International Stability Eastern European Perspectives

Veröffentlichungsreihe der Forschungsgruppe Internationale Beziehungen

P 93-305

International Stability Eastern European Perspectives

Judith Baläsz, Hieronim Kubiak, Marina M. Lebedewa, Czeslaw Mesjasz

July 1993

Revised and expanded versions o f the papers prepared for the Panel Conflict and W ar in the Post-Cold-W ar Era o f the First Paneuropean Conference in International Relations, organized by W olf-Dieter Eberwein for the Standing Group for International Relations of the ECPR, Heidelberg, September, 16-20, 1992.

Publication Series o f the International Relations Research Group Reichpietschufer 50

D 10785 Berlin

Table of Contents

Hieronim Kubiak:

International consequences of ethnic conflict... 1

Marina M. Lebedeva:

Ethnic conflict and conflict management: the case of Russia...

Judit Balazs:

Global Processes in the world economy: the fate of Eastern Euro- 25 Pe ...

Czeslaw Mesjasz:

International stability: what can we learn from systems thinking...

About the authors

international stability. Hieronim Kubiak discusses the historical development o f the ethnic problems in Europe the outcome o f which are the different manifestations of such conflicts in eastern and western Europe today. Marina Lebedeva demonstrates the need to institutionalize conflict resolution mechanisms in Russia today. In the Soviet Union conflicts were suppressed rather than accepted as a reality and resolved.

Judith Balasz reviews the different threats to stability in and to Europe. She em ­ phasizes the domestic dimension o f international stability which is threatened by the disruptive consequences of the transition process. She illustrates this aspect by reference to Hungary. Finally, Czeslaw Mesjasz approaches the issue o f international stability from a theoretical perspective. He evaluates the usefulness o f the systems approach.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Vier Aufsätze von Autorinnen und Autoren aus Polen, Ungarn und Rußland zum Problem internationaler Stabilität enthält diese Veröffentlichung. Hieronim Kubiak zeichnet die historische Entwicklung der ethnischen Problematik in Europa nach, die zur unterschiedlichen Ausprägung in ihrer aktuellen Form in Ost- und W est­

europa geführt hat. Marina Lebedeva zeigt die Notwendigkeit für Rußland auf, Konfliktlösungsmechanismen im politischen System zu institutionalisieren. In der Sowjetunion wurden Konflikte unterdrückt statt als Realität akzeptiert und gelöst zu werden. Judith Balasz erörtert die verschiedenen Gefahrenquellen, die die Sta­

bilität Europas bedrohen. Sie weist auf die innerstaatliche Dimension internationaler Stabilität im Gefolge des gegenwärtigen Transformationsprozesses hin. Diesen Aspekt illustriert sie an Hand der Entwicklung in Ungarn. Zum Schluß nähert sich Czeslaw Mesjasz dem Problem internationaler Stabilität aus theoretischer Sicht. Er evaluiert die Nützlichkeit systemtheoretischer Ansätze.

International consequences of ethnic conflicts in Eastern Europe

Hieronim Kubiak

Introduction

Since at least the middle of the 19th century it has been said that the territory o f Europe and its inhabitants have been finally divided between nation-states in W estern Europe and empires mainly in East Central and South Eastern Europe. The European order was based on this division. This is why there could be no place for new independent subjects of international law without disturbing this order. Nation-states, state-nations, and empires (e.g., the Jagiellonian empire towards the end o f the 18th century, the Ottoman, Romanoff and Habsburg empires up to the end o f W orld W ar I), who were losers and unable to deal with stronger nations or solve their inner problems in a constructive way, simply had to accept this fact. Cultural communities whose nation forming processes had not been completed till then and who did not succeed in occupying a place at the European table of free nations at the historically appropriate moment, as was said many times, had no choice other than accepting the status quo. It was declared that losers and late comers had to accept the arguments o f the strong, more numerous, better organized, and economically more efficient. Any other form of behavior would cause trouble not only for these communities, but also for the international order based on the established balance of power.

These convictions and the political behavior determined by them had several different motivations. For some interpreters, making reference to the Hegelian interpretation of the philosophy of history, unequal opportunities were the results of the internal characteristics o f each nation and its "spirit", as expressed in the institution o f the state, in religion, art and philosophy. This "spirit" determined the identity of the particular community, its strength, and historical mission.

For others, following Engels’ analysis o f Pan-Slavism, the important thing was not the metaphysical spirit, but primarily the fact of being late. They simply did not take advantage of the irreversible stages o f the historical process, albeit at no fault o f their own, and this determined everything. By the mid-19th century certain nations, including most Slav national communities, were declared "unhistoric nations" with no territorial, political or economic conditions for independence and development1.

Supporters o f such theories stated that these nations never had a political history o f their own, and that they went through the first stages of nation building "under foreign rule"

and to a large extent as a reaction to that rule. This is why, it was argued, they would never achieve independence. Moreover, the aspirations of the new small communities conflicted with the interests of large, "historical nations", who fulfilled a "definite mission" in the

European historical process. By opposing the political centralization needed by the de­

veloping capitalist formation, these communities, as many claimed, were going against the grain o f the civilizing process.

Still others, for instance, K. Kautsky, asserted that the future belongs to transnational language communities that will overthrow state borders or, as R. Luxemburg stated,

"contemporary capitalism makes its way not to give back to each nationality her sovereignty but in fact just the opposite"2.

Some orientations saw a causal relation between the capacity of human communities for political self-organization and climate, demographic vigor or population density. For many theoreticians and statesmen the determining role o f endogamy and heredity was con­

vincing. According to these schools of thought, all peoples living on the earth have always been partitioned into races, and these races have been of different and unequal charac­

teristics, which were handed down to succeeding generations through biological heredity;

hence their cultural, political, and economic chances could not be equal.

