Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 3 – “In order to
weaken the internal discomfort and sense of national incompleteness” they feel
at an unconscious level, Russians “project on the West all the
negative ideas about themselves which they refuse to openly recognize in
themselves,” according to Lev Gudkov of the Levada Center.
In today’s
“Novaya gazeta” and in a related article for Kyiv’s “Novoye vremya,” the
pioneering sociologist discusses the ways in which Russian attitudes toward the
West reflect and shape Russian understandings about their own possibilities and
shortcomings as a nation (novayagazeta.ru/politics/70997.html
and nv.ua/opinion/gudkov/rossijane-nenavidjat-zapad-no-hotjat-zhit-tak-zhe-83512.html).
“The ‘West’,” he
says, “turns out to be not only a utopia of the fullness of cultural values and
an ideal of social well-being but also a measure of the national or cultural
independence (or the illusion of same) achieved by Russia, an idea of that
which some would like Russian society to be but which it has not become for
many reasons.”
Because of that,
Gudkov continues, “the idealization of Europe and deference to it very easily
passes over into criticism of ‘kowtowing to the West,’ ‘the struggle with
cosmopolitanism’ under Stalin,, and to a relationship toward Europe or European
culture as something alien, hostile and threatening to Russia’s national
existence and incompatible with its culture.”
“Each period of Russian history
characterized by accelerated development, economic growth and a rising level of
the standard of living has been accompanied by ‘an opening to the world’ and a
change in the regime within the country. A positive view of the West made
possible the rapid acquisition of Western ideas and technologies, trade and
cultural cooperation.”
But, “on the contrary,” Gudkov
writes, “periods of stagnation and terror are distinguished by isolationism,
xenophobia, and the impoverished state of everyday life.”
These periods have alternated. In
the early 1990s, Russia turned to the West and was open to European ideas, but “people
poorly understood what democratic and a legal state were” and when they became
disappointed that they were not living as well as the Europeans, there was a
swing in the other direction.
By the mid-1990s, that swing began,
with “the revenge of the nomenklatura” being accompanied by a rise of nationalism,
isolationist attitudes and accusations” against democracy. “With the coming to power of representatives
of the special services, there took place a revival of anti-Western propaganda”
– and that has accelerated the process.
Gudkov then surveys the data showing
how fast and how far Russians have turned from identifying with Europe to
viewing Europe in a negative way and seeing themselves as set apart. He argues that what is important in this is “the
asymmetrical quality” of how Russians view themselves and Europeans.
Russian view themselves as “peaceful
people” and think the West should not be afraid of Russia, but the West itself
represents a threat to Russia. Russia therefore should fear Western countries …
The West [in this view] is thus guilty in the worsening of relations between Russia
and the EU … and its criticism of the violations of international law, freedoms
and human rights in Russia itself is hypocritical and unjustified [and] not objective.”
The paradox here, Gudkov says, is
that “the absolute majority of Russians despite all their skepticism relative
to the possibility of change of this policy under the current authorities all
the same would like to see cooperation and the normalization of relations with
European countries. More than that, in secret, they hope for this.”
And this understanding is based, he
says, “on the hidden understanding among a relative majority that as a result
of the end of the cold war and the ceasing of confrontation with the West,
Russians all the same won more than they lost.”
In his “Novoye vremya” comment,
Gudkov extends some of these ideas. As he has pointed out on numerous
occasions, Russians are anti-Western today largely as a result of propaganda,
and “the word ‘western’ has become sharply negative,” although Russians do not
know precisely what they mean by this.
“As before, the West remains an
internal guide, a model of a desired way of life, a model of utopian society in
which there is a high standard of living, social defense, an independent court,
and correspondingly the possibility of legal defense from administrative
arbitrariness, a developed infrastructure, and a favorable ecology.”
“When we ask about particular
issues,” Gudkov says, “people of course say that the state of these spheres in
the West is better than in Russia” and even say that they would rather life in
a small and comfortable European country than in a state with a strong
military, but nonetheless they articulate anti-European views when speaking
about the situation as a whole.
At present, “the place of European
identity is occupied by the idea of ‘a special path’ which in general earlier
never entirely disappeared. This is a sense of specialness and separateness
from the world which existed already in Soviet times.” What people mean by this
unfortunately is “impossible to understand” because it has no clear content.
The “main function” of such
declarations is the erection of “a defensive barrier.” “To the extent that we
cannot live like in Europe and the West, there is a striving to remove the
source of dissonance, tension and feelings of one’s own incompleteness.” In
short, this is a way of coping with cognitive dissonance and a reflection of a
weak ego.
And
to make his point, Gudkov refers to Aesop’s fable of the fox and the
grapes. When the fox tries to reach the
grapes but cannot grasp them, he tells himself rather than admitting defeat
they are green and not worth eating. “Approximately
the same psychological mechanism is at work among Russians when they are asked
about the phrase ‘the Western way of life.’”
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