Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 2 – Many Russian
commentators have suggested that the coronavirus pandemic is a turning point in
their country’s history, but Dimitry Savvin argues that in fact, the
coronavirus has not so much changed Russia’s direction as accelerated processes
that were already well advanced.
“No one could have foreseen” is the
constant refrain of those looking at recent developments in Russia, the editor
of the Riga-based conservative Russian Harbin portal says, a false
perspective which leads to suggestion that this or that “unexpected” black swan
event must change everything (harbin.lv/chto-prinesut-rossii-chernye-lebedi).
In fact, Savvin
points out, “unpredictable crises and catastrophes are predictable in exactly
the same sense in which for example are predictable cold winters or droughts.”
One can typically assert that “sooner or later” something of this or that kind
will take place. Thus, “state and society must be prepared for this the crew of
any contemporary ship is for stormy waves.”
“In the case of the neo-Soviet
regime of the Russian Federation, the appearance of such ‘black swans’ cannot
change the picture in principle of the fact that in the mid-range historical
perspective, its collapse is inevitable as a result of the following objective
causes:”
“An ineffective and corrupt
economy in which gradually are being destroyed all the remnants of market
mechanisms;
“An irrational but ideologically motivated
policy of neo-Soviet revanchism;
“An open confrontation with the
countries of NATO and the EU which began in 2014 and the resulting sanctions
pressure;
“The outflow from the Russian
Federation of a significant number of specialists in the most varied spheres;
Their replacement by immigrants from
Central Asia;
“A bloated, ineffective and corrupt
state apparatus;
“The domination f the special
services, in the first instance, the FSB, in all spheres of life;
“The degradation of education and
health care and of social infrastructure as a whole; and
“The degradation of transportation
and economic infrastructure.”
“The conjunction of these factors by
itself is a death sentence to the regime,” Savvin says. The coronavirus and the
resulting economic crisis may bring that closer but it doesn’t change the basic
trajectory of the Russian Federation.
One should not make the mistake that
many do that the Kremlin doesn’t understand this. It does and “quite clearly.”
That understanding is behind the constitutional amendments and the growing
repression which also shows what the regime is afraid of and also what it is
not afraid of at all.
The Putin regime is not afraid of
the opposition systemic or extra-systemic. It either controls or can suppress
either with relative ease. But it is very much afraid of social risings or “to
put it in simplest terms, hungry revolts.”
The reason it understands and fears these is that its core leadership
lived through the 1990s and saw the power of popular action.
But at least at present, the Putin
regime has only one answer to such threats – more repression – and it is
certainly prepared to use it, however counter-productive such actions will
prove, the Russian commentator says.
As long as the pandemic is going on,
the situation in Russia from a political standpoint is likely to be relatively
quiet, he suggests. But as soon as
things begin to improve, the population will become more restive and the regime
will respond with repression against small business and the population at
large.
And that will result in an economy
fully in correspondence with the Brezhnevite constitution which as everyone
should remember provided the possibility for some small service businesses even
though in the event it cracked down on them. That “neo-Soviet” arrangement,
Savvin concludes, will be no more stable or long-lasting than its predecessor
and model.
No comments:
Post a Comment