Staunton,
January 7 – The December protests highlighted not only the gulf between Russia’s
urban population with its European values and the country’s longstanding imperial
traditions “based on lifetime power for the tsar or general secretary” but also
the failure of the protesters to recognize that simply replacing a bad tsar
with a good one won’t same Russia.
This
gulf has received enormous attention in the Russian media with many hoping that
the values of the former will overwhelm the latter, but the failure of the
protesters to recognize that simply electing a good president in place of a bad
one will not by itself prevent a return of the imperial tradition.
But that
failure, what may happen if it is not overcome and what could to be done to
ensure that it will are the subject of
an intriguing essay by Russian regional affairs analyst Vadim Shteppa entitled “An
Interregnum or a Federation?” carried yesterday on the “Russky zhurnal” portal
(www.russ.ru/Mirovaya-povestka/Mezhducarstvie-ili-federaciya).
“The main distinguishing characteristic of the
December meetings,” he suggests, was “the sharp contrast between the new ‘urban
class’” which defines itself in terms of its commitment European values and the imperial tradition of Russian
statehood which is based on lifetime power for the tsar or general secretary.”
Despite
the existence of decorative monarchies in many European states, he continues, “real
power there belongs to regularly replaced governments, but present-day Russia
in contrast is again being drawn to autocracy.” Indeed, what is taking place
now recalls what occurred in 1990-91, something that those who want a liberal
Russia should be reflecting upon.
Twenty
years ago in Moscow, Shteppa points out, “equally massive demonstrations took
place” largely consisting of people who assumed that having done away with “the
Soviet one-party system,” Russia would “return to the civilized world. But ‘the
return’ turned out to be entirely different and in places extremely grotesque.”
In
post-Soviet Russia, a “synthesis of the Soviet and the monarchical” occurred “with
tsarist authority of the president, the tricolor, subordinated to the melody of
the Bolshevik hymn, and religious leaders playing ever more the role of the
former ‘ideological departments’” of Soviet times.
The
current demonstrators appear to be laboring under some similar misconceptions,
Shteppa continues. “Many of them now are
much more concerned about the looming presidential elections,” apparently
hoping that “the arrival of a good tsar in place of a ‘bad’ one allow Russia to
prevent the return of authoritarianism as indeed happened after 1991.
Yet
another failure of the demonstrators, he says, is that they failed to take note
of protests outside the ring road or dismissed them because of their small
size. But there were many meetings and
their relatively small size reflects “one of the main consequences of imperial
hyper-centralism when many active and educated people leave their own regions
for Moscow.”
(Moreover,
Shteppa points out, many of the participants in the Moscow protests were not
native Muscovites but rather precisely such active and educated citizens from
regions outside of the capital.)
Had the
Muscovites taken notice, they would have seen that among the demonstrators in
other cities on December 10 and 24 were people carrying “regional flags,
including those of Siberia, Ingermanland, Karelia and Kaliningrad (For pictures,
see kaliningrad-eu-russian.blogspot.com/2011/12/blog-post_18.html).
This current failure by the Moscow opposition to take
note of these protests recalls that of many in the Soviet capital 20 years ago “who
did not want to notice the Baltic, Belarusian and Ukrainian flags.” This also suggests
that what is happening now is “the restoration of a certain liberal ‘vertical’
which of course will be better than the authoritarian one, but will entail the
very same centralization” and have lead to a repetition of the cycle.
And
that is the case, the regional affairs writer argues, even though many Russians
will remember “how the liberal Yeltsin ‘vertical’ was converted into the
authoritarian Putin one.” To allow Russia to escape from “’an eternal return of
empire,” Russia needs to focus on “the regionalist transformation of the
country.”
“In other words,” Shteppa says, “instead of the drafting
of a single program ‘for all right now,’ people should concentrate on the resolution
of the problems of their own regions” through the direct election of governors
and mayors, an end to “financial hyper-centralism,” “the free registration of
regional parties” and the like.
Unfortunately, many in Moscow view such calls as the
first step toward “separatism,” out of a conviction that “normal multi-party
democracy in various regions will ‘split the country.’” That is absurd as European experience shows –
indeed, there strong regional democracy helps preserve existing borders,
Shteppa insists -- but it is typical of imperialist thinking.
If Russia had “normal regional self-administration,”
there would be no risk of the country falling apart as “ties among the regions
are much stronger than was the case in the USSR.” But if the new opposition
wants freedom only for its federal parties, then “Siberians and Kaliningraders
might ask: why do they need the continuation of this colonial power.
Contrary to what many in Moscow understand, “the greater
the imperial quality [of the state], the greater will be separatist attitudes.”
But if the regions “can make use of their own resources and taxes, freely
choose their heads and parliaments, then the question as to who will win in the
March elections will completely lose its imperial ‘fatefulness.’”
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