Political Hard Man: Is Vladimir Putin, a former KGB colonel, a hard man? Yes, he is. But after the democratic delights of the Yeltsin years, a hard man was exactly what the Russian people were looking for - and are happy to keep voting for.
BEFORE CRITICISING THOSE who continue to treat Russia as an
“evil empire”, I should first explain why I am happy to embrace the German title of Russlandversteher - Russia Understander. It’s not only because I know
that without the extraordinary sacrifices of the Russian people during the
Second World War (twenty million dead!) the United States and British Empire
losses would have been much, much higher. It is also because our side – the West
– has consistently demonstrated the most appalling bad faith towards the
Russians. How any nation on the receiving-end of such strategic malevolence
could end up being anything other than defensive and mistrustful is difficult
to imagine.
Consider the fact that the Manhattan Project (the United
States and British effort to create an atomic bomb) was deliberately kept
secret from the Soviets. A weapon which, had it been used against Nazi Germany,
could have saved millions of Russian lives (as it almost certainly saved
millions of American lives when used against the Japanese) was withheld from
the nation that was doing all of the heavy-lifting against fascism.
How would you have reacted to the news that your allies were
developing a new super-weapon without you? Do you think it would have increased
your level of trust in the USA and the British Empire? Or, would it have pushed
your paranoia to new heights? Would it have caused you to be relaxed about the
political complexion of post-war Eastern Europe? Or, would it have led you to
create a series of socialist buffer-states under strict Russian control?
Never forget, the Cold War began at a time when the Soviet
Union lay in ruins: its people and economy utterly exhausted; and its armed
forces completely vulnerable to the USA’s growing stockpile of atomic weaponry.
Was Joseph Stalin really going to risk the total annihilation of what remained
of the Soviet population by ordering the Red Army to advance all the way to the
English Channel?
It is also worth remembering that even after the Soviet
Union acquired its own atomic weapon in August 1949, not one Russian
combat-boot was ever stamped upon the soil of the so-called “Free World”.
Fast forward to the collapse of the Soviet Empire between
1989 and1991. Was there ever a more auspicious moment to turn the page on
mutual and assured destruction and demilitarise the entire European continent?
The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, certainly believed that such a
moment was at hand. He sought – and was given – the personal assurance of the
American president, George H.W. Bush, that the Nato powers would not attempt to
fill the power vacuum created by the collapse of the Warsaw Pact.
Did Nato keep its promise? Like hell it did! Within the
space of a very few years, new Nato members ringed the territory of the Russian
Federation. Stalin’s worst fears had become the Russian Federation’s strategic
reality.
And that wasn’t the worst of it. With the collapse of
Communist Party rule, the Russian state and its vast portfolio of
publicly-owned industries and natural resources was asset-stripped bare. With
the “help” of the West’s economic “shock therapists”, the Russian Federation
was transformed into a corrupt kleptocracy: a “mafia-state” ruled by a
collection of “oligarchs” whose twisted characters Dostoevsky would have
struggled to depict. Not surprisingly, the life-expectancy of the average
Russian began to track backwards.
This was the Russia that greeted Vladimir Putin when he was
finally in a position to replace the Western powers’ favourite drunk, Boris
Yeltsin. Was Putin, a former KGB colonel, a hard man? Yes, he was. But after
the democratic delights of the Yeltsin years, a hard man was exactly what the
Russian people were looking for. Was his arrival generally considered to be bad
news for Russia’s oligarchs? You bet! Especially after Putin arranged for one
or two of them to be put on trial in cages – to encourage the others. Was
anybody in Russia, aside from a handful of Western-aligned politicians and
journalists, unduly upset by their President’s actions? Not really. Not when
soaring oil and gas prices were delivering higher living-standards to millions
of ordinary Russian citizens.
A prosperous and self-confident Russian Federation under
strong political leadership was not, however, in Nato’s script. The deep-state
denizens of the Western alliance looked at their maps and concluded (as so many
geopolitical strategists had done before them) that the best way of getting
their hands around Russia’s throat was through Ukraine.
Putin watched with growing alarm as Ukraine’s very own
colour revolution (i.e. Western-inspired protests followed by a
Western-assisted election campaign) installed an anti-Russian regime just a few
hundred kilometres from Moscow. When Putin’s pushback resulted in the creation
of a Moscow-friendly government in Kiev, the West upped the ante. With the
blessing of European Union leaders, neo-Nazi hoodlums were unleashed on the
streets of the Ukrainian capital. The pro-Russian Government fell. For the
first time since the end of World War II, the West accorded diplomatic
recognition to an overtly fascist regime.
We all know the rest. Russia annexes the Crimean Peninsula.
Russian-speaking Ukrainians rise up against the fascists in Kiev. Russian volunteers
cross the border in support. The West imposes sanctions and moves armoured
units eastwards to “head-off Russian aggression”. Russian hackers of
undetermined political status attempt to set off a colour revolution of their
own. Donald Trump is elected President of the United States.
Do I really need to write any more about the sort of people
who denounce the Russian Federation and its leader? Or why I am so happy to be called a Russlandversteher?
This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Friday, 6 April 2018.
