Center and periphery in conditions of growing contradictions. Contradictions between regions and regional politics

1. Strengthening centrifugal tendencies in inter-American relations in the 70s

The late 60s and early 70s were a time of significant complication in inter-American relations. The system not only finally lost its “tightness”, characteristic of the 40-50s and expressed in the isolation of international relations in the region and a fairly high level of political discipline. Essentially, a new type of conflict has arisen between the center of the system and a number of member states, associated with the latter’s pursuit of a policy of economic nationalism and the desire to become autonomous from the United States in foreign policy.

This was largely due to the emergence of a new political phenomenon in the region - nationalist military regimes. We are primarily talking about the regimes in Peru (1968-1975)*, Panama (1968-1981), Bolivia (1969-1971), Ecuador (1972-1976). These were not the same military that Washington was accustomed to dealing with in previous decades, “feeding” them with outdated military equipment and supporting the idea of a “special mission” of the armed forces in society.

The democratization of the officer corps that took place in the 50-60s (especially in the army); increasing his education

Although the military regime in Peru formally existed until 1980, its left-radical orientation essentially exhausted itself with the departure of the reform team from the government in 1975.

physical and cultural level, growth of national self-awareness; a “crisis of conscience” as a result of contact with the poverty and backwardness of the Indian population during counter-insurgency operations - all this did not have the effect that the Pentagon had hoped for. In its most concentrated form, this was embodied in the policy of the Peruvian military, led by General X. Velasco Alvarado (1968-1975). The armed forces came to power with a program of deep socio-economic changes, protection of national sovereignty and independent foreign policy. As we moved along the path of reform, the process of transformation itself became radicalized, which even gave rise to such well-known Soviet specialists as Professor A.F. Shulgovsky, to argue about signs of “socialist orientation” in the policy of the Peruvian military 1.

The “revolutionary nationalism” of the government of X. Velasco Alvarado was realized in the first days after coming to power. On October 11, 1968, the property of the American oil company International Petroleum Company was nationalized. She was denied compensation due to her gross violations of national legislation. Literally after this, the American-Peruvian “fishing war” begins, and it even goes as far as Peruvian patrol boats firing at American fishing vessels. Since February 1969, Peru has established diplomatic and trade relations with the Soviet Union and other CMEA member countries. During these same years, Peruvian diplomacy advocated a radical restructuring of the inter-American system. In 1972, following the Government of Chile's Popular Unity, the Peruvian military restored diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba. In 1973, the country joined the movement of non-aligned states and was actively involved in the North-South dialogue, which was quite controversial at that time 2.

In Panama in October 1968, the National Guard, led by Commander O. Torrijos, removes the civilian government and proclaims a course for anti-oligarchic, anti-imperialist reforms, at the center of which is a revision of the status of the Panama Canal Zone.

The military governments of Generals O. Candia - X. Torres (1969-1971) that came to power in Bolivia, accurately repeating the “Peruvian scenario”, nationalized the property of Bolivian Gulf Oil and a number of other American facilities, expelled them from the country (as and in Peru) Peace Corps employees carried out a number of foreign policy actions aimed at demonstrating an independent orientation in the international arena 4 .

Finally, the coming to power in Chile in May 1970 of the bloc of leftist forces Popular Unity and the course they proclaimed towards the socialist nature of transformations in the country seemed to complete the picture and led in just a few years to a significant change political map Latin America. In the early 70s, a whole group of left-nationalist regimes emerged in the region. Moreover, it was during these years that there were grounds to talk about the formation of a kind of grouping of Latin American states, which, having clearly seized the initiative, advocated a fundamental reform of the inter-American system. They were joined by the nationalist military regime of General A. Lanusse in Argentina (1971-1979), and the constitutional governments of Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia.

As documents show, including hearings in the US Congressional Commissions on Inter-American Affairs, such a drastic change in the political situation in the region was not only not planned, but simply took the Republican administration of R. Nixon, which came to power, by surprise (1968). In conditions when in the ruling circles, since the second half of the 60s, efforts have intensified to develop the foundations of a long-term alliance with the military, fe-

The name of nationalist military regimes caused sharp controversy.

As the authors of one of the most fundamental domestic works on inter-American relations, “The United States and Latin America,” note, a number of representatives of the Security Council and the State Department believed that in conditions of a power vacuum, military regimes were the only possible ally of the United States in the region. According to supporters of this point of view, the armed forces were the only institution that could effectively implement reforms under the Alliance for Progress program, and therefore needed all possible support, including in the form of providing modern military equipment. This approach, naturally, was lobbied by representatives of the US military-industrial complex, who, in the face of rising military spending in countries where the armed forces had come to power, sought to use the favorable environment to expand their sales.

“Traditionalists”, supporters of the “new frontiers” in their original form, saw in military regimes a factor that ultimately undermined the progress of Latin American countries towards Western-style representative systems of government 6 . Liberals stated that the new military regimes could, at best, prove to be an “extremely difficult ally” for Washington, and at worst, they would be openly hostile to it.

During the period of the first Republican administration of R. Nixon (1968-1972), pragmatists clearly prevailed in US policy - supporters of adaptation to already existing military regimes, called the “policy of low-profile presence.” The main task was considered to be the elimination of hotbeds of tension in relations with them that arose in the first few years of Republican rule.

This was due not so much to the fact that the Nixon administration shared the point of view of the “neo-militarists”, but rather to the extremely unusual situation that emerged in the early 70s, in which several “hot spots” arose in the region at once, to which the United States, increasingly bogged down in the war in Vietnam, they were unable to respond with traditional forceful methods. Applied to states that nationalized the property of American companies, the “Hickinlooper Amendment” introduced a regime of trade and economic sanctions and provided for a vote against the provision of funds to these regimes by international financial bodies. as well as actions to destabilize them financially and economically - all these levers of pressure in one form or another were involved in US policy towards left-wing nationalist governments in the region. And yet, perhaps for the first time in the 20th century, the United States felt the impossibility of carrying out simultaneous destabilization on a number of fronts.

