Russia’s official name is “the Russian Federation.” But today, this country is not really a federation at all. Under President Vladimir Putin, with his ideology of the “vertical of power,” it has become a unitary, even hypercentralized state.
Some commentators have gone so far as to call Russia a failed state. It is narrower but equally accurate to say that it is a failed federation.
The history of Russian federalism goes back over 100 years. After the fall of the czar in 1917, the Constituent Assembly declared Russia a “democratic federative republic.” Subsequently, when the Bolsheviks dispersed the multiparty Constituent Assembly, they retained the principle of federalism in the Soviet state.
To be sure, they did not create any valid federation. All regions of the former empire were centrally ruled by the Communist Party from the Kremlin in Moscow. The Communists used federalist slogans, such as “the union of fraternal republics,” only as a tool for foreign policy expansion. The Soviet republics did not possess any real self-government until the era of Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika.
Post-Soviet Russia also officially retained the principle of federalism. But again, an acting federation never really emerged. In 1992, President Boris Yeltsin proposed that Russia’s regions should join together in what is known as the Federation Treaty, but this document was asymmetric and unequal. The national republics, whose total population comprises only 18% of the federation’s population, received limited sovereignty and more economic powers than most Russian-speaking regions. In 1993, residents of St. Petersburg and the Urals voted to give their regions the status of republics, but Yeltsin did not recognize these referendums.
The revival of the Russian imperial tradition had already begun under Yeltsin. For example, Chechnya did not sign the Federation Treaty in 1992 — that is to say, de jure, this republic was not part of Russia at that point. Nevertheless, in 1995 Yeltsin launched a war against it under the slogan of “restoring the territorial integrity of Russia.” The paradox is that today’s Chechnya, under Ramzan Kadyrov, remained the only Russian region with partial autonomy. (Its loyalty to the Kremlin is bought with gigantic subsidies at the expense of all other regions.)
The regional policy of Putin does not contradict Yeltsin’s but is rather its radicalized continuation. Putin has repeatedly stated that his ideal is a unitary, centralized state. The name “federation” is used only as a foreign policy instrument, as in the Stalin era. This “inside-out federalism” is manifested, for example, in the fact that the Kremlin demands “federalization” or subordination from Ukraine while any vestigates of federation within its own country has been destroyed.
Particularly cynical was the adoption in 2014, simultaneously with the annexation of Crimea, of a law establishing punishment for “calls to violate the territorial integrity of Russia.” According to this law, any resident of Russia who claims that Crimea belongs to Ukraine may be prosecuted as a “separatist.” At the same time, self-determination referendums are strictly forbidden to any region within Russia. Even academic discussions on expanding regional powers have become risky.
Today in Russia, there are 85 subjects of the federation, of which only 22 are national republics. But the present republics no longer possess any sovereignty. Their powers do not differ from the majority of Russian-speaking regions. The languages of these republics are actually deprived of the state status that they enjoyed in the 1990s.
This situation cannot be called regional equality — it is rather equality in rightlessness. The Kremlin is trying to de-personalize all regions and single-handedly manage a gigantic territory from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean.
Formally, Russian jurisdictions elect governors. In practice, however, Putin appoints the governors. Opposition candidates do not have the opportunity to run because of the mass of legal restrictions. Most of the taxes from the regions go to Moscow, and companies in Moscow manage regional resources. Those who oppose this injustice are brutally repressed. For example, in 2020, Airat Dilmukhametov was sentenced to nine years in prison for publishing in favor of a new federation treaty in Russia.
Also last year, Sergei Furgal, the governor of the Khabarovsk region, was arrested. He had been a rare exception. He managed to defeat a Kremlin candidate in elections, then saw his approval rating in the region rise above Putin’s. The Kremlin could not forgive him for this.
After his arrest, mass demonstrations began in that Far Eastern region under the Khabarovsk regional flag. This followed a pattern: Most mass protests in Russia in recent years have taken place in regions other than Moscow, whether in the northern Arkhangelsk or the southern Republic of Ingushetia.
Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the Russian State Duma, recently criticized the United States for its Electoral College system of elections. But that system, for all its complexity, is an instrument of true federalism because it reflects the opinion of inhabitants of even the smallest states.
And it looks ridiculous when a Russian official calls out the U.S. for its democracy — since Putin has been the de facto president for more than 20 years and recently signed a law allowing himself to be elected for two more six-year terms. The Russian government is constantly discussing projects of “consolidation of regions,” which it intends to implement centrally without taking into account the opinion of local residents.
Of course, there is no single world standard for a federation. But U.S. politicians representing the world’s first true federation stand on firm ground to require Kremlin officials to adhere to the basic principles of federalism. Russia calls itself a federation. Only a “re-federalization” of Russia can overcome the Kremlin’s neo-imperial propaganda and its threats to the rest of the civilized world.
Vadim Shtepa is editor-in-chief of the independent webzine Region.Expert, which publishes in Estonia due to censorship restrictions within the Russian Federation.
