CISの誕生と行方

CISの行方

抄録

The disintegration of the Soviet Union was inevitable, since those three elements which had served to integrate the approximately 120 nationalities into one artificial entity, i. e., the U. S. S. R., had recently severely weakened its cementing functions. These were the threat from outside, the Communist ideology, and the organs which had supervised the enforcement of that ideology, i. e., the CPSU, KGB, and the Soviet armed forces. The first two cements had for long reduced its centripetal functions, and the third ones lost it through their badly organized August 1991 abortive coup attempt. When the Soviet Union collapsed, three choices existed: its reorganization into a loose form of federation, for example, the Union of Federation advocated by Gorbachev; the complete interdependence of the 12 republics; and the formation of the CIS. The main reasons why the 11 former republics chose the CIS option seems to be the following: (1) the 11 former republics found themselves unable to become economically independent for the time being, at least in the period right after the demise of the USSR, partly due to the heresy they inherited, namely economic reliance upon each other, which was the result of the Stalin's skillful application of the “socialist principle of divided labor.” (2) Even if these republics had decided to become completely independent, the chances were that they would not have been recognized as independent states, and hence nor admitted to such international organizations as the UN, IMF, CECS, by the U. S. and other important Western countries, which were greatly concerned with the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other undesirable consequences of the breakup of the USSR. (3) These former republics needed some sort of a mechanism or forum through which they could solve those mounting problems and issues which were left over with the sudden disintegration of the U. S. S. R.
What is the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)? No one so far seems to have provided a definitive, satisfactory, clear answer to this question. It is understandable for the following three reasons. (1) The CIS is not necessarily a concept with a positive substantive content but rather a counter concept against the USSR, the Center and its personal embodiment, Gorbachev. (2) The leaders of the CIS participating member states hurriedly decided to build the CIS, without having any agreed-upon concept of that institution. (3) They interpret differently the CIS scheme, according to their own ideas and even wishful thinkings.
As indicated above, the CIS thus contains, from the very beginning, the seeds of disagreements and even its own disintegration. Particularly, the following three constitute such a centrifugal element: (1) the sudden disappearance of the common enemy (the USSR, the center, Gorbachev), against which each constituent republic used to unite in the past; (2) different understanding or interpretation of the CIS scheme among CIS member states; (3) existence of potential and even actual seeds of contradictions, disagreements and cinflicts among CIS states with regard to their territorial boundaries, mother language tongue policies, and concern over the rise of Russian hegemonism.
What will be the CIS's future? Three scenarios are likely to take place. The first is what one may call “Yugoslavianization, ” i. e., the disintegration of the CIS and the starting of the civil war between and within some CIS member states. This dreadful scenario has in part begun. The second is what one may call “block building”, i. e., CIS member states build close ties, mostly economic, with neighboring countries within and without the CIS. The third is an effort to reorganize the CIS in a more tight or loose fashion. One may conclude that a combination of all these three scenarios are simultaneously occurring now.