The basis for this, at first glance, unexpectedly sharp deterioration in relations between the “two Americas” was not just conflict situations that almost simultaneously arose between the United States and a number of Latin American states. It was in the 60-70s that the process of leveling out the gigantic asymmetry of power and influence gradually began, which strictly divided the system into center and periphery.

On the one hand, this was due to an impressive breakthrough in the socio-economic development of an entire group of countries in the region, as already mentioned in the previous chapter. The new realities of the region were taken into account by the authors of the “low-profile presence” policy. Back in 1976, when the trend of growing interdependence of the “two Americas” and, as a consequence, the growing importance of Latin America on the Scale of long-term priorities of the United States was not recognized by everyone in Washington, Henry Kissinger in an interview with the New York Times quite prophetically stated: “.. .str-

We of Latin America acquire a new meaning and new meaning for us, because... they are beginning to firmly stand on their own feet on the international stage. This is explained by the following circumstances:

firstly, they are becoming an increasingly significant factor in the world markets for raw materials and food, minerals and energy resources;

secondly, they have the potential to become a production area for everything more agricultural goods;

thirdly, they play an increasingly important role in political organizations.

Therefore, our policy in the Western Hemisphere must recognize these new realities, changes in Latin America and its enormous importance from the point of view of US international interests."

On the other hand, in the early 70s, for the first time, a relative decline in the role of the United States in the world economy became apparent, associated with the emergence of new poles of economic power in the form of Western Europe and Japan, as well as crisis phenomena in the superpower itself. Thus, the US share in the world economy fell from 50% in the first post-war years to 23% in 1974 9, i.e. dropped by more than half. In August 1971, the Breton Woods system ceased to exist, marking the end of an era when the entire world monetary and financial system was tied to the strong American dollar. The transition to a floating dollar exchange rate and the unprecedented protectionist measures introduced in August 1971 by the Nixon administration, which led to a “trade war” between the United States and Japan, clearly identified the ills of the American economy. And the energy crisis of 1973, and the impressive success of the OPEC member countries, and the growing movement for a new world economic order, and the intensification of the activities of the non-aligned

countries, and the “Group of 77” at the UN - all these factors significantly influenced inter-American relations.

The once all-powerful and unconditional leader of the system, who also ended the Vietnam campaign ingloriously and with enormous moral and political costs, was losing the right to remain such in the eyes of other member countries. The rigid vertical principle of inter-American relations began to increasingly collapse. During these years, the context of global North-South contradictions began to more and more clearly displace the model of continental solidarity that formed the basis of the inter-American system.

Since the mid-60s, the process of diversification of international relations of the Latin American republics began. By the middle of the next decade, their geography expanded significantly to include socialist countries and young independent states of Africa and Asia.

The seventies can be characterized as the period of Latin America's turn towards the “third world”. A number of development parameters, the peripheral nature of inclusion in the international system of division of labor, and exposure to discrimination in international economic relations brought the states of the region closer to the bloc of young Afro-Asian countries. The perspective of North-South relations not only objectively reflected one of the really existing trends in the development of international relations, but also, in comparison with the increasingly “close” West-East scheme, opened up new horizons for foreign policy. In addition, in the context of growing conflict potential in relations between Latin America and the United States in the trade and economic field and the desire to distance itself in the field of foreign policy, reliance on the bloc of developing countries strengthened the position of Latin American states in the Dialogue with Washington.

In the mid-70s, Latin America quite actively joined the non-aligned movement. The quantitative growth of the non-aligned movement, turning

its development into an influential international force, influencing to one degree or another almost the entire range of problems of world politics, attracted Latin America to this organization and gave rise to the fear of being “left behind.” In 1970, in addition to Cuba, three more Caribbean countries appeared as full participants in the movement - Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica. In 1980, the number of states in the region in this organization increased to ten. In 1986, at the VIII Conference of Heads of State and Government of Non-Aligned Countries, their number increased to eighteen.

As they joined non-alignment, there were attempts by Latin American member states to turn the movement towards mainly “economic diplomacy”. The role of Latin America in these years was mainly limited to promoting the ideas of a new world economic order (NEWEO). The states of the region were at the origins of the idea of the NMEP and made a significant contribution to the formation of its conceptual basis. It was Latin American countries, led by Mexico, who became the authors of the Charter of Economic Rights and Responsibilities of States, adopted at the UN General Assembly in 1974.

Developed in the 70s with the direct participation of Latin America, the NMEP program carried an undoubted democratic charge. She asserted the right to development, to non-discriminatory trade exchanges, to the sovereign right to freely dispose of natural resources, and to establish a framework for TNCs. Within the framework of UNCTAD, Latin American countries were the first to put forward the idea of a “code of conduct for TNCs”. The concept of a new world economic order was essentially based on the ideas of interdependence of developed and developing states and the need to search for non-confrontational, compromise solutions.

There is no doubt that the most developed Latin American states considered the movement for NMEP and

as a means to get closer to the club of “rich countries”, to take on the functions of a mediator, an intermediate link between developed and developing countries.

Unlike Cuba, which has invariably defended the thesis that the socialist community is a “natural ally” of the non-aligned movement, the position of the majority Latin American countries was characterized by an emphasis on the neutralism of the movement, its “equidistance” from the superpowers and their blocs. In general, in the non-aligned movement, Latin America opposed its excessive ideologization and strengthening of the radical principle, and gravitated towards a moderate, balanced approach. Assessing this phenomenon, it should be recognized that for this region, which just a few decades ago almost unconditionally considered itself to be part of the West, not only in terms of belonging to Western civilization, but also within the framework of the existing bipolar structure, “equidistance” was in itself a new frontier .

Since the second half of the 60s, a gradual “return” of leading Western European states to Latin America began. And although their share in foreign trade turnover and foreign investment in the region was still insignificant and significantly inferior to the North American one, their dynamics looked impressive. So, for example, if the total exports of the EEC countries and Japan to Latin-Caribbean America in 1967 were about half of the US, then in 1974 they were almost equal to US exports (about $15 billion) 1 .

