Five Takes on Nostalgia for the USSR in Putin’s Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 31 – Ever more Russians are expressing nostalgia for Soviet times, but exactly why and what it means remain matters of dispute. Marina Aronova of the SibReal portal reproduces the views of a sociologist, an historian, a psychologist, a political scientist and a legal affairs expert (sibreal.org/a/nostalgiya-po-sssr-revanshizm-i-voyna-/32194269.html).

            Maksim Alyukov, a London-based Russian analyst, says that much of the nost” algia is the work of Putin’s propaganda machine. And he stresses that Putin can use it for a variety of purposes. “If Russia has to pull out its forces [from Ukraine] but Putin remains in power, then the Kremlin will use its defeat for revanchism” and launch more aggression.

            Historian Irina Karatsuba says Russian nostalgia for the USSR is about a past that never was, but the most serious aspect of this is that it reflects and encourages a focus on the past rather the present and future. Now, “we have no image of the future.” And it is that lack that opens the way for the growth of nostalgia even more than propaganda does.

            Psychologist Anastasiya Nikolskaya says that the identification with a strong Soviet past reflects an unspoken sense of current weakness both within Russia and between Russia and the world. Russians need to feel strong because unlike smaller nations which have ethnic identity, Russians have primarily an imperial one.

            Political scientist Fyodor Krasheninnikov says that neither Putin nor the Russian people are nostalgic for all the Soviet past: both he and they are interested in and attracted by only a small number of its aspects. Putin likes those parts which make a ruler irreplaceable; Russians like those which stress social justice and paternalism.

            And legal affairs expert Rodion Belkovich says that Russian interest in nostalgia for the Soviet past flows primarily from the increasing infantilization of the population, with ever more people wanting someone other than themselves to take responsibility for decisions and to ensure that the population is taken care of regardless of what happens.

Are American Media as Focused on Snow Storms in Siberia as Russian Outlets are on Storms in the US? Russians Want to Know

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 31 – Moscow state television gave such extensive coverage to the horrific snow storm which hit the northeastern United States that inquiring minds in Russia want to know whether American television gives equal time to snow storms in Siberia, according to the latest joke circulating in Moscow.

            That is just one of the new anecdotes being passed around in Russia today as assembled by Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/44793/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       Russian attitudes have proved so changeable on the war in Ukraine that it needs to be asked whether it is possible to fight with such people?

·       The way the new Russian Moskvich was produced, by taking a Chinese car and changing the labels, suggests it will be no problem for Russia to double domestic production by 2025. After all, to change the labels won’t require many workers or much money, let alone reform of the branch.

·       After Putin cancelled his usual year-end addresses, his spokesman was forced to deny that the blahblahdor is his favorite dog breed.

·       Some Russian bookstores have pulled copies of Cippolino from their shelves because the story contains an absolutely impermissible story about the revolt of vegetables against fruits. Many fear this is the first step toward pulling onions from food stores.

·       Moscow officials are blaming Western hackers for the fact that Russians are now going to have to repay all their taxes for 2022.

·       Foreign Minister Lavrov can’t understand why the Ukrainians hate Moscow. Haven’t we bombed them enough to transform them into a fraternal people?

·       Judging from Medvedev’s recent outbursts, the most powerful thing in Russia is the bile from his liver.

·       Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu congratulates the Russian army even when it retreats.

 

Putin has Shifted Russia from Being a Raw Materials Supplier to the West to Being a Raw Materials Supplier to China, El Murid Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 31 – In all the talk about Russia’s shift from the West to the East, Anatoly Nesmiyan, who blogs under the screen name “El Murid,” many have ignored what is a most important continuity: Russia indeed no longer is a raw materials supplier to the West; it has become a raw materials supplier to China.

            If one looks at trade figures, El Murid points out, “Russia supplies China exclusively raw materials and almost nothing else except them.” That raises an interesting question: “whether there is all that much difference in being a raw materials appendage of the soulless West or being the same thing but for China” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=63AEF0D46960F).