Eventually, a large number of theorists and politicians were satisfied with ius ad bellum and the right to use force. According to this point o f view, what was good for the more powerful, ought, by definition, also to be good for those defeated or simply weaker. If they were restive, the more powerful had the argumentum ad baculum at their disposal.

In a similar vein, the majority of intellectuals and politicians pronounced that small states (by territory and population) have no chance to exist. The prosperous future had to belong to big states since only such states possessed the might necessary for expansion and self-defence. These two predispositions were, nota bene, treated as empirical indicators allowing a distinction to be drawn between those nations with chances for survival, and the less fortunate. Even some general terms were not value-free. The German terms,

"Kleinstaaterei" and "Balkanizierung", referring to the process of small state creation, are good examples.

Nations aspiring to sovereignty had to fulfill "the threshold principle" requirements.

Though the threshold principle was never well-defined, it was still in use in politics for quite a long time. It is enough to say that as recently as the middle of the nineteenth century, Belgium and Portugal were considered too little for sovereignty. The threshold principle requirements, on the other hand, could be met by the Irish people, for instance, who were

"sufficiently numerous to be capable of constituting a respectable nationality" (John Stuart Mill, Consideration on Representative Government in Utilitarianism). But it is fair to say that Ireland did not profit from this interpretation even as late as the 1918 Versailles Conference. The "sufficient size" definition was treated, moreover, as a precondition for independence and effective economic development. Therefore, small states could only assume the role o f parasites.

However, the historical process did not follow these assumptions and assertions. "Ruins o f people" existing within larger states, who did not succeed in time, "remains o f former nations driven out and conquered", "remains o f nationalities trodden down without mercy by history"3 did not dissolve but eventually got their chance. Thus, paraphrasing Hegel’s sentence from Lectures on Philosophy o f History, one could say that at the beginning of m ankind’s history there were no states, later the more powerful and lucky got them for themselves and now almost all people will have states o f their own. But, to be sure, it is much easier to point out that fact than to explain it. And, beyond every doubt, the number of problems increases in the process o f solving them. W ith the passage of time it becomes evident that today’s Europe has and will have problems not only with nations which:

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1. for many reasons have had no chance to date to develop to the status of independent nation-states or lost it under unfavorable conditions as in the most visible case o f Central and Eastern Europe, which is presently catching the attention o f scholars and politicians,

but also with:

2. the mobilization o f so-called old West European national-linguistic minorities;

Erik Allardt has documented the existence of 46 such groups,

3. centrifugal tendencies in W est European mono-national, bi-national and multi­

national states, for instance, in France, Spain, Belgium and Great Britain,

4. new and probably lasting minorities in Western European countries emanating by and large from the steady influx o f immigrants accompanied later by their families in a pattern o f chain migration.

It seems that the changes brought up for discussion here went through at least four con­

secutive stages: 1) crises and later collapse of empires (Ottoman, Romanoff and Habsburg), 2) the Versailles order (1918-38), 3) the Yalta - Potsdam agreements (1945-1989) and 4) the period o f the new sovereignty explosion beginning in 1989 as a consequence of the explosion on the outskirts and the implosion in the centre of Soviet statehood.

Stages of changes and their implications

The Septuaginta says that God punished people for the sin o f haughtiness, and divided them into 72 language communities. These entities gave birth to even more numerous

"gents or nations: every one living separately and not able to understand others"4. According to this tradition, the emergence o f new nations and their diversity is a function o f that punishment and carries the imprint of misfortune. The punishment, it seems, has not lost its force, as it is possible today to distinguish between more than eight thousand different languages, not counting dialects and remembering that the distinction between a language and a dialect in many cases has an arbitrary character. By the middle of the 20th century, over nine hundred language communities5 of these eight thousand had already become entities articulating political demands for cultural or territorial autonomy, parliamentarian representation and, in some cases, independence or they reached such a level of cultural identity and institutional completeness that demands of this kind will play a role in the foreseeable future. It is good to remember that over 680 of these cultural communities are rather small. In the 1950s, 297 of them numbered between 100,000 and 1 million members each, and 389 less than 100,000 each.

Unless the so called "Endlösung" is to be applied, the evolution o f these new cultural and social entities and their aspirations for their "own political roof over their heads"6 cannot be interrupted. But, alas, it is also true that spontaneous fulfillment o f the newcomers’

drives may also lead to genocide. Even the Europe of today produces frightening evidence o f that unfortunate regularity.

Giuseppe M azzini’s famous formulation "every nation - a state and only one state for the entire nation" could be easily reduced to absurdity and, unfortunately, this is not only a theoretical possibility. Literally taken, tendencies to create "coherent territorial states each inhabited by a separate ethnically and linguistically homogenous population" after cen­

turies of migration, be it forced or motivated by opportunity-seeking, can only result in tragedy for minorities: forms of holocaust, exterminations, mass expulsions, "ethnic cleaning", deportations, forced resettlement. O f the 4.5 million people o f Bosnia- Herzegovina, the number o f refugees and expelled persons during several months in 1992 exceeded 1.5 million. But all this does not mean that the right to sovereignty could be unconditionally denied to any nation. Such refusal also produces tragedy.

Prior to the downfall o f the Ottoman, Romanoff and Habsburg empires during the first decade o f the 20th century there were 26 states in Europe. At the time o f the Versailles order that number had grown to 35. The Yalta-Potsdam agreements effected 33. But from the collapse of the Soviet empire and the disintegration of USSR till the middle of 1992, the European community of states had expanded to 42. The majority o f changes occurred in that part o f the continent which had been labelled "Eastern Europe" from 1947 to 1989.

