Chapter 1772 Contraction and Transformation

The Uzbeks plus the Azerbaijanis, with a combined population of over twenty million, and the entire population of the Soviet Union just shy of three hundred million, were already close to ten percent.

The population of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, on the other hand, was about seventy percent, and cutting out the two ethnically-dominated union republics, the percentage of Slavs would rise accordingly to nearly eighty percent, which would make it very much a nation-state.

Harazov, who once served as Lithuania’s second secretary, shook his head and said, “In fact, since World War II up, the proportion of nationalities has not changed much, so how come it’s impossible to unite them now?”

The Soviet Union’s ethnic problems were not created by the Soviet Union itself, take the Ukrainian problem for example, during the Imperial Russian period the Ukrainian language had already differed from the Russians, and although Ukraine was known as Little Russia, the language difference existed, and indeed ethnic polarization had already occurred.

As for other nationalities, the Great Patriotic War made as great a sacrifice as it did, and the tiny Azerbaijan also lost more than half a million men in battle, the Patriotic War was not fought by the Russians themselves, and the losses were not just the Russians’, and it is true that some nationalities experienced population growth after the war, and that was a matter of fertility, not a problem with the Soviet Union’s policies.

“In any case, from the time Boris preached so much, a large part of the Russians believed it. Transfers to the backward regions were also said to be ethnically unequal.”

Foltseva knew that what Harazov said was true, but the question now was not one of veracity; Pandora’s box had been opened, and the consequences were clearly beyond the reach of the Chetniks who were already in prison.

Now it is difficult to be able to maintain the unity of the Slavs, to maintain the unity of more than seventy percent of the country’s groups, and in grasping a number of populous union republics, it is impossible to account for the disgruntled Russians.

Egorechev spoke up anyway and suggested, “Let’s decentralize these two Union Republics, make a show of letting them decide their own destiny, and develop a five to ten year long term plan for their independence.”

Foltseva nodded, but it seemed as if she had seen this trick somewhere before, and on second thought recalled that it wasn’t the British Empire’s trick for confronting colonial independence after World War II, though at that time Britain was also contracting, and was in a similar position as the Soviet Union was in now.

Can be consoled where also exists, Foltseva think the foundation of the Soviet Union is still much stronger than the foundation of the British that colonial empire, the Soviet Union at least is really the existence of the main body of the nation. It was the Slavs within its borders, whereas the subject peoples of that British colonial empire at that time were, in fact, Indians.

What Yegorechev meant, and Foltseva understood, was a slow and orderly contraction, and if the Russians were really unhappy, a plan to act as a buffer, to allow the independence of a people of another culture, like the Uzbek Republic, to lessen the impact on the Soviet Union as a whole, and at the same time to show that the USSR was still willing to reform, and not to get into a stalemate with the Western world.

But Egorechev was adamantly opposed to outright independence for the republics, which would have revived a wave of secession that had been temporarily suppressed, and Lithuania had to be set up as a model, where any republic could be decentralized, but not Lithuania.

The first secretary of the Moscow City Council in the 1960s was not finished yet, “Georgia and Armenia will have to be fought for with great emphasis, not on a par with Azerbaijan. On the one hand, Georgia is Comrade Stalin’s hometown and has a great symbolic role for the Soviet Union. On the other hand, if Georgia and Azerbaijan become independent, it will create a possible power vacuum in Transcaucasia, and Turkey could exert its influence eastward, along with Central Asia, which would be bad, and by maintaining the stability of Armenia and Georgia, it would separate Turkey from Central Asia by land.”

“So how do we do a better job of guiding public opinion?” Foltseva recognized the sound approach; the question was how to get the Russians to accept this.

“Let’s say that in order to avoid a repetition of the old Lithuanian ethnic conflict, the central government has decided to take steady steps to prevent the legitimate rights of ethnic Russians from being jeopardized after the independence of these union republics.”

Meshchatsev, who was the president of the TASS news agency, replied, “Lithuania’s sudden independence radicalized the situation in Lithuania and even the entire three Baltic states, resulting in fierce ethnic conflicts, and that’s why it couldn’t be rushed in order to avoid that.”

“Azerbaijan has a population of five million, the Baku oil fields are there, we need to improve Azerbaijan’s welfare system before giving it independence.” Yegorechev added that boosting Azerbaijan’s welfare could be done to the locals to buy them off, and anyway, with Baku oil in Azerbaijan itself, Moscow is just using their money to do their bidding and still be able to get gratitude.

As for whether the Azerbaijani leaders can maintain the existing welfare after independence, it is not Moscow’s business, people have to learn to grow up on their own.

“What does this man Aliyev think?” Foltseva inquired, and when she saw both shaking their heads, she skipped the question, “We’ll talk to Aliyev when the time comes.”

