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> Johnson's Russia List > #6014 > 10 January 2002 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > A CDI Project > www.cdi.org > > ******** > > New Left Review (UK) > November-December 2001 > www.newleftreview.org > > Recasting Russia > By Georgi Derluguian ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) > [Georgi M. Derluguian is deputy director of the Center for International > and Comparative Studies (CICS) at Northwestern University, where he is an > Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and International > Studies Program] > What do the West's belated plaudits for Putin's gage to the war against > terrorism--the Caucasus as proving-ground for the Hindu Kush--signify for > Russia's future in the world-system? Georgi Derluguian looks at the longue > dur�e, from the Golden Horde to the IMF. > > Amidst the clouds of apocalyptic farrago surrounding the attacks of > September 11, the most significant immediate change in world politics has > been largely obscured. The American bombardment of Afghanistan has > relocated Russia within the international geopolitical order. Putin's > accession to power on the last day of 1999 was welcomed by Western capitals > from the start. Blair sped to embrace him on Clinton's behalf before he had > even been installed by the manipulated popular vote of spring 2000, while > relations between Moscow and its creditors in Berlin and Washington were > held on an even keel throughout. But the operation that secured Putin's > domestic victory at the polls-the unleashing of a murderous second war in > Chechnya-remained something of a foreign embarrassment. Although Clinton > could freely hail the 'liberation of Grozny', for European sensibilities-at > any rate on the continent-the mass killings and torture of Chechens was a > troubling spectacle. Germany did its best to smooth over such misgivings, > pentito Foreign Minister Fischer acting in the best traditions of the > Wilhelmstrasse during the Armenian massacres. But public opinion-even > occasionally the European Parliament-remained uneasy. > > Republican victory in the Presidential elections of 2000 promised further > difficulties. Where Clinton and Gore had been intimately connected to > Yeltsin and protective of his successor, Bush's programme was critical of > American complicity with the kleptocracy in Russia, and dismissive of the > need to save Moscow's face, pressing ahead regardless with the new version > of Star Wars on which Washington had already embarked. Between European > humanitarian hand-wringing and American realpolitiker cold-shouldering, > Russia under its former KGB operative was little more than an uncomfortable > guest at the banquets of the G7. > > Overnight, the destruction of the World Trade Centre changed all that. Once > the US had targeted Afghanistan for retaliation, Russia became a vital > partner in the battle against terrorism. If Moscow no longer rules Central > Asia directly, none of the local strongmen can take strategic action > independent of it. Putin's prompt decision to welcome B-52 bombers > shuttling from Missouri to Kabul across Russian airspace, to give the green > light for US mountain regiments to be flown to Uzbekistan and to put its > bases in Tajikistan at the disposal of the American war effort, represented > a diplomatic revolution. However passive during the Gulf War, or eventually > collusive during the Balkan War, Moscow has not joined Washington in an > outright military alliance since the Second World War. The rewards of full > compliance with Western designs have been immediate. Three thousand or so > US casualties have put thirty to forty thousand Chechen casualties in their > proper moral light-a bagatelle in a defence of civilization that requires a > common struggle against terrorism in Grozny as in Manhattan. The hand of > bin Laden, US officials now acknowledge, has been fomenting mayhem in the > North Caucausus all along. Abroad, Putin has achieved apotheosis in the > Bundestag, with a speech in German whose affecting unspoken message- Ich > bin ein Dresdner-won more hearts even than Kennedy. At home, he has become > the first ruler since Nicholas II in 1914 to reconcile Slavophiles and > Westernizers in a common patriotic embrace, as the suppression of banditry > in Chechnya, vital to the first, becomes indistinguishable from solidarity > with democracy, dear to the second. Chauvinist colonels and liberal > intellectuals can now stand united in admiration for Russia's new > statesman, as once were champions of pan-Slavism and enthusiasts of the > Entente for the last Romanov. > > Such echoes remind us of the need for a sense of history in looking at > Russia's place in the global order today. To grasp the likely range of > futures that now lie before the country, it is essential to consider the > world-systemic constraints that determine the space of political decisions > and imagination in contemporary Russia-as elsewhere. But these only emerge > in their starkest contours against the background of a millennial past that > has shaped Russian state and society over an exceptionally longue dur�e, > stretching all the way from the Vikings to the epoch of Brezhnev. The > defining feature of this extended historical trajectory was the > predominance of state-making over capital accumulation-not as a choice of > strategy but rather as an organizational adaptation to a geopolitical > environment. What was elsewhere a chief capitalist function-the continuous > creation of production bases with attendant labour controls and > distribution networks-in Russia traditionally remained the concern of state > rulers. The underlying reason was always the same. The origins of Russia's > economic concerns were rooted in geopolitical competition with an > increasingly capitalist West. Russia so often lagged behind and was in such > dire need of catching up. > > This situation was hardly exceptional. All the most formidable agrarian > empires of modern times-Ottoman, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, or > Spanish-faced similar challenges and constraints. In every case the > positional similarity of these states resulted in comparable splits between > nativist and westernizing cultural reactions and attendant political > struggles; periods of impasse and stagnation; alternating bouts of reform > and revolution. Within this general typology, the key advantages of the > Russian state lay in its combination of a relative cultural and > geographical proximity to Europe, with a huge territorial surface and > natural resources. Historically, it started much earlier than any of its > counterparts on the path of Western emulation, and for long periods proved > inordinately successful at it. Strategic parity with the West was achieved > three times: in the reign of Ivan IV-'the Terrible'-in the 16th century; > under Peter I and Catherine II-hence both 'Great'-in the 18th century; and > under Stalin and Khrushchev in the 20th century. All three historical > successes came at the cost of horrendous terror and coercion, as a > fast-growing population allowed the rulers of Russia to treat the waste of > millions of lives as the faux frais of state-making, mere demographic > 'statistics' in the expression attributed to Stalin. But all three were > also reactions to external threats that were only too real. Russia had > virtually no natural defences-only its size and climate stood between it > and foreign predators. > > From Viking settlement to gunpowder empire > > The story starts in effect a thousand years ago, as the expanses of > northern Eurasia were roved by groups of pillaging racketeers: Viking > boat-nomads, Turkic horse-nomads. At some point around the 10th century, > these bands established more durable monopolistic bottlenecks on the major > waterways linking the tribal peripheries of northern Europe to the centres > of ancient civilizations in the Mediterranean and the Fertile Crescent. > This was the general pattern of early state formation in Northern Eurasia, > from the Baltic to the Volga, with the composite Scandinavian-Slavic entity > of Kievan Rus somewhere in the middle, on the banks of the Dnieper. The > geography of the major river systems then determined which religious and > political models were imported from the core civilizations by these > barbarian peripheries. Latin Christianity spread along the Western shores > of Europe; the Turkic nomadic chiefs of the Caspian-Volga basin adopted > Islam from the Baghdad caliphate; while imperial Byzantine Orthodoxy > travelled across the Black Sea, up the Dnieper, to the lands of Kievan Rus. > > The Mongol conquests of the early 13th century disrupted this geopolitical > configuration. A new tide of nomadic cavalry from the Gobi devastated the > already declining civilizations of Central Asia and the Near East, whose > ruins were then absorbed into the purely parasitic tributary structures of > Genghis Khan's successors. A hundred years later Moscow emerged as a > far-off captive and diadoch of this Mongol system, as it decayed in its > turn. With a mixture of luck, cunning and ruthlessness, typical of all > successful states in this brutal period, the princes of Muscovy first > wrestled from their nomadic overlords the power to retain a larger share of > collected tribute, then slowly proceeded to enlarge their tributary base at > the expense of similar competing units. Towards the late 15th century, > inconclusive feudal warfare turned into the outright destruction of rivals > by Moscow: the principality of Tver, the urban republics of Novgorod and > Pskov, and above all-much the most dangerous-the Tatar khanates of Kazan > and Astrakhan. In the course of these struggles, the old pattern of > occasional raiding by lordly retinues was transformed into systematic > warfare and permanent occupation by standing armies. The winners were those > who centralized faster, grabbed more lands and subjects, extracted more > resources and so acquired more swiftly the new weaponry-muskets and cannons. > > It was in this period that the differences in institutional design between > the emergent Russian state and the early modern monarchies of Western > Europe were first described as a cultural chasm. Consider the colourful > statement of a sixteenth-century English observer: 'Wilde Irish are as > civil as the Russies in their kind / Hard choice which is the best of both, > each bloody rude and blind'. [1] Russia was obviously much bigger than > Ireland-and, happily for it, farther from England. But it possessed a much > larger advantage, in the resilient imperial model that played a crucial > role in the first revolution from above in Russian history-the transition > in the mid-16th century from a loose feudal confederacy to a centralized > autocracy, reliant on a new standing army of dvoriane cavalry and musketeer > streltsy infantry. Russia thus emerged in the front ranks of early > gunpowder empires, organizationally akin to its unacknowledged half-brother > of Byzantine inheritance-Ottoman Turkey. [2] A long-standing misconception > has regarded the infamous reign of terror of the later years of Ivan the > Terrible as a necessary instrument of state-building, supposedly engrained > in Russian tradition. The epoch was rich in absolutist tyrants: the Ottoman > sultan Selim the Grim, lord Hideyoshi of Japan, the English king Henry > VIII. Nonetheless the chaotic reprisals of Ivan's oprichnina defy attempts > to find a cumulative logic of class warfare or administrative calculation > in them. The early Russian autocracy arose before the terror, in battle > against Tatar power to the East. It was this new state apparatus that > enabled Ivan's madness to rage unchecked, with lasting damage to the > cohesion of the nascent power, as the old boyar aristocracy was looted or > scythed down. By the end of Ivan's reign the Swedes had cut off access to > the Baltic; within a few decades, invading armies from the West-first > Poles, then Swedes-occupied Moscow itself. > > Absolutism and its discontents > > By the mid-17th century it was already clear that, if Russia was to compete > in European power struggles, its standing armies would have to be matched > by a regular navy, and both would need rational management by a permanent > corps of military and administrative officers. But it was not till the turn > of the 18th century that Peter the Great brought the empire up to > contemporary, Western-dictated standards of militarism, enabling Russia to > maintain a splendid parity with the more advanced predators of continental > Europe. The key to his modernization of the Tsarist state lay less in its > import of Western organization or technology than in its massive > expansion-a tenfold enlargement-of a state-dependent nobility, forcibly > inducted into new careers and ways of life. The Petrine reforms created a > robust social vector for his absolutist edifice, but also, in Georgi > Fedotov's expression, split Russia into a thin nation of Westernized lords > divided from a traditional Muscovite people ( narod), consisting of the > rest of the non-aristocratic estates. [3] This profound gap would persist > down to the 20th century, when it was finally eradicated by the calamitous > social homogenizations of the Civil War and Stalin's great leap forward. > > Peter's reign put paid to Swedish expansionism and made Russia a Baltic > power. But it also committed the monarchy to sustain high levels of > socially prescribed consumption by its Westernized service nobility. It was > Catherine the Great who clinched these, conquering superbly fertile lands > in the south where Russian armies finally knocked off the last predatory > nomadic horde, the Crimean khanate, and put an end to the internally > disorganized Polish state. Munificent grants of lands and bonded peasants > to the nobility brought a new swagger and cohesiveness to Russian > absolutism. Catherine and her illustrious courtiers made big efforts to > raise the productivity and efficiency of feudal agriculture. This was an > explicitly aristocratic policy unconstrained by any bourgeois concerns, > aiming to foster domestic markets and export outlets for the cash-crops > generated on noble estates, alongside an expansion of serfdom that looked > increasingly like plantation slavery. The Russian state had become a major > European player, its ascent all the more spectacular against the dismal > failure of the Ottoman Sultans to modernize in this period. Catherine's was > the most successful enlightened despotism of the time. > > But, just as Ivan IV's legacy proved no match for Swedish power in the > succeeding generation, so Catherine's empire reached its apogee just as the > epoch of the French and Industrial Revolutions got under way in the West. > Russian absolutism was able-just-to fend off Napoleon's military onslaught, > but the economic impact of Manchester and what followed was another matter. > Even as its troops entered Paris, the basis of international power was > shifting. However vast in scale, the acquisition of prime land followed by > rapid agricultural colonization in feudal moulds was not enough to sustain > the Russian elites against a rapidly industrializing West. Predictably, as > the 19th century wore on, Russia started to experience the problems typical > of peripheral plantation economies-massive imports of luxury goods, > increasingly unfavourable trade balances, persistent economic and > technological inefficiency, constraints on domestic entrepreneurship, a > demoralized and immiserated peasantry. Political reaction against this > scene came first from younger top aristocrats, vaguely inspired by French > revolutionary ideas. The Decembrist mutiny of 1825 closely paralleled the > contemporary Liberal conspiracies in Southern Europe, germinating in > discussion clubs and officers' messes. The aristocratic rebels intended to > use state power to legislate progressive Western norms. But Tsarism, unlike > the Iberian monarchies, had emerged triumphant from the Napoleonic wars, > and quelled the uprising with little difficulty. Russia remained a Great > Power strong enough to batter the Poles, the Persians or Turks; and still > capable of expansion to the East, in the backward regions of Central Asia. > > Industrial outflanking > > Against the West, however, it had now fallen hopelessly behind again. In > the 1850s, the humiliations of the Crimean War made it clear that the > Petrine model of Russian absolutism had become obsolete in the age of > Anglo-French industrial imperialism. Russia once again faced the prospect > of catching up. [4] This time, however, it would be necessary to overhaul > not just the state apparatus or the ruling elite but the whole economy and > society. The inertia of the imperial bureaucracy and egoism of the > entrenched nobility frustrated all attempts at sustained modernization from > above. An independent Russian bourgeoisie began to emerge and thrive in the > late 1850s and 60s, but its rise was fettered by the world economic > depression of 1873-96-erratic rates of profit, huge booms followed by > enormous busts-that led entrepreneurs, elsewhere protecting themselves by > cartels or trusts, to seek security in bureaucratic patronage. [5] Of the > educated classes, that left only the intelligentsia as active candidates > for a reconstruction of the country. Created by the reforms of the 1860s, > this was a stratum of professionally educated specialists, intensely > conscious of its patriotic mission to lead the latest round in the > modernization of Russia. By default it became the main source of political > ferment in late Tsarist society. > > Structurally, the Russian intelligentsia of this period found itself caught > between the lack of any opportunity to exercise political responsibilities > (the autocracy remained too strong) and the paucity of openings to a > comfortable professional existence of the kind that its Western > counterparts enjoyed (local capitalist markets remained too weak to absorb > a large number of lawyers, doctors and technical specialists). [6] This > double constraint channeled the energies and frustrations of Russian > intellectuals into artistic and philosophical pursuits, hot debates over > reform and revolution, and quixotic acts of heroic despair-while the > autocracy, paralysed by conflicting pressures on it, resigned itself to > sluggish inaction or at best very partial reforms. It was only the third > generation of the Russian intelligentsia that was given a chance to break > out of its ghetto, at the turn of the twentieth century. Once again, the > precipitant of change was Russia's slide downwards in the hierarchy of > international power. Defeat in the Far East by Japan, a country whose > state-led modernization-also dating from the 1860s-had triumphantly > accomplished everything Russia had not, triggered the revolution of 1905-7. > Defeat in the West by Germany, in a World War that shattered the Imperial > armies, detonated the February and then October Revolutions of 1917. On > each occasion, different intelligentsia-made parties were the only serious > contenders for power. The winner proved to be the most radical and tightly > disciplined among them, the only one capable of taming peasant rebellion > and rebuilding the state, repelling foreign invasions and incorporating > national insurgencies, to reconquer the larger part of the imperial > territory. [7] > > Rise and fall of a Soviet superpower > > At the crest of their unexpected victory the Bolsheviks realized that their > hopes for revolution in the developed West were overhasty, and that nowhere > in his writings had Marx left a recipe for a functioning socialism, least > of all in a predominantly agrarian country like Russia. In the ensuing > disarray, leadership was captured by the least educated of Bolshevik > chiefs. Stalin used Marx's rhetoric and eschatological vision, but in > practical matters of state-building relied on his own brutal intuitions and > the example of other Germans-Ludendorff and Rathenau, architects of the > Wilhelmine war economy. The Stalinist 'revolution from above' of 1929-34, > collectivizing agriculture and launching the First Five-Year Plan, combined > an extreme version of military mercantilism with the dictatorial > institutions forged in the Russian Civil War. Party cadres, disheartened > during the interlude of NEP and Bolshevik factionalism, suddenly felt > inspired and flattered to lead another epic struggle-this time directed > against the rural masses and nationalities whose interests the Bolsheviks > were supposed, among others, to represent. The intelligentsia too-much of > it already exiled or repressed in the wake of the October Revolution-was > now thoroughly broken, as the Party leadership around Stalin adjusted > downwards to social recruits of cruder background and mentality. Believing > themselves a vanguard entitled to suppress 'backward elements' blind to the > direction of history, these terroristic cadres would mostly perish in the > subsequent Great Purge, when they were replaced by obedient bureaucrats-the > promotions of 1938, who later became indistinguishable dull faces in the > Brezhnev-era Politburo. > > The all-out industrialization of the 1930s, spurred by fear of capitalist > encirclement, transformed the face of Soviet society. The scale of social > mobility and cultural change experienced by those who came of age and > survived through the Stalinist modernization was unprecedented. Millions of > illiterate Russian and non-Russian peasants were reborn as industrial > workers or administrative employees, with rudiments of education, living in > urban environments. The speed of this transition induced in its younger > cohorts feelings of genuine optimism and loyalty to all things Soviet, > along with ardent willingness to participate in grandiose civilian and > military construction alike. The resulting social homogenization was widely > taken to be proof positive of Marxist-Leninist predictions regarding the > arrival of a truly communist society, without either class divisions or the > trappings of national identity. The outcome was a dictatorial state geared > to conducting heroic mobilizations to achieve strategic goals, regardless > of human or material costs. Its validation came with the Second World War, > and long-expected assault from the capitalist West. Unlike its Tsarist > predecessor, the Stalinist regime passed the test of German attack with > flying colours. Soviet industry vastly outproduced the Nazis in tanks and > airplanes, the Red Army crushed the Wehrmacht, and Moscow seized control of > Eastern Europe. Twenty years later, the USSR was matching the USA in atomic > weapons and missiles. Within a generation, a decrepit agrarian empire had > been transformed into a nuclear superpower. > > For a 'late developer' like Russia, these were incredible feats. To many, > they seemed worth the colossal sacrifice of lives they required, eliciting > a wave of local attempts to emulate them among the intelligentsia elites of > other, weaker states of the periphery. For a while this produced the > impression that the Soviet model was becoming a historically ascendant > alternative to the hegemony of the capitalist West. The zenith of its > prestige arrived during Khrushchev's rule, when postwar recovery and the > partial demilitarization of the Soviet economy resulted in high rates of > economic growth and a significantly larger share of civilian investment. > The launch of Sputnik-originally a purely military programme of orbital > flights-became the period's symbol of triumphant scientific progress. > Politically, the subordination of the secret police to party authority and > new debates within the top leadership over the future direction of the > Soviet experiment ushered in the so-called thaw, in which all kinds of > hitherto suppressed cultural and social aspirations began to find > expression. > > The Party apparatus immediately-and quite rightly-felt threatened by the > youthful enthusiasm of the sixties generation. These shestidesiatniki were > generally too young to have suffered from the Stalinist terror but > remembered the heroism of the War and the elation of 1945, and had entered > adulthood in the optimistic, expansive conditions of the late 1950s. Their > hopeful expectations and romantic projects were thoroughly socialist-or at > least politically harmless: the emblematic song of the period promised the > blossoming of apple trees on Mars. But their outlook was objectively > subversive of the stolid and hypocritical realities of the paternalistic > bureaucracy in place. The nomenklatura used all its power to abort the > nascent youth movement and, in 1964, disposed of Khrushchev as too > unpredictable a master for the times. Relieved of his rambunctiousness, the > bureaucratic apparatus settled into a comfortable routine, protected by a > set of formal and informal defences against significant change. It no > longer had any heroic goals or ideology to offer. So by default it now > opted to promote the taming, philistine values of consumerism and personal > comforts instead. Such a blatant departure from the Marxist-Leninist > ideology had to be ritualistically decried in word, while being > systematically implemented in deed. The result was inevitably a spreading > atmosphere of cynicism. > > From thaw to collapse > > Since 1945 the Soviet state-designed for war-like campaigns and mass > production of industrial-age weaponry-had entered a long period of peace, > in which it found itself confronted with the tasks most unnatural to it: > namely, cost-efficient, flexible, uninterrupted output and distribution of > consumer goods and services. Its failures in this field are famous. But > they can also be exaggerated. The leap in Soviet mass consumption between > 1945 and 1975 was arguably tremendous, from extremely low starting levels. > Why did it still fall so short of rising expectations? The answer lies in > the rapid transformation of peasants into urban wage-labourers employed by > the vast monopolistic apparatus of the Soviet state. By breaking up largely > self-sufficient peasant households and pouring its disaggregated members > into the harsh moulds of Soviet industry, bureaucracy and army, the State > took on responsibility for all aspects of its employees' social and > physical reproduction: from health, education and welfare to food and > clothing, sport and leisure. But simply providing the rudiments of these > was not enough. Cold War competition ensured that the Party had to deal > with the mighty-and