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Russia just wrapped up three days of electoral processes which will define the internal direction of that nation for the next six years and, in doing so, serve as the driving force of global transformation for decades to come. Russia has some 112.3 million registered voters. From March 15 through March 17, a little more than 77% of them came out and cast their vote for who would be their president for the next six years. An overwhelming percentage—over 88%—cast their vote for the incumbent, Vladimir Putin.
Let there be no doubt—there was no question as to what the outcome would be in this election: Vladimir Putin was always going to win reelection.
Let there also be no doubt—the 2024 presidential election in Russia is the most important political event of the post-Cold War era, the byproduct of one of the greatest expressions of democratic will that the world will see in modern times.
The election was far more than a vote of confidence in an individual—Vladimir Putin has been the dominant political force in Russia since the turn of the century, a man who has, through sheer force of will, led Russia out of the dark catastrophe of the 1990’s, positioning Russia as one of the most powerful and influential nations of the modern era.
The election was not a mandate on the war in Ukraine—that issue had been decided in the fall of 2022, when Russia was compelled to mobilize its manpower and military industrial capacity as what had been envisioned as a short military campaign against Ukraine transformed into a larger, longer military struggle against the collective West.
Simply put, the Ukraine conflict was not on the ballot in 2024.
What was on the ballot was the future of Russia.
Vladimir Putin is 71 years old. His victory secures him another six-year term in office. When this term ends, in 2030, Putin will be 77 years old.
Russians are students of history, and they know too well the sad legacy of the period of Soviet stagnation, which began in the mid-1960’s under the leadership of Leonid collective West. Brezhnev was 75 years old when he died in office, a mentally and physically feeble man. He was replaced by Yuri Andropov, who died two years later at the age of 69, only to be replaced by Konstantin Chernenko, who died in 1985 at the age of 73.
There is no reason to believe that Vladimir Putin will not maintain his current level of physical health and mental acuity for the remainder of his new term in office. But all men are, in the end, created equal, and the ravages of time weigh heavily on everyone, even someone as exceptional as Vladimir Putin.
For the past quarter of a century, Vladimir Putin has relied upon a core team of advisors and officials to help him lead Russia on its path of recovery. While this team has proven to be very capable, it, too, is subject to the same laws of nature that govern human existence as everyone else—ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
No man can live forever.
Russia, however, is in the minds of the people who constitute the Russian nation, eternal.
Having saved Russia from the deprivations of the 1990’s, when the collective West, led by the United States, conspired to keep Russia down by tearing it apart, Vladimir Putin is cognizant of the lessons of history which saw what happens when a ruling elite holds on to power for too long without any thought as to who will take their place.
Mikhail Gorbachev tried to lead Russia (the Soviet Union) out of the period of Soviet stagnation. He did so in a reactive fashion, without a well-thought-out plan, and the result was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the horrible decade of the 1990’s.
If Vladimir Putin were to approach the next six years as merely a continuation of his impressive tenure in office, he would be leading Russia down a path where it would collide with the harsh mistress that is historical precedent—an aging man, at the head of an aging system of government, with no clear plan on how to proceed when the inevitable appointment with destiny arrives.
In short, should the situation arise where Vladimir Putin feels compelled to seek an additional six-year term as Russia’s president in 2030, then Russia would more than likely find itself in danger of sinking into a new period of stagnation where the gains that have been made over the course of three decades of Putin rule will be squandered, and the potential of a societal collapse on par with the 1990’s a distinct reality.
This is why the important statistic to emerge from the 2024 Russian presidential election is not the 88% of the voters who marked their ballots in support of Vladimir Putin, but instead the 77% of the eligible voters who came out to express their support for the Russian state. Voter participation levels have always been seen as a reflection of the confidence a particular electorate had that the system of government they were sustaining through their vote best reflected the vision they themselves had of the nation they lived in.
By way of comparison, the 2020 presidential election in the United States saw a record-level 66% participation rate by eligible voters.
The 2024 presidential election in Russia beat that mark by 11 percentage points.
This means that the Russian people are confident that the 71-year-old Vladimir Putin will not be leading them down a path of historical inevitability where they are destined to repeat the mistakes of the past. Rather, the Russian people, confident in where Vladimir Putin has taken them to date, believe that he is the man who will best position Russia to be able to sustain these gains, and continue to prosper, in an eventual post-Putin Russia.
The 2024 Russian presidential election was a not a vote to maintain the status quo.
It was a vote for change.
The man that will oversee this change is Vladimir Putin.
Post-election rally in Red Square following Vladimir Putin’s victory in the 2024 presidential election
In the coming months, one can expect to see the beginning of a changing of the guard. The Russian leaders who helped Putin get Russia to where it is today will be set aside, to be replaced by a younger generation of Russian leaders who will, under the guidance and leadership of Vladmir Putin, prepare Russia for whatever challenges that await it once Vladimir Putin is no longer president.
How this change will manifest itself—perhaps a transition from a Moscow-centric political elite to one derived from the various regions of Russia—is as yet unknown. But there will be change, because there must be change.
And this change was on the ballot.
The West derided the 2024 Russian presidential election as a sham.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The 2024 Russian presidential election was the manifestation of a thriving democracy, but a democracy defined by Russians.
The West focuses on the 88% of the Russians who voted for Vladimir Putin and derides the result as little more than a foregone conclusion in a system that offered the people only one real choice.
Russian democracy, however, is defined by the 77% level of electoral participation, and reflects the confidence of the people in the Russian state’s ability to take them from the strong position that Vladimir Putin has brought them and sustain this strength in a post-Putin era.
It was not a vote defined by recertifying the past, but rather a vote which empowered the government to undertake the critical changes needed for the future of the Russian nation.
It was the perfect expression of democracy, Russian style.
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A week after Sy Hersh’s expose on the Nord Stream pipeline explosions, there is still no word that pretend President Biden who denies any knowledge or involvement in causing an Act of War in the Baltic Sea has yet to offer an explanation to the American public or reach out to Russian President Vladimir Putin – but what possible explanation could be offered when the Biden co-conspirators, millions of Americans and Putin’s Security Council all know the truth.
Even though the balloon distraction consumes the American mainstream media with the anonymous buoyant inflatable nonsense of a psyop as if to avoid the inescapable moment of truth – which will come inevitably. In any case, a good guess is that the Russians are not amused by whatever game the Biden Administration has conjured up to deflect attention from the reality of a world level Act of War crisis.
While the media remains aflutter with the guessing-game possibilities, TPTB appear confident that because Russia has been restrained and prudent in its reactions during its special military operation; including the unrelenting NATO lies but especially to the inhumanity of the Ukraine Nazi’s. There is a general refusal on the part of the Americans to believe that The Bear would ever retaliate, that they could never be pushed so far until there was nowhere else to go.
Perhaps as the European mainland flounders in an energy and economic crisis of its own making, they are experiencing a resurgence of lost sovereignty and awareness of their loss of independence at the hands of the US.
As the US and rest of the world await Russia’s response to the Biden Administration’s denial, legendary professor, historian, philosopher and political analyst emeritus Noam Chomsky has reminded us of the reckless and provocative impact of the US withdrawal of arms control agreements on Russia’s well-defined borders and legitimate security interests.
***
The Intercontinental ABM Treaty was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1972 in Moscow with each participant limited to a small portion of their territory. The Russians chose to protect its capitol at Moscow while the US chose to protect an ICBM site at Grand Fork, North Dakota – what does that tell you?
Three days after the 911 attack, President GW Bush with vice President Dick Cheney at his side, decided that the ABM was a ‘relic’ of the Cold War that had outlived its usefulness; announcing the withdrawal citing the Treaty’s hindrance of the US protecting itself as if it might be subject to a ballistic missile attack from ‘terrorists’ or ‘rouge states’ with access to comparable nuclear weapons. Despite its original intent of “unlimited duration,” the ABM included a withdrawal option in case of ‘extraordinary events” that jeopardized the parties’ “supreme interests.” The US then notified Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan of its intent. It was the first time the US withdrew from a nuclear arms agreement but not the last.
Withdrawal of the ABM allowed offensive weapon facilities to be located close to the Russian border as Putin described the Treaty as a “cornerstone” of Russia’s security system. In his 2018 Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly, Putin spoke of the US unilateral withdrawal:
“We did our best to dissuade the Americans from withdrawing from the treaty. All in vain. The US pulled out of the treaty in 2002. Even after that we tried to develop constructive dialogue with the Americans. All our proposals, absolutely all of them, were rejected.”
“All these years, the entire fifteen years since the withdrawal of the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, we have consistently tried to reengage the American side in serious discussions.”
***
By the mid 1990’s President Bill Clinton abandoned Secretary of State James Baker’s “categorical assurance” to Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev that “there would be no extension” of NATO’s jurisdiction “one inch to the east.” As Gorbachev put it in 2008:
“the Americans had promised that NATO wouldn’t move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and Eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be trusted.”
As a result of the Malta Summit in December, 1989 between President GWH Bush and President Gorbachev, former Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock said that
“..if Bush had been re-elected and Gorbachev had remained as president of the USSR there would have been no NATO expansion during their terms in office. There was no way either could commit successors” and that “I personally opposed the way NATO was extended to Eastern Europe, greater effort should have been made to create a “Europe whole and free,” by developing a new security structure including Russia”.
In addition, Robert Gates, then deputy national security advisor believed that “Gorbachev…” had been “led to believe” that the “expansion of NATO eastward” would not happen.
***
The Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan in 1987 in Reykjavik, Iceland eliminating thousands of missiles that would potentially have carried nuclear warheads. To Gorbachev and Reagan’s credit, the INF abolished an entire category of nuclear weapons while allowing first-hand observers of missile destruction and on-site verification as part of Reagan’s ‘trust but verify’ motto.
By 2019, President Donald Trump announced that he was suspending compliance with the Treaty and cited development of a prohibited missile by Russia while Putin countered that the US anti ballistic system in Europe which was within striking distance of Moscow could be used for offensive purposes. The Treaty ended a superpower build up in Europe as it banned ground launched missiles with a range of up to 3400 miles.
In October, 2018, US national security advisor John Bolton arrived for two days of talks with Russian officials who called the INF withdrawal as “dangerous” and “showing a lack of wisdom” as a “mistake.” Known to be belligerent to the Russians and arms control agreements, Bolton was also to meet with Russian Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov and Secretary to the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin who was looking for ‘clarification’ on US intentions.
In response, Putin denied any violation of the INF and announced suspension of Russian involvement in the Cold-war era INF Treaty to pursue a new generation of hypersonic missiles.
Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC.
It is hard to imagine that anyone could have dismantled the Soviet Union from the inside faster or more comprehensively than Mikhail Gorbachev, a man who had no such intention. Its crumbling is both Gorbachev’s singular achievement and his personal tragedy.
It is also the most important moment in history since 1945.
Popular perceptions have transformed the former Soviet leader into a kitschy icon, remembered as much for starring in an advert for no-crust pizza, as for picking up a Nobel Peace Prize.
But in the demise of ‘The Evil Empire’ he was no naïf, nor a catalyst for generic historic inevitabilities. Almost every single event in the countdown to the fall of communism in Russia and beyond is a direct reflection of the ideals, actions and foibles of Mikhail Gorbachev and those he confronted or endorsed.
This is the story of a farm mechanic who managed to penetrate the inner sanctum of the world’s biggest country, an explanation of what drove him once he reached the top, and an attempt to understand whether he deserves opprobrium or sympathy, ridicule or appreciation.
First president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev before a parade marking the 69th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. RIA Novosti.The first president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev signs autographs during the presentation of his new book “Alone with Myself” in the Moskva store. RIA Novosti.
Growing up a firebrand Communist among Stalin’s purges
Born in 1931 in a Ukrainian-Russian family in the village of Privolnoye in the fertile Russian south, Mikhail Gorbachev’s childhood was punctuated by a series of almost Biblical ordeals, albeit those shared by millions of his contemporaries.
His years as a toddler coincided with Stalin’s policy of collectivization – the confiscation of private lands from peasants to form new state-run farms – and Stavropol, Russia’s Breadbasket, was one of the worst-afflicted. Among the forcible reorganization and resistance, harvests plummeted and government officials requisitioned scarce grain under threat of death.
Gorbachev later said that his first memory is seeing his grandfather boiling frogs he caught in the river during the Great Famine.
Yet another grandfather, Panteley – a former landless peasant — rose from poverty to become the head of the local collective farm. Later Gorbachev attributed his ideological make-up largely to his grandfather’s staunch belief in Communism “which gave him the opportunity to earn everything he had.”
Panteley’s convictions were unshaken even when he was arrested as part of Stalin’s Great Purge. He was accused of joining a “counter-revolutionary Trotskyite movement” (which presumably operated a cell in their distant village) but returned to his family after 14 months behind bars just in time for the Second World War to break out.
Just in time for the Second World War to break out. For much of the conflict, the battle lines between the advancing Germans and the counter-attacking Red Army stretched across Gorbachev’s homeland; Mikhail’s father was drafted, and even reported dead, but returned with only shrapnel lodged in his leg at the end of the war.
Although Sergey was a distant presence in his son’s life up to then and never lived with him, he passed on to Mikhail a skill that played a momentous role in his life — that of a farm machinery mechanic and harvester driver. Bright by all accounts, Mikhail quickly picked up the knack — later boasting that he could pick out any malfunction just by the sound of the harvester or the tractor alone.
But this ability was unlikely to earn him renown beyond his village. Real acclaim came when the father and son read a new decree that would bestow a national honor on anyone who threshed more than 8000 quintals (800 tons or more than 20 big truckloads) of grain during the upcoming harvest. In the summer of 1948 Gorbachev senior and junior ground an impressively neat 8888 quintals. As with many of the agricultural and industrial achievements that made Soviet heroes out of ordinary workers, the exact details of the feat – and what auxiliary efforts may have made it possible – are unclear, but 17-year-old Gorbachev became one of the youngest recipients of the prestigious Order of the Red Banner of Labor in its history.
Having already been admitted to the Communist Party in his teen years (a rare reward given to the most zealous and politically reliable) Mikhail used the medal as an immediate springboard to Moscow. The accolade for the young wheat-grinder meant that he did not have to pass any entrance exams or even sit for an interview at Russia’s most prestigious Moscow State University.
With his village school education, Gorbachev admitted that he initially found the demands of a law degree, in a city he’d never even visited before, grueling. But soon he met another ambitious student from the countryside, and another decisive influence on his life. The self-assured, voluble Raisa, who barely spent a night apart from her husband until her death, helped to bring out the natural ambition in the determined, but occasionally studious and earnest Gorbachev. Predictably, Gorbachev rose to become one of the senior figures at the university’s Komsomol, the Communist youth league — which with its solemn group meetings and policy initiatives served both as a prototype and the pipeline for grown-up party activities.
STAVROPOL
Party reformist flourishes in Khruschev’s Thaw
Upon graduation in 1955, Gorbachev lasted only ten days back in Stavropol’s prosecutor’s office (showing a squeamishness dealing with the less idealistic side of the Soviet apparatus) before running across a local Komsomol official. For the next 15 years his biography reads like a blur of promotions – rising to become Stavropol region’s top Komsomol bureaucrats, overseeing agriculture for a population of nearly 2.5 million people before his 40th birthday.
All the trademarks of Gorbachev’s leadership style, which later became famous around the world, were already in evidence here. Eschewing Soviet officials’ habit of barricading themselves inside the wood-paneled cabinets behind multiple receptions, Gorbachev spent vast swathes of his time ‘in the field’, often literally in a field. With his distinctive southern accent, and his genuine curiosity about the experiences of ordinary people, the young official a struck chord as he toured small villages and discussed broken projectors at local film clubs and shortages of certain foodstuffs.
His other enthusiasm was for public discussion, particularly about specific, local problems – once again in contrast with the majority of officials, who liked to keep negative issues behind closed doors. Gorbachev set up endless discussion clubs and committees, almost quixotically optimistic about creating a better kind of life among the post-war austerity.
POLITBURO
Cutting the line to the throne
By the 1970s any sign of modernization in Soviet society or leadership was a distant memory, as the country settled into supposed “advanced socialism”, with the upheavals and promises of years past replaced by what was widely described as ‘An Era of Stagnation’ (the term gained official currency after being uttered by Gorbachev himself in one of his early public speeches after ascending to the summit of the Soviet system).
Without Stalin’s regular purges, and any democratic replacement mechanisms, between the mid-1960s and 1980s, almost the entire apparatus of Soviet leadership remained unchanged, down from the increasingly senile Leonid Brezhnev, who by the end of his life in 1982 became a figure of nationwide mockery and pity, as he slurred through speeches and barely managed to stand during endless protocol events, wearing gaudy carpets of military honors for battles he never participated in. Predictably, power devolved to the various factions below, as similarly aged heavyweights pushed their protégés into key positions.
The Kremlin Palace of Congresses (now the State Kremlin Palace). The XXV Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Feb. 24-March 5, 1976). CPSU Central Committee General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev delivering speech. RIA Novosti.
Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov, CPSU CC Politbureau member, CPSU CC secretary, twice Hero of Socialist Labor. RIA Novosti.Leonid Brezhnev, left, chairman of the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium and general secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, with Alexei Kosygin, chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, on Lenin’s Mausoleum on May 1, 1980. RIA Novosti.The Soviet Communist Party’s politburo member Konstantin Chernenko and central committee member Yury Andropov attend the Kremlin Palace of Congresses’ government session dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the USSR. RIA Novosti.Yuri Andropov (1914-1984), General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee (since November 1982). RIA Novosti.
With a giant country as the playground, the system rewarded those who came up with catchy programs and slogans, took credit for successes and steered away from failures, and networked tirelessly to build up support above and below. Gorbachev thrived here. His chief patrons were Brezhnev himself, purist party ideologue Mikhail Suslov, who considered Stavropol his powerbase, and most crucially the hardline head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov. The security chief referred to the aspiring politician as ‘My Stavropol Rough Diamond’ — another rejoinder to those seeking to paint Gorbachev as a naïve blessed outsider, a Joan of Arc of the Soviet establishment.
After being called to Moscow in 1978 to oversee Soviet agriculture — an apocryphal story suggests that he nearly missed out on the appointment when senior officials couldn’t find him after he got drunk celebrating a Komsomol anniversary, only to be rescued by a driver at the last moment — Mikhail Gorbachev was appointed to the Politburo in 1980.
The Politburo, which included some but not all of the ministers and regional chiefs of the USSR, was an inner council that took all the key decisions in the country, with the Soviet leader sitting at the top of the table, holding the final word (though Brezhnev sometimes missed meetings or fell asleep during them). When Gorbachev became a fully-fledged member he was short of his 50th birthday. All but one of the dozen other members were over sixty, and most were in their seventies. To call them geriatric was not an insult, but a literal description of a group of elderly men – many beset by chronic conditions far beyond the reach of Soviet doctors – that were more reminiscent of decrepit land barons at the table of a feudal king than effective bureaucrats. Even he was surprised by how quickly it came.
Brezhnev, who suffered from a panoply of circulation illnesses, died of a heart attack in 1982. Andropov, who was about to set out on an energetic screw-tightening campaign, died of renal failure in 1984. Konstantin Chernenko was already ill when he came to leadership, and died early in 1985 of cirrhosis. The tumbling of aged sovereigns, both predictable and tragicomic in how they reflected on the leadership of a country of more than 250 million people, not only cleared the path for Gorbachev, but strengthened the credentials of the young, energetic pretender.
Leonid Brezhnev’s funeral procession at Vladimir Lenin’s mausoleum. RIA Novosti.
The decorations of General Secretary of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev seen during his lying-in-state ceremony at the House of Unions. RIA Novosti.Mikhail Gorbachev, the first and the last Soviet president (second left in the foreground) attending the funeral of General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Konstantin Chernenko (1911-1985) in Moscow’s Red Square. RIA Novosti.The funeral procession during the burial of Leonid Brezhnev, general secretary of the CPSU central committee, chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet. RIA Novosti.The funeral of Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The coffin is placed on pedestal near the Mausoleum on Red Square. RIA Novosti.The funeral procession for General Secretary of the CPSU Konstantin Chernenko moving towards Red Square. RIA Novosti.General Secretary of the Central Comittee of CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev at the tribune of Lenin mausoleum during May Day demonstration, Red square. RIA Novosti.
