thods and legal institutions. Lilia Shevtsova considers the Chechnyan war a byproduct of the Yeltsin regime’s reliance on personal politics. She writes “Yeltsin saw the war as a chance to flex his muscles...neutralize the conflicts within his own regime; expand his political base...and appear before the world...as a strong leader” (Shevtsova 67). The tragedy in Chechnya not withstanding, and with all due concern towards the dangerous tensions that exist between Moscow and it various ethnic republics, I agree with Gail Lapidus and Edward Walker that it is unlikely that we will see a significant secession movement in the Russian Federation in the near future. Of paramount importance is the economic and political realities facing both Moscow and the various republics. Secession provides the republics with a myriad of additional stumbling blocks towards establishment of stable democracy. These include questions of international recognition, Russian implemented economic pressures, and devastating civil war (Lapidus 108). The costs of leaving the Federation would appear to outweigh any perceivable benefits gained by secession. Yet there are serious nationalist and regionalist concerns that the Russian Federation must address if there is a chance for democracy to take hold. Economic chaos must be avoided by establishing a sound currency and creating a common economic bond between the center and the periphery (Lapidus 108). There will be a deeper examination into the economic issues facing the Federation as a whole in the next section, but note that these concerns are magnified in the peripheral areas that lack developed agricultural and industrial economies. Issues of more effective regional and ethnic political representation must be addressed through a movement away from the Soviet system that unfairly distributes economic control and political power among ethnicities and nationalities (Lapidus 96). Many ethnic minorities l...