consciously propagandistic-demonstration effects of > Western consumption patterns. Attempts to curb the flow of cultural > information about these were futile, not merely because of modern > communications systems, but also because the ruling elite itself (even more > so its children) proved eagerly susceptible to the temptations of > capitalist lifestyles. Power, after all, carries the seduction of enjoying > its material fruits. > > The political thaw of the mid-1950s was driven primarily by the collective > desire of the ruling bureaucracy to liberate itself from the intolerable > work-pressure and precariousness of Stalin's terroristic regime. But with > the despot gone and pervasive fear diminished, the administrative system > lost its major negative incentive-punitive central control over > bureaucratic cadres-which had also been a major instrument for driving > through technical and political innovations. At the same time, all > concentrations of educated urban wage-earners create a potential for > collective claim-making (witness the strike in Novocherkassk in 1962, or > stirrings among the new Soviet-minted intelligentsia, ranging from the fad > for the songs of Vysotsky to the tiny but vociferous circles of > dissidents). Where open collective action is repressed, industrial workers > still have plenty of 'weapons of the weak', from tacit slacking to outright > theft or unofficial redistribution of goods and services. Those who believe > that shoddy goods were an exclusively Soviet malaise should look at the > quality of current American automobiles. But the Soviet state excluded the > discipline and accountability instilled by market competition: its overall > organization of production was particularly wasteful, inertial and blind. > > In the 1970s, a conservative paternalistic compact with Soviet consumers > could still be sustained, so long as Soviet stability appeared to form a > soothing contrast to contemporary troubles in America. The windfall of > petrodollars after 1973 subsidized the budgets of the Brezhnevite order, > which included the expensive superpower pursuit of the latest armaments, > space exploration and overseas clients. But already by the late 1960s the > Soviet failure to race the Americans up to the Moon and the widening gap in > the development of advanced electronics had pointed to looming troubles in > the most sensitive areas of symbolic competition between the superpowers. > The Soviet rulers did not resort to mobilizing campaigns in order to catch > up. The bureaucratic apparatus was now so entrenched that any galvanization > of sociey was beyond it. By the turn of the eighties, economic growth and > social mobility were close to zero. The ensuing disillusionment, pervasive > hypocrisy and individualistic opportunism had an immensely damaging effect > on the Soviet citizenry: although largely unseen and unmeasurable by common > social indicators, the decline in work ethic and civic morality of the > Brezhnev era was to become a major structural antecedent of the > post-communist morass. > > The end came suddenly. Constrained by the contradictions of its corporate > existence, the Soviet nomenklatura had from the time of Khrushchev > intermittently toyed with various surrogates for market discipline and > democratic accountability, without ever making the resolute leap to an > alternative organizational design. Successive half-hearted attempts to > reform finally became reality with Gorbachev's perestroika, which in its > first phase questioned the central controls over all areas of Soviet > life-and then spectacularly failed to move into the second phase of > installing competitive mechanisms in either economy or polity. Frustrated > at home, Gorbachev's head was easily turned abroad. Daydreaming of the > figure he would cut in the West, he handed over Eastern Europe with > scarcely even a tip to show for it, and was surprised to find himself cast > aside without ceremony by domestic foes and friends alike. Even had it > acquired a more capable leader, perestroika came too late, amidst > increasing strategic pressures, advanced economic decline, administrative > ossification and social demoralization. But the aged, embittered, yet still > stubbornly romantic shestidesiatniki who finally got their opportunity > under Gorbachev need not be ridiculed. They stood no chance of salvaging > the Soviet Union, whose demise was written for all to see in the debacle of > its satellites in 1989. But they helped to spare it a catastrophic > implosion, for without the reform communists (and, of course, the > discrediting of the military in Afghanistan) the last rulers of the USSR > might well have been disastrously reactionary chauvinists of the sort that > proliferated in the final years of Yugoslavia. > > Great transformations > > The collapse of the USSR marked more than the failure of the Bolshevik > experiment. It signalled the end of a thousand years of Russian history > during which the state had remained the central engine of social > development. From the early modern period onwards, the general trend in > peripheral zones was towards a strengthening of the state, as ever more > daunting challenges came from the West. Three times Russian elites rose to > the challenge, constructing states capable of defeating the most daunting > external pressures on the country. On each occasion, no sooner was victory > won, at huge cost, than the terms of competitive struggle changed, > rendering it obsolete. Ivan IV's successes were undone by Europe's first > conscript army, spearheading Swedish expansion. Alexander I's glory was > outflanked by the industrial revolution, spreading from England to the > Continent. Stalin's empire was outmoded by the arrival of a post-Fordist > world in the West. > > This time, however, something deeper has changed. Structurally, capitalism > is cosmopolitan by nature. But historically, men of money have always > depended on men of the sword for aid and protection in creating > infrastructural conditions for their traffic that no individual capitalist > could afford. This was so in the Age of Discoveries, when Genoese bankers > subsidized and trailed the maritime expansion of the Iberian Catholic > monarchies. It was still so in the Pax Britannica of the 19th century, when > the access of investors to all the exotic places of the earth had to be > secured by colonial armies and administrations. Imperial states with their > Gatling guns were needed to 'pacify' local rulers, tribal chiefs, warlords, > bandits or local rulers; to tax, supervise and train the natives; to > explore the local geology, ascertain natural resources, identify tropical > diseases; to build harbours, lay railway lines and telegraph cables around > the globe. > > Then came the World Wars of the 20th century and their consequences. The > implosion of Europe in 1914 spread to the imperial peripheries in shock > waves of revolts, decolonizations, revolutions and counter-revolutions. The > mutual near-suicide of the colonial Great Powers, unfolding despite all > their bureaucratic rationality and liberal institutionalization, opened a > new cycle of state-led national development. In 1917 the Russian Revolution > set the counter-hegemonic pattern for contestation of the capitalist world > order, through the revolutionary creation or reconstruction of peripheral > states under the leadership of local intelligentsias. The aftershocks > lasted until the mid-1970s, when the United States paid the price for the > blunder of siding with the relics of the French empire in Indochina, and > the last sizable colonies, the Portuguese possessions in Africa, won > political independence after long guerrilla wars. The Brezhnevite regime in > the USSR, materially assisting the victory of both these anti-imperialist > upheavals, imagined itself at the forefront of historical advance. In fact, > these were the final episodes of an epoch that was vanishing. A Great > Transformation, in the full Polanyian sense, was already under way. > > This world-historical shift began with a severe crisis in the US > superpower, while the USSR was still prospering. In 1968 the American state > suffered military humiliation in Vietnam, coupled with a massive wave of > domestic protests, both against the war and over the fate of its black > population. The misguided attempts of Nixon's administration to bolster its > power and the US economy backfired spectacularly in 1973-75. Amid the > acceleration of inflation, the oil crisis, and the collapse of the Bretton > Woods system, Washington had to abandon economic and social mechanisms of > regulation that dated back to the Great Depression and the Second World > War. What eventually emerged from the turmoil of this period was the global > regime of liberalized markets we know today. Struggling to overcome the > crisis of the early 1970s, America used its