It was in the early 70s that the military-technical dependence of Latin American states on the United States was essentially undermined. Faced with the refusal of the center of the system to provide the Latin American armies with technically complex types of weapons that did not correspond to the functions of counterinsurgency warfare, such states in the region as Argentina and Peru, already in the late 60s, carried out large-scale purchases of military equipment

V Western Europe. In 1974, Soviet-made weapons appeared for the first time in South America (Peru).

An important consequence of the severance of military-technical dependence on the center of the system was, at first glance, the very unexpected inclusion of Latin America in the arms race in the 70s, which not only led to the emergence of a new line of conflict between the United States and the military regimes of the region, but also in general significantly destabilized international relations in the Western Hemisphere.

And in this case, the reader should not be misled by the relatively “modest” indicators of this region in the purchase of weapons by the “third world” (13.5% in the first half of the 80s)." Significantly inferior in this indicator to such crisis areas as the Middle East (50% of all arms purchases by developing countries) Latin America nevertheless achieved an impressive increase in military spending From 1974 to 1982, military spending in this region doubled (from 7.9 to 15.8 billion dollars) 12. The number of Latin American armies by the mid-80s increased by almost 40% compared to the mid-70s and approached an impressive figure of 2 million. Only in 1975-1984, the maintenance of the armed forces cost Latin America 150 billion. dollars. Only in 1968-1984, arms imports, having increased in annual terms by more than ten times, totaled a gigantic figure of 12.8 billion dollars. 14 Argentina and Brazil began their own in the first decades of the 20th century. military production, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and a number of other countries were added in the 70s. By the mid-80s, 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries already had a military industry.

It is obvious that the “phenomenon of the 70s,” for all its apparent unexpectedness, did not arise suddenly or out of nowhere. Among the reasons that prepared him in the first place

The historical roots and traditions of Latin American militarism should be highlighted. One can agree in this regard with the Chilean scientist A. Varas, who quite rightly pointed out that no external impulses themselves were capable of “militarizing” Latin America if there were no local soil for this, determined by the place of the armed forces in society, their interaction with government authorities, the relationship between military and civilian institutions 15.

The historically extremely high level of autonomy of the institution of the armed forces in society, its claims to the role of a national arbiter, to the sole bearer of national values and defender of the constitution, which in a number of cases acquired a messianic orientation, in practice found expression in the active intervention of the military in politics. Military institutions have virtually monopolized in their hands the solution to a wide range of issues related to national security. Civil society control over the armed forces has proven to be extremely limited and, in some cases, merely symbolic. This was especially clearly manifested in conditions when the armed forces seized state power, in practice realizing their claims to the role of arbiter of the nation's destinies.

With any of the options for “military reformism”, the issues of building up military power, equipping the armed forces with modern complex species technology was promoted to the category of priority national tasks. It was largely through their prism that military governments viewed the issues of sovereignty, security, and independence in the international arena.

It is no coincidence that it was in the 70s, when, with the exception of Venezuela, Colombia and Guyana, all South American states were ruled by the military, there was a sharp increase in military spending in the region. Therefore, in general, the positive effect of expanding the circle of arms suppliers

Already in the 70s, the reserves with a large “reserve” were covered by a sharp increase in purchase volumes. It was precisely during these years that the region was drawn into the arms race. For the first time exceeding 1 billion in 1972. dollars, the volume of arms purchases until the mid-80s, when the debt crisis broke out, fluctuated between 2-3 billion dollars. in year.

We often come across the point of view according to which such a sharp increase in military purchases was due to a number of events that took place in the 70s and early 80s conflict situations, and primarily as a result of the aggravation of territorial disputes, into which “new life” was breathed in by the raw material crisis, the increased political heterogeneity of the region, as well as the generally increased unevenness of development. Along with this, as a rule, it is indicated that the erosion of the inter-American system that began in the 70s significantly limited its “disciplining effect,” which led to the emergence of civil strife.

However, there was clearly a “feedback” here. An unprecedented increase in military spending and the import of the most modern and expensive weapons, especially taking place in the absence of any real external threat, inevitably destabilized the situation in the region, generated a climate of mistrust and suspicion towards neighbors, revived old and gave rise to new fears regarding geopolitical aspirations of certain states*. By the mid-70s, the aggravation of relations in the Peru-Chile-Bolivia triangle, tied to the problem of the latter’s access to Pacific Ocean, or actually the pre-war situation that created in the late 70s in

* Sometimes there really were grounds for such fears. In this regard, it is enough to recall the policy of “moving borders” of the Brazilian military regime in the 70s, based on the geopolitical concept of the country’s access to two world oceans.

relations between the military regimes of Argentina and Chile over the Beagle Channel issue were to a large extent prepared by the leadership of these states in the arms race in Latin America.

In the context of increasingly complex international relations and increasingly clear signs of erosion of the inter-American system, Washington put forward the idea of relying on bilateral relations with countries in the region. The deliberate limitation of the continental origin was explained by the increased differentiation of the countries of the region in terms of levels of development, the nature of political processes, and their real significance for the United States. Representatives of the State Department stated that in modern conditions there is no “single formula for establishing fruitful relations between the two Americas” and the need for “special efforts to expand bilateral ties with each American state.”

The authors of the already mentioned collective monograph “The USA and Latin America” note that to strengthen its positions in the region, Washington used the policy of “selective favorism”, or “preferred ally”. According to the Americans themselves, favoritism was expressed in the fact that the ambitions of large countries were encouraged, some countries were pitted against others - large countries against medium or small ones, or “ideologically acceptable” against unacceptable ones. Brazil 17 found itself in the position of the main favorite.

There were indeed signs of a search for a support country in the region. However, this was still more typical of the mid-60s, when, as part of the creation of a new regional security system, Washington urgently needed a regional ally, as discussed in detail in the previous chapter. In the early 70s, the proclamation of Brazil as the “favorite” and, in particular, the famous statement of R. Nixon during a visit to this country (December 1971): “ where will he go Brazil - go there

children the rest of Latin America,” had, in our opinion, a different background. The task was to neutralize as much as possible the growing autonomous principle in the policy of the Brazilian military, to give new breath to the essentially fading American-Brazilian alliance. However, the Republican administration no longer had any real resources to achieve this goal, and political declarations could hardly compensate for the growing divergence in interests.

The goal that was truly real and on which Washington concentrated considerable diplomatic, political and economic efforts was the policy of destabilizing the Popular Unity government in Chile, which fit well into the global pattern of East-West contradictions. The center of the system once again demonstrated, as A. Lowenthal wrote, its fixation on a purely negativistic approach, i.e. on primitive schemes to destabilize and overthrow an undesirable government, instead of directing the development of events in the country in the right direction, “thus ensuring the future.”

Evidence suggests that in the early 1970s, the United States was not simply losing control over the inter-American system. In conditions when a number of states in the region, skillfully using coalition diplomacy, attempted to transform the system into a collective lever of pressure on Washington, the US ruling circles even began to consider the issue of leaving the OAS. In particular, W. Rogers, who became Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs in 1973, spoke about this.

This was largely due to the start of the work of the Special Commission to Study the Inter-American System and develop measures for its reorganization (SCIMS). Let us recall that the commission was created by the decision of the 3rd session of the OAS General Assembly (Washington, April 1973). Under pressure from a number of Latin American states, and in

First of all, Peru and Chile, a resolution was adopted expressing “general dissatisfaction with the results of the inter-American system.”

In the “Declaration of Principles of Inter-American Relations” adopted at the session, the countries that initiated the reform of the inter-American system managed for the first time to consolidate the principle of “ideological pluralism”. This principle assumed the possibility of coexistence in the inter-American system of states with different socio-political systems, which marked the beginning of the process of de-ideologization of the system, freeing it from the attributes of the Cold War. The subtext of this document was not only and not so much the interest of left-wing regimes in the lifting of anti-Cuban sanctions in the OAS, but rather the desire to protect themselves from relapses of direct intervention in the event that one or another regime was classified by Washington as “pro-Soviet.”

Peru and Chile, with the support of Venezuela, Colombia and a number of other countries, also advocated a radical revision of the security concept of the inter-American system. They proposed to introduce the term “economic aggression” into the Inter-American legal lexicon. These same countries proposed the creation of a system of “collective economic security” in the region. As the representative of Venezuela in the Permanent Council of the OAS stated in one of his speeches during the discussion of this issue, “in order to ensure true equality of states, it is necessary to give the Rio de Janeiro Pact economic content.”

It is obvious that these initiatives were directed against the policy of economic pressure, which was especially widely practiced by the United States against left-wing nationalist regimes in the late 60s and early 70s. The ideas of “collective economic security”, thanks to the efforts of Latin American diplomacy, were further developed at the session of the OAS General Assembly (Atlanta, May 1974), where

The central resolution again outlined the task of ensuring “integral development and collective economic security” 20 .

Never before has Latin American “pressure” on the United States been so powerful. The State Department tried to “ground” Latin American initiatives as much as possible, dissolving them in vague and non-binding formulations. This was most clearly manifested in the position of the American delegation precisely within the framework of the work of SKIMS in 1973-1975.

However, in conditions when the United States found itself virtually “backed up to the wall” on the issue of creating a system of “collective economic security,” they were forced to introduce certainty.

The United States was the only state that voted against the inclusion of a provision in the MDVP on the creation of a system of collective economic security, which provided for the extension of the principle of “an attack on one is an attack on all” to the area of economic relations. And although a provision was included in Article 11 at the Special Conference on Treaty Reform (San Jose, April 1975), the US representative stated that his country would not undertake any obligation to negotiate, sign or ratify any binding instruments to create such a system 21.

It appears that this kind of demarches had a demoralizing effect on inter-American relations, paralyzed any creative activity within the system and only stimulated centrifugal tendencies. This, in particular, was expressed in the growing interest of the states in the region to create their own, purely Latin American associations, which in a certain sense would replace the OAS.

The most developed of them in the 70s was, of course, the Andean Pact. The Cartagena Agreement signed in 1969 marked the beginning of the process of integration of the six

Andean countries (Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile). Moreover, in the 70s, the Andean group went beyond the framework of a purely economic association. The structure of the organization included the Council of Foreign Ministers, the Andean Parliament, the Andean Court and a number of other bodies that indicated the desire to create an association similar to the European Community.

Moreover, at the beginning of the decade, it was the Andean group that became the main opponent of the United States in its desire to rebuild the inter-American system, as mentioned above, as well as the initiator of a number of collective actions aimed at infringing on the interests of North American commodity corporations. Adopted in 1971, “Decision 24” of the Cartagena Agreement Commission significantly limited the transfer of profits abroad by foreign investors.

Even regional security issues, which were previously the traditional domain of inter-American forums, began to be brought to the subregional level and considered without the participation of the United States. This was clearly evidenced by the “Ayacucho process.” In 1974, in Ayacucho (Peru), the leaders of eight Latin American states - Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Peru, Chile and Ecuador signed the "Ayacucho Declaration", in which they committed themselves to creating conditions for limiting the arms race and the direction freed up funds for the needs of socio-economic development.

Unlike previous numerous declarations and international documents Following the signing of the Ayacucho Declaration, concrete measures followed. In 1975-1976 Five meetings were held at the expert level on practical study disarmament issues. For example, at the second meeting of experts in Santiago (Chile, September 1975), issues of establishing a climate of trust between states were considered.

participants in the military-political field, cooperation between military institutions, as well as the problem of banning certain types of weapons (biological, chemical, toxic), as well as those whose use negatively affects the environment. Following the signing of the Ayacucho Declaration, another potentially important mechanism was created - the Conference of the Commanders of the Armed Forces of Peru, Chile and Bolivia, designed to eliminate the climate of hostility and mistrust between the armies of these states, which created fertile ground for the arms race. At the II meeting in Santiago in 1976, the “Agreement on Cooperation to Strengthen Peace and Friendship between the Armed Forces” was signed.

