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.