On 11 March 1985, Gorbachev was named the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR.
REFORMS NEEDED
Overcoming economic inefficiency with temperance campaigns
As often in history, the reformer came in at a difficult time. Numbers showed that economic growth, which was rampant as Russia industrialized through the previous four decades, slowed down in Brezhnev’s era, with outside sources suggesting that the economy grew by an average of no more than 2 percent for the decade.
The scarcity of the few desirable goods produced and their inefficient distribution meant that many Soviet citizens spent a substantial chunk of their time either standing in queues or trading and obtaining things as ordinary as sugar, toilet paper or household nails through their connections, either “under the counter” or as Party and workplace perks, making a mockery of Communist egalitarianism. The corruption and lack of accountability in an economy where full employment was a given, together with relentless trumpeting of achievement through monolithic newspapers and television programs infected private lives with doublethink and cynicism.
A line of shoppers outside the Lenvest footwear shop. Ria Novosti.
But this still does not describe the drab and constraining feel of the socialist command economy lifestyle, not accidentally eschewed by all societies outside of North Korea and Cuba in the modern world. As an example, but one central to the Soviet experience: while no one starved, there was a choice of a handful of standardized tins — labeled simply salmon, or corned beef — identical in every shop across the country, and those who were born in 1945 could expect to select from the same few goods until the day they died, day-in, day-out. Soviets dressed in the same clothes, lived in identical tower block housing, and hoped to be issued a scarce Lada a decade away as a reward for their loyalty or service. Combined with the lack of personal freedoms, it created an environment that many found reassuring, but others suffocating, so much so that a trivial relic of a different world, stereotypically a pair of American jeans, or a Japanese TV, acquired a cultural cachet far disproportionate to its function. Soviets could not know the mechanisms of actually living within a capitalist society — with its mortgages, job markets, and bills — but many felt that there were gaudier, freer lives being led all around the world.
And though it brought tens of millions of people out of absolute poverty, there was no longer an expectation that the lifestyles of ordinary Soviets would significantly improve whether a year or a decade into the future, and promise of a better future was always a key tenet of communism.
Several wide-ranging changes were attempted, in 1965 and 1979, but each time the initial charge was wound down into ineffectual tinkering as soon as the proposed changed encroached on the fundamentals of the Soviet regime — in which private commercial activity was forbidden and state control over the economy was total and centralized.
Moscow, Russia. Customers at the Okean [Ocean] seafood store. 1988. Ria Novosti.
Gorbachev deeply felt the malaise, and displayed immediate courage to do what is necessary — sensing that his reforms would not only receive support from below, but no insurmountable resistance from above. The policy of Uskorenie, or Acceleration, which became one of the pillars of his term, was announced just weeks after his appointment — it was billed as an overhaul of the economy.
But it did not address the fundamental structural inefficiencies of the Soviet regime. Instead it offered more of the same top-down administrative solutions — more investment, tighter supervision of staff, less waste. Any boost achieved through rhetoric and managerial dress-downs sent down the pyramid of power was likely to be inconsequential and peter out within months.
His second initiative, just two months after assuming control, betrayed these very same well-meaning but misguided traits. With widespread alcohol consumption a symptom of late-Soviet decline, Gorbachev devised a straightforward solution — lowering alcohol production and eventually eradicating drinking altogether.
Doctor Lev Kravchenko conducting reflexotherapy session with a patient at the Moscow Narcological Clinical Hospital #17. RIA NovostiStolichnaya vodka from the Moscow Liqueur and Vodka Distillery. RIA Novosti.
“Women write to me saying that children see their fathers again, and they can see their husbands,” said Gorbachev when asked about whether the reform was working.
Opponents of the illiberal measure forced Russian citizens into yet more queues, while alcoholics resorted to drinking industrial fluids and aftershave. Economists said that the budget, which derived a quarter of its total retail sales income from alcohol, was severely undermined. Instead a shadow economy sprung up — in 1987, 500 thousand people were arrested for engaging in it, five times more than just two years earlier.
More was needed, and Gorbachev knew it.
PERESTROIKA
“We must rebuild ourselves. All of us!”
Gorbachev at his zenith
Gorbachev first uttered the word perestroika — reform, or rebuilding — in May 1986, or rather he told journalists, using the characteristic and endearing first-person plural, “We must rebuild ourselves. All of us!” Picked up by reporters, within months the phrase became a mainstay of Gorbachev’s speeches, and finally the symbol of the entire era.
Before his reforms had been chiefly economic and within the existing frameworks; now they struck at the political heart of the Soviet Union.
The revolution came from above, during a long-prepared central party conference blandly titled “On Reorganization and the Party’s Personnel Policy” on January 27, 1987.
In lieu of congratulatory platitudes that marked such occasions in past times, Gorbachev cheerfully delivered the suspended death sentence for Communist rule in the Soviet Union (much as he didn’t suspect it at the time).
“The Communist Party of the Soviet Union and its leaders, for reasons that were within their own control, did not realize the need for change, understand the growing critical tension in the society, or develop any means to overcome it. The Communist Party has not been able to take full advantage of socialist society,” said the leader to an audience that hid its apprehension.
“The only way that a man can order his house, is if he feels he is its owner. Well, a country is just the same,” came Gorbachev’s trademark mix of homely similes and grand pronouncements.” Only with the extension of democracy, of expanding self-government can our society advance in industry, science, culture and all aspects of public life.”
“For those of you who seem to struggle to understand, I am telling you: democracy is not the slogan, it is the very essence of Perestroika.”
Gorbachev used the word ‘revolution’ eleven times in his address, anointing himself an heir to Vladimir Lenin. But what he was proposing had no precedent in Russian or Soviet history.
The word democracy was used over 70 times in that speech alone. The Soviet Union was a one-party totalitarian state, which produced 99.9 percent election results with people picking from a single candidate. Attempts to gather in groups of more than three, not even to protest, were liable to lead to arrest, as was any printed or public political criticism, though some dissidents were merely subjected to compulsory psychiatric care or forced to renounce their citizenship. Millions were employed either as official KGB agents, or informants, eavesdropping on potentially disloyal citizens. Soviet people were forbidden from leaving the country, without approval from the security services and the Party. This was a society operated entirely by those in power, relying on compliance and active cooperation in oppression from a large proportion of the population. So, the proposed changes were a fundamental reversal of the flows of power in society.
General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachyov making his report “October and perestroika: the revolution continues” in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses at a joint session of the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Supreme Soviet, devoted to the 70th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. RIA Novosti.
Between Gorbachev’s ascent and by the end of that year, two thirds of the Politburo, more than half of the regional chiefs and forty percent of the membership of the Central Committee of Communist Party, were replaced.
Gorbachev knew that democracy was impossible without what came to be known as glasnost, an openness of public discussion.
“We are all coming to the same conclusion — we need glasnost, we need criticism and self-criticism. In our country everything concerns the people, because it is their country,” said Gorbachev, cunningly echoing Lenin, at that January forum, though the shoots of glasnost first emerged the year before.
From the middle of 1986 until 1987 censored Soviet films that lay on the shelves for years were released, the KGB stopped jamming the BBC World Service and Voice of America, Nobel Peace Prize winner nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov and hundreds of other dissidents were set free, and archives documenting Stalin-era repressions were opened.
A social revolution was afoot. Implausibly, within two years, television went from having no programs that were unscripted, to Vzglyad, a talk show anchored by 20 and 30-somethings (at a time when most Soviet television presented were fossilized mannequins) that discussed the war in Afghanistan, corruption or drugs with previously banned videos by the Pet Shop Boys or Guns N’ Roses as musical interludes. For millions watching Axl Rose, cavorting with a microphone between documentaries about steel-making and puppet shows, created cognitive dissonance that verged on the absurd. As well as its increasing fascination with the West, a torrent of domestic creativity was unleashed. While much of what was produced in the burgeoning rock scene and the liberated film making industry was derivative, culturally naïve and is now badly dated, even artifacts from the era still emanate an unmistakable vitality and sincerity.
Rock for Peace concert in Moscow, 1988. RIA Novosti.
“Bravo!” Poster by Svetlana and Alexander Faldin. Allegorically portraying USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev, it appeared at the poster exposition, Perestroika and Us. RIA Novosti.Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, talking to reporters during a break between sessions. The First Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR (May 25 — June 9, 1989). The Kremlin Palace of Congresses. RIA Novosti.
Many welcomed the unprecedented level of personal freedom and the chance to play an active part in their own country’s history, others were alarmed, while others still rode the crest of the wave when swept everything before it, only to renounce it once it receded. But it is notable that even the supposed staunchest defenders of the ancien régime — the KGB officers, the senior party members — who later spent decades criticizing Perestroika, didn’t step in to defend Brezhnev-era Communism as they saw it being demolished.
What everyone might have expected from the changes is a different question — some wanted the ability to travel abroad without an exit visa, others the opportunity to earn money, others still to climb the political career ladder without waiting for your predecessor die in office. But unlike later accounts, which often presented Gorbachev as a stealthy saboteur who got to execute an eccentric program, at the time, his support base was broad, and his decisions seemed encouraging and logical.
As a popular politician Gorbachev was reaching a crescendo. His trademark town hall and factory visits were as effective as any staged stunts, and much more unselfconscious. The contrast with the near-mummified bodies of the previous General Secretaries — who, in the mind of ordinary Soviet citizens, could only be pictured on top of Lenin’s Mausoleum during a military parade, or staring from a roadside placard, and forever urging greater productivity or more intense socialist values — was overwhelming. Gorbachev was on top — but the tight structure of the Soviet state was about to loosen uncontrollably.
USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev in Sverdlovsk Region (25-28 April, 1990). Mikhail Gorbachev with the people of Sverdlovsk at the Lenin Square. RIA Novosti.
USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev visits Sverdlovsk region. Mikhail Gorbachev visiting Nizhnij Tagil integrated iron-and-steel works named after V.I. Lenin. RIA Novosti.CPSU Central Committee General Secretary, USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev in the Ukrainian SSR. Mikhail Gorbachev, second right, meeting with Kiev residents. RIA Novosti.
COLD WAR ENDS
Concessions from a genuine pacifist
In the late 1980s the world appeared so deeply divided into two camps that it seemed like two competing species were sharing the same planet. Conflicts arose constantly, as the US and the USSR fought proxy wars on every continent — in Nicaragua, Angola and Afghanistan, with Europe divided by a literal battle line, both sides constantly updated battle plans and moved tank divisions through allied states, where scores of bases housed soldier thousands of miles away from home. Since the Cold War did not end in nuclear holocaust, it has become conventional to describe the two superpowers as rivals, but there was little doubt at the time that they were straightforward enemies.
“The core of New Thinking is the admission of the primacy of universal human values and the priority of ensuring the survival of the human race,” Gorbachev wrote in his Perestroika manifesto in 1988.
At the legendary Reykjavik summit in 1986, which formally ended in failure but in fact set in motion the events that would end the Cold War, both sides were astonished at just how much they could agree on, suddenly flying through agendas, instead of fighting pitched battles over every point of the protocol.
“Humanity is in the same boat, and we can all either sink or swim.”
General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev (left) and U.S. President Ronald Reagan (right) during their summit meeting in Reykjavik. RIA Novosti.
Landmark treaties followed: the INF agreement in 1987, banning intermediate ballistic missiles, the CFE treaty that reduced the military build-up in Europe in 1990, and the following year, the START treaty, reducing the overall nuclear stockpile of those countries. The impact was as much symbolic as it was practical — the two could still annihilate each other within minutes — but the geopolitical tendency was clear.
President Reagan: Signing of the INF Treaty with Premier Gorbachev, December 8, 1987
Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the US president Ronald Reagan. RIA Novosti.Mikhail Gorbachev (left) and the US president Ronald Reagan signing an agreement in the White House. Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on the official visit to the USA. RIA Novosti.
Military analysts said that each time the USSR gave up more than it received from the Americans. The personal dynamic between Reagan — always lecturing “the Russians” from a position of purported moral superiority, and Gorbachev — the pacifist scrambling for a reasonable solution, was also skewed in favor of the US leader. But Gorbachev wasn’t playing by those rules.
“Any disarmament talks are not about beating the other side. Everyone has to win, or everyone will lose,” he wrote.
The Soviet Union began to withdraw its troops and military experts from conflicts around the world. For ten years a self-evidently unwinnable war waged in Afghanistan ingrained itself as an oppressive part of the national consciousness. Fifteen thousand Soviet soldiers died, hundreds of thousands more were wounded or psychologically traumatized (the stereotypical perception of the ‘Afghan vet’ in Russia is almost identical to that of the ‘Vietnam vet’ in the US.) When the war was officially declared a “mistake” and Soviet tanks finally rolled back across the mountainous border in 1989, very few lamented the scaling back of the USSR’s international ambitions.
Last Soviet troop column crosses Soviet border after leaving Afghanistan. RIA Novosti.
Driver T. Eshkvatov during the final phase of the Soviet troop pullout from Afghanistan. RIA Novosti.Soviet soldiers back on native soil. The USSR conducted a full pullout of its limited troop contingent from Afghanistan in compliance with the Geneva accords. RIA Novosti.The convoy of Soviet armored personnel vehicles leaving Afghanistan. RIA Novosti.
In July 1989 Gorbachev made a speech to the European Council, declaring that it is “the sovereign right of each people to choose their own social system.” When Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, soon to be executed by his own people, demanded — during the 40th anniversary of the Communist German Democratic Republic in October 1989 — that Gorbachev suppress the wave of uprisings, the Soviet leader replied with a curt “Never again!”
“Life punishes those who fall behind the times,” he warned the obdurate East German leader Erich Honecker. Honecker died in exile in Chile five years later, having spent his dying years fending off criminal charges backed by millions of angry Germans.
Russian tanks did pass through Eastern Europe that year — but in the other direction, as the Soviet Union abandoned its expensive bases that were primed for a war that neither side now wanted.
Graffitti at the Berlin Wall. RIA Novosti.East German citizens climb the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate after the opening of the border was announced early November 9, 1989. REUTERS/Herbert Knosowski BEST QUALITY AVAILABLE. Reuters.A big section of the Berlin Wall is lifted by a crane as East Germany has started to dismantle the wall near the Brandenburg Gate in East Berlin, February 20, 1990. Reuters.
By the time the Berlin Wall was torn down in November, Gorbachev was reportedly not even woken up by his advisors, and no emergency meetings took place. There was no moral argument for why the German people should not be allowed to live as one nation, ending what Gorbachev himself called the “unnatural division of Europe”. The quote came from his 1990 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.
ETHNIC TENSIONS
Smoldering ethnic conflicts on USSR’s outskirts flare up
Ethnic tensions on the outskirts of the empire lead to full-scale wars after USSR’s collapse. Towards the end of his rather brief period as a Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev had to face a problem many thought of as done and dusted; namely, ethnic strife, leading to conflict and death.
By the mid-1980s, the Soviet Union was officially considered by party ideologists to be one multi-ethnic nation, despite it being comprised of 15 national republics and even more internal republics and regions, with dozens of ethnic groups living there in a motley mixture. The claim was not completely unfounded as the new generation all across the country spoke Russian and had basic knowledge of Russian culture along with Marxist philosophy. In fact, the outside world confirmed this unity by calling all Soviet citizens “Russians” — from Finno-Ugric Estonians in the West to the Turkic and Iranian peoples of Central Asia and natives of the Far East, closely related to the American Indians of Alaska.
Demonstration on Red Square. The International Labor Day. “Long live the brotherly friendship of the peoples of the USSR!” reads the slogan under the USSR national emblem surrounded by flags of 15 of the Union republics carried at a May Day demonstration in 1986. RIA Novosti.
At the same time, the concept of the single people was enforced by purely Soviet methods — from silencing any existing problems in the party-controlled mass media, to ruthless suppression of any attempt of nationalist movements, and summary forced resettlement of whole peoples for “siding with the enemy” during WWII.
After Gorbachev announced the policies of Glasnost and democratization, many ethnic groups started to express nationalist sentiments. This was followed by the formation or legalization of nationalist movements, both in national republics and in Russia itself, where blackshirts from the “Memory” organization blamed Communists and Jews for oppressing ethnic Russians and promoted “liberation.”
Neither society nor law enforcers were prepared for such developments. The Soviet political system remained totalitarian and lacked any liberal argument against nationalism. Besides, the concept of “proletarian internationalism” was so heavily promoted that many people started to see nationalism as part of a struggle for political freedoms and market-driven economic prosperity. At the same time, the security services persisted in using the crude Soviet methods that had already been denounced by party leaders; police had neither the tools nor the experience for proper crowd control.
As a result, potential conflicts were brewing all across the country and the authorities did almost nothing to prevent them. In fact, many among the regional elites chose to ride the wave of nationalism to obtain more power and settle old accounts. At the same time, the level of nationalism was highly uneven and its manifestations differed both in frequency and intensity across the USSR.
In February 1988, Gorbachev announced at the Communist Party’s plenum that every socialist land was free to choose its own societal systems. Both Nationalists and the authorities considered this a go-ahead signal. Just days after the announcement, the conflict in the small mountain region of Nagorno-Karabakh entered an open phase.
Nagorno-Karabakh was an enclave populated mostly, but not exclusively, by Armenians in the Transcaucasia republic of Azerbaijan. Relations between Armenians and Azerbaijanis had always been strained, with mutual claims dating back to the Ottoman Empire; Soviet administrative policy based purely on geography and economy only made things worse.
In spring 1989, nationalists took to the streets in another Transcaucasian republic — Georgia. The country was (and still is) comprised of many ethnic groups, each claiming a separate territory, sometimes as small as just one hill and a couple of villages, and the rise of nationalism there was even more dangerous. Georgians marched under slogans “Down with Communism!” and “Down with Soviet Imperialism.” The rallies were guarded and directed by the “Georgian Falcons” — a special team of strong men, many of them veterans of the Afghan war, armed with truncheons and steel bars.
“Down with Communism!”
“Down with Soviet Imperialism.”
This time Gorbachev chose not to wait for clashes and a Spetsnaz regiment was deployed to Tbilisi to tackle the nationalist rallies. Again, old Soviet methods mixed poorly with the realities of democratization. When the demonstrators saw the soldiers, they became more agitated, and the streets around the main flashpoints were blocked by transport and barricades. The soldiers were ordered to use only rubber truncheons and tear gas, and were not issued firearms, but facing the Georgian Falcons they pulled out the Spetsnaz weapon of choice — sharp shovels just as deadly as bayonets.
At least 19 people were killed in the clashes or trampled by the crowd that was forced from the central square but had nowhere to go. Hundreds were wounded.
Soviet tanks are positioned on April 9, 1989 in front of the Georgian government building where pro-independence Georgians were killed as paratroopers moved in to break up a mass demonstration. An anti-Soviet demonstration was dispersed on April 9th by the Soviet army, resulting in 20 deaths and hundreds of injuries. In independent Georgia “April 9” is an annual public holiday remembered as the Day of National Unity. AFP PHOTO.
Moscow ordered an investigation into the tragedy and a special commission uncovered many serious mistakes made both by the regional and central authorities and party leaders. However, at the May Congress of People’s Deputies, Gorbachev categorically refused to accept any responsibility for the outcome of the events in Tbilisi and blamed the casualties on the military.
Further on, the last Soviet leader persisted in the kind of stubbornness that inevitably must have played a part in his fall. In February 1990, the Communist Party’s Central Committee voted to adopt the presidential system of power and General Secretary Gorbachev became the first and last president of the USSR. The same plenum dismantled the Communist Party’s monopoly of power, even though the country had no grassroots political organizations or any political organizations not dependent on the communists save for the nationalists. As a result, the urge for succession increased rapidly, both in the regional republics and even in the Soviet heartland — the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
In 1990, the Republic of Lithuania was the first to declare independence from the Soviet Union. Despite his earlier promises, Gorbachev refused to recognize this decision officially. The region found itself in legal and administrative limbo and the Lithuanian parliament addressed foreign nations with a request to hold protests against “Soviet Occupation.”
