Defeded Russia

What happened to the Russian Empire? It broke up at the end of the imperialist war. What happened to the Soviet Union? It broke up at the end of the Cold War. What will happen to the Russian Federation?

The answer seems obvious, but will upset many. So Russian patriotism is arranged that even those who do not sympathize with the Kremlin regime are not ready to recognize the imperial character of the current Russian statehood. Even those who consider the current Russian government unfair, incompetent or simply dangerous, believe in the survival of the Russian Federation within its current borders. Even those who, like me, wish Ukraine a military victory, and the Russian leaders - the International Court are not ready to admit that the late end of the country itself will follow this.

Losing lands and people, it has already passed through several reincarnations - the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation - which indicates its historical instability and the inevitability of new metamorphoses. The breakdown was long afraid, predicted him and promised to prevent him. Indeed, it could be slowed down, using a favorable economic situation and on the basis of competent management, a skilled diplomatic game and just luck. The party ruling in this country, although it was famous for its worthlessness, took the name that showed the deep fear of the collapse, as well as the absence of other values: "United Russia". Partners in global politics, much more powerful, did not want this breakdown in any way. Some were grateful to this federation for the end of the Cold War, dangerous and burdensome. Others simply did not like all kinds of changes, they were afraid of them more than the war itself. One way or another, the coming breakdown of the Federation will not happen because someone abroad wanted or planned it, but contrary to these desires and plans. Most likely, it will also happen contrary to the desires of the majority of the Russian population: this is not the question that is solved by voting.

In Russia, for a long time, two decades, nothing significant has happened. Her political life managed, as knowledgeable people said in the century before last, to freeze for a long time. Everything changed during the Second Russian-Ukrainian War, which should not begin to those who worship the idea of ​​United Russia. But it starts and goes. On the issue of preserving the federation there was a moment of truth.

The century of empires has long passed. Determining as a result of wars or uprisings, the past empires gave rise to many national states that were once their colonies. The Anglo-Pol writer Joseph Conrad wrote that there is no piece of land in the world, which was not before someone's colony. England was a Roman colonies, and became a metropolitan of the new empire. Poland, the Center for Power in Eastern Europe, was divided between three hostile states. East Prussia was a metropolis and a coronation site, and became a colony. Even earlier, about the same thing happened with Tataria. The story goes without obeying the rules. Empires rise and destroy, like waves during a storm. But still, almost all empires disappeared in the XX century; This process is called decolonization. They lost the political struggle for the existence of other forms of the state - national and federal. We are now interested in the latter: Russia calls itself a federation, like Germany or Switzerland. In fact, she behaves as an empire of the era of decline.

What is the difference between a federation from the empire? Voluntary entry and exit. Empires are kept by force, the federations do not mind self -repulsion. In the XX century, this was called self -determination up to the department. Such a norm was recorded in the declaration of the rights of the peoples of Russia, which was adopted by the Bolsheviks in November 1917; Then she somehow disappeared from constitutional creativity. Some federations - teams or, as scientists say, composite education - broke up without the use of force. This happened with the Soviet Union or with Czechoslovakia. The collapse of others, on the contrary, led to civil wars with international participation. Once this happened with the United North American States, before our eyes happened to Yugoslavia. The empire is said when the forces are unequal and one of the parties with military force imposes its will to the other side. But it may happen that the collapse occurred peacefully, but the infringed pride and unsatisfied ambitions then lead to new violence; This is also called revanchism. Then a new war is inevitable.

Illustration: Ingrianrebel , finalized

I do not call for the decay of the Russian Federation, I predict it, and this is a big difference. The breakdown could be prevented, for this it was necessary not to start a war with Ukraine. But revengeism defeated everything else, even the usual feeling of caution. The breakdown of this federation - a complex, artificial, extremely uneven and less and less productive community - will occur due to the fault of its Moscow rulers, and for no reason. Those who love the federation; Those who think that without her the peoples will be worse than it was in her; Those who consider United Russia the main or even the only political value - all of them must blame those and only those who unleashed this war.

How many parts the federation will break up and will they correspond to the current republics and the provinces that make up it? I think that the apparatus of the authorities, leaders and, finally, the boundaries will play a certain role in this "self -determination up to the department." But many other factors will also matter - economic and cultural, internal and international. New states will be different: some will be democratic, others authoritarian; All of them will be associated with their neighbors, trading and security partners more than with old and shameful "relatives". It can also be predicted that the wreckage of other national formations, after the Second World War found in Russia - Eastern Prussia, Karelia, Kurili - will come out of this composition with particular joy: they will have someone to join. It can be predicted that ethnic and religious relations in especially complex regions, such as the Caucasus, will lead to new wars. It is likely that inequality, so characteristic of Russia in recent decades, will increase even more with the collapse of the federation: the current raw materials donors will become much richer, and the recipients of their help is even poorer. But the latter, probably, in the new conditions of freedom will find creative applications, will trade the fact that only free societies can create, invent new "comparative advantages".

The story will continue in any case, and sooner or later an international community that does not tolerate changes in this scale will have to notice them; Too much blood will spill otherwise. Then, probably, a peaceful conference will be held, collected according to the model of the one that the winners of the First World War in Paris held in 1918-1919. Russia, which concluded a separate world in Brest-Litovsk, was not invited to it, and the case of that peaceful conference remained unfinished. The intermediaries in the negotiations will be the old neighbors of the new countries - Ukraine and China, Norway and Poland, Finland and Kazakhstan. More successful federations will play their roles - the European Union, the United States ... A century later, a new Eurasian treaty will complete the case, which was not then in Versailles.

This article is published in French and English in the partner publication Desk Russia.