Window on Eurasia: To Save Russia and Himself, Putin Must Become a National Bolshevik, Izborsky Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 8 – While he is unlikely to use the term itself, Vladimir Putin has little choice but to return to the ideas of National Bolshevism, an ideological trend from the 1920s whose followers combined a rightist commitment to the powers of the state with a leftist one to a greater role for the state in the economy if he is to save himself and Russia as well.

                In the current issue of “Zavtra,” Valery Korovin, director of the Moscow Center for Geopolitical Expertise and a member of the extremely influential Izborsky Club, makes exactly that argument in some detail (zavtra.ru/content/view/putin-kak-natsional-bolshevik/). On the importance of the Izborsky Club, see css.ethz.ch/publications/pdfs/RAD-135.pdf).

            “Of course,” he says, Putin probably will never employ this term because of its somewhat “odious” history.  But there can be little doubt that he and those around him now feel compelled to “study the heritage of the National Bolsheviks as elaborated at the beginning of the 20^th century” as an ideological basis for the contemporary Russian state.

            National Bolshevism of that time, Korovin recalls, combined support for the integrity of the state as demanded by the White Movement with the socialist economic and political arrangements instituted by the “Red Bolshevik state project.” And that combination, albeit under new terms, is needed to keep Putin in power and “to preserve the country.”

            The Izborsky Club member begins his argument on this point with an insistence that “liberalism or in ideological terms liberal democracy which puts the individual and his interests at the center of things has been the main threat to [Russian] statehood over the course of the last two centuries.”

            Because “liberalism elevates the particular over the general and the individual over the whole,” he continues, it “contradicts the worldview of the Russian majority.”  Thus, Russian leaders must reject liberalism’s “leftist” politics in which the individual has the highest value and its “rightist” economics which gives “unlimited power to the market and private property.

            In their pure forms, neither the leftist ideology of Marxism nor the rightist policies of liberalism are sufficient to meet the task of rejecting liberalism “with its threat to the existence of the state as such.”  Instead, Korovin argues, what is needed is just the reverse: “the domination of leftist economics and rightist politics.”

            That is especially the case because Russia has never been a nation state on the European model. Instead, it has been and remains “an empire, that is, a combination of all social models, from ethnic through collective subjectivity of the big people to elements of the presence of a political nation in the cities and an eccentric civil society in the megalopolises.”

            A century ago, “in a completely surprising and metaphysical way,” a group of writers led by Nikolay Ustryalov and Petr Savitsky, who came to be known as the National Bolsheviks, recognized the need to combine the rightist commitment to a powerful imperial state and a leftist commitment to a socialist economic system.

            Although they were denounced by the Soviet government and generally ignored by others, these National Bolsheviks or more precisely the logic behind their arguments, Korovin insists, had enormous influence and explain the rise of Stalin as “a national leader” who combined both rightist politics and leftist social programs.

            Bolshevism, the Izborsky Club member notes, represented the leftist element in this combination, but “over the course of all of Soviet history in the ideological model of the Soviet period, the rightist element of placing a high value on the state as such was retained” and indeed has continued even now.

            If one considers the current situation, one can see that “Vladimir Putin when he came to power already in his first term began to lay out his policy as a rejection of liberalism” of the kind offered by Yeltsin. By so doing, the Russian president “moved toward the rightist model, toward the ‘White’ model” that the National Bolsheviks had supported.

            During his first two terms, in fact, Putin was “a thoroughgoing supporter of the market but at the same time a great power advocate.” His “liberal patriotism” was “a purely rightist ideological model with its markets and great power focus.” But the liberal market elements have proved destructive, and Putin is being forced to move away from them.

            Putin is getting rid of these liberal elements, but that does not mean he is turning to fascism as some think. “In principle,” Korovin insists, that ideology is “impossible in Russia.” However, in making this turn, Putin has found himself without a clearly defined ideology, something he and the country needs if he and it are to go forward.

            Indeed, the Izborsky Club member continues, Putin has now found himself at a dead end with regard to his “’White’ ideology of liberal patriotism.’” And he will continue to do so unless he adds to that the leftist economics that National Bolshevism accepted and even promoted in the past.

