Igor Shishkin: Algorithm for the reunification of the Russian nation: reunification as a response to the challenge of disintegration
At the beginning of the 90s, immediately after the collapse, quoting Bismarck’s words about the inexpediency and uselessness of dismembering Russia was quite popular: “Even the most favorable outcome of the war will never lead to the disintegration of Russia, which rests on millions of believers of Russian Greek denominations. These last, even if they are subsequently separated by international treaties, they will quickly reunite with each other as this separated mercury droplets find this path to each other. This is the indestructible state of the Russian nation "[1].
The words "Iron Chancellor" warmed the soul and inspired optimism. It took more than two decades, and no merger similar to particles of mercury has occurred. Russians are still a divided nation. Practically in all the new independent states, except for Belarus and Transdniestria, Russians are put in the position of second-class people. Ethnocratic regimes in the former "fraternal" republics are openly pursuing a policy of squeezing the Russian population, its discrimination and assimilation. Therefore, now the same words of Bismarck are often pronounced already as a sentence, as proof that the Russian people have lost their vital energy, their ability to protect their interests, their ability to reunite. The catastrophic scenarios of the Russian sunset, the departure of the Russian nation from the historical arena, became widespread.
Undoubtedly, the prediction of the future is a thankless and unreliable business. Even if it is based on the statements of prominent political figures. At the same time, it is quite legitimate with a high degree of probability to predict the behavior of a people in certain circumstances, knowing its reaction to similar situations in the past. In this connection, instead of guessing about the future, it is always better to turn to the past. Moreover, Russia is not the first to lose territory, and it’s not the first time that the Russian people find themselves in a divided position, and it’s not for the first time that Russians are discriminated against in excluded territories.
The closest example of how to overcome decay is the restoration of territorial integrity after the collapse of the Russian Empire. However, it must be admitted that in 90 in Russia there was no power capable of imposing its will on the post-Soviet space through confrontation with the whole world, through confrontation with the whole world, as the Bolsheviks did at the post-imperial stage. Now there is no need to argue: good or bad. It is a fact. The experience of the Bolsheviks is currently not applicable, and therefore is of purely historical interest. It should be noted that the absence of such power in modern Russia can not at all serve as evidence of the degeneration of the Russian nation, its loss of vital energy and the ability to reunite. By whom, and as the spokesmen of the Russian spirit, "Leninist Guardsmen" were definitely not.
However, our Bolshevik experience is not the only one. In 1772, a significant part of White Russia was liberated from the Polish yoke, usually referred to in historiography as the “First Section of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth”. For the Russian people and Russia, this event was no less fateful than the liberation of Little Russia in 1654, and its reunification with Great Russia. 240 years ago, for the first time after several centuries of separation, all three branches of the Russian nation - Belarusians, Great Russians and Little Russians - were reunited within the framework of a single Russian state.
It is the experience of the reunification of Belarus with Russia that most fully meets the realities of today. It is important both for understanding the prospects for the reunification of the Russian nation, and for understanding the destinies of the states in which in the territories torn away from Russia, ethnocratic regimes discriminate against Russians. The process of reunification of Belarus with Russia was inextricably linked with the process of dividing the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the loss of their statehood by the Polish people.
The sections of the Commonwealth remain the greatest tragedies of the Polish nation, its unhealing wounds. In the international arena, the image of a “victim country” and a “sufferer’s people” has firmly entrenched Poland and the Poles. The main accused is always Russian imperialism, although it goes to the Germans for complicity, and all the rest for non-interference and indifference to the fate of the proud, freedom-loving people. This usually avoids the question of responsibility for the sections of the Poles themselves.
S.M.Soloviev in the capital study “The History of the Fall of Poland” in the first place among the main causes of the Polish catastrophe put not the aggressive aspirations of neighbors, but the powerful Russian national liberation movement against the Polish yoke, the struggle of the Russian community for equality “under the religious banner” [2 ].
