1918 German Revolution Contains Important Lessons for Russians when Putin Regime Collapses, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 4 – In the Russian of Vladimir Putin, the present and the future are discussed almost exclusively in terms of the past even by those who oppose the current Kremlin leader. Sometimes this leads to a dead end, but sometimes the past can offer extremely valuable lessons for Russians.

            An example of this is provided by Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin speechwriter, in an article today in which he discussed the lessons the 1918 German revolution contains for Russians worried about what will happen when the Putin regime collapses and who want to avoid chaos and revolutionary change (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=63B58A6F7DA8E).

            When the Putin regime finally collapses – and this will happen next year or perhaps a little later, the commentator says – one of two groups will come to power, the moderates or the radicals. Given Russian experience, most people now fear that the radicals will win out and that everything now in place will be swept away as has happened twice since 1917.

            But it can happen that moderates will win the day if they recognize that they need to cooperate with the forces of order in the existing Putin regime and if those forces recognize that holding on to the current system to the bitter end will not only ensure that the radicals will win but that they, the current stakeholders, will be swept away.

            Germany in 1918 benefited from the fact that there were both moderates who recognized they had to make common cause with some in the existing regime to prevent radicalization and revolution and leaders within the existing government machine who understood that they could survive only by making alliances with the moderates whom they had always hated.

            Had one of the other of these forces not been present and not been willing to compromise to prevent collapse and disaster, an extreme revolution almost certainly would have broken out. And that carries lessons for both Russian moderates and for current regime supporters as to how they should act when the Putin regime enters its death agony.

            If moderates refuse to cooperate with those within the regime or if those within the regime refuse to have anything to do with the moderates, then the future is bleak, Gallyamov says, with another destructive revolution almost inevitable, one that will again sweep away the moderates, those within the current elites, and Russia’s future along with them.