Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 10 – It is
fashionable to compare the Putin regime of today with that of Leonid Brezhnev,
but such comparisons are deeply mistaken because the Kremlin now “is not a
rickety ideological regime but a bold and self-confident one,” Aleksandr
Morozov says (rbc.ru/opinions/politics/09/12/2016/584a5be19a79475bfae951d5?from=newsfeed).
In pointing to this recognition by a
Moscow commentator, US-based Russian historian Irina Pavlova argues that
Russian analysts need to take “the next step and recognize that the [Putin] regime
has an ideology: It is a commitment to Russia being a great power or Russian
fundamentalism” (ivpavlova.blogspot.com/2016/12/blog-post_9.html).
That idea, she says, “unites the
powers that be, the elite, the people of Russia and yes a significant part of
progressive society.” As such, as
Pavlova has pointed out before (ivpavlova.blogspot.com/2016/08/blog-post.html),
it makes the Russia of today more united and more dangerous to itself and to
others than Brezhnevism was.
And that is the case, the Russian
historian suggests, despite all the problems Russia faces. Indeed, Pavlova
argues, the Kremlin’s success in shifting the blame for those problems onto the
West has helped promote Russian fundamentalism and thus become a source of
strength rather than weakness for the regime if not for Russia as a whole.
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