Are leaders of the many broken pieces of the former Soviet Union trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again?
It might look that way after three of the major republics - Russia, Ukraine and Belarus - agreed this week on a pact that virtually recreates the economic ties of the defunct union. They also left the door open for other republics to join them.Despite the agreement, Humpty Dumpty is going to remain broken. The forces that tore the once-mighty Soviet Union apart are still at work and are even threatening to dismember some of the individual republics themselves.
In any case, the economic union is merely common sense, dealing with trade and manufacturing and money. It is a far cry from any political or military union.
The pact - whose details are to be worked out by Sept. 1 - is simply recognition of hard reality after 18 months of independent and sometimes hostile economic relations. Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are the three biggest and most important republics, but they discovered they still needed each other.
For example, a Ukraine study showed that its manufactured products contained an average of 20 component parts. But 16 or 17 of those parts were imported from other republics. The same kind of shared economic fabric was evident in trans-portation, sales and marketing, employment, a common currency and other everyday aspects of life.
In agreeing to a kind of common market, the trio of republics are only acknowledging that they cannot sever all basic ties and still function. That should have been obvious from the beginning, but most of the republics got carried away in the euphoria of independence.
While economic ties can ease political relationships between the republics, they will not eliminate all tensions. For example, the Russian parliament this week claimed sovereignty over the Black Sea fleet headquarters in Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula - an act that has caused tempers to flare. No common market is likely to take precedence over jealously guarded sovereignty.
The nationalistic and ethnic forces that caused the Soviet Union to disintegrate have not ceased to operate. Civil wars are raging in Georgia and Azerbaijan as rebel ethnic enclaves struggle for their own independence or to crush other ethnic groups - like mini-Yugoslavias.
The vast Russian republic, still one of the world's largest countries even after the demise of the 15-republic Soviet Union, is faced with a series of far-flung insurrections. Stretching across eight time zones are many provinces demanding greater local autonomy and the right to have locally chosen leaders, courts and taxes - much like American states or Canadian provinces.
Such regions say they are not seeking independence, just more autonomy. But both critics and supporters of Russian President Boris Yeltsin see similarities to the independence movements that shattered the Soviet Union in 1991. Those movements, too, started out talking about "autonomy" and ended up with full independence.
Some provinces are not willing to wait until Russia manages to cobble together a constitution that might resolve many questions. Earlier this month, Yeltsin's home region of Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains declared itself the Urals Republic. The Far Eastern maritime province of Primorsky Krai did the same thing a week later, establishing its capital in the Pacific port of Vladivostok.
The city of St. Petersburg not only changed its name from Leningrad but is now demanding the status of a republic, as are some other areas.
The danger is not the revival of the Soviet Union but the threat of anarchy. The question is whether Russia and other republics will be able to survive without being broken into even smaller pieces - and thus be even less able to function.