Category: Communities of Practice

Russia XXI: The Logic of Suicide and Rebirth

Carnegie Moscow Center, 31 January 2013

The Russian system is beginning to decay. It cannot sustain the crumbling status quo, nor can it be certain of finding a new incarnation for itself. The only real questions are what stage of decay the system is in, whether the agony of its final demise has already started, and, if so, how long it will last.

To be sure, the system still has some resources, if not to revive itself, then to draw out its death, and that survival instinct could take a nasty, even bloody, form.

The Future of the Russian Matrix

• The system can still reproduce itself through regime change and the emergence of a new Leader, who will personify authoritarian rule.
• It can't be excluded that the forces who present themselves as “liberal,” declaring the need to “influence” the system from within and supporting “partial” changes, will try to highjack the protest movement and reestablish personalized power under liberal slogans.
• Most certainly, any new attempt to breathe life into the rotting Matrix will necessarily involve coercion in order to preserve its power.

Prospects for Change

• For the first time in its long history, Russian society is ready to free itself from the stifling embrace of the Russian system and of the political regime that is its engine, and to accept new rules of the game.
• It is true that only a minority is ready to publicly stand up for a state based on the rule of law. It is more important, however, that the idea of the new order is not rejected by the vast majority of Russians, and they are ready to accept it, if it is offered to them.
• At this point, however, the demoralized and corrupt Russian ruling elite is not ready for any change that will endanger its monopoly and its corporate and personal interests.
• For its part, the Russian opposition, still weak and fragmented, has so far failed to present society with a viable agenda for an exit solution.

However, there is no doubt that Russia's moment of truth is fast approaching. The question is whether the confluence of several specific factors will occur in the same time frame and in the not too distant future. These factors include:

• public pressure on the regime;
• the consolidation of the non-system opposition;
• the split of the ruling elite, with its pragmatic part joining the opposition;
• the power structures' reluctance to defend the old order; and
• the creation by the opposition of a “road map” for the transition to the new rules of the game that will include Constitutional reform and a new state structure.

Failure to reach these goals will deepen the rot and/or implosion of the system and the state.

Read rest of report.

Phi Beta Iota:  Carnegie has written a perfect self-description of the USA.  They will never admit this, and no one in a position of power is capable of actually connecting to the truth even if the US intelligence community were capable of presenting the truth —  as Daniel Ellsberg lectured Henry Kissinger:

The danger is, you’ll become like a moron. You’ll become incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much experience they have in their particular areas that may be much greater than yours” [because of your blind faith in the value of your narrow and often incorrect secret information].