Imperial centralism is a longstanding problem in Russian political thinking. Despite the fact that Russia has a gigantic territory from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean, includes more than 80 regions with different histories and ethnic cultures, it is customary to look at it purely centralistically, “from Moscow”. The same liberals, like Kasparov and Khodorkovsky, only want to change the “bad” Kremlin tsar for a “good” one, and they think that everything will change from this. In fact, no – the empire will simply enter a new historical circle.
The official name of the state “Russian Federation” is completely fictitious, since it does not provide for any contractual relations between the regions. Regions are not political entities at all.
An alternative worldview could be regionalism, which relies on the specifics of different regions and insists on their own self-government. The same Belgorod region in terms of population (1.5 million people) surpasses Estonia. Most of the taxes from the region’s enterprises go to Moscow. In fact, this is one of the many Moscow colonies.
If the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Legion “Freedom of Russia” took into account regional specifics, the results of their raids could become much more effective. However, we know practically nothing about them getting in touch with the local population, trying to express their interests and requests.
As a result, local residents did not consider the participants in these raids as “their liberators.” The population of Belgorod towns and villages simply turned out to be hostages of the military policy, which is being conducted by some external forces in relation to them and sets some goals external to them.
RDK manifestos have been published on various social networks, where they declare their desire to create a “single Russian national state.” But excuse me, how does this ideology differ from Putinism? He is also for “united Russia” and “Russian world”. If the participants in these raids want some real change, they should become regionalists – that is, spokesmen for the interests of the local population of various Russian regions and republics. In other cases, any of their “new Russia” will only become a remake of the former empire.
Регион-Эксперт
