The Russian Federation might collapse as a whole polity in 3 - 5 years - Juraj Mesik

[Fleetinglife]

Slovak political philosopher Juraj Mesik made a stark prognosis and prediction, following a similar train of thought of the late Russian historian Andrei Amalrik who in the hayday of the of the USSR in the 60s wrote an essay predicting and setting the date of it's collapse (symbolically) in the year 1984, that the Russian Federation, excarcabated now even further by the outcome and by the crippling from the Ukrainian war, might collapse as whole unified polity in 3 to 5 years (even sooner than his original prediction setting the date in the year 2031. before and without counting and factoring the war and the subsequent sactions), here is what he wrote in an recent essay he wrote, attempted to be very similar in nature to the one Amalrik wrote in his day regarding the remaining lifespan and future outcome of the USSR and it's political influence and reach as a whole polity as well:

"Despite the fact that the Russian historian Andrei Amalrik warned them in his famous essay from 1969 "Will the Soviet Union survive until 1984"? (This happened during the occupation of Czechoslovakia and at the time of Moscow's greatest achievements in space) Western leaders ignored the possibility he pointed out, as did others in 1990-1991. which predicted that the USSR would disintegrate. 

None of the Western Soviet scholars in the late 1960s could have imagined the collapse of the USSR, and slogans on the buildings of occupied Czechoslovakia boldly proclaimed "With the Soviet Union forever and never differently!", Points out Slovak foreign policy expert Juraj Mesik for European Justice.

The USSR, as the incarnation of the Russian Empire at the time, was shrouded in communist ideology and seemed firm and unyielding. In just a few years, history has shown that Amalric was right in his prediction.

However, if you had been told in the summer of 1989 that the occupied countries of Central Europe would be liberated from Moscow before the end of the year and what would happen to the USSR itself before Christmas 1991, you would doubt the narrator's mental health.

The result is numerous political mistakes that have cast a shadow until today, says Juraj Mesik. After all, people often miss the "most obvious things".

The result was improvisation and tragic failures, the consequences of which lasted for decades. Today we see them through the Russian occupied territories in the countries of the former USSR and especially through the bloody war in Ukraine.

Russia's collapse is also inevitable, Mesik believes, stating that if Europe and the West are not ready for this, the consequences will be equally tragic.

Missed, slow or wrong decisions of unprepared Western politicians can lead to the long-term Balkanization of today's Russia. Unlike the Balkans, the territory of Russia is 50 times larger than the territory of Yugoslavia and 6 times larger in population. At the same time, they have nuclear warheads. 

So speculation about Russia's impending collapse is not fun or a wish, as supporters of Putin's regime believe.

Without thinking about this scenario, we will not avoid it - and vice versa, thinking about it, we will not challenge it, even if we want to. There are hidden internal reasons for that, and the question is not whether the "Russian Federation" will fall apart, but when it will happen.

The initials, quotes in the name of the state are not accidental, because today's Russia is a vertically controlled and centralized empire that has nothing to do with a real federation. The very name of the country is the classic Potemkin village, an invention designed for naive foreigners:

The Russian Empire is held together by only three powers: the superpower ideology, the security apparatus, and oil and gas revenues.

The latter allows you to fund militarism, the repressive apparatus and corrupt politicians in Europe and around the world.

All three of these forces will weaken and collapse dramatically in the coming months and years as a result of Russia's long-term military defeat in Ukraine, Western sanctions and the rapid development of electric mobility.

Russia's military and repressive forces are bleeding in Ukraine, Russia's great chauvinism will be mortally wounded, and the rapid decline in oil and gas sales, combined with later sanctions, will destroy the Kremlin economically and prevent it from bribing political elites at home and abroad.

Without the corrupt government of carrots and sticks, the ideology of imperial Russia will not be sustainable and it is degrading. 

In the essay from 2016, "Will the Russian Federation survive 2031? Russia, China and the inevitable consequences of climate change," I assessed Russia's disintegration as the topic of the next decade.

However, the attack on Ukraine radically accelerated the development of events - therefore, the disintegration of the Russian Federation will become a matter of the next 3-5 years.

Of course, this is only an estimate - various subjective factors and specific decisions of specific politicians can speed it up or, on the contrary, delay it a bit. However, Europe is waiting for the disintegration of the Russian Federation.