In 1978, the countries that signed the Ayacucho Declaration, during the first UN disarmament session, adopted another declaration in which they pledged, together with other Latin American states, to seek opportunities for arms limitation. Also in 1978, on the initiative of the President of Mexico, a meeting of representatives of 20 Latin American and Caribbean states was held in the capital of this state to study disarmament issues at the regional level. In particular, it discussed the issue of creating a unified consultative mechanism for Latin America and the Caribbean to limit the transfer of certain types of weapons and establish restrictions or bans on certain types of weapons. In 1980, at a meeting in Rio Bamba (Ecuador), the presidents of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and the plenipotentiary of the President of Peru adopted a “Code of Conduct”, in the fifth paragraph of which they pledged to promote the disarmament process at the subregional and regional levels, based on the principles of “Ayacucho”, which “would be an effective contribution to the cause of general and complete disarmament.”

The “Ayacucho Process” in the 70s did not lead to a real limitation of arms, however, the dialogue that began, from which the United States was actually excluded, nevertheless, in our opinion, contributed to the fact that the aggravated territorial disputes in that period did not develop into regional conflicts , and inter-American cooperation has been supplemented with another component, which in the future will turn into an important factor in collective diplomacy.

In conditions when the real foreign policy capabilities of the United States in the region turned out to be significantly limited, and the conflict potential of inter-American relations has sharply increased, the center of the system made an attempt, without retreating from the policy of hidden destabilization, to defuse the situation through active foreign policy maneuvering and a reduction in its real presence in the region.

In 1974, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger proclaimed a “new dialogue” with Latin America, based on a mature partnership. In fact, it was generally about the only possible maneuver under those conditions - reducing the political presence in the region by reducing the number of diplomatic, trade and military missions, curtailing the volume of aid (if in 1970 Latin America accounted for about 70% of aid USA to foreign countries, then in 1985 - only 22%) 23. In the context of highly developed nationalist anti-American sentiments, an attempt was made to curtail the formal presence and show much greater tolerance to anti-imperialist rhetoric, which in the 70s was actively exploited not only by the military regimes of Peru, Panama, Bolivia (1969-1971) and Ecuador (1972-1971). 1976), but also by the ruling elites of Mexico, Argentina, and Venezuela.

A rather subtle maneuver was undertaken aimed at “channeling” anti-imperialism in secondary directions, for example, in demarches in

Non-Aligned Movement, Group of 77. So. The United States reacted quite calmly to the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States put forward by Mexican President L. Eccheveria in 1972 at the UN. The task was to thereby remove the main thing from attack - the interests of American investors in the region.

It must be admitted that this maneuver was largely successful. Nationalization of property of American companies

1990 May 1-June 12 - Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR. Declaration of State Sovereignty of Russia 1991 March 17 -1990 May 1-June 12 - Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR. Declaration of
state sovereignty of Russia
1991 March 17 - Referendum on preserving the USSR and introducing the post of President of the RSFSR
1991 June 12 - Russian presidential elections
1991 July 1 - Dissolution of the Warsaw Pact Organization in Prague
1991 August 19–21 - Attempted coup in the USSR (Case of the State Emergency Committee)
September 1991 - Troops entered Vilnius. Attempted coup in Lithuania
1991 December 8 - Signing in Minsk by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus
Treaty on the "Commonwealth of Independent States" and the dissolution of the USSR
1992 January 2 - Liberalization of prices in Russia
1992 February 1 - Declaration of Russia and the United States on the end of the Cold War
1992 March 13 - Initialing of the Federal Treaty of Republics consisting of
Russian Federation
1993 March - VIII and IX Congresses of People's Deputies of the Russian Federation
1993 April 25 - All-Russian referendum on confidence in the policies of the President of Russia
June 1993 - Work of the constitutional meeting to prepare the draft Constitution
Russia
1993 September 21 - Decree of B.N. Yeltsin “On step-by-step constitutional reform” and
dissolution of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation
1993 October 3–4 - Demonstrations and armed actions of the pro-communist
opposition in Moscow. Storming of the Supreme Council building by troops loyal to the President
1993 December 12 - Elections to the State Duma and Federation Council. Referendum on
draft of the new Constitution of the Russian Federation
1994 January 11 - Start of work of the State Duma and the Federation Council of the Russian Federation
in Moscow

Point No. 1. Regions of Russia after the collapse Prerequisites: - Perestroika - the need for renewal - Main task - construction

renewed Federation
-1991 – Yeltsin, regions - a call for independence
-National movements have intensified
Controversies:
-Regions – Tataria, Bashkiria, Yakutia, Chechen
republic, Tataria
-Question – secession from the RSFSR, special status
-1992 – Chechen Republic, division, EVENTS...
-Tataria – Kurultai of the Tatar people
RESULT: The authorities in Russia were in a hurry, the Federal Treaty

Peoples and regions of Russia before and after the collapse of the USSR.

PERESTROIKA
B.N.YELTSIN
UPDATE
RUSSIAN
FEDERATION
INDEPENDENT
NOST
REGIONS OF THE RF
VICTORY IN THE ELECTION
NATIONAL MOVEMENTS IN TATARSTAN,
BASHKIRIA, TUVE, YAKUTIA, CHECHNYA, ETC.

Point No. 2. Federative agreement. Contents: 1. Broad powers of national regions 2. Redistribution of property,

authorities
3. Russia – Federation of Independents
states
4.Native language – state status
March 31, 1992 – signing of the Federal
agreement
Not signed – Chechen Republic, Tataria

FEDERAL AGREEMENT:

1. Provision to national areas
countries of broad powers.
2. Redistribution of state
property and power.
3. Russia – federation of independent
national states.
March 31, 1992 – signing
Federal Treaty (except
Tatarstan and Chechnya).

