Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 22 – The most
terrible thing for Russia about its war in Ukraine is the extent to which that
conflict has “contributed to the transformation of an authoritarian regime into
a neo-totalitarian one,” something with horrific consequences far more
difficult to overcome than the war itself, according to Vladimir Pastukhov.
In an essay on Polit.ru yesterday,
the St. Antony’s College historian says that neo-totalitarianism, which has
arisen out of Vladimir Putin’s strategy and his war in Ukraine, has “once again
driven Russian into a historical dead end,” which it cannot escape by
continuing to go in the same direction (polit.ru/article/2015/03/21/trap/).
That in turn means, he suggests,
that Russia will once again be faced with a sharp break in historical
continuity, something that could take the form of degeneration or a revolution
or both.
Pastukhov defines
neo-totalitarianism as “a malignant form of authoritarianism, its degeneration
which became possible in the 20th century when, on the one hand, the
mass personality appeared, and on the other, technologies for administering
mass consciousness arose,” something that has in their way led to “a return to ‘high
tech’ medievalism.”
The “main distinction” of
neo-totalitarianism from authoritarianism, he suggests, is “the means with the
help of which the masses are excluded from the political process. In the case
of authoritarianism, the means are primitive and obvious” and leave the masses
with a sense of exclusion and depression.
But “in the case of
neo-totalitarianism, on the contrary, the masses are brought into an active and
[Pastukhov says he would suggest] a hyper-active state.” They are given “the illusion of pseudo-inclusiveness” in
politics, with “the masses feeling themselves the creator and demiurge of
history,” when in fact they have no role at all.
“People do not recognize that they
are the victims of manipulation, in essence of mass hypnosis. Rather it seems
to them that they themselves have taken all the decisions when in fact the
decisions readymade were transplanted into their heads.” That builds the regime’s power, but it becomes
the main “’problem’” for the regime when the latter “exhausts itself” as it
will.
Such a regime can only keep this
level of tension up for so long, Pastukhov continues, because it is “impossible
to defeat the whole world” in a war. Either it will suffer defeat as Hitler’s
Germany did or it “will be forced to enter a regime of ‘peaceful coexistence’
as did the USSR and thus lower the degree of mobilized hysteria.”
Then, “the problem of the ‘neo-totalitarian
inheritance’” will become the central issue for Russia. “Russia, which never
had a civil society again has been given as ersatz one in exchange, something that
“makes the further path of the historical development of Russia still more
torturous.”
That is because it is not just a
question of building a civil society “from zero” but rather will require in
addition the cleansing of the public space of the “ideological and political
trash” which the neo-totalitarian project will have left behind, a kind of
detritus that will continue to “throw in imperial convulsions” as a result of
what that regime has done.
The St. Antony’s scholar then observers
that “everything has not only consequences but also a cause,” and he points to
Putin’s program of “sovereign democracy” as the cause of the rise of
neo-totalitarianism and the war in Ukraine.
That program involved “not the destruction of democratic institutions
but their neutralization.”
“Public discussion was driven out of
the mass information field into Internet reservations,” elections and the
courts were brought under complete control, “but even after this,” Pastukhov
says, “society as a whole remained more alive than dead.” And consequently,
Putin’s regime moved against “the receptors of democracy” by vitiating its
institutions.
But Putin had a problem, the scholar
continues. “The more destructive became the social processes and the more
obvious was the degradation of the power vertical, the more it became necessary
[for the Kremlin] to turn up the head of the propaganda iron” and that ultimately
required the launching of a war.
“War became a necessary condition
for the survival of the regime, and it began strictly according to script.
Ukraine, of course, was an occasion and far from a cause.” The Kremlin needed a
war and so it created one. But in doing so, it triggered something else: “Into
the Ukrainian war went one people and out of it came a completely different
one.”
“At that moment arose that very
pseudo-inclusiveness which distinguishes totalitarianism from authoritarianism,”
Pastukhov says. “Earlier the inhabitant tolerated this regime; now it has
become his heart’s desire,” the object of his “passion.” And passion is not something
that can be “overcome rationally.” It can only be displaced by “another
passion.”
That is a real danger for the regime
because it means that “the political course chosen by it at a moment of crisis
is now one with no alternatives.” The Kremlin may be willing to trade away the
Donbas for Western recognition of spheres of influence, but its newly mobilized
population is not so pragmatic and would tear the regime apart if it did so.
As a result, Pastukhov concludes, “the chief threat to the
regime comes now not from the left, not from the liberals or the democrats, but
from the right, from ‘the black hundred.’” Putin’s supporters now will support
him as long as he maintains his current course, but if he changes, they are
ready to desert him for Strelkov.
“Putin
thus cannot allow himself any maneuvering, he can go only forward from one
victory to another” until he loses. And when that happens as “sooner or later,”
it will, “then the black hundred waves, generated by the Crimea earthquake will
sweep across Russia,” with all the horrific consequences that one can expect.
No comments:
Post a Comment