In January 1991, the Lithuanian government announced the start of economic reforms with liberalization of prices, and immediately after that the Supreme Soviet of the USSR sent troops to the republic, citing “numerous requests from the working class.” Gorbachev also demanded Lithuania annul all new regulations and bring back the Soviet Constitution. On January 11, Soviet troops captured many administrative buildings in Vilnius and other Lithuanian cities, but the parliament and television center were surrounded by a thousand-strong rally of protesters and remained in the hands of the nationalist government. In the evening of January 12, Soviet troops, together with the KGB special purpose unit, Alpha, stormed the Vilnius television center, killing 12 defenders and wounding about 140 more. The troops were then called back to Russia and the Lithuanian struggle for independence continued as before.
A Lithuanian demonstrator stands in front of a Soviet Army tank during the assault on the Lithuanian Radio and Television station on January 13, 1991 in Vilnius. AFP PHOTO.
Vilnius residents gather in front of the Lithuanian parliament following the takeover of the Radio and Television installations by Soviet troops. AFP PHOTO.An armed unidentified man guards the Lithuanian parliament on January 19, 1991 in Vilnius. AFP PHOTO.Vilnius residents holding a Lithuanian flag guard a barricade in front of the Lithuanian parliament on January 20, 1991. AFP PHOTO.Soviet paratroopers charge Lithuanian demonstrators at the entrance of the Lithuanian press printing house in Vilnius. January, 1991. AFP PHOTO.
Gorbachev again denied any responsibility, saying that he had received reports about the operation only after it ended. However, almost all members of the contemporary Soviet cabinet recalled that the idea of Gorbachev not being aware of such a major operation was laughable. Trying to shift the blame put the president’s image into a lose-lose situation — knowing about the Vilnius fighting made him a callous liar, and if he really knew nothing about it, then he was an ineffective leader, losing control both of distant territories and his own special forces.
The swiftly aborted intervention — troops were called back on the same day — was a disappointment both to the hardliners, who would have wanted Gorbachev to see it through, and to the democratic reformers, horrified by the scenes emerging from Vilnius.
This dissatisfaction also must be one of the main factors that provoked the so-called Putch in August 1991 — an attempt by die-hard Politburo members to displace Gorbachev and restore the old Soviet order. They failed in the latter, but succeeded in the former as Gorbachev, isolated at his government Dacha in Crimea, returned to Moscow only because of the struggles of the new Russian leader Boris Yeltsin. When Gorbachev returned, his power was so diminished that he could do nothing to prevent the Belovezha agreement — the pact between Russia, Belarus and Ukraine that ended the history of the Soviet Union and introduced the Commonwealth of Independent States. All republics became independent whether they were ready to or not.
This move, while granting people freedom from Soviet rule, also triggered a sharp rise in extreme nationalist activities — the stakes were high enough and whole nations were up for grabs. Also, in the three years between Gorbachev’s offering of freedom and the collapse of the USSR, nothing was done to calm simmering ethnic hatred, and with no directions from Moscow or control on the part of the Soviet police and army, many regions became engulfed in full-scale civil wars, based on ethnic grounds.
Things turned especially nasty in Tajikistan, where fighting between Iranian-speaking Tajiks and Turkic-speaking Uzbeks very soon led to ethnic cleansing. Refugees had to flee for their lives to Afghanistan, which itself witnessed a war between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance.
Government soldiers aim at positions of armed opposition groups in the border area of Afghanistan 08 June 1993. The civil war between pro-communist forces and the opposition has left thousands dead and turned hundreds of thousands of people into refugees in the last year. AFP PHOTO.
Two fighters of the Tajik pro-Communist forces engage in a battle with pro-Islamic fighters 22 December 1992 in a village some 31 miles from the Tajik capital of Dushanbe. AFP PHOTO.Tajik women cry over the dead body of a soldier 29 January 1993. The soldier was killed during fighting between Tajikistan government troops and opposition forces in Parkhar. AFP PHOTO.
The long and bloody war in Georgia also had a significant ethnic component. After it ended three regions that were part of the republic during Soviet times — Abkhazia, Adzharia and South Ossetia – declared independence, which was enforced by a CIS peacekeeping force. At some point, Georgia managed to return Adzharia but when Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, backed and armed by Western nations, attempted to capture South Ossetia in 2008, Russia had to intervene and repel the aggression. Subsequently, Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent nations.
YELTSIN’S CHALLENGE
New star steals limelight
As Stalin and Trotsky, or Tony Blair and Gordon Brown could attest, your own archrival in politics is often on your team, pursuing broadly similar — but not identical aims — and hankering for the top seat.
But unlike those rivalries, the scenes in the fallout between Mikhail Gorbachev, and his successor, Boris Yeltsin played out not through backroom deals and media leaks, but in the form of an epic drama in front of a live audience of thousands, and millions sat in front of their televisions.
The two leaders were born a month apart in 1931, and followed broadly similar paths of reformist regional commissars – while Gorbachev controlled the agricultural Stavropol, Yeltsin attempted to revitalize the industrial region of Sverdlovsk, present-day Yekaterinburg.
Yet, Yeltsin was a definitely two steps behind Gorbachev on the Soviet career ladder, and without his leg-up might have never made it to Moscow at all. A beneficiary of the new leader’s clear out, though not his personal protégé, Yeltsin was called up to Moscow in 1985, and the following year, was assigned the post of First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party, effectively becoming the mayor of the capital.
Yeltsin’s style dovetailed perfectly with the new agenda, and his superior’s personal style, though his personal relationship with Gorbachev was strained almost from the start. Breaking off from official tours of factories, the city administrator would pay surprise visits to queue-plagued and under-stocked stores (and the warehouses where the consumables were put aside for the elites); occasionally abandoning his bulletproof ZIL limo, Yeltsin would ride on public transport. This might appear like glib populism now, but at the time was uncynically welcomed. In the first few months in the job, the provincial leader endeared himself to Muscovites — his single most important power base in the struggles that came, and a guarantee that he would not be forgotten whatever ritual punishments were cast down by the apex of the Communist Party.
Boris Yeltsin, First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party’s Moscow City Committee, at the official meeting celebrating the 70th anniversary of the October revolution. RIA Novosti.
Boris Yeltsin, left, candidate member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, at lunch. RIA Novosti.Voters’ meeting with candidate for deputy of the Moscow Soviet in the 161st constituency, First Secretary of the CPSU Moscow Town Committee, Chairman of the USSR Supreme Soviet, Boris Yeltsin, centre. RIA Novosti.People’s deputy Boris Yeltsin. Algirdas Brazauskas (right) and chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Council Mikhail Gorbachev on the presidium. RIA Novosti.
But Yeltsin was not just a demagogue content with cosmetic changes and easy popularity, and after months of increasing criticism of the higher-ups, he struck.
During a public session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in October 1987, the newcomer delivered a landmark speech.
In front of a transfixed hall, he told the country’s leaders that they were putting road blocks on the road to Perestroika, he accused senior ministers of becoming “sycophantic” towards Gorbachev. As his final flourish, Yeltsin withdrew himself from his post as a candidate to the Politburo — an unprecedented move that amounted to contempt towards the most senior Soviet institution.
The speech, which he later said he wrote “on his lap” while sitting in the audience just a few hours earlier, was Yeltsin in a nutshell. Unafraid to challenge authority and to risk everything, with a flair for the dramatic, impulsive and unexpected decision (his resignation as Russian president in his New Year’s speech being the most famous).
Footage shows Gorbachev looking on bemused from above. He did not publicly criticize Yeltsin there and then, and spoke empathetically about Yeltsin’s concerns, but later that day (with his backing) the Central Committee declared Yeltsin’s address “politically misguided”, a slippery Soviet euphemism that cast Yeltsin out into the political wilderness.
Gorbachev thought he had won the round — “I won’t allow Yeltsin anywhere near politics again” he vowed, his pique shining through — but from then on, their historical roles and images were cast.
Gorbachev, for all of his reforms, now became the tame, prissy socialist. Yeltsin, the careerist who nearly had it all, and renounced everything he had achieved at the age of 54 and re-evaluated all he believed in. Gorbachev, the Politburo chief who hid behind the silent majority, Yeltsin the rebel who stood up to it. Gorbachev, the politician who spoke a lot and often said nothing, Yeltsin, the man of action.
Historically, the contrast may seem unfair, as both were equally important historical figures, who had a revolutionary impact for their time. But stood side-by-side, Yeltsin — with his regal bearing and forceful charisma — not only took the baton of Perestroika’s promises, but stole the man-of-the-future aura that had hitherto belonged to Gorbachev, who now seemed fidgety and weaselly by comparison.
While he was stripped of his Moscow role, Yeltsin’s party status was preserved. This had a perverse effect. No one stopped Yeltsin from attending high-profile congresses. No one prevented him from speaking at them. It was the perfect situation — he had the platform of an insider, and the kudos of an outsider. Tens of deputies would come and criticize the upstart, and then he’d take the stage, Boris Yeltsin vs. The Machine.
On June 12, 1990 Russia declared sovereignty from the USSR. A month later, Yeltsin staged another one of his dramatic masterclasses, when he quit the Communist Party on-stage during its last ever national congress, and walked out of the cavernous hall with his head held high, as loyal deputies jeered him.
In June 1991, after calling a snap election, Yeltsin became the first President of Russia, winning 57 percent — or more than 45 million votes. The Party’s candidate garnered less than a third of Yeltsin’s tally.
By this time Gorbachev’s position had become desperate. The Soviet Union was being hollowed out, and Yeltsin and the other regional leaders were now actively colluding with each other, signing agreements that bypassed the Kremlin.
The Communists and nationalists — often one and the same — had once been ambivalent about Gorbachev’s reforms, and anyway had been loath to criticize their leader. But inspired by Gorbachev’s glasnost, and with the USSR’s long term prospects becoming very clear, they now wanted their say as well. A reactionary media backlash started against him, generals pronounced warnings of “social unrest” that sounded more like threats, and some had begun to go as far as to earnestly speculate that Gorbachev was working for the Cold War “enemy.”
USSR IMPLODES
Failed coup brings down faded leader of fractured country
The junta that tried to take power in the Soviet Union on the night of August 18th is one of the most inept in the history of palace coups.
On August 18, all phones at Gorbachev’s residence, including the one used to control the USSR’s nuclear arsenal, were suddenly cut off, while unbeknownst to him, a KGB regiment was surrounding the house. Half an hour later a delegation of top officials arrived at the residence in Foros, Crimea, walked past his family to his office, in their briefcases a selection of documents for Gorbachev to sign. In one scenario, he would simply declare a state of emergency, and proclaim control over all the rebel republics, in another he would hand over power to his deputy Gennady Yanaev, due to worsening health.
Genuinely angry at their disloyalty, the Soviet leader called them “chancers”, and refused to sign anything, saying he would not have blood on his hands. He then showed them out of the house with a lengthy tirade — clearly recollected by all present in their memoirs — in which he crowned the plotters a “bunch of cocks.”
The plotters were not prepared for this turn of events. Gathering once again back in Moscow, they sat around looking at their unsigned emergency decree, arguing and not daring to put their names on the typewritten document. As midnight passed, and more and more bottles of whisky, imported from the decadent West they were saving the USSR from, was brought in, the patriots found their courage, or at least persuaded Yanaev to place himself at the top of the list of signatories. The Gang of Eight would be known as the State Committee on the State of Emergency. Accounts say that by the time they were driven to their dachas — hours before the most important day of their lives — the plotters could barely stand. Valentin Pavlov, he of the unpopular monetary reform, and the prime minister, drank so much he had to be treated for acute alcohol intoxication, and was hospitalized with cardiac problems as the events of the next three days unfolded.
But orders were issued, and on the morning of the 19th tanks rolled into Moscow. While news suggested that nothing had gone wrong — and at this point it hadn’t — the junta made it seem as if everything had. Not only were there soldiers on street, but all TV channels were switched off, with Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake iconically played on repeat. By four o’clock in the afternoon, most of the relatively independent media was outlawed by a decree.
But for all their heavy-handed touch the putsch leaders did nothing to stop their real nemesis. Unlike most coups, which are a two-way affair, this was a triangular power struggle – between Gorbachev, the reactionaries, and Yeltsin. Perhaps, like Gorbachev, stuck in their mindset of backroom intrigue the plotters seemed to underrate Yeltsin, and the resources at his disposal.
Russia’s next leader had arrived in Moscow from talks with his Kazakhstan counterpart, allegedly in the same merry state as the self-appointed plotters. But when his daughter woke him up with news of the unusual cross-channel broadcasting schedule, he acted fast, and took his car straight to the center of Moscow. The special forces soldiers placed around his dacha by the conspirators were not ordered to shoot or detain him.
Yeltsin’s supporters first gathered just a few hundred yards from the Kremlin walls, and then on instruction marched through the empty city to the White House building, the home of the rebellious Russian parliament. There, in his defining moment and as the crowd (although at this early hour it was actually thinner than the mythology suggests) chanted his name, Yeltsin climbed onto the tank, reclaimed from the government forces, and loudly, without the help of a microphone, denounced the events of the past hours as a “reactionary coup.” In the next few hours, people from across Moscow arrived, as the crowd swelled to 70,000. A human chain formed around the building, and volunteers began to build barricades from trolleybuses and benches from nearby parks.
Military hardware in Kalininsky prospect after imposition of a state of emergency in August 1991. RIA Novosti.Muscovites block the way for military weaponry during the GKChP coup. RIA Novosti.
Moscow residents building barricades next to the Supreme Soviet during the coup by the State EmergencyCommittee. RIA Novosti.Thousands of people rallying before the Supreme Soviet of Russia on August 20, 1991. RIA Novosti.
Though this seemed as much symbolic, as anything, as the elite units sent in by the junta had no intention of shooting, and demonstrated their neutrality, freely mingling with the protesters. Their commander, Pavel Grachev, defected to Yeltsin the following day, and was later rewarded with the defense minister’s seat. The Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov also supported Yeltsin.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin waves from the balcony of the Russian Parliament to a crowd of demonstrators protesting against the overthrow of Soviet President Gorbachev during the brief coup in August 1991, in Moscow August 20, 1991. The result, ironically, was the dissolution of the Soviet Union. REUTERS/Michael Samojeden IMAGE TAKEN AUGUST 20, 1991. Reuters.
Realizing that their media blackout was not working, and that they were quickly losing initiative, the plotters went to the other extreme, and staged an unmoderated televised press conference.
Sat in a row, the anonymous, ashen-faced men looked every bit the junta. While Yanaev was the nominal leader, he was never the true engine of the coup, which was largely orchestrated by Vladimir Kryuchkov, the KGB chief, who, with the natural caution of a security agent, did not want to take center stage. The acting president, meanwhile, did not look the part. His voice was tired and unsure, his hands shaking — another essential memory of August 1991.
From left: the USSR Interior Minister Boris Pugo and the USSR Vice-President Gennady Yanayev during the press conference of the members of the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKCP). RIA Novosti.From left: Alexander Tizyakov, Vasily Starodubtsev, Boris Pugo, Gennady Yanayev, and Oleg Baklanov during the press conference of the State of Emergency State Committee (GKCP) members at the USSR Foreign Ministry. RIA Novosti.
In another spectacularly poor piece of communications management, after the new leaders made their speeches, they opened the floor to an immediately hostile press pack, which openly quoted Yeltsin’s words accusing them of overthrowing a legitimate government on live television.
Referring to Gorbachev as “my friend Mikhail Sergeevich,” Yanaev monotoned that the president was “resting and taking a holiday in Crimea. He has grown very weary over these last few years and needs some time to get his health back.” With tanks standing outside proceedings were quickly declining into a lethargic farce in front of the whole country.
Over the next two days there was international condemnation (though Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat supported the coup) the deaths of three pro-Yeltsin activists, and an order by the junta to re-take the White House at all costs, canceled at the last minute. But by then the fate of the putsch had already been set in motion.
Meanwhile, as the most dramatic events in Russia since 1917 were unfolding in Moscow, Gorbachev carried on going for dips in the Black Sea, and watching TV with his family. On the first night of the coup, wearing a cardigan not fit for an nationwide audience, he recorded an uncharacteristically meek address to the nation on a household camera, saying that he had been deposed. He did not appear to make any attempt to get the video out of Foros, and when it was broadcast the following week, it incited reactions from ridicule, to suspicions that he was acting in cahoots with the plotters, or at least waiting out the power struggle in Moscow. Gorbachev likely was not, but neither did he appear to exhibit the personal courage of Yeltsin, who came out and addressed crowds repeatedly when a shot from just one government sniper would have been enough to end his life.
On the evening of August 21, with the coup having evidently failed, two planes set out for Crimea almost simultaneously from Moscow. In the first were the members of the junta, all rehearsing their penances, in the other, members of Yeltsin’s team, with an armed unit to rescue Gorbachev, who, for all they knew, may have been in personal danger. When the putschists reached Foros, Gorbachev refused to receive them, and demanded that they restore communications. He then phoned Moscow, Washington and Paris, voiding the junta’s decrees, and repeating the simple message: “I have the situation under control.”
But he did not. Gorbachev’s irrelevance over the three days of the putsch was a metaphor for his superfluousness in Russia’s political life in the previous months, and from that moment onward. Although the putschists did not succeed, a power transfer did happen, and Gorbachev still lost. For three days, deference to his formal institutions of power was abandoned, and yet the world did not collapse, so there was no longer need for his dithering mediation.
Gingerly walking down the steps of the airstair upon landing in Moscow, blinking in front of the cameras, Mikhail Gorbachev was the lamest of lame duck leaders. He gave a press conference discussing the future direction of the Communist Party, and inner reshuffles that were to come, sounding not just out-of-touch, but borderline delusional.
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev addresses the Extraordinary meeting of the Supreme Soviet of Russian Federation in Moscow in this August 23, 1991 file photo. Reuters.Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev touch hands during Gorbachev’s address to the Extraordinary meeting of the Supreme Soviet of Russian Federation in Moscow, August 23, 1991. REUTERS/Gennady Galperin (RUSSIA). Reuters.
Gorbachev resigned as the President of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991.
“The policy prevailed of dismembering this country and disuniting the state, which is something I cannot subscribe to,” he lamented, before launching into an examination of his six years in charge.
“Even now, I am convinced that the democratic reform that we launched in the spring of 1985 was historically correct. The process of renovating this country and bringing about drastic change in the international community has proven to be much more complicated than anyone could imagine.”
“However, let us give its due to what has been done so far. This society has acquired freedom. It has been freed politically and spiritually, and this is the most important achievement that we have yet fully come to grips with.”
AFTERMATH
Praised in West, scorned at home
“Because of him, we have economic confusion!”
“Because of him, we have opportunity!”
“Because of him, we have political instability!”
“Because of him, we have freedom!”
“Complete chaos!”
“Hope!”
“Political instability!”
“Because of him, we have many things like Pizza Hut!”
Thus ran the script to the 1997 advert that saw a tableful of men argue loudly over the outcome of Perestroika in a newly-opened Moscow restaurant, a few meters from an awkward Gorbachev, staring into space as he munches his food alongside his 10 year-old granddaughter. The TV spot ends with the entire clientele of the restaurant getting up to their feet, and chanting “Hail to Gorbachev!” while toasting the former leader with pizza slices heaving with radiant, viscous cheese.
The whole scene is a travesty of the momentous transformations played out less than a decade earlier, made crueler by contemporary surveys among Russians that rated Gorbachev as the least popular leader in the country’s history, below Stalin and Ivan the Terrible.
The moment remains the perfect encapsulation of Gorbachev’s post-resignation career.
To his critics, many Russians among them, he was one of the most powerful men in the world reduced to exploiting his family in order to hawk crust-free pizzas for a chain restaurant — an American one at that — a personal and national humiliation, and a reminder of his treason. For the former Communist leader himself it was nothing of the sort. A good-humored Gorbachev said the half-afternoon shoot was simply a treat for his family, and the self-described “eye-watering” financial reward — donated entirely to his foundation — money that would be used to go to charity.
