With Coronavirus, Russian Cities Move toward Totalitarianism, Rural Areas toward Chaos, Degtyanov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 2 – Using the coronavirus as justification, the Russian authorities are imposing totalitarian controls in the cities but lack the resources to extend that to the areas beyond them, Andrey Degtyanov says. As a result, there are now two different Russias, the big cities controlled by the police state and the rest of the country not controlled by anyone.

            “The imperial ‘Big Brother’ has neither the forces nor the resources to establish total control” beyond the largest cities, including in his native town located 80 kilometers from Ryazan and 250 km from the Moscow ring road, the regionalist says. There even getting cellphone connection is touch and go (region.expert/big-bro/).

            “Centralization under conditions of limited resources and defense on the price of oil is playing an evil joke on the empire, forcing the entire force structure to self-isolate itself from the rural parts of the country in the megalopolises,” Degtyanov says.

            The longer the pandemic conditions, the tighter the regime’s control will be in the big cities and the weaker it will be outside of them. And “with the growing archaization of mass consciousness, liberals in the capital will occupy the place of a witches’ sabbath spoiling everything and spreading the plague,” at least in the eyes of many.

            But, he continues, “beyond the limits of ‘the imperial Russia-1’ in the megalopolises is becoming ever more clearly marked out ‘deep Russia-2’ of the provinces and border regions, where the possibilities for total control [by the authorities] are rapidly falling.” There in this “Wild Field” there is every chance “they will become the Gulyai-Pole of Batko Makhno.”

            “Thrown under conditions of the pandemic to the arbitrary nature of fate by the imperial metropolis, the Russian rural areas will be forced to cope relying primarily on their own solidarity and self-administration via evolutionary mechanisms described by Petr Kropotkin already in the 19^th century,” Degtyanov continues.

           

            At some point this pandemic like all others will end. When it does, he argues, “’Imperial Russia-1’ will be completely under the digital control of the police vertical and the anti-virus vaccines monopolized by the central authorities.”

            But at the same time, “’Deep Russia – 2’ will acquire a natural immunity, not only against COVID-19 but also against the imperial centralization of ‘the thousand-year-old state.’”  And the longer the pandemic lasts, the deeper this divide will become, splitting the country in a way few now expect.

            One likely development, Degtyanov suggests, is that “the regionalist opposition of ‘the deep people’ will push out the imperial-liberal opposition of ‘the creative class.’” The pandemic will thus open the way for Russia – 2 to become “not only a class in itself but a class for itself (in Marxist terms).”

            And to the extent that happens, it can become “in the end the gravedigger of the hyper-centralized imperial state.”