Window on Eurasia: Russia is ‘Part of Europe But Will Never Be Part of the West,’ St. Petersburg Psychoanalyst Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 9 – “Russia is part of Europe but it never will be part of the West,” a psychological pattern that has remained “unchanged” over the course of the last 500 to  600 years and one whose continuity leads to the modification of any system it has adopted to fit the Russian mentality, according to a St. Petersburg psychoanalyst.

            While that sometimes has had less than positive consequences, Mikhail Reshetnikov, rector of the East European Institute for Psychoanalysis, says, it has also means that “rebirth has always taken place” when this civilizational island is surrounded “approximately like now” by the limitless ocean (regnum.ru/news/polit/1811641.html).

                Speaking at a press conference on “Russian Identity and the Crisis of Civilizations” at the conclusion of the 7^th St. Petersbur Summit of Psychologists last week, Reshetnikov argued that “every people is the fruit of an evolved mentality and has its own goals,” which he calls “the chosen goal of a specific people.”

           

            The Russian variant of this involves several things historically, the psychoanalyst says.  “Above all, it [includes] Russian historical pride,” the idea sometimes realized and sometimes not that Russia could play the leading role in the world after the opening of the space provided by the collapse of Byzantium in the 15^th century.

            When Russia was unable to realize this role, he continues, it adopted as compensation “such myths” as “the special Russian social,” “the special Russian character,” and “the indestructible Russian spirit.”  After 1917, these myths were simply transferred by substituting the word “Soviet” for the word “Russian.”

            Another “chosen goal” in the Russian mentality is reflected in the fact that “the Russian state always expanded: to the north, to the west, to the south and to the east.” That was combined with the notion of “a certain messianic role for Russia with regard to all neighboring nations and to people within the state.”

            “In the Soviet period,” Reshetnikov said, “this was transformed into the assertion that ‘we are bringing light to the entire world.’” Throughout this messianism has been not based on a Russian national idea but rather on “the super-national idea of the priority of Russian culture over the others.”

            “Everyone had to know Russian writers,” he continued, because”except for Chingiz Aitmatov and a couple of others, you can’t name writers from the borderlands of Russia.”

            Another “distinctive aspect of the Russian people,” he said, is that “unlike other countries”—and he said that he says this with regret – Russians ‘are not colonizers. We occupy territory but people continue to speak Uzbek, Armenian, Ukrainian and so on.” Wherever the French went, they imposed French.

            A third characteristic of the Russian mentality is “a focus on the first person of the state,” an assumption that he rather than the people will make the decisions and exercise power.  That was true before under the tsars, under the Soviets and now.  “The democratic freedom which people received after1991 was nonsense,” he said.

                Russia became “a state of the free poor, and we are reaping the results.” And this is complicated by the fact, Reshetnikov says, that the Russian state was never about protecting the citizenry but only about protecting the state.  “This also is our tradition.”

            “All western models which Russia took offer as a result have been transformed by the force of our mentality,” he said. “Social democracy was transformed into bolshevism,” and “borrowed democracy became democratism” and thus took on”a negative shading.”

            Russia’s special situation reflects the fact that “we were never the Scandinavian north, the Muslim south, the west or the east ... We always were an island of civilization, and in this is an enormous hope or rebirth.”  Russia is in a position to do so now, and as it does, Russia as “a young nation” doesn’t need aging Europe. Let it rot in peace.”

Window on Eurasia: Russians Back Putin Because He Offers Illusion Russia is Again a Superpower, Levinson Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 8 – Much of the public support in Russia for Vladimir Putin reflects the fact that his actions allow Russians to believe if only for a time that their country is once again a great power even though they fully understand that Russia is not in a position to be one the equal of the United States, according to Aleksey Levinson of the Levada Center.

            In the second part of his interview given to Andrey Lipsky of “Novaya gazeta” – for the first, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/06/window-on-eurasia-moscow-tv-has-shaped.html the sociologist argues that  Putin’s role as a symbol is “sharply growing” and that “the dimensions of Putin exceed himself” because mass consciousness in Russia ascribes to him “a world-historical role” (novayagazeta.ru/politics/63938.html).

