The issue of Russia’s sovereignty has recently come into the foreground of the country’s national politics. This is a surprising development, which requires explanation and analysis. The Russian leadership, despite its earlier pronouncement that it had considerably strengthened Russia and its international positions over the last few years, as well as averted the threat of the country’s disintegration and international isolation, nevertheless introduced the sovereignty issue.

Another factor making this move surprising is that Russia’s major political forces, including those from the political opposition, have never doubted the sovereignty of the Russian Federation – nor has any entity abroad. Thus, why the sudden fears concerning the future of Russia’s sovereignty? Alternatively, does it all mean something entirely different?

The first time the Russian president spoke about external threats to Russia’s integrity and independence arose when terrorists seized a secondary school in Beslan in September 2004. In his address to the nation, the head of state mentioned several powerful external forces that were seeking to weaken and even dismember Russia. Although he did not name those forces, his emphasis on the possibility of an external threat was very strong.

Russian sovereignty became an even more acute issue following Victor Yushchenko’s victory in Ukraine’s presidential elections. Many official commentators and those close to the Kremlin explained the defeat of Moscow-supported Victor Yanukovich by external (that is, Western) interference, and called for preventing such developments in Russia. The head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Nikolai Patrushev, addressed the State Duma, warning the legislature about the situation and naming international organizations and foundations, which he said, organize ‘colored’ revolutions. The Kremlin interpreted the developments in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan in the same manner.

In his April 25, 2005 address to the Federal Assembly, Vladimir Putin stated that the sovereignty issue was brought to life by active discussions about “freedom and democracy” in Russian society and abroad. The president described the discussions as simulated, adding that they exaggerated the difficulties faced by the democratic processes in contemporary Russia. At the same time, he said Russia has a right to establish the pace and form of its move toward democracy. The address contained a hidden reaction to the developments in Ukraine. The president said: “Democratic procedures should not develop at the cost of law and order, at the cost of stability, achieved with so much difficulty, or the consistent implementation of the chosen economic line. Here is the independent nature of the democratic path we have chosen. And this is why we will keep moving forward, taking into account our own internal circumstances and certainly relying on the law, on constitutional guarantees.”

According to the president, “Russia will decide itself how it can implement the principles of freedom and democracy, taking into account its historical, geopolitical and other specificities. As a sovereign state, Russia can and will independently establish for itself the timeframe and conditions for moving along this path.” The head of state warned all political forces against resorting to “unlawful methods.” The president said, “The state will react to them in a lawful and tough way.”

The chief of the presidential staff, Dmitry Medvedev, said in an interview with Expert magazine in April 2005 that the main and only task of the Russian state and the political elite is “the preservation of effective statehood within the existing borders.” He described “the destabilization of public life, caused by acts of terror and gross economic mistakes, taking place amidst an all-out struggle between the elites” as the primary threat to Russia. Several months later, he went even further, suggesting that the threat to the state’s stability might result from general elections. Simultaneously, Russia’s leadership began to make a connection between the preservation of state sovereignty and the preservation of state control; this includes Russia’s control over the major industries – from extraction and pipelines to communications and banks.

In a recent speech, one of the Kremlin’s main ideologists, Vladislav Surkov, elaborated on a new concept for state power – the concept of “sovereign democracy.” Here are its main elements.

The globalization processes have made the concept of national (state) sovereignty partially outdated. Yet, nation-states continue to play a very important role, for example, in preserving national cultures or combating terrorism. The “national elite” must lead the state (as opposed to the “offshore aristocracy” which actually runs the country from abroad). Domestic capital or the state must dominate the strategic industries, as Russia’s “sovereign democracy” will face bitter competition from other states. Russia attaches great significance to historical memory and, most importantly, concerning its imperial greatness. This fact makes it impossible for Russia to equate itself with small European nations. Russia must move toward democracy cautiously, under permanent control by the authorities, in order to prevent any destructive and unqualified forces from coming to power. (“We are checking [democracy] not artificially, as many think,” stated Vladislav Surkov. “We are simply afraid.”) Democracy will continue to strengthen as society objectively prepares for it. Presently, however, there is no such readiness (“The democracy issue does not only mean painting democratic institutions, but the people must also be ripe enough to reach such a culture.”)

Surkov links the haste with which democracy has been developing in Russia with the possible exacerbation of certain threats. Among them, he named not only terrorism, but also the loss of Russia’s economic competitiveness and economic independence. He then cited the country’s breakup, the chaos of a parliamentary republic caused by the low culture of political coalitions and agreements, and the coming to power of religious radicals in individual regions of the Russian Federation.