“In the 1653 year,” wrote Solovyov, “the ambassador of the Moscow Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Prince Boris Alexandrovich Repnin demanded that the Polish government should not allow Orthodox Russian people to come forward in faith and freedom in the former liberties. The Polish government did not agree to this demand, and the consequence was the retirement of Little Russia. After a hundred years with something, the ambassador of the Russian empress, also Prince Repnin, made the same demand, was refused, and the result was the first partition of Poland "[3].
Catherine II, barely taking the throne, considered it necessary for her to make the protection of the rights of compatriots abroad (at that time in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) one of the priorities in Russian foreign policy. And originally it was a question of human rights policy, and not about the restoration of the territorial integrity of the Russian state and the reunification of the Russian nation.
The reason for such concern for compatriots is obvious. The German princess, having come to power in Russia as a result of a palace coup and the murder of her husband, in order to preserve the crown and life itself had to gain the trust of his subjects, pursue a nationally-oriented, popular policy in all sections of Russian society. Full dependence on the top of the nobility (guard) inevitably made the internal politics of Catherine the Second narrow-class. The only policy for national policy was foreign policy, including the policy of protecting Orthodox co-religionists.
The main merit in involving the empress in the protection of Orthodox compatriots rightfully belongs to Bishop George Konissky. He and other hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church from the Western Russian lands conveyed to the new empress a cry for the help of the oppressed Orthodox population of the Commonwealth. “Christians from Christians are oppressed,” wrote Bishop George Konissky, “and the faithful from the faithful more than from the infidels are embittered. Our temples are shut up, where Christ is constantly praised; Yid synagogues are open, in which Christ is constantly cursed.” we are human legends in equal with the eternal law of God importance to have, and do not dare to interfere with the earth with the sky, for that we are called dissenters, heretics, apostates, and it is difficult to contradict the conscience for prisoners, for wounds, for the sword, on fire can be condemned "[4]. From Kiev Metropolitan Empress came the news that the Trembovl headman Joachim Pototsky forcibly forced four Orthodox churches to take away to union; The Pinsk bishop, George Bulgak, took fourteen churches to union, mutilated Hegumen Feofan Yavorsky. And such messages came to Catherine II in the set. Dozens of Orthodox communities appealed to her with pleas for help against Catholic arbitrariness.
Catherine could not disregard all this. "Her predecessor insulted the national feeling, despising everything Russian. Catherine was obliged to act vigorously in the national spirit, to restore the trampled honor of the people." 1 [5]. Therefore, he believed V.O. Klyuchevsky: "The dissident case of patronage of co-religionists and other dissidents, as it was then expressed, about their equal rights with Catholics was especially important for Catherine as the most popular" [6]. N.I.Kostomarov also pointed out that Catherine II couldn’t refuse to support the Orthodox in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: “The case of non-Catholics in Poland was not such that the Russian empress could leave him” [7]. In the name of her own interests, Catherine II subordinated the country's foreign policy to the interests of the Russian nation, and became Catherine the Great.
Ekaterina commissioned the Russian ambassador to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to take compatriots under her special patronage and to achieve their equalization in religious, political and economic rights with the Poles. Prince N.Repnin, who was sent to 1763 in Warsaw, was specifically instructed by the Empress "to protect our fellow believers in their rights, liberties, and the free exercise of God's service according to their rites, and especially not to prevent the seizure of churches and monasteries with them lands and other estates, but also to return, at the first opportunity, everything previously taken from them ”[8].
The task was almost impossible to solve. The Polish Catholic majority did not want to hear about the rejection of privileges and equality of rights with dissidents (as they then called all non-Catholics and non-Uniates of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). Even the leaders of the ruling ("pro-Russian") party, the Princes Czartoryski, openly declared that they would rather go to expel all dissidents from Poland, rather than agree to allow their equality with the Poles.
One of the leaders of the opposition, the Kraków Bishop of Soltyk, proclaimed: “I can’t allow the increase of dissident rights without a betrayal of the fatherland and the king. If I saw the doors to the Senate, the embassy hut, to the tribunals, then I’d block these doors with my own body — if they saw a place prepared for building a temple of another faith, then I would lay down on this place — if they had laid the cornerstone of the building on my head "[9].
