‘Putin isn’t an Asian of Today but a European of Several Centuries Ago,’ Inozemtsev Says

Paul Goble

           

            Staunton, November 12 – Many Russians and Europeans view Putin, having made his much-ballyhooed turn to the east, as a new edition of an Asian despot; but they are wrong, Vladislav Inozemtsev says. “Putin isn’t an Asian of today:  he’s a European of the past.”  And that explains why he is so popular among many European leaders.

            Speaking at a conference in Berlin where the view of Putin as an Asiatic tyrant prevailed, the Russian economist and commentator says, he sought to correct that notion by insisting that the Kremlin is “100 percent a European” who believes in “the ‘Westphalian’ vision of sovereignty” (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/187496).

            As such, he thinks he has the right “to impose on his subjects his favored religion and/or ideology” and to punish them severely if they don’t go along, “to seize the territory of other countries when the latter weaken or are not prepared to defend themselves,” and to distribute to his friends “privileges and sinecures” given that the country is his personal property.

            This is exactly how European rulers believed and acted not now but 200, 300 or 400 years ago. What Putin is doing is going back to that model from the past. “He is rejecting not ‘Europe’ but rather the present-day.” He isn’t leading Russia into Asia but rather taking it back to that European past.

            “More than that,” Inozemtsev continues, “precisely this understanding of the essence of what is happening provides an explanation for the unprecedented popularity of Putin in Europe and the willingness of many European politicians one way or another to cooperate with him.”

            “For them, the Russian president isn’t acting as a little African tsar or an Asian dictator.” Instead, “he is the head of the European state of the past in which leaders were all-powerful,” something that is no longer true however much some of them might like it to be, the commentator argues.

            Putin is thus the incarnation of the European past; and as such, many European leaders are reluctant to criticize what he is doing regarding democratic procedures or the defense of human rights.  “This of course is sad,” Inozemtsev says. But it does provide a clear answer to two of the important questions often being raised now:

            “Is Russia a natural component part of Europe? Undoubtedly.

            “Will it become similar to today’s Europe? Yes [but] only after a few centuries.”