“I remember, Semichasne and Aliyev know each other, Aliyev was a cadre of the KGB in Azerbaijan, Semichasne was the local second secretary.” Yegorechev slapped his thigh and replied, “When the time comes, let Semichasne talk to him, I guess it’s not a big problem.”

The number one man in Uzbekistan right now is Karimov, though the average Uzbek thinks he’s Tajik; Karimov joined the Soviet Communist Party in the 1960s and entered politics two years later.

He was then assigned to the State Planning Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan, where he served as head of the division, chief expert of the Department for the Promotion of Science and New Technologies, and head of the department. Relying on his rich experience in grassroots work and his own expert strengths, he

Two years ago became the first secretary of Uzbekistan, but the difficult thing about the Central Asian franchised republics is that these franchised republics don’t want independence, and neither does Uzbekistan.

But obviously Uzbekistan, which is already 20 million strong, is certainly at the top of the list of things the Russians don’t want to benefit from.

When it comes to orderly retreat, the current world is not targeting anyone, the most professional people are in London, not in Moscow, and Alan Wilson received a good deal of phone calls on a day when he was asked about the results of those old men’s discussions and whether they could be implemented.

“What about the 20 million or so people in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, and the Baku oil fields.” Alan Wilson thought on hearing this that the Culture Tsar was still quite down on his money, and he knew the reason for the downward spiral, the Chetan gang had been shoehorned in, but the Soviet Union’s ethnic problems were never going to go back to the way they were in the last five or six years, and this sort of thing could only be tinkered with slowly.

With a large group of Russians thinking that the USSR was losing out on its own, the basis for allowing the Union Republics to become independent still existed, and at this point it was unlikely that it would be business as usual.

“At least for the next two years if the Soviet economy is bad, the reasons are already readily available.”

Alan Wilson said to the good Dahl, “Why is the economy bad, because Uzbekistan is the Soviet Union’s cotton base, entered the market economy, what is given to the Soviet Union is the market price, the increase in costs the Soviet Union’s economy has experienced difficulties, reasonable, right. As for the importance of Baku oil, it is not a problem to use it to gag for at least two years.”

Isn’t that normal, because now Foltseva and the others are discussing good riddance, and it’s still not the same as when Britain was scraping the earth and then rushing off.

Because the colonies are spread all over the world, at least a lot of the problem is not able to spread the mainland, the Soviet Union that is part of the territory, the advantage is easy to maintain influence, the disadvantage is that you can not really simple and rough a kick out.

However, in the eyes of Allen Wilson, or the benefits are large, if the Soviet Union can really complete the orderly contraction, it can be transformed into a nation-state, Slavic attributes close to eighty percent, the national problem will be reduced a lot, it can be said that the problem than the United States are easy to solve, the United States of America, blacks are still more than ten percent of them, coupled with the sharp growth of the Latino who later came to the forefront, but also really do not have the right to laugh at the Soviet Union.

“The problem is that the Uzbeks don’t want to be independent.” Arikseyev said bitterly, “Local public opinion is also in favor of the Soviet Union.”

“Public opinion is something that is certainly appreciated, and it’s not hard to fix it, bribing the upper echelons can be done to modify public opinion, if I were you, I’d rather bribe Karimov to make Uzbek independence a success, and also focus on portraying the impression that it’s a good thing to get together and get out of the way.”

Allen Wilson put forward his own proposal, originally wanted to take let Ireland independence as a metaphor, but thought better of it, he can deceive the good Dahl, but can not deceive his own conscience, his real idea is to go back to a hundred years ago, to Ireland to change the name, the name of the quasi-Gaelic is good, very artistic, what a good name for the place.

Finally Allen Wilson took Dutch Guiana in the Netherlands as an example, the problem is there, no matter is not working, when it is time to do surgery, it depends on the level of the doctor.

After the infamous, but Alexeev himself does not care about the shelling of the White House incident, two thousand two hundred national delegates gathered in Moscow, map head presided over the meeting, ready and son-in-law and the same status as the chairman of the KGB, to take the pot of all the pot, the entire conference was held for three days.

After all the delegates voted, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, will be a pilot republic of self-rule, decentralization of executive power to the two republics, and strive to achieve a good separation.

The head of the map also wildly open blank check, said to avoid a repeat of the tragedy of Lithuania, implying that the reform is not over, but in fact believe this set of rhetoric people do not know, to be independent of the republics are only these two, but the head of the map to take their own before there is no bottom line in the bottom line, in deceiving the other republics.

There was also a new appointment, Nazarbayev was nominated as the Acting Premier of the USSR, replacing Pavlov, a member of the Emergency Committee Board, while Maphead himself continued to focus on diplomacy, talking to the Western world about the international order.

The results of this meeting circulated, and even President Bush, expressed a positive response, as for the Lithuanian bloodshed and shelling of the White House, that has been defined as an unfortunate event.

Compared to the previous statement of proliferation of nuclear weapons, the map head this time said that the reform will continue, the status quo in Europe can still be talked about, has been very happy.