Italy’s South Shows How Russia May be Heading toward ‘Most Powerful Shakeup Since 1917,’ Gontmakher Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 1 – What is happening in Italy as a result of the coronavirus pandemic may soon happen in Russia, with tensions in “the south,” in Russia’s case most of the regions outside of Moscow (“the north’) sparking calls for attacks on supermarkets for food, even though “the south” in both countries has suffered less than “the north,” Yevgeny Gontmakher says.

            The Italian south like much of its Russian counterpart is poorer and less developed in democratic terms than the north in either country, the Russian economist says. As a result, both “norths” have been and are likely to remain relatively stable while the south in Italy now and “the south” in Russia soon will not (theins.ru/opinions/210439).

            Like Italians in the south, Russians outside of Moscow have low incomes and small savings which will soon run out or already have.  And it is only because much of Russia’s “south” has elements of “the north” to a greater extent than is the case in Italy that the situation beyond the ring road has remained as stable as it has.

            Moreover and again like the Italian south, in the Russian “south,” from 25 to 40 percent of the population are involved in the shadow economy, a figure likely to become even more important politically because Moscow’s plans to provide assistance are directed exclusively at the legal economy, leaving those in the regions in even worse shape.

            How are people generally in the Russian “south” and especially members of “’the deep people’” going to react if they conclude that Moscow is not going to do anything for them?  The answer is, Gontmakher says, that they will react as have their counterparts in Italy’s south and take things into their own hands.

            “I think,” he writes, “that by the May holidays, if there is no weakening of the quarantines, in some province or other, people will begin to manifest despair as a result of the elementary lack of money to purchase even goods of first necessity.”  And that could take the form of “robbing stores.” 

If that happens, it is likely to “go viral” across the country. And that will make “an all-national political crisis extremely likely” because the repressive resources the regime has won’t be able to stop this kind of anomic violence.  The powers that be should recognize this danger and change course, but there seems little likelihood of that.

And so it is “completely possible that we in Russia will rapidly encounter the most powerful political shakeup in the country since 1917.”