Reviving the evil empire

[Batgirl]

by Niall Ferguson

May 28, 2007

THERE IS NO such thing as the future. There are only futures, plural. Historians are supposed to confine themselves to the study of the past, but by drawing analogies between yesterday and today, they can sometimes suggest plausible tomorrows.

Seven years ago, the economist Brigitte Granville and I published an article in the Journal of Economic History titled "Weimar on the Volga," in which we argued that the experience of 1990s Russia bore many resemblances to the experience of 1920s Germany.

No historical analogy is exact, needless to say. Russia's currency did not collapse as completely as Germany's did in 1923, though the annual inflation rate did come close to 300% in 1992. Our hunch, nevertheless, was that the traumatic economic events of the 1990s would prove as harmful to Russian democracy as hyperinflation had been for German democracy 70 years earlier.

"By discrediting free markets, the rule of law, parliamentary institutions and international economic openness," we concluded, "the Weimar inflation proved the perfect seedbed for national socialism. In Russia, too, the immediate social costs of high inflation may have grave political consequences in the medium term. As in Weimar Germany, the losers may yet become the natural constituency for a political backlash against both foreign creditors and domestic profiteers."

Seven years later, the man who succeeded Boris N. Yeltsin as our article was going to press is doing much to vindicate our analysis.

The rule of law is the keystone of both liberal democracy and international order. Yet, last week, the Russian government showed its contempt for the rule of law by flatly refusing to extradite the man who is the prime suspect in the case of Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned in London in November. The British authorities say they have sufficient evidence to warrant prosecution of Andrei Lugovoy. But the Russians maintain that it would be unconstitutional to hand him over.

It is tempting to regard the spat over Lugovoy's extradition as part of a new Cold War between Russia and the West. The list of strategic bones of contention is a long one: the U.S. invasion of Iraq; Russia's assistance to Iran; U.S. missile defenses in Eastern Europe; Russian pipelines in Kazakhstan…. And the rhetoric is getting colder too. Only three months ago, I heard Russian President Vladimir V. Putin give a speech in Munich in which he bluntly warned that Washington's "hyper use of force" was "plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts."

Yet this is not Cold War II. Unlike in the 1950s and 1960s, Russia is not self-confident but insecure. It is reliant on exports of natural resources, not its own ability to match American technological accomplishments. It is a waning power. The value of the parallel with Weimar Germany is precisely that it captures the dangers of a backlash against such weakness.

As Granville and I anticipated, one of Putin's earliest moves was to launch a campaign against the oligarchs who had been the principal beneficiaries of Yeltsin's (admittedly crooked) privatization, securing the imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the destruction of his oil company. Having frightened the other oligarchs into exile or submission, Putin set about renationalizing energy resources through the state-controlled Gazprom and Rosneft.

Foreign investors have also felt the backlash. Having reduced Royal Dutch Shell's stake in the Sakhalin II oil and gas field, Moscow now seems intent on doing the same to BP. As before, the tactic is to accuse the foreign company of violating the terms of its license.

Russia under Putin has remained outwardly a democracy. Yet there is no mistaking the erosion of democracy's foundations. In the name of "sovereign democracy," the direct election of regional governors and presidents was replaced with a centralized presidential nomination system. Opposition groups can no longer operate freely. This month, chess maestro and Putin critic Garry Kasparov and other anti-government activists were prevented from boarding a plane to Samara, where Russian and European Union leaders were meeting.

On Putin's watch there also has been a discernible reduction in the freedom of the press. The three major TV networks are under direct or indirect government control, and reporters who antagonize the authorities no longer feel safe. Last year, investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered, one of 14 Russian journalists who have been slain since Putin came to power.

Having more or less stifled internal dissent, Russia is now ready to play a more aggressive role on the international stage. Remember, it was Putin who restored the old Soviet national anthem. And it was he who described the collapse of the Soviet Union as a "national tragedy on an enormous scale."

It would be a bigger tragedy if he or his successor tried to restore that evil empire. Unfortunately, that is precisely what the Weimar analogy predicts will happen.

LA Times

[Brad]

Here's another chilling story about Putin's development of a Hitleresque youth movement.

[Batgirl]

I'm not surprised by what's happening in Russia nor the latest diplomatic wrangle with our country. I do think the West as a whole has badly underestimated the threat of Putin's Russia. It no longer resembles the Russia that emerged from the former Soviet Union and is more of a dictatorship run by a bunch of former KGB agents whose agenda is to restore Russia's faded superpower status at whatever cost. It has shown it has no regard for human rights and critics of the regime are conveniently silenced. Also the contempt they've shown for our laws by murdering a British citizen on our soil and then refusing to extradite the main suspect in the case is unacceptable.