Only five years later in 1768, under the colossal pressure of Russia, did the Polish Sejm be forced to recognize the equality of the Orthodox with the Catholics in the Polish Republic. At the same time, he especially stipulated the dominant position of the Catholic Church and the exclusive right of Catholics to the royal crown.
However, the Poles and in this form of equality with the Russians did not accept. For them, equality in rights with the Russians was tantamount to giving up all Polish liberties. The Catholic clergy, magnates and gentry formed the Bar Confederation, entered into an alliance with the Turks, and revolted. Poland flared.
As Catherine the Great wrote, the Poles "took the cross with one hand and signed an alliance with the Turks with the other. Why? Then to prevent a quarter of the Polish population from enjoying the rights of a citizen" [10]. According to the figurative definition of V.O. Klyuchevsky, the "Polish-gentry Pugachevshchina robbery of the oppressors for the right of oppression" [11] began.
The result is known. Exactly 240 years ago in 1772, a significant part of Belarus, thanks to the victories of the Russian weapons over the Turks and the masterly Confederates, freed from the Polish yoke and reunited with Great Russia and Little Russia in a single Russian state. At the same time, the first division of the Commonwealth took place.
The experience of the Poles did not teach anything. At the first opportunity (as it seemed to them), having enlisted by an alliance not with Turkey, but with Prussia, they "enjoyed the pleasure of kicking the lion without discerning that the lion was not only not dying, was not even sick" [12] . The Orthodox, still under the rule of the Commonwealth, were again legislatively reduced to the position of second-class citizens. Moreover, the Poles tried to split off the Orthodox parishes of Poland from the Russian Orthodox Church, to create an autocephalous Orthodox Church of the Commonwealth independent of Moscow. An attempt was made to use the Patriarch of Constantinople for this purpose. In the realities of the time, the division of the church could mean a much more serious and dangerous division of the Russian nation than the political division. “Poland began to threaten the division of Russia,” wrote S.M. Soloviev, “and Russia had to hasten a political union to prevent the church division” [13].
It happened that should have happened. The oppressors did not want to give up oppression. There was no way out - I had to completely rid them of the oppressed. The Russian nation is reunited. All the Russian lands, with the exception of Galicia, a century later re-united in one state.
For the opportunity to liberate compatriots from discrimination, for the reunification of the Russian people, Russia had to grant Prussia and Austria free hands over the Polish lands proper, which led to the disappearance of the Polish state for more than a hundred years.
Having gained independence in 1918, Poland, with the support of Britain and France, seized from West Russia seized by the civil war in Ukraine and Belarus from 1921. The Russian Minority and the Polish majority again became part of the Second Polish – Lithuanian Commonwealth. And it all happened again.
The Russians in Poland were immediately impressed. An active process of polonization began, a change in the ethnic and demographic balance in the occupied Russian territories. For twenty years, only three hundred thousand Poles, the so-called "osadnik", were resettled to Western Belarus with the allocation of large land plots. If before the occupation in Western Belarus there were 400 Belarusian schools, 2 teachers' seminaries and 5 gymnasiums, by the 1939, they were all converted to Polish. Two-thirds of the Orthodox churches turned into churches. In 1938, the President of Poland signed a special decree proclaiming that Polish policy towards Orthodoxy must "consistently lead to a leveling of Russian influence in the Orthodox Church and thereby speed up the process of polishing among the so-called Belarusians" [14]. Poland pursued a similar policy in Western Ukraine.
However, if in similar circumstances the Poles behaved like their ancestors a century and a half ago, the Russians did not change either. In the occupied lands, despite the repressions of the Polish authorities, Ukrainians and Belarusians do not make a foothold, and from year to year they are more and more actively defending their rights. Russia, now called the USSR, is rapidly recovering after the collapse of the empire and the civil war. Unfortunately, the Second Commonwealth of the Lion was again alive. 17 September 1939 city of the Red Army undertook the liberation campaign. The oppressors were again freed from the oppressed, only now in all Russian territories, including Galicia. So Stalin continued the work of Catherine the Great and concluded the process of collecting Russian lands, begun by Ivan Kalita.
