I’ll clarify: the problem is not in Putin. Neither it is in Navalny. The problem is in imperial structure of Russia and in its imperialist mindset. Any ideology be it Orthodoxy, Communism, Liberalism will be weaponised by the metropoly to dominate and discipline its colonies. We don’t need a Good Tsar who’ll replace a Bad Tsar. Good Tsar can become a Bad Tsar overnight. He can give whatever guarantees now, but nothing will stop him from breaking them later. Even if he doesn’t break them, his successor will. There will be no checks on his power anyway.
Omnis determinatio est negatio. Whatever [is] determined by a statute, can and will be abolished by a statute. Whatever Moscow gave it can take back later. Whatever it created, it can later destroy. Thus freedom can’t be given by Moscow. Even the best Tsar ever can’t grant you freedom. Russia doesn’t need an Imperial Reboot. It needs a National Divorce. Moscow has absolute right on self determination, but I don’t see why colonies should bound to its will, fund its imperial ambitions and shed their blood for the Russian World as they’re doing it now.
– Kamil Galeev dispensing some political theory gold.
It is true that the political tradition of concentrating power in one man is a blunder – it is also based on an misinterpretation of history.
This misinterpretation of history is the long standing belief that if only the Russ had been united then they could have defeated the Mongol invasion and centuries of terror and oppression could have been avoided. However, the Mongol MILITARY SYSTEM was vastly superior to other military forces of the time – the Mongols defeated much more numerous peoples than the Russ, and these peoples were united.
Mr Putin himself seems to have believed the old myths – and to be outraged that Boris Yeltsin had allowed powerful independent forces in society. But it was NOT such things as dissenting television stations and independently owned companies (such as the largest oil company) that led to the “chaos of the Yeltsin years” – it was our old “friend” CREDIT BUBBLE BANKING – President Yeltsin allowed American and Russian advisers to set up a fiat money system (or rather to maintain the fiat money system of Soviet times) and add to it the insane Credit Bubble ism (the insane banks lending out “money” created from nothing – “savings” that are not Real Savings at all) that has also bewitched the West.
The terrible poverty of the Yeltsin years was NOT caused by the privatisation of industry – the cause of the poverty was wild Credit Money inflation.
The chaos of the Yeltsin years is now upon the West itself – and we will see terrible poverty here (due to our own endless Credit Money). But the “solution” of Mr Putin is no solution at all, because it does not understand the problem. The problem being the Credit Money itself.
Turning back to the form of government….
There needs to be move closer to the sort of chief executive of the “New Jersey Plan” sort – appointed by the Parliament and subject to dismissal. NOT directly elected by the people – and thus unable to claim that they “speak for the people”.
The traditions of such places as the Republic of Novgorod are a better model than the old ERROR that “if only we had been united under one ruler, we could have defeated the Mongol invasion”.
All the above being said ..
It is also true that Mr Putin has been in power far too long, he was always an evil man – but now there may well be something else at work, robbing him of his judgement. The Daily Telegraph and other sources report that Mr Putin is very ill – and on strong medications.
Mr Putin needs to be removed from power.
A Constitution of the Swiss sort would be better for Russia.
It guards against one person gaining too much power and being able to “speak for the people” – and guards local autonomy (although not as much as I would like – to me every new Swiss Constitution has been worse than the one it replaced since 1848). Another great problem Switzerland has is its lack of real dissenting television and radio stations – a problem it shares with Russia (thanks to Mr Putin).
Russia is a vast land – with much local variation. Trying to govern everything from Moscow makes no sense.
Moscow should be charge of military defence – leaving everything else to the provinces and Republics.
The same is true of the United States – also a vast land with much variation.
“Whatever [is] determined by a statute, can and will be abolished by a statute. Whatever Moscow gave it can take back later. Whatever it created, it can later destroy. ”
And this is different to the West how exactly? Is it not a fundamental principle of Parliamentary Democracy that no Parliament is bound by its predecessors? Whatever laws that are passed by party A can be annulled and replaced by party B when it has won a subsequent election. Anyone who deals with the State in a Western ‘democracy’ knows only too well that you can’t trust what it says, and what is the settled policy today may not be tomorrow, and certainly won’t be in a decade’s time.
At least theoretically, this is only the case in the Westminster model: written constitutions cannot be overruled by a simple majority in Parliament.
Still, i guess that the Swiss and American models are the best that we have at the moment.
— On a historical note (with apologies for over-simplification): for most of human history, most state-level societies were either absolute monarchies or city-republics. Cultures which had known nothing except absolute monarchy for a long time, could think of no other solution to their problems than replacing a bad emperor with a good emperor. Russia and China might still be at this stage.