‘Rewriting Constitution Won’t Extend Life of the Empire,’ Free Idel-Ural Movement Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 10 – “Rewriting the Constitution in Putin’s interest may extend the power of Putin, but it will not extend the life of the Russian Federation” which in fact has ceased to be a federation and become nothing more than an empire run by and for the benefit of Moscow, the Free Idel-Ural Movement says.

            “Russia de facto already is not a federation, and the privileged status of the Russian nation is fixed by the existing relations between the center and the regions,” the movement continues. “The subjects of the federation are the colonies of Moscow” (idel-ural.org/archives/переписывание-конституции-не-продли/).

            According to the movement’s latest declaration, “the only thing holding the Russian Federation in its current borders is the redistribution of resources,” a program that is designed to reduce the number of donor regions to a minimum and thus the number of regions needing help from elsewhere to the maximum.

            “Brothers!” the declaration exhorts, “the struggle with the amendment about ‘the state-forming people’ is tilting at windmills. One must struggle not for the right to be raped on Tuesdays and Thursdays but for freedom, honor and dignity.”

            The Free Idel-Ural Movement calls for the inclusion in the Russian Constitution of the following amendments and for real talks between Moscow and the regions about them:

·         The supremacy of international law

·         The renewal of registration of national political parties.

·         A limit of 15 percent on the amount of the income of subjects that can be transferred to Moscow.

·         The restoration of the title of president to the heads of national republics.

·         The subjects of the federation must have the right of veto over issues of foreign and domestic policy which affect their interests and be able to maintain relations with foreign countries and international organizations.

·         The Russian military must be restructured to allow for the formation of territorial units recruited from regions and used only with their permission.

·         To make the languages of the federal subjects the real languages of those regions and to maintain Russian as “the language of inter-ethnic communication.”

·         To require that all residents of regions study the languages of those regions in school.

(For background on the Idel-Ural Movement and its current organization, see  , windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/03/free-idel-ural-movement-takes-shape-in.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/03/ever-more-active-idel-ural-movement.html.)