Friday, June 12, 2020

Russians Who Backed RSFSR Sovereignty Declaration 30 Years Ago Wanted an Empire But Did Not Want to Pay for It, Shelin Says


Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 9 – Thirty years ago, on June 12, 1990, the first Congress of Peoples Deputies of the RSFSR adopted a declaration of state sovereignty, an action that many to this day believe triggered the collapse of the USSR. But those who voted for it had no such intention: they wanted an empire but no longer wanted to pay for it, according to Sergey Shelin.

            And that attitude has continued, the Rosbalt commentator argues. “Russia never left the empire” but it was at one point prepared to accept that “the empire if it wanted could leave Russia.” But having refused to pay the burdens of empire, Russia has had little success in trying to restore it (rosbalt.ru/blogs/2020/06/09/1848052.html).

            Russia’s current leaders “of course love history, but not that which was but that which they have invented themselves,” Shelin says; and that is why they are unlikely to reflect upon this reality even on this Friday, when the round anniversary of the 1990 declaration occurs. But that doesn’t mean that others should not pay attention to that document.

            And if they do, they will recognize that “the Declaration of Russian Sovereignty was not the cause of the liquidation of the Soviet empire.” What it did do – and this is critically important – is to ensure that the disintegration of the USSR would “take place peacefully,” although that is hardly what those who voted for it and supported it at the time thought.

            At the time, the Soviet Union was already on the way to falling apart. “Even before June 12, five union republics had proclaimed themselves sovereign states. Three of them – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – had even declared that they did not consider themselves to have ever been part of the USSR.”

            In this situation, Russia newly headed by Boris Yeltsin needed to decide how to respond and how things would be with the empire, Shelin continues.

            Few Russians either in the political class or the population wanted the USSR to disintegrate; and they did not view the declaration of Russian sovereignty as representing “the exit of Russia from the USSR.” Otherwise the vote in favor, 907 to 13, would not have been so lopsided.

            What the Russians did want was to make the laws of Russia have priority over Soviet ones and thus “put the union center in its place.”  By doing so, they wanted to prevent it from as they saw it “bleeding Russia dry” to support the non-Russian republics, something they no longer were prepared to tolerate.

            But in taking this action, those who voted for the declaration and the millions who supported it did not think that they were voting to end the empire. They still believed it would continue by inertia but that Russia and Russians would no longer have to pay to keep it in one piece.

            Russians in 1990 and many Russians even now failed to understand that those who back an empire have to be prepared to pay for it or they will ultimately lose it.  “There are no free empires,” and having decided not to pay for it any more, the Russian deputies set in train a series of events which meant that in 18 months, “the Soviet Union was no more.”

            Russians have deceived themselves about this event ever since, sometimes viewing it when they think of it at all as the cause of the demise of the USSR and sometimes as an appropriate step that should not have had led to that outcome. But they haven’t given up on the idea that they can have an empire at no cost.

            That view animates those in the Kremlin and many others even now. They should recall what happened in June 1990 and ask themselves which is more important: retaining an empire by being willing to pay for it or giving up on having one because they are not prepared to do so anymore.

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