Clause No. 3. Constitution of 1993. Date - December 12, 1993 Principles: 1. Integrity; 2. Unified authority; 3. Separation of powers

between the center and
regions; 4.Equality and self-determination
peoples
State authorities – local authorities
State language – Russian + right to
own language
Laws are uniform and do not contradict the Constitution
Market – Freedom in the movement of funds, goods,
services
Currency unit - ruble

Point No. 4. Increasing contradictions. Work it out on your own

Point No. 5. Crisis in the Chechen Republic Until the summer of 1994 - negotiations on accession to the Federal Treaty. August 10, 1994 –

declaration of war on Russia
December 1, 1994 - Yeltsin’s ultimatum to surrender weapons,
refusal
December 10, 1994 - federal forces entered Chechen
republic
Summer 1995 – bands of bandits are blocked in the mountains
areas
Summer 1995 – the beginning of terror, Budenovsk hospital
January 1996 – hostage taking in Dagestan
August 1996 – attack on Grozny
September 1996 – Khasavyurt, peace agreements

10.

1991 – election of Dudayev
President of Chechnya and
proclaiming it
independence
1992 – withdrawal of federal
troops from Chechnya, their capture
weapons by Dudaev,
armament of the whole people

Objective factors determine the permanent turbulence of the regional section of Russian politics and the fundamental impossibility of “once and for all” solving the problem of ensuring territorial consolidation - maintaining the latter requires constant conceptual efforts. The exceptional scale of the country (Russia is the most spatially extensive state in the world, which is twice as large as the next second state - Canada and is significantly ahead of such large countries as China, the USA and Brazil) and its extreme diversity (territorial, socio-economic and other parameters of the subjects differ hundreds of times) determine that territorial and political consolidation and management of such a highly complex object pose a serious challenge for the subject of management.

The determining factors for the Russian model of territorial balance between the center and the regions are the huge differences between the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. If ethno-religious differences are relatively small, then economic differences between territories are unprecedented. At the same time, extreme economic heterogeneity Russian territory is the latest historical phenomenon that arose over the past twenty years during the radical reforms of the 1990s, and their meaning was that during the reforms the raw material profile of the Russian economy noticeably increased, which, in conditions of uneven distribution of resources, gave a picture of extreme inequality in the economic the situation of Russian regions. In particular, in terms of the volume of gross regional product, the gap between Russian regions is about 2.5 thousand times. The largest gross regional product is typical for Moscow, the smallest for Evenkia and Ingushetia. The gap in gross regional product between leader Moscow and Ingushetia is 2.5 thousand times. The disproportion is determined by the presence in Russia of only two truly rich subjects of the Federation (Moscow and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug), which are at least an order of magnitude, i.e. 10 times stronger than all other subjects. If we look more broadly, the disproportion of Russian territories is determined by the economic power of the Big Five (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Moscow Region, Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, or the so-called Tyumen Region). On the other hand, the pole of formal poverty are the republics of the North Caucasus. Thus, in connection with such anomalous economic heterogeneity in Russia, the problem of smoothing out socio-economic differences between regions and finding a balance between the poles of wealth and poverty is urgent.

The scale of demographic differences is indicated by the fact that 7–10% of the population live in Moscow, another plus 5% in the Moscow region, followed in descending order by the Krasnoyarsk Territory, St. Petersburg, Sverdlovsk, Rostov regions, Bashkiria, Tatarstan, Chelyabinsk and Nizhny Novgorod regions . By territory, the largest subject is Yakutia (18% of the territory), and the Krasnoyarsk Territory with autonomous okrugs (14% of the territory), i.e. about a third of the territory consists of two subjects. A special feature of Russia is the extremely uneven distribution of the population. In general, the population density in the country is low - 8 people per square kilometer. 20% of the population lives in the East (i.e. Siberia and the Far East), the density of which in the Far East is 1 person per square kilometer, in Siberia - 4 people per square kilometer.

R. F. Turovsky. Center and regions: problems of political relations

It should be noted that the difference in the parameters of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation has a noticeable impact on the participation of their residents in politics. At the same time, the most significant factor in the projection of regional differences onto politics is the configuration of the geographic distribution of the population, since within the framework of different settlement models, different models of political orientation and political behavior are formed. Currently, experts systematize the mosaic diversity of the domestic regional settlement structure through a typology representing four types of regions.

Russia 1

“First Russia” is a country of big cities. Their number is small - 73 out of more than a thousand Russian cities, if we consider all cities with a population of over 250 thousand people to be large. However, only 12 million-plus cities, including federal ones, and two more similar in size (Krasnoyarsk, Perm - 970–990 thousand people) together contain more than 21% of the country’s population, that is, every fifth Russian. Including in Moscow and St. Petersburg - every ninth resident of the country.

The advantages of federal cities are obvious - they are leaders of a post-industrial economy with a high level of development: the per capita gross regional product (GRP) of Moscow is 47 thousand dollars at purchasing power parity, of St. Petersburg - 22 thousand dollars, which is comparable to the indicators of developed countries. The educated population lives in federal cities - higher education has 42% of the adult population of Moscow and 37% of St. Petersburg. They also have the most diverse labor market and the most high-paying jobs. At the same time, Moscow is significantly ahead of the northern capital in all economic indicators, including per capita income of the population: in St. Petersburg they are 40% lower and almost the same as in the Moscow region. But the differences do not negate the main thing - the two capitals have a more modernized lifestyle for the majority of the population. The age structure of the population of federal cities has aged greatly; the share of residents of retirement age in Moscow and St. Petersburg has reached 24–25%.

In the economy of other million-plus cities (Ufa, Perm, Omsk, Chelyabinsk and Volgograd), although industrial giants (oil refining and metallurgical enterprises) dominate, the employment structure reflects post-industrial transformations with an emphasis on service industries, albeit at different speeds. Accordingly, in all cities with a population of over a million, the employment structure has changed in favor of qualified white-collar and public sector employees, and employment in small businesses. It is to the largest cities that Russian migration is directed: only the Moscow metropolitan agglomeration and St. Petersburg with the Leningrad region concentrate, respectively, 60 and 20% of all net migration in Russia (other largest cities attract migrants mainly from their region, primarily young people, came to receive higher education).