            Support for Putin also reflects a deep desire among many Russians for a sense of unity, Levinson says. For those who grew up “in a totalitarian milieu” and even their children and grandchildren, the sociologist continues, “there is the sense that to be not united and varied is terrible and bad.”

            And consequently, many Russians are prepared to “primitivize” themselves and their world “in order to become united and simple.  To separate from the complicated West and even from Ukraine [which is complicated too],” and thus live more simply but on our own.  Putin plays to those feelings, and he gets support because he does.

            Of course, much of this appeal for self-isolation and for simplification of life is “bravado” and won’t last more than some months, Levinson says.  Russians really aren’t prepared to go back to the past, but saying so makes them feel good and explains why some of them even welcome sanctions: those will help Russia rebuild, in their view.

            Levinson points to another important phenomenon that is sometimes overlooked: Russians may give high ratings to Putin because he is a symbol of their country being able on occasion to act like a great power, but they continue to be sharply critical of many of his policies and not just the ways in which the bureaucracy is implementing them.

            Never before in Russian history, except in Stalin’s times, has “the concentration of attention” on the leader been as great as it is now.  Putin is referred so frequently that no other individual can be imagined as a leader and because “to a great extent,” this reflects a public need for “a unifying symbol,” not about unity in general but “based on the idea of a great power.”

            As such, Levinson suggests, the current Putin phenomenon “should not be called a cult of personality.” There are elements of that, and there are people around him who are pushing that idea for their own purposes. That reflects the fact that today people clearly distinguish between private and public discourse.

            In the former, Russians behave quite rationally, weighing their interests, “but in public discourse, “it is necessary” to talk about “our industry” and “our independence” and “our security” against outsiders, whether this is rational or not.

             Such attitudes could “in principle” rest on “a completely rational, market-oriented and democratic” basis, but they don’t.  What is on offer is “a fundamentalist approach, namely, a fundamentalist one and not a patriotic one.” That is because what is being done is inflicting so much harm on the people.

            In another comment, Levinson says, that “what is happening now is not only the change of a political course but also some change in cadres and figures in various positions of power.” That adds to the conformity one sees. As in Soviet times, those with aspirations cannot fail to say what everyone is saying if they want to get ahead.

            That conceals real divisions among Russians, divisions which may not be as deep as those in Ukraine but real nonetheless.  And under the impact of the flow of events, these can reemerge just as they did after Mikhail Gorbachev’s dissolution of the Congress of People’s Deputies or Boris Yeltsin’s suppression of the Supreme Soviet.

                In short, the supposed unity of the Russian people behind Putin is just as fragile and ultimately illusory as the supposed return of the Russian Federation to the status of a super power and could disappear more rapidly than many, including Putin and his supporters, now think possible.

Window on Eurasia: Russia No Longer Needs a Prime Minister, Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 8 – Russia “at the present stage” should dispense with the office of prime minister since the president in fact makes all the key decisions, according to a Moscow commentator. Such a step would not only reduce costs by eliminating duplication in the bureaucracy but also end what has become “unique” kind of “dual power.”

            In a commentary on the IARex.ru portal, Fakhraddin Aboszoda, a Talysh leader living in Russian exile who writes frequently about Russian and Eurasian issues, says that it is so obvious that Vladimir Putin makes the decisions and that the current government is so problematic that “liquidating” the post of prime minister is an obvious solution (iarex.ru/articles/48384.html).

            Many Russian commentators and politicians have talked for some time about what they see as the need to remove Dmitry Medvedev as prime minister because of the shortcomings of his government – usually listed as too many meetings, too few decisions, too obvious differences with Putin, and too weak implementation of decisions that have been taken.

            But few have taken the next step and suggested that the solution to the current problem lies not with the individual but with the office and that given the increasingly presidential nature of the Russian regime, there is no real need and some harm in retaining the position of prime minister.

            Given discussions about the possibility of revising or even replacing the 1993 Constitution with a “Putin” one, Aboszoda’s comment may be a trial balloon for those who would like to see a fundamental change in the nature of the regime, one that would further reduce the importance of the parliament and further increase that of the Kremlin.

