Paul Goble
Staunton,
December 28 – The just-complete budgetary process, Lev Shlosberg says, shows
that “there is no federalism in Russia,” that Moscow has all the money and
power, and that the provinces beyond the ring road are Moscow’s provinces,
places from which the center extracts as much as it can while giving as little
back as it can.
Because
this is the case, the Pskov Yabloko deputy and commentator says, “the struggle
for budgetary federalism and federalism as such is becoming part of the
national liberation movement” rather than some secondary sideshow as most
commentator usually present it to the extent they talk about it at all (charter97.org/ru/news/2018/12/28/318065/).
“If you live where there are few
residents, then most likely there won’t be any quality work places, normal
health care, education, culture, roads, airports and resorts. You will feel
yourself not even in a province but in a colony” and the victims of “a real
colonial policy” that is emptying out the periphery as people strive to cope
with Moscow’s taking away of all resources.
Shlosberg documents this imperial policy
in Pskov where Moscow gets all the money and thus makes all the decisions,
leading to the impoverishment and decline of the region adjoining Latvia and
Estonia which are prospering because they are no longer subject to the imperial
diktat of the center.
His figures and description of the
back and forth between Moscow and Pskov are both fascinating and important; but
far more important is his suggestion that the relationship between Moscow and
the regions is one of an imperial center with its colonies and the struggle for
the rights of the regions is not just about federalism but about colonial
liberation.
To the extent regionalism is viewed
in this way, it may really become the case as this writer argued two years ago
that regionalism will be “the nationalism of the next Russian revolution” (http://afterempire.info/2016/12/28/regionalism/).
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