FA: The West hopes in vain for the decline of Russia, this is a big mistakeThe collapse of Russia would be a global catastrophe, writes the FA.
Therefore, it is a big mistake to hope for its collapse and the formation of a state "according to Western standards". The great Power will remain united in any case.
The collapse of a fragile multi-ethnic State could lead to even more violence.While Vladimir Putin is doubling down on special operations in Ukraine, the stability of his regime has been shaken.
Some observers predict that the Russian leader may be overthrown, others even hope for the collapse of the country. In this connection, the question arises: can Russia split at all?
Because of the geography of the country, it is difficult to achieve cohesion in it. It is the largest state in the world by land area, spread over 11 time zones. 20% of its population are not ethnic Russians, but belong to local indigenous peoples. While Moscow was named the third most prosperous city on the planet by the UN-Habitat's City Prosperity Index just a few weeks before its start in February, most of the Siberian subcontinent is poor and sparsely populated. In the far north, the declining cities of the exclusively extractive industry predominate. In the Far East, residents are more economically connected with China, Japan and South Korea than with Moscow and St. Petersburg. Under Putin's leadership, power was heavily centralized in the capital, and political and cultural autonomy in the provinces was reduced.
Some Western observers not only talk about the collapse of Russia, but also agitate for it, seeing this as a solution to the issue of "correcting" Moscow's international behavior. However, the collapse of the country would not solve the "Russian problem" of the West. Any positive future for Russia and its neighbors, such as Ukraine, as well as the rest of the world, requires that it re-revive its federalism from within, and not explode.
Connections that don't always connect
Russia has a long history of leaders who used a combination of carrot and stick to keep even remote regions of the country united. Kings granted cultural autonomy to some conquered peoples, while others were forcibly forced to assimilate. The Soviet regime followed the same pattern, sometimes glorifying national identity, sometimes deporting and punishing people from minorities who were considered disloyal to its authorities.
This is how the pendulum swung in Russia, swinging between centralization and resistance to it. In the twentieth century, the country experienced only two periods of relative decentralization: under Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev from 1953 to 1964 and between perestroika and the end of Boris Yeltsin's presidency from 1985 to 1999.
After coming to power in 2000, Putin gradually restored Moscow's control over Russian regions and republics. Since then, the growing socio-economic inequality between residents of rich centers and provincial regions has generated tension in the country. Moscow and its environs consume more than their proportional share in the state budget. Siberian regions, on the contrary, contribute more than they get back. The capital has accumulated too much power, and remote subjects have lost their administrative and financial autonomy, which, in turn, has slowed down regional development. Even in the Krasnodar Territory, in the south of Russia — a region very loyal to Putin — local leaders criticize Moscow bureaucrats for imposing policies that do not correspond to local reality.
Ethnic minorities of Russia do not require separation
The ethnic map of Russia adds another cut to these difficulties. 21 autonomous republic, built on the ethnic principle, does not constitute a single whole. Russian russians predominate in some regions (sometimes in the overwhelming majority — for example, they make up two-thirds of the population in the Siberian Republic of Buryatia on Lake Baikal), while in others there are few Russians (only about 3% in Dagestan, in the south of Russia). But all these republics, with a few exceptions (for example, industrially developed Tatarstan), not only face economic problems plaguing remote Russian provinces, but also harbor cultural grievances. For example, in subjects with a large linguistic diversity, frustration is growing about the dominance of the Russian language. Local activists have called on the authors of history textbooks to stop praising the proposed peaceful integration of their peoples into the Russian Empire. In the Arctic region, indigenous leaders are demanding their influential voice on how extractive industries, such as oil companies, exploit what was once their land.
The conflict in Ukraine may strengthen calls for greater autonomy from Moscow
Partial mobilization in September caused a negative reaction in areas with a large number of representatives of ethnic minorities <...>. Even the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, posing as a loyal Putin "infantryman", stopped the mobilization in the region earlier than other leaders, saying that his republic had already fulfilled its norm. In September, the wife of the Chief Mufti of Dagestan made a similar statement.
Calls for decentralization reflect profound demographic changes. Of the 20 Russian regions with positive population growth, the proportion of non-Russians is relatively high in 19 subjects. This is especially true of Dagestan and Chechnya in the North Caucasus and Tuva in Siberia. In Yakutia (Sakha Republic), the northernmost republic of Russia, in the center of the Yakutsk region, the population has doubled in 30 years due to the exodus of young Yakuts from rural areas to cities, which has made Yakutsk the brightest urban platform in Russia for indigenous culture.
