20th Century Hasn’t Ended Yet for Russia and Won’t in 2016 Either, Satarov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 31 – Many people believe that despite the calendar, the 20^th century began in 1914 with the start of World War I, Georgy Satarov says; but if it began then, it is in no hurry to end given that “there is a country on the earth in which 100 million adults and more or less wise people have tolerated the power of vulgar bandits.”

            And when at the same time, the rest of the world over the same period “has tolerated alongside itself these bandits who are armed with an enormous nuclear arsenal.” Moreover, how can one speak of a new century when ISIS and its ideas are all too obviously flourishing, the Moscow commentator asks in a “Yezhnednevny zhurnal” article (ej.ru/?a=note&id=29146).

            The year 15 “began not immediately after the two-week-long New Year’s drunk” 12 months ago, he continues. “It began on February 27 when Boris Nemtsov was killed,”  an event that Satarov suggests may ultimately be what the past year will be remembered for, “the year when they killed Boris Nemtsov.”

            And year 15 ended with the unjustified sentences handed down against Ildar Dadin and Ivan Nepomnyashy and the suicide of Vlad Kolesnikov. It was in fine “a difficult year for us. But it was a year much more difficult and even terrible for Putin although he quite sluggishly conceals this. From time to time.”

            In January of year 15, Satarov continues, he was asked what the most important domestic problem facing Russia was and answered “Ukraine” because “dictators who have suffered fiascos in domestic policy in their own way sharply increase their foreign policy activity” as a means to “solve domestic problems.

            That is what Putin did in year 14 immediately after the Sochi Olympiad, and it has defined what he and others are pleased to call, quite mistakenly in fact, “’the foreign policy of Russia’” ever since.

            As a result of this “policy,” Satarov says, “Russia is surrounded by a ring of countries among whom does not remain a single friendly one.  Formal partners remain, of course, but they all by their actions have shown that they no longer connect their present and future with Russia.” Such signals are increasing not only in frequency but in intensity as well.

            Because of this, Russia is experiencing growing unemployment and contracting production, emptying shelves and the falling ruble, “the flight from the country of the most talented people, criminals in judicial robes,” and no on. Unlike other peoples, Russians are having to get along “without medicine, without healthcare, without science, without culture but on the other hand with the law of God in the schools.”

            “All this,” Satarov says, “is the reverse side of what it is customary to call Putin’s ‘foreign policy.’”

            The Kremlin leader “hoped that his ‘foreign policy’ would save him, the commentator writes. He fed people on the narcotic of the mania of greatness supposing that this would support his regime.” But that has proved “a dead end. There won’t be any greatness again; there will be a great collapse” instead.

            No one can be sure “how quickly” this will happen, Satarov observes. “That is difficult to predict,” but he adds that he is “certain of one thing: 2016 will define above all the fate of Putin,” who will end either as a Pinochet, a Milosevich, or a Qaddafi, possibilities that have cost the Kremlin leader sleep for “almost a decade.”

            Satarov concludes with two further predictions which he has have “a high probability” of coming true. The first is that there won’t be any presidential elections in Russia in 2018; and the second is that if such voting does occur then or earlier, “among the candidates will not be V.V. Putin.”

When Crises Become Permanent – Russia vs. Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 31 – Man is not a pig, Dostoyevsky observed; he can get used to anything.  But the process of adapting to something new changes him in ways he may not even be aware of. That is what has happened in Russia and Ukraine, albeit in different ways, as each nation has adapted itself to the idea that the crises it faces are not temporary but permanent.

            Two commentators, Vyacheslav Inozemtsev and Kseniya Kirillova, explore what this adaptation to the sense of a permanent crisis means for Russia and Ukraine respectively (gazeta.ru/column/vladislav_inozemcev/7996685.shtml and nr2.com.ua/blogs/Ksenija_Kirillova/O-nashem-samom-strashnom-vrage-114305.html).

            In a “Gazeta” column, the Moscow economist argues that the Kremlin has succeeded in accustoming itself and the Russian people as well to “live in a permanent crisis.”  A year ago, everything was different. Both the regime and the population feared that unless something was done and quickly, there would be disaster. But such feelings have largely disappeared.

            Any crisis, Inozemtsev points out, may be viewed as logic or unprovoked, but in both cases, “it looks temporary and a passing phenomenon.”  But after a time and with the effort of the authorities, people get used to it and conclude that “nothing extraordinary will occur in our lives.”

            The opposition continues to point to the disasters all around, but the population doesn’t respond. “Citizens who during recent years could allow themselves vacations in Turkey and Egypt joyously greet the president’s decision about Russian participation in the operation in Syria and the government’s ban on flights to the same Egypt and Turkey.”

