Greg Yudin:
'THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE ON OFFER FOR RUSSIA NOW'
The outbreak of the war has ignited considerable global interest in the potential for significant social and political change in Russia. The expectations ranged from a palace coup that would help the elites to get rid of the president and his war that had caught them by surprise, to a popular uprising that would topple the government that sends millions of Russians into meat grinder and destroys the future for the nation.

Nothing of that has materialized so far. This led many to assume that in fact both the masses and the elites in Russia are quite satisfied with the government. After all, as the French pamphleteer Etienne la Boetie argued in the sixteenth century, if the people doesn’t overthrow tyranny, it voluntarily chooses its servitude.

I would like to suggest a different perspective. There can very well be a general dissatisfaction and yet no political action, and this combination is not wholly explained by repressions.

Although repressions do play a significant role – after all, we should not forget that Boris Kagarlitsky is in prison today for a very simple reason: first, he opposes the governments’ decision to start and prosecute this war; second, he was vocal about it publicly. I want to make it very clear to those who may not follow closely the events in Russia: the combination of these two things – opposing the war and saying it publicly almost guarantees that you will be either killed or jailed. In some cases, it takes time for them to reach you, but it is a safe bet that eventually they will.

However, I believe that repressions are not the most important factor for the inaction. There are many people willing to risk and even sacrifice their lives for political change in Russia, and repression alone could never suppress them.

There is a more disturbing explanation, and it relates to the topic of this panel. There is no alternative on offer for Russia now. And this is genuinely felt by both masses and elites. Contrary to what some people could imagine, current situation is NOT perceived in Russia as a political trade-off for the country, a fateful choice that is being made collectively and that will entail significant consequences. In the absence of alternative, the course of events is perceived as absolutely inevitable and predetermined.

A colleague from Chapel Hill, Graeme Robertson, has recently presented very illuminating study that demonstrates that Russians are extremely keen to engage in what is called in psychology “system justification”. In other words, up to 80% of his respondents are likely to agree with the statements such as “The government is bad but we deserve no better”; “The government is bad but all governments are like this”; “The government is bad but the other one is likely to be even worse”; “The government is bad but it has always been so”, and so on.

IF YOU WANT A WORD TO CHARACTERISE

THE MORAL SITUATION IN RUSSIA,

IT IS DESPAIR.

Despair, resignation, and extreme cynicism – this all sounds familiar to many of you coming from various countries. In this sense, Russia is a quite typical case of neoliberal capitalism that imposes itself as a natural calamity that cannot be resisted, and generates resentment, acrimony, and depoliticization. I would argue that Russia is perhaps the extreme case of this disposition, one that makes people normalize war and destruction and distrust peace and progress.

Now, offering the alternatives is, of course, the job of the opposition. Here, however, in the Russian case we have an ideological problem. Since the invasion of Ukraine began, foreign observers have learned the names of many Russian politicians and activists, most of whom are now in exile and who are usually termed “Russian opposition”. While they have managed to maintain access to Russian audience through social media, and many have shown personal merit, they have yet to articulate a political offer compelling enough to provoke change in their home country.

One of the important reasons why such a proposal was not made is ideological. Most of the figures familiar to foreign eyes represent a particular brand of right-liberalism that emphasizes individual human rights, laissez-faire economy with extremely limited government and catch-up modernization designed to copy the institutional design of Western liberal democracies. This agenda emerged at the time of the proclaimed “end of history” and is strongly associated in Russia with the transformational period of the 1990s, when brutal neoliberal reforms destroyed social safety nets, unleashed unprecedented inequality and elevated organized crime to commanding positions. Many opposition figures reinforce this association by promoting the narrative that in the 1990s Russia was a democracy, albeit imperfect, but Putin turned it into an autocracy. The intuitive plan is to go back to the nineties and not allow power to slide away to authoritarians.

This agenda, no matter how attractive it may be to the West, is a non-starter with the Russian public.
Alexey Navalny was an important exception. He was the one to realize a genuine demand for alternative, which is particularly palpable among Russian youth. While his early flirtations with nationalists were largely irrelevant for his political career, his later projects exploited the sense of extreme injustice widespread in Russian society. Now that Navalny died as a martyr, the task of formulating an alternative is on the shoulders of those who are to replace him.

In the remainder of this talk, I would like to make the case for what could be called a social-democratic alternative for Russia. In doing so, I will be relying on my own studies, which, although conducted before the war, still allow to assess the direction where political demand is evolving, and also on the studies of many colleagues – forgive me if I will not quote from them for the sake of saving time.

