Paul Goble
Staunton, January 31 – Protests are
taking place in far more cities across Russia now than six years ago – in many
cases, they are occurring where there had never been a protest in the past; but
those taking part in these meetings are far less likely to display regional
flags and symbols, Vadim Shtepa says.
How is this “contradiction” to be
explained? The editor of the regionalist
After Empire portal says that in order to understand what is going on, it is
importable to remember “the modern history of regionalism in Russia,” one in
which regional parties … arose almost at the same time as those in Europe” (afterempire.info/2018/01/31/reload/).
In the European Union, regional
parties arose as a counterweight to the centralism of Brussels and have enjoyed
remarkable electoral success. But regional parties in Russia, which arose in
the 1990s, were prohibited in 2001.
Moscow thus achieved its goal of “driving the regionalists out of
politics.”
As a result, Shtepa says, “many
local bureaucrats who had been members of regional parties in the 1990s, humbly
joined United Russia. However, he points out, “one shouldn’t reduce regionalism
only to the interests of officials,” as there have always been many civic
activists within it.
Since the early years of this
century, two things have happened that affect the manifestation of regionalism
in Russia. On the one hand, the destruction of federalism by Vladimir Putin
meant that the civic activists were radicalized. And on the other, the events
in Ukraine changed everything.
Slogans like “’separate from the empire’
became ever more popular in the most varied regions,” Shtepa says, “and from
then one, Russian imperialists became accustomed to conflating regionalism and
separatism.” Had Russia remained a
federation, neither of those things would have happened.
“The political apogee of informal
regionalist movement can be viewed as the winter of 2011-2012 when protest
against the falsifications in Duma elections combined with protest against imperial
centralism as such.” That even forced Dmitry Medvedev to return gubernatorial
elections, but with the return of Putin, that didn’t happen.
Then came Ukraine. Moscow created the
“pseudo-regionalist formations” of DNR and LNR, which had a profoundly negative
impact on Russian regionalists – “although in reality this was an imperial
inversion of regionalism,” annexing territories of another country while
displaying “above all its fear of ‘separatism’ in its own.”
“By calling for the federalism of
Ukraine, [Putin] finally destroyed federalism in Russia itself.” That is why regionalist symbols like flags
and coats of arms disappeared from subsequent demonstrations. Otherwise those
who carried them might be convicted of the crime of promoting the violation of the
territorial integrity of the country.
“Nevertheless,” Shtepa continues, “in
‘the voters’ strike’ and in other actions of Aleksey Navalny, Russian regionalist
movements literally have acquired a second breath.” One might call them “’spontaneous
regionalists.’” That is, they wanted
free elections in their own areas as well as in the Russian Federation as a
whole.
Indeed, he argues, “Navalny is a much greater federalist
than many other politicians who consider themselves that.” He has visited more
Russian cities than all other “’federal opposition figures’ taken together
have.” And in that he has set himself apart from many Moscow opposition figures
who remain centralist and only want “the empire to be ‘more liberal.’”
One
measure of Navalny’s commitment to regionalism and federalism, Shtepa says, is
the fact that his command is structured as “an inter-regional network of
volunteers,” a complete contrast with all other party figures. Consequently, “the themes of regionalism and
federalism in the coming years will become ever more important.”
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