Paul Goble
Staunton, February 24 – Putin’s Russia is now facing its own “end of history” moment, a development that reflects three underlying trends, the effective devaluation of positions in the regime, the degradation of its key social and political institutions, and the threat of the disintegration of the regime and even the country, Roman Trunov says.
In a commentary for the Rosbalt news agency, the Moscow journalist says the increase in the number of people who hold senior positions and the likelihood that they can hold onto them for life has the effect of devaluing their role and thus contributing to the degradation of the regime and the country as a whole (rosbalt.ru/blogs/2021/02/24/1888889.html).
That has happened to Russia twice before in modern times, both in the years leading up to 1917 and in those before 1991, Trunov says. It is happening again even though those in positions of ostensible power try to cover this decline by talking about the glorious victories of the past, something that fails to conceal the serious losses of the present time.
And that points to the disintegration of the system if not yet of the country, he continues. “The collapse of the existing state-political system began from the very moment when Vladimir Putin, using legal tricks, returned to the presidency in 2021.” Since then, it has continued, sometimes slowing but often speeding up.
The collapse has become inevitable, Trunov continues. But “one very much wants to hope that everything will be limited to the collapse of the regime rather than involve the country as a whole,” although that risk exists as well. Putin should be addressing these risks, but instead, he continues to prefer to talk about the past.
The more he does so, the more the parallels between the situation now and those in 1917 and 1991 will become obvious and, having become so, become not less likely but more the longer the Kremlin leader only wants to fixate on the past, parts of which he is doing so much to recapitulate.
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