Paul Goble
Staunton,
August 13 – All but two of the heads of Russian federal subjects are members of
the ruling United Russia Party and so would seem to be unlikely candidates to
head any anti-Moscow frond. But Moscow analysts say their mishandling by the
center and the interests of the West could transform them into a serious threat
to the territorial integrity of Russia.
In a Versiya commentary, Ruslan Gorevoy argues
that the center has mishandled the governors apparently on the assumption that
no matter what it does, they will fall into line. It has offered them more
carrots than sticks and as a result, the governors in many cases are “biting
the hand that feeds them” (versia.ru/esli-regiony-naduvat-oni-stanut-lopatsya-vzryvaya-rossiyu-iznutri).
The center acts as if distributing
good things is enough and that it does not need to punish those who violate its
interests, the Versiya writer says.
And it compounds that mistake by backing enormous construction projects as for
Chechnya that other leaders ask for, sometimes getting and sometimes not.
When these are handed out, Gorevoy
continues, the regions use the money for themselves often with little thought
of the interests of the country as a whole; and when they ask and aren’t given
money, they become angry, pointedly asking why some regions who behave worse
than they do are being subsidized while they aren’t.
“In essence,” he says, “the
government has put in train a mechanism of producing dissatisfaction where it
did not exist. And this can turn out to be mortally dangerous at the level of a
single state. Already a frond is being born, and this is happening from within
the party of power, United Russia, not from anywhere else.
Anatoly Nesmiyan, an opposition activist
and commentator, tells Gorevoy that “today the governors are an inert
mass. But it is not difficult to activate
them and transform them into an instrument for the destruction of the
country. I would not be surprised,” he
adds, “if the American made this calculation and attempted to use them.”
If the existing power vertical
should begin to collapse, he continues, “only two organized forces would remain
in the country, the regional elites and organized crime. And if the first came
to dominate the second, the country would face with a high degree of probability
disintegration” in short order.
The Americans aren’t going to wait
for this process to develop on its own, Nesmiyan argues. They will back the
regional elites as giving them the best chance to destroy Russia. If these
elites are already furious at the central government in Moscow, their job will
be much easier.
The
upcoming gubernatorial elections in September and even those next year could
yield a large number of anti-Moscow regional leaders if the central government
does not find a way to address the pension age issue soon. Russians aren’t
going to vote for a party that is stealing from them, the analyst says.
“Let us fantasize a little,” Gorevoy
says. On September 10, there could be a large number of new governors who do
not owe anything to the center. Their appearance would lead others to follow
their lead, either because they resent sending tax money to Moscow or they are
angry that they don’t get enough back.
In that event, he argues, a sizeable
fraction, possibly even a majority of the governors would be ready to oppose
Moscow much as many of them did in the 1990s.
The Kremlin could dismiss some of them, but that might make the crisis
of power even worse and lead to an explosion or exit from the system.
In any case, it would be hard to imagine something
worse – especially since the center will have only itself to blame for its
mishandling of a situation the Americans will be only too pleased to
exploit.
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