            According to Korovin, “Putin is a realist not only in foreign politics but as is becoming ever more evident in domestic politics as well.” His realism reflects his commitment to the values of the state over those of ideological “preferences’” and his effort to “balance between right and left” as a way of preserving his rule.

            But such a position cannot continue indefinitely, the commentator says, and without a clearly expressed ideology, its failure and his is “only a question of time.” Consequently, the Russian president must base himself “on a leftist economics and a rightist politics” – the combination offered by the National Bolsheviks and implemented by Stalin. 

           

Window on Eurasia: 30 Border Conflicts Simmering Among Russia’s Federal Subjects

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 8 – At the present time, there are approximately 30 territorial disputes among Russia’s federal subjects, a situation that makes changing borders anywhere a such an extremely dangerous proposition  that one Moscow commentator calls these conflicts “a slow acting bomb under Russian sovereignty” as a whole.

            Indeed, Ruslan Gorevoy argues in “Novaya versiya” this week, “this process represents “a serious threat to the territorial integrity of the country” and recalls the parade of sovereignties at the level of union and autonomous republics that led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 (versia.ru/articles/2013/aug/05/mestechkoviy_separatizm).

            One of the clearest signs of that earlier conflict was the appearance of special republic currencies, some of which are still kept in banks and others, as in Karelia this week, are appearing for the first time. (On the new Karelian “rune,” see stolica.onego.ru/news/210265.html  http://flashnord.com/news/organizaciya-vystupayushchaya-za-otdelenie-karelii-ot-rf-vypustila-svoi-dengi).

            In addition, Gorevoy continues, “initiative groups are appearing here and there which are calling for a collective change in place of residence, and this phenomenon in certain subjects, such as Perm kray or Saratov oblast are already beginning to acquire a scope that is no laughing matter.”

            As a result, “there are concerns that the hour is approaching when the quantity of such local conflicts will pass into a new quality, a ‘parade of sovereignties’ analogous to that which led to the disintegration of the USSR in 1991” – only this time at the level of smaller or at least constitutionally subordinate units.

            The most prominent and unpredictable of these internal territorial conflicts is that between Chechnya and Ingushetia over two districts that both nations and their leaders claim.  The border between them was never established formally but rather arose when the two broke apart as the Soviet Union crumbled.

            As Gorevoy points out, “ethnic Chechens never lived in these places in the past and there is not one Chechen grave there, something that in the Caucasus is a very important factor.”  That means that “the Chechens have no basis for pretensions to these lands,” and one local expert says that as a result, “for Ingushetia, the question is closed” and one hopes it is for Moscow as well.

            That may be true of the federal center, but it is certainly not the case for Grozny and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.  He continues to insist that these are Chechen lands and that the Ingush are responsible for all the problems. To solve them, he says, the Ingush must withdraw from Chechen territory and then talks can begin.

            But the Chechen-Ingush dispute is only one of many, and in some of the others, a far more ramified system has been proposed to resolve them.  Under existing federal law and local practice, three referenda are required for any change in the status or borders of any particular federal subject or its subordinate parts.

            The first referendum must be among residents of the district that wants to separate from the oblast,, kray or autonomous republic. The second, if the first is successful, must occur at the oblast, kray or republic level; and the third in the subject of the federation “to which those separating would like to join.”

            Recently, Gorevoy notes, a group of residents of Chaykovsky petitioned the governor of Perm kray to allow them to transfer their city to neighboring Udmurtia because the distance between Chaykovsky and Izhevsk is only 90 kilometers while the distance between their city and Perm is 250.

            If that becomes the basis for such claims, the number of places which may seek to change their political subordination could escalate dramatically. But the number may also increase because in some cases, more than one district wants to leave one federal subject to another but not join another

            In May, for example, five districts in Perm kray discussed leaving Perm kray not to become part of another federal subject but to form “a new Verkhnekamsk oblast or “perhaps an autonomous republic,” even though it would appear that there are “no obvious economic or ethnic reasons for such local separatism.”

