Quiet for the past six decades, the forty-five million Muslims living in the Soviet Union are likely soon to become a critical actor in world politics; in brief, this is the argument forcefully presented by two respected scholars, Alexandre Bennigsen and Marie Broxup. The implications of their book are explosive.
They begin with a look at the history of Russian and Muslim relations. Russian subjugation of Muslim territories began in 1552; by 1900, Moscow ruled Muslims living in the Volga region, Crimea, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The methods and goals of Russian rule resembled those of the British in India or the French in Algeria, the chief difference being that "Russian methods were certainly harsher and more brutal than those employed by any other European colonial power."
The revolution of 1917 offered an opportunity to break with this legacy of repression; indeed, a few Muslim leaders saw the Bolsheviks as liberators and joined them with enthusiasm. After only six years, however, it became clear that the new Russian leaders intended to control the Muslims even more tightly than did their predecessors. Although the Communists replaced colonies with "republics" that appeared independent, what they had in fact done was to modernize the language of imperialism. Further, they interfered in the cultural and religious practices of Muslims, something the imperial regime had not done. More than ever, power was centered in Moscow.
Since the 1940s, the Soviet goal has been the "drawing together" of Muslims into Soviet culture, and the eventual "merging" of the two. This was to be achieved through intermarriage between Slavs and Muslims, the replacement of Muslim languages (chiefly Turkic and Iranian) by Russian, and the abandonment of traditional customs in favor of Soviet ones.
In the view of Bennigsen and Broxup, the government has failed to attain any of these goals. After 66 years, "the hoped-for biological symbiosis between the [Muslim] and [Russian] communities, the substitution of local languages by Russian and replacement of the local popular culture by the Soviet (i.e., Russian) model have become unattainable dreams." In every respect, Soviet efforts have been frustrated by Islam, the all-encompassing religion that to this day "permeates the psychology, the character, and the behaviour of Soviet Muslims."
So long as Soviet Muslims remain politically quiescent, these failures are tolerable. The authors argue, however, that a crisis is in the making, that the Muslims are becoming a major threat to the status quo. Several problems are especially acute: '
Demographics. Muslims constituted a mere 11.5 percent of the Soviet population in 1926. Today, the figure is 16.8 percent, a figure that is to increase to 22 to 25 percent by the year 2000. This has bestowed a new importance on the Muslims. They already make up 23.5 percent of the total male population eligible for the draft (going up to 29 percent by 2000), and so are a critical factor in military calculations. The same applies to the economy; Muslims today provide nearly all the new sources of manpower available to the labor force. Their work ethic and habits have therefore become the focus of considerable attention.
Afghanistan and Iran. "Though the change is as yet hardly noticeable," the authors write, "a turning point in the history of Soviet Islam came in 1978, with two major external events." The invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops pitted Muslims against Russians for the first time in decades; and the presence of Soviet Muslims in Afghanistan gave them an unprecedented opportunity to make contact with foreign Muslims. The effect of Iran's Islamic Revolution on Soviet Muslims was perhaps even greater: the spectacle of Iranian "success in humiliating United States 'imperialism' must raise their own hopes that its rival and counterpart, Soviet 'imperialism,' will also be defeated one day." As a result of developments in Afghanistan and Iran, "the Iron Curtain between Muslim brethren residing on either side of the border is crumbling."
Sufi Brotherhoods (clandestine mystical associations of Muslims). "Since the victory of the Bolsheviks up to the present day, the only serious, organized resistance encountered by the Soviets in the Muslim territories has come from the Sufi tariqa [brotherhood]." In the authors' assessment, these have "certainly saved Islam in the USSR." The appeal of brotherhoods appears to be increasing and their power seems to be growing.
Together, these factors give Soviet Muslims reason to feel confident. "They know that the future belongs to them—unless a major catastrophe occurs. The spiritual world of the Muslim Turkic elite in the Soviet Union, by contrast to that of the Russian intellectual elite, is marked by a sense of optimism—probably the only community of the USSR to feel this way."
Confidence heightens aspirations. The Muslims want "independence, full sovereignty and liberation from Russian control. ... How could it be otherwise? They know that Southern Yemen, Libya, Uganda and Angola are sovereign states while glorious Bukhara is not." The authors believe that time is on the Muslims' side and suggest that "the most reasonable solution would be to follow Solzhenitsyn's advice and grant the Muslim borderlands the right to secede 'before it is too late,' thus reducing the USSR to the size of Moscow Tsardom at the time of Basil III [who ruled from 1505 to 1533]."
There is of course not the slightest chance that the last great colonial empire will ever be voluntarily dismantled. Bennigsen and Broxup provide the evidence to show that the price for this inflexibility could be monumental: political upheaval, economic dislocation, and military weakness, threatening the integrity of the Soviet state and leading to fundamental changes in the position of the Soviet Union in international politics.
Daniel Pipes, lecturer on history at Harvard University, is author most recently of In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power (Basic Books).
