Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 31 – In a country
where talking about the present or the future directly can land one in
difficulty with the powers that be, Russians increasingly are making policy
arguments in terms of events in Russian history, a trend that will only
intensify in the coming centennial year of the 1917 revolutions.
As citizens of other countries know,
that opens the way not only to misinterpretations of the past in the name of
policy advocacy but to the twin errors of overlearning from the past and thus
committing equal or opposite errors or forgetting its lessons altogether and
flying blindly into the future.
But for good or ill, Russian policy
debates are increasingly going to be cast in historical terms, and it is thus
going to be a requirement that analysts both in Russia and elsewhere recall the
facts about various historical events they may not have thought about for some
time in order to understand what is likely to happen next.
An article yesterday by Valentin
Katonosov on the Russian nationalist Strategic Culture Foundation portal about
the relationship between the reforms of Sergey Witte before World War I and the
Russian revolutions of 1917 is an instructive example of such discourse (fondsk.ru/pview/2016/12/30/sergej-vitte-kak-predvestnik-revoljucii-43307.html).
“The approaching centenary of the
revolution in Russia is a good occasion to yet again reflect upon why in
history periodically occur events called ‘time of troubles,’ ‘a turnover in
state power,’ or ‘a revolution,’” Katanosov says, both as far as 1917 is
concerned and what events in that year says about others.
He then argues that one of those
most responsible for Russia’s slide into revolution was Sergey Witte. “Some
call him a genius and put him alongside Petr Stolypin,” the Russian analyst
says; “others (although unfortunately they are a minority) consider that by his
reforms Witte led Russia to the revolution.” Katanosov says he is one of the
latter.
According to him, Witte’s “’contributions’
to the destruction of Russia” are quite large and numerous, including his role
in the preparation of the October Manifesto and the negotiations in Portsmouth
at the end of the Russo-Japanese war. “But
his main ‘contribution’ … became the so-called monetary reform of 1897” when he
put Russia on the gold standard.
Many praise him for doing this
because it triggered a massive influx of foreign capital and the growth of
certain sectors of the economy, but Katanosov suggests, “this was
industrialization in the framework of the model of dependent capitalism.” As a
result, Russia became more indebted to foreign bankers, and it was sovereign
rather than private debt.
That debt amounted to 8.5 billion
gold rubles in mid-1914 and had the effect of putting the country “under the
tight control of world lenders and put it at risk of finally losing its
sovereignty – and all of this is thanks to Witte’s efforts.” Although he left the post of finance minister
in 1903, he had launched “the mechanism for the destruction of Russia.”
Whatever the truth of Katanosov’s
argument, it prompts three more general comments about invoking past examples
to urge a particular set of policies, as the Russian nationalist’s comments in
this case clearly do.
First, Katanosov is highly selective
in the facts he adduces to make his case. Second, he does not suggest what
alternative policies might have been pursued and what their effects might have
been. And third, he falls victim to the fallacy of “post hoc ergo propter hoc,”
of arguing that any event has been caused by whatever prior event one focuses
on.
There are going to be many more such
“historical” discussions in the coming year: their limitations should be
remembered not only by Russian policy makers but by analysts, Russian and
otherwise, who are trying to figure out where Putin’s Russia is headed next.
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