As for the impact of Gorbachev’s career in advertising on Russia’s reputation… In a country where a decade before the very existence of a Pizza Hut near Red Square seemed unimaginable, so much had changed, it seemed a perversely logical, if not dignified, way to complete the circle. In the years after Gorbachev’s forced retirement there had been an attempted government overthrow that ended with the bombardment of parliament, privatization, the first Chechen War, a drunk Yeltsin conducting a German orchestra and snatching an improbable victory from revanchist Communists two years later, and an impending default.
Although he did get 0.5 percent of the popular vote during an aborted political comeback that climaxed in the 1996 presidential election, Gorbachev had nothing at all to do with these life-changing events. And unlike Nikita Khrushchev, who suffered greater disgrace, only to have his torch picked up, Gorbachev’s circumstances were too specific to breed a political legacy. More than that, his reputation as a bucolic bumbler and flibbertigibbet, which began to take seed during his final years in power, now almost entirely overshadowed his proven skill as a political operator, other than for those who bitterly resented the events he helped set in motion.
Other than in his visceral dislike of Boris Yeltsin — the two men never spoke after December 1991 — if Gorbachev was bitter about the lack of respect afforded to him at home, he wore it lightly. Abroad, he reveled in his statesmanlike aura, receiving numerous awards, and being the centerpiece at star-studded galas. Yet, for a man of his ambition, being pushed into retirement must have gnawed at him repeatedly.
After eventually finding a degree of financial and personal stability on the lecture circuit in the late 1990s, Gorbachev was struck with another blow — the rapid death of Raisa from cancer.
A diabetic, Gorbachev became immobile and heavy-set, a pallor fading even his famous birthmark. But his voice retained its vigor (and accent) and the former leader continued to proffer freely his loquacious opinions on politics, to widespread indifference.
Gorbachev’s legacy is at the same time unambiguous, and deeply mixed — more so than the vast majority of political figures. His decisions and private conversations were meticulously recorded and verified. His motivations always appeared transparent. His mistakes and achievements formed patterns that repeated themselves through decades.
Yet for all that clarity, the impact of his decisions, the weight given to his feats and failures can be debated endlessly, and has become a fundamental question for Russians.
Less than three decades after his limo left the Kremlin, his history has been rewritten several times, and his role bent to the needs of politicians and prevailing social mores. This will likely continue. Those who believe in the power of the state, both nationalists and Communists, will continue to view his time as egregious at best, seditious at worst. For them, Gorbachev is inextricably linked with loss — the forfeiture of Moscow’s international standing, territory and influence. The destruction of the fearsome and unique Soviet machine that set Russia on a halting course as a middle-income country with a residual seat in the UN Security Council trying to gain acceptance in a US-molded world.
Others, who appreciate a commitment to pacifism and democracy, idealism and equality, will also find much to admire in Gorbachev, even though he could not always be his best self. Those who place greater value on the individual than the state, on freedom than on military might, those who believe that the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the totalitarian Soviet Union was a landmark achievement not a failure will be grateful, and if not sympathetic. For one man’s failure can produce a better outcome than another’s success.
RAISA
Passion and power
The history of rulers is littered with tales of devoted wives and ambitious women pulling strings from behind the throne, and Raisa was often painted as both. But unlike many storybook partnerships, where the narrative covers up the nuances, the partnership between Mikhail and Raisa was absolutely authentic, and genuinely formidable. Perhaps the key to Mikhail’s lifelong commitment, and even open deference to his wife, atypical for a man of his generation, lay in their courtship.
Raisa Gorbacheva, wife of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and Chairman of the USSR Supreme Soviet Mikhail Gorbachev, in Paris during their official visit to France. Ria Novosti.
In his autobiography, Gorbachev recollects with painful clarity, how his first meeting with Raisa, on the dance floor of a university club, “aroused no emotion in her whatsoever.” Yet Gorbachev was smitten with the high cheek-boned fellow over-achiever immediately, calling her for awkward dorm-room group chats that went nowhere, and seeking out attempts.
— Raisa Gorbacheva “We were happy then. We were happy because of our young age, because of the hopes for the future and just because of the fact that we lived and studied at the university. We appreciated that.”
It was several months before she agreed to even go for a walk through Moscow with the future Soviet leader, and then months of fruitless promenades, discussing exams at their parallel faculties. With candor, Gorbachev admits that she only agreed to date him after “having her heart broken by the man she had pledged it to.” But once their relationship overcame its shaky beginnings, the two became the very definition of a Soviet power couple, in love and ready to do anything for each other. In the summer vacation after the two began to go steady, Gorbachev did not think it below him to return to his homeland, and resume work as a simple mechanic, to top up the meager university stipend.
The two were not embarrassed having to celebrate their wedding in a university canteen, symbolically, on the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution on November 7, 1953. Or put off when the watchful guardians of morality at Moscow State University forbid the newlyweds from visiting each other’s halls without a specially signed pass. More substantial obstacles followed, when Mikhail’s mother also did not take to her daughter-in-law, while Raisa agreed to a medically-advised abortion after becoming pregnant following a heavy bout of rheumatism. But the two persevered. Raisa gave birth to their only child in 1955, and as Gorbachev’s star rose, so did his wife’s academic career as a sociologist. But Raisa’s true stardom came when Gorbachev occupied the Soviet leader’s post.
Soviet President and General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee, Mikhail Gorbachev, 2nd right, and Soviet First Lady Raisa Gorbacheva, right, at the meeting with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, left, at the Soviet Embassy in London. RIA Novosti.
Raisa Gorbacheva, the wife of the Soviet leader (left), showing Nancy Reagan, first lady of the U.S., around the Kremlin during U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s official visit to the U.S.S.R. RIA Novosti.General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev (center left) and his spouse Raisa Gorbacheva (second from left) seeing off US President Ronald Reagan after his visit to the USSR. Right: The spouse of US president Nancy Reagan. The Hall of St. George in the Grand Kremlin Palace. RIA Novosti.Raisa Gorbacheva (left), wife of the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, and Barbara Bush (right), wife of the U.S. president, attending the inauguration of the sculptured composition Make Way for Ducklings near the Novodevichy Convent during U.S. President George Bush’s official visit to the U.S.S.R. RIA Novosti.Soviet first lady Raisa Gorbacheva meets with Tokyo residents during Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachyov’s official visit to Japan. RIA Novosti.The meeting between Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, President of the USSR and the heads of state and government of the seven leading industrial nations. From left to right: Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, Norma Major, Raisa Maksimovna Gorbacheva and John Major. RIA Novosti.Soviet president’s wife Raisa Gorbacheva at the 112th commencement at a female college. The State of Massachusetts. Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev’s state visit to the United States. RIA Novosti.
In a symbol as powerful as his calls for international peace and reform at home, the Communist leader was not married to a matron hidden at home, but to an urbane, elegantly-dressed woman, regarded by many as an intellectual equal, if not superior to Mikhail himself. Gorbachev consulted his wife in every decision, as he famously told American TV viewers during a Tom Brokaw interview. This generated much ill-natured mockery throughout Gorbachev’s reign, but he never once tried to push his wife out of the limelight, where she forged friendships with such prominent figures as Margaret Thatcher, Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush.
Raisa was there in the Crimean villa at Foros, during the attempted putsch of August 1991, confronting the men who betrayed her husband personally, and suffering a stroke as a result. It was also Raisa by Gorbachev’s side when they were left alone, after the whirlwind settled in 1991. Despite nearly losing her eyesight due to her stroke, Raisa largely took the lead in organizing Mikhail’s foundation, and in structuring his life. In 1999, with his own affairs in order, not least because of the controversial Pizza Hut commercial, and Russians anger much more focused on his ailing successor, Gorbachev thought he could enjoy a more contented retirement, traveling the world with his beloved.
CPSU Central Committee General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife Raisa at Orly Airport, France. RIA Novosti.
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev (center), Soviet first lady Raisa Gorbacheva (right), Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Kazakh first lady Sara Nazarbayeva during Gorbachev’s working visit to Kazakhstan. RIA Novosti.General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev (left) and his spouse Raisa Gorbachev (center) at a friendship meeting in the Wawel Castle during a visit to Poland. RIA Novosti.Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife Raisa during his official visit to China. RIA Novosti.An official visit to Japan by USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev. He with wife, Raisa Gorbachev, and Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu near a tree planted in the garden of Akasaka Palace. RIA Novosti.Mikhail Gorbachev (center), daughter Irina (right) and his wife’s sister Lyudmila (left) at the funeral of Raisa Gorbachev. RIA Novosti.Last respects for Raisa Gorbacheva, spouse of the former the USSR president in the Russian Fond of Culture. Mikhail Gorbachev, family and close people of Raisa Gorbacheva at her coffin. RIA Novosti.Mikhail Gorbachev at the opening of the Raisa exhibition in memory of Raisa Gorbacheva. RIA Novosti.
— Raisa Gorbacheva “It is possible that I had to get such a serious illness and die for the people to understand me.”
Then came the leukemia diagnosis, in June of that year. Before the couple’s close family had the chance to adjust to the painful rhythm of hope and fear that accompanies the treatment of cancer, Raisa was dead. Her burial unleashed an outpouring of emotion, with thousands, including many of her husband’s numerous adversaries, gathering to pay their sincere respects. No longer the designer-dressed careerist ice queen to be envied, resented and ridiculed, now people saw Raisa for the charismatic and shrewd idealist she always was. For Gorbachev it made little difference, and all those around him said that however much activity he tried to engage in following his wife’s death, none of it ever had quite the same purpose.
“People say time heals. But it never stops hurting – we were to be joined until death,” Gorbachev always said in interviews
For the tenth anniversary of Raisa’s death, in 2009, Mikhail Gorbachev teamed up with famous Russian musician Andrey Makerevich to record a charity album of Russian standards, dedicated to his beloved wife. The standout track was Old Letters, a 1940s melancholy ballad. Gorbachev said that it came to him in 1991 when he discovered Raisa burning their student correspondence and crying, after she found out that their love letters had been rifled through by secret service agents during the failed coup.
The limited edition LP sold at a charity auction in London, and fetched £100,000.
Afterwards, Gorbachev got up on the stage to sing Old Letters, but half way through he choked up, and had to leave the stage to thunderous applause.
The Jewish Agency is Israel’s life source and the Kremlin shut it down this month. The fallout may be a measurable schism between Moscow and Tel Aviv, in which the latter has a lot to lose.
A row has erupted in Russian-Israeli relations over the functioning of the Jewish Agency in Moscow. The Jerusalem Postfirst reported on 5 July that Moscow had ordered the Jewish Agency to cease all operations in Russia, in a formal letter from the Russian Justice Ministry “earlier this week.”
The Jewish Agency initially played down the development in a statement which said, “As part of the work of the Jewish Agency’s delegation in Russia, we are occasionally required to make certain adjustments, as required by authorities. Discussions with the authorities are ongoing with the aim of continuing our activities in accordance with the rules. Even now, there is a dialogue.”
An unnamed senior Israeli diplomat told the Jerusalem Post, “Russia is saying the Jewish Agency illegally collected info about Russian citizens… We will bring up the Jewish Agency [with Russian authorities] and address it in an organized way. It will be taken care of at the embassy level. We don’t totally understand the reasoning [of the request to stop Jewish Agency’s activities in Russia].”
The problem runs deep
However, on 11 July, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti disclosed that a four-week long audit of the Sohnut (as the Jewish Agency is known in Russia) by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation had been underway since 30 May, within the purview of the federal law on “Non-Commercial Organizations.”
The Ministry of Justice conveyed to RIA Novosti that on the basis of the results of the audit, “an act was prepared, which has been sent to the address of the location of the organization (Sohnut).”
Since then, to borrow the metaphor from the Old Testament, the cloud “as small as a man’s hand rising from the sea” when Elijah first saw it, has swiftly turned into a storm. On July 21, Russia’s TASS news agency reported that the Basmanny District Court of Moscow received on that day a lawsuit from the Russian Ministry of Justice requesting that the Russian branch of the Jewish Agency for Israel be liquidated. The grounds for the suit were not provided.
The Jewish Agency has a larger-than-life stature and is closely connected to, albeit not funded by, the Israeli government. It is an international organization that fosters links between Jews across the world and Israel and promotes the immigration of Jews to Israel, a process known as “Aliyah.”
Entangled US roots
The Jewish Agency is closely connected with American Jewish organizations. Billionaire Mark Wilf, who was elected as the new chairman of the board of the Jewish Agency for Israel on 10 July, was previously the chair of The Jewish Federations of North America’s board of trustees and closely associated with a variety of educational and philanthropic boards in both the United States and Israel.
Make no mistake, the Kremlin would have weighed the pros and cons carefully before deciding to shut down the Sohnut’s operations in Russia, which launched in 1989 when under heavy US pressure, then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to open the doors for the emigration of Jews to Israel as quid pro quo for western economic aid.
There would have been compelling reasons, for sure, for the Kremlin to take such a decision. It appears that the justice ministry in Moscow is in possession of incriminatory documents. The Jewish Agency would have been under the scanner for some time before the decision to crack the whip.
The emigration of Jews is of course a highly sensitive issue for the state of Israel (and the powerful Jewish lobby in America). On Sunday, the Israeli paper Algemeiner underscored that Tel Aviv is very much seized of the matter. Indeed, the country is also heading for a crucial legislative election on 1 November.
Israel reacts
Prime Minister Yair Lapid said after a meeting of ministers on Sunday, “Closing the Jewish Agency offices would be a serious event that would affect relations.”
Lapid added, “The Jewish community in Russia is deeply connected to Israel and its importance increases in any political conversation with the Russian leadership. We will continue to operate through the diplomatic channels, so that the important activities of the Jewish Agency will not be stopped.”
A delegation of Israeli officials is leaving for Moscow this week. Lapid does not have the wherewithal to operate skillfully in the Kremlin, as did his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu. Lapid’s focus is on the Biden administration, but in such tricky situations, it does not add to Israel’s aura in Moscow that it wields influence in Washington.
Russia is cracking the whip at a very sensitive time. An Israeli prime minister who cannot serve the interests of the Jewish diaspora is not exactly glorifying himself in domestic politics.
Indeed, this development has nothing to do with bigotry against Jews. During Netanyahu’s regime, Putin use to associate himself personally with Jewish events in Israel. Putin was conscious of the influential ethnic Jewish community who migrated to Israel and considered them to be part of the motherland and an asset for Russia.
Conceivably, Russia’s national security interests are involved here. According to the World Jewish Congress, Ukraine is home to between 56,000 and 140,000 Jews. Ukrainian Jews are prevalent throughout Ukrainian society, including high offices of the state, President Volodymyr Zelensky himself being one of them.
As for Russia, the Jewish population is estimated at around 165,000, making them the sixth-largest Jewish community outside of Israel. The Jewish communities in Ukraine and Russia have kinship historically. Possibly, the hostile anti-Russian stance of the Israelis and Ukrainians touched raw nerves in Moscow. The Israeli press has reported about “volunteers” leaving for Ukraine to fight Russian forces.
The US-Israel intelligence nexus
The Israel government pretends to be “neutral” but then, it is a member of US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s “coalition of the willing” fighting Russian forces in Ukraine.
Call it a trapeze or balancing or double-crossing act, but Moscow cannot afford to ignore the ground realities, given the nexus between the US and Israeli intelligence. Succinctly put, the possibility exists that the Jewish Agency operatives in Russia have had covert liaison with the US intelligence.
From February-March, Moscow began uprooting all vestiges of US intelligence from Russian soil, including Carnegie’s Moscow Centre. It is entirely conceivable that the CIA had a “back-up” plan and “sleeper cells” in Russia handled through associates. The fact remains that the Jewish Agency also has an office in Kiev and Israeli military runs a hospital for treating wounded Ukrainian soldiers. Of course, Ukraine’s spy agency is also very active. All things taken together, the Russian intelligence possibly caught up with the nexus.
The deterioration of Russian-Israeli relations is happening at a time when regional security in West Asia is in transition. On a broader plane, this is also a transformative period in the geopolitics of the region. The fact that Biden was roundly snubbed in Jeddah when he tried to sell the idea of an anti-Russia, anti-China regional alliance speaks for itself.
Therefore, in this spat, Israel will be the loser. As for Russia, one potential irritant in its ties with Iran — Russian-Israeli equations in Syria — is getting removed. This could measurably impact the situation in Syria, which Israel has been bombing, unprovoked, since 2017. Russia has cast its net wide in West Asia and its diplomatic successes are not going to be affected because of this falling out with Israel.
Israel should have acted early enough when Elijah’s small cloud, “as small as a man’s hand” was spotted in May when the Russian inspectors arrived at the doorstep of the Jewish Agency in Moscow. Tel Aviv probably didn’t expect things to snowball.
Clearly, the Israeli reflex was to hush up. That shows nervousness that Russian intelligence has caught up with something highly unsavoury.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
Analytical | The International Agency .. a role in establishing the continued survival of “Israel”!
The systemic crisis which we are currently witnessing in the West (and in other parts of the world that are too tightly interconnected with the West to avoid experiencing it as well) is objectively being caused by the West itself. But Westerners, being unaccustomed to acknowledging their mistakes (being all superior, indispensable and infallible-like in their own addled minds), are forced to resort to explaining away their epic failures in virtually every sphere by blaming it all on Putin. That is, they don’t even blame Russia in general, but blame Putin personally; after all, Russia can be good and agreeable at times (as it was under Gorbachev and Yeltsin) but Putin makes it misbehave. That’s why it’s all got to be Putin’s fault.
Here’s what it’s come to: an entire President of the United States (or whoever runs his teleprompter), who, in the course of his election campaign, swore up and down that he will take responsibility for whatever happens under his command, now blames “Putin’s Price Hike” so regularly and monotonously that the phrase has become a meme.
By now the narrative of “it’s all Putin’s fault” has spread to encompass all of the more sensitive problems: inflation, fuel prices, food price hikes and even… shortages of baby formula! It turns out that the shortages aren’t caused by the discovery of dangerous bacteria in the products of a monopoly producer but by shortages of imported sunflower oil from… the Ukraine. That’s according to the Wall Street Journal, no less! The logical steps needed to make it all Putin’s fault are then obvious: the shortages are because of the war and the war is Putin’s fault.
This wonderful strategy works just fine for the short term, but it has a major vulnerability in the longer term because of a certain mechanism of mass psychology. Superficially, it is simple and seemingly bulletproof: Putin is irrational; he has imperial ambitions, suffers from paranoia, delusions of grandeur, is obsessed with restoring the USSR… Since his motives are irrational, they cannot be dealt with through rational means such as negotiation, diplomacy, compromise and so on. Putin is a crazy dictator with lots of nuclear missiles and so all we can do is suffer. This construct seems good enough for most purposes, such as explaining away social problems, economic issues and failures of leadership. But only in the short term.
If the unprecedented tidal wave of sanctions which the West had sent toward Russia had produced some sort of tangible effect during the first two or three months of Russia’s special operation in the Ukraine, then this strategy would have been quite enough to ease suffering Western masses through the shock of the unfolding crisis (although the crisis would continue to unfold even if the Russian economy had collapsed). But over the longer term this strategy stops working. First, the “blame Putin” narrative is rather monotonous and gets old quickly. Second, and far more importantly, at the level of mass subconscious, it creates the impression that Putin is a god: super-powerful, super-influential and able to influence processes both global and local through subtle and invisible means. Moreover, Putin the god is Zeus-like and has powerful atomic thunderbolts at his disposal, adding terrifying appeal to his already frightful image.
Sooner or later the Western mass subconscious will form a simple and perfectly logical thought: if Putin is all-powerful and super-influential, and if we with our feeble “sanctions from Hell” can do nothing to weaken or dislodge him over three, then five, then seven months, then, obviously, we must come to terms with him and accede to his demands before things get any worse for us! And while it would be demeaning for the Western mass subconscious to negotiate with a petty tyrant or a mad despot, negotiating with an all-powerful demigod who holds the fate of humanity in his hands is not shameful at all but a necessary, unavoidable, eminently reasonable measure. Moreover, it should be possible to portray such a compromise in flattering terms: as a magnanimous gift from the community of civilized nations offered in good faith in order to save the world from nuclear armageddon about to be unleashed by an angry, all-powerful demigod.
