sort of?” Carver
suggested. “I’m going in with the Half Diamond H wagon. Old Nate
would put you on.”
“The three of us are leaving for the X I L in a day or two,” said Bart.
“Otherwise I’d go with you. Milt has been trail boss for the X I L for
the last four summers and brought their trail herds through. Always
before we’ve gone on back and wintered there, but this season we
laid over to help Crowfoot.”
Carver turned this arrangement over in his mind. The X I L was a
Texas brand running south of the Washita country.
“I’ll have a little deal on this fall after round-up,” he said. “And I’d like
to have you cut in with me, provided you don’t hang out at
Crowfoot’s. I’m not over-squeamish and there’s one time and
another when I’ve rode for outfits whose methods was open to
question. Most riders have. But folks are coming to frown on
irregularities and it’s time a man reads his signs right and quits
before it’s just too late.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Bart agreed easily. “I can see that plain.”
“It’s my surmise that there’s a right small percentage of the meat that
goes to fill Crowfoot’s contracts with the railroad that is dressed out
of steers wearing his own brand,” Carver said. “Of course, he’s too
smart to cut in on his neighbors, and they don’t bother to get curious
as long as they know their own strays are safe on his range. But it’s
my guess that if a steer from some foreign outfit turns up on the
Turkey Creek range he’ll get converted into beef overnight.”
Lassiter grinned and wagged a negative head.
“Now you wouldn’t go and suspect Crowfoot of filling his beef
contracts at other folks’ expense,” he reproved. “Besides, how could
he when it’s the law that whenever a cow critter is butchered its hide
must be hung on the fence till it’s been inspected and passed?”
“And our present hide inspector would ride miles out of his way
rather than meet a fresh hide face to face,” Carver testified. “I expect
maybe Crowfoot kills out a batch of his own steers, about every third
slaughtering. That way there’d always be enough fresh hides of his
own brand hanging round the place to make it look right. But he
wouldn’t dress out any more of his own till after one batch of pelts
was too dried out to answer. He’s not that improvident.”
“Well, maybe not,” Bart said. “I couldn’t say for sure. What has
Crowfoot done to you to start you commenting on his habits?”
“Not anything!” Carver confessed. “I don’t even lose sleep over what
he’s doing to other folks. I’m generalizing, kind of. Things are
changing rapid and a man had better let his glance rove a few years
ahead.”
“Hadn’t he, though?” Bart concurred. He didn’t inquire as to the
nature of Carver’s proposition, for it mattered not at all. “We’ll put on
our telescopes and spy out a soft berth for the future. That’s us. You
can count me in till the hair slips.”
With this casual promise they separated. Carver reviewed his recent
utterances with some doubt as he rode across the divide.
“That’s the first time I ever aspired to turn evangelist,” he said. “And
I’m awkward at it. The rôle don’t become me any to speak of, but I’ve
committed myself to take Bart in hand.”
Three days later he rode again to the little sod house on the spring-
creek. He came upon it from behind, his horse’s hoofs making but
slight sound on the springy turf. Not until he had dismounted and
rounded the corner on foot did he discover that a saddled horse
stood on the far side of the house. He stopped short, wondering
which of the three brothers might be at home. While he hesitated a
man’s voice sounded from within, and it was not that of any one of
the Lassiters. He took another step toward the door but halted again
as he detected a threat in the tones of the man inside.
“You listen to reason or I’ll have Bart locked up for the rest of his
natural life,” the voice proclaimed. “And that within the next two days.
I know his whereabouts on a certain night two years ago, when a
saloon in Taosin was ransacked.”
“You’ve told me all that,” said the girl. “But even if you could prove it,
why Bart was only seventeen then.”
“There’s places where they keep such naughty children,” the man
pointed out. “Then he was into that Casa affair, when the station was
burned.”
This statement enabled Carver to identify the man whose voice had
seemed vaguely familiar. It could be no other than Freel.
“I’ve got a line on the whole past of the Lassiters,” Freel resumed.
