One Aspect of Weimar Analogy Remains Tragically True in Russia, Savvin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 15 – It was fashionable in the 1990s and early 2000s to point to parallels between Weimar Germany and post-Soviet Russia, Dimitry Savvin says, but in most respects beyond the most superficial, the analogy broke down. The social, economic and political systems of the two countries are simply too different for anything else to happen.

            But there is one aspect of the Weimar analogy that holds, albeit it is one that few want to talk about, the Riga-based Russian nationalist says; and it is this, both in Weimar Germany and in Russia of the 1990s, at the end of the day, no one was prepared to live according to democratic rules and viewed them as dispensable (afterempire.info/2019/05/15/vebmarsjaya-bolezn/).

            In Weimar Germany, none of the conservative forces viewed democracy as anything but an obstacle to their goals. That is no surprise given their background in Imperial Germany, Savvin continues; but what is surprising is that none of the liberals acted as if democracy was important. Instead, they saw it as a means to take power, not as a system in and of itself.

            “In democratic Germany … democracy turned out to be something no one needed. For all, the Weimar regime was only an unwelcome and temporary stopping point, and all wanted to break everyone except themselves by making use of it, the Riga-based commentator says. And so “democracy died, quietly and unnoticed,” on its own rather than being killed by the Nazis.

            In that respect, the Weimar analogy first perfectly with what happened in Russia: Because no one viewed democracy and its rules as worthwhile in and of themselves, many came to view them as unnecessary and ultimately as dispensable. And once that happened, they were given up much as they were given up in Germany.

“Just like in Germany of 1918, the late-Soviet fragmentary decracy turned out to be more a sum of historical failures and backlash and not the legitimate result of political evolution,” Savvin argues,, “and what is especially important, already in the very first years of the existence of the Russian Federation, it turned out that no one needed it.”

No one can have any trouble understanding by the communists or various national patriots weren’t interested in democratic development, he says; and “no less logical also was the fact that the old nomenklatura wasn’t interested either and already by the beginning of 1992 it was beginning to return itself to power and begin the formation of a neo-Soviet regime.”

But the way the so-called “democratic forces” behaved requires more comment because they behaved not as defenders of democracy but rather as the forces that helped destroy any chance that it could succeed in Russia. In 1993, they supported the shelling of the parliament; and then in 1996, they supported a faked result in presidential elections.

And in 2000, they welcomed the anti-democratic appointment of a successor to Boris Yeltsin, although some of its members would have sacrificed democracy in another way by allowing Yeltsin to run for an unconstitutional third term.

            “It isn’t hard to notice that Russian society, with rare exceptions, dreamed throughout the 1990s about a dictator. But only one that each wanted.” Some wanted a Stalin, others a Che Guevara, still others, “’our Orthodox Russian Hitler,’” and liberal society about “its own Pinochet” who would put things in order the way its members wanted.      

            “Precisely in this paradoxical societal consensus,” Savvin continues, “consists if you will the very clearest resemblance of Yeltsin’s Russian Federation and Weimar Germany.” And that in turn helps to explain why democratic ideas and democratic leaders remain so extremely unpopular in Russia to this day.

            Russians “do not view political confrontation as one between dictatorship and democracy,” he says. Rather, “they see only the competition of various models of dictatorship. And in a completely logical way, they give their preference to the one which seems the most ‘popular’ in shape.”

            The Kremlin understands this and presents Putin as one of the people and his opponents, including in particular those who proclaim themselves to be democrats, as “unsuccessful candidates for dictator who despise the people and fear it,” a presentation that works extremely well for the powers that be, Savvin argues.

            “What needs to be done? As always: before calling upon others to share your faith, you must test yourself by living according to your faith. If you want to attract people to the ideal of democracy, then first of all you must organize your own political milieu in a corresponding way.”

            Until that happens, Savvin concludes, the Weimar disease will continue to infect Russia. “And democracy just like in Germany of the 1920s, won’t be needed by anyone, including even the democrats.”