West Fears Disintegration of Russia Just as It Did in 1918 and 1991 But Must Prepare for It and for a Long Period of Involvement There Afterwards, Berlyand Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 19 – “The military and political defeat of Russia and its disintegration is in the interests not only of Ukraine but of the free world and even in the interests of the peaceful future of a large part of the population of Russia itself,” according to Irina Berlyand, a specialist on culture and language who moved from Moscow to Kyiv eight years ago.

            Because that is so, she argues, the main allies of Ukraine inside Russia or among Russian emigres are not the liberal anti-war and anti-Putin elements in either place but rather the still-captive nations within current Russian borders (svoboda.org/a/irina-berlyand-pro-bratskiy-narod-uzhe-stydno-govoritj-/33033375.html).

            “Unfortunately, almost all Russians and the West do not want to understand” the need for the demolition of the last empire, Berlyand says. Instead, “the West fears the disintegration of the Russian Federation just as it did the disintegration of the Russian Empire in 1918 and feared the disintegration of the USSR in 1991.”

            Those who oppose the disintegration of Russia both within that country and abroad argue that this is either impossible or dangerous because it will leave weapons of mass destruction in the hands of “inadequate” people, arguments that echo those heard a century ago and again in the years leading up to 1991, the expert continues.

            Moreover, anti-Putin people in Russia and many in the West continue to believe that there is “no reason for disintegration” because they think that it is possible a new Gorbachev will emerge, someone who will turn Russia back to the West and at the same time will “prevent the collapse of Russia,” a new leader “with a cool head and a warm heart.”

            But Berlyand says this does not look likely or even desirable as “the chances that a new Gorby will appear are “close to zero.”

            She says that she hopes for the military defeat of Russia but “can’t imagine what it would look like,” although she has serious doubts that it would resemble the defeat of the Third Reich. That led to the occupation of Germany, something that allowed German society to “’overcome Nazism’ under conditions of foreign rule rather than of its own free will.”

            Russia or its parts are unlikely to be occupied in the same way, Berlyand continues; and as a result the overcoming of Putin’s Rassism, “a disease no less dangerous and serious than Nazism,” will take “at least two generations” and require the demilitarization and denuclearization of all of that space.

            The threat of revanchism must also be fought by ensuring that those who have already committed crimes like the war in Ukraine bear criminal liability for their actions – and that will involve not just Putin and a handful of his team but a much larger group and thus require far more efforts by outsiders than they seem willing even to contemplate.