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“Under the present system of management, therefore, Great Britain derives nothing but loss from the dominion which she assumes over her colonies. To propose that Great Britain should voluntarily give up all authority over her colonies, and leave them to elect their own magistrates, to enact their own laws, and to make peace and war as they might think proper, would be to propose such a measure as never was, and never will be adopted, by any nation in the world. No nation ever voluntarily gave up the dominion of any province, how troublesome so ever it might be to govern it, and how small so ever the revenue which it afforded might be in proportion to the expense which it occasioned. . . . The most visionary enthusiast would scarce be capable of proposing such a measure with any serious hopes at least of it ever being adopted.” . . . If Great Britain, however, would decide to do so and would sign a free trade treaty with its former colony, it would not only save money, but “by thus parting good friends, the natural affection of the colonies to the mother country which, perhaps, our late dissensions have well nigh extinguished, would quickly revive. It might . . . favour us in war as well as in trade, and instead of turbulent and factious subjects to become our most faithful, affectionate, and generous allies.”^[11]

Adam Smith spoke wise words. But he also considered it unthinkable that a colonial power would voluntarily give up its colonies. However, this was what happened in 1991 in Soviet Russia. It was not only a huge historical opportunity for developing a democracy in Russia, it was also a unique opportunity for Russia to establish new, friendly relations with the former Soviet republics.

Handling Post-Imperial Pain

Unfortunately the reality was different. The empire fatigue was of short duration. Almost immediately after the empire had actually collapsed, it was followed by post-imperial pain. This is a natural syndrome in former empires. As early as the nineteenth century British authors predicted a national—and international—disaster if the British Empire should ever cease to exist.^[12] After the Treaty of Saint-Germain, in September 1919, and the dismemberment of the Hapsburg Empire by the Allies, the inhabitants of the new rump state of Austria experienced, apparently, such a “shock of lost empire.” They lived “in a climate of apathy and general depression.”^[13] In the Netherlands, after World War II, there was a popular proverb, “Indië verloren, rampspoed geboren” (“If Indonesia is lost, it will be the beginning of catastrophe”).^[14] A similar feeling of national disaster could also be found in decolonizing France, where it led to the emergence of the OAS, a right-wing terrorist resistance organization. Yegor Gaidar described this post-colonial pain in Russia as follows:

There is a medical phenomenon in which a person who has had a limb amputated perceives that limb to be still causing pain. The same phenomenon applies to the post-imperial consciousness. The loss of the USSR is a reality. It is a reality that has led to social pain caused by separated families, the suffering of fellow-countrymen abroad, nostalgic reminiscences of former glory, longing for the geography of the homeland that has shrunk or been lost.^[15]

Decolonization is always a painful process. According to the Dutch sociologist Van Doorn, “to colonize is to ‘imprison’ others, but it is also to imprison oneself.”^[16] This is because to colonize is for the colonizing nation “an investment, not only in the economic sense, but also culturally and morally.”^[17] Van Doorn spoke of the “broad, almost total deception” of the Dutch after the loss of Indonesia, which could explain why “the mourning process of the end of [Dutch] Indonesia has been so difficult.” He mentioned as “an additional fact . . . that Indonesia was almost our entire empire. All colonial powers have wrestled with decolonization after World War II, but while England and France in particular were driven step by step from their global positions, the Netherlands lost everything at once.”^[18] This fact, to lose “everything at once,” played a role also in Russia. The decolonization was sudden, unexpected, and total. The Russian frontiers were completely redrawn, and after centuries of almost uninterrupted expansion, the map of the country resembled that of sixteenth-century Russia.

Two Reactions to the Loss of Empire:

To Accept or Not To Accept