Neo-Sovietism and ‘USSR 2.0’ Completely at Odds with Their Supposed Models, Sidorov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 3 – Many people take those who advocate neo-Sovietism and the building of “a USSR 2.0” at their word and fail to see that what they are proposing is radical different from the originals, so different that the fate of nations within the borders of such a state either the Russian Federation or something larger are completely at odds, Vadim Sidorov says.

            “Original sovietism,” the Prague-based Russian analyst says, “was a futuristic and universalist project” that had the mobilizational potential to survive for far longer if ultimately just as unsuccessfully as the empires of Austro-Hungary and the Ottomans (facebook.com/groups/sonrnrp/permalink/1335195370284819).

            According to Sidorov, “neo-Sovietism and USSR 2.0 is different in principle. Neitehr has the intellectual, cadres, demographic or economic resources for the creation of a futuristic alternative global project. And therefore all talk by ‘Eurasian’ propagandists that Russia is able to achieve such a goal is either an intentional lie or sheet stupidity.”

            “In reality,” Sidorov continues, “the beneficiaries of this project and its real ideologues understand perfectly well that they are building something different, a parasitic and predatory neo/sub-colonial project that is intended to secure their inclusion in the club of the masters of the world system on conditions acceptable to themselves.”

            That this project is predatory is obvious; that it is parasitic, somewhat less so. But in fact this is even more essential. The Kremlin today is parasitizing on what the Russian Empire and the USSR created rather than creating new resources and thus destroying any possibility for the peoples under its rule to develop.

            That sets it apart from the Soviet leadership which sought to create new resources in support of its plans rather than simply using those that had been built up earlier, Sidorov argues. And that means that in contrast to the Soviet past, the Russian present and even more a USSR 2.0 has no place for political nations. They are only resources to be used and then discarded.

            “Consequently,” the Prague-based analyst says, “the prospects for national modernization and the sovereignties of the peoples of the post-Soviet space are incompatible with neo-Sovietism and a USSR 2.0.” These peoples can have a promising future if and only if they force the rejection of these ideas or escape from the field of their application.