John Smyth
2025-02-19 17:25:07 UTC
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PermalinkRussia's Problems Go Far Beyond Putin
As a Ukrainian historian, I have many contacts with historians in Russia,
for the histories of our countries are interconnected. I also know many
Austrian, American, Israeli, German, Polish, and other historians who study
our history. Since the beginning of the war, they have been writing to me,
inquiring whether my family and my students were safe, and offering help.
Now guess: how many of those who reached out to me were Russian?
In fact, only twoa married couple, who left Russia long before the war
began as they faced the threat of being termed agents of foreign
influence.
I have a friend who is a professor of theoretical physics. The very same
thing happened to him: since the beginning of the war, the only Russian
colleagues who reached out to him have been those who left Russia.
I understand that history is about politics. Since war is a continuation of
politics by other means, my fellow historians in Russia might consider me
their enemy. Theoretical physics, however, has nothing to do with politics.
There is something in Russian culture today making most Russianseven
highly educated peopleincapable of simple manifestations of human
solidarity.
In a recent interview on Ukrainian television, Viktor Shenderovich, a
Russian critic of Putin who escaped to Israel, urged us not to judge all
Russians too harshly, as they are nothing but hostages. And it is not right
to blame hostages.
If this is true, it is only partially so. The whole truth is that Russians
surrendered and became hostages voluntarily. Before Putin came to power in
2000, opinion polls in Russia showed that most Russians were ready to trade
freedom for order, were openly hostile to the West, and dreamed of a strong
handprimarily of a military force that would be respected and feared by
the world.
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In other words, behind the real Vladimir Putin stands the collective Putin
of the Russian people. Moreover, Putin is not just collectivehe is
repetitive. Over the past two hundred years, Russia has gone through
several periods of liberalization. Each of these periods was followed by
another of repression. Suffice it to say that Putin came to power after the
reforms of Gorbachev and Yeltsin.
Historians call this phenomenon the Russian pendulum. Due to its swings,
Russia never managed to form a society of citizens. Russians remain largely
a community of subjects with low public trust and solidarity. If they lack
these when it comes to their own relations, why should they show solidarity
with their neighbors?
Read More: What It Will Take for Ukraine to Win the War
Ukrainians past and present give them a special insight into Russian
history. Even during periods of democratization, the Russian authority view
of the Ukrainian question was not amicable. The Ukrainian language was
officially banned twice during the liberal reforms of Alexander II.
Gorbachev claimed that Ukrainians themselves did not want their children to
learn Ukrainian.
Russian oppositionists believe that the essence of Russia does not lie in
its brainless leaders but in Bulgakov, Akhmatova, Mandelshtam, Brodsky
and other geniuses of Russian culture. Their legacy is everlasting, and in
a way, they are the real Russia.
That might be so. Its just that it doesnt make much of a difference for
Ukrainians, not then and especially not today. Many of Russias brightest
minds seem to suffer from a Ukrainian complex as well.
Examples abound. Here is the most recent one: a poem by Joseph Brodsky, the
Nobel Prize winner, written on the occasion of Ukraines declaration of
independence in 1991:
God rest ye merry [Ukrainian] Cossacks, hetmans, and gulag guards!
But mark: when its your turn to be dragged to graveyards,
Youll whisper and wheeze, your deathbed mattress a-pushing,
Not Shevchenkos bullshit but poetry lines from Pushkin
(translated by Sergey Armeyskov; Taras Shevchenko (1814 1861) and
Aleksandr Pushkin (1799 1837), were, respectively, the greatest Ukrainian
and Russian national poets)
I can just see the inhabitants of Mariupol whispering the lines of Pushkin
while dying under Russian bombardment!
Russian attacks on Ukraine
A photo shows destruction in the area of conflict at the Bucha town after
it was liberated from Russian army in Ukraine on April 4, 2022.Wolfgang
Schwan-Anadolu Agency
At the heart of this attitude towards Ukrainians is the sense of how
wonderful it is to be Russian. In the minds of many Russians, Russia is
not just another country. It is a country with a great missionnamely, to
save the world from the corrupting influence of the spoiled West. For this
reason, all things Russian must be great: its territory, its army, even its
language has to be (as one Russian genius put it) great and mighty.
Neighboring nations who reject this great mission are, at best, silly
children in need of education, at worst, scoundrels and traitors who must
be decimated, deported, and so on. In either case, they cannot be left to
their own devices to sort out their own happiness.
It seems that buried deep behind Russian megalomania is an inferiority
complex. Russians cannot fathom how, after emerging victorious over
Napoleon and Hitler, they are now living worse than the French and the
Germans. Similar to Aesops fable of the fox and the grapes, the constant
failure to catch up and overtake the West pushes many to conclude that
the West is not for them. Russia is no country, but a separate
Civilization, to which Western rules do not therefore apply. Accordingly,
many Russians are prepared to suffer privations themselves or inflict equal
suffering on their neighbors, if it proves Russias greatness to the world.
Read More: Ukrainians Blame Russians for the Invasion
For all the talk of the mysterious Russian soul, the truth is quite simple.
Russians can fight well (although their present war puts even that in
serious question). They may achieve short-term economic breakthroughs as
part of late Imperial or Stalinist modernization. However, they never
managed to effect a political modernization, i. e., to limit central power,
separate church and state, create independent courts, ensure safeguards for
the opposition, protect the citizenry from violence.
The Russian question is hardly exceptional. It is parallel with German,
Polish, Jewish, and other issues of European politics. All of them have
been solved, often by bloody conflicts and untold suffering. But in the end
these nations managed to create their own countries with functional
democracy, and with relative economic well-being. Now it is the
Ukrainians turn. After thirty years of wandering in circles, exhausted by
the corruption of their elites, theyre as close as theyve ever been to
completing the political modernization of their country. They do not wish
to be part of a passive community with delusions of grandeurthey are
fighting for their right to live in a normal society.
It is just that, as the case of the Marshall Plan tells us, even postwar
Europe, with its longstanding democratic traditions, had a hard time
dealing with its problems. No country can do their homework without
external assistance.
Ukraine, too, deserves a Marshall Plan, and will, hopefully, get one. But
will a successful resolution of the Ukrainian question also resolve the
Russian one? Even once Russia loses a war, and Putin steps down or dies,
whats to stop the Russian pendulum from swinging the other way again,
following another liberalization.
In my humble opinion, the Russian question can be resolved by mirroring
Putins plans toward Ukraine. He demanded denazification of Ukrainewell,
Russia will have to undergo de-Russification. That is, it must abandon
its ambitions of becoming a Greater Russia and become a normal country.
But above all Russia has to do what Ukrainians are doing: hold political
reforms, after which no Putin, individual, collective, or repetitive, is
possible. Russia would have to do this by itselfbut with outside support,
or even outside supervision, in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
If those who call for understanding Russia truly want this, they should
look beyond superficial impressions. The Russian question is deeply rooted
in the past. Therefore it requires strategic solutions, not tactical ones.
Otherwise, we risk doing a great disservice not only to Russia and its
neighbors, but to the entire world.