Paul Goble
Staunton,
Oct. 21 – In remarks for the Valdai Club today, Vladimir Putin laid out what he
and his suporters call “a conservative manifesto” and argue that it shows he
and his government are committed to traditionalism, religious values and
historical Russian culture (kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66975).
But Dimitry Savvin, the editor of the Russian
conservative Harbin portal which is based in Riga, argues that “behind the
smokescreen of citations from Ilin and Berdyaev,” there is in Putin’s words a
completely “neo-Soviet ideological core,” something anyone who takes the time
can see (harbin.lv/konservativnaya-obertka-dlya-neosovetizma).
Many
argues that the main distinguishing features of the Soviet and Russian regimes
is the ideological basis of the former and the absence of any official ideology
in the latter; but, Savvin says, citing the émigré scholar Roman Redlikh, that
fails to take into account that in Soviet times, there was both an exoteric
component of the ideology and an esoteric one.
The
exoteric one was directed at foreigners and changed frequently, the Riga-based
commentator says; but the esoteric one remained constant – and committed to the
control of the Moscow-centric state by the nomenklatura elite, as Abdurakhman
Avtorkhanov noted many years ago.
According
to Savvin, “the nomenklatura-caste system headed by the proto-oligarchic
Politburo and its struggle for the achievement and retention of absolute power
is the esoteric core of the Soviet system and the ideology which forms its true
essence.” What Putin is saying conforms perfectly to that notion.
“For
the achievement of its real goals, Soviet power easily changed its official
slogans and ideological concepts from one extreme to another.” For one example
among many, the party which began its life as a defeatist group became one
committed to the most extreme forms of patriotism once it was in power.
Savvin
argues that these shifts “can’t be explained within the frameworks of a certain
ideological dogma. But they are turn out to be very logical if one considers
them from only one position: the position of struggle of the nomenklatura
corporation for its own absolute power, its strengthening and spread across the
world.”
“The
demolition of the USSR in 1991 allowed this corporation to retain power” and
even to increase its wealth. “But its attitude toward this ‘exoteric’ ideology
remained the same.” That is, the Kremlin is prepared to tell the outside world
one thing and now another as part of its effort to control its own people and
expand its power because of its true esoteric commitment.
Savvin
suggests that “not only an expert by even a simply attentive observer cannot
fail to note that over the course of the slightly more than 20 years, Putin and
his entourage have made use of the most varied ideological concepts,” ranging
from cooperation with the West to open opposition.
But
in doing so, the Kremlin leader and his regime have not changed their goals one
iota.
A
year ago, Putin could talk about his sympathy for Angela Davis (kremlin.ru/events/president/news/64171), but now he cites Ilin and Berdyaev in favor of family values
and “’moderate conservatism’” in support of exactly the same goals, the
maintenance and expansion of his power.
In
his Valdai remarks, the Kremlin leader continues this approach. First of all,
his speech has two different audiences, a foreign “propagandistic” one and an
internal “real” one, with the former shifting with the winds of change in the
international environment and the latter remaining exactly the same as his
praise of Stalin and Soviet values shows.
In
simplest terms, the conservative commentator says, “there is nothing new in
principle” in Putin’s Valdai speech. However, it is likely that in the future,
it will be recalled “by future historians as a manifesto of neo-Sovietism, one
not very well packaged in conservative wrapping.”
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