Undoubtedly, in contrast to the time of Catherine II, in 1939, the discrimination of compatriots was not the main cause of the collapse of the Polish state. At the same time, it cannot be denied that this factor had a significant impact on the motivation of people both in the USSR and in the occupied territories. The local Belarusian and Ukrainian population saw the liberator from the Polish oppression in the Red Army, and the Soviet authorities found it necessary to call the campaign of the Red Army “Liberation”.
As at the end of the XVIII century. the liberation of Ukrainians and Belarusians from the Polish yoke required the granting of free hands to the Germans on ethnically Polish lands. The Polish state again ceased to exist - the so-called "The Fourth Partition of Poland" was accomplished.
The undoubted relationship of the reunification of the Russian people with the death of the Polish state in the XVIII and XX centuries. led to the fact that Russia has become decided to declare a participant and even the main culprit of the divisions of Poland. This accusation, as a matter of course, has firmly entered the public consciousness of the West, and not only of the West. It is significant that at the official level, both in the Russian Federation and in Belarus and in Ukraine, they chose not to notice the 70 anniversary of the Liberation Campaign, and the 240 anniversary of the reunification of Belarus with Russia, “shamefully”.
However, for all the seemingly obvious accusations, they have nothing to do with Russia. Catherine II clearly and clearly expressed the essence of the events - “not a single inch of the land of the“ ancient ”, she didn’t take a real Poland and didn’t want to acquire ... Russia ... the lands inhabited by Poles are not needed ... Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus are Russians land or inhabited by Russians "[15]. This character of the policy of Russia, N.I.Kostomarov emphasized in the monograph "The Last Years of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" stipulated that "the acquisition of Russian provinces from Poland by Catherine was perhaps the most just thing" [16]. The modern Russian explorer, OB Nemensky, also writes about this: "The Russian eagle connecting the two parts of the map with the lands of Western Russia was depicted on a commemorative medal on the occasion of the sections, and above it was written" Rejected back. " It is important to emphasize: Russia in all three sections did not receive a single inch of the Polish land itself, did not cross the ethnographic border of Poland (the author’s singular - I.Sh.). The ideology of Russian participation in the sections was precisely the reunification of the previously single - Russian Earth "[17].
The liberation campaign of the Red Army 1939 of the year had the character of the restoration of territorial integrity and national unity - only the original Russian lands were attached to the Soviet Union. Therefore, as M.I. Meltyukhov noted in the monograph "Soviet-Polish Wars", even in the West at that time, "many believed that the USSR did not participate in the division of Poland, since the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus were not Polish territories, and the problem the restoration of Poland was associated only with Germany. Accordingly, England and France advised the Polish government in emigration not to declare war on the USSR "[18].
In this regard, there is every reason to assert that the accusations of Russia in the sections of Poland are absolutely not true. In the XVIII century. Poland was divided between Prussia and Austria, and in the XX century. Germany - between the Reich and the Governor-General. Russia did not share Poland. Russia returned its. The return of one’s own, by definition, cannot be a section of someone else’s.
However, the non-participation of Russia in the divisions of Poland does not mean at all that the liquidation of Polish statehood was not directly connected and even caused by Russian policies aimed at protecting the rights of compatriots and restoring territorial integrity. Russia and in the XVIII and XX centuries. in order to achieve its goals, it provided the Germans with free hand in the Polish territories proper and thereby predetermined the fate of the Polish state. It was for this that Catherine II accused VO Klyuchevsky: "It was necessary to reunite Western Russia; instead they divided Poland. Obviously, these are essentially different acts — the first was demanded by the vital interest of the Russian people; the second was a matter of international violence. History indicated [Catherine] to return from Poland, what was behind her Russian, but did not inspire her to share Poland with the Germans. The mind of popular life demanded to save Western Russia from polio, and only cabinet politics could give Poland a numbness "[19]. However, are such charges fair? Could Catherine the Second save the oppressors from the oppressed without the participation of Austria and Prussia?