As a matter o f fact, this label covered almost all o f the Balkan territory, an essential part o f Central Europe, and all o f Eastern Europe in the strict meaning o f the term. Apart from a limited number o f similar characteristics, most of which originated during the period of Soviet dominance and as a reaction to it, each of these sub-regions and countries had and still has problems of its own which call for individual study.

After the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist and the Austro-Hungarian monarchy disinte­

grated in the Balkans, the resulting vacuum provoked some nations (e.g., the Serbs) to attempt to gain a hegemonic role for themselves, while others entered the initial stage of stabilization or had already been partitioned between neighboring countries. Different languages, religions (Islam, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism), folk traditions, value systems, territorial aspirations (problem o f patrimony) and international sympathies have clashed here. But above all, the peoples living in the Balkans have in amost dramatic way sought after political borders for their cultural habitats. Here, perhaps more forcefully than elsewhere, it became evident that the hope for ethnic homogeneity is delusive.

Centuries o f foreign domination, voluntary and forced migration, international treaties and inter-group amalgamation have produced a situation where ethnic and cultural boundaries do not overlap with state/administrative borders. Moreover, for good reasons the same territory is considered the patrimony o f more than one group. Another complication results from the fact the cultural groups have undergone different forms of adaptation, ranging from separate island existence to scattered, mixed existence with other nations (see Table 1). Therefore, all attempts to create ethnically homogeneous territories always resulted in forced assimilation or expulsions, resettlement or deportation o f strangers ("the other"), and in extreme cases, pogroms and extermination. In some cases the right to choose citi­

zenship and domicile was given to individuals; sometimes minority status was granted (also to national minorities). Due to this network of facts, actions and emotions every correction of state borders is a defeat o f someone and generates conflicts. So the delimi­

tation o f "state borders which could cool down nationalistic emotions"7 seems practically unfeasible. The dilemma ought to be solved by other means. But do they exist at all? That is the question.

In general, during the first stage of transformations, and especially in relation to the Balkans, the most important factor with the most far-reaching changes was the disintegration o f the Ottoman Empire. During the second stage, that is in the period of international order created after treaties ending World W ar I (signed in Versailles, Saint-Germain, Trianon, Neuilly-sur-Seine and Sevre) and the collapse o f the Romanoff Empire under the pressure o f the February and October Revolutions, changes were violent. Following Woodrow W ilson’s principle of self-determination, some Central and Eastern European nations were given the right to unite and form states of their own. Well-established Western European nation-states or, in some cases, state-nations, were joined at that time by new Central European nation-states, emerging from fallen empires like the legendary phoenix from the ashes. To what degree societies of these states were held together by integration deriving from consensus and not from regulation and accumulated state pressure is another question.

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At the same time the League o f Nations was taking shape. According to the intention of W. W ilson, the principle of self-determination and the League o f Nations were to be treated as two sides o f the same coin. As formulated in the fourteenth point o f the famous Wilson speech (Washington, January 8, 1918), the League was to become a "general association o f nations" built on detailed treaties and giving to all states, big as well as small, "mutual guarantees o f political independence and territorial integrity". Simultaneously, in the so- called minority treaties8, the rights of national minorities were codified. Though in practice it applied only to states and peoples living on territories o f defeated empires, the self- determination principle was applicable, for instance, to Ireland at that time; the English- Irish treaty signed as late as 1921 combined with the concept o f mono-ethnic states, the League o f Nations, and the beginning o f serious codification o f minority rights9 are, without a doubt, the most important characteristics of the 1918-1938 period. As is know n10, the League turned out to be ineffective. It failed to prevent or stop the Japanese invasion in M anchuria and China, Italy ’ s aggression in Ethiopia and Hitler’s violation o f the Versailles treaty. The concept of minority rights was soon instrumentalized by Hitler in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, by Stalin in Poland. In the twenties and thirties it gained a bad reputation. M any states with exceptions such as Estonia and Latvia did not fulfill their unilateral promises and obligations defined by multilateral treaties. The international system had at its disposal no effective means o f enforcing the treaties. Nevertheless, thanks to the post-W orld W ar I Versailles order and the covenant o f the League of Nations, the principle o f national self-determination was introduced to international practice, the pro­

cess o f juridification of minority rights received a new stimulus and international society accumulated an experience important for post-World War II institutionalization o f inter­

national relationships11. Doubtlessly, such important present day concepts as multilateral diplomacy, disarmament or collective security have a similar legacy. It is significant that this stage o f transformation was interrupted by the new imperial tendencies o f Nazi Ger­

many and Stalin’s USSR.

In the third stage, even if their outcomes were not always what the participants intended, the European order established after the Yalta-Potsdam agreements had rewarded the USSR for its participation in anti-German coalition. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania lost their independence, whereas semi-colonial dependence was imposed on Poland, Czech­

oslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Constituted after 1918, the Central-European nation-states again found themselves among the losers, now belonging to the ideological and military Soviet empire but the W est did not acquiesce without anger or silence. The continued existence of the national question inside that imperium was denied. It was as­

serted that the Soviet system removed all causes generating nationalism, ethnocentrism and xenophobic attitudes. In fact, the national question was not solved but simply frozen.

Awaking from their state of hibernation, Central European societies have now once again confirmed that the national question has as many faces as the Leviathan. The immediate escape from that complex situation seems to be impossible, and if so, the international system must learn how to live with it.

