The average Russian does not support this approach, but does not know how to counter it, and awaits the results of the war with terror: defeat would plunge everyone into panic, but even a victory would risk destabilizing social relations, not knowing what might happen “afterwards”, whatever the outcome of current events.
There are at least three theories to explain why Russia, in one way or another, always ends up in conflict with the entire world. The first is that of “historical backwardness”, due to the fact that it was not formed as a European state until the end of the first millennium and subsequently suffered two centuries of “Tatar yoke” between 1200 and 1400, which is why it could not adapt to modernity. The second theory, of “Slavophile” orientation, is that Russia has its own original civilization to develop, which has always been opposed by enemies of the East and the West and therefore has never been able to fully express itself. Finally, all the blame is placed on the misfortune of having almost always had inadequate leaders, either due to mental imbalances or insurmountable weaknesses, which is undoubtedly partly true. The three theories, moreover, are complementary and amply demonstrable with the facts of Russian history.
These explanations also fit to a large extent with Putin’s Russia, which was born from the historical backwardness of a sclerotic and aggressive system against the “civilized” world like the Soviet Union, which was narcotized by communist totalitarianism, which then tried to find its soul in the midst of a thousand contradictions, and which had to suffer the ineffective reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, to finally find itself with a figure lacking in qualities and in the midst of a drift like Vladimir Putin.
So we are back to square one, with a Russia that has thrown away thirty years of effort and finds itself having to reinvent itself under the leadership of a weakened and internationally delegitimized Tsar, as has happened before with other figures in the ancient and recent past. It can truly be said that Putin has fired all his bullets, and is now pursuing a world war idea with very little hope of achieving any result, except for submission to the vassalage of China and the unlikely association with international allies such as Iran and North Korea. The confusing images of the peace negotiations in recent weeks, from Switzerland to Hungary, passing through Beijing again, depend on external factors over which Moscow has no real decisive influence, despite all its foreign propaganda efforts, such as the upcoming US elections that will coincide with the great Russian national holiday of Popular Unity on November 4, celebrating the end of the Time of Revolts, when the Kremlin almost ended up in the hands of the hated Poles and their internal allies, ancestors of today’s “foreign agents.”
Putin’s trip to Pyongyang on June 18 is the most significant image of the conditions in which Russia finds itself today, finding in one of the most refractory countries in the world its only true company, to the point that these days Russian students are crowding the “re-educational vacation” camps of North Koreans to be trained in blind and militant patriotism. The prophecy of the “great leader” Kim Il-sung, grandfather of the current president Kim Jong-un, who in 1950 divorced himself from the Soviet Union by proclaiming the “autonomy of the body”, the principle of many Asian forms of spirituality, has been fulfilled. Today it is Russia that must stand alone, seeking the balance of its own forces and exalting the so-called “traditional moral and spiritual values.”
Until two years ago, before the war in Ukraine began, Russia was anything but an isolated and autonomous country. On the contrary, it was highly integrated into the world economy and totally dependent on foreign relations, especially with the West, in the colossal exchange of resources, especially energy and technology, which has now been completely interrupted. Thanks to these past relations, Russia is still in a state of relative well-being, certainly above the world average, although it is still dependent on imports and exports, which it is now trying hard to reorient towards Asian markets. In any case, it is still dependent on foreign countries, because it does not have the strength or the capacity to sustain itself with a truly self-sufficient economy, which, moreover, would be complete madness in the globalized world. The obvious sign of this impotence is the uncontrollable rise in inflation, due to the imbalances of a foreign trade balance that cannot be restored to the levels of past decades.
In reality, Russia cannot separate itself from the rest of the world, and it is finding it increasingly difficult to find its place: for imports it depends on China, for exports it remains tied to oil prices, which are becoming less and less convenient for Moscow. To meet the challenges of the future, the Putin regime is only able to create in the population the illusion that “nothing has changed”, that other ways will be found to maintain the current standard of living, but it risks encountering a progressive degeneration, if not a total failure. The system is now called “long-term militant Putinism”, which will determine the future of the country far beyond the capabilities and duration of its leader; it is a vision of the world with no return, projected onto the image of a world in which Russia is crushed by its own “multipolar” ideology. There is a Western Pole and an Eastern Pole, Russia is between a rock and a hard place, and no one has any interest in getting it out of this dead end.
The problem is that when Putin decided to invade Ukraine, backed by a caste of loyalists, neither Russian society nor the elites were actually prepared for war, let alone the economy or the war machine. Now the regime has adapted to this unexpected challenge that occurred within it, stifling all protests and all uncertainties, and has stabilised itself in a condition that is now almost impossible to dismantle. It is a downward stability, which can only try to compensate for its growing weaknesses. Putinism projects itself beyond Putin not by real support or even by real opposition, but by adaptation to a situation that no longer has alternatives. Russia has the problem of preserving itself, in permanent war and in the blocking of sanctions, in relations with countries completely alien to its nature and culture; it needs war as its only form of relationship with the outside world and with its own population, there is no longer any compromise or negotiation to discuss. If Putin were to die tomorrow, no new leader would emerge from nowhere to proclaim an end to hostilities and restore relations with the West.
When nothing is left, Russia is entrenched in the most comprehensive and fanatical patriotism, inherited from its multiform imperial past, and this can hardly compensate for the desire for modernization, for “not falling behind” once again compared to the rest of the world. The average Russian does not support this approach, but does not know how to counter it, and awaits the results of the war with terror: defeat would plunge everyone into panic, but victory would also risk destabilizing social relations, and no one knows what might happen “afterwards,” whatever the outcome of current events. If we open the country to the West again, they will again seize all the resources; if we remain behind the new Iron Curtain, we will not be able to keep up with technological progress and no one will lend us a hand anymore.
The Soviet system had a similar parable, from isolation to trying to catch up with its adversaries, and that destroyed it definitively. The strength of the empire was often based on the critical phases of the West itself, on periods of wars and revolutions, while Russia tried to show its stability and inner serenity. This is another of the fundamental concepts of Putinism: we are fine, we enjoy our traditions and our Orthodox purity, while “this degraded world” is losing its identity and its supposed superiority. And, indeed, Russia’s current warlike and imperialist turn coincides with a deep crisis of Western democracy.
A Sistema survey of Russian, American and other political experts and scientists confirms that Putinism will last a long time, even after Putin, unless there are more serious catastrophes than the defeat in the Ukrainian war, such as the explosion of a nuclear power plant or the collapse of the Chinese economy. The only option that everyone rejects is the possibility of regime change after honest elections open to genuine competition, which seems completely unlikely for Russia, but is no longer so certain even in the West.
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