So what is going on in Russia?

By Daniela Ivanova, Student, Wesleyan University, CT, USA

Abstract:

Our regular contributor Miss Daniela Ivanova discusses here the perceptions of Russia  in the United States and Europe.

Keywords: Russia, USA, Daniela Ivanova

Ever since I went to the US I have always been fascinated by Russia. This is one of those statements that make you go back to read them again but it is not that hard to imagine. After the last bitter years of communism and its downfall Russia did not have much of a modern, dynamic or attractive image in Bulgaria. In fact, the generational split in Bulgaria is exemplified by the second language prevalence: the young speak English, the old: Russian. It was only after I took a class on the Russian revolutions (and found out they actually had had three of them), and met the American Marxists at Wesleyan (a bunch of “Russophile” professors, only a small part of the mass of Western intellectuals likewise enchanted by Russia) that I realized how incredible and dramatic the history of this country actually is; and how amazing it was that I am indirectly marked by it.

I can’t possibly give you all the historical and social reasons for the whole of this amazing-ness right here, but in tone with current events I want to focus on some of its inherent controversies.

Western intellectuals love Russia, and Western politicians are afraid of her for the same reasons: they are baffled by her. It was not surprising that after Kosovo and Georgia cold war rhetoric began to be recycled in American public debate: one of the questions in the second presidential debate between McCain and Obama was a yes/no of “Do you think Russia is an evil empire?” Startling to see Reagan’s condemnation reappear in an international context where the US have so much at stake with Russia that any rhetorical blunder can be fatal. I am also envisioning governor Palin’s gaffe on Russia in Charlie Gibson’s interview:

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn’t we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?
PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help.
GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade? (* 1)
The last question stayed rhetorical as Palin started beating about the bush on vigilance and protecting small democracies. Unfortunately one cannot expect that Medvedev, Putin, and the legions of Russian chauvinists will be as condescending towards an American vise-president as the rest of Americans and international media apparently are.

The reason is that Russia speaks a different diplomatic language which turns dialogue with her into a treacherous quagmire. Delving deep down into group psychology and its theories as applied to whole nations one can draw an interesting profile of contemporary Russia. In his book The misery of the Small States of Eastern Europe Istvan Bibo develops a model of national hysteria in two phases: the first consists of a critical situation and the threat of a dead end, a situation that the community is incapable of controlling, that it prefers to bypass by adopting a false solution; the second consists of exactly the deadlock that this pseudo-solution leads to, and that finishes by culminating in a catastrophe. (p.26) He diagnoses five such deadlocks in German history up to WWII, but says that the French and the Russian revolutions do not in fact represent the type of pseudo-solutions or catastrophes the theory describes, they were rather realistic solutions to critical situations. I am going to thread into dangerous waters and apply this principle to Putin’s Russia.

According to Bibo, the critical situation is one where the community lacks cohesion or its self-definition as such is threatened from outside. Historical, economic and social frustrations can factor into the critical situation. The case with modern Russia is exactly such. For one, the preoccupation with Russian “backwardness” as compared to the West dates back to the 1800s and it has been resurrected repeatedly ever since. Decembrists, Slavophiles, Westernizers, Liberals, Socialists even Tsars were haunted by the spectre of Russian backwardness. Stalin portrayed Russia in a battle with backwardness during his modernization drives. However, the WWII victory, Communist expansion, nuclear parity, the space race, and an excess of propaganda during the Communist period made the idea of backwardness subside for a while. Now a painful and controversial transition to democracy and market economy have wreaked havoc in Russian national consciousness that had been indoctrinated to perceive itself as a great power. National morale is low and compounds the economic and social problems.

Although not obvious in now state-owned Russian media, inconvenient truths are published abroad by indomitable people like Anna Politkovskaya. Every day of her Russian Diary testifies as to the passivity and exasperation of ordinary Russians. I open it on page 18 where she quotes Saint Petersburg prep-school students on the question “Are the parliamentary elections going to help in the work of the President?” (*2) The replies are hardly optimistic or even naive:
“My parents are not going to vote. They don’t trust elections any more…It does not matter who they are going to elect for the Duma because nothing is going to change, because we do not elect people who can fix the country’s problems, but thieves.”
“So long as the present administration is in power I do not see a way-out. I am not going to thank them for my ruined childhood.”
She comments with “These [accounts] sound more like the thoughts of old people than future citizens of New Russia. This is the real price of political cynicism – to be rejected by the young generation.” The result is that the ideal of democracy in Russia has been tarnished, probably never even understood.