In turn, if Western politicians are, as one might expect, reluctant to negotiate with Putin and to compromise, suffering Western masses will blame them for any delay. If Putin is all-powerful and super-influential, then why aren’t they negotiating and seeking compromise? What are they waiting for? What’s wrong with them? The better-informed element among the Western masses might even be able to vaguely guess at a seldom-discussed but rather obvious fact: what Putin wants is not at all unreasonable. He just wants some of Ukraine (not necessarily even all of it—just the enthusiastically, patriotically Russian bits) and he also wants NATO the hell away from Russia’s borders. “What do we want this Ukraine for anyway?” this enlightened element might inquire. After all, most people in the West lived many happy years not knowing that the Ukraine even existed. What’s more, their recent discovery of its existence has coincided with the onset of a very nasty crisis—and they still can’t find the damned place on a map! And now they have to suffer with sky-high gas prices, with unaffordable food, galloping inflation, shortages of baby formula—all because some idiot politicians are refusing to give Putin this fucking Ukraine which nobody else wants anyway? (Well, Poland does, but who the heck is Poland?) Come on! Be reasonable! Get rid of this stupid Hunter Biden playground and let’s get on with it!
That is the new narrative that is inevitably forming in the mass subconscious of the West, and as time passes, energy prices continue to increase, shortages of all sorts of things become commonplace… and meanwhile the ruble strengthens and Russia gets richer and richer in spite of “sanctions from Hell,” unhurriedly moving its fabled wall of artillery fire westward across the Ukrainian landscape, this narrative will become stronger and stronger and will eventually become dominant. At that point, any attempt to “blame Putin” will be met with boos, hisses and a volley of rotten vegetables. What should we expect Western politicians to do under such circumstances? We should not expect any surprises; they will do what they have always done: they will try to suppress the new, competing narrative. They will “cancel” anyone who tries to articulate it within the media space. (Tucker Carlson beware!)
In doing so, the West will neatly echo what’s happened within the Ukraine itself—a symptom of a creeping Ukrainization of the West. In the Ukraine, for every single disastrous, catastrophic failure that had occurred in 2014 and 2015, the Kiev regime blamed it squarely on Putin personally. Over time it has succeeded in forming a sort of quasi-cult of Putin as an all-powerful evil deity hell-bent on destroying poor, sore-beset little cuddly Ukraine. As a result, by 2018 give or take a year, in the Ukrainian mass subconscious there formed a new narrative: “What do we need this Russian-infested Crimea or this ornery Donbass for? Why can’t we just give them to Putin, so that he leaves us alone and lets us develop as a European-oriented country?”
What did the Kiev regime do about this new narrative? It did whatever it could to suppress it. This wasn’t any sort of independent initiative on its part; it is, after all, a colonial administration run from Washington. And since Washington was busy architecting a Ukrainian war against Russia, any narrative that involved making peace with Russia was simply not allowed. That’s why all Ukrainian opposition political parties were banned, all non-government-controlled television channels were shut down and anyone who ventured to guess that giving de facto independent territories a chance to decide their own fate might be a good idea were charged with separatism and imprisoned or killed. As a result, the West got what it wanted: a Ukrainian war with Russia.
But then something went horribly wrong. Putin pre-empted the Ukrainian attack and lit a backfire by sending in tank columns into territory previously controlled by the Kiev regime, scrambling its logistics throwing its battle plans into ghastly disarray. Then he set about methodically blowing up the Ukraine’s warmaking capacity using standoff weapons. According to schedule, it will be all gone later this month, Western military aid notwithstanding. And then it turned out that Russia was ready for “sanctions from Hell,” having spent eight years preparing for them, and was able to sustain the blow, which then bounced back onto the West and started smashing it to bits. The West reflexively continued to follow the Ukrainian pattern and blame it all on Putin. By now the alternative narrative of an all-powerful Lord Putin is fully formed and we should expect to hear more and more voices clamoring for negotiation and compromise with him.
The aforementioned Tucker Carlson is one of these voices, and his influence on his vast audience sets the tone for a significant chunk of electorate in the US—not that their vote counts for much. Much more surprisingly, the same opinion was voiced at Davos by none other than that talking fossil Henry Kissinger! In response, the Ukrainians added Kissinger to their… terrorist database. Various Kiev regime mouthpieces positively choked from fury. How could he? Doesn’t he know that negotiating with Putin is strictly verboten? That narrative must be suppressed—in the Ukraine and in the West!
The strategy of blaming it all on Putin has backfired grandly in both the Ukraine and in the West and will continue backfiring, eating away at the social fabric and demoralizing the population. But that’s not all! This strategy is also immensely helpful to Russia. Ignoring the obvious thought that anything that is detrimental to the West is automatically beneficial for Russia, there is another, much more significant benefit that this strategy provides to Russia directly: it works to raise Russia’s, and Putin’s, prestige in the rest of the world, which is already much more important to Russia than the West will ever be again.
By now, the world is quite unified in terms of access to information. The elites of just about every country have access to the internet and can either read English or can feed it through Google Translate and get the gist. And what they read is that in the West, which is entering into a major crisis, they are blaming it all on Putin. Therefore, Putin is all-powerful and super-influential. Further, these elites can observe that Putin isn’t the least bit afraid of the West and is willing to enter into conflict with it—armed conflict, as in destroying the largest army in Europe, one trained and commanded by Western specialists, over a period of three months using just a small fraction of his own army and with minimal casualties. They see Putin consigning to history books the traditional military dogma by which attackers must outnumber defenders by a healthy margin. This causes them to reach an obvious conclusion: Putin is definitely someone they should treat with great caution and respect; the West—not too much any more. The longer the “it’s all Putin’s fault” narrative continues to be in use, the greater will grow Putin’s already very significant influence and prestige on the world scene, and this will, in turn, improve Russia’s chances of reaching favorable agreements in just about any international negotiation.
But this advantage extends far beyond Russia’s bilateral relations. For the first time since Russia was part of the Mongol Empire, Russia has a real chance to confront the West not standing alone but as part of a mighty international coalition.
• Where were the large non-Western countries when Russia was confronting the collective West in the 17th century, with Poland spearheading the charge? India, Persia and China were all stewing in their own juices, while the Ottoman Empire was, as usual, hostile to Russia. Africa, South America, Southwest Asia were Western colonies.
• Where were these countries in the 18th century, when Russia was being accosted by the Swedes, with the rest of the West standing behind them? The situation was barely different, except the conflict with the Ottomans was even hotter.
• Where were they in the 19th century, when Russia was assailed by the French, with the rest of Europe fighting on the side of France? Same thing again.
• Where were they in the 20th century, when Russia battled Germany—twice!—with the rest of the West arming and funding the Germans? During the first half of the century they were still all colonies or semi-colonies, while during the second they were still finding their own way and had little to offer militarily, economically or politically.
From the time of Genghis Khan’s Empire of the Blue Sky, which at one point encompassed Russia, China, Korea, India and Persia (and featured the familiar Russian themes of collective security and obligatory mutual aid) and until the present time Russia has stood alone in its perennial conflict with the West. But now Putin, standing alone, stands a chance of cementing a gigantic international alliance of non-Western nations, comprising the vast majority of the world’s population, an independent and plentiful resource base and well over half of all the economic power. Nobody else has anywhere near this level of Western public relations support, care of the “blame Putin” campaign. Putin’s only peer competitor in vying for the position of a new Genghis Khan is Xi Jinping, who would very much want to join the coalition as Putin’s equal. But China has a test to pass before this dream can be realized: it must reconquer Taiwan. Avenging the humiliation it suffered at the hands of the Japanese would be a nice additional feather in its cap. Once Russia expels the US from the Ukraine and China expels the US from Taiwan, the path toward Eurasian unification will be clear.
What, if anything, should the West do about that? Why, blame Putin for it all, of course!
Question: The big question that most are asking is the reason for this operation, the reason for President Putin to take the country to war at a time when we have seen negotiations and talks taking place. What was the reason? We know that America said that Russia was going to carry out operations. New Delhi certainly was not aware of it. Many countries said that it is not something that is going to happen, but it did happen.
Sergey Lavrov: The real reason is the complacency of most countries of the world after the end of World War II, when our Western colleagues, led by the United States, declared themselves winners and in violation of the promises to the Soviet and Russian leadership started moving NATO eastward. They kept saying: “Don’t worry, this is a defensive alliance, it is not a threat to Russian security.” It was a defensive alliance when there were NATO and the Warsaw Treaty, and there was the Berlin Wall, as you remember, both physical and geopolitical. It was very clear what was the “line of defence” for this “defensive alliance.”
When the opponent disappeared, both the Warsaw Treaty disappeared and the Soviet Union disappeared, they decided that they will move the “line of defence eastward.” They did this five times without explaining against whom they are going to defend themselves, but in the process building up their advanced assault capacities and choosing the former Soviet republics, especially Ukraine, as the springboard against the Russian interests.
As early as 2003, for example, when they had a presidential election in Ukraine, the West was publicly and blatantly demanding Ukrainians: you must choose, are you with Russia or with Europe? Then, of course, they started pulling Ukraine into the European Union Association Agreement. The agreement provided for zero tariffs for Ukrainian goods in Europe, and European goods in Ukraine. We had a free trade area agreement with Ukraine in the context of the Commonwealth of Independent States. So, we told our Ukrainian neighbours: guys, we have zero tariffs with you, but we have protection with the European Union, because we negotiated WTO entry for 18 years. For some time, we did manage to protect some sectors of the Russian economy – agriculture, insurance, banking, and some others – with considerable tariffs. We told them: if you have zero [tariffs] with Europe and zero [tariffs] with us, we are not protected against European goods, which was part of the deal when we entered the WTO.
Then in 2013, when the Ukrainian President understood the problem, he asked the European Union to postpone the signature of the Association Agreement. We suggested that the three of us – Russia, Ukraine, and the EU – could sit together and discuss how to proceed. The European Union in a very arrogant way said that this is none of your business, we do not put our nose in your trade with China or other countries, so this is going to happen. Then the President of Ukraine decided to postpone this ceremony. The next morning, the demonstrators were on Maidan in Kiev.
In February 2014, the European Union helped negotiate a deal between the President and the opposition. Next morning, the signatures of the European Union representatives – France, Germany and Poland – were absolutely ignored by the opposition, who staged a coup and declared that they are creating a “government of the winners,” that they will cancel the special status of the Russian language. They threatened to throw ethnic Russians out of Crimea, they sent armed groups to storm the Crimean parliament. That is how the war started. The Crimeans said: “We don’t want to have anything [to do] with you, leave us alone.” As a I said, there was a threat from armed groups. The eastern areas of Ukraine said: “Guys, we do not support your coup, leave us alone.” They never attacked the rest of Ukraine. The putschists attacked them, having called them terrorists. They called them terrorists for eight long years.
We managed to stop this bloodshed in February 2015 – the so-called Minsk Agreements were signed, providing Eastern Ukraine with some special status, language, the right to have some local police, special economic relations with the adjacent Russian regions. It was basically the same as [the agreement] the European Union negotiated for the north of Kosovo where Serbs live. In both cases, the European Union failed totally to deliver on what was guaranteed by the signatures of its members. For eight long years, the respective governments of Ukraine and Presidents of Ukraine were saying, blatantly and publicly, that they were not going to implement the Minsk agreements, that they will move to Plan B. They continued to shell the territories of these [self-] proclaimed republics during all these years. We warned the Europeans, the Americans, and Ukraine that they are ignoring something which was endorsed by the United Nations Security Council. To no avail.
People do not want to go back into this history because they prefer to take events on their immediate merit, but these particular events are rooted in the desire of the United States and what we call the collective West, to rule, to dominate the world and just show everybody that there would be no multipolarity. It would be only unipolarity.
And that they can declare Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yugoslavia, located tens of thousands of miles from the United States, threats to their security, and can do whatever they please there, levelling cities, like they did with Mosul in Iraq, and Raqqa in Syria. Russia has been warning all its colleagues that just on our borders you have been creating a springboard against us: you have been pumping arms into Ukraine, you have been totally ignoring the legislation of Ukraine, which prohibited, completely prohibited the Russian language, you have been encouraging neo-Nazi ideologies and practices. The neo-Nazi battalions were very much active against the territories which proclaimed themselves independent and who were promised special status. It’s inside Ukraine.
It was all linked with Ukraine becoming NATO’s springboard, and NATO expansion. They were saying that Ukraine will be in NATO. Nobody can stop Ukraine if it so wishes. Then President Zelensky said that he might think about coming back to possess nuclear weapons. In November last year, my President suggested to the United States and to NATO to sit down, to cool off, and to discuss how we can agree on security guarantees without NATO’s further eastward expansion. They refused. In the process, the Ukrainian army radically intensified the shelling of those republics in violation of all the ceasefire agreements. We didn’t have any other choice but to recognise them, to sign mutual assistance treaties with them, and, in response to their request, to send our troops as part of special operation to protect their lives.
Question: You provided the basics: the history, as well as the present context. But you also said, President Putin himself said, that this is not targeting civilians or the citizens, people of Ukraine. It is to do with the administration. We know that in international foreign policy parlance it is used quite often: not in my backyard. America says it all the time, and many other countries say it. But should an entire people, and entire population be punished for an administration wanting to carry out independent foreign policy?
Sergey Lavrov: I don’t think it’s about any independence. Since 2013, and maybe even earlier, hundreds and hundreds of US, UK, and other Western security and military experts have been openly sitting in the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence and the Ukrainian security apparatus. They basically were running the place.
As for the civilians, immediately when this special operation started in response to the request from Donetsk and Lugansk in full compliance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, when it was announced by President Putin, he said that the sole purpose of this operation is to demilitarise and denazify Ukrainians – these two problems of the country are intimately linked. We have been targeting only military infrastructure. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian army and the so-called nationalist battalions, which are using Nazi insignia, swastikas, which was borrowed from Indian history, but twisted the wrong way, and insignia of Waffen-SS battalions, these people were using and continue to use civilians as human shields. They were placing heavy weapons in the middle of towns and cities, next to schools, next to kindergartens, to hospitals. The internet is full of the testimonies of the people who were living in these places, and who were asking these people not to do this.
Unfortunately, nobody in the West actually pays attention to the facts, which we have been providing. Instead, they are staging some fake situations, like a couple of weeks ago with the place called Bucha. The Russian troops left on March 30, I think, and for three days the city was back in the hands of the Ukrainian administration. The mayor of Bucha Anatoly Fedoruk was publicly saying that the city is back to normal life. Only on the fourth day, they started showing images of dozens of corpses lying in the street, which was only a few days before shown as being back to normal. Then a few days later in the city of Kramatorsk, which was fully in the Ukrainian hands, they summoned people to the railway station, and attacked them with a Tochka-U missile. It was proven beyond any doubt that the missile was fired by the Ukrainian army. That’s why the next morning it was out of the news in the West because everybody understood the obvious nature of this provocation. Now, The New York Times says that they have the proof that cluster bombs were used by the Ukrainian army.
Speaking of civilians and the rules of international humanitarian law, I can once again assure you that our army operates against the military infrastructure and not against civilians.
Question: Mr Lavrov, you said that Russian forces have only targeted military facilities. Even if there were military facilities or tanks that have been placed in civilian areas, Russian forces did not show restraint in taking them down. Hence, there are civilians who have been killed. There has been bloodshed, whether it is the outskirts of Kiev, primarily Mariupol, Volnovakha – absolutely raised to the ground. Some responsibility has to be taken by the Russians also on the bloodshed?
Sergey Lavrov: It is always terrible when military activities bring damage to the civilians and to the civilian sector, to civilian infrastructure. As I said, when people have been killing ethnic Russians, citizens of Ukraine, in the east for eight years, no TV representatives, be it Asian, be it African, be it Latin American, be it European, be it the United States, paid any attention to this. The Russian journalists have been working on the contact line, on the side of the republics, round the clock, showing the atrocities committed by the Ukrainian neo-Nazis and Ukrainian armed forces. And during all those years not a single foreign journalist cared to come to the other part of this line of contact to see what was going on there.
The statistics available from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe indicate that the damage afflicted on the civilians and the civilian infrastructure on the side of the republics, the [self-] proclaimed republics, was five times more and bigger than the same figure for the territory controlled by the Ukrainian government.
This is not to say that we can just ignore the victims and the damage to the civilian infrastructure, but once again I want to emphasise a very important thing. This outcry started only when the Russians decided to protect Russians who are citizens of Ukraine and who were absolutely discriminated. There was no outcry when the city of Raqqa, for example, in Syria was levelled with dozens and hundreds of corpses lying there unattended for weeks and weeks. The American military never had any scruples about achieving their military goals, be it in Syria, be it in Iraq, be it in Afghanistan, for that matter.
This is a tragedy, when people die. But we cannot tolerate the situation when our Western colleagues say that they can do anything they want. They can encourage the government in Kiev to be as Russophobic as it takes. They would not tell them to stop prohibiting the Russian language in education, in media, stop banning all Russian speaking channels, including Ukrainian channels, they would not tell them not to prosecute the opposition, who favours dialogue with Russia, and to stop violating the commitments to give special status to the territories where the Russian speaking population dominates.
Question: You made a very important point because India Today has travelled to Donetsk and we have been putting out these reports. It is very important because it is important to understand the plight of Russian descent and Russian speaking people in Ukraine. There is no taking away from that. We will talk about Donbass. But coming to the allegations against Russia of genocide, of war crimes, and on the fact that chemical weapons have been used by Russian forces, what do you have to say to the visuals? You said that there were no bodies. There were bodies in the basements that have been found much later that would have been found anyway much later. Will there be no investigation that will be carried out? Why just say that it did not happen?
Sergey Lavrov: We are investigating the atrocities of the neo-Nazi battalions of Ukraine and of Ukrainian armed forces. There is a special commission created by the Russian chamber – there is a public organisation which is very experienced. They have been discovering the fakes staged by the so-called White Helmets in Syria, in many other cases. We will not cease our efforts to establish the truth.
We are used to the fact that the United States, the United Kingdom, and other Western countries have a very interesting habit: they just throw in news when they believe this news will work ideologically for their benefit, and then, when it comes to the facts, and when more facts are discovered, putting a big question mark on their assertions, they just lose interest.
2007, London. Poisoning of Mr Litvinenko. Huge outcry. The investigation begins, and after a few weeks a public inquiry is announced, which in the UK means that it is secret. Until now, we cannot get the facts about what had happened to Mr Litvinenko.
2014, Malaysian Airlines Boeing. Shot down over Ukraine. We presented a huge amount of facts. We requested that we be part of the investigation – no way. Ukrainians who did not close their skies during the conflict were invited to this investigation group, Russia was not. Malaysia, as the owner of the plane, was invited only five months later after the Australians, the Dutch. They and the Malaysians agreed among themselves that anything coming out of this room must be subject to consensus, meaning that Ukraine, which did not close the skies, had a veto power on this investigation. We could not get the truth on this one as well.
2019, Salisbury poisoning. The people disappeared. The only proof which was made public is “highly likely,” as Theresa May said. The Brits insisted on the expulsion of Russian diplomats by most of the European countries. When I asked my friends, did they provide proof beyond the public statements about “highly likely” it was Russia, they said “no, but they promised to.” I checked one year later, whether this was done, it was not done. And so on, and so forth.
2020. Our opposition blogger Mr Navalny was poisoned. We asked the Germans. We immediately responded to the German request to let him go to the Berlin hospital. Twenty-four hours after the request he was flown to Berlin. We don’t have any confirmation who was flying with him, where did they get the bottle which is the key element in this investigation. When we asked the Germans to show us the formula which they discovered in his blood, they said this is a military secret.
It is us who until now insist on the truth about Litvinenko, about the Skripals, about Malaysian Boeing, and about Navalny. The stories that they stage in Ukraine these days are of the same nature.
Question: Going back to the investigations, you are saying that that Azov battalion is absolutely shameful, yes, they should be investigated. They are neo-Nazis, and they should not have been incorporated or integrated into any military regime in any country. But if you introspect and look at your own people as well, is there any instance of denying and rejecting claims? Will there be investigations against your own people if they have done wrong? Will they be held accountable?