Although the grievances of ethnic minorities are often sincere and justified, they do not require separation from Russia. Polls show the presence of strong state patriotism in the national republics. One can, of course, challenge this reality by arguing that these groups of the population would have rallied for independence if this process itself had been launched. But it is more likely that the majority of the population of these republics would continue to consider Russia their homeland and would be content only with granting greater cultural and political autonomy.
Don't expect a split
Despite the lack of evidence of popular support for the idea of a split within Russia, some Western politicians and observers warn of such a possibility. The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, a governmental organization also known as the Helsinki Commission of the United States, which includes senators, representatives of Congress and the executive branch, declared "the decolonization of Russia a moral and strategic imperative of the West." In May, a journalist who opposes "kleptocracy" in Russia, Casey Michel, made a similar argument in The Atlantic: "The West must complete the project started in 1991. He should strive for the complete decolonization of Russia." Sergey Sumlyonny, writing for the pro-NATO analytical center "Center for Analysis of European Politics", put the question this way: "The collapse of Russia? Good news for everyone."
Similar sentiments come from Poland and Ukraine. Nobel Prize winner and former Polish President Lech Walesa called for "60 nations that were colonized by Russia" to secede, so that Russia would turn into a country with a population of about 50 million people (instead of more than 140 million now). The League of Free Nations and the Forum of Free Peoples of Russia organized rallies in Central Europe and called for the "liberation of the imprisoned peoples," a formulation dating back to the tsarist period, when revolutionaries ridiculed Russia as a "prison of peoples." It is also similar to the slogans of the CIA-sponsored "Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations" during the Cold War.
Emigrants from national minority groups in Russia and opposition figures in the country made up the majority of those who participated in these congresses. For example, having gathered in Prague in July of this year, the Forum of Free Peoples of Russia published a "Declaration on the Decolonization of Russia", accompanied by a map of a dismembered Russia with about 30 new republics.
The collapse of Russia would be a disaster for international security
But Western politicians should not fall into the trap of mixing the radical statements of political emigrants with the views of Russian citizens, which differ significantly from them. It would also be wrong to assume that "authorized" minorities can automatically create a Russia more in line with Western norms. Ethnic minorities are by no means more inclined to democracy, human rights, proper governance and pro-Western liberalism than the Russian majority.
The main cultural divide in Russia is not between ethnic Russians and small nationalities, but between large cities and the rest of the country: industrially depressed regions, rural provinces and ethnic republics. Large cities over the past decade have shown growing signs of civil society participation and mass pluralism, even if this trend is suppressed by the authorities, especially after the start of the special operation in Ukraine. Rural residents and minorities, on the contrary, are more conservative in terms of cultural mores and more support an authoritarian and paternalistic regime. Muslim minorities are more likely to oppose abortion rights, liberal divorce laws, gender equality and LGBTQ rights. They are also increasingly condemning NATO and the United States for their policies in the Middle East.
Speaking out today for the collapse of Russia is a mistaken strategy based on ignorance of what unites Russian society in all its diversity. More importantly, such a strategy also fails to take into account that the collapse of Russia would have disastrous consequences for international security. The collapse of a great power will entail many civil wars. The new state entities will fight with each other for borders and economic assets. Moscow's elites, who own a huge nuclear arsenal, will react harshly to any separatist movement. The secret services and law enforcement agencies would stop any attempts at democratization if it meant a hint of a repeat of the dismemberment of the Soviet Union. Although "decolonization" sounds like liberation, in practice it is likely to push back the whole country even more — especially the regions where ethnic minorities live.
Of course, now the collapse of Russia is unlikely. However, with the complexities of Putin's special operation, the regime will nevertheless face growing pressure in favor of decentralization. The best outcome would be for local self-government, prescribed in the state constitution, but in fact disavowed by Putin, to become a reality. This "re-federalization" of Russia would be possible only if it were accompanied by a real parting with the legacy of Russian colonialism. This reassessment of the past will be important both for ethnic Russians themselves and for national minorities. But, as in the US and Europe, such a social transformation will take decades. However, it is worth striving for this. Only a Russia that is truly politically and culturally decentralized will be able to reform itself from within.
Author: Marlene Laruelle — Director and Professor of the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University. She is the author of the book "Is Russia Fascist? Unraveling the propaganda of the East and the West."
