Ignoring Russian Factor in 1991, Liberal Westernizers Opened the Way for Rise of Putinism, Sidorov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 8 – Liberal westernizers in the 1990s ignored the Russian factor, thus giving rise the resentments which powered the rise of Vladimir Putin and his authoritarian regime, Vadim Sidorov says. And in their ideas for the future, they continue to do so, thus opening the way for a similar outcome even if the country again comes apart. 

            Because Russian liberals were not informed by Russian self-consciousness but rather looked to Europe, the regionalist commentator says, they promoted outcomes which could only be sustained by the kind of outside force that was unlikely to be offered or sustained and thus set the stage for a return to the past (region.expert/eurasia/).

            Such people forget that the West was not that enthusiastic about the demise of the USSR, and they fail to recognize that its more recent behavior in Iraq, Syria and  Libya shows that it today it is even less willing to support the emergence of new states except under the most extraordinary circumstances, however often the Kremlin says the West wants to destroy Russia.

            They fail to see that when failed states do fall apart, there is very little willingness on the part of the Western powers to support any new ones that appear set to emerge lest that spark a new and more serious round of international conflicts on the territories of the old ones and that this is a major reason why the international community opposes the demise of existing states.

            “Like generals preparing for a future war on the basis of past ones, some radical democrats who were shaped by perestroika are preparing for the destruction of the imperial vertical in the Russian Federation on the assumption that this will occur in a way similar to the relatively peaceful and internationally recognized demise of the USSR.”

            “But before the world recognized the demise of the USSR, it was liquidated by three republics, its creators, and in the first instance by Russia itself as its geopolitical heart,” Sidorov continues. And that happened “not least of all” because Yeltsin did not want to allow the autonomous republics within Russia to be able to exit.

            And as a result, “instead of a decentralized confederation,” he and the Russians around him formed “a more centralized state, albeit of a smaller geographic size.” The outcome in short was not dictated by Gorbachev as some still imagine but by Yeltsin who was pursuing a Russian national agenda that liberal westernizers still refuse to recognized.

            The idea of a federal Russia arose in 1917 and continues to inform Russian thinking, however. And one should not underrate the fact that even though Putin has gutted the meaning of federalism by minimizing the power of the republics, he hasn’t taken the next step and removed federation from the name of the country.

            That provides a way forward, one that can overcome the current hyper-centralist system, but it is one that liberal westernizers have been slow to recognize. They are willing to concede that some non-Russian republics perhaps should have the right to exit, but they aren’t yet ready to support the idea that predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays should be republics.

            If the current country dissolves, there will be a war across its territory, especially because many of the Russians in the oblasts and krays continue to view their only statehood as being that of the country as a whole. Unless that changes and unless liberal westernizers also take up the cudgels for it, the future for Russia is bleak – authoritarianism, war and more authoritarianism.