Sergey Lavrov: We have a law that prohibits the military to do anything which is not allowed under international humanitarian law. Any violations are registered and investigated.
On Azov, it is interesting that you mentioned it. Azov was listed in the United States in 2014 or 2015 as a group that cannot be supported, that cannot legitimately operate, and it was prohibited by Congress to provide any assistance to this battalion. Everybody forgot about this or rather they certainly remember what this group is about, and they decided to put their money on this group.
In Japan, as you know, they passed a special decree by the government that Azov is no longer a neo-Nazi group, and the Japanese government apologises for listing Azov as such. And of course when President Zelensky in his camouflage was asked about Azov by some journalists, who felt that something was wrong with these neo-Nazi trends, Zelensky said quietly: Azov, they are what they are, we have many groups like this. They are part of our army.
You, I mean the media, started asking questions about Azov only when the military operation was launched. For eight long years, nobody lifted a finger, nobody bothered about what was being groomed in Ukraine, as a continuation, or rather a resurrection, of what was boiling in Europe in 1930s.
Question: President Zelensky said that Russia plans to use tactical nuclear weapons.
Sergey Lavrov: He says many things. Depends on what he drinks and what he smokes. He says many things.
Question: Do you think it was a strategic miscalculation by President Zelensky to take on Russia when there was no certain assurance from NATO and the European Union that they would actually back Ukraine?
Sergey Lavrov: President Zelensky came to power with the promise of peace. He said that he will reach peace on the basis of the Minsk Agreements. A few months later, he said he cannot implement the Minsk Agreements because the Minsk Agreements are “unimplementable.”
Question: It was the Russian forces, the DPR.
Sergey Lavrov: No, he never said that it was because of the military situation on the ground. He said that it is unthinkable for Ukraine to give special status to any part of his territory. But it was very “thinkable,” if I may say so, when Ukraine was created, to put together the territories which now (those in the west) never celebrate Victory Day, May 9, and the eastern territories, which would never celebrate the heroes honoured in the west: those who collaborated with Hitler. With this difficult composition of territories, to say that Ukraine can only be a unitary state, and that it would not give special status to these people even if the Security Council demands so, I believe that this was not very far-sighted.
Had he cooperated as he promised to his electorate when he was elected, had he cooperated in implementing the Minsk Agreements, the crisis would have been over long ago.
Question: Did the West betray Zelensky?
Sergey Lavrov: No, I think the West played Zelensky against Russia and did everything to strengthen the desire to ignore the Minsk Agreements.
The “West” is a broad notion. It’s the United States and the Brits. The rest of the West, including the European Union, is just an obedient servant.
Question: Tactical nuclear weapons. Will Russia ever use them?
Sergey Lavrov: Ask Mr Zelensky. We never mentioned this. He mentioned this. So, his intelligence must have provided him some news. I cannot comment something which a not very adequate person pronounces.
Question: As a P5 member, as a nuclear power, will nuclear be an option at all, on the table at all?
Sergey Lavrov: When the Soviet Union and the United States in 1987, Gorbachev and Reagan, decided that they have special responsibility for peace on this planet, they signed the solemn declaration that there could be no winners in a nuclear war, and therefore a nuclear war must never be launched.
After the Trump administration came to office, we have been telling them, because tensions were aggravated: “Why don’t we try to send a positive political message to the entire universe and to reiterate what Gorbachev and Reagan pronounced?” During all the four years of the administration, they refused to do so.
But we were really encouraged when President Biden was inaugurated. Five days after his inauguration, we repeated this offer, he first agreed to extend the [New] START treaty without any preconditions. In June 2021, when they met with President Putin in Geneva, they issued this declaration. This declaration was issued on our initiative. After the Americans and the Russians said that there must be no nuclear war, that they won’t think about it, we started to promote the same commitment in the context of the P5. Not the United States, not UK, not France – Russia. Eventually, earlier this year, in January this year, the P5, at the level of presidents and heads of government, issued the statement which we initiated and which we were pushing through for all these years.
Question: So nuclear is off the table?
Sergey Lavrov: This statement, both the Russian-American statement, and the P5 summit statement, were issued on the strong insistence of the Russian Federation.
Question: Coming back to the Donbass region, DPR, LPR. The independence of these republics is non-negotiable for Russia when you talk to Ukraine. What happens if the negotiations succeed between Ukraine and Russia and should there be a settlement, will Russia withdraw from other areas: Sumy, Kharkov, Zaporozhye, Kherson, Nikolayev?
Sergey Lavrov: I thought you are a journalist, but you can be a spy. I am not discussing the military operation, for obvious reasons it is never the case.
On the territorial situation, we recognise DPR and LPR within the administrative boundaries of the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Minsk agreements were signed when these two territories were split roughly half and half. Now the militias of these republics are fighting to get their territory back.
When they had a referendum in 2014, it was held on the entire territories of the former regions. But then the coup leaders started the war, which they called an anti-terrorist operation, and they took a considerable chunk of both regions. So, yes, we recognise LPR and DPR within their declared territories as a result of the referendum.
Question: Which in fact includes Mariupol and Volnovakha, as part of Donetsk.
Sergey Lavrov: Yes.
Question: My question is, if there is a settlement between the two sides, and they recognise, which President Zelensky said he would not, he said that they are going to fight for Donbass to the very end, so where are the red lines?
Sergey Lavrov: I cannot intelligently discuss what President Zelensky says because he always changes his mind diametrically.
He was the initiator of the negotiations, which we accepted. At some point we were disappointed because they were changing their mind every time, coming late, leaving early, but then in Istanbul, about one month ago, it was on March 29, they brought a paper, saying that we are not going to be a member of any military alliance, that they will be neutral. In return, they asked for security guarantees, preferably P5, maybe some others, and it was written and initialled by the head of the heads of delegations. The security guarantees they were asking for would not cover Crimea and the territories in the east of Ukraine.
It was not our language, it was their language. Now President Zelensky says “no way.” They started backtracking even earlier. But this is a paper with the signature of the head of the Ukrainian delegation. So, before we can intelligently discuss what he says one day or another, we need to have clarity about the credibility of this person and about his team.
Question: Was there any understanding in Istanbul on the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kiev, as well?
Sergey Lavrov: We changed the configuration of our presence. This was announced immediately after Istanbul that since we believed that they brought something which could serve as a basis [of an agreement], we made a goodwill gesture, and we changed the configuration in the Kiev and Chernigov areas.
This was not appreciated at all. Instead, this Bucha thing was immediately staged and played, like Skripals were played in Salisbury, like the Malaysian Boeing, like Navalny, played, but immediately put aside when the hard facts were presented which they cannot challenge.
Question: There are mayors who have been appointed now by Russia in Berdyansk and Melitopol, and they are saying that they will hold a referendum, that they are not going to go back. Is that the plan?
Sergey Lavrov: That’s the outmost democracy, right? A referendum – people saying what they want.
Question: Which means that you are securing your land boundary in Sumy and Kharkov, but also the waters, if you look at Zaporozhye, Nikolayev.
Sergey Lavrov: People have been suffering in all these places for eight long years, when neo-Nazis were prohibiting them to speak their own language, prohibiting them to commemorate the heroes of World War II, of the Great Patriotic War, prohibiting to have parades and to have any events to commemorate the fallen, the parents, the grandparents of these people.
Now when they have thrown away these neo-Nazis, and say that now we will decide who will be running the place – this is our mayor, this is our legislature, I believe that this is a manifestation of democracy after so many years of oppression.
Question: It seems that Ukraine has lost more land than it would have gained by negotiating on Donbass.
Sergey Lavrov: It’s the decision of those who have been running Ukraine, of those who have been sabotaging the Minsk agreements, in spite of the UN Security Council decision. We are not up for regime change in Ukraine. We have said this repeatedly. We want the Ukrainians themselves to decide how they want to live further in a way, which would not repeat the Minsk agreements, when they did decide that they did not want to do anything with the coup leaders, who immediately said that they are against anything Russian: culture, language, everything what these people cherish. Then they were promised something by the European Union and cheated.
We want the people to be free. To decide how they want to live in Ukraine.
Question: Russia is one of the most sanctioned countries in the world. How long can you sustain?
Sergey Lavrov: I don’t think we are thinking in the context of sustaining. Sustaining means, you know, you sustain, you take some hardships, and hope that, sooner or later, this would be over.
Russia has been under sanctions all along – Jackson–Vanik, then it was repealed, but Magnitsky Act was introduced, then we were punished for the free vote of the Crimeans, we were punished for supporting those who were in favour of keeping the Minsk agreements, but the Ukrainian government did not want them to get what they promised, and so on and so forth.
So, now we have come to a very straightforward conclusion. We cannot rely on our Western colleagues in any part of our life, which has strategic significance, be it food security, which we managed to ensure ourselves after 2014, be it, of course, defence, and be it some strategic sectors where high-tech is developing and indicating the future of the mankind. We did not have time to achieve self-sufficiency in all these areas, but in most cases, we resolved this issue. Of course, we are open to cooperation with all other countries who do not use illegal, illegitimate unilateral measures in violation of the UN Charter.
India is among those. We cooperate bilaterally. I visited a couple of months ago, and we cooperate in many international organisations.
Question: Speaking of India, India is under immense pressure to sever ties, to cut down imports of energy, of fuel, but India has stood its ground. In terms of reliability, is there a concern that India should have with regards to the kind of defence cooperation both countries have? Could there be delays in deliveries of critical weapons systems that India is buying from Russia, such as the S-400s? What is the conversation you have been having with New Delhi on this ground?
Sergey Lavrov: India is our very old friend. We called our relationship a long time ago a strategic partnership. Then, about 20 years ago, the Indian friends said: why don’t we call it a “privileged strategic partnership?” Sometime later, they said that this was not enough. Let’s call it “especially privileged strategic partnership.” This is a unique description of the bilateral relations between India and Russia.
With India, long before all this became such a hot potato, we supported Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s concept “Make in India” and we started substituting simple trade with local production, shifting production of the goods needed by India on your territory. It was for quite a number of years already that we have been promoting the use of our national currencies in settlements between the governments of the two countries.
We promoted national information systems, transmission systems, like SWIFT. You have your own, we have our won. They are being used more and more. Payment cards: we have MIR, you have RuPay. They are mutually supportive. It is not, you know, a huge percentage, of the overall volume of trade, but it is steadily growing. On defence, we can provide anything India wants. Technology transfers in the context of defence cooperation are absolutely unprecedented for any of India’s outside partners.
Question: We have got away with a waiver from the United States for the S-400s, but future collaborations, could they become difficult?
Sergey Lavrov: You know, when the Americans say that they are in favour of democracy all over the world, they mean only a very specific thing – that it is up to them to decide who is democracy, and who deserves to have some good attitude on behalf of Washington. When they convened this summit of democracies, you only need to look through the list of invitees, to understand that it is not about real democracies, it is about something else. The Americans now run all over the world, their ambassadors have priority number one to go to the foreign ministry, to the government of the country where they serve and say: “You must stop talking to Russia, you must join sanctions against Russia.”
Well, long before this crisis, I have been talking to the Americans, to the Europeans, I told them: when you say democracy, democracy, and at the conferences you always want this language on rule of law and democracy, I asked them about adding that apart from the national level, we want democracy and the rule of law internationally. They don’t like it. When they push everybody in this anti-Russian camp, when they go to India, when they go to China, to Turkey, to Egypt, countries with their own thousands years of history of civilization, of culture, and when they are not even ashamed to publicly tell you what to do, I believe something is wrong not only with manners, which always has been the case, but something is wrong with the mentality.
When Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, says publicly: “We, the United States, has not yet decided whether to introduce sanctions against India for the S-400s,” they have not decided what is good for you. His under-secretary Wendy Sherman later said: “We must help India understand what is important for its security.” How about that?
Question: I suppose your counterpart gave them a befitting reply on how to conduct one’s foreign policy?
Sergey Lavrov: Absolutely. I respect Subrahmanyam Jaishankar very much. He is a seasoned diplomat, and he is a real patriot of his country. He said that we will be taking the decisions on the basis of what India believes it needs for its development, for its security. It’s respectful. Not too many countries can say something like this.
Question: You mentioned China. For us, the China factor is very important. Russia has a unique relationship when it comes to ties with China and ties with India. You mentioned the United States of America, so again, I am going to go back to the US. Recently, in one of the visits, deputy national security advisor said that should India continue ties with Russia, there will be consequences. If, he said, there is another incident at the LAC, then the US will not come to India’s rescue. The statement is flawed, because there are two points. One is that he said “should there be another incident,” not recognising that the Chinese are still on Indian soil. Secondly, he said that they will not come to India’s rescue, but they did not come in the first place. But where does Russia stand?
Sergey Lavrov: We stand in favour of resolving any conflicts on the basis of arrangements negotiated directly between the parties, like, just like it was in Ukraine, when the two parties, the rebels, as they are called, the separatists, as they are called, for us they are self-proclaimed republics, on the one side, and the government, which came to power as a result of the coup, on the other side had a deal, negotiated and endorsed by the Security Council. It is another matter that the government, with the instigation of the West, failed to deliver, but the method is the one which we believe should be applied everywhere.
After those incidents on the border, we welcomed the resumption of the discussions between the military of India and China, the discussions between the politicians, at the level of the foreign ministers, and we hope that this would be resolved. We cannot use those threats, which are absolutely normal for the Americans, who say “or else, there would be consequences.” It is their favourite statement.
What we would like to do, as Russia, we would like to promote the formats where India, Russia, and China participate together. It started in 1996-1997, when Russia’s Foreign Minister at that time, Yevgeny Primakov, suggested the RIC format – the troika formed by Russia, India, and China. It happened, and we continue to convene in this format. I think, last November there was probably the 20th ministerial meeting. Not only foreign ministers, but also ministers of economy, ministers of trade, political scientists meet, which may not be very much publicised, but it is a very useful format.
We were very much in favour, even we were the leading force in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to promote this, of the full membership of India, together with Pakistan, in this organisation. This is another premise for China and India to be together in the company of their neighbours, and to build more confidence.
Question: Finally, before I let you go, sir, Europe is looking to halt gas from Russia. Come summer, policies might get harsher. But you are looking for the dedollarisation of the global energy market by dealing in roubles. How do you propose to do that, should they start halting?
Sergey Lavrov: There will be no change for the Europeans and other countries who buy our gas. The reason for this decision was very simple and obvious. When they froze the Russian assets in dollars, euro, yens, and the pound sterling for the amount of more than 300 billion euros or dollars, those were mostly the money kept in Western banks after we received payments from them, from the Western countries, for our gas deliveries.
In other words, they paid us, and they stole the money from us because those were the currencies which are linked to the Western banking system. So what we told them to do: they would not be paying directly to Gazprom’s accounts abroad, but they would be paying to a bank called Gazprombank. It is an independent entity. They would be paying the same amount which they have to pay under the existing contracts, but they will pay these amounts to a special account which they have to open with this bank. There would be a parallel account in roubles. So they pay euros, and then inside this bank these euros are transferred to the rouble account, and from this account Gazprom receives roubles.
Question: So you are not running losses at all on the money Russia is to receive from Europe? There is no money that has been stopped?
Sergey Lavrov: Exactly. As of now, they would not be able to keep the money in their banks, the money that they not even owe us, but which they paid to us already. I believe this is something which does not contradict contracts. They would still be paying in euros or dollars or whatever was the currency of the contract, but we will have insurance that this robbery would not happen again.
Question: Finally, sir, before I let you go, I have to go back to that question on eastern Ukraine. Intensification of war efforts now in eastern Ukraine – is the trigger the flagship warship Moskva that sunk. What really happened there? Is that one of the triggers now why we see more intensification against Ukraine?
Sergey Lavrov: No, this operation in the east of Ukraine is aimed, as was announced from the very beginning, to fully liberate the Donetsk and Lugansk republics. This operation will continue. Another stage of this operation is beginning. I am sure that this will be a very important moment of this entire special operation.
Question: What happened to the warship?
Sergey Lavrov: It is for the Ministry of Defence. They explained what happened and I cannot add anything to this.
Question: On that note, many thanks for joining us here on India Today. It was indeed a pleasure, sir.
Sergey Lavrov: Thank you very much.
Question: That was the Foreign Minister of Russia speaking exclusively to India Today.
Notes on information availability from the Russian Federation:
The best video is on Telegram: https://t.me/MFARussia/12362 This is the first complete address from the Russian MFA that they posted on Telegram since the attack on the availability of Russian information started. It is also a complete interview in English and without translators.
The Indian interviewer is smart and respectful. Mr. Lavrov is patient and clear.
It is still a hit-and-miss exercise to get complete information from Russian professional sources. You can see these interviews live on Ruptly but there is no playback. The videos and transcripts are on the Russian Foreign Ministry site, but frequently there is no playback. In copying this transcript just a while ago, the Russian MFA site went down again.
It is important to see or read these completely in order to find nuance and context. It seems to be a fashionable journalistic method to report on one or two snippets only. In that, the Russian media sources are not helping us to help them. Here is an example. Mr. Lavrov’s takeaway quote on being asked about Zelenski, is: “He says many things, depending on what he drinks or what he smokes.” RT decided to shorten that, and said: “He says many things, depending on what he drinks.” Incorrectly reporting even direct quotes does not serve the Russian cause.
In March, it will be eight years since the day Crimea returned to the Russian Federation. This ended its 60-year history as part of Ukraine, which began, not on February 19, 1954, but a little earlier.
What does Ukraine have to do with it?
The Crimean Peninsula became part of the Russian Empire after a series of Russian-Turkish wars. In 1771, Crimean Khan Sahib II Giray gained independence from the Ottoman Empire thanks to Prince Vasily Dolgoruky, who had defeated the Turkish troops on the peninsula. The Khan signed an agreement on alliance and mutual assistance with St. Petersburg. And in 1774, the Ottomans completely abrogated their claims to Crimea, conceding them to Russia, by signing the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca.
Nine years later, Giray’s reforms had angered the Crimean Tatars to the extent that he was forced to abdicate. In order to prevent a bloody power struggle, Russia was forced to send troops to the peninsula. The local nobility swore an oath to Empress Catherine II and received equal rights with the Russian nobility. They also took part in managing the newly created Taurida Region, which existed until the collapse of the Russian Empire. And in 1791, as the result of another defeat, the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Jassy, according to which Crimea belonged solely to Russia. Both the Jassy and Küçük Kaynarca agreements are internationally recognized and considered valid.
The revolutionary events of 1917 led to the collapse of the Russian Empire and the emergence of a number of pseudo-independent states on the territory of Ukraine: The Ukrainian People’s Republic centered in Kiev, the Ukrainian People’s Republic of Soviets centered in Kharkov, the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic centered first in Kharkov and then in Lugansk, the Odessa Soviet Republic, and the Taurida Soviet Socialist Republic in Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region. But after the Central Council of Ukraine signed a separate agreement with the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kaiser of Germany, the entire territory of Ukraine and Crimea, which had never belonged to either Germanic country, was occupied by Austro-German troops.
Ukrainian nationalists compiled a number of maps related to this period of occupation, in which they claim the Crimean Peninsula, inhabited at that time mainly by Crimean Tatars, in addition to Russian lands up to Voronezh and the Caspian Sea, not to mention a huge swathe of Poland and a significant part of Moldova. In some of these maps, only the northern part of Crimea is depicted as ‘Ukrainian’, and on others, the entire peninsula.
After the Russian Civil War, the Crimean Peninsula became part of the RSFSR and was declared an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Crimean Tatars and Karaites were declared to be indigenous peoples of the region, and Crimean Tatar and Russian became its official languages. At the same time, the ethnic composition of the peninsula’s population (including Sevastopol) in 1897 and 1926 was as follows: Russians, respectively, 33.11% and 42.65%; Ukrainians, 11.84% and 10.95%; Crimean Tatars, 35.55% and 25.34%.
A ‘New Israel’?
The First World War brought tribulation to many peoples, but it also spawned organizations dedicated to helping people harmed by the hostilities. One of these organizations was the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), known in Russia as ‘Joint’.
