Paul Goble
Staunton,
December 8 – Twenty-seven years ago today, the presidents of the RSFSR, the
Belarusian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR signed the Belovezhskaya accords that
annulled the 1922 union treaty and thus put a de jure end to the de facto
disintegration of the USSR which had taken place following the August 1991 coup
attempt.
This
anniversary is not one Russians generally mark especially as Vladimir Putin has
described the disintegration of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical
catastrophe of the 20th century.”
But it was “marked” as it were this year by Aleksey Kudrin’s suggestion
that if Russia doesn’t change course, it will disintegration just like the USSR
did.
The
head of the Russian Audit Chamber said, Interfax reports today, that “if Russia
is not distracted from foreign policy successes and does not devote attention
to international problems, the resolution of which would lead the country to
genuine greatness, then it could go along the path which led to the disintegration
of the USSR (interfax.ru/russia/641399).
Ever more Russian analysts and
politicians, especially among the opposition, are saying much the same thing;
and Kudrin’s words are significant only because of his high rank. But they like the predictions of many others reflect
a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation, one that needs to be cleared
up if one is to understand what is likely to happen in the coming months.
And that is this: the Russian
Federation, however much Putin and some others might like it, is not the Soviet
Union; and its approaching end – and that its end is approaching there can be little
doubt – will not be like the end of the USSR.
It will be far more difficult for the peoples involved and likely far
more violent as well.
The
Soviet Union ended peacefully for three major reasons, none of which is true in
the case of the Russian Federation now. First, the republics had more or less
legitimately elected leaders while the Soviet Union did not. As a result, there
were ready-made entities for the Soviet empire to disintegrate into.
Neither
of those things is true for the Russian Federation now. As a result of Putin’s
policies, the leaders of the republics are probably even less legitimate than
he is, being appointed by the Kremlin rather than chosen by the people. And Putin’s regime is far more like the
August putsch plotters than that of Mikhail Gorbachev.
The current
Kremlin leader is prepared to drown the country in blood to prevent its
disintegration. In the end, he is unlikely to be able to stop the
fissiparousness of the regions and nations now within the borders of the
Russian Federation from having its way; but Putin will ensure that those
leaving will pay a far higher price at least for as long as he can.
But there are at
least three other reasons why the approaching end of the Russian Federation
will be different than the end of the USSR. First, the most important players
in the coming drama are likely to be regions rather than republics, given that
the autonomous republics have only about a fifth of the population rather than
the half the union republics did in 1991.
Instead, the
country is likely to disintegrate along still-to-be established regional lines
within a fragmenting Russian nation; and the process of drawing those lines will
be difficult and likely bloody as well. (On that issue, see this author’s “Regionalism
is the Nationalism of the Next Russian Revolution” at afterempire.info/2016/12/28/regionalism/.)
Second, the
international environment is different. There is even less support for national
self-determination in the West now than there was in 1991, and there is even
more fear of what could happen if control of the Russian nuclear arsenal
becomes an open question. As the Soviet Union headed toward collapse, many in
the West feared “a Yugoslavia with nukes.”
Now, such fears
are far greater and more justified given the increasing divides within the West,
the absence of a paramount power prepared to intervene to say when the process
is over, and the likelihood that terrorist groups or some rogue states may seek
to acquire those weapons, making Western opposition to any change more likely if
ultimately ineffectual.
And third – and this
may be the most important thing of all – the collapse of the USSR was largely
contained within its borders. The coming disintegration of the Russian
Federation won’t be. As the Russian empire within those borders falls apart,
the Russian empire beyond those borders will be drawn in whether it wants to or
not.
These things do
not mean that the Russian Federation will not fall apart: the forces moving in
that direction are too great to prevent the demise of the last empire. But they do mean that it will be different
and more dangerous – and those concerned about the peoples now living in that
empire and hoping for a better future must begin by acknowledging that reality.
Continuing to
say that the coming demise of the Russian Federation will be just like that of the
Soviet Union is in fact dangerous because it will distract attention from the
real problems this cataclysmic event will entail and almost certainly guarantee
that the peoples of the empire, their neighbors and the entire world will
suffer more than need be.
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