The last or fourth stage, accelerated by the 1989 Fall o f Nations, is composed o f several sub-processes, several, because the regaining o f full sovereignty took place in a different way in almost every country of the sub-region. Hungary, which from 1867 till 1914 co­

determined the fate of neighboring countries and since the Trianon Treaty has propor­

tionally the largest minority beyond its own borders (especially in Romania, Slovakia and Voivodina, see Table 1), has a relatively stable national economy and an exceptional rapport with the Federal Republic of Germany. Here the pace o f change had its own cadence and mood. The rebirth of full independence took on a specific form in Czechoslovakia, which, after the wildly praised "Velvet Revolution", almost immediately entered a complex di­

vorce process between the Czechs and Slovaks concluded January 1,1993. In multinational

Yugoslavia, composed o f six nations, nine nationalities, two ethnic groups and five national minorities according to its constitution, the breakdown o f the former regime caused the civil war. So far, instead o f effective international help, former Yugoslavia has received European assistance in the form of thousands o f funeral processions.

Some unique problem modifications have been generated in three Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, where in addition to the common problems resulting from being stuck in the Soviet state structure for half a century, each country has a set of its own specific problems. And, to be sure, the process o f building a civil society is developing differently in countries like the Ukraine and Belorus, which for the first time in their thousand-year history have a chance for self-determination and independent participation in international life although both have been members o f the UN since 1945.

Poland has a specific cadence in the process o f transformation. It was, and still is, marked by hopes, fears, neuroses, regularities and coincidences. For the first time in its history, Poland is mono-ethnic and predominantly Roman Catholic. Historical reminiscence of Jagiellonian imperial glory interacts with certain neurotic reactions by its neighbors. This confirms its long lasting ties with Western Europe but, at the same time, it wishes to defend itself from "highly materialistic, secularized and hedonistic" western culture.

Only the Russian Federation is still multinational. Although essentially changed after the breakdown o f the USSR, it is further jeopardized by disintegration. Over 18 percent o f the RF citizens even today are "innorodcy" (non-ethnic Russians) and at the same time, as Table 2 shows, Russians compose about 43 percent o f the population of twenty republics and autonomous regions o f today’s Russian Federation, from 9% in Dagestan to 79% in Khakassia. How will the inhabitants of, for instance, Tatarstan, Yakutian, Bashkiria or Karelia behave in the near future? What sort o f future will Russian national minorities have to face? This may be a complex problem for about 24 million Russians now residing in the surrounding autonomous republics: about 10 million in Belorus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia and about 14 million in the Ukraine (see Table 1) and for additional millions living in Asian republics o f the former USSR. Who is able to foresee the course of events?

Altogether the region called "Eastern Europe" till 1989 today consists of 21 countries. In 1989 10 of them were not sovereign. The smallest, Estonia and Slovenia, have 1.5 to 1.9 million inhabitants respectively, and the biggest, (the Russian Federation and Ukraine) 144.1 and 51.0 million. In eight cases, the population ranges from 2 to 5 million, in four from 7.6 to 10.0 million, in three from 10.7 to 15.6 million, and in two cases from 22.7 to 38.3 million.

The indicator o f ethnic homogeneity (see Table 1) is at its greatest magnitude in Austria, Poland and Albania, 98,97 and 96 percent respectively. Ethnic homogeneity is at its lowest in Bosnia-Herzegovina (44%), Latvia (52%) and Estonia (62%). Nine countries range between 94 and 80%, three between 79 and 70% and another three between 69 and 64%.

Each o f those nation-states desires to preserve sovereignty. And this is so for exactly the same reasons that sovereignty continues to be a necessity for Western European nation­

states independent for centuries.

Sovereignty as a structural necessity

Why, then, do nations so fervently aspire to sovereignty? W hat practical necessities make independence so indispensable? Without a doubt, statehood symbolizes the sovereignty of a national community, and confers the status of "equal among equals". Certainly, such an independent political structure also fulfills the ambitions of the elite. But none o f these

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factors, as I am ready to assert, has decisive importance. The drive for sovereignty is first o f all caused by a structural relation between the nature o f national cultures and their political organization. This is evident at two levels.

First, the state speeds the formation o f transregional cultures and the integration o f com­

munities determined by these cultures. It is so both as a consequence o f spontaneous and social contacts (repeatable over time) and as result of purposeful actions o f the ruling regimes (often connected with the use o f force) oriented toward homogenization and centralization. The pressure o f groups controlling the state machinery helped to elevate some cultures and marginalize or, in many cases, annihilate others. By and large discon­

tinuity o f several cultures had nothing to do with their internal qualities or their lack of adaptability to the changing environment, social milieu or power structures. The political history o f the British Isles, the Iberian Peninsula as well as today’s French state territory gives ample evidence o f the nature o f the real process. There, and not only there, particularly industrial states co-create national communities and at the same time freeze or halt forever the nation-forming processes o f other less fortunate cultural entities.

Second, cultures already formed, especially if they have reached structural completeness (i.e., formed their own intelligentsia) and advanced to literacy introducing an obligatory school system as a base for inter-generational transfer of symbolic communication patterns, require a sovereign state in a unitary or shared-federal form to ensure their continuity over time. By and large these cultural entities evolved their own states, compatible with the internal characteristics o f these communities, able to develop a specific culture and ef­

fectively defend their features against the disintegrating influence o f other nation-states.

Primitive preliterate cultures based on a system of rather stable multidimensional local or regional identity groups have been capable of "self-reproduction from generation to generation without any external help"12. Cultures o f industrial societies which emerged from or on the ruins of those multifunctional local groups lost this capability. To survive they simply needed support from institutions and formal (including political) organizations.

Moreover, these cultures have looked to the state to protect their languages. Individuals and groups are simply a part of a global, anthropologically understood culture. That is not the case with the higher culture. Here membership must be acquired and a feeling o f identity awakened.

As Emerich Karl Francis has shown, it is significant that actions oriented toward the in­

troduction of so-called national languages were initiated quite late by states - after the French Revolution and, to a certain degree, under the influence o f its concept o f citizen­

ship13. National language was also understood as the state language, and was therefore an administrative concern. The elevation of one language to such functions was based on an ideological premise ("between equals language should be one the same for all") as well as on practical necessities (i.e., effectiveness of state institutions). To secure these ends sheer force and drastic means were also used. When plans for language unification were enacted within the territory of France, Abbe Gregorie observes that in half o f the thirty departments French was the only spoken language. In the others, French and/or Spanish, Basque, Italian, Flemish, English and German were in permanent use. In Hungary, Hungarian was made state language as late as the second half o f the nineteenth century. At the time o f the reunion o f Italy only 2.5 percent o f the Italian people spoke what was recognized as the national language. From this perspective, the well-known sentence o f Massimo d ’Azeglio -"we have made Italy, now we have to make Italians" - is much more understandable. The stabilization o f national languages, especially when treated as state languages, is a direct consequence of the state controlled universal and obligatory school system.

But why cannot the functions these cultures asked for be performed by multinational states?

Only upon fulfillment o f very special conditions (i.e., confederation, see Switzerland after 1848) can the state become ethnically neutral. Under other circumstances even states with a federal charter are seen through the prism o f language and symbolic culture o f dominant national groups taught in schools, predominantly used in the mass media, supplied with state subventions, supported in international cultural cooperation. This was the case for Russians in the USSR, Serbs in Yugoslavia and possibly, the Czechs in Czechoslovakia.

It ought to be stressed again that the lack o f ethnic neutrality o f a state when a higher culture already exists is conditioned by the very nature of the relationship between states and these types o f cultures and not only or in the first place by deliberate actions o f one nation against other nations. Consequently, what seems to be wrongly conceived o f as ambition for "having (one’s) own parliament, president, diplomatic service and national army" is in reality usually a visible manifestation of the structural ties between higher cultures and the state institutions and organizations serving them.

Small (e.g., Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), as well as larger nations (the Ukraine and Belorus) got their chance for sovereignty only recently when:

1. the last Euro-Asian empire disintegrated and, as a consequence, the bipolar international order also ceased to exist,

2. the principles o f self-determination, and human rights were included in the basic set of norms o f international law,

3. international institutions and organizations are becoming more universal and more well-equipped for effective actions and, last but not least,

4. the Helsinki process passed from the stage o f declaration to the stage o f negotiation, treaties and institutions.

Speaking in very general terms, it might be said that we are in the process o f replacing the former state centralization and economic autarky with internationalized constitutional norms and a complex international division o f labor. Though some observers may perceive these two processes (diminishing centralization and increasing internationalization of values, norms and procedures) as contradictory and asymmetric, in reality they are causally related. In the political and social reality caused by both, forced state uniformity yielded to a pluralism of values, ways of living and cultural patterns. And herein lies the chance for those "ruins o f peoples" for "remains o f nationalities trodden down without mercy by history". Because o f these causal relations new independent states are possible. New sovereign states are emerging, but at the same time, sovereignty is changing its nature.

Searching for more security (military, political, economical, ecological) and facing global challenges, contemporary states restrict themselves and delegate an important part o f their prerogatives to international and transnational organizations and institutions. The time when states could claim, as Jean Bodin did in Les six livres de la Republique over four centuries ago, that power superior to them has non recognosti passed. Albeit with some reservations, the political elites of re-born and new states seem to be aware that without complying with today’s norms o f international law and habits their states cannot be ac­

cepted by more stable, secure and economically more well-off regional and global inter­

national communities.

It is useful to remember that ethnic conflicts which produce the drive for national states or, at least, territorial autonomy, are not, contrary to popular beliefs, specialite de la maison o f Eastern or Central Europe. As is well documented by Erik Allardt14 and others such as Jochan Blashke15, already in the sixties and seventies there were over forty ethno-linguistic groups in W estern Europe desiring to change their current status. And it is not only a problem o f "anachronistic remnants", as some commentators labelled them, but also of much bigger and better situated peoples. In the early spring of 1992 over half o f the in­

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habitants o f Scotland wanted to break political ties with the UK and proclaim independence.

The concept o f autonomy is rooted in the consciousness o f the W elsh to such a degree that the Labour Party included this in its spring 1992 electoral platform. The conflict in Ulster is still governed by killing on both sides. Movements of Catalan and Basque separatists are far from dying out, Despite UN efforts, the Cypriot problem remains unsolved. A certain potentiality for conflict still exists in the Flemish-Walloon relationship. From time to time the problem o f South Tyrol surfaces. And so on.

In addition to all this, there are good reasons to assume that the number of ethnic minorities in W estern Europe will not diminish but increase. Such an effect will be generated by successive waves o f immigrants seeking employment, political refugees, escapees from countries involved in civil wars etc., including the old and new emigration in the British commonwealth, Gastarbeiter and the immigration o f their families, as well as the re­

settlement o f the Volga Germans. As a consequence, the mosaic o f old ethnic minorities will be supplemented with new minorities, some with non-European genealogy. To provide evidence o f the scope o f the problem, it is sufficient to point out that at the end o f 1991 immigrants o f all kinds (including permanent settlers, workers on temporary contracts, clandestine, illegal and all types of asylum seekers) made up 19% of the population of Switzerland, 9.8% of Belgium, 7% of France, 6.6% o f Germany, 5.8% of Great Britain, 5% of Holland, 1.7% of Italy and Portugal and 1.4% o f Spain. On the whole they do not intend to return to their countries of origin and, as past decades have proved, will in fact not re-emigrate. According to estimations of European institutions (including Council of Europe), over 30 million persons are now living in W estern Europe alone "who speak a minority language, develop their own ethnic or regional culture and, in most cases, strive to "discover" their identity or search for the possibility o f a free cultural, linguistic and ethnic developm ent"16. Many direct and indirect indicators show that the century-old process o f marginalization, "folklorization", and forced assimilation of less numerous cultures by cultures organized in states of their own could be stopped or even reversed in some cases.

