Whether Russia Can Be Other than a Threat to Others and Itself for All but Short Intervals Remains ‘Fundamental Question,’ Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

             Staunton, Sept. 21 – Whether Russia can be other than an authoritarian and aggressive country for more than short intervals remains to this day “a fundamental question,” one for which there are powerful arguments both for and against, according to Vladimir Pastukhov, one of the most thoughtful Russian commentators, says.

             Based in London, Pastukhov argues that this question is important not only theoretically but for intensely practical reasons. On the answer depends how Western countries and  Russians themselves should evaluate what is happening and decide whether some kind of Putinism is the only Russian path (echofm.online/opinions/sushhestvuet-li-alternativa-dlya-rossii).         

             The Russian commentator says he isn’t prepared to offer his own “final answer” to this question, although he currently “leans towards a version [of an answer] that allows for the existence of ‘an Alternative for Russia’” but looks forward to hearing from those who now have the opposition view.

             Pastukhov offers five reasons for his own position:

 ·       First, “the fifth year of a war started by Russia is not the best time to objectively assess the nature of Russian society and power.” At such times, he says, there is an inevitable tendency to focus on trends leading to repression and aggression rather than others which have set the weather during other periods.

 ·       Second, while it is true that “the Russian historical tradition is truly anti-democratic, imperial and militaristic,” it is also the cases that this is something true of “all global empires” and that each of them “has overcome in its own way at some stage and almost nowhere has that been completed.” Perhaps, Pastukhov suggests, “Russia simply hasn’t had enough time.”

 ·       Third, “the Russian political tradition is not only imperial and militaristic.” It has featured “humanistic and democratic” elements as well over the last two centuries” and its willingness to allow much of its former empire to fall away at the end of the 20th century without much violence should not be ignored.

 ·       Fourth, it is impossible to judge the state of Russian opinion on this and related questions because people there go along with the current propaganda efforts of the regime even if they don’t share them because it is easier and less dangerous to do that than to do otherwise.

 ·       And fifth, Russian elites are almost certainly more inclined toward a more western view than the Russian people as a whole; and in a transition they may be more inclined to push for a turn back to the West because it corresponds not only to their views but their interests. This time that turn could last longer than it did earlier.