The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia: Transformation in Buryatia

Chapter 7. Reform, But What Kind?

CHAPTER 7 Reform, But What Kind? The majority of this book is dedicated to the building, spreading, and running of media, cultural, and educational institutions in Buryatia from the early postwar years to the 1980s. By the final decade of Soviet power, such institutions had become well established . They employed many Buryats and were a part of everyday life. They also consistently promoted a culture of progress and a path for Soviet success. When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, his reform policies of perestroika and glasnost’ brought about great changes in these media, cultural, and educational institutions in Buryatia, as well as those across the country. In particular, Gorbachev believed media should “play a tremendous role” in implementing his reforms by making a space for the expression of new ideas that would help to foster economic , social, and political improvements. He sought to facilitate this by ousting corrupt and inefficient bureaucrats and replacing them with more competent ones.1 In Buryatia, local officials carried out many of Gorbachev’s reforms . Party authorities changed the very conservative media by allowing space for a wider range of ideas. Incompetent leaders and bureaucrats were replaced. Officials responded to some of Gorbachev ’s ideas as he had hoped, bringing them closer to their constituents . Part of this process also meant addressing the demands of 1 Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World, updated edition (Glasgow: William Collins & Co., 1988), 76–7. 228 The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia the Buryat national movement that evolved in the late 1980s. Specifically , the local government began to work closely with members of the movement on goals acceptable to both: the revival of the Buryat language, culture, and religions. However, the government did not support the movement’s more radical goals—its political and territorial solutions to national problems. The movement also failed to gain widespread popular support for these plans. By the break-up of the Soviet Union in the fall of 1991, the changing local government was able to integrate into its own platform much of the cultural demands of the Buryat national movement. It did this while ignoring the movement’s more political goals and marginalizing those who promoted them. Buryatia was not extremely radical during the last years of the Soviet Union. There was no violence and few made any demands for independence from the union as could be found elsewhere.2 However , many Buryats did participate in the wave of nationalism that spread across the country in the wake of Gorbachev’s reforms. The Buryats had national concerns and they created a national movement to voice them. This movement succeeded in achieving many of its demands regarding the revival of Buryat culture, which was an achievement. Buryat society was not exceptionally revolutionary, but it did change in many ways in the late Soviet period. Scholars, journalists , and others in Buryatia worked to expose local economic, social, and political problems. They uncovered corruption and revealed the “tragic episodes” of Buryat history in the Soviet Union. 2 Many other scholars have also noted this among the Buryats especially in relation to the experiences of other nationalities in the Soviet Union. See, for example, Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, “From Ethnicity to Nationalism: Turmoil in the Russian Mini-Empire,” in James R. Millar and Sharon L. Wolchik (eds.), The Social Legacy of Communism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 56–88; Mark R. Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 215–7; Gail Fondahl, “Siberia: Assimilation and Its Discontents,” in Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (eds.), New States, New Politics: Building Post-Soviet Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 209–10; Elise Giuliano, Constructing Grievance : Ethnic Nationalism in Russia’s Republics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011), 36, 196–9; Caroline Humphrey, “Buryatiya and the Buryats,” in Graham Smith (ed.), The Nationalities Question in the Post-Soviet States (London : Longman, 1996), 120–4. Reform, But What Kind? 229 Many people in Buryatia also more loudly than ever before expressed regrets over the loss of national traditions, culture, religions, and language. Buryat media gave republican residents a place to air their grievances. By 1991, local media, cultural, and educational institutions had become integral to the process of describing, promoting, and facilitating a revival in Buryat culture. Such institutions also introduced new social activities ranging from break dancing classes to televised...