How the Russian Bureaucracy Worked to Capture, then Close Down the Mari ‘Theme’
18.05.08
 Baku,
May 18 – Among the more disturbing actions of the Putin regime have
been its moves to assume control over nominally public organizations, thus
freezing out popular activists of one kind or another while allowing the
Kremlin to point to the existence of these institutions as evidence of
Russia’s supposed progress toward democracy and a civil society.
An especially noxious example of this, albeit one that has occurred
far from Moscow, involves the ways in which the Kremlin and its local ethnic
Russian allies have moved to take control of and then throttle what had
been the most important public initiative in the Middle Volga republic
of Mari El, the Congress of the Mari People.
Throughout the post-Soviet period, that independent body had been a
thorn in the side of officials there, repeatedly calling attention to the
repressive moves of the government and, what undoubtedly is far worse from
the perspective of Moscow, ensuring that information about these actions
reached Finno-Ugric activists and supporters abroad.
But according to two analyses of how the Russian bureaucracy took control
of the VIIIth Congress of the Mari People, Moscow and its man on the scene,
Mari El President Leonid Markelov, will have less reason to worry
about this group saying anything untoward in the future (www.mari.ee/rus/articles/soc/2008/05/04.html,
www.mari.ee/rus/news/soc/2008/05/06.html).
In an article entitled “A Congress of the People or a Gathering of
Bureaucrats” and posted on a Mari site based in Estonia, Ivan Nikolayev
describes just what the officials did. (In a separate article posted on
the same site, Anna Shiryayeva provides statistics on attendance
and content analysis of resolutions that support Nikolayev’s report.)
At the April 16-19 congress, the bureaucracy packed the house and ensured
that only people it approved of were elected and that all resolutions were
enthusiastic about what local and all-Russian officials have done – including
a reference to the construction of a 1.5 km road between two villages --
a major departure from all previous meetings of this group.
But this outcome was possible, Nikolayev says, only because of “the
great importance” the officials devoted to the preparation of the meeting
and to ensuring that Markelov, Russian presidential advisor Modest Kolerov
and Regnum agency head Boris Sorkin had the chance to speak and to set
the tone for the sessions of the congress.
In short, Nikolayev said, what the powers that be had demanded was that
“’the Mari theme’ be closed down in an intelligent way, by the hands
of the delegates” themselves. That is what the authorities achieved at
this meeting, although it is far from clear whether they will be able to
stifle the voice of this people.
However that may be, the congress took place “as scripted,” with
speakers saying what they were supposed to say, delegates agreeing to what
they were supposed to agree, and both electing the officials they were
supposed to elect, Nikolayev says, even when that mean that the congress
had to ignore its own rules.
And that is just what the authorities forced the congress to do. In
order to elect Larisa Yakovleva, a United Russian Duma deputy, to
a leadership post, the organizers had to scrap provisions in the charter
saying that no one could be elected who was simultaneously serving in a
party or government post. And that is just what the congress did.
Given this, Nikolayev asks rhetorically, “what role was left to the
participants of the Congress, who had come, it is laughable to say, to
discuss ‘the consolidation of the Mari people, the unification of the
joint efforts of Mari society living in various regions and countries in
order to preserve the unique national culture and the actual problems of
the Finno-Ugric world?”
Clearly, officials had decided to allow them only to serve as pawns
“in this great game,” even to the point of insisting that the congress
assemble under the slogan, “The Mari World and Civil Society”—even
though, as Nikolayev cleverly notes, “the Mari world remained on one
side and civil society on the other.”
The Mari people can be proud, the activist says, that they organized
seven real congresses even though officials have made a mockery of the
eighth, installing people in office who represent the powers and not the
people and forcing delegates to vote for things that they have no role
in drafting.
As to the future, Nikolayev says, there are two obvious directions in
which public life among the Mari is likely to develop. On the one hand,
the officials will be able to use the past authority of the congress to
boost themselves, but because they are subverting it, they will find it
ever less useful.
That is because, he continues, “slaves cannot build a competitive
economy: they are simply not interested in doing so.” The new “autocracy”
will attract some humble and obedient servants but it will never be able
to attract genuine “partners,” the very thing a civil society needs
in order to work.
And on the other, Nikolayev says, the Mari people will find ways to
create new “all-Mari unions” beyond the control of the bureaucracy
and the territory of Mari El. They will develop “a more mature platform
for the unification of all and not just some of the [Mari] organizations”
and thus be better positioned to advance their national interests.
To the extent that happens, the bureaucratic takeover of the Congress
of the Mari people by officials like Markelov and Kolerov may prove to
be just as much a Pyrrhic victory for them as the 1934 Congress of the
Communist Party, which took place under the slogan “the Congress of the
Victors,” but whose members were overwhelmingly swept away in the purges.
Paul Goble
Source: Window
on Eurasia
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