Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 5 – On the 62nd
anniversary of his death today, Stalin continues to cast an ever darker shadow over
Russia, sparking debates about how he should best be remembered (regions.ru/news/2546396/) and the transformation
of the GULAG museum in Perm from one memorializing his victims to one celebrating
their jailors (rufabula.com/news/2015/03/04/perm).
But
beyond these symbols, the influence of Stalin on the thinking of Vladimir Putin
and his regime is increasingly obvious and strong, as Moscow political analyst Stanislav
Belkovsky pointed out on the eve of this anniversary on Ekho Moskvy’s “Osoboye
mneniye” program hosted by Olga Zhuravlyeva (echo.msk.ru/programs/personalno/1504194-echo/).
According to
Belkovsky, “Putin’s most important task is to become in international politics
a new Stalin, not in the domestic sense but in the international. That is, to
move toward a second Yalta, to return to the world of Yalta and Potsdam, and to
agree with the US and the EU, and in the case of the EU in the first instance
with Germany, about the division of the world” with clearly “fixed zones of
influence.”
Ukraine, he continues, “is only a
place des armes and instrument for the solution of these tasks” and those Putin
is using there are “only pawns on a chessboard,” who can be sacrificed in the name
of the endgame. This is something a few of these people may already be
beginning to recognize and even to fear.
But despite his suggestion that
Putin is following in the footsteps of Stalin internationally rather than at
home, Belkovsky also discussed some of the ways in which the Kremlin leader is
copying the late dictator at home, including “the routinization” of the
persecution of his enemies by use of ostensibly judicial institutions and the
spread of violence throughout the country.
As a result of Putin’s actions,
human life in Russia “isn’t worth anything,” and a decision to kill him is
taken in terms of his “liquidation cost.” That means, Belkovsky says, that “the
question to kill this or that individual or not to kill him is made” by
comparing the costs of killing him against the damage the potential victim is
thought to have inflicted on the regime.
The Moscow analyst says it would now
cost about 5,000 US dollars to have him killed and that means that any damage
he might cause above this sum would be make a strong case for the Putin regime
to have him eliminated. Killing someone
else, like Boris Nemtsov, of course, would have cost much more, but the principle
is the same.
Morality, truth and the values of civilization
mean nothing to those making this kind of calculation. It is all about the personal
comfort of the leader. Putin could have gone to Nemtsov’s funeral – that would
have played well in many places – but he didn’t because to do so would have
been “very uncomfortable psychologically” for the Kremlin leader.
Asked whether he believes that Putin
enjoys the backing of 86 percent of Russians, Belkovsky said he “believes only
in the Lord God.” As far as the 86 percent figure is concerned, he said it
reflects what people know they are expected to answer on the basis of what they
see on Russian television.
Boris Yeltsin didn’t get that kind
of support because he did not have “total propaganda,” as Putin does. Yeltsin despite all his shortcomings was a
democrat. Those who rely on total propaganda like Putin operate under its laws:
there must be only one enemy and only one point of view.
The Soviet Union began to fall apart
when programs like “Vzglyad” appeared under Mikhail Gorbachev, when it became
obvious that there were various points of view on many issues and when it also
became clear that the United States was not Russia’s enemy. Putin remembers
this and has drawn conclusions accordingly.
That is driving the Kremlin leader
rather than fear of opposition or a Maidan in Russia. Unlike Yanukovich, Putin
would have no difficulty ordering the use of force against the population, and
in fact, under current conditions, he has no reason to believe that he must use
mass force. Surgical strikes against its leaders and mass propaganda are
sufficient.
But there is one positive thing to
derive from the anniversary of Stalin’s death: even Putin will not live
forever, and he has an obvious successor, Dmitry Medvedev, whose “only source
of legitimacy” would involve “the rejection of Putinism and in the first
instance the rejection of the world war” toward which Putin is moving.
That would be true of any other
successor, just as it was true of Khrushchev after Stalin, Belkovsky suggests, “and
we know from the example of Alexander I and Paul I that heirs often conduct a
policy directly opposed to their predecessors.
“All of us are mortal,” Belkovsky points
out, “including Putin” and if something suddenly happens … we know from the
examples of Alexander I and Paul I that heirs frequently conduct a policy
directly opposed to their predecessors,” just as more recently Nikita Khrushchev
did after he succeeded Stalin.
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