8828 Views April 01, 2017 141 Comments
[Note from the Saker: some of you did notice
that I was not posting very much and that I was not replying to emails as much
as I used to. Now I can confess: I was on a semi-confidential trip abroad
in a locate with very spotty Internet access (slow, through my smartphone’s dataplan).
I am now back and I will post a full report about this, and my latest appeal
for support, either on Monday or Tuesday. Until then, please stay
tuned. Kind regards and hugs to all, the Saker]
***
This article was written for the Unz Review: http://www.unz.com/tsaker/searching-for-russia/
Whether one likes Russia or not, I think that
everybody would agree that this country is really different, different in a
profound and unique way. And there is some truth to that. One famous Russian
author even wrote that “Russia cannot be understood rationally” (he used the
expression “cannot be comprehended by the intellect”). Add to this already some
rather eccentric politicians like Vladimir Zhirinovskii who is known to mix
very rational and well-informed analyses with utter nonsense and you get the
famous “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. Frankly,
this is just some witty hyperbole, Russia is not that mysterious. She is,
however, rather dramatically different from the west, central and east European
countries and even though a big chunk of Russia lies inside the European
continent west of the Urals, in civilizational terms she is far removed from
the so-called “West”, especially the modern West.
For example, Russia never underwent any
“Renaissance”. I would even argue that Russia never really underwent any
Middle-Ages either since, being an heir to the East Roman Empire (aka
Byzantium), Russian roots are in the Antiquity. While one could, arguably,
describe the phases of western civilization as Middle-Ages -> Renaissance
-> Modernity -> Contemporary era, in the case of Russia the sequence
would be a much shorter Antiquity -> Modernity -> Contemporary era.
[Sidebar: you will notice that I did place the
roots of the modern western civilization in the Middle-Ages, not in the
antiquity. The reason for that is the fact that when the Franks finally
conquered the western Roman Empire they destroyed it to such a degree that the
era following the collapse of the western Roman Empire is called the “Dark
Ages” (Russia, by the way, never went through this millennium of darkness and,
hence, she never had any need for any “renaissance” or “re-birth”). Contrary to
the official historical narrative, the current western civilization has never
had any root into the Roman Empire, and even less so, the Greek antiquity. The
true founders of the “western world” were, in so many ways, the Franks]
I would therefore argue that while geographically
speaking Russia (at least the most populated part of her) is in Europe,
culturally she has never shared a common history or, even less so, a common
culture with the West. To say that Russia is “Asian” is also problematic for
two crucial reasons: first, Russia, as a culture, was born from the Baptism of
ancient “Rus” by Saint Vladimir in the late 10th century. The brand of
Christianity received by Russia was Roman, not the Frankish one. I don’t
believe that anybody would seriously argue that Rome or Byzantium were “Asian”.
So the cultural and spiritual roots of Russia are not Asian. Ethnically
speaking, most Russians are Slavs, mixed to various degrees with other ethnic
groups. And though I personally find the category “White” of dubious analytical
value, I don’t think that anybody would seriously argue that “Whites” are Asians.
That leaves us with the Russian state, the Russian polity and here, yes, I
would argue that it was the Asian Tatar-Mongol (an inaccurate and misleading
term, but that is the commonly used one) invaders which created the modern
Russian state. The complicating factor here is that since Russia became a
western-style Empire under Peter I she has been ruled by a mostly westernized
elite which had much more in common with the elites of western Europe than with
the majority of the Russian people. Both the 18th and 19th century in Russia
were marked by a ruthless, and often violent, imposition of western political,
social, cultural and religious models by the Russian ruling elites upon the
Russian masses. This is a complex and multifaceted process which saw many
contradictory phenomena taking place and we can argue forever about it but what
is certain is that this process ended in 1917 with a bourgeois (masonic)
liberal coup d’etat, followed, eight months later, by a Communist takeover and
a bloody civil war. While neither the February coup nor the Communist takeover
in November were true “revolutions”, the year 1917, taken as a whole, saw an
immense revolution take place: one ruling class was completely replaced by a
completely different one.
I have neither the time nor intention here to
discuss the Soviet period here, I have done so many times elsewhere, but I will
only present my main conclusion here: there is no way to consider the Soviet
period as a continuation of the pre-1917 Russia. Yes, geographically speaking
the USSR more or less covered the previous Russian Empire and, yes, the
population which lived in pre-1917 Russia continued to live in the new Soviet
Union, but the roots of the dominant Bolshevik/Communist ideology in power were
not found in ancient Russia and in the traditional Russian cultural, spiritual
and religious values: there roots were imported from the West (just as the main
leaders of the Bolshevik uprising for that matter). I would therefore argue
that in 1917 one type of western elite (the aristocracy) was replaced by
another type of western elite (the Communist Party) and that both of them were
“imports” and not “Russian intellectual products”. I would even go further, and
argue that the Russian people, culture and civilization have been persecuted
for the last 300 years and that only with the arrival of Vladimir Putin at the
helm of the Russian state did this persecution end.
Let me immediately clarify that these past three
centuries were not uniform and that some periods were better for the Russian
people and some worse. I would submit that the period when Petr Stolypin was
Prime Minister (1906-1911) was probably the best time for Russia. The worst
times for the Russia happened only six years later when the Lenin-Trotsky gang
seized power and immediately began indulging in a genocidal campaign against
everything and anything “Russian” in the cultural, spiritual or intellectual
sense (this bloody orgy only abated in 1938). All in all, even with very strong
variations, I believe that in a cultural and spiritual sense, the Russian
nation was oppressed to various degrees roughly between 1666 and 1999. That is 333 years: a long period
by any standards.
And then there is modern Russia, which I call
“New Russia”. Clearly not the Russia of pre-1917, but not the Soviet Russia
either. And yet, a Russia which, for the first time in three centuries, is
finally in the process of gradually shaking off western cultural, political and
socio-economic models and which is trying to re-establish what I call the
“Russian civilizational realm”. Of course, we should not be naive here: Putin
inherited a political system entirely created by US “advisers” whose sole
purpose was to further oppress and exploit the Russian people. The human and
economic costs of the Gorbachev and Eltsin years can only be compared to the
effects of a major war. And yet, out of this horror, came a leader whose
loyalty was solely to the Russian people and who set out to liberate Russia
from her foreign oppressors. This process of “sovereignization” is far from
completed and will probably take many years and go through many ups and downs,
but it has undeniably been initiated and, for the first time in centuries, the
ruler of the Kremlin is not somebody whom the West can hope to subdue or coopt.
Hence the hysterical paranoia about Putin and his
evil Russkies.
The West is terrified by the very real risk that
for the first time in 333 years Russia might become truly Russian again.
Scary thought indeed.
Consider the record of what we can call
“oppressed Russia”. It began by the defeat by Peter I of one of the greatest
European military power, Sweden, during the Great Northern War (1700-1721). If you are interested, take a
look at this Wikipedia list of Russian wars between 1721 and 1917 and
pay special attention to those wars listed as “defeat” for Russia and notice
that with the exception of the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War and WWI
Russia won all of her relevant/important wars (wars in which Russia played a
major role or had a major stake). I personally would not consider that Russia
lost the war against Japan (neither do Japanese historians, by the way), and in
the case of WWI Russia basically self-destructed on the eve of victory. As for
what I call the “Great Ecumenical War against Russia” (it united the Latins,
the Anglicans and the Ottoman Muslims together), I would call it an “ugly draw”
whose worst consequences for Russia were soon mitigated. Contrast this with the
really important war, the Napoleonic aggression on Russia in which Russia
single handedly defeated a coalition basically uniting all of Europe against
Russia. Take a look at this photo of a monument at the location of the biggest
battle of the war, the battle of Borodino, and check out the list of countries
allied together against Russia:
|
France
Italy Naples Austria Bavaria Berg Saxony Westfalia Prussia Holland Spain Portugal Poland Switzerland German Confederation Total: 20 nations Infantry: 145’000 Cavalry: 40’000 Canons: 1’000 |
 |
That is 15 countries against Russia. There were
fewer agressors during the “Great Ecunenical War” but three out of four of
those aggressors were be not just countries, but entire empires: French Empire,
British Empire, Ottoman Empire. Whether it is 15:1 countries of 3:1 empires, a
pattern begins to emerge. And while during WWII only six countries participated
in the initial invasion of the Soviet Union (Germany, Romania, Finland, Italy,
Hungary, Slovakia) in reality there were numerous more or less “volunteer”
units which joined in.
European unity at its best indeed.
Each time Europe gathered all her forces to
finally defeat, subdue, conquer and assimilate Russia, Russia prevailed and
only got bigger and stronger. That despite being, in so many ways, a crippled
Russia, torn apart by profound internal contradictions, ruled by an elites
which the Russian masses found uninspiring at best. True, individual Czars
during these years were truly popular, but the regime, the order, was hardly
one I would consider as popular or representative of the worldview and culture
of the Russian masses. And yet Russia won. Over and over. Despite being weak.
Some will say that this is the long gone past,
that the world is different today, that nobody in Europe thinks about these
wars. But this is not true. For one thing, every one of those wars was
accompanied by a frenzied Russia-bashing campaign in the media and literature
and all these wars were represented as fought in the name of lofty European
values and against the barbaric hordes from the savage East. And in the years
when Russia was not the object of a military attack she was always the object
of economic sanctions under one pious pretext or another. King Solomon was
right when he wrote “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be;
and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing
under the sun”. Gradually and insidiously, the hatred and fear of Russia
became part of the western cultural identity. Considering how the West learned
to fear a crippled and weakened Russia, can you imagine the terror a truly
united Russia would inspire?
Do you know what Putin’s political party is
called? “United Russia”, of course.
Keep in mind that during these years Russia was
ruled by a hopelessly pro-Western elite and that every Russian ruler from Peter
I to Dmitry Medvedev, with the exception of Alexander III and Joseph Stalin,
wanted to be accepted as an equal partner by the West. But the western elites
had no use for a partner or an ally, what they wanted was a compliant slave.
Vladimir Putin has made it quite clear that he
has no such plans at all.
Speaking of Putin, there is something else in his
rule which makes him quite unique: his real power does not come from the
Russian Constitution or from the fact that he is the commander in chief of the
Russian military, intelligence and security forces. If that were really the
case, then the Russian elites, which are still largely pro-western, would have
found a way to topple him a long time ago, with the assistance of Uncle Sam if
needed. No, is real power is in the undeniable fact that the Russian people
recognize him not only as their leader, but also as their representative, if
you wish, at the helm of the Russian state and in international affairs. There
is a personal trust, a personal political capital, that the Russian people have
given Vladimir Putin which sets him aside from all other Russian political
figures. This feeling is so strong that even a lot of former political
opponents have now become his supporters and that those who still openly oppose
him do that with a great deal of difficulty and personal discomfort.
This personal authority of Putin does not,
however, extend to Medvedev or, even less so, to the Russian government. I
would argue that the Russian government is largely unpopular, as is the Russian
Duma, but the lack of viable alternatives to the power of the “United Russia”
Party makes this lack of popularity almost irrelevant.
If we take the word “monarchy” in its original
meaning as “power of one” and if we recall that many Czars were personally
popular even when their regimes were not, we could say that Putin’s rule is a
kind of very traditional Russian “neo-monarchy” and that Putin has found a way
to combine the external forms of democracy with the internal characteristics of
Russian monarchy. Interestingly, the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has decided
to create a personal guard for Vladimir Putin (you can read about this here). In order to comply with the law, these
personal guards all resigned their commission and offered their services to
Vladimir Putin as a person, not to the Russian President.
Needless to say, the so-called “Russian experts”
in the West dismiss it all as being sign of the Putin’s “authoritarian” rule
and characterize him as a “strongman” at best and a “dictator” at worst. In
truth, fear and hatred are very poor advisors and it is little wonder that they
get it so wrong. But then, “Russian experts” are not paid to understand Russia,
they are only paid to demonize her.