hegemonic position to marshal > the resources of its numerous allies and client states in a system that > would invalidate the model of nationally bound economic growth and Fordist > industrial organization that had hitherto prevailed across the Atlantic > world. In two decades of experimentation with new types of governmental and > corporate policies, and search for new technologies and production-sites, > there emerged that politico-economic regime which different schools of > analysis have dubbed post-Fordism, flexible accumulation, or globalization. > The new order had little to do with fashionable claims that bureaucratic > regulation has been replaced with miraculous start-up firms and > self-clearing markets. In reality the American-led thrust to demolish the > economic barriers imposed by national governments shifted control to > private and international bureaucracies, much less open to public political > pressures; while intra-elite interactions evolved (or reverted) towards > less formal networking, along Davos lines. By the mid-1980s, the outlines > of an emergent globalized system were clear. The cycle of national > development had continuously shaken the framework of capitalist world > markets; but in the end, these proved more resilient and, contrary to > Schumpeter himself, actually benefited from the backlash of revolutions and > decolonizations. > > Russia's downward spiral > > The undoing of the rigidities and constraints of the post-1945 period was > experienced by the United States as a regime crisis, at a time when the > country was still wealthy and institutionally robust. Two decades later, > its poorer and weaker Soviet rival would succumb to a very similar sequence > of pressures, with much more devastating consequences. First came the shock > of humiliating stalemate in a war against Third World > guerrillas-Afghanistan was strikingly similar to Vietnam-which set off > rising military costs, followed by the loss of group confidence and > emergence of conflicting projects among the ruling elite. These in turn > released a wave of national and democratic protests (starting in Poland in > 1980), as the country plunged into a traumatic economic crisis after > several decades of prosperity which the rulers had pledged to perpetuate. A > vicious circle was set in motion: less legitimacy, less institutional > capacity to govern, fewer resources. The American state could still muster > the loyalty and reserves of its West European and Asian allies. The USSR > faced exactly the opposite situation in Eastern Europe and the Third World > extensions of the Soviet bloc. The Stalinist model of military-industrial > mass production (inspired back in the 1920s by the same American Fordism) > was outclassed in the electronic age, and collapsed at the end of the > 1980s-its severed fragments remaining comatose ever since. The project of > national bureaucratically supervised autarky ended in moral and financial > bankruptcy. > > The collapse of the Soviet Union removed the last trappings of post-1945 > geopolitics and so readied the new Great Transformation for full take-off. > Globalization brings for most of the world a significant decoupling of the > extraction of profits from the burdens of statehood. Corporate investors > now enjoy a choice of nearly two hundred national states competing to > attract them. Modern governments, especially in the non-Western countries, > must assume the costs of upgrading infrastructure, training labour, > providing welfare safety-nets, guaranteeing foreign-owned assets and > security to extraterritorial market operators. Promising learners are > offered tutoring and stipends from global monitoring agencies like the > World Bank, plus the efforts of the spate of NGOs that have inherited the > noble and na�ve causes of the missionaries. The unruly and the laggards are > punished by marginalization and starvation. This is a regime that no longer > requires formal imperial administration. National states themselves remain > the essential supporting structures of the world-system, but the balance of > power between states and markets has changed. Among other seminal > consequences, this means that war has become a dubious path of expansion-as > opposed to retribution (regularly meted out by the North American > hegemon)-and the traditional idea of revolution as the forcible seizure of > offices of the state by mass movements has been put out of court, to the > extent that markets too obviously escape beyond the reach of national > governments, especially weaker non-Western ones. > > The regime of market globalization will endure as long as three main > conditions are met: that the latest economic expansion continues; the US > maintains its ideological, diplomatic and military hegemony; and the social > disruptions provoked by the spread of market operations are kept in check > by welfare or policing methods. Rebus sic stantibus, we can probably give > the current form of globalization another ten years or so. But for one > country more than any other in the world, the new order poses fundamental > problems of historical identity. The Russian state faces perhaps uniquely > acute dilemmas today, not simply because of its abrupt shrinkage in size, > but because its major assets and traditional orientations have been > drastically devalued. Capitalism in the globalization mode is antithetical > to the mercantilist bureaucratic empires that specialized in maximizing > military might and geopolitical throw weight-the very pursuits in which > Russian and Soviet rulers have been enmeshed for centuries. > > Implosion from the middle > > The Soviet Union was not brought down from without-the West stood watching > in amazement. Nor was it undermined either from above or below. Rather it > imploded from the middle, fragmenting along the institutional lines of > different bureaucratic turfs. The collapse occurred when mid-ranking bosses > felt threatened by Gorbachev's flakiness as head of the system, and > pressured by newly assertive subordinates beneath them. The eruptions of > 1989 in Eastern Europe provided the demonstration prod. In the process of > disintegration, it was the particularly cynical apparatchiks of an already > decomposed Young Communist League who led the way. In their wake followed > the governors of national republics and Russian provinces, senior > bureaucrats of economic ministries, and section chiefs all the way down to > supermarket managers. As in many declining empires of the past, the basest > servants-emboldened by the incapacitation of emperors and frightened by > impending chaos-rushed to grab the assets that lay nearest to hand. > Mingling with them were nimble interlopers, ranging from the would-be > yuppies whom Ivan Szelenyi has wryly dubbed a 'comprador intelligentsia' to > former black marketeers and outright gangsters. The luckiest few in this > motley gal�re would become the celebrity post-communist tycoons. > > For the most part, predatory privatization- prikhvatizatsia-stopped there. > With the removal of its central stem, the old Soviet pyramid of power fell > into disjointed segments. The former nomenklatura sought to assert de jure > or de facto property rights over public assets, but in the absence of > effective state institutions could only succeed very imperfectly. Quite > rationally, if often at horrendous costs, some attempted to liquefy their > fixed assets and transfer the loot to off-shore havens abroad: the source > of much criminal violence and many corruption scandals in the 1990s. Many > other managers, lacking exportable assets or viable alternatives, resumed > Soviet-era practices with minimal ad hoc adaptations to generalized > decline-shifting allegiances to provincial governors who had to cater one > way or another to local industries, in order to avoid complete > socio-economic breakdown in their bailiwicks. Withdrawal from the monetized > economy was a widespread response, unforeseen by neo-classical textbooks. > Inter-enterprise barter and other monetary surrogates, embedded in regional > networks of mutual elite dependency, became common-a formula for further > corruption, as such transactions typically require political patrons, shady > banks or outright protection rackets. > > Meanwhile the mass of the post-Soviet population, caged in decaying > industrial environments, struggled to maintain the modest routines of their > life, to the best of their ingenuity and resilience: reporting to work, > sending their children to school, taking vacations, hustling to supplement > precarious household incomes with allotment agriculture and petty trade. At > ground level Yeltsin's Russia felt much like Brezhnev's USSR, only smaller, > poorer, more chaotic and unbundled. Most trends in Russian society of the > 1990s were traceable to the 1970s or earlier. No longer contained within > the Soviet framework, after 