‘A United States of Russia’ Impossible, Yakovenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 6 – Vladimir Putin’s drive to make Russia ever more authoritarian and centralized has prompted his opponents to think how a democratic and decentralized Russia might look. Some are even proposing the creation of “a United States of Russia,” but the further disintegration of the space Russia occupies is far more likely, Igor Yakovenko says.

            People ranging from Grigory Yavlinsky of Yabloko to director Vladimir Mirzoyev are calling for the transformation of Russia into a single, United States. The latter is especially instructive in this regard, the Russian commentator says; and he summarizes Mirzoyev’s thought in this way (region.expert/usr/).

            A United States of Russia, the director says, is a way for “the peaceful coexistence of ‘two peoples,’ the modern and the archaic. They must not pull each other, neither backwards no forwards. The country is enormous and empty and there is space for everyone. Let us live under one sun and not meet for centuries: the Bible Belt and California are an example for us.”

            “Let our conservative states, our narrow-minded and backward ‘Bible Belt’ exist alongside our native ‘California,’ where Russian Europeans will live freely, artists, theater people, poets and cinematographers – in short, intellectuals, the liberal crowd and people close to them in spirit and ways of thinking.”

            Unfortunately, Yakovenko says, those making such arguments lack an adequate understanding of the nature of Putin’s Russia and “of the place which it occupies in the historical process of this country.”  Yavlinsky acts as if it were possible to return Russia to September 1917, and Mirzoyev as if it would be possible for Russians to copy the Americans.

            Such things might be possible if Russia were a normal country, but it is “an empire, the enormous territory of which arose as a result of constant conquests.” In 1917, part of it fell away; in 1991, somewhat more; and now, it faces “the third and final disintegration of the Russian Empire” as a result of Putin’s efforts to preserve and extend it.

            The Soviet Union died as a result of an arms race with a politically, economically and militarily stronger opponent, Yakovenko continues. “Putin’s Russia, having many fewer resources compared with the USSR is moving along the very same course.”  The Kremlin leader and his empire can’t survive without new conquests.

            “In the collapse of the Russian Empire, the First World War played a not insignificant role, and one of the causes of the collapse of the USSR was the war with Afghanistan.” At present, Putin is “simultaneously conducting two wars, in Ukraine and in Syria,” and it is entirely possible that he will soon get the country involved in a third.

            This may involve a new attack on Ukraine or an attempt to swallow Belarus or something else. Putin hopes that these wars will allow him to hold things together forever. They may do so for much of his lifetime, but “empires don’t live in the 21^st century.” And Russia, an empire, won’t either.

            For better or worse, Russia isn’t going to remain in one piece, Yakovenko continues. And consequently, it would be “more useful” for those concerned about the future to be developing “programs for the organization of the regions like Siberia, the Urals, the Far East and the Russian North” than dreaming about “a United States of Russia.”

            Doing so, of course, will take hard work and involve more than just deploying “democratic phraseology.”  It will require a knowledge of local and regional conditions that most liberals in Moscow don’t have, and they will have to turn “the regional leaders of protest” because such people and not themselves are the future.