With Defeat, Russia’s Imperialist War Abroad Set to Become a Mafia War at Home, Yakovenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 1 – During World War I, Lenin called on the working class to transform the imperialist war into a civil war and thus hasten the day when the working class could take power. According to Aleksandr Yakovenko, something similar is likely to happen after Russia suffers a defeat in Ukraine.

            The sociologist and commentator says that following such a defeat, Russia is likely to enter a new “time of troubles,” one  which will be marked less by protests about social problems than by “a mafia war” in which the various “clans” within the state will fight with one another using parts of the newly “privatized” army (idelreal.org/a/32243826.html).

            Yakovenko says this will be a prelude to the “third and final period of the disintegration of the Russian Empire;” but it will be one  in which growing social protest will be “swallowed up by the mafia war.” He argus that “the leaders of the regions, including the national republics will be able to try to become the main beneficiaries of this war.”

            And consequently, if this trend continues, then “Russia will not be preserved in its current borders, and the disintegration of Russia will occur.” Those who call themselves regionalists and those who oppose them both see this as a likely prospect, “but there is one problem,” Yakovenko continues.

            It is this: “neither the one nor the other currently has in practice the slightest influence on the processes which are taking place in Russia. Neither the one nor the other will be able in any manner to direct these processes into let us say a civilized direction. In fact, they won’t be able to influence these processes at all.”

            No one in Russia is waiting for either group, just as no one after the Russian revolution and civil war  was waiting for the return of the White Emigration. And that means above all that “unfortunately, this process will take place without the participation of those who call themselves liberals, democrats and so on.”

            As a result, the disintegration of the Russian Federation is far less likely to lead to the democratization of the country than many hope, although its continued existence as a single whole is not likely to lead to that either, Yakovenko suggests.