            Most Moscow officials remain dismissive of this problem, Gorevoy says. He quotes Boris Gryzlov of the Russian Security Council as having insisted that “territorial disputes inside the country will not lead to its disintegration” because of all the work that has been done “over the course of recent years to strengthen the power vertical.”

            But outside observers are more sanguine, the “Novaya versiya” writer says, and he points to the studies of Pavel Bayev in Oslo, Olga Oliker and Tanya Cherlik-Paley at RAND, and even the US Central Intelligence Agency which has predicted “the beginning of the territorial disintegration” of Russia “in 2015.”

             Gorevoy appends to his article a list of some of the less well-known territorial disputes within the Russian Federation: one between Ulan-Ude and Irkutsk over the status of the Olkhon island in Baikal, another between two suburbs of Moscow, a third between Moscow city and Moscow oblast over control of the capital’s airports, a fourth between Kalmykia and Astrakhan oblast over pasture lands, a fifth between Kurgan and Sverdlovsk oblasts over two districts, a sixth in which part of Ulyanovsk oblast is seeking to join Samara oblast, a seventh in which residents of parts of Leningrad oblast want to join St. Petersburg, an eighth in which Novosibirsk seeks to become a federal city like Moscow or the Northern capital, and a ninth in which Stavropol kray seeks to escape from the North Caucasus Federal District.

            None of these by itself is necessarily a dangerous threat, but their cumulative and demonstration effects could easily create a situation in which Moscow’s response to any one or to a group of them could trigger the kind of conflict that really could tear the Russian Federation apart.

            But in the short term, at least, the most important consequence of these various conflicts is that their existence almost certainly will act to restrain Vladimir Putin and those around him who have said that they would like to amalgamate Russian regions. Any step in that direction now could lead to demands from others that could have consequence Gorevoy suggests.

Window on Eurasia: High Price of Domestic Flights Limiting Contacts among Russians

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 7 – Because the Russian Federation is so large and because that country has such underdeveloped highway and rail networks, many Russians over the last half century have depended on the use of domestic aviation. But in recent times, ticket prices in that sector have risen beyond the reach of many and cut them off from contacts in other parts of Russia.

            Indeed, Anton Sevsk writes in an Ekho Moskvy blog, domestic airline tickets today are “an inaccessible luxury for the majority of Russians.”  A single roundtrip ticket between Moscow and Sochi, for example, costs 26,690 rubles (700 US dollars), approximately 75 percent of a Russian’s average monthly income (echo.msk.ru/blog/anton_sevsk/1126770-echo/).

            It is thus all very well to talk about the development of resorts in the North Caucasus, “but if even getting to them” is impossible for most Russians, then “for whom are they being built?”

            But that is the least of the problems that largely unsubsidized domestic airfares create. They make it impossible for Russians living in one part of the country to maintain ties with friends and family in other parts, and they thus have the effect of separating rather than integrating the country as a whole.

            Parents can’t visit children, students can’t go home for holidays, businesses have to maintain offices in places to which it is too expensive to fly to, and the hyper-centralization of Russia in Moscow is exacerbated rather than reduced.

            What makes this situation especially unfortunate, the Ekho Moskvy blogger says, is that domestic air tickets in the Russian Federation are far more expensive than those in Europe.  One can fly from London to Rome for less than 9,000 rubles (300 US dollars), a distance that is only 200 kilometer greater than between Moscow and Sochi for 60 percent less.

            Russian airline officials explain this by pointing to Russia’s “cold climate, enormous distances, and undeveloped infrastructure.”  There are few airports, little competition between them, and high costs involved in snow removal and heating during much of the year.  But those factors don’t explain everything, Sevsk says.

            In addition, Russian law “contains a number of provisions which block the reduction of prices for air tickets.”  It requires free food to be served and free carriage of baggage.  Moreover, it prevents hiring foreign pilots, giving Russian pilots an unfair advantage. Those arrangements helped kill Sky Express and Avianova, two Russian low-cost carriers.

            Some European low cost airlines are trying to break into the Russian market for international flights. One of them now offers flights from Moscow to London for less than half what Aeroflot charges for the same route – and about the same amount that Russian domestic carriers charge for the Moscow-Sochi roundtrip.