The reunification of the Russian nation and the return of the alienated Western Russian lands obviously should have strengthened Russia. But any strengthening of Russia in the West has always been considered a direct challenge to its own security. What are the reasons for this attitude and how justified is it - a separate topic. The main thing is that this is a given. Significantly, in 1791, one of the greatest English prime ministers, Pitt the Younger, was ready to declare war on Russia, introduce 35 battleships into the Baltic Sea, and even give Prussia for participating in a Russian expedition not belonging to England Danzig. And all just so that, as his opponents in the House of Commons said, not to allow Russia to get a piece of the steppe between the Bug and the Dniester as a result of a victorious war with Turkey. Not far behind the UK and France, also separated from the borders of Russia by thousands of kilometers. As the French historian Albert Vandal noted in his study “The Break of the Franco-Russian Union”, it was largely the royal French’s foreign policy that determined the idea of Napoleon “to drive Russia into Asia, whose invasion of the great powers upset the old political system of Europe wise policy of our [French] kings and ministers. Louis XV during almost his entire reign, at times Louis XVI and their most famous advisers considered it necessary to put a limit to the Russian time. I dreamed arrange dam firmly set on its feet and is closely related to each other in Sweden, Poland and Turkey "[21]. Austria and Prussia reacted no less, if not more, to the strengthening of Russia.
Neither of which is isolated, only between Russia and Poland, the solution of the West Russian question was out of the question. Such an attempt would inevitably lead the country into a war with a coalition of European powers. By the way, out of the conviction that “Europe will protect us,” and Poles were confident that the Russian population could be oppressed with impunity and ignored all the demands of Russia for Orthodox equality. Shortly before the death of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Polish Vice-Chancellor Borch used to convince those who doubt the security of the national policy pursued by the republic: “Russia has nothing to fear; although it won the Turks in this campaign, it will, of course, be defeated in the future; yes, if it hadn’t happened then all of Europe, in order to prevent the strengthening of Russia, will stand up for Poland, especially Austria, which, truly, will not look with folded hands on the victories of the Russians over the Turks and will stand up for Poland (I have singled out I.Sh.) "[20].
The Polish authorities did not take into account only one thing: the great powers have no eternal enemies, there are only eternal interests. Frederick the Great - the main ideologue and practice of dividing Poland - really considered Russia a strategic opponent of Prussia and all of Europe. But in the specific conditions of the second half of the XVIII century. the interests of his kingdom demanded, in the first place, the annexation of West Prussia, Pomerania, Danzig, Thorn and other cities and lands belonging to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Without an alliance with Russia, this was impossible to achieve. Austria was no less interested in Polish lands at that time. In order to achieve their goals, the two German states were ready to take into account the interests of Russia and put up with its inevitable strengthening as a result of the return of the Russian territories torn away by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Thus, the aggressive policy of Prussia and Austria that joined it opened up a window of opportunity for Russia to solve the Western Russian question without a bloody war with the great European powers. Austria and Prussia were allied with Russia, and France and England did not consider it possible to counteract their joint actions (despite all the appeals of the Poles).
Of course, for the liberation of co-religionists and the return of the originally Russian territories they had to close their eyes to the liquidation of Poland by the Germans. It was a heavy reunion fee. And the matter is not at all in the fate of Poland. Why Catherine the Great had to take into account the interests of Poland, when the latter did not want to take into account the interests of Russia and Russian compatriots? The empress was quite rightly worried only by the seizure by Austria of the Russian voivodship of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (present-day Galicia), which she was not able to exchange for the conquered Turkish lands.
For Russia, the burden of reunification was different: the buffer between Russia and the Germans disappeared. Austria and Prussia were directly on the Russian borders. But the alternative to this would be only the rejection of reunification. The third was not given. The variant of the war with Poland, Prussia and Austria, possibly supported by England, for the preservation of Poland in its ethnographic borders lies beyond the limits of all logic. Politics is the art of the possible. And Catherine the Great accomplished the almost impossible: without spilling the seas of Russian blood, she reunited the Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians in the Russian state, and liberated her co-religionists from the Polish yoke. Paying for this heavy, but necessary price.
