Russia Can’t Liberalize and Therefore Must be Dissolved, Amnuel Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 31 – Each new generation needs to learn from the past and nowhere is that the case more so than concerning what happens when a repressive era ends and some try to promote liberalization, Grigory Amnuel says. And what happened after 1991 shows that liberalization won’t happen in any Russian Federation and that that entity must be dissolved.

            According to the Russian filmmaker, politician and commentator, it is long past time to give up illusions that a new outcome can be achieved by doing the same thing as 30 years ago or to believe that what happened after 1991 won’t simply be replicated unless far more of the country goes its own way (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=63D668BA4590F).

            Not all the parts will leave, and not all of them will make progress. But at least some will have the chance to do so; and at the very least, Amnuel says, such a development will undercut the power of those who now control nuclear weapons and the military forces capable of invading neighboring countries.

            Beginning with Chechnya and ending with Tatarstan, the current RF government has done everything possible to prevent any part of the country from leaving and has managed to convince a large number of Russians that if any part does go, then all their ill-gotten gains will  somehow disappear.

            In fact, it is the holding of the country together on that basis that prevents the rise of freedom; and consequently, it is absolutely necessary, Amnuel says, to declare that “ALL REGIONS” -- both national republics and predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays -- have “the constitutional right” to secede from the Russian Federation.

            Not all of them will exercise that right, he continues; but such a declaration will have a positive effect, leading elites in these various places to conclude that they will be better off in control of their own territories than they are as vassals of Moscow and at least some will promote freedom to win support of their own people and the international community.

            Some will object to this idea and argue that weapons of mass destruction will fall into the wrong hands and civil wars will begin if they “fall into the hands of adventurers.” Perhaps that will happen, but it is already the case that these things are “in the wrong hands” and that an aggressive nationalism is flourishing in the RF.

            The past teaches that there are dangers in taking this step but there are even more dangers in making the assumption that a single multi-national country ruled from Moscow is going to liberalize. That won’t happen. Instead, if the country is held together, there will be a repetition not of the rise of freedom but of authoritarianism and aggression.

            It is long past time to dispense with the dangerous illusions that some Russia of the future will be different.