A topic that loses mass consumer interest, but acquires serious work in the guts of foreign special services and information armies.
The fragmentation of the Russian Federation cannot be an artificial process, as it will lead to an even greater consolidation of the aggressive part of Russian society, for whom the ephemeral greatness of the state is compensation for material dissatisfaction, low living standards, and social fears. It is clear that the nuclear factor is also a key issue when considering the topic.
The disintegration of Russia ought to be a natural, organic and objective process.
For such conditions there will be three circumstances:
The first. Disintegration should be understood by the average Russian as a way to improve his material situation and the ruling clans’ status of the federation subjects, otherwise, the question arises: why exchange an awl (a single, seemingly large state) for soap (a small, geopolitically worthless state)? There must be a specific price for change.
Second. Contradictions should accumulate between regional and federal authorities. Khabarovsk Krai and the case of Furgal are far from a systemic case, but it is very telling for demonstrating the potential of accumulating critical hatred towards Moscow as an over-centralized decision-making centre that runs counter to the interests of the regions.
The factor of local patriotism in Russia has a peculiar nature. Envy and hatred of Moscow for some other large administrative centres are absolutely real.
How can we not mention here that in 1993, as part of the all-Russian referendum on April 25 in St. Petersburg, an additional question was asked about its republican status, for which 75% of the city’s residents voted.
The people of St. Petersburg treat Muscovites with contempt and let it take over more of the sphere of their everyday life and communication, but if you put rejection into political language, the result can be impressive.
The third. Ethnocentric or territorial, cultural and informational movements should become widespread. We need some ideal soil for separation. For example, the Siberian oblast of the 19th century prepared the basis for the emergence of the Republic of Siberia in 1918. Tatar nationalism is also based on a historical, religious and cultural basis and led to the sovereignty of the Republic of Tatarstan in the early 1990s.
Yes, there is an idea of the Pomeranian Republic on the basis of Arkhangelsk Oblast. “The project of the “Pomeranian nation” and northern identity has existed for quite some time. The very idea of ”Pomorism” is based on the concept that in ancient times a Finno-Hungarian tribe of Pomors lived in the vast expanses of Northern Eurasia, which were later assimilated by the Muscovites. Now there are many groups in social networks in which this idea is articulated. Of course, the FSB is trying to fight it and is doing this work effectively.
Separately, the idea of territorial identity should be discussed here. There is a project of the Baltic Republic based on the Kaliningrad Region. The Baltic Republican Party (now the public movement “Republika”) was even active there at one time.
Now regarding the mechanism of Russia’s disintegration.
This can be a mechanism of secession – exit from the state or a certain part of it. The Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993 does not provide for secession (unlike the Constitution of the USSR of 1977, which provided for the right of republics to leave the Union). However, the general right of nations to self-determination is known to everyone – one of the main principles of international law, recorded in the UN Charter.
The parade of sovereignties of the autonomous entities of the RSFSR after the collapse of the USSR was based on this very right. Look, in 1993 the Ural Republic was proclaimed. At that time, the head of its administration, Eduard Rossel, said that he needed economic and legislative independence. The Cossack republics became a phenomenon – Don Cossack Republic, Tersk KR, Armavir KR.
However, the process of sovereignization was hastily preserved by the federal treaty of 1992 (Tatarstan and Chechnya did not sign it then). Some regions even allowed decorative formalities. For example, until 2009, Yakutia retained the sovereignty clause in its constitution.
This normative know-how was invented by the Yeltsin administration for the sake of gentle centralization. When Putin came, he was the first to introduce a system of federal districts and presidential deputies in them – a de facto system of governors-general, as in tsarist times. For decades, Putin purged the local government.
The path to self-determination of the national and territorial republics of the Russian Federation was also paved by the case of Crimea and Donbas. The Kremlin itself highlighted these precedents. For example, the fake declaration about the sovereignty of the DPR-LPR band formations was based on the manipulation of the “will of the people”. The mechanism of referendums should be added here, or it can be limited to meetings of municipal or regional assemblies of deputies. This means, in the case of the emergence of the will of local clans, normative and political support for separation from Russia becomes a tried and tested case.
There is another option – a federal collapse caused by a lost war, which entails decentralization (following the example of the events of 1917-1918 in the former Russian Empire).
The problem is that we absolutize historical analogies too much. We believe that if this has already happened, then with the similarity of circumstances, the historical regularity proposed by the logic of history must necessarily operate.
It doesn’t work like that. Each subsequent period includes the experience of not repeating the mistakes of the past and taking this experience into account by the elites, who perfectly understand the consequences for themselves, so they try to take them into account in their current activities. It is naive to think that the collapse of the Russian Federation will repeat the collapse of the USSR or the Tsarist Empire.
It will be a special, specific process, which is largely combined with the intrigues and desires of the regional elites to have their own small statehood as a guarantee of the inviolability of property and independence from federal law enforcement officers and authorities.
The third mechanism (which is considered the most likely) is the confederation of Russia in the form of a kind of Eurasian union of peoples and territories that have acquired sovereign rights, and Moscow has been given only certain functions.
Oleg Posternak
Head of the Centre for Political Intelligence, political technologist
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