Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 13 -- Vladimir
Putin’s effort at the construction of “a neo-USSR” carries with it “in a
natural way all Soviet problems” from stagnation to limitations on freedoms and
to “the search for enemies to mobilize the masses and distract attention from
unresolved problems and corruption, according to the editor of Kazan’s “Zvezda
Povolzhya.”
Truly, “history repeats itself,
first as tragedy and then as farce,” Rashit Akhmedov says: Today’s Russia even has its own “analogue to
the Soviet Olympiad.” Still worse, he
suggests, the current Russian regime represents the convergence of the worst
shortcomings of socialism and capitalism (zvezdapovolzhya.ru/obshestvo/rassvet-10-10-2013.html).
Academician Andrey Sakharov called
for the combination of the best elements of the two systems, but because of the
shortcomings of the moral position of the current rulers in Moscow, Russia has
become a model of what happens when those in power choose the worst of each
because they benefit that elite at least in the short term.
According to Akhmedov, it is not
even theoretically possible to overcome this until there is a crash. And the independent Kazan editor argues that “whether
we want this or not, the course of events is unceasingly moving toward the
disintegration of the country.”
“Any firm has three business plans,
an optimistic one, a mid-range one, and a pessimistic one,” Akhmedov continues.
At present, the Russian Federation is approaching a situation in which “even
the optimistic variant,” one that involves the rise of a middle class and
greater political activism, points to collapse and disintegration.
“The most revolutionary class, the
mover of all change, is the petty bourgeoisie, and it is increasingly opposed”
to the Kremlin. The recent vote in Moscow showed that. The average standard of
living there is ten times better than in the rest of the country and still 40
percent voted against the regime’s candidate for mayor.
By so doing, “the capital of Russia,
the wealthiest city of the country, confirmed its status as an anti-Putin city
and as a center of intensifying anti-Putin attitudes.” The next elections there
will thus be an even bigger failure for the regime, and the members of the
regime are very much aware of that.
Currently, Tatarstan, “which more than
all other regions has suffered from Putin’s power vertical, nonetheless remains
one of the pro-Putin bastions. This is a
political paradox.” In the capital of
the empire, people are inclined against the empire, but in Tatarstan, people
remain among the most “imperially” inclined in the country.
“This recalls the situation of the
peasants of Russia in 1812 who unleashed a partisan war and thus defended
serfdom,” Akhmedov suggests.
Given the rise of anti-Putin attitudes
in Moscow, the Russian president can hardly afford to continue to put pressure
on the republics let alone call for their suppression. That gives the republics
a change. “A policy of soft
sovereignization is returning at a new point in the dialectic spiral” as the
republic elites recognize that they and not Putin are in a winning position.
Tatarstan remains the most loyal region
for Putin and thus must seek a privileged position for him. If he doesn’t give
it to that republic, then its support will be “conditional and unreliable”
because “as the American presidents used to say, détente is a two-way street”
and as Lenin said “one can build capitalism only on the basis of personal
interest.”
“Considering the growing level of
passion of the Tatar people, for Putin to argue with the Tatars would be
equivalent to sawing off the branch on which he is sitting.” Moscow is no longer his city, and jokes about
his being “president of the republics” and about his moving the capital are no
longer as funny as they once were.
According to Akhmedov, “The Tatars
typically have been behind the curve of the political process. They were not
able to mobilize during the October revolution, although history offered them a
chance to become an independent state. This opportunity also passed Tatarstan
by during the period of the collapse of the USSR.”
Tatarstan in 1991 was “inches from
independence; it almost became a union republic [just before the end of the
Soviet Union] with all ensuring consequences.” It made some progress under
Mintimir Shaymiyev, but then the opportunities passed. Now the window is
opening again and “it is necessary to be ready.”
“Moscow must once and for all understand
that its relations with Tatarstan can only be on the basis of equality,”
Akhmedov concludes and Russians must know that “Tatarstan is not again the
all-possible strengthening of Russia and its transformation into a developed
European country.”
“On the contrary,” he says, “Tatarstan
is interested in this in all possible ways because a free Russia is a condition
of a free Tatarstan.”
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