Reducing Size of Moscow-Centric State by Itself won’t End Its Imperial Nature But Instead Make Its Imperialist Impulses Worse, Vintsevskaya Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 1 – The escape from Moscow’s rule of the 11 former union republics and the three occupied Baltic states in 1991 did not, despite the expectations of many, end the imperial nature of the Moscow-centric Russian state, Instead, this contraction in the size of the country has fed a serious of revanchist actions ever since, Tatyana Vintsevskaya says.

            And  in an analogous way, the departure of the non-Russian republics from the Russian Federation by itself would not change the imperial essence of the Russian republic run from Moscow that would remain but instead only intensify its imperialist impulses still further, the Siberian political scientist now living abroad (region.expert/patriot-inozemtsev/).

            Instead, if the goal is to end Russia imperialism as a threat to the population under Moscow’s direct control and to the countries living around it, she argues, all of what is now the Russian Federation  must be reformed with the establishment of democratic regimes which can then choose what their borders will be and what kind of relations they will have with each other.

            That task is far larger and more complicated than many imagine but far more necessary one if a Russian state is going to have a free and democratic future and live in peace with its neighbors rather than remaining a constant threat to them as is the case now and as would be the case again if the further disintegration of the Muscovite state is only partial.

            Vinstevskaya develops these ideas in her response to an article by Russian economist Vladislav Inozemtsev (moscowtimes.ru/2024/09/25/ot-oppozitsionnosti-k-revolyutsii-a143051). She greets his assertion that Russian liberals are “a political emigration but not an opposition” in that they are not struggling for power but only imagining what a better future would look like.

            But she is sharply of one of Inozemtsev’s observations which she suggests puts him in the same category as those he criticizes. The economist suggests that Russia should disintegrate but “only along the borders of the current national republics with the preservation of a ‘Russian’ state as a single entity.”

            According to Inozemtsev, Vintsevskaya suggests, “this would be the antithesis of the intensified suppression of everything national that the Kremlin is now undertaking - and at the same time would dispel fears that opponents of the regime are demanding ‘the collapse of Russia.’”

            But there are serious shortcomings in such an idea, she argues. The Moscow-centric empire would remain in place as the populations of the non-Russian republics make up only “about 20 percent” of the total population. “And if we hypothetically imagine their general exit from the empire, it will not collapse at all, but will only decrease in size once again.”

            In reality, the Siberian political scientist says, those like Inozemtsev who suggest otherwise are simply “repeating the ideas of some Russian nationalists who back in the 2990s dreamed of a Republic of Rus,” a country that would consist of all Russian regions minus the national republics and autonomous districts.

            “But even that utopia won’t be mono-ethnically Russian,” Vishnevskaya pints out; and there would be many ethnic Russians in the new countries surround the Republic of Rus, whose existence would help fuel revanchist ideas and actions by Moscow which would talk about a divided nation and the need to recover them.

            What is needed instead, she continues, is the formation of a truly federal state, based on a treaty among those regions, who will include both Russian areas and some non-Russian ones, which may then decide to work together. All these regions must be equal in status and have the right of exit, and they must be able to define their own borders instead of relying  on Soviet ones.

            Unless all those changes are made, the beautiful Russia of the future that Inozemtsev and other Muscovite liberals want will become the latest remake of a dangerous, repressive and aggressive imperial state like the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin, Vishnevskaya suggests.