Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 24 – The growing
conflict between the US and China may have as a side effect the prolongation of
the life of the Putin regime in Russia and “together with this, the period of
suffering and degradation of the Russian people,” according to Dimitry Savvin,
editor of the Riga-based conservative Russian Harbin portal.
Most analyses suggest that as
tensions between Washington and Beijing rise, Moscow will have to choose one
side or the other, a choice that would undermine the Putin government; but in
fact, Savvin suggests, Vladimir Putin could become the Josef Broz Tito of the
new cold war, part of one bloc but cooperating with the other (harbin.lv/knr-vmesto-sssr-a-putin-vmeto-tito).
Savvin argues that
China and Russia are increasingly alike, albeit their paths to that commonality
have been different. China has continued to base its regime on the communist
nomenklatura while Putin’s has done the same but behind “the smoke screen” of
democratization in the 1990s. Now that
smoke screen has dissipated and the continuities have become clear.
And this is true in the economic and
ideological spheres as well. China and Russia both rely on government control
of “the commanding heights” and the power of the regime to interfere in all
economic activity; and both have developed an ideology combining Sovietism with
neo-traditionalism and ethnic nationalism.
They thus are increasingly natural
allies, Savvin suggests; but precisely because they are, the West will undoubtedly
adopt the strategy it has used so often in the past, cooperating with the
lesser evil to weaken the greater one. That
gives the Putin regime “a window of opportunities” which it will certainly try
to exploit.
The example that Putin is likely to
draw on is that of Yugoslavian leader Tito, who cooperated with Moscow enough
to avoid an invasion but used his independence from Moscow as the basis for
attracting support and resources from a West interested in weakening the Soviet
bloc.
It is entirely logical, the
conservative Russian commentator says, that “under new conditions, the American
government will attempt to act according to this old pattern – and try to make
out of Putin a new Tito and out of the Russian Federation, a neo-Soviet state
with ‘a human face.’”
Washington will seek to have Moscow distance
itself from Beijing and offer in exchange credits, economic cooperation, and an
end to sanctions. Putin will have his own demands, including Western
recognition of the former Soviet space as Russia’s sphere of influence, although
that may be more than he can achieve.
But as a result, Savvin argues, “the
life of Putinist neo-Sovietism could be extended” and not for years but for
decades. “For the Russian people, such a scenario would mean further
degradation across the board and an eternal economic crisis.” (The same thing would happen if Moscow stays
with Beijing but such a strategy would offer Moscow fewer benefits.)
What is as yet unclear is how far
the US is prepared to go to treat Putin as the new Tito, as a lesser evil with
whom one can cooperate against a greater one.
As many Americans know, policies based on naked short-term interests
alone rather than longer-term moral and ideological ones seldom work as
intended – and all too often lead to future disasters.
But it is already clear that America’s
“new cold war with China” is giving Putin’s “neo-Sovietism a certain chance.
And this, perhaps, is the most serous threat” now facing the Russian people at
present.
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