At the beginning of the XX century. The geopolitical situation is almost completely repeated. As in the XVIII century. Polish authorities carried out a frankly anti-Russian policy in the occupied territories. There was no way to solve the problem peacefully: the ethnocratic regime, confident in the support of the West, flatly refused to hold plebiscites on the occupied lands. Military way to return the Western Belarus and the Western Ukraine of the USSR also could not. This would lead to war with virtually all of Europe.
However, in 1939, the Third Reich at the first stage of the unfolding battle with Great Britain for world domination proved vital neutrality of the Soviet Union. Stalin, like Catherine II, took full advantage of the window of opportunity that opened. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ensured Germany’s non-interference in post-imperial affairs and the near-peaceful reunification of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine with Soviet Russia. At the same time, the same Pact ensured freedom of action for the Germans against Poland and predetermined its division. But after Stalin’s aggression, Stalin had even less reasons to put the interests of Poland above the interests of compatriots and the security of the Soviet state than of Catherine the Great. In 1939, the alternative to reunification was only the transfer of Belarusians and Ukrainians in Western Russian lands from Polish to German occupation, and providing Wehrmacht with advantageous positions for an attack on the USSR. To go on such a Soviet Union could not. The option of a war with Germany for the freedom and territorial integrity of Poland, including the occupied Russian lands, is pointless and considered.
The disappearance of the Polish state was the Polish payment for anti-Russian and anti-Soviet policies. For this policy, both in relation to the Russian community, and in relation to the USSR, no one except the Poles is responsible. They chose it themselves.
It should be noted that in the future, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, guided by their eternal interests, recalled the Curzon line and the fact that they always stood for Poland in its ethnographic borders, without Western Belarus and Western Ukraine.
The experience of reunification and modernity
As we can see from the example of the divisions of Poland, the answer to the discrimination of Russians in territories alienated from Russia was the development of events according to the same algorithm:
- the Russian community did not resign, did not emigrate and did not assimilate, it maintained national identity and fought for equality;
- the Russian state inevitably became involved in the struggle for the rights of compatriots;
- the ethnocratic regime, relying on the support of the West, did not go to the establishment of equality of Russians with the titular nation;
- the risk of collision with the West did not allow the Russian state to force the ethnocratic regime to respect the rights of compatriots;
- the need of one or several great powers, for the sake of vital interests for themselves, to support Russia opened up a “window of opportunity” for Russian policy in the field of protecting the rights of compatriots;
- The result was a radical resolution of the problem, the reunification of the Russian nation and the elimination of not only the ethnocratic regime, but also the state he headed.
So it was in the XVIII century and in the XX century. There is every reason to believe that this will happen in the XXI century.
The catastrophe of 90's Russian nation survived. There has been, albeit a slow but steady rise in her vitality, the growth of Russian national self-awareness. Unfortunately for the post-Soviet ethnocracies, the lion did not die again. Undoubtedly, the Russian nation has many extremely dangerous problems. There is no need to turn a blind eye to this reality. But they were in the 20 and 30-s. That did not prevent either the reunification or the Victory flag over the Reichstag to become a reality.
Russians in the post-Soviet space are gradually recovering from the shock of the collapse of the USSR. After more than twenty years, it can be stated that neither mass exodus, nor assimilation, nor the collapse of Russian self-consciousness in the age-old Russian territories that became part of the new independent states, did not happen. Even in Ukraine, after nearly a hundred years of violent de-Russification and the propaganda of "Ukrainian nationalism" that was just frantic in recent decades, the majority of the population in all regions (except the West), in all age groups and all types of settlements support the idea of Ukraine joining the Union of Belarus and Russia. As evidenced by the results of a large-scale sociological research conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 2011, [21]. And this is with excellent knowledge of the citizens of Ukraine about the virtual nature of the Union State. Such a result speaks of strength and resilience in Ukraine of an all-Russian national identity.