            “Nothing from this,” the economist continues, “elicits not only a reaction but I would even say much interest among the majority of Russians.” And the same is true of other things as well, including bans on imports, rising prices, emptying shelves, the falling ruble, and all the other features of Russian life today.

            “This means only one thing: in contrast to 1998 2008 or 2014, the crisis is viewed in Russia as something ordinary.”  And that represents “an enormous success of the Russian authorities: “the people have been finally transformed into a silent mass” and the powers that be are thus free to act as they want.

            The Russian population has ceased to pay much attention even to things it focused on in the past, and “the authorities are acting in exactly the same key: for a long time already, they haven’t been struggling with the crisis. They have accustomed themselves and taught the people to live in the conditions of crisis” and to accept that this situaiton will last for some time.

            It may very well be, he suggests, that “all this is part of a genial ‘Putin plan’ carried out by United Russia,” something suggested by the symbol of the party, the Russian bear, “the only major animal in our country which when it encounters unfavorable climatic conditions and a shortage of food simply goes into hibernation.”

            In 2014, Inozemtsev says, “Russia passed through two mobilizations, an imaginary one and a real one.”  The imaginary one involved Crimea and Ukraine, conflicts which affected few people directly but gave the population the sense that something great would have “in the nearest future.”

            “The second occurred at the end of [that] year” when Russian founds that there was less in stores and when foreign currency cost more, a situation which “touched the majority of the population of the country and was much more ‘real’ than the first.”  But in 2015, “there wasn’t any mobilization at all.”

            Instead, almost all Russians have become accustomed to the crisis and do not expect it to end or the situation to change fundamentally anytime soon.

            In a commentary for Novy Region-2, Kirillova, a US-based commentator, considers the way in which 2015 differed from its predecessor and why what has occurred casts a potentially dark shadow on the future of Ukraine.

            Most of the problems of 2015 began the year before and were not solved during the last 12 months, she writes.  As a result, Ukraine shifted from a heroic period in which it had to face immediate threats into a more dangerous one in which “our main enemy” became “not so much Russia as indifference and weariness.”

            Ukrainians are “beginning to avoid beautiful words and to be ashamed of their former naivete. [They] are tired of hopes and disappointments … and have suddenly discovered that [they] must not trust anyone.”  Moreover, they are increasingly weighed down by the sense that their “struggle will be eternal and lonely.”

            Ukrainians are “ceasing to believe those who live in neighboring countries and even in apartments next door,” Kirillova writes. And those who had displayed enthusiasm for the task ahead now display disappointment and anger and “in place of unity a lack of faith and loneliness, in place of faith in victory, weariness.”

            Kirillova says she would like to be contradicted and believes that consideration of Ukraine’s achievements, especially on the international front, over the past year provides a basis for greater optimism.  But many Ukrainians feel otherwise and “the year just passed shows that no external enemy can bring as much evil” as a despairing population can bring itself.

            There should not be any basis for panic. Ukraine has held out against enormous odds.  “But our task today,” she writes, “is to help hold up those around us who do not have the strength to continue the struggle and those who do not have the faith” needed to do so successfully.

            And thus, Kirillova concludes, “our most horrible enemy besides weariness and disappointment is inattentiveness and indifference. In order to survive as a nation, we must constantly look at those who are fighting and suffer alongside them and especially at those who already cannot fight.”

Kazan Arrests Pro-Moscow Critic under Terms of Russia’s Anti-Extremist Law

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 30 – Today, Rais Suleymanov, a Tatar who has sharply criticized Kazan for supposedly assisting the rise of radical Islam in the Middle Volga and for failing to break with Turkey after the shooting down of a Russian plane that violated Turkish airspace, was detained for violating the Russian law governing the publication of extremist materials.

             He was arrested and then by the action of a Kazan court ordered to be held for seven days before he will be formally arraigned.  His supporters believe that Kazan took this action now because the long winter holiday will prevent them from protesting this action until sometime in January (apn.ru/publications/article34518.htm).

            But their complaints miss three more important aspects of this case, aspects that are certain to attract more attention as news of Suleymanov’s detention spreads.  First of all, it is an indication that Tatarstan has no intention of backing down either on its demand for the retention of a republic presidency or of breaking relations with Turkey as Moscow has demanded.

            Second, Suleymanov’s arrest shows that Kazan has had enough of someone whose articles have been routinely criticized by other experts as extreme, distorted and even in some cases dishonest in their transparent effort to blacken the reputation of Tatarstan in Moscow and to defend all Russian actions and Russian organizations there.

            And third – and this is far and away the most important thing and one that makes Kazan’s action a potential game changer – other non-Russian republics which have their own Suleymanovs, people from the titular nationality who have enjoyed protection because of their pro-Moscow positions, may now follow Tatarstan’s lead.

            Indeed, Moscow’s response to this case almost certainly will reflect a fear of that possibility rather than some commitment to Suleymanov as such.