http://louisproyect.org/2014/08/31/ukraine-nato-and-imperialism/
Largely decided at the Yalta Conference of February 1945, the USSR won
the right to create “buffer states” that would protect it against
another imperialist invasion, or more specifically another German
invasion. Like Daniel Goldhagen, the Soviet tyrant considered Nazism to
be a kind of essential expression of the German Geist. Feelings of
hatred directed against all things German filtered down to the Red Army
grunt who thought himself justified in raping German women on a massive
scale. In a book on this blot on Soviet history, Anthony Beevor quoted a
Russian fighter: “Our soldiers’ behaviour towards Germans, particularly
German women, is absolutely correct!.”
In exchange for the buffer states, Stalin agreed to rein in the
Communist Parties in places where they had considerable strength: Italy,
France and Greece. In Greece the consequences of this policy were
particularly harmful. After Stalin tossed the Greek CP overboard, the
Greek bourgeoisie was rewarded with 25 years of stability. When the
workers got uppity, they got the back of the hand just like the
Hungarian workers. While Greece and Hungary rested on rival social
systems, they both knew how to keep the rabble at bay.
If not for Stalinism, the world would look a lot different today. A
socialist Italy, France or Greece would have had much more importance
than a socialist Hungary since the pre-existing democratic rights would
have militated against Stalinist ambitions. As Fryer points out, Hungary
was a dictatorship except for a brief period: “Hungary has never known
democracy, except for four and a half quite abnormal months at the end
of 1918 and the beginning of 1919, under the bourgeois-democratic
government of Károlyi.”
From the day that the buffer states were created, the citizens suffered
under dictatorship and economic privation. While the Warsaw Pact was not
about extracting profits, Eastern Europe economies had to put up with
bureaucratic inefficiencies that were both unnecessary and
pain-inducing, particularly in Czechoslovakia, a country that was
relatively advanced. When Dubcek proposed a series of economic changes
that might be described as technocratic but that remained consistent
with socialist principles, the pro-Kremlin wing of the CP attacked him
as an agent of imperialism. When Soviet tanks invaded Czechoslovakia and
re-imposed hardline Stalinist political and economic rules, a layer of
the intelligentsia decided that if socialism with a human face was not
possible, then you might as well opt for liberal capitalism. The most
notable example was Vaclav Havel, who became president after the country
left the Soviet fold. In other words, the primary driving force behind
Czechoslovakia’s lining up with imperialism and NATO was Stalinist obduracy.
It might have been expected that Boris Yeltsin would have little problem
with the former buffer states joining NATO since he was as willing to
satisfy Western imperialism’s interests as a member of Congress. So much
so in fact that he wrote a letter in December 1991 raising the
possibility that Russia join NATO.
The letter stated: “This will contribute to creating a climate of mutual
understanding and trust, strengthening stability and cooperation on the
European continent. We consider these relations to be very serious and
wish to develop this dialogue in each and every direction, both on the
political and military levels. Today we are raising a question of
Russia’s membership in NATO, however regarding it as a long-term
political aim.”
Now our “anti-imperialist” friends might write this off as to be
expected from a tool of Western interests. But not so fast. He changed
his tune just four years later, sounding positively Putinesque. In 1996
he complained that the expansion of NATO as “an attempt to keep the
foreign policy mechanisms and the mentality of ‘Cold War’ times.”
Whether or not Yeltsin would have been up to the kind of stiff
resistance to NATO expansion as his successor Vladimir Putin is
difficult to determine. However, when it came to Chechnya both leaders
showed that they were ready to shove the country back into the Stone Age
to protect Russian interests.
In contrast to Eastern Europe, the Kremlin has been far more willing to
both wage open warfare and to ally with the West in the former Soviet
Republics of the southern Caucasus, with Chechnya being the most extreme
example. The Party of Socialism and Liberation went the furthest in
linking the Chechen revolt to NATO’s expansion, writing in 2004:
If it were to succeed in separation from Russia, Chechnya would join the
league of former Soviet lands that are now “hosts” to U.S. and NATO
occupation, and whose wealth is exploited for foreign profiteers.
Few could have imagined in the 1980s that today U.S. and NATO would
occupy former Soviet republics like Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan,
Kirgizistan, and Georgia, which borders Chechnya and whose pro-U.S.
government is playing a key role in the struggles taking place.
One doubts that the PSL ever took the trouble to follow up on this
analysis, but the presence of American troops in Uzbekistan did not
exactly generate the kind of response from Putin one might expect given
this gloomy prognosis. Uzbekistan has an enormous NATO base that has
been key for the war in Afghanistan. Furthermore, as long as these
former Soviet republics were part of the “war on terror”, Putin had no
problem with a NATO presence as the NY Times reported a month after the
9/11 attacks:
Today, in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States,
Mr. Putin seemed to signal a far more flexible approach to enlargement.
”If NATO takes on a different shape and is becoming a political
organization, of course, we would reconsider our position with regard to
such expansion, if we are to feel involved in the processes,” Mr. Putin
said.
”They keep saying that NATO is becoming more political than military,”
Mr. Putin added. ”We are looking at this (and) watching this process. If
this is to be so, it would change things considerably,” he said.
Mr. Putin has moved swiftly since the terror attacks to lend his
support to the West. Most strikingly, he dropped Russian objections to
the deployment of American and other NATO counterterrorism forces in
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Russia’s Central Asian sphere of
influence.
He has already extracted a price for his help. Within days, the United
States and Germany lined up behind a Kremlin demand that rebels in
Chechnya lay down their arms, notably omitting criticism of human rights
abuses there by Russians.
You will note that the West had little problem with the Russians solving
the “Chechen problem” in the way that it saw fit. For those who are
still expecting the USA to go to war in Syria for “regime change” as
pursuant to Samantha Power type “human rights” ideology, it would be
useful to review what happened to Chechnya. With both the White House
and the Kremlin acting on pragmatic grounds, there’s little reason to
expect a penny to be wasted on reversing the biggest humanitarian crisis
in decades.
Unless you are one of those people who still take Russian press
conferences seriously, there’s little reason to believe that the Kremlin
is intervening in Ukraine for fear of NATO encirclement.
Long after Yeltsin had departed from the scene (leaving aside how he
eventually put some distance between himself and the West, arguably
under pressure from his military), the Kremlin continued to see NATO in
terms far less apocalyptic than the “anti-imperialist” left as the
EUObserver reported on January 4, 2009:
Russia does not rule out NATO membership at some point in the future,
but for the moment it prefers to keep co-operation on a practical,
limited level, Moscow’s envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin told EUobserver.
“There is no such necessity at this moment, but we cannot rule out this
opportunity in the future,” Mr Rogozin said in a phone interview on
Tuesday (31 March), one day after Polish foreign minister Radoslaw
Sikorski said Russia should join the military alliance, if it meets the
membership criteria.
Ironically, the obstacle to joining NATO was not primarily over the
occasional flare-ups of the sort that took place in Yugoslavia or
Georgia but whether or not NATO was the appropriate place for a Great Power:
“Great powers don’t join coalitions, they create coalitions. Russia
considers itself a great power,” the Russian ambassador stressed.
He said Russia wanted to be NATO’s “partner,” provided the alliance
took into account Moscow’s “interest” – a catchphrase alluding to NATO
enlargement to its neighbouring Ukraine and Georgia, which it fiercely
opposes.
Well, who can blame Rogozin? Interests are paramount when it comes to
Great Powers. Kissinger said it best: “America has no permanent friends
or enemies, only interests.”
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