Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 4 – The Russian Federation remains an empire, and those of its component nations who want independence must seek a velvet divorce much like the one that led to the separation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia rather than pursue it via revolt, Vladislav Inozemtsev says.
Otherwise, they will be opposed by the military power of the large portions of the country that do not want to leave even if they themselves would be better off if those who want to become independent would succeed, the Russian economist says (idelreal.org/a/vladislav-inozemtsev-o-posledstviyah-voyny-dlya-ekonomiki-rossii-ustoychivost-est-a-razvitiya-net-/33137738.html).
Consequently, he suggests, the major task ahead is two-fold, a radical decentralization of the country so that as few parts of it will want to leave, something very difficult in wartime when centralization is increasing, and a willingness to allow those parts that do want to leave to do so without opposition in a gradual and peaceful way.
And that in turn requires that the ethnic Russians who became an empire without ever having established for themselves a nation state move in that direction. Otherwise, they will continue to view the defense of the empire as a defense of themselves and won’t be willing to allow its colonial possessions to leave if they want to.
Russia today remains an empire with two basic parts, one in which ethnic Russians or at least Slavs moved into and dominated areas that had relatively small populations to begin with and a second in which the Russians never formed a majority or even in most cases a sizeable minority. The first is like the US; the second like the European empires.
Inozemtsev continues: “the disintegration of the USSR really was the destruction of the empire, but it took place on the basis of very artificially established borders. The North Caucasus where the Russian population forms only a few percent couldn’t remain within the Russian Federation because this is a territory that was only occupied by military conquest.”
Had Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan in the early 1990s either received independence or had been elevated to the status of union republics and gotten out on that basis, “this would have been an enormous good thing.” But that didn’t happen, and Russia instead began a war to keep them in, an enormously expensive conflict that hasn’t solved the underlying problem.
As far as non-Russian areas elsewhere, Inozemtsev says, “I am a total supporter of the idea that the Russian Federation in its current form must be destroyed and restructured.” These non-Russians and Russian regions as well must be given more rights, and those who still want to leave must be allowed to do so.
Otherwise, Inozemtsev argues, the Russian Federation will remain what it is now: “an imperial structure” that will not only continue to avoid the loss of Chechnya but see no reason why it should not retake areas like Ukraine that once were ruled from Moscow – something that would be a disaster for all concerned, including the Russians.
But the exit of those who want to leave must not take place via revolt as the Chechens tried, he says. “It must be a completely civilized divorce” on the basis of a referendum and a transition period of perhaps ten years that will allow both sides the opportunity to consider what needs to be separated and what does not.
In conclusion, Inozemtsev argues that “Russia’s problem is that the Russians themselves never had a nation state. They always were an imperial nation which from the outset has been concerned about territory and then about historical memory, about its own self-determination, national elements and so on.”
And because that is so, there is little recognition of the reality that “a Russian nation state alongside Tatar, Bashkir and Sakha nation state would represent a better future for the Russian Federation and for the world than that which we have today.”
No comments:
Post a Comment