This ideological catastrophe needs to be seen in the context of an unbalanced economy in the grips of an economic phenomenon with the pretty name of Dutch Disease. Raw material export sectors are growing, and manufacturing sectors are languishing. The reasons are complex. According to Wikipedia, a high-priced service sector is growing, diverting labour away from production, and making manufacturing unviable. Because not enough is being invested in the manufacturing sector, the economy becomes fully dependent on the whims of world markets and natural resources. What is striking is that most of Russia’s private income is also being exported as the profitable industries are held by a state-leaning minority that spends the winter in the Alps and the summer on the Riviera. Politkovskaya comments that in 2003 40 % of Russians lived under “our horrible official poverty line.” It is doubtful that this has improved much.

It is only logical that if it can’t be fixed (and who would have an interest in that), the crisis can be exploited. Politkovskaya makes an unforgiving socio-political dissection of the parliamentary campaign of 2003: It is clear that the democrats were not interested in enlisting this part of the people [those below the poverty line]. They preferred to target the rich and the newly-formed middle class, defending private property and the interests of the new owners. The poor do not own, that is why the democrats ignored them. The nationalists did not (p.19) She continues with an ideological outline of the new Duma : United Russia expounded the view that the West has humiliated the Russian people and waged an openly anti-western and anti-capitalist propaganda…a lot was said about the “old Russian traditions.”(p.21)

According to Bibo, an accumulation of collective delusions precedes the false solution to the crisis. For their maturation not even the participation of every member of the community is required. In fact, the passivity of some and the calculations of others might very well factor in the descent into collective hysteria. Anti-Western and nationalist discourse has nurtured an ultra-nationalist skinhead culture that thrives even in the centre of Moscow. Not only Tajiks, Chechens, and Uzbeks, but even Americans cannot walk safely at night.(* 3) I still shudder at the memory of the Tajik girl killed in St. Petersburg in February 2004: she bled to death after she was stabbed with a knife 11 times by skinheads. St. Petersburg prosecutors report that 23 people died in racially motivated attacks in 2004, and 34 in 2005. According to police estimates, there are some 20,000 skinheads in the St. Petersburg region alone. (* 4)

In the climate of such mass delusions passivity is the worst reaction. It is sad that Communism managed to turn passivity into a value under the disguise of acquiescence with the state. Russians are morally exhausted and apart from a brief period around the ascent of Yeltsin, they do not have traditions in social activism and civil society. The fact that the opposition and the media nowadays are still silenced like dissidents used to be, does not help this social marasme. In the parliamentary elections of December 2007 the circus reached one of its high points when opposition leader Gary Kasparov was sentenced to 5 days in jail for organizing an unsanctioned demonstration. Even people who disagreed with Putin from London did not get away with it: if Litvinenko did not survive the long arm of censorship, then what was left for Politkovskaya… As a result revanchist propaganda, ultra-nationalism, and anti-Western convictions can be freely unleashed, capturing the minds of the young generation.

The next step, returning to Bibo, is the false solution of the crisis. Has it already been started, I am wondering, with the reactions to Kosovo and the mini-war in Georgia? Maybe even earlier with Chechnya? In Bibo’s analysis of Germany one finds the threads of humiliation, revanchism, and a desire to wield real power weaved together with the real issues of a lost unity, social catastrophe, and a failure of democracy. Muscle flexing and military incursions play more than a role of social diversions, but become an end in themselves.

Back in the day the Versailles treaty hailed the principle of self-determination taking Alsace-Lorraine from Germany and creating a number of little republics in Southern Europe. Hitler rubbed this principle in the face of the victors by the Anschluss of Austria and the Sudetenland. Now the Intentional community has embraced Kosovo under this same principle right under Russia’s nose. When Russia claimed to protect South Ossetia, the principle was again made to seem hypocrisy. The first drama awoke the ghosts of Willhelminian militarism, Waterloo, and Versailles; the second drama draws on the Cold War. In this context it is simply unsettling to see President Bush obstinately pushing for his missile defense shield as if oblivious to Russian issues and anxieties. It is up to the next American president to decide whether there is going to be a second Cold War or not.

Notes: