Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 6 – Russia’s periodic
times of troubles, Sergey Mitrofanov says, “are tragic not only because it is
difficult and often dangerous to live in them but also because those that
follow also are troubled. People rush about and recombine what they’ve heard
before, calling for “‘prison,’ ‘law,’ ‘judges,’ ‘a strong power,’ and ‘punishing
someone.’”
Thus, “the exit from times of
troubles appears to many to be only an exit into ‘confused time,’” the Russian
commentator says, with people waiting for another catastrophe and so either
waiting for some external force to bring order or willing to support someone
within Russia who promises to do so (ej.ru/?a=note&id=34766).
Unlike Ukraine, at
least in the eyes of Russians, Russia has “all the elements of greatness,”
Mitrofnaov says – “a state-forming people with an ancient history and a
national idea, the idea of a state” with a population that is disciplined and “a
responsible ruler at the head. “The problem, however, is that the integrity of
this construction is pure fantasy.”
This construction frequently falls
apart. In the 20th century alone, it fell about twice and in the
course of 100 years that is “a lot.” And each time, the commentator says, the
problems that led to the collapse have become the basis for the rise of hatred
to “any liberal reformation,” thus repeating the cycle.
This has led to the rise of a
curious category of people, statesmen without a state. One such is Gleb
Pavlovsky whose essays on the Russian system show that there is as yet no state
but that it must be created by state-thinking people. “That is easy to say, but it is hard to do,
Mitrofanov suggests.
“The establishment of the state ‘Russia’
has drawn out some 30 years, almost half the life of the USSR.” And the pursuit
of this state, something that has proceeded in fits and starts, continues in
the form of the revision of the Yeltsin Constitution, a document that is far
from perfect because it was a compromise between the chekists and the
democrats.
That compromise was by its very
nature unsustainable, and the chekists emerged on top. Now, it appears that they
want their own constitution, and other Russians can only “guess why ‘they’ are
doing this.” But the answer is clear: they view the constitution not as a social
contract but as “a party program or publicistic essay” about Russia’s future.
Putin has admitted as much. He said
that he is “doing all this in order that the democratization of the cursed
1990s not be repeated.” But as this week has already shwn, his approach won’t prevent
the return of some aspects of that crisis, including the collapse of the ruble,
and indications that more revenants may be ahead.
As long as Russians are fighting the
last war, the war against times of troubles, they almost certainly will set the
stage for a bout of anther one of these in the future.
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