So where, or what, is Russia today?
At this point in time, I would say that Russia is
both a promise and a process. As a promise, she is very vague, there are
numerous different ideas of what “real Russia” was or should be. She is an
ideal which is more perceived than understood. As a process, Russia is much
more unambiguous: de-colonization, sovereignization, resistance and the
unapologetic proclamation of a unique, different, civilizational model. The
days when Russians were mindlessly aping the West are apparently truly over.
Some say that the future of Russia is in the South (Caucasus, Central-Asia,
Middle-East, Indian subcontinent), some see the future of Russia in the East
(Siberia and Far East Asia, especially China) while some see it in the North
(Siberia, again, and the Arctic).
But nobody sees it in the West any more.
Of course, this is not how many Europeans see
Russia’s intentions. The Poles and the Balts, especially, keep themselves awake
at night with nightmares featuring a Russian invasion of a conventional or
“hybrid” kind. This reminds me of a Russian joke which goes like this: a man is
walking down the street when a woman on the balcony suddenly screams “Help!
This man is about to rape me!!!”. The baffled man looks up and says, “Lady, you
are crazy. I have no intention of raping you. Besides, I am here in the street
and you are above me on the balcony,” to which the woman replies, “Maybe, but I
am about to come down!”. Just like this woman, the Poles and Balts, maybe moved
a deep sense of guilt mixed in with an old inferiority complex are strenuously
trying to convince themselves that Russia really badly wants to invade them.
Russia, of course, has exactly zero need for more land, and even less need for
the rabidly hostile and frankly psychotic population of these countries. In
reality, the Russian plan for these countries is simple: simply buy the Baltics
states and let the Poles and the Germans enjoy their traditional love-fest. From
a Russian point of view, these countries and people are not coveted prizes but
useless liabilities.
In contrast, Russia cannot ignore the Ukraine,
especially not a Nazi-occupied one. As for the rest of Europe, it will always
remain an important economic market for Russia and a place Russians will enjoy
visiting, especially southern Europe and the Mediterranean. The very last thing
Russia needs is any kind of war, especially a useless and potentially dangerous
one with the West. Finally, it is likely that Russia will seek to establish
close relationships with those southern European countries which really never
wanted to pursue any anti-Russian policies, especially Greece and Serbia. So,
while not being a priority anymore, the West will never become irrelevant
either.
The hardest and also the most interesting thing
to try to guess is what Russia will become internally. Probably not a monarchy,
at least not in the foreseeable future. The most recent poll strongly suggests
that a majority of Russians do not want
to trade a democratic republican system for a monarchy. Besides, in a country where truly religious
Orthodox Christians are a minority a monarchy really would make little sense.
The problem with the current system is that it is entirely based upon the
person of Vladimir Putin. In fact, I would argue that there is no “current
system” at all, there is only one person, Vladimir Putin who, while immensely
popular, has to deal with all of the many Russian problems is the “manual mode”
– meaning personally. As soon as something escapes his personal attention
things begin to go wrong. This is simply not a viable system. And just to make
things worse, there is no credible successor to Putin in sight. Should
something happen to Putin tomorrow morning the crisis hitting Russia would be
huge. Add to this that Russians have a long history of good leaders succeeded
by mediocre ones and you see how serious a threat the current “one man show” is
for the Russian future. I would therefore argue that the development of a truly
Russian political system (as opposed to an individual ruler) ought to be
considered as one of the most important strategic priorities for those Russians
who do not want their country to, yet again, become a western colony. Alas, the
struggle between the “Atlantic Integrationists” (the Medvedev people) and the
“Eurasian Sovereignists” (the Putin people) leaves very little time for that
kind of endeavor.
So yes, “Russia is back”, but she is still very
much wobbling on her feet, and unsure as to where to go next. Right now, her
future depends on the fate of one man and that is exceedingly dangerous.
The Saker
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