DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CIS - CHALLENGES FOR RUSSIA

The disintegration of the military power Soviet Union, which once thre atened many parts of the world, is an event of epoch-making significan ce. There has been little appreciation of the - historically exception al - fact that the dissolution of this vast empire has so far taken pl ace without any massive use Of force. One of the reasons for this is p robably the Community of Independent States (CIS), whose intended purp ose was to guarantee the performance of essential functions of the atr ophying USSR. However, expectations that the successor states would un animously join forces in this Community to sustain above all military and economic unity have not been fulfilled. In many regions, especiall y in the Ukraine, it looks as if vital interests such as those of nati onal security can only be safeguarded against, not with the Russian co re country. A crucial question now is whether the CIS can still rank i n any politically significant respect as a substitute for the demised Soviet Union or whether it is merely a step towards its liquidation in civilised forms. This leads on to the question of bow the Russian nat ion which predominated in the former Soviet empire assesses and respon ds to the new situation. In the following article, a liberally-minded Russian scientist, Andrei Zagorski, who is Deputy Rector for Research at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO), exa mines the development of the CIS. The article is an abridged version o f a study compiled on behalf of the Federal Institute for Eastern and International Studies in Cologne.