In both parts o f the European continent effective causes o f this process are quite analogous.

They include: the development of international law, especially o f norms related to the group dimension of human rights, the diminishing pressure of centralist state structure and, simultaneously, the growing importance of pan-European institutions and organiza­

tions. But what differentiates the situation in the two sub-regions o f Europe?

First, it is the role o f nation-states or, in some cases, state-nations. In Western Europe ethnic conflicts, even those most hopeless and bloody, occur within the frames of stable and relatively strong state structures. In Eastern Europe, from the Aegean Sea to the Baltic states, such stability does not exist.

Second, in both parts of Europe the proportions between minorities and majorities are different. In the West, minorities are generally much smaller than the majorities.

In the East the numerical proportion between Davids and Goliaths gives more ad­

vantages to the Davids.

Third, in Eastern Europe national questions interfere and overlap with social and economic problems.

Fourth, in this sub-region complex and difficult problems have accumulated over decades and now erupted like a volcano.

The feeling o f injustice and deprivation not only prevailed among minorities but also the majorities due to the forced Soviet domination and totalitarian character o f the political system. As a consequence, the decisive forces or social movements organized political parties ad hoc, the newly emerging elite acted more under the pressure o f emotions than rational reasoning at moments o f rapid changes. The situation during these dramatic months

was comparable only to that immediately after World W ar I. Nations and political movements found themselves with a desire for change but in unmanageable situations.

Because o f these sudden and overwhelming transformations, problems o f all societies and states living "east of the Elbe" rapidly became visible. And, what is more, the helplessness of the existing European structures and institutions in responding to Eastern European needs effectively also became transparent. But this does not imply that present processes in the East are by their very nature different from earlier West European nation-forming or modernizing processes. And if they are not, this could mean that the problems involved might be met within the framework of the same pan-European order.

Like most important social processes, the drives of today’s national communities generate some dangerous disfunctions for the international order and awaken gloomy instincts as evidenced by the tragic events in former Yugoslavia, fighting in Moldavia, Caucasus and so many other places. To a great extent these disfunctions are due to the fact that the fulfillment of the rights of one minority can limit the rights o f others or is perceived as a possible limitation and, almost as a rule, challenges the majority status, usually based on previous domination over minorities. The existing privileged majorities, even if they are ready to morally condemn the past violation o f minority rights, very seldom agree on a real "reversal o f history".

These malfunctions are also produced by almost unavoidable contradictory territorial claims. New states are not organizing themselves on territories which belong to no one (res nullius) but on territory viewed as the patrimony of more than one cultural group. Due to old and new migrations o f all types almost every territory has a mixed population, and these "others among us" are not simply "perfect strangers" but "people o f here", with equal rights of residence even though they have different ways o f life.

All this is so, last but not least, because the collapse of states existing until now as well as the rise o f new states has not occurred in an international or ideological vacuum. The diminishing domination o f some states and international structures tempts others - for some reason more vital or powerful - to take advantage of the course o f events. New affiliations are interspersed with resentments and nostalgia. Ideologies do not die but are defeated.

Those defeated are reinforced or replaced by new Messianic national, state or religious formulas.

All this is occurring at a time when two mutually exclusive statements are recognized as true. The first, in accordance to the universal principle of self-determination, holds that all nations are autotelic (having their own purpose)17 and, because o f this they recognize no external objections - nihil obstat - to their independent existence. The second asserts that

"the number of potential nations exceeds several times the number o f possible states, which could be capable of living"18. Since it is impossible to satisfy all national aspirations for exclusive territory and sovereign statehood, who should be granted the status of "more equal among equals" and why? And who is endowed with prerogatives for such a decision and its implementation? And is such an implementation even possible?

Recently acquired European experience proves that some, albeit imperfect, resolutions are nevertheless at the disposal o f the international community. These resolutions attempt to combine the self-determination rights of given nations/nationalities, and regional groups with basic norms of the international community in which this entity wishes to participate.

According to European tradition, these norms include among others: effective and stable governmental control over a well-defined territory and population, democratic legitimacy o f political power, respect o f earlier commitments and settlements related to borders, the ability to establish and sustain international relations, and, last, the preservation of the rule

11

ius cogens. Today some of these old norms are being reformulated and the whole set has been supplemented in a very meaningful way. This is clear from the European Commu­

nity’s response to the request for international recognition made by Croatia and Slovenia.

In the middle of December 1991 the European Community proclaimed that the EC would recognize both new states under the following conditions: 1/ the will to becom e an inde­

pendent state shall be expressed by a qualified majority using the free ballot, 2 /governments o f new states shall observe international covenants o f human rights, 3/they shall assure the observance o f the national (religious, linguistic) minority rights and 4/they shall respect the stability o f borders.

It is significant that Ralf Dahrendorf in an interview given to "La Republica"19 viewed the solution of this complex problem similarly. Dahrendorf proposes recognition of only those new states where two-thirds of society voices the will to become sovereign via free ballot and where political forces organizing the new state assures the observance o f human and minority rights in accordance with standards o f international law.