            The Kremlin will insist on calling this a partnership, he continues; but if it is, it is one  in which China is completely dominant and Russia completely subordinate, precisely the relationship the Kremlin claimed it has broken with the West to prevent from ever happening again.

Russian Opposition Failed in 2022 for Nine Reasons, Ukrainian Commentator Says

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 31 – Many outside of Russia had hoped those who call themselves the Russian opposition would play a more prominent role in opposing Putin and his war in Ukraine, but their hopes have been dashed, not just by Kremlin repression that has forced many opposition leaders into emigration but also by nine failures of the opposition itself, Yevgeny Popov says.

            The head of the southern Ukraine office of the International Renaissance Foundation identifies and discusses each of these shortcomings, clearly in the hope that the Russian opposition will eventually be able to overcome them (nv.ua/opinion/voyna-rossii-pochemu-rossiyskaya-oppoziciya-tak-bespomoshchna-poslednie-novosti-50294405.html).

            First of all, Popov says, the opposition abroad today lacks “any ties with society” and has not tried to overcome that by creating organizational structures inside Russia.

            Second, the émigré opposition has put its efforts on the development of media platforms, holding meetings and reporting them virtually rather than on doing the hard work of developing political organizations at home.

            Third, the opposition has failed to be clear about exactly how it will gain power or what it will do once it has it, raising questions about how serious a political force it is and what direction it might in fact take the country if it had the chance.

            Fourth, the behavior of the opposition raises questions as well as to whether it is more interested in taking steps that ensure continued funding from the West rather than actually gaining political influence at home.

            Fifth, the Russian opposition is divided among a variety of groups which show very little willingness to cooperate with one another.

            Sixth, the opposition has failed to specify who will do what in a post-Putin government, leading ever more people to question what it really would do if it gained power.

            Seventh, according to Popov, the opposition spends more time worrying about feathering its own nest than in addressing Russian problems.

            Eighth, all too often the leaders of the opposition fail to see that their positions help the powers they supposedly oppose more than they will lead to change.

            And ninth, in more and more instances, the opposition continues to talk as it did before Ukraine, before Georgia, or before Chechnya, failing to recognize that it is only highlighting just how cut off it is from Russian society.

Demise of Russian Federation Likely to Be More Prolonged, More Violent, and More Supported by the West

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 31 – If the Russian Federation disintegrates, and there are ever more reasons to think it will do so because of the intensification of its domestic problems as a result of Putin’s disastrous war in Ukraine, its demise will be more prolonged, more violent and more supported by the West than was the end of the USSR in 1991.

            Those conclusions arise from a consideration of commentaries concerning the fate of the current empire which have been assembled by the editors of Novaya gazeta and need to be factored in by both those who welcome and support the end of the Moscow-centric state and those who fear and oppose it (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/12/30/rossiia-ty-zabolela).

            First of all, the coming demise of the Russian Federation will likely to be far more prolonged. There is unlikely to be any Beloveshchaya moment because Putin has destroyed the kind of institutions which existed in the late USSR and therefore there will be a scramble for power.

            Putin likely believes that his destruction of these institutions means that he has saved Russia forever, but as the author of these lines and others have long argued, Putin by his actions has not so much restored the Soviet Union as restored the conditions that led to that empire’s demise.

            The Kremlin dictator likely can hold things together longer than the most optimistic of his nationalist and regionalist opponents think, all the more so because unlike Gorbachev, he isn’t limited by a fear of shedding massive amounts of blood. But while he can delay the demise of the Russian Federation, he is unlikely to be able to block it for all time.

            Second, the demise of the Russian Federation will almost certainly be far more violent, not just because Putin will make it so but because there are vastly more guns in private hands and even the emergence of region and in the case of Chechnya republic armies that could be put in play if the situation deteriorates.

            Even at the end of Soviet times, there was a single power vertical as far as the organs of coercion were concerned. That is less obviously the case now, and the cost is likely to be a violent one with all sides – and there will be many – willing to use what weaponry they have to pursue their goals.