How does this organization relate to Crimea and the Crimean issue? Directly so. In 1923, the leadership of Joint, which had already provided assistance to famine victims in the Volga region, Belarus, and Ukraine, came to the authorities of the RSFSR with a plan to turn the hundreds of thousands of Jews living in the USSR, who had suffered in WWI and the Civil War, into farmers. The Soviet government, which included a significant number of Jews, supported the plan and created the Agro-Joint corporation (American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation). The authorities also set up a ‘Committee for the Settlement of Working Jews on the Land’ (Kozmet), which distributed land in Ukraine and Crimea to the new farmers for free.
This project did not emerge out of thin air. Even before Agro-Joint’s activities in Crimea, four agricultural communes had appeared on the peninsula from 1922 to 1924. However, the bulk of the migrants (86%) supported by Agro-Joint went to Crimea in 1925-29, after the Jewish section of the CPSU (Yevsektsiya), the most influential contingent in the party, began to promote a plan to create a Jewish ethnic autonomous region, or even a republic, within the USSR’s Black Sea region, stretching from Odessa to Abkhazia, with its center in Crimea. According to some sources, a total of 500,000 to 700,000 Jewish peasants were to be relocated there. And, despite the fact that a Jewish Autonomous Region appeared in the Far East in 1934, the 14,000 Jewish peasant families living in Crimea continued to receive assistance until 1938, when the organization’s activities were banned.
Collapse of the resettlement program
There are many reasons for the failure of the program to create Jewish farms in Crimea and the ban on the activities of the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation. Yes, it spent $16 million supplying Jewish agricultural enterprises in Crimea and southern Ukraine with agricultural machinery, livestock, and equipment for infrastructure, not counting credit and loan funds. But it should be noted that a significant share of this assistance was not free. Many farms struggled to pay loans and interest during the crop failure of 1932, which led to famine.
In point of fact, the mass resettlement project had failed. Only 47,740 of the 500,000 Jewish migrants planned were resettled in Crimea before 1939. Of these, just 18,065 worked in the agricultural sector. The rest left for the large cities. In total, Crimea had 86 collective farms employing Jewish settlers, who cultivated only about 10% of the peninsula’s arable land.
The Soviet leadership was highly critical of the fact that the assistance was only being provided to one ethnic group in such a multiethnic region and country. The Crimean Tatar population resented the allocation of funds to create exclusively Jewish regions (Freidorf and Larindorf) on lands that they had previously owned. Consequently, the disenfranchised Tatars prevented trains carrying Jewish settlers from entering the peninsula and did everything possible to harm already existing Jewish farms.
Moreover, in addition to its legitimate activities, Agro-Joint was also engaged in one that directly violated Soviet laws. Namely, it supported underground organizations. On July 23, 1936, the director of Joint’s Russian branch, Joseph Rosen, reported from London to New York: “Our negotiations regarding emigration to the USSR are currently in limbo. The main reason is that a Jewish doctor from Germany whom we brought here has been accused of collaborating with the Gestapo.” This revelation became the reason for shutting down the corporation’s activities in the USSR.
The forcible transfer of their lands to Jewish settlers incited the Crimean Tartars to actively cooperate with the Nazis and take an active part in the Holocaust. As early as April 26, 1942, the Nazis declared Crimea “cleansed of Jews.” Most of those who hadn’t managed to evacuate perished, around 65% of Crimea’s Jewish population. After the peninsula was liberated by the Red Army, the Crimean Tatars themselves were exiled to Central Asia.
A royal gift
Some sources claim that the Crimean Tatars’ eviction in 1944 came as a result of a promise Stalin had made to Franklin D. Roosevelt to clear Crimea for Jewish immigrants. According to the memoirs of Milovan Djilas, the future vice president of Yugoslavia, this pledge was exacted by the US president as a condition for continuing the Lend-Lease supply program, and in exchange for opening a Second Front. Though we will not pass judgement on how true this might be, it’s interesting to note that, even before the peninsula was liberated from the Nazis, the leadership of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee sent Vyacheslav Molotov, the deputy chairman of the USSR’s Council of People’s Commissars, a ‘Memorandum on Crimea’ which contained a proposal for a similar initiative.
Participants in the 1945 Yalta Conference had the opportunity to personally see how Crimea had suffered in the war. The entire Soviet Union, including residents of the neighboring Ukrainian SSR, took part in its restoration. And it was then that Nikita Khrushchev, an ethnic Ukrainian and head of the Communist Party of Ukraine, came up with the idea to give the peninsula to Ukraine. According to the memoirs of one of Khrushchev’s staff members, in 1944, he noted: “I was in Moscow and said: ‘Ukraine is in ruin, and everyone is pulling out of it. But if you give it Crimea…’” Khrushchev’s proposal was not accepted at the time. He had to wait until he became the head of the Soviet Union before he could transfer Crimea to Ukraine, which was one of his first acts as premier.
The “difficult economic situation” on the peninsula is often cited among the reasons for the transfer. But, less than 10 years after being liberated from the Nazis, the Crimean economy as a whole had reached pre-war levels, and its industrial development had even surpassed it. At a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on February 19 , 1954, the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, Mikhail Tarasov, gave a justification for this step: “The transfer of the Crimean region to the Ukrainian Republic will strengthen the friendship of the peoples of the great Soviet Union, as well as the fraternal ties between the Ukrainian and Russian peoples, and also promote prosperity in Soviet Ukraine, whose development our party and government have always taken a great interest in.” The move was timed to coincide with the 300th anniversary of Ukraine’s voluntary accession to the Muscovite Kingdom.
Legal nihilism in the USSR and its consequences
The question of the legality of the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine was raised even before the collapse of the USSR. The fact is that, according to the Soviet Constitution of 1937, neither the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, nor even the Supreme Soviet had the right to alter the borders of a republic. This was only constitutionally possible after holding a referendum to determine the opinion of the population living in the territory to be transferred. Of course, no referendum was ever held on the peninsula.
In November of 1990, the Crimean Regional Council of People’s Deputies decided to hold a referendum on whether to restore the peninsula’s status as an Autonomous Republic. Of those who took part, 93.26% voted in favor. Thus, Crimea became a participant in negotiating the terms of a new Union Treaty, which Mikhail Gorbachev was preparing at the time. Next, Crimean lawmakers planned to appeal to Gorbachev to cancel the illegal transfer of the peninsula to Ukraine, but the USSR collapsed before they had time to do so. Subsequently, the parliament of the Russian Federation voted on May 21, 1992, to confirm that the decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of February 5, 1954, entitled ‘On the Transfer of the Crimean Region from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR’, had no legal force, since its adoption was “in violation of the Constitution (Basic Law) of the RSFSR and legislative procedure.
Since the Constitution of the Soviet Union was still in force and there was still no Ukrainian Constitution including Crimean autonomy, the Supreme Council of Crimea adopted its own declaration of independence for a Republic of Crimea. A referendum to decide its fate was planned for August 2, 1992, but the Ukrainian central authorities would not allow the plebiscite to take place.
In 1994, Crimea, which had status as an Autonomous Republic within Ukraine, elected a president who supported reunification with Russia, as did most of the members of the republic’s parliament. In response, Ukraine’s leadership unilaterally abolished the Crimean Constitution, the ‘Act on State Sovereignty of Crimea’, and the post of Crimean president, while banning all the parties that had made up the majority in the Crimean parliament. Against the will of the population, Crimea became Ukrainian.
Odd concern for deportation victims
Crimean Tatars had begun to return to their historical homeland back in Soviet days. The current head of the Mejlis (a body that purports to represent Crimean Tatars), Refat Chubarov, returned to the peninsula with his parents in 1968 and studied and worked in Crimea in the 1970s. It was the same with many other Crimean Tatars (members of this ethnic group who had fought in the Red Army and their families were spared from deportation). But the main surge of returnees arrived in the years after formal recognition (in the late 1980s) that their deportation had been illegal.
After its creation, the Ukrainian state immediately declared itself the defender of the Crimean Tatars and allocated them land for housing construction. However, despite the fact that, according to the Republican Committee on Land Resources of Crimea, 147.7 plots of land were allocated to 100 Tatar families from 2001 to 2005 (as compared to 49.9 for the rest of the population), the majority of ordinary Crimean Tatars received none. Distribution of the land was handled by the Mejlis, which was unregistered in Ukraine and headed by ‘human rights activist’ Mustafa Dzhemilev. In 2013, Crimean Tatar entrepreneurs who run restaurants on the Ai-Petri plateau complained to the author that they had to transfer $12,000 to Dzhemilev’s entourage annually “to protect them from persecution by Ukrainian officials,” and then personally pay bribes to officials anyway.
Ukraine’s support for Crimean Tatars appears odd. Ukraine still refuses to recognize any language other than Ukrainian as official. However, immediately after Crimea rejoined Russia, Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian became state languages in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, and Crimean Tatar also received official status throughout the Russian Federation (Ukrainian already had this status at that time). Similarly, after the peninsula’s reunification with Russia, Vladimir Putin personally proposed to the ‘Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People’ that it could continue its activities in Crimea by registering under Russian law, but its leadership refused.
***
The history of Crimean-Russian relations has seen many sharp turns, and it is impossible to analyze all of these complex circumstances in detail in this article. The last of these was the return of the peninsula to Russian jurisdiction in 2014. And although this homecoming rectified many of the past illegitimate decisions concerning the fate of the peninsula and its population, it also took place under very ambiguous circumstances. But this is a subject for a separate conversation.
By Olga Sukharevskaya, Ukrainian-born ex-diplomat, legist and author based in Moscow
(Note: This transcript is currently partially complete and will be posted as it becomes available)
Vladimir Solovyov: We are like three-winged birds. The Russian Foreign Ministry operates on three fronts: on the first one, it communicates with our American partners, the second one is NATO, and the third are the Europeans, no matter what they call themselves (the OSCE is a bit more than just the Europeans). What matters the most to us in the extremely challenging dialogue at this stage? We launched it using methods that are totally at odds with the customary ways of Russian diplomacy. This approach proved to be very effective. Which of these fronts has the most importance?
Sergey Lavrov: What matters the most, as President of Russia Vladimir Putin has said, is that there is less empty talk, so that they don’t water down our proposals in endless discussions, which is something the West knows how to do and is notorious for. These diplomatic efforts must yield results. Even more importantly, these results must be achieved within a determined timeframe. We did not put forward any ultimatums. However, engaging in never-ending talks during which the West once again will make ambiguous promises, and will then definitely double-cross us down the road – we do no need that. In this context, the United States is our main negotiating party. It is with the United States that we will hold the main round of talks right after the New Year holidays.
Speaking on NATO’s behalf, its Secretary General and Chair of the Russia-NATO Council Jens Stoltenberg proposed holding a Russia-NATO Council meeting right after that, the very next day. Of course, they did so at the initiative of the United States. This organisational structure reflects the projects we have submitted and presented to the United States and NATO for review. I am referring to the Russia-US treaty on security guarantees and a Russia-NATO agreement on limiting risks and threats on the European stage (hopefully, not a stage of military operations). These documents set forth specific proposals. You have seen them. They present our vision of NATO and the Russian Federation, with its allies, making their respective armed forces less of a threat.
Vladimir Solovyov: Who will lead the talks?
Sergey Lavrov: An interagency delegation with the participation of the Foreign Ministry and the military. There is no lack of understanding on behalf of the United States. As for NATO, we have warned them that since they have put all the military-to-military initiatives on hold since 2014 and reduced our contacts to sporadic telephone calls to the Chief of the General Staff, the conversation will make sense only if the military are directly involved. Our delegation will include high-ranking army representatives. We asked the other side to confirm whether they will do the same. We are waiting for their reply.
Vladimir Solovyov: Overall, NATO has been acting in quite a strange manner. By and large, we don’t talk to them. There are virtually no contacts. They expelled our representatives. The ties have been severed almost entirely. Jens Stoltenberg’s statements caused an international crisis. He said that if need may be, NATO would be ready to deploy its military infrastructure to the east of Germany. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko answered him, which caused an outpouring of criticism against him.
Sergey Lavrov: Yes, Jens Stoltenberg has a Nordic mentality. He makes quite simple statements. Yes, this is true.
Vladimir Solovyov: How will you deal with him?
Sergey Lavrov: We will not be dealing with him. I would like to repeat that we have proposed a Russia-NATO agreement. It will not be necessarily drafted at the Russia-NATO Council, although this is not impossible either. We will not be dealing with Jens Stoltenberg, who is, technically, executive manager of the NATO Secretariat. We will be negotiating with the top members of the bloc, primarily the United States. It is logical that US President Biden reacted to our initiative days after we advanced it. He mentioned the negotiators: the United States plus the four leading Western countries. This provoked an outcry from the other NATO members, including Ukraine, which said that it must take part in the talks. What matters to us is not the form of our contacts with NATO, but the essence of the talks. First of all, they must be held professionally and responsibly in the military-to-military format.
Vladimir Solovyov: NATO is an amorphous organisation. They say they cannot do anything without a consensus decision.
Sergey Lavrov: That is none of our business. It is their internal matter. We do not care about the Washington Treaty, including Article 5, which stipulates collective defence. If NATO were a defence alliance, as Stoltenberg has been shouting from the rooftops, it would not have expanded eastward. NATO has become a purely geopolitical project aimed at taking over the territories orphaned by the collapse of the Warsaw Treaty Organisation and the Soviet Union. This is what it is doing now. And we cannot sit on our hands when they are approaching “the doorstep of our house,” as President Putin has said.
Vladimir Solovyov: What about the declared right of each country to choose their allies independently? They are using this argument all the time.
Sergey Lavrov: They are just trying to prop themselves up. It is an unscrupulous attempt made through foul means to use a document that is based on compromise. Not a single “brick” can be removed from that compromise without bringing it down. This is what they are doing. Even the 1990 Charter of Paris for a New Europe says that all states are free to choose their own security arrangements, including the alliances they join. But it also says that while doing this they must respect the principle of indivisible security.
Vladimir Solovyov: That is, as Vladimir Putin has said on the gas issue, “they lie all the time”?
Sergey Lavrov: They are telling half-truths, which is probably worse that outright lies, because they are trying to present their position as legally faultless. But legal is not a term that can be used in this case. All these documents, including the Paris Charter and the documents of the 1999 OSCE summit in Istanbul are political pledges. And the 1997 Russia-NATO Founding Act is a political document as well. All these political commitments made publicly at the highest level not to strengthen their security to the detriment of others’ security and not to deploy substantial armed forces have been destroyed systematically many times over, including during the five waves of NATO eastward expansion carried out contrary to their pledges, as President Putin has pointed out. Therefore, this time we demand – this is the only option – legally binding security guarantees. Trust but verify.
You have mentioned the OSCE: that organisation’s striving to posture itself on the international stage is a separate subject. Back in 1975, when the Helsinki Final Act of the then Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe was signed, US President Gerald Ford said solemnly and even pompously: “History will judge this Conference not by what we say here today, but by what we do tomorrow – not by the promises we make, but by the promises we keep.”
Vladimir Solovyov: That’s wise.
Sergey Lavrov: The very truth itself, I would say. All our actions are guided by this legacy of one of the great American presidents.
Vladimir Solovyov: At the same time, Jens Stoltenberg keeps claiming that NATO never promised Russia that there would be no eastward expansion, alleging that he heard this from Mikhail Gorbachev. I showed this video to Mikhail Gorbachev, who tells me: “What do you mean there were no promises? What about James Baker? On February 9, 1990, he gave me this promise. We had this conversation, there are written records, and the transcripts are available.” For these people, nothing matters unless there is a paper trail. Did they promise us that there would be no eastward expansion of NATO? The Americans keep repeating this narrative all the time.
Sergey Lavrov: Of course, they did. Only recently, I read the memoirs of a British diplomat who was involved in the talks, including on the reunification of Germany from a NATO perspective, on having no nuclear weapons to the east of the line where they were deployed at the time. He says that yes, they honestly promised that there would be no expansion of NATO, but this was not what they meant. They were driven by the historical opportunity to build a new Europe free from confrontation and so forth. This is what Zbigniew Brzezinski told one of his colleagues in all honesty: “We tricked them.”
Vladimir Solovyov: Under Boris Yeltsin, Russia did not demand any written commitments either. On the contrary, during a visit to Poland we agreed…
Sergey Lavrov: This is all that there was to our relations with the West when the Soviet Union was coming apart and we were building new relations between us. President Vladimir Putin has mentioned this many times. There was an unprecedented level of trust and an enormous desire to be friends, if not allies, as Vladimir Putin likes to say. However, we now see that all this was a mistake. You cannot take anything these people say on trust.
Vladimir Solovyov: The person who used to head the Russian Foreign Ministry, and is now a retiree living in Florida – his surname is Kozyrev – made a bombastic statement that at this stage Russia must join NATO. How come Russia does not want to be part of the family of civilised nations?
Sergey Lavrov: For many Russian politicians, primarily those in the opposition, the West is an undisputable ideal, an unchallenged leader to be followed in everything. For them, there is nothing bad about the West, and they fail to notice the damage the West causes around the world when it destroys countries and shatters their statehood. Some just want to fall into line with what is going on. Why look overseas to Florida? I read about this every day. The Presidential Executive Office provides us a digest of publications from the Russian media, including Meduza, Republic, and Novaya Gazeta. What they write…
Vladimir Solovyov: Didn’t Mikhail Bulgakov say: “Don’t read…”
Sergey Lavrov: But this is not about the communist…
Vladimir Solovyov: It’s basically the same thing, just the other way around.
Sergey Lavrov: Quite a while ago it struck me that just as in the Soviet times, I learned to understand what an article is about by simply reading its headline. You can now treat many media publications this way. For example, the Republic or Novaya Gazeta tend to extol the West in their articles. A prominent Russian opposition figure wrote on what the West tried to portray as a crisis this past spring on the border with Ukraine, when we were holding regular exercises (there was much talk about it at the time around the world). But the exercise came to an end, and the troops returned to the places of their permanent deployment. This is how this was presented: “See, Putin got scared. He got a phone call from Joe Biden, and immediately withdrew the troops.” The writer is a serious person who used to be part of our political establishment and was viewed as an interesting character. By the way, he took part in several shows of yours. Novaya Gazeta then published a long article titled “The fate of an outcast. Where will the Russian foreign policy take us.” Of course, this was about the stubborn Russian Federation unwilling to come to terms with its diminished international role. It lost the Cold War, and that’s all there is to it. You must show more modesty after that. You lost, so stay where you are. The historical comparisons in this article included post-WWII Germany and Japan. They lost, accepted this fact, and received a “wonderful democracy” in return. These are the words of a former deputy foreign minister from the time you have mentioned. By the way, he worked a lot on the Kuril Islands during the talks with Tokyo.
Vladimir Solovyov: No surprise there.
Sergey Lavrov: There is no shortage of revelations of this kind. Treating the West as the holder of the ultimate truth is quite a serious matter.
Vladimir Solovyov: Many people had the same mistaken beliefs. At the very beginning of his presidential term, Vladimir Putin said that Russia did not object to different NATO accession terms, ones that would be equitable and partner-like. Are they offering such terms to us? Is there any possible situation when Russia could join NATO?
Sergey Lavrov: Of course, not. I cannot imagine such a situation because the entire process does not revolve around NATO and the European Union. It revolves around the fact that the West does not want any rivals with a more or less comparable level of influence on the international stage. This explains the hysteria regarding the rise of China. Well, China has risen because it accepted global economic and financial rules of the game, introduced by the West. Acting in line with this globalisation and Western rules, it has outplayed the West on its own field. Today, Washington and Brussels are demanding that all regulations of the World Trade Organisation be changed, and the WTO overhauled. They are saying openly that the United States and Europe should work on this and that all others should not even think about this. We will tell you in due time what you need to do. I don’t even see any ideology here. President Putin has repeatedly said that this is not so much an ideology as it is a struggle for influence.
Vladimir Solovyov: Napoleon said that war is all about geography, first and foremost. And politics is all about geography, first and foremost.
Sergey Lavrov: Yes, that’s right.
