Post-Putin Russian Federation Must Adopt ‘Canberra Mechanism,’ Tushin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 30 – Not only must all Russian regions become republics so that they will be able to develop their unique identities, Artur Tushin says; but a post-Russian Federation if it is to survive and develop as a federal state must adopt “the Canberra mechanism” to ensure that any center does not become another Moscow.

            “The preamble to the Constitution in [such] a federative state must be a federative treaty” which declares that “all subjects of the Federation are Republics, and Moscow is not the capital,” the Russian regionalist argues. Instead, the new capital must be “small and effective” and perform only those tasks the republics agree to (region.expert/subjects/).

            It “must not become attractive for bureaucrats” who will assume that they must live there together with their servants and their capital. Instead, it should be a place like Canberra in Australia so that the capital will now have the capacity to become “a new monster” and overwhelm the rest of the Russian Federation.

            “In Australia,” Tushin continues, “there are large megalopolises like Melbourne and Sidney, but young people from around the country do not dream of ‘moving to Canberra’ on the assumption that ‘only in the capital can one realize one’s ambitions.” Instead, they choose to go to the really big cities.

            Post-Putin Russia must be “de-Muscovized and de-Kremlinized, and Moscow itself must be de-capitalized,” he argues. The super-centralized political system Russia now has is “a dead end for contemporary Russia.” It has achieved whatever such a state could achieve. Now the time has come for it to become something very different.

            The biggest challenge in this transformation will be with the predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays which are “much more tightly held” by Moscow than are the national republics and which do not now have the chance to develop their own distinctive identities and ways of life.  That must change: all the oblasts and krays must become republics.

             According to the Russian regionalist writer, “the majority of subjects [in these new conditions] will want a country in which they live together and develop under conditions of federative relationships. But only on the basis of a federalist Horizontal and not on the base of the Vertical,” Tushin says. 

            For them, “the vertical is associated with the imperial qualities of the Kremlin and Moscow, and as long as the vertical lasts, “there will be no place for federalism or municipal self-administration.”