Autocracy and Empire Must Defeated ‘With Russia or Without Russia,’ Skobov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 1 --  Some believe that autocracy and empire are “immanent” to Russia  and that the destruction of either or both will lead to the end of Russia, but these phenomena are so inimical to human rights and freedom that they must be defeated even if that means doing away with Russia as such, Aleksandr Skobov says.

            Autocracy in Russia, the Moscow blogger says, has always been in Russia “above any rules or limitations, above rights and laws. It is always “connected with the absence (or at a minimum, serious restrictions on) political and civic freedoms and with non-recognition of human rights” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5E0C70778D401).

            Autocracy, Skobov continues, “is always connected with one or another form of serfdom,” with the idea that there are a few masters and “the basic mass of ‘little people’ who must do what those above them demand.

            According to Skobov, “there are no peoples in principle incapable of existing without autocracy. This is my faith. This is my religion.”  But if that faith is wrong, he says, and if it is impossible to separate autocracy from the existence of Russia, then Russia must be sacrificed to do away with autocracy.

            There are those who say that “without autocracy, the Russian people will suffer,” just like a heroin addict without his drug. They say that “without autocracy, Russia will fall part into dozens of small mafia states which will reproduce in a worse variant ‘the big mafia state’ of which they were a part.

            It is possible that some of the successors would be at least for a time, but they would be because they would be following the matrix created by the empire itself. And consequently, “the empire must die” even though its death agony will not be easy for many of its parts because if it survives conditions will be bad for all.

            Some say, Skobov continues, that “without autocracy, the Russian people will cease to be ‘the Russian people,’ that it will lose its identity, its historical memory, its self-consciousness, its unique culture and that it will dissolve into other ethno-cultural communities. And so? Ethno-cultural communities are born and die. They disappear and are combined in others.

            “A community based on ‘the culture’ of human sacrifice must either give up this practice or disappear: a community based on ‘the culture’ of autocracy must either expel this from itself or disappear as well.”

            Others acknowledge that perhaps that is true and that it is possible “to separate autocracy from Russia. Only not this time: Wait until next time. Wait until the next historical chance.  Then perhaps all will work itself out,” Skobov continues. “No. Every day autocracy continues to exist is a crime.” It must be ended “at the very first opportunity.”

            “Autocracy is an affront to the human, and it must burn in hell. This world must be cleansed from autocracy. Even if it can be cleansed from autocracy by fire,” the commentator says. “Here there will soon be a battle over autocracy, for its preservation or destruction, a battle for its life or death and a battle not for life but to the death.”

            And Skobov suggests that those who cannot “live without autocracy should seriously think about changing their country of residence.”