If cities with a population of over 500 thousand people are included in the “First Russia”, this increases its share in the population to 30%, and if all cities with a population of more than 250 thousand people are included in the “First Russia”, in total almost 40% of Russians, or 53–55 million people. Of course, these are different cities, so the border of the “first Russia” can be drawn along different criteria- based on the dynamics of transformation (then these are cities with a population of half a million) or from sustainability (then, with some exceptions, these are cities with a population of more than 250 thousand people). It is in large and major cities that 35 million Russian Internet users (according to some estimates, there are already 50 million in total) and the Russian middle class are concentrated.

Russia 2

“Second Russia” is a country of industrial cities with a population of 20–30 to 250 thousand people, although some larger ones must be added to them: the population of Cherepovets, Nizhny Tagil, Magnitogorsk, Naberezhnye Chelny, Surgut reaches 300–500 thousand people, and Togliatti - more than 700 thousand. Not all cities have retained their former industrial specialization, but its spirit is still strong. In addition to significant industrial employment (so-called "blue collar"), these cities have many public sector workers. Opportunities for small business development are limited. More than a quarter of the country’s population lives in the “second Russia”, and about 10% lives in its most unstable part - single-industry cities.

The 2009 crisis hit single-industry towns specializing in metallurgy and mechanical engineering the hardest. If a new crisis hits, it will be the strongest shock for the “second Russia” - in a crisis, industry declines more than other sectors of the economy. There is almost no other work in these cities, and the mobility and competitiveness of the population are low.

The fate of the cities of Russia-2 significantly depends on where medium-sized cities are located, both industrial and those that have almost lost this function. If it is near large agglomerations, there is no fear for their future. If the localization location is problematic, the city may surrender to the size and functions of a local center serving the surrounding area.

Russia-3

“Third Russia” is a vast periphery, consisting of rural residents, small urban-type settlements and small towns. Their total share is a little more than a third of the country's population. “Depopulating” small towns and villages with a very aged population are scattered throughout the country, there are especially many of them in Central Russia, the North-West, and the industrial regions of the Urals and Siberia.

The rural population is concentrated in the Southern and North Caucasus federal districts, where 27% of the country's rural residents are concentrated. The southern “Russian” village has retained its demographic potential and conducts intensive private farming on fertile black soil, due to which it survives. Large agribusiness is investing in the most profitable and non-labor-intensive sectors of agriculture, depriving many rural residents of work, and young people are leaving the village en masse and moving to cities, and the urbanization process continues.

In other regions, only suburban villages located near large cities are viable; their population is younger and more mobile, and earns more, since a significant part of it is labor commuting migrants working in large cities.

The able-bodied population of the peripheries earns a living from trades and subsistence farming.

Russia-4

If the three previous Russias are identified within the framework of the center-periphery model (which explains social differences by geographical factor), then this model will have to be abandoned when identifying the “fourth Russia”. This can be called the underdeveloped republics of the North Caucasus and, to a lesser extent, the south of Siberia (Tyva and Altai), where in total less than 6% of the country’s population lives. These republics have both large and small cities, but there are almost no industrial ones, there is little urban educated middle class, and it is washed out, migrating to other regions. In the “fourth Russia” the rural population is growing, and it is still young - unlike other regions of the country. Rural youth are actively moving to regional centers, but there is almost no work there. “Fourth Russia” is more affected by corruption, inter-clan, ethnic, and religious contradictions are more acute in it. The population of large cities in the North Caucasus is, of course, more modernized, but not yet to such an extent as to create a modernization trend for their republic.

The prospects for separatism of the “fourth Russia” are insignificant - the overwhelming majority of residents of the North Caucasus republics consider themselves Russians. But there are many problems, and the policy of the federal authorities plays a huge role in solving them, so it is extremely important that the federal assistance allocated to underdeveloped republics is spent wisely and transparently.

Considering that every fifth Russian lives in cities with a population of over a million, including federal ones, and in cities close to them in population size (and if we take cities with a population of half a million as the lower limit, then in largest cities lives almost every third person, then the political projection of the country’s geography is determined not by the traditional geographic map with small circles of cities, and one that includes the huge Moscow metropolitan agglomeration (13% of the population or every eighth resident of Russia) and a dozen other large agglomerations. The settlement structure and the corresponding economic structure largely determine the political orientations and models of political behavior of the population.

A historical feature of Russian regions was their low subjectivity: the territories that made up the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union did not have significant political independence. The acquisition of a fundamentally new degree of regional freedom in the Russian Federation of the 1990s became a political innovation. For the second time in Russian history (after the disintegration of the territory during the Civil War of 1918–1920), regions, represented by regional elites, acquired the status of subjects of national politics.

Over the last quarter of a century, the balance of political and administrative powers of the central and regional authorities in the Russian Federation has changed repeatedly. Experts note: this is not least determined by the fact that the 1993 constitution defines only the general framework of relations between the center and the regions, but does not set the parameters for the formation of regional power, which determined the possibility of changing the balance of powers between the center and the regions. The process of evolution of relations between the center and the regions over the course of 25 years has gone through a number of significantly different stages, the most significant of which were the following.

1. 1990–1995 The dominant trend of this period is expansion of powers regional authorities. The starting point for the process of strengthening the political influence of regional elites can be considered 1990, which was marked by the holding of elections of new Soviets in the regions on an alternative basis and the strengthening of Soviet power compared to party power. After the events of 1991, governors appointed by the president replaced party power. A distinctive feature of this period is the dual power represented by the executive branch and the Soviets, during which the Council of Subjects of the Federation was formed, which claimed the role of arbiter in the confrontation between the branches of federal power. The formation of this body was the first significant attempt by the regional authorities to gain the status of an independent actor in Russian politics. However, this attempt was defeated during the events of 1993 in Moscow. The dominant trend was implemented differently in two categories of regions: in the national republics, power was formed on the basis of electoral mechanisms without the participation of the center, while in other regions the President of Russia appointed heads of regional administrations, which determined the formation of an asymmetric balance in relations between the center and the regions, contrary to the provisions of Art. 11 of the constitution, which proclaimed the equality of all subjects of the Federation. The plenipotentiary representatives of the President of the Russian Federation in the constituent entities of the Federation were called upon to smooth out the asymmetry, but at that time they only increased the imbalance, since they were appointed mainly to those subjects whose heads were appointed by the president, while the institution of plenipotentiary representatives by the end of the period operated only in 5 republics.