Vitaly Tretyakov, a well-known pro-Kremlin analyst, writing in a series of articles published in the Rossiiskaya Gazeta in June 2005, summed up the preliminary results of this intriguing discussion. He named Russia’s loss of its international and even domestic sovereignty among the four main threats faced by the country today (along with the threats of the country’s breakup or cession of its territories, extinction, and moral, legal and state degradation).

Tretyakov draws a simple conclusion – the country needs, among other things, a leader who will effectively counter these threats. For now, there is no other candidate in sight, apart from Vladimir Putin, who could at least remotely fit that description. This means that Putin’s power must extend beyond 2008. Otherwise, Tretyakov warns, Russia would simply “not survive!”

Therefore, all these problems intertwine in a tight knot. Moscow’s primary task is maintaining the country’s integrity and sovereignty, which requires promptly averting threat against national sovereignty. The main source of these dangers is possible public protests, including those taking place in the form of democratic procedures (for example, mass disorders or elections). Of course, democracy is the best form of statehood for Russia. There are doubts, however, that Russian society is “ripe” for such a move; democracy may be a source of various dangers. Therefore, preserving the country’s sovereignty requires a special Russian model for democracy known as “sovereign democracy,” the essence of which calls for government supervision over the methods and rates of democratic institutions and procedures being introduced. In other words, “sovereign democracy” is nothing more than democracy under the authorities’ supervision. Finally, if there is no other candidate who could reliably preserve the country’s sovereignty, the task of preserving state sovereignty requires “imperatively” (Tretyakov) preserving the incumbent authorities.

Here we see a bitter clash between two concepts and value paradigms, both of which are equally dear to the heart of every patriot and citizen. One of them is freedom and independence of Russia, or its state sovereignty. The other is political and civil freedoms of the Russian people, or Russian democracy. Inconceivably, these concepts have come to be in direct opposition to each other! Tretyakov writes unambiguously that in order to solve the problems of strengthening the state, ensuring the citizens’ safety, and establishing order in the country, the president “has worked out and actually implemented a policy that calls for selective limitations on some civil rights and freedoms.” Tretyakov likens this policy to “freezing to some extent public and political democracy.”

Thus, Russia has had no other way for strengthening the state and its sovereignty than by “freezing to some extent democracy.” On the contrary, “rampant democracy,” like that experienced by Russia in the 1990s, poses a direct threat to Russia’s existence, not to mention its sovereignty!

HOW DOES DEMOCRACY CORRESPOND WITH SOVEREIGNTY?

Can democracy really threaten the sovereignty of a state? Moreover, can the task of saving sovereignty justify limitations on democracy?

The French jurist Jean Bodin introduced the notion of sovereignty into political and legal thought with a work entitled Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576).

In Book I, Bodin gave his famous definition of a state as “the rightly ordered government of a number of families, and of those things which are their common concern, by a sovereign power.”

All elements of Bodin’s definition are important. “Right ordering” emphasizes the law-based nature of the state. (Bodin distinguishes a state from a band of pirates or robbers, denying them the right to proclaim themselves a state.) “Government” means “non-possession” through the right of ownership; this distinguishes a rule-of-law state from despotisms and states based on inheritance. Sovereigns rule, as well as own everything, including people in their states. Government limits the state’s ability to interfere in the property and private affairs of the subjects, thus establishing the right to private life and ownership.

Finally, Bodin defines “sovereignty” as “absolute and perpetual power.” The sovereign is one who has absolute and perpetual power without any limitation. A sovereign may make the decision to give this power to another individual for a period of time and within determined limits. Bodin makes the qualification, however, that “even while they enjoy power, they cannot properly be regarded as sovereign rulers, but only as the lieutenants and agents of the sovereign ruler, till the moment comes when it pleases the prince or the people to revoke the gift. The true sovereign remains always seized of his power. Just as a feudal lord who grants lands to another retains his eminent domain over them, so the ruler who delegates authority to judge and command, whether it be for a short period, or during pleasure, remains seized of those rights of jurisdiction actually exercised by another in the form of a revocable grant, or precarious tenancy.”

Hence, the conclusion that state bodies, even dictatorships, do not have the rights of sovereign power.

According to Bodin, there can be only three forms of sovereignties. “If sovereignty is vested in a single prince, we call the state a monarchy. If all the people share in it, it is a popular state. If only a minority, it is an aristocracy.”

Bodin lived in an epoch when absolute monarchies reigned throughout Europe; for him, a sovereign monarch was the ideal form of state government and a guarantor against defeat in the ongoing wars of religion at that time. He perceived absolute monarchy as a rule-of-law state that protects the legitimate rights and property of its subjects.

The later development of the state sovereignty theory continued along the lines established by Bodin; his ideas were expanded and further specified.