            But it is also possible that Abbasov, 57, has another agenda.  He may be interested in attracting favorable attention from the Kremlin to his cause, that of the Talysh minority in Azerbaijan.  He was president of the Milli Mejlis of the self-proclaimed and short-lived Talysh-Mugdan Autonomous Republic in 1993.

            Intriguingly in either case is the way that the Talysh commentator ends his article: “It would be possible,” he says, “to produce additional arguments in support of this position. But it would be better if other experts were to express themselves on this theme.” It will be interesting to see if others do in fact follow his lead.

Window on Eurasia: A New ‘Silent Yalta’ Took Place in Normandy, Russian Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 8 – There are few place names more disturbing to those who live between Europe and Moscow and to those who care about human freedom more generally than Yalta, the site where near the end of World War II, Western leaders agreed with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin on the division of post-war division of Europe.

            That makes it all the more worrisome that a Russian analyst has concluded that what just took place in Normandy on the occasion of the 70^th anniversary of the D-Day landings was a “silent” Yalta, one in which whatever spin is placed on it once again divided the continent between Europe and where Russia rules.

                In an essay on Slon.ru, Aleksandr Baunov argues that European anger Russia over Ukraine are not as great as many have suggested.  “If Putin were the Hitler of today, and Ukraine the ally [of the West] in the struggle with him,” Western leaders wouldn’t have had him there. They cared only where Putin stood (http://slon.ru/world/putin_v_normandii-1110141.xhtml).

            As Baunov points out, “Putin came to Europe, sat, spoke a little, said hello, met, and was photographed.  This means that there won’t be anything more. Everything has ended. If everything remains approximately the way it is now, there will not be a third world war or a second cold one.”

            “A New Yalta – albeit again in an incomplete form – took place in Normandy: A silent one in case it has to be denied.”

            Putin, of course, viewed the whole thing “with condescension.”  At a ceremony commemorating a time when countries were prepared to oppose evil with tanks, everything had been “degraded to the level of a ballet,” one in which “the difficulties of protocol,” of determining who stood or sat next to whom took precedence over substance.

            In an important respect, the Normandy commemorations highlighted “the paradox of our time.”  Europe today is quite comfortable and feels close to the country that caused World War II but still feels apart from a country that was on the side of those who defeated the Axis, a division far deeper than about communism or about Ukraine.

            Indeed, Baunov continues, “the problem of the contemporary world lies in the fact that we did not have a new Yalta after the cold war. Not in the sense of again dividing Europe but rather in that Russia was a victor country against communism along with England, America, France, and at the same time with Czechoslovakia, Poland and so on.”

                That might have offered an opportunity for the integration of post-communist Russia into the world, but it didn’t happen.  As a result and largely as a result of a great deal of “inertia,” “the West decided that having defeated communism it need not stop” and Russia, despite also winning from the fall of communism, fell as well.

As a result, he says, “it has been at times difficult for us to distinguish where one ends and the other begins, where Russian authoritarianism ends and where Russia begins.” And that is made still more difficult by the insistence of some in the West that Moscow is turning back to communism.

The problem is not just communism, he argues, because “Russia had problems with Europe even before” its communist period. “Europe’s big psychological problem is that in the depth of its soul, it feels closer to onetime fascist Germany, with its cafes, clean cars, and flowers in the windows, than it does to Russia, fascist with iron doors but no flowers.”

For Europeans, “Nazi Germany was a prodigal son of its own civilization, while Russia is simply an alien one.  That has made it much easier for Europe “to distinguish Germany Nazism than to distinguish Russia from communism.”

The current international situation reflects in Moscow’s behavior at home and in Ukraine. “But even [Russia’s] internal policy is quite strongly conditioned by [its] international position,” and both are affected by a deep sense among many Russians that it is condemned for doing what others have received praise for.

            What happened in Normandy, Baunov suggests, shows both the continuing importance of the deeper suspicions on both sides and a move toward some kind of new Yalta in which Europe may again be divided, where the question of where the line will be is still open but where the question of where the various leaders can sit when they meet has been resolved.