Yabloko Deputy Chairman writes on why the Russian authorities prefer not to recall the text of the Declaration of the State Sovereignty adopted on June 12, which became Russia Day

Boris Vishnevsky’s blog post, 12.06.2023

Photo by Dmitry Dukhanin / Kommersant

Celebrating today’s holiday – Russia Day – the top officials make pompous statements, but try not to recall the document with the adoption of which is associated with this day: 33 years ago, on June 12, 1990, the Congress of People’s Deputies of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) adopted the Declaration of the State Sovereignty of the RSFSR by 907 votes against 13 (nine abstained), And it is clear why: it strikingly clashes with their present policies.

The Declaration proclaimed “respect for the sovereign rights of all the peoples that make up the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

It declared a resolve “to create a democratic law-governed state within the renewed USSR”.

It ran that the RSFSR was “a sovereign state created historically by the peoples combined therein”.

That the state sovereignty of the RSFSR was “proclaimed in the name of the highest goals — ensuring that every person enjoys an inalienable right to a life of dignity, free development and use of a native tongue, and each people has a right to self-determination in the national-state and national-cultural forms which they choose”.

That RSFSR “shall recognise and respect the sovereign rights of the Union Republics and the USSR” and “shall retain the right of free secession from the USSR in the procedure established by the Treaty of the Union and legislation based thereon”.

That RSFSR “shall guarantee to all citizens and stateless persons residing on the territory of the RSFSR the rights and freedoms provided for by the RSFSR Constitution, USSR Constitution, and universally recognised norms of international law”.

The RSFSR “shall guarantee to all citizens, political parties, public organisations, mass movements, and religious organisations functioning with the framework of the RSFSR Constitution equal legal possibilities to participate in the administration of state and public affairs”.

That “the separation of the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branches of power shall be a major principle of the functioning of the RSFSR as a law-governed state”.

And that the RSFSR declares its adherence to universally recognised principles of international law and readiness to live in peace and harmony with all countries and peoples, take all measures not to permit confrontations in international, inter-republic, and inter-ethinic relations”.

Virtually every item sounds today like a bitter mockery of reality: the “respect for sovereign rights”, “democratic rule of law”, “ensuring every people the right to self-determination”, “guarantees of rights and freedoms”, “equal opportunities to participate in governance”, and “adherence to universally recognised principles of international law and readiness to live in peace”…

It is important, that the Declaration does not contain a word about any supposedly “historical rights” to “historical territories”, claims to neighbours, a “hostile West” and other rhetoric of a “besieged fortress”.

The intentions of 33 years ago are strikingly at odds with reality, except for one thing: independence from the USSR, which sank into oblivion 18 months later.

They are at odds for many reasons, and one of them is that they relied on leaders, not institutions, and abandoned democracy “for the sake of reforms”, believing that the end justifies the means.

All this resulted in authoritarianism turning into totalitarianism, corruption, state lies, gross revanchism as an undeclared state ideology, destruction of civil liberties, criminalisation of the dissent, and much more – which they sincerely wished to get rid of then.

Therefore, almost everything said then is relevant today.

We must start over without repeating the mistakes.

BORIS VISHNEVSKY

is Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko Party, member of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee and Bureau, and an MP of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg