Imperial Designs? Citizenship and Russia’s Policies in the Former Soviet Union

The goal of Boris Yeltsin and many of Russia’s liberal democratic reformers was not the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the end of Soviet power. Russia would become the center of a new post-Soviet union (the Union of Sovereign States) that would preserve a single economic space, provide for central control over the armed forces and the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal, and ensure the guarantee of human rights throughout the country. Yeltsin’s attempts at saving the Soviet empire, of course, failed. Many see the moribund Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as proof that Russia’s attempts to reconstruct an empire have been thwarted. Despite initial Russian pressures to create a Commonwealth army and establish Commonwealth citizenship, let alone a true commonwealth of states, no such institutions exist. Russia’s consistent attempts to promote greater integration through CIS have been denied, largely through the concerted efforts of Ukraine and Georgia. Institutional integration can be said to have failed. […]

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