HOW DO YOU SLAY A DRAGON?

As local self-rule develops, it will help change the rotten stick of the authorities into a pyramid, with self-rule as the foundation of this pyramid. This means that the whole system will be turned upside down. People must learn to solve problems at the level where they happen. No democracy in the world  exists without this foundation. The rules are simple: it’s your competence, your budget, your elected representatives.

At the top of the pyramid we have the central authorities. In practice, they should be secondary to the local authorities, complementary to their work, and not the other way round. The central authorities are not there to solve the problems of the local authorities, but to establish the rules of the game and make sure they are rigorously observed. If not, then the foundations of the system will begin to crack, and the same criminal gangs will take over once again.

Furthermore, the central authorities are there to solve national issues. To ensure they can do this, they must have their own protected competence and sufficient resources, including a central budget. They have to be strong enough to ensure that “on the ground” the rules and order are kept; but they have to be sufficiently kept in check so that they aren’t tempted to “privatise the localities” and devour the competency of the local authorities.

But here an extra problem arises. If the central authorities are too weak, they won’t be able to hold the country together. But if they’re too strong, then they’ll overpower the local authorities and undermine them.

In order to regulate the power of the central authorities, and to ensure that they cannot break the established order by de facto  seizing power from the local authorities, an artificially-created extra, horizontal, barrier has to be set up from within. This is to guarantee the separation of powers. This extra regulator built-in to the central authorities is federalism. In such an enormous country as Russia, it is essential to make sure that the balance between the centre and the regions is maintained.

Unfortunately, the very meaning of the word “federalism” is today besmirched by many years of Soviet propaganda.

Federalism is a specific way of organising state power, where along with the vertical division (the classic division of powers), there is an additional horizontal division, the so-called “constitutional deal”. This makes it possible for the two levels of state power to operate on one territory and, according to the established rules, for each to have full autonomy in one or more areas of competence.

The federalism that I’m talking about here has nothing in common with today’s false federalism. In the future, it will be an integral part of the metropolises that will be the centres of the new subjects of the state. But we need to start by changing the relationship within the boundaries of the existing territorial divisions of the state.

In the future, the metropolises will become the capitals of the “lands”, and will be granted all the necessary administrative and political attributes of local capitals, as well as the judicial system, the military districts and so on. The lands will have their own jurisdictions within the powers granted to them. It’s possible today more or less to predict what the list of the lands and their capitals will be, by looking at how individual regions are developing. They can already be prepared for their new role, including by purposely and systematically strengthening the existing subjects of the Federation.

Only an all-encompassing system will be able to survive in Russia, with a strong central government, a metropolis as a regional centre and strong local self-government. If one or other of the links in this chain collapses, or if the system flattens out and stops being all-encompassing, then it will inevitably return to the traditional authoritarianism, or run the risk of the state disintegrating into tiny pieces. The foundation of all three elements must be self-rule. And this must be defended by each region holding its own budget and being responsible for its own work.

The old model of Russia’s management is Muscovy, a country of a single city-state. But for Russia to become a modern state, the new model has to be Gardarika, a country of multiple cities that take power into their own hands. Gardarika versus Muscovy. Ultimately, this is the argument upon which the fate of Russia will depend.

1   Gardarika comes from the Old Norse words “gard” for city and “riki” for land, signifying a nation of many cities that take power into their own hands. It has nothing to do with Yegor Gaidar, who was the first post-Soviet Russian Prime Minister, responsible for freeing prices, which led to hyper-inflation.

Chapter 15. The Political Choice:

Democracy? Or a Return to the Terror of the Oprichnina?