  • I will start with what Nancy Fraser has shrewdly noticed in her opening talk: a fresh look at regional and global security is urgently needed. Although the responsibility for unleashing this brutal genocidal war is solely on Vladimir Putin who ignored even the advice of his own flunkies, the blame for the deterioration of the security arrangements he should share with the irresponsible policies of the NATO countries, too. Russians need an understanding that once this war is over, there will be no threats for Russia, no attempts to dismember or humiliate the country (which, of course, does not exclude the political responsibility for the destruction). Russian government was not able to make its population love war, despite all propaganda – there is a clear demand for peace, one that would be sealed with credible security guarantees. A left response is not to repeat “plague on both your houses”, but to craft a new security architecture, one that would overarch the current alliances. Russia should be part of these new arrangements, and mutual security should be guaranteed by the third parties, such as representatives of the Global South. Russia is objectively interested in reforming the UN security bodies and power-sharing. Developing such reforms is the task of the left, and this is the area where cooperation is indispensable.

  • Russia is among global inequality leaders among the big countries: top 1% control 24% of its income and a whopping 48% of its wealth. The war only exacerbates this inequality. Until very recently, Russia was among the very few countries who had a flat tax rate. What is needed is an offer of fair taxation, one that would answer the demand for solidarity that is certainly present in Russia.

  • Welfare state has been gradually dismantled in Russia, and there is a strong demand for restoring it. The situation when treatment for cancer is basically available only in two largest cities is unacceptable. But more importantly, the restoration of the welfare starts with respect to the teachers and healthcare workers. The neoliberal system that made 80% of their salaries depend on their loyalty to their bosses should be liquidated. Professionals’ motivation is trust and respect from society, and their work should be remunerated. Russia clearly has resources for that.

  • There is an overwhelming request for decentralization of the country – which is not to be confused with its disintegration. Reinventing federal structures and installing local self-government will help to let people rule their own land. The level of anger and hatred towards Moscow is excruciating, and profound federalization will be met with enthusiasm.

  • One particular aspect of decentralization is building horizontal infrastructure. After 25 years of oil shower, Putin presides over the country as disconnected as it was before him. Traveling between two Siberian cities often takes making a connection in Moscow. Building roads, railroads, airports is a natural way to draw large investment and unleash the creative potential.

  • There is a palpable demand for more democracy in Russia – which means more self-government. It cannot be answered solely with fair elections. Empowering local councils, introducing civic engagement as part of civic education, experimenting with lotteries – these are all things that are likely to be welcomed in Russia today.

I could go on and on, of course – I haven’t even started talking about the place Russia should take in the Green transition – something it is very advantageously predisposed to do. Comrade from Feminist Anti-War Resistance has made a strong case for reproductive rights, and I would probably add that there is a wide support in Russia for cracking down on domestic violence – something that is artificially suppressed by the current government.

But my point in this talk was to argue that without a clear and coherent social-democratic alternative, the change is unlikely to come. On the other hand, developing such alternative is likely to be met with enthusiasm and support.

Clearly, there can be no such thing as an isolated social-democratic alternative for Russia. What I tried to argue here is that Russia is in many ways a typical, even a radical case of neoliberal capitalism. Developing an alternative for Russia is part of the job of developing a global alternative. But perhaps Russia is, paradoxically, a good place to start – it has a legacy to build on.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Pjotr Zherebtsov: My question is addressed to Greg Yudin and it concerns the refederalization of Russia. It's true that political decentralization of the Russian Federation is promoted by the ruling regime with the threat of complete state disintegration. Do you think that this process, regardless of what power emerges after the war, should be carried out with a completely different administrative system and or administrative division? Here I refer to the institutional project you're involved in. It has been widely criticized for ignoring the territorial integrity of national republics within the Russian Federation and self-determination of indigenous peoples. I personally don't share this critical position, but it has put forward after the constitutional project was published, I guess in late spring. I am interested in hearing more from you about this issue. Maybe you could elaborate on decentralization and refederalization in this regard. Thank you.

Greg Yudin: Thank you. There are probably two questions that are raised here. The first one was about the federalization and nationality issue. So just to give context to people who are not familiar with this. So, several months ago, I'm part of an academic think tank which is called the Institute for Global Reconstitution, launched just this year. We presented a draft of the constitutional project for Russia a couple of months ago. This is a new constitutional project because we believe that as the situation stands now, Russia will definitely need reconstitution in the foreseeable future. The current constitution simply will not serve--there will be a need for a new constitutional project. And we sort of proposed a draft which is still under under revision. Part of this project was the idea of a profound federalization of the country. Basically, Russia, of course, is a unitary state. Now, it is called a federation, but it is a unitary state. So, what we believe should be done is reviving the federal traditions in Russia. Actually, they were very much present: some roots of federalist thought actually can be found in the work of Russian political theorists such as Mikhail Bakunin. And there were several attempts to turn Russia into a federation.