[Batgirl]

Textbooks rewrite history to fit Putin’s vision

by Tony Halpin in Moscow

As Russia flexes its foreign policy muscles against the West and President Putin enjoys record approval ratings, the Kremlin is turning its attention to schools to instil a new sense of nationalism in children.

Two new manuals for teachers have been accused of glossing over the horrors of the Soviet Union and of including propaganda to promote Mr Putin’s vision of a strong state.

One, for social studies teachers, presents as fact Mr Putin’s view that the Soviet collapse was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”. It describes the United States as bent on creating a global empire and determined to isolate Russia from its neighbours.

Many of those behind the second book, a history of Russia from 1945 to 2006, have close links to the Kremlin. Its final chapter is titled Sovereign Democracy, a term coined by a key Kremlin aide, Vladislav Surkov, as an ideological justification for Mr Putin’s authoritarian rule.

The chapter quotes Mr Surkov repeatedly and praises Mr Putin as the man responsible for “practically every significant deed” in Russia since 2000, when he became President.

Mr Putin’s most controversial actions are shown in an approving light, including the destruction of the Yukos oil company and the imprisonment of its chairman, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The book describes this as an “unambiguous message” to business to “obey the law, pay your taxes and don’t try to put yourselves above the Government”, adding: “They got the message.”

Mr Putin’s support for Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine’s rigged presidential election of 2004 is also defended. Mass protests in the Orange revolution eventually brought his pro-Western rival, Viktor Yushchenko, to power, but the manual states: “Yanukovych was the only candidate capable of truly resisting Yushchenko. So Russia’s choice was clear.”

The book describes Josef Stalin as “the most successful Soviet leader ever” and dismisses the prison labour camps and mass purges as a necessary part of his drive to make the country great. The manuals are intended to serve as the basis for developing new textbooks in schools next year, though Education Ministry officials insisted that they would not be compulsory.

Mr Putin gave them his seal of approval at a conference he hosted for teachers at his presidential dacha last month. He described Stalin’s Great Purge of 1937, in which 1.5 million people were imprisoned and 700,000 killed, as terrible “but in other countries even worse things happened”. Discounting the Soviet Union’s long history of oppression, he said: “We had no other black pages, such as Nazism, for instance.”

Leonid Polyakov, editor of the social studies manual, told Mr Putin that Russia was “disarmed ideologically” after the Soviet collapse, leaving other countries to judge whether it was a democracy. He said: “We are developing a national ideology that represents the vision of ourselves as a nation, as Russians, a vision of our own identity. Teachers will then be able to incorporate this national ideology, this vision, into their practical work in a normal way and use it to develop a civic and patriotic position.”

Pavel Danilin, who wrote the chapter on Sovereign Democracy, told The Times that it explained the “core transformation” of Russia under Mr Putin. “We understand that the only guarantee for our democracy is our sovereignty, our strong state, our strong army, our strong economy and our strong nation,” he said. “It is not an ideology. It is just common sense. And my intention was to explain that common sense to teachers.”

Mr Danilin, 30, is a projects manager at the Effective Policy Foundation, a think-tank with close links to the Kremlin. He was more blunt about his intentions on his web blog in response to criticism from teachers that much of the book was simply Kremlin propaganda. “You will teach children in line with the books you are given and in the way Russia needs,” he wrote, adding that schools had to “clear the filth and if it doesn’t work, then clear it by force”.

Alexander Filippov, who edited the history manual, is deputy head of another research institute linked to the Kremlin. He told The Times that the book was a response to the poor quality of existing textbooks and that “sovereign democracy is not proposed as the national ideology for schools”.

Times Online

[Tsunami]

I am not sure why people are surprised with Putin's direction, its common knowledge he was former head of the FSB, formerly the KGB. To rise in to that level he was trained by some of the best concerning cold war tactics.

Having said that, I don't agree with the supposition that the the west has "badly underestimated" Putin's Russia.

(1) The U.S. continues to secure sites in countries surrounding Russia for the deployment of missile defense. (2) I can only speak to armor - Cav tactics, while outdated, still focus on a soviet aggressor. (3) The U.S. intelligence service is finally up and running at and beyond cold war levels. (4) Russia can knock the dust off its inventory and put it back in action, but that does not makeup for the inaction of such elements for 20+ years.

It's not the bear we need to worry about, its the dragon. China scares me...

[Brad]

^The difference between China and Russia is that the people of China are enjoying record prosperity and a growing middle class. Russia isn't. They scare me too, but the Russians are poised to act quickly out of desperation. The Chinese can afford to bide their time.

[Tsunami]

Logistically - Russia has a lot to overcome before they can mobilize a threat to the U.S.
China on the other hand, well they didn't take a 20 year break in action - they are ready to go at any time starting w/ Taiwan while simultaneously sweeping through Korea.