“Clear back prior to when the old man was alive. He’d be wanted too,
on a dozen counts, if he was still above ground. You know what it is
to have the law always barking at your door. If you take up with me
folks would respect you. But any one in this whole country will tell
you that Freel is a bad man to have on the other side. You don’t want
me lined up against the Lassiters, girl.”
Carver stepped to the door. Freel’s back was toward him but he
could see the girl’s face. There was no trace of apprehension there,
only distaste for the man before her. Her eyes widened with surprise
as they met Carver’s and as she divined his purpose she made a
move to station herself between the two men but Carver held up a
hand to halt her. Freel had whirled to face the door when the girl’s
face betrayed the presence of a third party. He recovered his self-
confidence, shaken for the moment, with the discovery of the
intruder’s identity.
“Morning,” he greeted casually. “Any more wagers on your mind to-
day?”
“Yes,” said Carver. “Step outside. I’m going to make you another little
bet.”
He stepped aside as the marshal passed through the door, then
followed and closed it behind him.
“This wager’s not going to be in money,” Carver said. “If I lose I’ll
look you up and explain to you what the stakes are. I’m betting that
you don’t ever pass out any remarks about Bart Lassiter or his sister.
The bridle’s off as far as the other two boys are concerned. You can
go as far as you like with them.”
Freel sized him up, sensing a new quality in the man before him, a
certain tenseness which Carver concealed beneath the cloak of
casual speech.
“You drop out of this,” he advised. “I was offering to marry Miss
Lassiter when you romped in.”
“Offering to,” said Carver. “I thought maybe you was threatening to.”
“Any girl of the Lassiter tribe ought to be damn glad of an opportunity
to marry and live respectable,” Freel stated, and was instantly aware
that he had made a grave mistake, for that quality which he had
sensed in Carver was now quite openly apparent in his eyes.
“So you’re going to make her respectable,” Carver said. “That’s real
generous of you, I’d say. It’s rumored around that you set up to be a
bad one. I just heard you confess it. Let’s see how wicked you can
be when your badness all boils over.”
He took a step toward Freel and the marshal backed away, reading
Carver’s purpose in his eyes.
“It’s never my policy to start a quarrel without good reason,” he
announced.
“I’m laying myself out to supply the reason,” Carver said. “I always
did want to see a regular desperado working at his trade.” He
removed his hat with his left hand and brought it with a back-handed
slash across the marshal’s face. “You’re wicked clear through,” he
said. “You’re just as bad as you can be.”
He swung the hat twice again but Freel turned and walked toward
his horse.
“You’re not bad; you’re just tainted,” Carver stated. “I always felt that
about you and now I know for sure.”
The marshal mounted and turned upon Carver a face set in lines of
stern disapproval.
“I refuse to force an issue except in the regular routine of duty,” he
proclaimed. “This is not a matter of official business. Otherwise——”
He intended that the unfinished statement should carry an
impressive implication of power held in reserve and which he
controlled only with the greatest difficulty. He turned and rode off
down the bottoms.
“I feel like I’d just come in off a spree,” Carver told himself. “It shakes
a man up something fearful to let his temper go running wild all over
the lot. I oughtn’t to have lost hold of myself.”
He regarded the closed door. A sharp rap sounded from the inside of
it and Carver smiled as he speculated as to how many people of his
acquaintance would have respected his unspoken wish that the door
remain closed. The rap sounded again.
“Come in,” he called.
She opened the door and answered his smile, her eyes following the
marshal as he disappeared in the scattering black-jacks of the
bottoms.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m glad you came just when you did. But I’m
sorry if you made an enemy of him. I really don’t mind him—much.”
“He’s right harmless,” said Carver. “But apt to be annoying. I don’t
surmise he’ll be turning up here again.”
He knew that the marshal operated only on safe ground. Freel had
known that both elder brothers would be entirely indifferent to any
course he might adopt toward Molly Lassiter if only it afforded a
measure of protection for themselves; and she would not mention
any such occurrence to Bart lest it precipitate trouble between
himself and Freel.
The girl motioned him to a seat on the bench.
“You did remember your promise of the other day,” she commended.
“About Bart, I mean. He said you’d pointed out the narrow pathway
and invited him to join forces.”
“I never did set up as a reformer,” Carver admitted, “and it likely
sounded a mite unnatural, coming from me.”
“Bart was a little vague about the plans,” she said. “Do you mind
telling me what the proposition was?”
“I couldn’t say any offhand,” he confessed. “You see I just put it up to
him and was intending to work out the details later on. There, now!”
he complained, as she laughed at this lack of definiteness. “You’re
doubting my stability again. There’s numerous ways open for me to
follow.” He checked them off on his fingers. “I might get appointed
marshal in Freel’s place and there’s any number of folks would
contribute to my success. I could assist Crowfoot to fill his beef
contracts; or I could get the job of hide inspector and Crowfoot would
then assist me.”
Beneath this facetious recitation of possibilities she read in his
reference to Crowfoot a deliberate intention to apprise her of the fact
that the man’s methods were open to question, leaving her to devise
her own means of utilizing the knowledge in so far as it related to
Bart’s employment by Crowfoot.
“The boys are all leaving for the X I L in a few days now,” she
returned.
“This man Bronson that owns the X I L—he’s someway related to
Crowfoot,” said Carver. “Seems like I’ve heard he was. Anyway,
there’s some connection. I spoke for a job for Bart with the Half
Diamond H wagon and was hoping he’d take it on.”
When Carver rose to leave he rested his hands on her shoulders as
she stood facing him.
“The round-up will cut into our conferences but I’m looking forward to
resuming them after it’s over.”
She stepped back and shook her head as he leaned toward her.
“Don’t forget how much I’m like Bart,” he urged. “And you know you’d
do that much for him. You might try it on me once, just for similarity’s
sake.”
The girl faced him gravely.
“I’m going to absolve you from that promise,” she said. “Try and
forget all about the Lassiters. We bring bad luck.”
“It’s too late to start forgetting; and besides, I cut my first baby teeth
on a horseshoe,” he returned; “and from that day on down to date
I’ve been the greatest sort of a hand to counteract bad luck. It
positively refuses to settle in my neighborhood. I’ll tell you all about
it, Honey, as soon as the round-up’s over.”
She stood and watched him ride off up the country, returning his
salutation when he turned in his saddle and waved to her as he
reached the rim of the pocket.
He spent the night at a line camp and the next day made a long ride
into Caldwell, dismounting before his little cabin in the early evening.
A blanketed figure prowled uneasily at the far side of the street as
Carver unsaddled, then crossed over and padded silently along the
path that led to the house.
“Me like whiskey,” the Indian stated.
“Yes,” said Carver. “So do I. But they do say it’s a sinful appetite.”
The red man pondered this.
“Me buy whiskey,” he amended, exhibiting a gold piece.
“I’m just out,” said Carver. “Try next door.”
The Indian departed, only to be replaced some few minutes later by
a second applicant. Carver recalled the incident of the two black
bottles on that other day when he had first met Bart Lassiter in the
Silver Dollar.
“Bart has been up to some more financing,” he reflected. “While
Molly was downtown somewhere, he was busy irrigating the
Cherokee nation at a profit. I’ve heard somewheres that if you do
any one thing better than your neighbors the world will beat a
pathway to your door—and this path looks well-worn and much-
traveled. I’ll have to speak to Bart about this.”
He retired for the night after a third thirsty soul had made the
pilgrimage down the pathway to the door.
“Before I can straighten out Molly’s affairs,” he said, “it does look as if
I’d have to discharge a marshal, reform one brother and practice
homicide on another.”
With this disquieting reflection he dropped instantly asleep. An hour
later his awakening was equally abrupt. It is given only to those who
live much in the open to wake suddenly from profound slumber with
every faculty alert. When Carver opened his eyes he was conscious
that something was amiss. He continued his regular deep breathing
as if still wrapped in sleep. His horse fidgeted nervously in the lean-
to shed behind; but he knew that this sound, being one to which he
was accustomed, would not have roused him. The spring lock on the
door had clicked slightly as if under the manipulation of a stealthy
hand and the sound had penetrated his consciousness even while
he slept. Probably another parched but hopeful Cherokee, he
reflected, but he rose noiselessly and stepped to the window.
“I didn’t start discharging and homiciding soon enough,” he told
himself.
Freel and Noll Lassiter stood outside in the bright moonlight, the
latter having just stepped back within Carver’s range of vision after
testing the spring lock on the door. Carver turned swiftly and donned
shirt and trousers. The latch clicked again as he pulled on his chaps;
then came a sharp knock at the door. Carver did not answer but
finished buckling his belt and drew on one boot. The rap was
repeated.
“Ho!” Carver called loudly, as if suddenly roused from heavy sleep.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s Freel,” the deputy’s voice answered.
“Oh,” said Carver. “Come on in. I’m in bed.”
“Door’s locked,” Freel returned.
“Must have blown shut,” Carver stated. “There’s a spring lock on it.
Wait a minute and I’ll pile into some clothes and let you in. What do
you want, anyway, at this time of night?”
“There’s been complaints lodged against you for selling whiskey to
the Cherokees,” Freel explained apologetically. “I don’t suppose
there’s anything to it but I was ordered to make the arrest. You can
clear yourself likely.”
Carver laughed easily.
“Why, man! This is the first time I’ve been here in two months,” he
scoffed. “They won’t keep me overnight.”
“I hope not,” said Freel. “It’s the pen if they cinch you—Federal law,
you know. I didn’t like the idea of coming after you but I was ordered
to do it.”
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Carver answered cheerfully. “I can
explain it easy enough.”
He thumped the bed with the edge of his hand in imitation of a bare
foot descending upon the floor.
“Killed while resisting arrest,” he said to himself, his mind working
swiftly. “This is just a plain old-fashioned killing. Freel knows I
wouldn’t be so simple as to start shooting over being picked up on a
fool charge like this. I’d take it more as a joke. He’ll step in to talk it
over while Noll pots me from outside. Neighbors hear shots—a
regular battle in progress—and later, at the inquest, it transpires that
my gun’s been shot empty. They can prove that Cherokees have
been buying bottles here, whether I did it or not, and Freel, having
heard about it, had come out to investigate. I put up a desperate fight
but went down in the smoke—died hard as it were, but real dead.
But they wouldn’t do it before I was dressed. That might appear like
they’d slaughtered me in my sleep.”
Meanwhile he commented in disjointed fragments to Freel.
“I’ll go on down with you and explain it. It’s a right foolish charge.” He
was now fully dressed. “They’ll let me out by to-morrow so it don’t
matter any.” And to himself, “After Noll’s first shot there’s two from
inside. Neighbors look out into the moonlight. Freel has ducked back
outside and they see him prone on the ground shooting into the
house. He rushes the open door, calling out to me to surrender in the
name of the law, and the neighbors all hear him. There’s sounds of a
struggle inside; chairs overturned, and there’s shooting. A regular
hell-roaring combat—and me dead on the floor all the time.”
He moved to the window. Lassiter was nowhere in sight.
“Flat against the house between the window and the door,” he
decided; then aloud to Freel, “Anyone with you?”
“Not a soul,” Freel lied.
“Better so; maybe we can figure out some little bet whereby it would
be to your advantage to help me come clear of this charge.” He was
now fully clothed and he crossed to the door without permitting his
boot heels to touch the floor. “Can’t find a match,” he complained,
fumbling at the catch. “Come in and strike a light while I hop into my
clothes. I’m in my nightie.” He opened the door, standing back from
the streak of moonlight which streamed through. Freel would shoot if
he saw that Carver was already dressed.
“I’ll just wait here,” Freel said.
“And pot me as I step out,” Carver mentally completed.
“You’ll be out on bond in an hour,” Freel resumed. His head was
within a foot of the door as he attempted to peer inside.
Carver swung his gun with deadly precision and Freel collapsed
without a word as the heavy weapon descended solidly upon his
skull. Before the deputy had fairly struck the ground Carver was
peering round the door jamb with the gun levelled on Lassiter who
was flattened against the house some three feet from the door.
“Steady! Let it slide out of your hand!” Carver ordered.
Lassiter’s slow brain had scarcely grasped the fact that his plans had
gone amiss, and even as the hand which held his gun relaxed in
response to the order, Carver took one swift half step round the door
and swung his own weapon again.
