Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 18 – Vladimir Putin’s
conception of a “Russian world,” of “the idea of the uniqueness of the Russian
man,” is “much more dangerous for the world than is Putin himself,” according
to Andrey Piontkovsky. And the West must fight “this nightmare” by discrediting
its author and showing that it “doesn’t work”
Speaking to the Delfi news agency in
Vilnius, the Russian commentator says that he sees emerging “an anti-Putin
coalition” emerging in much the same way as “the anti-Hitler coalition” did 75
years ago. This new coalition will
include the US, Poland, the Baltic countries, Sweden and Great Britain (ru.delfi.lt/news/politics/piontkovskij-opasen-ne-putin-lichno-opasna-koncepciya-russkogo-mira.d?id=64789495).
To
counter Putin and his “Russian world” idea, Piontkovsky continues, “the West
will be able to use not military but an entire complex of economic and
political means” in order to show that what Putin’s portrayal of himself as “a
messiah of the Russian people” and his actual status as “the greatest thief”
among them are fundamentally “incompatible.”
The
Kremlin leader provided the basis for a Western coalition when he and his
speechwriters drew on Hitler’s ideas in in March 18 remarks. Not only did his “conception of a Russian
world” recall the Nazi leader’s appeal to pan-Germanism, but Putin’s worlds
about national traitors were “typically Hitlerian.” Stalin spoke only about “enemies
of the people”
The idea of a “Russian
world” is especially dangerous. “Even the most modest realiation of [that]
requires the change of the borders of many states, including two NATO member
countries, Estonia and Latvia.” And that confronts the Western alliance with “the
most serious threat to peace since the end of the Cold War.”
Piontkovsky argues that those who
speak of a return to the Cold War are wrong because in fact “we are returning
to more dangerous times than those of the Cold War.” During that conflict, the leaders were far
more careful than Putin is. Indeed, “Putin
is the first political figure since Hitler who has so openly declared his
conception of the change of state borders.”
But Putin’s “Russian world” contains
within itself some even more dangerous ideas. Among them is another that echoes
Nazi statements. Putin as referred to
the possession by Russians of “a unique genetic code,” a term of art not far
removed from Hitler’s talk about the supremacy of the Aryan race.
Putin has succeeded for a time
because of his “very effective” 24/7 propaganda campaign, the Russian
commentator says. He has television,
something Hitler did not. But how long-lasting the effects of this propaganda
will be “is another question,” especially if things don’t go as well as Putin
has promised.
Moreover, “Putin believes in his
mission,” Piontkovsky continues,
just as Hitler believed in his. “It is
much easier to lie when you believe yourself.”
As Lenin once pointed out after the murder of the Imperial Family, it
would be better for the Soviet ambassador in Berlin not to know anything because
in ignorance “it would be easier to lie.”
What
happens next depends on the Ukrainians and on the Americans who are prepared to
impose much more serious sanctions than the Europeans are, he continues. But sanctions aren’t the most important tool,
he insists. Instead, it is “the public unmasking” of Putin’s corruption and
theft from the Russian people.
If
the West can communicate that Putin is stealing from his own people even as the
Kremlin leader insists that he is “the messiah of the Russian people,” that and
other gaps between Putin’s claims and the realities of the situation will
create “cognitive dissonance” among many Russian, and they will begin to ask
questions that the Kremlin can’t answer.
One
message that is terribly important to deliver in this regard, Piontkovsky says,
is that what is happening in Ukraine is “not Russians against Ukrainians.” It
is social marginal against normal people.
“Intelligent, educated Russians in Ukraine know Ukrainian” and like the
Ukrainians have made “the European choice.”
Because
of the Anschluss of Crimea, “the West for the first time has felt a very
serious threat. The next is Narva,” and hence the question: Will the West
defend Narva. If it doesn’t, then “NATO doesn’t exist and the US as a great
power doesn’t exist.” But if it does, there is the threat of war.
What
US President Barack Obama will do is “very difficult to answer,” given the
divide between American interests on the one hand, and the chant by millions of
the mantra “We do not want to die for Narva.”
There
is only one way out of this: to prevent such a scenario from developing; and
that means to “compromise the idea of the Russian world, to show that it doesn’t
work and to do so not by military but by an entire complex of economic and
political means.” That is what the US is likely to do.
It
is critical to keep in mind that “the issue is not Putin personally. Putin
personally is not dangerous but his conception of a Russian world” and the
change of borders to achieve it is. “It represents
a threat to the world and must suffer defeat and be disarmed. Naturally, Putin
... as the bearer of this conception cannot survive its defeat politically.”
Much
of the support Putin now has rests on the widespread notion that if he were to
leave, Russia would dissolve into chaos.
That is not the best basis for the long rule he hopes for, and
consequently what Putin is doing with his Russian world idea is “replacing the
model of Putin as the lesser evil with that of Putin as the great ingatherer of
Russian lands.”
But
because of the dangers this presents for Russia, Russia’s neighbors and the
world, he must not be allowed to get away with it. What will be the situation “after
Putin?” Probably the next Russian leader
won’t be all that wonderful either, but he “will not be able to continue the
policy of the ingathering of Russian lands.”
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