Conclusions

As expressed in the old German epic poem, "the third part of the world known as Europe"

was crowded with "several peoples, by language, name and customs different, by religion and culture distinct" already in the tenth century (Waltharius')20. Ten centuries later Europe is still the patrimony o f distinct social entities and cultures craving for the preservation of this distinctiveness.

W hy have so many pre-national and national entities survived? Why have so many minority cultures not yielded to the process o f entropy? And, once again, why have they not given up under the pressure of spontaneous and purposeful enforcement of centralizing and homogenizing states? Certainly, a monocausal explanation does not exist. This is so be­

cause an immunizing system enabling survival has operated differently in the case of village and regional peasant communities existing on the outskirts o f industrial societies and also in social isolation of them. The mechanism o f self-recreation of cultures o f these communities has not yet been deformed and thus these entities have been able to persist even under unfavorable circumstances. Specific developments took place in regions with well-established and old cultural centers with strong traditions backed by autocephalic or universal religion often with their own languages though not always codified. The defence system worked differently in those nations already having their own higher culture, an intelligentsia, and state of their own, but who lost statehood under unfavorable conditions.

Eventually, defensive reaction developed its own dramaturgy among national minorities.

By and large these entities could count on backing and help from external political structures (nation-states) which see minorities as an integral part of their national core. From time to time minorities were, unfortunately, manipulated in international games and power politics. Even today states are not free o f the temptation to use the minority issue as an argument o f realpolitik.

It ought to be noted that in every one o f those four topological situations (isolated peasant communities, regions with their own points o f concentration, nation-states having lost independence, and national minorities) cultures performed a decisive role in upholding group identity. If culture has been the underlying force for self-sustainment, the bearers of that culture will always strive for cultural and territorial autonomy and, under favorable conditions (particularly during the aftermath o f wars including the cold war) when defeated states have to accept almost everything, ask for complete political emancipation and in­

dependent statehood. Nothing in this process is caused by such things as the "spirit o f a nation", "gloomy tribal gods" or a genetic code. The most important factor always was and still is the structural tie between higher cultures and state organizations and functions.

Those who assert that every European state is based on a polyethnic foundation are, without doubt, right21. In spite o f social integration and cultural homogenization "through a combination o f military might, bureaucratic power, education, historical indoctrination, social symbolism, and sheer force o f habit"22, a majority o f these states has on its territories minorities (cultural, religious, ethnic-autochthonic and those arising from recent migrants).

Outside Europe, especially in Africa and Asia, this problem is even more complex. Ac­

cording to extensive studies from the sixties and seventies23, no more than 10 percent of the contemporary states can be treated as ethnically homogeneous.

This is why the majority o f societies and cultures o f today’s nation-states has a demotic (in the sense given to that term by E. K. Francis24) rather than ethnic character. This means that they emerged and developed not due to an inherited predisposition o f the people but because o f a dynamic synthesis between the natural environment and the human habitat, everyday work and political organization, continuity and changes, symbolic and instru­

mental behavior, antinomy between "I" and "we", and incidents and regularities o f his­

torical process. Each o f those cultures expresses the human capacity o f self-creation. Each is alive as long as people exist who fulfill themselves through that culture. And if the higher culture reaches the stage when it penetrates the entire community, the support o f the state becomes a necessity. So, today’s nations have nothing in common with Sleeping Beauty;

they are not merely waiting to be awakened.

Attempts to block self-determination by strong dampening or totalitarianization of internal state order, or domination by an international system of super-power zones do not annihilate but by and large only delay this process. As a rule, such a delay produces only additional inner tensions which threaten to surface in uncontrolled eruptions. Hence, in order to limit ethnic and national conflicts it is not enough to restrict the possibility of their disclosure.

A much more effective way is to demand the removal o f the causes of conflict. This implies a drive for abolition o f dominance established by force. Another way seemingly does not exist. If this is so, the aspirations o f the statistically less numerous and politically not so fortunate entities ought to be met by a readiness for self-limitation on the part o f majorities with states o f their own. Unfortunately, this often requires giving up their privileged status.

Only naive romanticists might consider such a voluntary self-limitation easy and free of profound tensions.

Is it possible to combine two asymmetric perceptions o f reality—one typical for a minority and the other peculiar to a majority—in an integral conflict-solving procedure? Is it possible to create an entity composed of sovereign states, by and large very small, and an effective international system endowed with prerogatives formerly reserved only for sovereign states? The recent history of Europe implies this might be possible.

By the end o f this century, the needed entity would probably consist o f regions with broadened inter- and intra-state boundaries of self-management, nation-states losing im ­ portant elements o f traditionally conceived sovereignty under the influence of the inter­

nationalization o f constitutional law and the evolution of some o f today’s international norms such as the non-interference principle, and an international system o f multilateral treaties, including trans-national organizations and institutions equipped with attributes necessary for an effective enforcement of international law and collective security.

Under new conditions the old sacro egoismo, also in the form of ethnic and demotic na­

tionalism, shall have to give way to universalistic pragmatism. This universalism will arise not only from moral convictions but also from the fact that in the long run it simply becomes impossible to request freedom for one’s own group if the same freedoms cannot be granted to its competitors. Universalism understood in that way may consolidate "several peoples,

13

by language, name and customs different, by religion and culture distinct" and rationally conceived pan-European structures in a single functional entity able not only to survive but also to develop.

Notes

1. Friedrich Engels, The Democratic Panslavism, 1849

2. Rosa Luxemburg, Kwestia narodowo ciowa i autonomia. The National Question and Autonomy/,

"Przegl d Socjaldemokratyczny", no 6, August 1908

3. Karl Marx, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 1849; the last of these formulations repeated by Marx according to Hegel

4. Benedykt Zientara, wit naroddw europejskich /The Dawn o f European Nations/, Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warszawa 1985, p. 9

5. See At as Narodow Mira, Akademia Nauk SSSR, Moskwa 1964, p. 131

6. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, London 1983; Polish edition Warszawa 1991, p. 73 7. Bogumi Rych owski, Niestabilno ae Europy Wschodniej a bezpieczenstwo miedzynarodowe /The

Instability o f the Eastern Europe and the International Security/, PISM, Warszawa 1991, p. 41 8. Signed by the Allied Powers with Poland /28 June 1919/, Czechoslovakia /10 September 19^ /.Y u ­

goslavia /10 September 1919/,Romania /9 December 1919/ and Greece /10 August 1920/. In all like­

lihood, for the first time minority /ethnic, religious/ rights were imposed by the big powers on smaller nation-states /Romania, Serbia and Montenegro/ during the Berlin Congress of 1878. Observance of minority rights was treated at that time as a prerequisite of the recognition of their independence.

9. Also in treaties concluded by the Allied Powers with Austria /10 April 1919/, Bulgaria /27 November 1919/, Hungary /4 June 1920/ and Turkey /23 July 1923/. Important declarations were made unilaterally by Albany /2 October 1921/, Lithuania /12 May 1922/, Latvia /7 June 1923/, Estonia /17 September 1923/ and Iraq /30 May 1923/. Some regulations were included into bilateral agreements /similar to Geneva agreement of 15 May 1922 on Upper Silesia/.

10. Among others from writings of 1/ P. de Azcarate, League o f Nations and National Minorities. An Experiment, Washington 1945, 2/I.L.Claude, National Minorities. An International Problem, Cam­

bridge 1955, 3/ W. Zaleski, Miedzynarodowa ochrona mniejszo ci, Warszawa 1932, 4/ J. Mayall Nationalism and International Society, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1990

11. As is known, among others from R. Bierzanek’s works/see Prawa narodow i prawa mniejszo ci narodowych, "Sprawy miedzynarodowe", 1990, no 10, p. 2950/. When international life lacks stability many political elites tend to perceive national minorities as a threat to their states’ integrity and as a pretext to border revision demands. It gradually became obvious that: 1. minority, especially national minority, rights should be treated universally and bind all states alike, 2. procedures of receiving and examining complaints should be well-defined and universally known, and that 3. implementation of minority rights are the responsibility of international institutions empowered with prerogatives indis­

pensable for the enforcement of international law which seems impossible without a serious rethinking of the "non-interference in internal affairs" rule.

12. Ernest Gellner, op. cit., p. 73

13. Emerich Karl Francis, Interethnic Relations. An Essay in Sociological Theory, Elsevier, New York, Oxford, Amsterdam 1976, p. 73

14. Erik Allardt, Implications o f the Ethnic Revival in Modern Industrialised Society, Societies Scientiarum Fennica, Helsinki -Helsingfors 1979, p. 55

15. Jochan Blashke /ed./, Handbuch der westeuropäischen Regionalbewegungen, Frankfurt 1980 16. Silvo Devetak, "National Minorities and Cultural Educational Co-operation between Jugoslavia and

its Neighbours", Europa Ethnica, 1/1988, p.

17. Stanis aw Ossowski, Przemiany wzoröw we wspö czesnej ideologii narodowej, Bulletin International des Sciences Sociale, 1951, vol. Ill

18. Ernest Gellner, op. cit., p. 13

19. "Between Democracy and Dictatorship", La Repubblica, Nov. 1991; reprinted by Forum, no 49 /1376/, 1718 Nov. 1991

20. K. Strecker, MGH, PL, VI, p. 24; Quotation in Polish published in B. Zientara, op. cit., p. 9

21. Michael Herbbert, "Regionalist Aspirations in Contemporary Europe", Plural Societies, XXI, nrs 12/1991, p. 6

22. Michael Herbbert, op. cit., p. 6

23. Walter Connor, "Nation - Building or Nation - Destroying", World Politics, 24/1972, p. 319 - 355 24. Emerich Karl Francis, "Ethnos und Demos". Soziologische Beitrage zur Volks-theorie, Duncker und

Humbolt, Berlin 1965; see also Interethnic Relations /.../, op. cit.

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TABLE 2. REPUBLICS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION AND THEIR POPULATION

(Spring 1992, estimations)

Name of republic and dominant nation/

nationality

Global number of inhab­

itants (in thousands)

Percentage of Russians among all inhabitants

BASHKIRIA 3.943 39

BURYATIA 1.038 70

CHECHEN-INGUSHIA 1.270 23

CHUVASHIA 1.338 27

DAGESTAN 1.802 9

KABARDiN-BALKARiA 754 32

KALMUCKIA 323 38

KARELIA 790 74

KOMI 1.251 58

MARI 749 47

MORDVINIA 963 61

SOUTH OSSETIA 632 30

TATARSTAN 3.642 43

TUVA 308 32

UDMURTIA 1.606 59

YAKUTIA 1.094 50

ADYGEA* 432 68

UPPER ALTAI* 191 60

KARACHAY-CHERKESSTAN* 415 42

KHAKASSIA* 567 79

TOTAL 23.144 43

Source: "Gazeta Wyborcza", no 129,2 June 1992, p. 8; on the base of "The Economist" estimations.

Territories indicated with an asterisk ought to get republic status on the basis of the new constitution of the Russian Federation.