Estonia Must Proactively Help Nearby Russian Regions Overcome Moscow-Imposed Consciousness, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 22 – The Forum of Free Peoples of Post-Russia has succeeded in calling attention to the fact that the Muscovite empire is doomed to collapse because the peoples within its current borders are not the monolithic unity the Kremlin claims but rather enormously diverse, Vadim Shtepa says.

            But the editor of the Tallinn-based Region.Expert portal says those taking part in the Forum and others who share their views have not done is talk much about how the empire will fall apart (epl.delfi.ee/artikkel/120405252/vadim-stepa-alustagem-venemaa-teadlikku-lagundamist-pihta-saab-hakata-vastupropagandaga-eesti-naabruses in Estonian; and region.expert/media-project/ in Russian).

            Instead, they have engaged in wishful thinking in much the same way as did many in the first Russian emigration after 1917. They, “sitting on their suitcases,” Russians who had fled the Bolsheviks believed that the Soviet state would simply collapse; now, Russians in emigration assume a similar fate awaits the Russian empire once Putin leaves the scene.

            But both the one and the other largely ignored “the main question – how is this to be achieved in practice,” Shtepa says.  Many seem to believe that the future will be much like the past of 1991 with the republic and regional parliaments moving to claim sovereignty. “But today, it is impossible to imagine” that any body will take such a step.

            What happened at the end of the 1980s was that under Gorbachev there was a fundamental change in civic consciousness among the peoples of the USSR and as a result, they “began to demand freedom and self-administration,” the Russian regionalist says. The question that must be asked is can an analogous change in consciousness happen now?

            It certainly won’t happen on its own, and it is unlikely to happen without outside assistance given the totalitarian powers of the Putin state.  But there is at least one promising possibility that countries living around the edge of the Russian Federation should continue if they want to help its peoples.

            Estonia, for example, could create “a new media project directed at neighboring Russian regions – Ingria, St. Petersburg, Karelia and Pskov, Shtepa suggests. Instead of being reactive as are most such projects, this could be “proactive” and point out to the peoples of these regions the realities of their situation and what they must do to change them.

            “Of course,” he continues, “the Russian authorities would block such an ‘extremist’ website, but local residents all the same would read it via VPN.” That would promote the kind of change in consciousness that is necessary for all the other steps needed to achieve what many now assume will somehow happen even if they do nothing to bring it about.