Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 15 – Many dismiss Vladimir
Zhirinovsky as a clown, but that is a mistake: the longtime LDPR leader often
expresses in blunt language what many in Moscow are thinking and thus often
serves as a leading indicator of the direction in which the Russian Federation
is moving.
In an essay for the RBC news agency
this week, Zhirinovsky says what many Russians think but are too polite or politically
correct to say: “The correct nationality policy must be based on the simple
principle: if in Russia it is good for the Russians, it is good for everyone” (rbc.ru/opinions/politics/14/03/2018/5aa8d3029a7947dab9ddd266?from=center_6).
Like many Russians, Zhirinovsky says
that Russians are “the people who have suffered the most in the 20th
and the 21st centuries,” in the USSR, in the non-Russian countries
that broke away from Moscow in 1991, and in the Russian Federation to this
day. “It is simply impossible,” he says,
for that situation to be allowed to continue.
Russians must be given their due,
Zhirinovsky continues. “Of course, “one isn’t talking about giving them special
rights or privileges. From the point of view of the law, all citizens of Russia
are equal. But the time has come to restore historical justice.” And there are several steps that need to be
taken immediately.
First and foremost, the Russian constitution
must be amended to include a reference to ethnic Russians and to name them as “the
state-forming nation.” The first lines
of that document must no longer read “We, the multi-national people of the
Russian Federation” but rather “We, ethnic Russians and other peoples of
Russia.”
Second, the media has to stop
treating Russians negatively and begin to celebrate them. If you read only some
extremely popular newspapers and sites, you may think that a Russian in Rusisa
can be only an innate drunkard, a lazy-bones, or a slave.” That isn’t true, and people need to be told
that.
Third, Zhirinovsky says, the country
must do away with Article 282 of the criminal code. It is the direct heir of
Article 70 of the RSFSR criminal code and gives the authorities the power to
charge anyone it likes. “However, among the people, this paragraph is known as ‘the
Russian paragraph’ because among those condemned under its terms are
practically only Russians.”
Fourth, he continues, all schools
must teach Russian and he implies only Russian. Tehre is plenty of space in
private life for people to use their local languages. And the government must fight the destruction
of Russian as a result of the influx of foreign words. Now, “residents of the
provinces already understand a Muscovite only with difficulty.”
Fifth, “Russia must again become a unitary
state.” All non-Russian republics must be done away with, the right of
secession must be banned, and the country must be divided into gubernias based
on and named according to cities rather than ethnic groups. Russia can’t afford
another 1991.
Sixth, Russia should pursue
restoring Russia’s borders to those of at least the former Soviet Union. “In
the final analysis, we must establish three levels of states. The present
territory of Russia must be a unitary state without internal national borders …
The Russian federation should become a state formed of the former republics of
the Soviet Union.”
In this restored state, Zhirinovsky says, the center will be responsible for “only seven issues: foreign policy, defense, finances, transportation, communication, energy and ecology. Besides and in contrast to the Soviet Union, there will not be imposed any one ideology.”
“And the third level of Russian
statehood,” Zhirinovsky says, will be “a confederation” in which “will be
included our neighbors – Turkey, Iran, Mongolia, and Afghanistan.” They will be
allowed to keep their national currencies and languages, “but the union all the
same must include ‘Russian’ in its definition.”
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