I wouldn't call them unsuccessful because each of them actually saved the country in their turn. Lenin did that. Initially, Yeltsin did it again. And now it is probably time to set up a real federation, a long-lasting federation. Now, the question is, of course, how do you do that? Because what Russia actually is, is a decaying empire. It's a dissolving empire. What we are witnessing right now is a paroxysm of dissolution. It can last for quite a while. But the question is, how do you turn this empire into a federation? And that is a challenging task because there are not so many examples of the empires that could be turned into federations. The Austrian Empire is sort of a template here. And there was, of course, a huge discussion among the Austrians in the early 20th century about how to deal with the nationalities question.

Now, what we propose is actually to give more self-government to the nationalities, to the ethnic groupings than they have now. So, we advocate for more self-determination for nationalities. The problem with that is that people who advocate for the current administrative territorial division of Russia are actually advocating for Stalin's project, which basically created a strange situation when some ethnic groups have their own republics and others do not.

Greg Yudin: You have a lot of nationalities in Russia, and many of them do not have their own ethnic republics, while others do have. And there was basically a matter of chance whether they did or did not have that. So, we don't think that preserving the current structure would be just to those groups that just happened not to have their own territorial units. Of course, in the vast majority of those territorial units, the ethnic groups would give their names to those units. They are in the minority in most of them: the Russians are in the majority with few exceptions. So, we don't think that the current structure actually allows for self-government by these ethnic groups. We don't think that the question of the self-government of the ethnic groups should be solved through the territorial divisions. We actually advocate in a different place in this constitutional project for a broader self-government by the ethnic groups and for preservation of culture and religion and for wide representation on both the level of the separate republics and on the federal level. Sorry for a long answer, but this just requires a lot of context.

Francis King: Fascinating presentations. It's clear that all the time the war is going on, there is not going to be any space for organised, grassroots politics in Russia. That much seems fairly clear. The war has got to come to an end somehow, sometime, and it's got to come to an end somehow. Some of the possible outcomes are completely disastrous for everybody. But I'm wondering what kind of outcomes you think would be most advantageous for the development of a of Russian grassroots, anti-war, internationalist left. And which would you think would be least advantageous?

Leo Gabriel: A question and an announcement. How do you evaluate the openness of the government, or the interest of the Russian government, to negotiations and to have a political solution to the war. And what would be the effect on the domestic political situation, especially of the left, in that case? Because in the West, it's easy to present. The government says that Putin does not want to negotiate, but we don't believe that. The announcement is that because you were talking about security in a global way that some of the left, and also many people in Germany in the peace movement are thinking about staging next year a world-wide conference under the title Communal Security against Global War. And that should take place in Vienna around October.

Greg Yudin: Thank you. A couple of quick points. First, on negotiations, there can be no negotiations with Ukraine, because Ukraine doesn't exist. This is not a state. There is no such thing as Ukraine for the Russian government, it cannot exist. I mean, can you negotiate with the aliens? You don't. You don't believe they exist. You cannot negotiate with them. Putin repeatedly has said that Ukraine does not exist. There is no such thing as Ukraine. You cannot negotiate with Ukraine. And the whole, of course, issue of this war is the sovereignty of Ukraine.

Secondly, I think there is one thing that probably we should emphasize more strongly, and that people should be aware of. This is important. Russia is being prepared for a large, large war right now as we speak. The country undergoes significant transformations. The economy is being put on the military footing. Thr army is being constantly expanded. There's a radical overhaul of the education system. Kids are basically being taught that they will be soldiers from the kindergartens. What is going on is just immense. This is definitely not about some villages in the eastern part of Ukraine. They are preparing the country to have a huge war and there is no way they're going to change their mind. There is no way back.

I mean, if you offer a settlement right now, basically the whole model that they've built will collapse.
So then, that's just not on the table. They're being prepared to have a huge war. Of course, not with Ukraine. So that I think we have to keep this in mind when we when we think about the future. And therefore, my last answer to, to the question of what are the favorable conditions for the Russian left? Well, the alternative I was talking about is, of course, not an alternative for Putin. Look, these people have made their minds, they've made their choices, and they will not change. What can change, of course, is that if Russian society sees an alternative, they will get rid of these people. That is still possible.

So, the only outcome which is which could be favourable for the Russian left, for the development of the left-wing project in Russia is, of course, revolution in Russia. That is the only way we can think of, of any, any sort of development. Now for this revolution, many things should be put in place including, of course, the external pressure and the internal mobilization. And therefore, I'm talking about the need for alternatives for Russia. But that is the only way we can get out of our predicament.
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