Ten minutes later he had saddled and was riding out of town. As he
cleared it, he chanted a verse wherein the tumbleweed rebuked the
sluggish pumpkin for sticking to its garden patch as Thanksgiving
day approached.
“You can lay right there and wait
To be turned into pies and tarts,
But me, I’ll jump the fence right now
And head for other parts.”
“Freel’s bringing me in feet first, like he’d planned, could be easy
explained,” Carver reflected. “But a live active prisoner is different.
The last thing in this world he’d want is to book me for trial. I couldn’t
force myself on him as a captive. Next time I meet Freel out in
company I’ll surrender and insist that he puts me under arrest.”
 IV
The cook wagon lumbered down Cabin Creek toward the Salt Fork
of the Arkansas. A dozen hands, riding in couplets, straggled
irregularly behind. The bed wagon followed and the horse wrangler
brought up the rear with the remuda which numbered some two
hundred head of horses, including the string of extra mounts for each
round-up hand who rode with the Half Diamond H wagon.
A rider waited on the far bank of the Salt Fork with his string of extra
horses and the men speculated idly as to whether he represented
Crowfoot or the Coldstream Pool, it being the custom to exchange
“reps” to ride with neighboring wagons. The horseman proved to be
Bart Lassiter, repping for Crowfoot. Carver’s intimation as to
Crowfoot’s methods and their possible connection with the X I L trail
herd, dropped on the occasion of his last visit with Molly Lassiter,
had borne fruit. The Half Diamond H crew had been full-handed but
the girl had induced Bart to ride with their wagon as Crowfoot’s rep
instead of accompanying his half-brothers to the X I L.
Lassiter threw his extra mounts in with the remuda and joined
Carver, who opened up on him without parley.
“I tendered you the key to my little house so that you could use it for
living purposes,” he said, “but without any notion that you’d start up
in business. From all that I can gather you set out to abate the thirst
of the whole Cherokee Nation.”
“Well, the poor devils are fixed up every other way,” Bart explained.
“They draw beef rations, flour rations, blanket issues and so on, but
nobody’s ever been thoughtful enough to provide them with licker
rations, so they’re forced to live a one-sided, unbalanced kind of
existence and I was striving to supply the lack and sort of round out
their lives.”
“An’ you came near to finishing mine,” Carver stated.
“It was only that once,” Bart defended. “I did dispose of several
cases at a right handsome profit and you’ve no notion how much
they enjoyed theirselves the next night. It would have done your
heart good to have heard it. All Caldwell turned out to listen to the
expansive sounds emanating from the Cherokee camp south of
town.”
Carver had placed that first illusive impression that Molly Lassiter
was in grave need of something without which her life was not quite
complete. It was no material requirement but a need that was deeper
than that. She despised the ways of the two older half-brothers, who
had been practically strangers to her during her own early life,
showing up at her father’s home but infrequently. Later, after her own
mother’s death, they had returned and made it their home. There
had never been any bond between them and herself, and she had
feared the effect their ways might exercise upon Bart. Freel had
spoken the truth when he asserted that she knew what it was to
have the law always barking at her door. Carver knew now that what
she most needed was peace,—assurance that the same old
conditions would not pertain to her life and Bart’s.
“Why do you put Molly up against that sort of thing?” he demanded.
“She didn’t know,” Bart returned.
“But she’d know if they happened to clamp down on you for it,”
Carver insisted. “And that’s what she’s guarding against. She’s
always had that sort of thing to fight off.”
“She has for a fact,” Bart admitted. “The old man was a hard citizen
himself, way back in his youth. He’d quieted down for a good many
years but after the two boys came back he sort of leaned their way
again. There’s been times when Molly and me was kids, and left all
alone in the house or wherever we happened to be at the time, that
folks would come round inquiring about his whereabouts, and the old
man hiding out in the hills about them. She thought a lot of him,
Molly did, and hated Milt and Noll for leading him off.”
“Then why don’t you shake them?” Carver demanded. “There’s no
common bond between you and them, and Molly would be way