1991 they simply came into the open. Michael > Burawoy calls these processes Russia's industrial involution. > > Yeltsin's achievement > > Economically, the restoration of Russian capitalism proved to be a > ramshackle and purulent affair, rife with crime and corruption, and dogged > by deteriorating social indices. Gross national product contracted, wages > plummeted and population fell through the 1990s. By 2000, a third of the > population was living below the officially defined poverty line, and income > inequality had trebled. [8] Presiding over this apparently dismaying scene > was an aberrant product of the Siberian wing of the CPSU of old. As ruler > of post-Soviet Russia, Yeltsin had real if limited skills: a master of > court intrigue and the manipulation of subordinates, he could stage public > displays of dashing improvisation and sheer will when the occasion demanded > it. In other circumstances these would hardly have offset his obvious > liabilities as a leader-brutish greed and incompetence, drunken buffoonery, > long periods of inertia. In an ordinary sense, little went right under him. > After engaging and discarding Gaidar as champion of 'shock therapy', he was > soon at loggerheads with the country's first elected parliament. Dispersing > it with a blitz of tank-fire, he pushed through an autocratic constitution > with a fraudulent referendum, and then launched a disastrous war in > Chechnya. At a nadir of unpopularity, he was planning a military coup to > perpetuate his power when he was rescued by financial oligarchs, who hired > American campaign managers to re-elect him. The chief event of his second > term was a financial collapse that forced a suspension of payments on > Russia's foreign debt and a massive devaluation of the rouble. > > Nevertheless, Yeltsin's rule was, in the sense that counted, an impressive > success. In Russia the transition to any kind of standard market economy > was always going to be a chaotic and protracted process. But its first > condition was a political system irreversibly committed to capitalism. > This-by the end of his reign-Yeltsin had achieved. He was able to do so, > despite the low esteem in which he was soon held by most Russians, because > he enjoyed the support of the three decisive forces of the period: the > West, the oligarchs and the intelligentsia. The first was, of course, the > most important. American and European officials were under no illusions > about him. In the words of a senior policy adviser of the time: 'The only > good thing about Yeltsin was that he was an anti-Communist'. But that was > everything. No matter how blundering, sleazy or illegal his actions, the > Clinton Administration extended him unstinting support as the Guarantor of > Reforms. Since Russian state solvency depended completely on Western > credits, the IMF was instructed to ignore its standing rules of operation, > and bankrolled the Family to the end. All potential challengers to Yeltsin > were aware of the veto that the West now held over occupancy of the > Kremlin, and none seriously pressed their case. For their part, the handful > of financial oligarchs who carved up all that was really lucrative in the > economy owed their billions to Yeltsin's tenure, and understandably > protected him through thick and thin. > > Still, trump cards though the good will of Strobe Talbott and Boris > Berezovsky might be, the regime also needed a modicum of social support > inside the country. This it found above all in the ranks of the former > intelligentsia, whose younger and better located elements felt that they > could finally recast themselves into a professional middle class: > westward-looking, well-off and socially autonomous. The outlook of this > stratum was naturally liberal, since it had to defend itself against the > arbitrariness of a self-serving state bureaucracy, of which it had only too > much experience. But the liberalism of this aspiring middle class was > westernizing in a much stronger sense than that of its predecessors in the > 19th century, since the West was now not only the source of its imagery of > a good life, but also of actual political and cultural recognition. The > Russian population of less educated background did not matter so much, > supplying at best a potential recruitment pool for a new elite of 'normal > European' ( po-evropeiski normalnye) Russians. All this reproduced a rather > typical semi-peripheral situation: an aspiring Western-style middle class > of professionals and small property owners undertakes to play the role of a > traditional bourgeoisie in the absence of such a class that might > self-consciously restrain and eventually democratize autocratic power. > > In Russia this layer was bound to the Kremlin under its neo-tsarist > tricolour by a double tie. Yeltsin, though a former Politburo member and > hardly an intellectual, let alone a liberal, had risen to power after > expulsion from the top Communist bureaucratic leadership, through his > alliance with an intelligentsia-led bloc of ardently liberal reformers. It > was he who had led resistance to the military putsch of August 1991, and > outlawed the CPSU. Over and above this historic debt, Yeltsin's legitimacy > and wherewithal-once he was in power-came largely from the West, to which > for its own reasons the intelligentsia overwhelmingly looked. Thus, no > matter how doubtful Yeltsin's policies might appear to become, > intellectuals could never really break with him. But over time divisions > started to emerge. One section found profits and places in the new regime > itself, as Presidential aides, staffers for media magnates, advertising > executives and the like-merging, in effect, with the nouveaux riches or > 'New Russians' tout court-while another remained torn by loyalties to > earlier ideals, becoming increasingly disaffected. The outlook of these > last found expression in the NTV-Itogi-Segodnya-Ekho Moskvy complex, an > ideological project whose finest hour came with the Chechen War of 1993, > which it strongly opposed. So long as the only alternative was Zyuganov's > retrograde neo-Communism, they would stick by Yeltsin. But as his second > term drew to a close, there was palpable relief at the prospect of his > departure. > > The Anti-Gorbachev > > Such was the context in which Yeltsin's castling moves of August to > December 1999-first appointing Putin Prime Minister, then resigning to make > him automatically President-stunned political competitors manoeuvering to > succeed him in the elections of spring 2000. The intrigue was probably > designed by the Kremlin's well-rewarded spin doctors or 'political > technologists' (as this new breed of Russian intellectual mercenaries > prefer to call themselves) in the first instance to protect the > 'Family'-Yeltsin and his daughters, chamberlains like Chubais, and the > leading oligarchs-against the risk of future legal action. Putin's first > act in office was to grant his patron immunity from prosecution. In > appearance, the hand-picking by the President of his successor looked much > like the time-honoured Mexican practice of the dedazo. But the PRI > procedure, of course, depended on an institutional stability that was > nowhere in sight. There had seemed little chance it would work so smoothly > in Russia. > > Timely explosions in Moscow and skirmishes in Daghestan changed everything. > Within a month of becoming Prime Minister, Putin was waging an all-out > second war on Chechnya to halt these outrages. The campaign-heavy bombers, > tanks and artillery, massed regiments-had plainly been long and > meticulously prepared. By the time Yeltsin handed over the Presidency to > him, Putin was claiming to have crushed a terrorist secession threatening > the lives of ordinary people, and the integrity of the country. His poll > ratings skyrocketed within weeks, from near zero to imminent landslide. > Prospective contenders for the spoils of Yeltsin's demise instead hurried > to jump on an unexpected bandwagon. In the spring of 2000 Putin was elected > President by a margin far exceeding any vote for Yeltsin. > > In style, the KGB colonel suddenly lofted to head-of-state projects the > image of a paradigmatic anti-Gorbachev. Russians now have a leader who > talks little, exudes macho fitness and professional harshness, dislikes > reporters and parliamentary chatterboxes, praises the military-industrial > complex, uses unrestrained force against ethnic separatists, and stands for > national discipline. But in substance, it is the contrast with Yeltsin that > is the more striking. Indeed politically, Putin's formula of power in some > ways inverted that of his predecessor. The West, once assured that > continuity of restoration was not in question, took more distance from the > new incumbent, for reasons already touched on-Europeans cavilling at the > slaughter in Chechnya, Americans