Are we collapsing?

Are we collapsing?
Editor's Column


Date of publication: October 24, 2002

At the last Civil Debate (Alexander House, October 22, 2002), experts discussed the Draft Federal Law “On the General Principles of the Organization of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation .” The main complaint against the bill is its excessive isolation from life.

Apparently, it was precisely the abstractness and “romanticism” of the law (as one of the debate participants put it) that led to the fact that it remains unclear whether this bill is dangerous for the power of the governors or, on the contrary, as M. Kolerov believes, represents a “capitulation” to the governors .

Rather, G. Pavlovsky is right, who decided not to find out at all the question of who benefits from such a law: “I studied this text, trying to understand: in whose interests is it? I still don’t understand... This law is an ideal accounting crystal, it was created based not on interests, but on theoretical considerations... The law is for territories, not for the population." In the bill, Russia appears as an empty “territory over which the Ministry of Finance floats . ”

We are, however, not so much concerned about this bill as about the problem of “abstractness in politics.” It is this problem, I believe, that underlies the latest dramatic events - which I wrote about separately . The same problem is related to the “misunderstandings” around self-government: either it exists in our country, or it doesn’t exist... This needs to be clarified on the spot, and not in the office! In large cities, most likely, self-government does not exist, since the population of cities - for a number of objective reasons - is too individualistic. In small settlements, self-government, in theory, should exist. In areas where residents, if not remember, then at least respect traditions, self-government obviously exists. An example is Chechnya .

We are talking, you understand, not about legal, but about actual existence. The gap between legal “realities” and facts leads to drama .

An empire, unlike a federation, is grouped around a center. The “emanations” of the center, as is known, are not only cultural, but also directly administrative in nature. If you use Spengler's scheme (and I use it quite willingly), then during the transition to the phase of civilization the cultural influence of the center comes to naught - which cannot be said about managerial initiatives. But these initiatives lose vitality - as a result of which the empire falls apart... Or it survives, turning into a federation .

Russia is still an empire, but the “vertical” runs into emptiness everywhere: the signs from which documents are composed often lack denotation. Information reaching “upstream” through departments is distorted (or invented) in the interests of the departments - which is understandable and inevitable. But there is no other information, since the very terms in which this information is mediated are outdated.

As a result, the separatism of “denotations” that do not fit into the symbolic/administrative schemes of the empire is growing. In order to survive, Russia urgently needs to transform from a unipolar system - an empire into a multipolar system - a federation. In principle, even the pacification of Chechnya can be accomplished by the hands of the Chechens themselves - if Chechnya recognizes itself not as a province of the empire, but as a region of the federation.

Kirill Yakimets