2. Conducted in 1995–1999. in all regions, elections of heads of executive power and the formation on this basis of a new composition of the Federation Council (the majority of it were governors who came to power through elections) marked the beginning of a new stage in the consolidation of regional leaders and the transformation of regional elites into an independent and increasingly influential subject of Russian politics. This determined Moscow’s measures to curb the excessive strengthening of regional freemen through the appointment of presidential envoys to all subjects of the Federation (including the leaders of regional separatism - Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Yakutia) and active support for local governments.

The political and economic strengthening of regional elites in post-Soviet Russia was ambivalent in its characteristics and consequences. On the one hand, strong regional power was a necessary condition effective management of the country as a whole. On the other hand, the excessive strengthening of power in the regions was a consequence of the weakening of the central government in Russia, when the latter was unable to carry out its inherent functions. The most striking manifestation of the crisis in relations between Moscow and the regions were two Chechen wars. The desire to overcome regional separatism predetermined serious measures to adjust relations between the capital and the provinces.

3. In the period 2000–2004. a set of measures was taken to return attributive powers to the center, which included the creation federal districts and a serious strengthening of the institution of plenipotentiary representatives of the President of the Russian Federation with a significant expansion of its functions; reform of the Federation Council (if in the 1990s the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation included the heads of the legislative and executive branches of government in the regions, then from now on the Federation Council began to include representatives of the executive and legislative branches of government); bringing the legislation of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation into conformity with federal standards; strengthening the functional verticals of federal executive authorities; elimination of contractual practice in relations between Moscow and the regions; serious measures to restore the country's information space. The result of these measures was the strengthening of centralized control over the institution of elected governors. The rejection of direct gubernatorial elections did not find support at this stage. However, the proposal to appoint a governor was implemented at the next stage.

4. 2005–2012 The main content of this stage was the transition to soft appointments of governors, when the president proposes candidates, and regional authorities vote for one of them. In 2005, federal law introduced another possible procedure for nominating candidates for the winning party in elections to regional legislative assemblies. Now this is the United Russia party. A significant innovation was the right of the President of the Russian Federation to remove elected governors from office, as well as the practice of appointing “vyryags” as governors. A notable trend of this period was the crisis of regional elites.

5. From 2012 to the present - a return to the practice of gubernatorial elections. This was due to the identification of the costs of appointing governors: it turned out that, despite limited electoral activity, voters value their right to choose, which is relevant given the role of elections not only as a mechanism for recruiting power and a tool for qualitative sociological research, but also as an exit valve for public discontent and in connection with the potential accumulation of protest sentiments in the absence of such a valve.

Thus, over the last quarter of a century, relations between the center and the regions have undergone a profound transformation, during which the key parameters of interaction - the political and legal foundations of relations, their content and mechanisms - have undergone significant changes. If the change in political and legal foundations was determined by the rejection of unitary relations in favor of federalist ones, then the change in content was caused by the dynamics of two trends. At the first stage, in the early 1990s, there was a abandonment of the long-term strategy in favor of situational attitudes and corporate interests of the federal government. The change of persons on the presidential Olympus led to the abandonment of the political situation in relations between the “center and the regions” in favor of the strategic goals of restoring the unity of the Federation. As for the change in mechanisms, in the 1990s, the comprehensive control of the center over the regions (characteristic of the Soviet period and carried out in the regime of force and directive strategies) was replaced by compromise strategies of political bargaining. The implementation of V. Putin's regional policy assumes that while maintaining a compromise as a “framework” for interaction, the content of the compromise will change. During the 1990s, a compromise between the weak center and strong regional elites provided the latter with political autonomy and the status of a political actor on an all-Russian scale in exchange for political loyalty. The compromise concluded within the framework of the administrative and legal reform of the 2000s assumed that the federal government remains the main subject of the political process, and regional elites, while retaining certain resources of influence, will lose the role of independent power centers and the status of independent political actors on an all-Russian scale. The regions received guarantees of economic assistance from the center in exchange for Moscow's support during the federal elections.

Thus, in the 1990s, despite significant changes in the territorial-state structure of Russia, the mechanisms for the formation of political elites (the principle of appointment was replaced by elections) and the nature of interaction between the federal and regional elites, the federal center retained priority in relations with regional elites.

The “flow” of power from the center to the regions during the 1990s was temporary and was due to the interest of the federal executive in political support from the regional elite in the fight against competing groups of the central elite. Often, the center-region confrontation was a projection of conflicts between various segments of the central elite onto the regional level. An example is the protracted conflict in the Chechen Republic, one of the essential components of which was the confrontation between various Moscow groups with their mutual interest in maintaining a high potential for tension, creating favorable conditions for the implementation of criminal and semi-criminal schemes for managing financial flows. Russian federalism in the 1990s was nominal; The “regional freedom” of the 1990s became possible thanks to the interest or connivance of the federal government, which simply did not reach out to the regions due to its preoccupation with intra-Moscow conflicts. Therefore, the formation of a conceptual, well-thought-out regional policy of the federal center remains an urgent task for the country's leadership. The same can be said about national politics.

Factors determining the priority of federal political elite in relation to the regional one, they are: concentration of financial resources in the federal center (or tight control of the federal center over material, natural and other resources available in the regions); historical traditions of political development and political culture of Russia, which determine the predominantly subject mode of relations not only in the relations of the elites with the masses, but also within the framework of the power-administrative hierarchy; features of the modern political system of Russia; the specifics of the participation of elite groups in large-scale processes of privatization and redistribution of property; weak corporate consolidation of regional elites.

Such a noticeable feature of relations between the center and the regions deserves mention as the persistence of the political asymmetry of the Russian Federation, despite the constitutional norm of equality of all subjects of the Federation and significant changes in the procedure for the formation of regional authorities over the past twenty-odd years (alternating changes in appointments and elections). This indicates that improving regional policy remains one of the most pressing tasks of the Russian federal authorities.

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