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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