‘Trumpism-Johnsonism-Putinism’ Products and Producers of a New Common Political Reality, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 2 – What is taking place in many of the most important countries of the West today is much more frightening than that which is taking place in Russia today in large part because they are part of “one and the same worldwide process,” according to Vladimir Pastukhv, a Russian scholar based in London.  

            Up to now, this phenomenon lacks a common name or precise description, and “the simplest and most seductive” response is to refer to it as “the second wave of fascism” because “it is easy to push what we see onto the Procrustean bed of our experience,” he argues (polit.ru/article/2020/03/02/trampputpastuhov/).

            At the same time, however, “this is not precisely correct: there is a wave; it really is covering the West and has some similarities with fascism; but there is something in this that is different in principle.” What is happening in the West is what has occurred in Russia: “a crisis of liberal ways of thinking and democratic standards.”

            In both, portions of the elites have rejected democracy and liberalism and now insist that “the interests of the nation must take precedence over the interests of the individual.” The similarities in origin and thinking of Trump in the US, Johnson in the UK and Putin in Russia “are more and more obvious,” Pastukhov continues.

            All three are Bonapartists, with one part of the elite seeking to use its ties with the masses against the rest of the elite; all focus on emotions rather than rationality; all are convinced that complicated problems can be solved by the use of crude force; and all see democratic institutions as something to manipulate rather than be guided by.

            “We are accustomed to viewing the Putin regime as a Russian anomaly, a deviation from worldwide trends and principles of world development,” Pastukhov says. “But this is not so. Everything which has taken place with Russia since the start of this century has turned out to be what is beginning to occur in the world now.”.

            “Putinism” is thus “the forerunner of world processes and not an anomaly,” the London-based scholar says. Russia has thus assumed the role that Petr Chaadayev spoke of when he wrote that “we invent nothing, we are simply the first to hear the vibrations of the world’s strings and begin to strum them earlier and louder than others.”

            What makes all this critically important is that it can easily lead to a major war. “The crude instruments which Trump, Putin, and Johnson have taken into their hands to resolve contradictions can very quickly be transformed into the swords of war,” especially given the acceptance of conflict by people and the immediate knowledge the media gives of problems.

            “Combined with the common growth of aggression, this is a very dangerous situation,” Pastukhov continues. “Everywhere there is an enormous potential for explosions and internal aggression” and the possibility that such things will quickly grow over into war with countries, particularly because we do not focus on the costs of resolving problems by force.   

            “Now,” the Russian analyst says, “we are suffering a humanitarian catastrophe, the result of a critical lag of humanitarian thought behind technical possibilities.” And that has taken the following form: opponents of Trumpism and Johnsonism have adopted a “radically liberal fundamentalism” that calls for just as primitive and aggressive an approach.

            The majority of the population sees this and is put off; and as a result, many are prepared to support regimes which “limit freedoms and shred democracy” in the name of grand but false goals. As a result, those who oppose Trumpism, Johnsonism and Putinism often act in ways that unwittingly strengthen those they would like to see displaced.