turning away from IMF bail-outs and the > rituals of multilateralism. Much of the intelligentsia, though considerably > quieter about the second than the first war against the Chechens, could not > overcome its mistrust of an officer from the secret police, who never broke > the Soviet corporate code. The oligarchs, accustomed to a more or less free > hand under Yeltsin, were less comfortable under a ruler who showed no > compunction in resorting to threats or arrests to bring them to heel. > > But set against relative political disinvestment on this side of the ledger > was a broader base of popular support, firmer control of institutional > apparatuses and better economic climate than Yeltsin had ever enjoyed. The > Duma that had been a constant thorn in Yeltsin's side was now a tame > assembly, with a bland Presidential majority formed of subordinate > bureaucrats hastily recruited during Putin's march to triumph at the ballot > box. Provincial governors, many of whom had become virtually autonomous > local potentates in the days when Yeltsin was in his cups, have been capped > with a set of 'plenipotentiaries' from the centre. Independent broadcasting > has been harassed or neutered-the Kremlin taking control of what was once > Gusinsky's empire, and using the ever more venal mass media to discredit or > silence potential opposition. Such ongoing recentralization of the Russian > state has been much assisted by the economic windfall of the last two > years-a fivefold depreciation of the ruble since the default of 1998, and > steep rise in oil prices. In 2000, for the first time since the collapse of > the Soviet Union, the budget was in the black, there was a trade surplus, > and economic growth of 8 per cent was recorded. This is still a fragile > recovery, but enough to be felt at all levels of society. > > Common Russians have therefore continued to feel content with their new > sober, diligent president. This is not deep support, but popularity by > default-others politicians left on the Russian scene appearing vainglorious > talkers or corrupt manipulators, without credible alternatives. The silent > majority of Russians are mostly atomized middle-aged individuals, > beaten-down, unheroic philistines trying to make ends meet as decently as > they can. They have lived through twenty years of betrayed expectations: > the deadening twilight of Brezhnevism, the illusory excitements of > perestroika, the factional corruption and cynicism of the Yeltsin years. > They are profoundly tired and resistant to any public mobilizing. Nor is > the Russian intelligentsia that once served as the principal catalyst of an > active public life in much better shape. In the past decade much of it has > been demoralized and undone as a social force by the drastic reduction of > its professional sustenance in virtually non-paying jobs (a professor at > Moscow University earns $80 a month), by the corrosive venality of culture > and business in the new age and, perhaps most of all, by the loss of its > moral independence, as so many projects for making Russia a 'normal', > prosperous and democratic society turned into a shameful travesty and > betrayal of national self-identity. Current polls show that not one of the > officially established parties enjoys any recognition whatever among the > younger generation of Russians. > > Stability and Chechnya > > Such are the circumstances in which Putin, with two-thirds of the > population steadily behind him, could also command the support of such an > unlikely constellation as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Mikhail Gorbachev, Yegor > Gaidar, Roy Medvedev, Tatiana Tolstaya. Little in his performance in office > has justified particularly high expectations. Corporate tax reform, limited > economic deregulation, and the first steps in the privatization of land are > under way. On the other hand, military reform has so far stalled over lack > of funds and the inability of the top brass to agree on their longer-term > interests. Internationally, the sinking of the Kursk, the futility of > Russia's role in the Balkans, and the refusal of the German government to > write off Soviet debts, were the main features of the first year of Putin's > Presidency. A mediocre record, however, is no real drawback when the main > claim a government makes to its people is to be giving them stability. This > is Putin's watchword, and the key to the breadth of popular acceptance of > him. > > Stability, however, is always relative. To most Russians Putin's rule, > compared with Yeltsin's, may for the moment appear tranquil and methodical. > But there is a canker in this fruit. Two years after its tanks blasted > through the shell of Grozny once again, the Russian Army is mired deeper > than ever in the quagmire of Chechnya. [9] The multiplication of its > massacres and cruelties has only hardened guerrilla resistance against > Moscow. Casualties among its brutalized conscripts are approaching the > levels of 1996, when it was driven out of the country. Probably the best > Putin can hope for is a perennial blockade of the mountainous parts of > Chechnya, where the resistance is unbeatable, and a dispersal of the > population of the plains into a second internal diaspora. But diaspora > breeds nationalism too, unless its leaders are assiduously bribed. To avert > looming fiasco in Chechnya would require Moscow to switch from crude > repression by its bulky and demoralized army to more sophisticated imperial > tactics of indirect rule. Historically, however, the Russian > bureaucracy-whether under the Tsars or Stalin, Yeltsin or Putin-has > invariably sought to rule this frontier tribal society by harsh, direct > coercion. Today, after a decade of perfidy and violence, Chechen hatred of > Moscow is unlikely to be easily disarmed. > > Riding to power on what was held out as victory in Chechnya, Putin is > vulnerable to a bloody stalemate or defeat. If so far ordinary Russians > have followed him, their outlook is foreign to imperial pursuits or > national revanchism. They will approve the war in Chechnya only so long as > the conscripts are not their sons, but only youths adrift from tough > proletarian suburbs with neither the money nor minimal skills to escape the > draft. The experience of Vietnam and Afghanistan shows how little such > initial support can be relied on. The intelligentsia is even less > dependable. Russian liberals, to the extent that their primary > identification is with the West, find themselves culturally cut off from > the rest of the population. They cannot put together a wider political bloc > glued by nationalist sentiments and at the same time have a reasonable > expectation of being accepted in Europe, as the more successful > post-socialist intelligentsias of Poland, Hungary, or the Baltic states > have done. Socially and geographically isolated in Moscow, St Petersburg > and a few other cities, Russian intellectuals remain prey to guilt at their > semi-collusion with the slaughter in Chechnya, and likely to break ranks > sooner than any other group. By this summer, it looked as if Putin would be > bound to seek a distraction from a war he could neither win nor abandon. > > Operation Enduring Freedom > > This was the situation in which the planes of September 11 came like manna > from heaven. Providentially, the carnage in Chechnya now became a > front-line of the battle fought by the entire international community > against terrorism. The West, still murmuring of the need for a peaceful > settlement, muted all criticism of the Russian war effort. The > intelligentsia, taking its cue from the West, rallied to the cause of > civilization against a barbaric fundamentalism. The Kremlin, setting aside > long-standing prejudices, welcomed the American war machine into its > Central Asian backyard. A page in diplomatic history is being turned. > > 'Operation Enduring Freedom' poses more starkly than any other development > since the collapse of the USSR the question of Russia's future within the > world of globalized capitalism. Twice before it recovered, after shattering > blows, larger than ever as a territorial empire. This time, however, the > fall has been more drastic than in the 17th or early 20th centuries, and > there is no going back to earlier ways. Historically, the rug has been > pulled out from under its traditional pattern of strategic recovery. Today > another bout of statist reorganization to restore Russia's geo-political > pre-eminence would be an anachronism. With the end of the Cold War and the > passing of the Soviet Union, Russia is at a historical nadir. Its demented > hammering of the tiny enclave of Chechnya-a few hundred square miles, a few > hundred thousand natives-can only be seen as a pathetic, unconscious > compensation for the enormous losses it has suffered in its Slav homelands, > where the amputation of the