ABSTRACT
The new secular ideocracy was strong enough to suppress the irredentist nationalism, as long as it retained faith in itself and the determination to use all means required to retain control. After 1985, perestroika was born out of a loss of faith in the economic methods of Communism, and the renunciation of the use of ruthless force was in part an ingredient of the recipe for the hoped-for economic revival, and in part a price for the retention of Western good will, which turned out to be essential for the new experiment. So came the end of determined repression-coercion is still used on occasion, but only reluctantly and under provocation and with political restraint. Under these new rules of the game, what happens to the ethnic situation?