Germany’s legal and political philosopher Georg Jellinek, for example, wrote that state power is power that knows no superior power; therefore, it is independent and supreme power. He distinguished between external sovereignty (independence of a state) and internal sovereignty (the sovereign’s right to arbitrarily decide any issue pertaining to domestic development).

Today, moves to limit state sovereignty are more often than not insignificant and conditional measures. For example, the right to a pre-emptive strike against a sovereign state can materialize only when the policy of the targeted state seriously threatens international stability; the approval of the UN Security Council is also required. Outside interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state is found acceptable only if the state commits human rights violations en masse or for other critical reasons – and, again, on UN approval. The limitation of the sovereignty of nation-states within the frameworks of interstate associations, for example, the European Union, is voluntary. The EU member states have delegated their powers to the EU bodies in Brussels voluntarily; theoretically, they can revoke these powers at any moment.

Thus, sovereignty remains a generally recognized foundation of contemporary states, including Russia.

WHO IS THE SOVEREIGN IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA?

Undoubtedly, the sovereign in Russia (that is, the owner of power and jurisdiction) is its people. The Constitution of the Russian Federation unambiguously states this – according to it the multinational people of Russia is the only bearer of sovereignty and source of power in the country.

Therefore, state sovereignty cannot be confused with state power as it is done by many members of Russian society and even some specialists. Thinking that sovereignty is the property of state power is a serious error.

In our case, the sovereign is the people of Russia, and its interests are represented by the entire state. Individual state bodies – from the president of the country to a district judge – perform their powers, received for a strictly specified period of time and in keeping with the law, on the people’s behalf and within the frameworks established by it. In other words, state power does not have sovereignty in Russia (within the frameworks of the scientifically recognized triad: popular sovereignty – state sovereignty – state power).

The understanding that the people are the only sovereign in contemporary Russia has the following important consequences.

First, it is necessary to consider the fundamental significance of the present Constitution adopted by the people in a December 1993 referendum. The Constitution proclaims the basic political and civil rights of the Russian people, including the right to power through free elections and referendums. Everything preventing the guarantee of the people’s right to elections and referendums is unconstitutional and limits the sovereign right to power. Hence, the doubtful constitutionality of the latest version of the Law on Referendums; it makes a people-initiated referendum a virtual impossibility.

Equally doubtful are the latest innovations in the legislation concerning elections, in particular the liquidation of single-member constituencies (together with the right of every citizen to run for the State Duma), raising the election barrier for political parties to seven percent and the possibility of reducing the required voter turnout to less than 20 percent. There is also the possibility of abolishing the “against all” option found on ballot lists. Add to this the difficulties with the registration of political parties and candidates; the facilitation of procedures for taking candidates out of the election race; and limitations on public control over elections. Along with the abolition of general elections of regional governors and the formation of the Federation Council [the upper chamber of the Federal Assembly] from unelected people, these innovations create the impression that state authority, not having the rights of a sovereign, hired only for a certain period of time and having limited powers, has been consistently and systematically removing the true sovereign from governing the state that wholly belongs to it.

Second, the dubious policy of limiting the citizens’ rights and freedoms,  notoriously known as “freezing of democracy” in the name of preserving and strengthening state sovereignty.

As we have concluded, the sovereign in contemporary Russia is its people, which perform its power through democratic elections and referendums. Limiting its sovereign power in the name of Russia’s sovereignty is outright nonsense! The genuine sovereignty of Russia is the full-fledged power of the sovereign, that is, the people – full-fledged democracy without any exemptions! Sovereignty does not contradict democracy; on the contrary, it is democracy. The fuller the democracy, the fuller the sovereignty.

The limitation of democratic freedoms by the state is comparable to the limitation of a landowner’s rights by his own tenant. The Constitution classifies such things as usurpation, which is a crime. The Constitutional Court and other courts of Russia, which, regrettably, do not always perform their public duty in good faith, must protect the rights of the sovereign people. In particular, the Constitutional Court has not yet reacted to the abolition of the elections of regional governors, the ambiguous situation with the Federation Council, and to the contradiction between the political structure of the State Duma and the outcome of the parliamentary elections. Furthermore, there are antidemocratic innovations in the electoral legislation, as well as gross transgressions against the Constitution by the state.

Third involves the full and irrevocable right of the people to implement its sovereignty with regard to the state in general, and state authority in particular.

When the state abuses the powers entrusted to it for a certain period, that is, it usurps the rights of popular sovereignty and begins to violate the people’s inalienable rights, then the people have the right to resort to civil disobedience against such an authority and to remove it from power, even before its term of office expires.

Germany’s Constitution, for example, provides for the people’s right to resistance, up to and including the use of force. This is a lesson learned by the German people from their horrible experience of the 1930s when the Nazis usurped power and dragged Germany into the most dreadful abyss in its history.