The struggle of Russians for their rights also begins to unfold. In a referendum in Latvia 2012, for the first time in the post-Soviet period, Russians unitedly opposed the policy of ethnic discrimination. Thus, they unequivocally stated that they no longer intend to put up with the situation of second-class citizens, the "lower economic class" in the Latvian state. As they do not intend to emigrate or assimilate. Before that, there were mass unrest of Russians and Russian-cultural Estonia in defense of the Bronze Soldier. After several years of delay, the Party of Regions in Ukraine was forced to adopt, although defective, but still slightly protecting the rights of Russians, a law on language. The end of 2012 brought messages about the intensification of the struggle of Russians for equality in the second most important city of Moldova - Balti. All these are the first signs. They do not make spring, but they allow judging the tendency.
At the same time, the process of involving the Russian state in protecting the rights of compatriots begins. Before the presidential election in the program article "Russia and the Changing World", Vladimir Putin emphasized: "We will most decisively ensure that the Latvian and Estonian authorities implement the numerous recommendations of authoritative international organizations regarding the observance of generally accepted rights of national minorities. With the existence of the shameful status of" non-citizens "it is impossible to put up. Yes, and how can you put up with the fact that every sixth Latvian resident and every thirteenth resident of Estonia as" non-citizens "are deprived of fundamental political rights, election and socio-economic rights, the ability to freely use the Russian language "[22].
Of course, in the Russian ruling class there are quite powerful forces that do not care about the needs and interests of the Russian nation, who consider it appropriate for themselves to distance themselves from them. It is enough to recall the statement by Dmitry Medvedev that discrimination against the Russian population in Latvia is an internal affair of the Latvian state. The then President of Russia (and her current prime minister) answered the journalist who asked him a question about the situation of compatriots in Latvia: “I think that these questions, in fact, need to be asked to our colleagues, because we are talking about a situation that in Latvia and not in Russia "[23].
With all his well-known adherence to liberal values and the underlined respect for the norms of law, Dmitry Medvedev, as soon as we started talking about Russian rights, immediately forgot the fundamental principle of liberalism, and of all modern international law - respect for human rights is not an internal affair of the state.
It is significant that the head of Rossotrudnichestvo, i.e. Konstantin Kosachev, a man who opposes the equalization of the Russian language in his rights with the languages of the titular nations in the former Soviet republics, is the main defender of compatriots and the Russian language in the post-Soviet space. "Yes, there is a problem of the Russian language, it is clear that a significant part of the population of Ukraine continues to use it, considering it to be native. But it is also obvious that if you give this language the same powers and freedoms as Ukrainian, then Ukrainian could suffer from this, that it would be completely wrong for the fate of statehood, the sovereignty of Ukraine "[24], these words are not representative of the Bandera" Freedom, "the current head of Rossotrudnichestvo uttered them.
There are many examples of the frank surrender of the interests of Russian compatriots to the Russian ruling class. But similar examples were, alas, quite a few in the 18th and 20th centuries. Therefore, they do not at all cancel the obvious and undoubted fact that the process of involving the Russian state in the struggle for the rights of Russians in the post-Soviet space is beginning.
If the fate of the Russian nation depended on the good or evil will of specific rulers or high-ranking officials, there would have been no Russians for a long time.
It is indicative of the fact that in order to win the presidential elections, the words on the protection of the rights of compatriots now consider it necessary to pronounce. Just as it became necessary to raise the issue of the needs of the Russian nation, and its role in the Russian state. Up to a completely “seditious” by the standards of Vladimir Putin’s recent past statement: “The Russian people are state-forming - in fact of the existence of Russia” [25].
If in 90-s. Russian politicians allowed themselves to openly show contempt for everything Russian, now only marginals do so. Now talk about Russian interests - a sign of political respectability. Accordingly, soon it will be necessary to reckon with Russian interests. Not far off is the time when they will be guided. The color of time is changing before our eyes.
Russian and in the XXI century. stayed Russian. Therefore, the events in the seized territories and in Russia itself in response to the discrimination of Russians begin to develop according to the algorithm that has been worked out for centuries.
The nature of ethnocratic regimes has not changed in the 21st century. They do not even want to hear about the equality of Russians with the titular nation. They are also absolutely convinced that support from the West, especially membership in NATO, is a guarantee of unpunished discrimination against Russians.