Ukraine and White Russia has reduced Moscow to > a smaller perimeter than in the days of Boris Godunov: a shock so vast that > the state still acts as if it feels these limbs twitching. The terrible > shrinkage is not just territorial, but demographic. Ten centuries of > population increase have gone into reverse. Today, Russia has fewer > inhabitants than Pakistan. Of the classical assets of a major state, it has > only a rusting nuclear arsenal, useless for what external operations are > left to it-petty meddling or bullying in the Caucasus or Turkestan. Now it > has given up the pretension to a monopoly of interference even there. > > The reason for such new-found modesty is not hard to seek. The post-Soviet > state is tightly constrained by a drastic loss of financial autonomy. > Foreign debt makes Moscow a hostage of the West in a way it has > historically never been before-not even when a declining tsarism was forced > to ally with its international lenders, abandoning its geopolitical rivalry > with the British Empire and France, in the run-up to 1914. A century later > the economic dependency of Russia goes beyond the general weakening of > peripheral states vis-�-vis global firms and markets. With a quarter of its > budget absorbed by debt repayments, the room for policy manoeuvre in Moscow > is now extraordinarily limited. The apogee of American influence on the > internal political system, which reached remarkable lengths under Yeltsin, > has passed, along with the emergency loans from the IMF that secured it. > But this is still a regime kept on a tight external leash. The West has, of > course, to keep up diplomatic appearances-treating the incumbent in the > Kremlin with proper outward respect, expressing occasional misgivings about > the conduct of the authorities, etc.-the better to conserve a fa�ade of > independence which has lost so much of its substance. [10] The underlying > realities could already be seen in the complete inability of Moscow to > resist NATO expansion to its borders (in breach of Bush Sr's promises), to > do anything, finally, except implement Washington's will in the Balkan War, > or to put up more than token opposition to abolition of the ABM Treaty. In > opening Russian airspace to American bombers and Uzbek bases to US troops, > Putin has decided to make a cooperative virtue of what was till now a > reluctant necessity. > > But if the imperial option is closed, what of the prospects for modern > capitalism in Russia? There is little doubt that some of the conditions for > more normal patterns of accumulation are gradually emerging-this is one of > the meanings of the 'new stability'. But the majority of Russian > enterprises are redundant to world markets, remaining dependent on high > levels of domestic protection. Russian labour, though cheap compared with > the West, is costlier and more undisciplined than huge and widely available > pools in the Third World. The country is currently attractive to Western > corporations only as an export platform for raw materials and a potential > concentration of consumers. Industrial output fell by half over the past > decade. Russia has become once again a typical peripheral producer of > primary commodities, with little competitive manufacturing capacity and > primitive levels of services. Its principal exports today are oil to > Germany, gas to Italy, prostitutes to Turkey, capital to Cyprus. If this > pattern were to continue, Putin's regime might come to look rather like the > larger Latin American countries of old-a strongman with an electoral > fa�ade, operating within an informal US jurisdiction; dealing with local > caciques at very low levels of internal taxation, but extracting enough > mineral wealth to keep foreign bond-holders at bay and the coffers of a > central coercive apparatus replenished. In sum, a kind of Porfiriato, > without its developmental spirit-but also without its simmering but diffuse > popular discontent. > > Yet the genetic code of imperial states does not change so easily. The > reflexes of centuries are embedded in a Russian bureaucracy that, > unbelievably, actually expanded in numbers under Yeltsin. Under further > globalization, the supply of military protection could itself become a > marketable commodity, as it was in the early modern world. Russian armies > have always been conscript forces, but today there is talk of creating a > professional military establishment. If that were ever to materialize, it > could have a promising mercenary future in front of it-the state > undertaking, for a fee, the risks and brutalities of imposing stability in > some of the nastiest hot-spots of the world. Such an outcome would be very > Russian indeed-looking like Turkey or Mexico in the beginning, but then > applying coercion for different purposes. If Putin emerges as even a > moderately successful ruler, the likely outcome over the next ten years > will be a protectionist, semi-authoritarian, inescapably corrupt but > somewhat better-off Russia, helping to police the remnants of an unstable > former empire. The West has every reason to look to it for assistance in > keeping this part of the world under the lid. Naturally, whatever else > endures on either side of the Oxus, it is unlikely to be freedom. > > [1] See Charles Tilly, European Revolutions 1492-1992, Oxford 1993, p. 190. > > [2] The Ottomans, chief bogey of the West in this period, were several > generations ahead of Russia in instituting the sipahi cavalry and janissary > musketry (from the Turkish yeni cheri-new infantry). > > [3] Georgi Fedotov, Tiazhba o Rossii, Paris 1982. > > [4] As a result of the same war, the Russian state's closest kin, Ottoman > Turkey, embarked on its own bout of Westernization in the 1860s. > > [5] Consider the line from Ostrovsky's classical play: 'Your Excellency, > but how can you imagine a railroad consortium without at least one general > on the Board?'. Note that in the Ottoman state the heady reforms of the > Tanzimat era were also followed by nearly four decades of reaction, known > as zulyum or 'age of oppression'. > > [6] For further discussion of the relations between the intelligentsia, > enlightenment and revolution, see my 'The Capitalist World-System and > Socialism', in Alexander Motyl, ed., The Encyclopaedia of Nationalism, vol. > 1, New York 2001. > > [7] Once again Turkey offers a useful parallel. After the defeat of the > Ottoman Empire in 1918, a group within the military intelligentsia > succeeded in repudiating the imperial past almost wholesale and mobilizing > the peasantry for patriotic defence, with strong undertones of a civil war. > The new Turkish state adopted the same German model of geopolitical > mercantilism combined with an ideology of nationalist republicanism. The > Turkish military officers, however, unlike the Russian civilian > intelligentsia, were ideologically inspired by French Jacobin traditions > and mostly read Durkheim rather than Marx. > > [8] For the latest data, see the Economist Intelligence Unit's Country > Profile-Russia 2001, pp. 30 et seq. > > [9] For background, see my 'Che Guevaras in Turbans', NLR I/237, Sept-Oct > 1999, pp. 3-27. > > [10] Russians are not oblivious to this reality. It is a sign of more > authoritarian times that the famed counterculture of political jokes has > reappeared in Putin's Russia. Last December, when the tune of the old > Soviet anthem was restored (Sergei Mikhalkov, Stalin's poet laureate, was > actually still alive to amend-very slightly-his erstwhile text), a > splendidly complex joke appeared on the net. President Putin receives a > phone call from the top manager of Coca-Cola proposing that the red flag of > the USSR be restored too, replacing only the hammer and sickle with the > logo Always Coca-Cola, in exchange for a consideration that would allow the > Russian government to resume payment of pensions. Ein moment!, replies the > President in his excellent German, pushes the mute button on the phone and > calls his Prime Minister on another line: 'Kasyanov, we have a serious > bidder here. Remind me, when does our current promotional agreement with > Aquafresh for the tricolour expire?' > > ****** > > > ------- > David Johnson > home phone: 301-942-9281 > work phone: 202-797-5277 > email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > fax: 1-202-478-1701 (Jfax; comes direct to email) > home address: > 1647 Winding Waye Lane > Silver Spring MD 20902 > > Web page for CDI Russia Weekly: > http://www.cdi.org/russia > Archive for Johnson's Russia List: > http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson > With support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and > the MacArthur Foundation > A project of the Center for Defense Information (CDI) > 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW > Washington DC 20036 > > > ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