The Russian Constitution does not provide provisions of this kind, but this does not mean that the Russian people do not have a right to resist an unlawful authority. The power of the sovereign, the people, has supremacy over the state authority, and the people have the full right to deprive the authority of its powers, even before its term has ended, if the abuses of power become significant and obvious. This is especially justified if the authority violates the basic rights of its citizens, for example, the right to free and unlimited access to information, as well as the right to choose and elect candidates in corrupt-free elections. Thus, what happened in Ukraine or Georgia was nothing else but the restoration by the sovereign peoples of their violated rights. In this sense, their actions were unquestionably constitutional.

In the same way, the people have the right to stage “unsanctioned rallies” if receiving approval for one becomes dependent on the “law,” which actually violates the constitutional rights of citizens and makes the citizens’ right to rallies and demonstrations dependent on the will of bureaucrats. In this case, we witness “unlawful law” typical of unlawful states, when the state authority – the usurper of the sovereign people’s power – adopts “laws” of an unlawful nature. Regrettably, we have witnessed the rapid growth of such “unlawful laws” in Russia in the last few years, which testifies to the usurpation of power in the country by government groups.

LIMITATIONS ON SOVEREIGNTY

On the face of it, internal sovereignty can be limited in order to preserve external sovereignty. Everybody is familiar with “martial law,” that is, when all the resources of the state mobilize for a victory over an enemy, while the rights of the citizens diminish.

Political and civil freedoms, however, are not always restricted during a war. Besides, contemporary Russia is not in a state of war. Therefore, there are no grounds today for restricting the civil and political rights of citizens and the whole of the sovereign people.

During World War II, the British Empire underwent all the hardships and privations of wartime – from food rationing to the mass mobilization of the female population for difficult industrial work. The imperial government, led by Winston Churchill, was given broad additional powers, yet Churchill emphasized that the government used those powers under permanent parliament control, while society had the right to the freedom of opinion. He pointed out that Britain’s public figures were proud that they were servants of the people. Churchill said that his government was open to sound criticism from anyone wishing to win the war, and that there is nothing more dangerous than the fear of criticism.

The British democracy and the principle of popular sovereignty were fully subordinated to the cause of the defense of state sovereignty, without any conflict between the two important aspects of sovereignty – internal and external.

Churchill never divided the struggle for external and internal freedom. In July 1940, he spoke proudly that he led a government that represented all the parties in the state, all religions, all classes, and acceptable movements in public life, adding that his government was supported by a free parliament and free press.

Churchill viewed dictatorships and regimes that suppressed freedom as weak and doomed to defeat. The fear of criticism poses the greatest danger for dictatorships, he said. They stifle criticism, so people at the top often receive only the facts that they want to hear. Scandals, corruption and mistakes remain in the shadows, since any independent voices that could expose them are non-existent. Instead of exposing problems as they appear, they continue to rot behind the pompous fa?ade of the state, Churchill noted.

The struggle for the preservation and consolidation of Russia’s external sovereignty is not in conflict with the development of Russian democracy. On the contrary, the development of democracy and the ensuing consolidation of the Russian state will better promote the strengthening of the country’s international positions than the dubious experiments for limiting political freedoms under the ambiguous slogan of “sovereign democracy.”

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The notion of “sovereignty” has been absolutely distorted in Russia of late.

First, the sovereignty most often discussed is external sovereignty, that is, the integrity and independence of the state of Russia. The threat to this independence is often exaggerated or invented in order to impose various kinds of domestic restrictions.

Second, in the name of the struggle against a non-existent external threat, the people must live according to wartime laws interpreted by the limitations of political and civil freedoms. Even if there were a war in progress, the justifiability of such limitations would not be obvious.

Third, an unconstitutional principle of “sovereign democracy” is replacing the constitutional principle of popular sovereignty. This trend implies the limitation of democracy and political competition, and the wish to keep the incumbent government in power whatever the cost.

Actually, this is a barely disguised attempt to usurp power in the state, an attempt to replace the power of the sovereign people with the power of specific groups that have been brought to the top of state power by fate.

Unfortunately, such attempts have a long-standing tradition in Russian history. The best-known examples of the unlawful usurpation of power are the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in October 1917 and the dissolution of the generally elected Constituent Assembly in early 1918. A 70-year rule by the usurping party ended in the natural breakup of the state, since no lawful sovereign was present to protect it.

Any attempts to usurp the people’s sovereign power in contemporary Russia may have similar consequences. By a merciless twist of fate, those who seize power under the slogan of saving Russia are unable to maintain their power and, at the same time, place Russia on the brink of disaster. The unconditional implementation of popular sovereignty through free and honest elections protects the independence and integrity of Russia, together with its inner strength and freedom.