Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct.
4 – The Russian Federation remains an empire, and those of its component
nations who want independence must seek a velvet divorce much like the one that
led to the separation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia rather than pursue it
via revolt, Vladislav Inozemtsev says.
Otherwise,
they will be opposed by the military power of the large portions of the country
that do not want to leave even if they themselves would be better off if those
who want to become independent would succeed, the Russian economist says (idelreal.org/a/vladislav-inozemtsev-o-posledstviyah-voyny-dlya-ekonomiki-rossii-ustoychivost-est-a-razvitiya-net-/33137738.html).
Consequently,
he suggests, the major task ahead is two-fold, a radical decentralization of the
country so that as few parts of it will want to leave, something very difficult
in wartime when centralization is increasing, and a willingness to allow those
parts that do want to leave to do so without opposition in a gradual and
peaceful way.
And that in
turn requires that the ethnic Russians who became an empire without ever having
established for themselves a nation state move in that direction. Otherwise,
they will continue to view the defense of the empire as a defense of themselves
and won’t be willing to allow its colonial possessions to leave if they want
to.
Russia
today remains an empire with two basic parts, one in which ethnic Russians or
at least Slavs moved into and dominated areas that had relatively small populations
to begin with and a second in which the Russians never formed a majority or
even in most cases a sizeable minority. The first is like the US; the second
like the European empires.
Inozemtsev
continues: “the disintegration of the USSR really was the destruction of the
empire, but it took place on the basis of very artificially established
borders. The North Caucasus where the Russian population forms only a few
percent couldn’t remain within the Russian Federation because this is a
territory that was only occupied by military conquest.”
Had
Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan in the early 1990s either received
independence or had been elevated to the status of union republics and gotten
out on that basis, “this would have been an enormous good thing.” But that didn’t
happen, and Russia instead began a war to keep them in, an enormously expensive
conflict that hasn’t solved the underlying problem.
As far as
non-Russian areas elsewhere, Inozemtsev says, “I am a total supporter of the
idea that the Russian Federation in its current form must be destroyed and
restructured.” These non-Russians and Russian regions as well must be given
more rights, and those who still want to leave must be allowed to do so.
Otherwise, Inozemtsev
argues, the Russian Federation will remain what it is now: “an imperial structure”
that will not only continue to avoid the loss of Chechnya but see no reason why
it should not retake areas like Ukraine that once were ruled from Moscow –
something that would be a disaster for all concerned, including the Russians.
But the
exit of those who want to leave must not take place via revolt as the Chechens
tried, he says. “It must be a completely civilized divorce” on the basis of a
referendum and a transition period of perhaps ten years that will allow both
sides the opportunity to consider what needs to be separated and what does not.
In conclusion, Inozemtsev argues that “Russia’s
problem is that the Russians themselves never had a nation state. They always
were an imperial nation which from the outset has been concerned about
territory and then about historical memory, about its own self-determination,
national elements and so on.”
And because
that is so, there is little recognition of the reality that “a Russian nation
state alongside Tatar, Bashkir and Sakha nation state would represent a better
future for the Russian Federation and for the world than that which we have
today.”