Today’s Vote Marks ‘Death of First Russian Republic,’ Skobov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 1 – “The first Russian Republic has fallen,” Aleksandr Skobov says.
“It lived out the three decades of its life very poorly,” never had a period of flourishing and “from the very beginning suffered from traumas which were not very compatible with its existence.”

            Instead, it featured “innate and almost immediately acquired deformities,” the Moscow commentator says, one that has now led away from a republic to a form of ‘’presidential autocracy,’” the unfortunate outgrowth of the criminality and banditism, and “the dirty imperial war” it conducted against Ichkeria proved mortal (graniru.org/opinion/skobov/m.279403.html).

            Russians never loved the republic, Skobov continues. They used it for enrichment and to make careers, “but they did not love it. From its birth, it was hated by a large part of its ‘political class.’” They included the name republic in the country’s title, but “it was ‘a republic without republicans,” an unloved and deformed child.

            But despite this, “in the depths of its soul, in the first two parts of its Constitution, it was a good thing.”

            “The Roman Republic lasted several centuries and its agony lasted an entire one. In contrast, the First Russian Republic suffered a death agony for 20 of the 30 years it existed.” It constantly was subverted and directly attacked. But today’s vote,” the commentator continues, “means that it has suffered “death from asphyxiation.”  

            That conclusion is justified, Skobov argues, not because the amendments extend Putin’s time in office or the other changes but because the vote itself has “annulled elections as an institution” in Russian life. Voting isn’t simply “an electoral procedure. This is the mystery of the Republic.” 

            Rulers can falsify elections but while some rules remain, people can challenge those and the republic can be revived. The votes of each at least potentially matter, and there is a chance that the republican principle of rotation in office can be restored or established. But Putin has destroyed that at least for the time being.

            “Putin voting creates the precedent of ‘an electoral procedure’ without rules,” something that is far worse than falsification.  Under this “procedure,” “a vote no longer has any importance” and therefore the Republic “has breathed its last.”  What has been done today will simply be extended to all events formerly known as elections.

            As long as Putin is in power, there won’t be any real elections; there will only be “electoral procedures.”  And if he is not driven from office one way or another, the cancer he has put in the body politic will destroy not only the Republic but Russia as a country, done in as so often republics have been destroyed in the past by those who falsely claim to be its defenders.

            “The First Russian Republic is leaving without glory. Few will seek to defend it. And it is impossible that it will be restored. We need a Second Republic, purely parliamentary and confederal. Let’s destroy this prison. Its wall should not stand for long,” and Russians can ensure that they don’t.

            “The First Russian Republic has died,” Skobov concludes. “Long life the Second Russian Republic, and let the murderers of the First on bear full responsibility for what they have done.”