Now the West, indeed, in the name of weakening Russia, as its geopolitical rival, fully supports the discrimination of Russians by post-Soviet ethnocracies. But the geopolitical picture of the world is changing rapidly. The unipolar world did not take place. The United States failed to establish its dominion over the world. For our topic it is completely unimportant who will challenge the USA in the struggle for leadership. Will it be Germany, if it manages to bend the European Union under itself, or China is not important. It is important that the balance of forces in the world begins to change dramatically. Under these conditions, the leading players will have to, such is the power of things, in order to support Russia of their own eternal interests, to reckon with Russian interests. The window of opportunity reopens. And no one will remember the ethnocratic regimes and the states headed by them.
Therefore, there is every reason to say that the reunification of the Russian nation is inevitable. Of course, it will not happen by itself, "according to the command of the dictates." It is impossible to predict that the current or next president of Russia will consider it good for himself to be the spokesman for the interests of the Russian people. Whether or not he will be able to use the window of opportunity and play the same role in the history of the Russian nation as Catherine the Great and Stalin. But, by and large, this is not the problem of the nation, but the problem of the future of a particular politician. The main thing is different. As long as the Russians remain Russians (there is no reason to say otherwise), the answer to the challenge of disintegration will always be the reunification of the Russian nation. There is no other way. Bismarck understood that perfectly.
1. Bismarck O. Letter to the Ambassador in Vienna to Prince Henry VII Flight 03.05.1888.
2. Solovyov S.M. Works in 18 book. Prince Xvi. M., 1998. - C.84.
3. Ibid. C.97
4. Quoted by Solovyov S.M. CM. Works in 18 book. Prince Xvi. M., 1998. - S. 102.
5. Klyuchevsky V.O. Writings The 9 T.T.5. - M., 1989. - C.34.
6. Ibid. C.48.
7. Quoted by: Arzhakova L.M. The dissident question and the fall of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (pre-revolutionary Russian historiography of the problem) // Petersburg Slavic and Balkan Studies. - 2008, No. 1 (3). C.36.
8. Solovyov S.M. The history of Russia since ancient times. In 15 pr. Kn.XIII .. M., 1965. - C.258-259.
9. Solovyov S.M. Works: in 18 book. Book XIV. M., 1998. - C.164.
10. Solovyov S.M. Works: in 18 book. Book XIV. M., 1998. - C.337.
11. Klyuchevsky V.O. Writings The 9 T.T.5. - M., 1989. - C.50.
12. Solovyov S.M. Works in 18 book. Prince Xvi. M., 1998. - C.233.
13. Ibid. C.252.
14. Nikolai Malishevsky: How Belarusians lived in the "Polish Paradise". - http://regnum.ru/news/polit/1424781.html.
15. Quoted by: Tarle E.V. Catherine II and her diplomacy. CH.1. M., 1945. - C.19-20.
16. Quoted by: Arzhakova L.M. The dissident question and the fall of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (pre-revolutionary Russian historiography of the problem) // Petersburg Slavic and Balkan Studies. - 2008, No. 1 (3). C.36.
17. Nemensky OB Russia has never participated in the divisions of Poland. - www.regnum.ru/news/1608090.html
18. Meltyukhov M.I. Soviet-Polish wars. Military-political confrontation 1918 - 1939 - M .: Veche, 2001. - C.356.
19. Klyuchevsky V.O. Writings The 9 T.T.5. - M., 1989. - C.55-60.
20. Solovyov S.M. Works: in 18 book. Book XIV. M., 1998. - C.355.
21. Vandal A. The gap of the Franco-Russian Union. - http://lib.rus.ec/b/169049/read
22. Shulga N. Does Ukraine want to be with Russia? - 2000 Weekly No 24 (562) 17 - 23 June 2011
23. http://mn.ru/politics/20120227/312306749.html.
24. http: //president.rf/transcripts/9855.
25. http://www.nr2.ru/kiev/323821.html.
26. http://www.ng.ru/politics/2012-01-23/1_national.html.
Information