Is the future of Russia a national empire?

In an article published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on March 15, 2005, Emil Pain, professor at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, considers possible ways of transforming the Russian political regime. The author characterizes the current policy of the Russian government as an attempt to resuscitate the empire and warns against such a path as extremely dangerous by destabilizing the ethno-political situation in the country.

The stability of authoritarianism in Russia, writes E. Pain, is explained by the integral "imperial syndrome". The author reveals the content of this syndrome: it is an "imperial body", that is, "retained" territories (the imperial principle of "retaining territories", opposite to the principle of "voluntary and interested integration", is today canonized in Russian politics); "imperial consciousness", which includes a complex set of traditional stereotypes, including the stereotype about the state-forming people - the "elder brother"; and imperial power, or imperial order. "This is a supranational regime - in the sense that it is alienated from the nation (society) and considers it, if not as a subjugated population, then, in any case, only as obedient labor resources and raw materials for political manipulation," writes E .Pain.

Initially, the project for the resuscitation of the empire was devoid of ethnic implications. But most likely, the author notes, it will be modified on an ethnic basis and describes two possible scenarios for the transformation of Russia into a country with a national-imperial system. In the first case, “the current government is partially renewed due to the infiltration of political figures with pronounced national-imperial sentiments into it, throws off the remnants of the liberal drapery and builds a vertical with increasing rage, relying on anti-oligarchic and sovereign rhetoric. The second option is to replace the current regime Radical Russian nationalists are coming, who have already formed and widely disseminated their program of recreating the Russian Empire, ostensibly for the purpose of reviving the Russian nation . The interpretation of the situation, characteristic of radical nationalists, finds much more understanding and acceptance among the population than arguments about a civil nation. At the same time, "the theorists of Russian national-imperialism ... are not satisfied with the current vertical of power and want to connect it with the vertical of peoples. At the top of it should be the "state-forming" people (like the "true Aryans" in the Reich)" .

Sooner or later, the empire will inevitably perish. In the first of the options described by E. Pain, "it will fade relatively slowly and bloodlessly. In the second, quickly and most likely with great loss of life . "

Both scenarios are not fatal. However, to preserve Russia, "federalization is necessary , the revival of which, in turn, will require extraordinary political efforts by all anti-imperial forces, the emergence of new prominent names and new fresh ideas in their ranks. All this is still unlikely. "

Sources

• Pain E. From the "vertical of power" to the vertical of peoples"? // Independent newspaper. 2005. March 15.