            The existence of competition on international routes and the lack of competition on domestic ones is the major explanation for this pattern, the blogger says. But what it means is that Russians can get a much better deal flying out of their country than they can when they try to travel within it.

            And that “hypothesis,” Sevsk says, is confirmed by official Russian avaiation figures which show that “in 2013 the number of people flying abroad exceeds the share of those who fly inside the country … and that this gap is increasing,” with international passengers increasing 27 percent while domestic ones are going up only nine percent.

            Several weeks ago, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev promised to find money to subsidize flights between Siberia and Moscow after officials east of the Urals pointed out that ever fewer residents of that region were visiting the capital. And over the last year, Kaliningrad officials have complained that the high cost of domestic flying means that enclave residents are more likely to go to Europe than to Russia.

            But in neither case have Moscow officials addressed the fundamental problems that Sevsk identifies, the absence of competition in nearly all sectors of Russian domestic aviation, an amazing situation in many ways given the extent to which Moscow and many in the West celebrate Russia’s embrace of the virtues of the competitive marketplace.

Window on Eurasia: ‘Melting of Permafrost is Converting Much of Russia into a Swamp’

Paul Goble

                Staunton, August 7 – Two-thirds of the territory of the Russian Federation is covered by permafrost, and the melting of this ice is rapidly “converting a large part of Russia into a swamp,” according to studies by British and Russian scholars reported and discussed this week in Moscow’s “Novyye izvestiya.”

            Researchers at the University of Cambridge, Veronika Vorontsova and Mariya Vasilchenko note, predict that the permafrost will according to their models melt away sometime between 2020 and 2050, but “already now,” the permafrost has disappeared in many places in northern Russia (newizv.ru/society/2013-08-06/186801-ona-rastajala.html).

            With its loss, the ground under many buildings and other infrastructure has become gelatinous putting human construction above it at risk.  Many people can no longer live in houses because the foundations are collapsing, and the entire city of Dudinka in Krasnoyarsk Kray may “cease to exist” as a result.

            According to Russian scholars working in Yakutsk, Vorontsova and Vasilchenko say, permafrost which now underlies 69 percent of Russian territory is melting everywhere. But the process is not even, and some places, such as the northern part of the Yenisey River basin, have already become swamps.

            The melting of the permafrost is the result of global warming, itself the product of the release of greenhouse gases. But even if those were stopped now, something unlikely to happen, the investigators suggest, the melting of the permafrost would continue for another two decades by inertia.

            Vladislav Bolov, the head of the Emergency Situations Ministry Center for Predictions and Monitoring, says that over the next 25 years, the area in Russia now covered by permafrost will decline by 10 to 18 percent, and by mid-century, the permafrost region will decline by almost a third.

            The effects of this “will be destructive,” Bolov says, “especially in regard to automobile and railroads build across permafrost regions.”  Many roads in the region are already impassable or at best have to be constantly repaired.  And the situation will only get worse as the permafrost foundations melt away.

            Already, “up to 40 percent of the infrastructure of population points built earlier in permafrost regions” in Russia are at risk of collapse, according to Igor Chestin, the director of the World Wildlife Fund’s Russian section.  And more than 5,000 kilometers of railway track are also at risk, with some near Baikal already requiring slower speeds or intensive reconstruction. 

But in addition to these highly visible problems, there is another which may prove even more disturbing.  According to Natalaya Ryazanova, a climatologist, there is great risk that bacteria long trapped in the ice may now escape and infect people who lack any resistance to it. Moreover, she says, the release of certain gases is already harming residents.

Scholars overwhelmingly say, the two journalists continue, that the melting away of the permafrost is “an irreversible process” to which human beings must learn to adapt themselves. But in Russia as in the West, there are some researchers who question the urgency of this issue and suggest that the world has time to do so more easily.

Mikhail Grigoryev, a permafrost specialist in Yakutsk, says that global warming has been slowing over recent years and that its impact on permafrost now is not as great as it was only six or seven years ago.  But even he acknowledges that no one can predict either weather anomalies or prevent much of Russia from becoming a swamp as ever more of the permafrost disappears.