            And third – and this could be the most important factor of all – the attitude of the West toward the demise of the Russian Federation is changing. Given how often many in the West have taken credit for the demise of the USSR since 1991, it is all too often forgotten that most of these same people supported the continued existence of the Soviet Union right up to the end.

            Putin’s war in Ukraine have led an ever-increasing number of their successors to recognize that the real Russian problem is not just Vladimir Putin but in the fact that it is still an empire and that it will continue to challenge the international order as long as it is allowed to remain one.

            That doesn’t mean the West is on or is about to go on any campaign to destroy the Russian Federation, as some of the more hysterical in Moscow already believe and as Ukraine’s appeals to the regions and nations within the Russian Federation have given rise to concerns both in Russia and the West.

            But it does mean that the West will approach the demise of the Russian Federation very differently than it did the end of the USSR, without one hopes the combination of triumphalism and neglect that marked the earlier case but with one also hopes greater understanding, involvement and support.   

Russian Liberals’ Unwillingness to Drop Imperial Perspective has Led Russia’s Regionalists to Join Forces with Non-Russian Nationalists, Sidorov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 31 – One of the most fateful developments of the last year, Kharun Sidorov says, is that the unwillingness of even anti-Putin and anti-war Russians to move away from a Moscow-centric vision of Russia in the future has pushed Russian regionalists to join forces with non-Russian nationalists.

            Until a year ago, Russian liberals were willing to at least cooperate with Russian regionalists, the Prague-based commentator says, including the latter in their meetings in Vilnius; but now, the failure of the liberal bloc to support a radical shift away from a Moscow-centric future for Russia has changed that (idelreal.org/a/32184569.html).

            That has led to a radicalization of both regionalists and nationalists, and this close cooperation has taken place under the aegis of the Ukrainian authorities, which have also reached out to those Russians who are willing to allow for the independence of non-Russians now within the borders of the Russian Federation and genuine federalism for those who remain.

            The two most important signs of this development have been the emergence of the Free Nations League and the Forum of Free Peoples of Post-Russia, both of which were initiated by activists in Kyiv with the support of the Ukrainian government, which also took steps to reach out to non-Russians and regionalists inside Russia itself.

            What this confluence of developments will mean remains to be seen. On the one hand, it is certain to infuriate both the Kremlin which will increasingly view nationalists and regionalists as threats that must be suppressed and the Russian liberal opposition which appears to view such activists almost as strikebreakers who are undermining a common anti-Putin and anti-war effort.

            But on the other hand, it will likely energize both the regionalist and nationalist movement, with the former drawing on the increasing radicalism of the latter and the latter gaining support from the former. That matters because the non-Russians form as smaller percentage of the Russian population now than they did in 1991, 20 percent compared to 50.

War Spending Almost by Itself Kept Russian Economy from Collapse in 2022, Shirokov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 29 – Dramatic increases in military spending because of Putin’s war in Ukraine played the key role, alongside income from exports of oil and gas, in keeping the Russian economy from collapse, Aleksandr Shirokov says. That is obvious if one considers declines in other parts of the economy.

            Production of consumer goods and export has fallen by ten percent or more, and the government has cut back spending on social needs like education and health care, the analyst says. If war spending continues at its current level or more in 2023, the situation will only get worse (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/12/29/voina-i-neft

            On the one hand, the real economy and public welfare will continue to decline; but on the other, the Kremlin will still be able to claim that the economy is growing – but only by neglecting to explain how that is happening at a time when the Russian people and the Russian economy are in fact getting worse.

            After detailing the way in which military spending has affected overall economic figures and government incomes, Shirokov says that all this puts Russia in a very different position from those of other advanced countries at peace. There growth depends on consumer demand but in Russia military spending is financed by the government budget.

            “And there are already the first signs that Russia will not be able to support for a long time record high military spending.” When that happens, the entire house of cards will be at risk of collapsing, Shirokov suggests.