The defeat of the Russian army in Ukraine means a significant weakening of the repressive military apparatus that keeps the peoples detained in Russia in slavery.

Of the officially 140 million inhabitants of today's Russia (their actual number may be smaller), only about 75 percent of the population are ethnic Russians, and their share is constantly decreasing.

On the contrary, the number of non-Russian, especially Muslim, ethnic groups is growing. In addition, a figure of 75 percent can be significantly overestimated. Representatives of many oppressed ethnic groups often identify with the Russian ethnos because it benefits them.

Maybe we don't need to explain this to Slovaks - just remember the "Hungarian" ethnic Slovaks of Hungary in the 19th century or the suspiciously small number of Roma in Slovak censuses. The same phenomenon is at work in Russia - and apparently, due to the long-term pressure of Russification, it can be much more widespread.

This is especially true for the descendants of Ukrainians in mixed Ukrainian-Russian marriages, where Russian identification is very common, so the actual number of Ukrainians living in Russia can be significantly higher than the official 1.4 percent.

Given the demarcation lines of Russia's impending collapse, it is easiest to start from the territories it occupies.

First of all, it means the return of the occupied Crimea and Donbas to Ukraine, Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgia, Transnistria to Moldova. There is nothing to discuss here.

The issue of returning the Kuril Islands under Russian occupation to Japan and Karelia to Finland is also simple.

There could be more discussions among Europeans about the future of occupied and annexed Kaliningrad.

After all, it can be reasonably suspected that Russians living in St. Petersburg, the Urals, Siberia or the Far East will want to remain under the rule of a sincerely hated Moscow, which both Urals and Siberians perceive as a voracious parasite. Thus, Russia can be divided into several smaller Russian-speaking countries.

However, something else is important: the West should already be analyzing possible scenarios for the disintegration of the Russian Federation.

This is important because such a break will open up great challenges and risks and opportunities. The risk is that the post-Russian population will face Balkanization, a long period of poverty and violence.

Or the West can act prudently, quickly, pragmatically and sensitively - and give the people of Russia and the Russians themselves a chance for a decent future in freedom and at least relative prosperity.

But you have to be ready for this. And that, at the very least, requires the abolition of the "internal taboo" in Europe from the talks on the possible collapse of Russia."

END.

Edited April 21, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[Husseinisdoingfine]

Let's hope for a second Russian Revolution, this time a Liberal multi-party Democratic one that is anti-corruption and opposes oligarchy.

[DocWatts]

Let's hope that the US and the West doesn't squander the opportunity to integrate Russia in to the West by actually supporting democratization efforts this time around, instead of using political crisis as an opportunity for multinational corporations to impose disaster capitalism.

Sad to say that with the declining State of US democracy, if Trump and Republicans are in power the US will almost certainly be working to prop up Putin's regime

[Fleetinglife]

18 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

Let's hope for a second Russian Revolution, this time a Liberal multi-party Democratic one that is anti-corruption and opposes oligarchy.

BTW If I may ask what is the background history of that new "anti-war flag"?

I saw that it was first created shortly after the onset of the invasion of Ukraine in February by a Russian art designer expat in Berlin, Germany, as symbol of the Russian opposition to the war in Ukraine. 

It has no official name, it is only called the "white-blue-white" flag, removing the supposed red, and it's supposed associated added symbolism as of late, from the 1896 or "Vlasov" tricolour flag. 

BTW Official interpretation on Wikipedia:

"The Russian tricolour flag was adopted as a merchant flag at rivers in 1705. These colours of the flag of Russia would later inspire the choice of the "Pan-Slavic colours" by the Prague Slavic Congress, 1848. Two other Slavic countries, Slovakia and Slovenia, have flags similar to the Russian one, but with added coats-of-arms for differentiation. On 7 May 1883, the Russian flag was authorized to be used on land, and it became an official National flag before the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II in 1896.

At the times of Alexander III of Russia [when first officially introduced in 1896] the official interpretation was as follows: the white color symbolizes nobility and frankness, the blue for faithfulness, honesty, impeccability, and chastity, and the red for courage, generosity, and love. A common unofficial interpretation was : red: Great Russia, white: White Russia, blue: Little Russia."

 

[Husseinisdoingfine]

@Fleetinglife https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-blue-white_flag