Vladimir Solovyov: Does this mean that we are enemies? Does it mean that NATO sees us as enemies, and that it simply wants to destroy us?
Sergey Lavrov: This life and geography can take on the form of adversity. But it can also be rivalry or competition. I believe that if the West was ready for fair competition, it would be an optimal way out of the current confrontation.
Vladimir Solovyov: Then it wouldn’t be the West anymore.
Sergey Lavrov: Yes, it wouldn’t be the West anymore. They now want to change the rules of globalisation and the World Trade Organisation because China is leading the way under these regulations. China will become the largest power by 2030, in terms of all parameters, if it retains the current pace.
Vladimir Solovyov: Since we are talking about the WTO, now we are hearing how shameful it is that they imposed sanctions but, instead of dropping on our knees in tears, we dared to retaliate with our own measures. They have actually calculated how much money we owe them.
Sergey Lavrov: The WTO is not involved in this.
Vladimir Solovyov: But they complained to the WTO.
Sergey Lavrov: The World Trade Organisation must follow its own procedures. Right now, it is pretty much paralysed. The dispute resolution body was essentially inactive and did not work until recently. When China inundated this body with completely substantiated and fair complaints against the United States and its unfair competition practices, the United States took advantage of procedural ploys and started blocking any new appointees to this body. As a result, it could never meet the quorum requirement.
Vladimir Solovyov: Now Europeans have addressed them. They are saying: “What are you doing, Russians? You caused us enormous damage.” Even though we had warned them. Joe Biden twisted their arm, admitting that Europe did not want to impose sanctions. And now it turns out that we were telling the truth.
Sergey Lavrov: We don’t even have to discuss this matter. It was a shameful act on behalf of the European Union. I feel sorry for the politicians who decided to publicly make this kind of statements complaining against Russia. It is simply beyond the pale.
Vladimir Solovyov: Everybody was saying: “Who do the Russians think they are? The economy is practically invisible. How dare they write to the Americans with their demands?” Everybody who looks up to the West as if it were the sun without spots claimed they would not even speak to us or deign to read our proposal. “Who do you think you are? You are about to be eaten for breakfast.” At the same time, as you said, Americans did not say no. They are studying it carefully. Certain topics have been outlined for the dialogue to happen right after the holidays, very soon. Who will represent Russia in this dialogue? And who will represent the United States? It seems that the Americans are not unanimous on this matter and there are discrepancies in Jake Sullivan’s stance and in Anthony Blinken’s comments and views (they may be stylistic discrepancies, but they seem to exist).
Sergey Lavrov: We will announce that. I can say that the representatives will be from the Foreign Ministry and the Defence Ministry. We are aware of the Americans’ plans. They are aware of ours. I think these plans will become public shortly.
Vladimir Solovyov: Are we preparing for these talks every day?
Sergey Lavrov: We have been ready since the Soviet Union.
Vladimir Solovyov: Although not all of us happened to be pioneers.
“The chance of a global conflict involving real armies and real arms has never been higher. Biden should bear this in mind” (Illustration by MEE)
David HearstDavid Hearst is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He is a commentator and speaker on the region and analyst on Saudi Arabia. He was The Guardian’s foreign leader writer, and was correspondent in Russia, Europe, and Belfast. He joined the Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.
In 2021, President Joe Biden truly reaped a bitter harvest from the strategic foreign policy errors of four of his predecessors. But Washington would do well to think before it makes its next move
“America has just had its Suez Crisis,” commented a member of the Iranian delegation at the nuclear talks in Vienna about the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, “but it has yet to see it.”
It’s not just the fall of Kabul.
In 2021, President Joe Biden truly reaped a bitter harvest from the strategic foreign policy errors of four of his predecessors. As he was the vice president for one of them, Barack Obama, he has trouble seeing this as well. The seeds of each of the major global conflict zones post – Afghanistan, Ukraine, Taiwan, and Iran were planted long ago.
It’s not just the fall of Kabul. What unravelled this year was no less than three decades of bungled US global governance
What unravelled this year was no less than three decades of bungled US global governance.
Each US president in the post-Soviet period shared the belief that he had the file to himself. It was not something to be shared at the UN Security Council. He was the commander-in-chief of the largest, best-equipped and most mobile armed force in the world, one that could stage over the horizon attacks with devastating accuracy. The US president controls 750 military bases in 80 different countries. He also had the biggest pocket, the world’s reserve currency, so, ergo, he could now set the rules.
What could possibly go wrong?
With that belief came two assumptions that proved to be fatally flawed: that the US monopoly on the use of force would last forever – it ended with Russia’s intervention in Syria – and that the US could continue to enforce a “rules-based” world order – so long as it continued to make the rules. Biden has quietly buried both assumptions by admitting that great powers will be forced to “manage” their competition to avoid conflict that no one can win.
But hang on a moment. There is something not quite right here.
There is cause and effect. The cause was the unilateral but at the time uncontroversial decision to expand Nato eastwards in the 1990s, abandoning the model of a largely demilitarised and missile-free Eastern Europe that had been discussed with president Mikhail Gorbachev a decade earlier.Why global conflict is no longer unthinkableJoe Gill Read More »
This was done to give new meaning to Nato, a military pact whose purpose died when its enemy did. Complete rubbish was talked about Nato “cementing” democracy in Eastern Europe by guaranteeing its independence from Moscow. But remember the mood at the time. It was triumphalist. Not only was capitalism the only economic system left, but its neo-liberal brand was the only brand worth promoting.
For a brief moment, Moscow became an eastern gold rush, a Klondike for venture capitalists, Ikea, Carrefour, Irish pubs, and bible bashers. The Russians, meanwhile, were obsessed with designer labels, not politics.
The Americans in Moscow – at the time – did not bother much about what their hosts thought or did. Russia became irrelevant on the international stage. US advisers boasted about writing the decrees the Russian president Boris Yeltsin issued. And Yeltsin returned the favour by handing over the designs of the latest Russian tank and the wiring diagram of bugs placed by the KGB in the concrete foundation of an extension being built in the US embassy.
Then-US president George Bush and his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev after a two-day US-Soviet summit dedicated to disarmament, on 31 July 1991 (AFP)
For Russian nationalists, this was nothing less than an act of treason. But doors were open so wide to the West that literally everything that was not nailed down flew through them – nuclear scientists, missile engineers, the cream of the KGB, and suitcases full of cash. Where do you think the Russians who settled in Highgate in North London, or the Hamptons on Long Island, or Cyprus, or Israel got their money from?
For a time, even the word “West” dropped out of Russian political vocabulary because the new Russians thought they had just joined it.
Ukraine, the West’s victim
The first US ambassador to the newly created Russian Federation, Robert Strauss, spent more time defending what happened in the Kremlin than the White House. Western embassies became spokesmen for a Russia they thought they now owned.
It is now in the US’ strategic interest to staunch any more bloodletting in the battlefields it created this century
Strauss downplayed the first reports of the rise of the Russian mafia state, as a mere bagatelle. “This is what Chicago was like in the 20s,” he told me. This was followed by inanities about the green shoots of democracy and the time it took to mow an English lawn. As if he knew.
Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were similarly blasé about what they did in Russia.
The Russian army was “a joke”. When the Russians sent their armoured columns into Grozny in December 1994, the West thought it could be stopped by small bands of determined Chechens; their pilots had only three hours flying time each month: their frigates sailed in pairs – one to patrol, the second to tow back the first one when it broke down; their submarines sunk.
And so Nato pushed eastwards.
No one at the time bought the argument that all Nato would do was to push the line of confrontation eastwards. Russia’s pleas to negotiate a security architecture for Eastern Europe fell on deaf ears. They are not falling on deaf ears now, with 90,000 Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s borders.
The victim of this gross act of western stupidity was Ukraine, which for at least the first decade after the fall of the Soviets had survived intact and largely in peace. Civil wars raged all around it, but Ukraine itself maintained its political and social unity despite being comprised of very different communities. With the exception of Western Ukraine, which never forgot that it had been captured by the Bolsheviks from the crumbling Austro-Hungarian empire, Russian and Ukrainian speakers lived in peace.
Now it is divided forever, scared by a civil war from which it will never recover. Ukraine will never regain its lost unity, and for that, Brussels is as much to thank as the bully boys from Moscow.
Ukrainian servicemen take part in the joint Rapid Trident military exercises with the US and other Nato countries not far from Lviv, on 24 September 2021 (AFP)
The new cold war
Then there is China. Pivoting eastwards surely did not mean ending one Cold War and starting a new one with China, but that too is inexorably happening. Biden cannot decide whether to calm President Xi down or confront him, but doing each in sequence will not work.
To get a measure of what mainland China feels when British warships sail through the Taiwan Strait, how would Britain react if Chinese warships appeared in the Irish Sea and sailed between Scotland and Northern Ireland?How to avert a global conflict between China, Russia and the WestMarco Carnelos
The game of “managing” competition has human consequences as devastating as the superpower triumphalism of the 1990s, and those can be observed in Afghanistan today. The Afghanistan of the ousted Afghani president Ashraf Ghani truly was a Potemkin village, a facade of independent statehood.
An astonishing 300,000 troops and soldiers on its government’s books did not exist. “Ghost soldiers” were added to official lists so that generals would pocket their wages, Afghanistan’s former finance minister Khalid Payenda told the BBC. The black hole of the former corrupt regime’s finances was an open secret long before Biden set a date for withdrawal.
A report for the US special inspector general for Afghanistan (SIGAR) warned in 2016: “Neither the United States nor its Afghan allies know how many Afghan soldiers and police actually exist, how many are in fact available for duty, or, by extension, the true nature of their operational capabilities.”
Now that the tap of US income has been turned off, Afghanistan is on the verge of a nationwide famine. But, incredibly, the US is blaming this situation on the Taliban. It withholds money on the grounds of human rights, the night-time revenge killings on former state employees, or the suppression of education for women.
Much of the Afghan central bank’s $10bn in assets is parked overseas, including $1.3bn in gold reserves in New York. The US Treasury is using this money as a lever to pressure the Taliban on women’s rights and the rule of law. It has granted a licence to the US government and its partners to facilitate humanitarian aid and it gave Western Union permission to resume processing personal remittances from migrants overseas.
But the US does not hold itself to account for having nurtured a state that cannot function without the money that it is now withholding. The US has direct responsibility for the famine that is now taking place in Afghanistan. To withhold money from the Taliban because they took power militarily, rather than negotiate their re-entry with other Afghan warlords, also wears somewhat thin.
Same story
The Taliban walked into Kabul with barely a shot fired because everything crumbled before them. The speed of the collapse of Afghan forces blindsided everybody – even Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), who are accused by India and western governments of running the Haqqani network of the Taliban. The only country that really knew what was happening was Iran, because officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were with the Taliban as they walked in, according to Iranian sources close to the IRGC.
A child cries on a sidewalk in Kabul, on 27 December 2021 (AFP)
Even the ISI were blindsided by the speed of this collapse. An informed source told me in Islamabad: “We had expected the NDS [National Directorate of Security] to put up a fight in Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat, Kandahar and Kunduz. That would have produced a stalemate and the possibility for negotiation a more inclusive government.”
But we are where we are. “There were some improvements in the last 20 years. There was a middle class in Kabul, women’s education. But if you want to lose everything, this is the way to do it. The Taliban will go hardline if the place runs out of money. If you want to protect the liberal elements, you have to make Afghanistan stable.”
Pivoting eastwards surely did not mean ending one Cold War and starting a new one with China, but that too is inexorably happening
The Pakistani source listed 10 jihadi groups, as opposed to the one jihadi group, al-Qaeda, that was around in 2001. And the ISI do not know what happened to the arms the Americans left behind.
“We simply don’t know in whose hands they have ended up,” he said. When they pressed the Taliban on forming an inclusive government, the Taliban shot back at them: “Do you have an inclusive government? Do you have a government that includes the PML-N? What do you think it would be like in Pakistan if you had to reconcile groups of fighters who had killed each other’s sons and cousins?”
Starved of funds, there is only one way for the breakaway groups to go – into the hands of the jihadists. He ended his analysis with the following thought: is it really in the US interest to stabilise Afghanistan? If they let the money through, it would mean supporting the very axis of China, Russia and Pakistan that they were now determined to push back. The faltering talks in Vienna, the crisis on Ukraine’s border, renewed tension and military posturing in Taiwan, are all part of the same story.
Strategic mistakes
Washington would do well to look at the map of the world and think before it makes its next move. A long period of reflection is needed. Thus far it has obtained the dubious distinction of getting every conflict it has engaged with in this century wrong.
The US has entered a new era where it can no longer change regimes by force of arms or sanctions
The chance of a global conflict involving real armies and real arms has never been higher and the tripwire to using weapons of mass destruction has never been strung tighter. Nor have all the world’s military powers been better armed, able and willing to start their own inventions.
Biden should bear this in mind.
It is now in the US’ strategic interest to staunch any more bloodletting in the battlefields it created this century. That means the US should come to a deal with Iran by lifting the sanctions it imposed on Tehran since the 2015 JCPOA. If it wants to balance the growing Chinese and Russian influence in the Middle East, that is the surest way to do it.
Iran is not going to give up its missiles any more than Israel is going to ground its air force. But a deal in Vienna could be a precursor to regional Gulf security negotiations. The Emiratis, Qataris, Omanis and Kuwaitis are all ready for it. If Washington wants to apply rules, let it do so first with its allies, who have extraordinary impunity for their brutal actions.
If Washington is the champion of human rights it claims to be, start with Saudi Arabia or Egypt. If it is the enforcer of international law, let’s see Washington make Israel pay a price for its continued settlement policy, which makes a mockery of UN Security Council resolutions, and the US’ own policy for a resolution to the Palestinian conflict.
The Abraham Accords were devised to establish Israel as America’s declared and open regional surrogate. Had Donald Trump secured a second term, such a policy would have been a disaster for US strategic interests in the Middle East. Already Israel thinks it has a veto on US decision making in the region. With this policy fully in place, it would have been in charge of it, which would have meant permanent conflict created by a military power that always strikes first.
Israel acts with ruthless logic. It will use any opportunity to expand its borders until a Palestinian state becomes an impossibility. It probably has already succeeded in that aim. However, this is not US policy. But this expansion continues, almost week in, week out, because no one in Washington will lift a finger to stop it. Doing nothing about armed lynch mobs of settlers attacking unarmed Palestinian villagers in the West Bank is the same as agreeing to them.
If you want to be a champion of rules, apply those rules to yourself first.
This is the only way to regain lost global authority. The US has entered a new era where it can no longer change regimes by force of arms or sanctions. It has discovered the uselessness of force. It should drop the stick and start handing out bucket loads of carrots. It should get on with the urgent task of deconfliction.
After the damage done this century by conflicts ordered, created and backed by US presidents – Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya – that is not only a responsibility but a duty.
Another US strategic mistake would be its, and Western Europe’s, last.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Just yesterday Russia Foreign Ministry published a couple of documents that people have been struggling to interpret ever since, to little useful effect. I would like to offer my own explanation of what these documents mean, which will probably differ a great deal from most other explanations you are likely to hear. Time will tell how close they are to the truth; for now, I am happy to simply add to the spectrum of ideas that are available to it.
The two documents describe in detail what Washington must do to avoid the consequences of breaking its verbal agreement entered into with Mikhail Gorbachev to not expand NATO eastward toward Russia’s borders—essentially, to freeze NATO forces where they were in 1997, before NATO expanded farther east. The documents also address other aspects of de-escalation, such as removing all US nuclear weapons from foreign territory and confining US forces to waters and airspace from which they cannot threaten the territory of Russia.
One line of explanation, most recently expressed in Washington and elsewhere, is that these documents are a negotiating gambit (not an ultimatum), to be discussed privately (to avoid complete loss of face by the US) and in consultation with NATO members and partners, plus, maybe, the European Union, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, Amnesty International and Greenpeace (to avoid making their combined irrelevance apparent to all). I agree that there is little to be gained from public discussions; after all, Moscow has already achieved the required bombshell effect through the public release of these documents and in forcing Washington to acknowledge their receipt and to consent to “negotiations”.
I disagree that there is anything to be negotiated: these documents are not intended to be used as a starting point for negotiations; they are an invitation for Washington to acknowledge and remedy its transgressions. Washington broke the deal it made with Moscow not to expand east. It could do so because in the years following the breakup of the USSR Moscow was too weak to resist and run by people who thought it possible for Russia to integrate into the West, perhaps even to join NATO. But that era has ended some time ago and the collective West now has to put its collective toes back behind the red line—whether voluntarily or not—and that is the only thing yet to be determined. That is the only choice to be made: stand down voluntarily and make amends or refuse and be punished.
I also disagree that this choice—between making amends and accepting punishment—has anything to do with the EU, or NATO, or various “members” or “partners”. Moscow has no relationship with NATO, seeing it as a mere piece of paper that grants Washington rather questionable legal authority to deploy its military forces in countries around the world. Moscow has some vestigial diplomatic representation with the EU, but doesn’t see it as important and concentrates on bilateral relations with EU members. As for its Eastern European neighbors, the Ukraine is, viewed from Moscow, a US colony and thus entirely a US concern, Poland can go and partition itself again (or not), and, as far as those tiny yet politically annoying statelets of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, so sorry, but the Russian army is equipped with binoculars, not microscopes.
The choice, really, is between facing an increasing risk of a nuclear exchange between two nuclear superpowers—one that is rapidly fading in strength and one that is growing stronger all the time—and reducing that risk as much as possible. Only the two nuclear superpowers need to come to an understanding; everyone else can simply do as they say so that nobody gets hurt. In the case of the Europeans, they should be quite interested in doing so (if they still know what’s good for them) because NATO’s eastward expansion has left them with huge nuclear target signs painted all over them which they would do well to try to remove. Not only that, but NATO’s encroachment on Russia’s borders has increased the risk of a nuclear confrontation breaking out accidentally: all those nuclear-armed bombers, ships and submarines could make a wrong turn somewhere and then—kaboom!—no more Europe.
You might think that those bombers and ships and submarines must loiter around Russia’s borders in order to “contain” Russia, but this is false. Russia does an acceptably good job of containing itself, and the little territorial disputes that are likely to crop up here and there periodically are certainly not going to be solved by increasing the risk of nuclear war. The Russian Federation has land borders with over a dozen countries, most of which have Russian citizens living on both sides of them, and that makes land disputes inevitable, but none of them will ever be worth blowing up the planet over.
You might think that NATO forces need to show activity and act dangerous in order to justify their existence and their ridiculously bloated defense budgets. Also, if they didn’t get a chance to be threatening toward Russia, they might become despondent and just sit around drinking, doing drugs and having gay sex, and that would be bad for morale. (But then what’s wrong with a little gay sex between consenting off-duty gender-ambiguous servicepersons?) I’d think that these are all rather minor, if not trifling, concerns, considering that what’s on the other side of the scale is the risk of a planetary conflagration.
You might also think that Washington’s eastward expansion is not a crime because, you see, Gorbachev failed to get its promise not to expand east committed to in writing. Well, let me offer you a tiny insight into the inner workings of Russian civilization. If you enter into a verbal agreement with the Russians, break it, and then taunt them by saying “But you didn’t get it in writing!” you have just made the problem much worse for yourself. We all make mistakes and must sometimes break our promises, in which the proper course of action is to be contrite, apologize sincerely and offer to make amends. If, instead, you claim that the promise is null and void because a certain piece of paper cannot be located, then you have compounded your dishonorable conduct with willful disregard and have singled yourself out for exemplary punishment. This punishment may be slow to arrive, taking decades, perhaps even centuries, but you can be sure that you will be punished eventually.
Once upon a time Moscow was weak and Washington strong, but now the balance has shifted in Moscow’s favor and the time for Washington’s punishment has finally come. The only remaining question is, What form will this punishment take? The one proposed by Moscow is in the form of submission to public humiliation: Washington signs the security guarantees drafted in Moscow, drags itself back to its kennel and lies quietly like a good doggo licking its balls to console itself. And that’s the more pleasant alternative, a win-win sort of thing, offered in good faith.
The less pleasant alternative would be, I can’t help but imagine, much less pleasant, very confusing and quite dangerous. Think about Poseidons—undetectable nuclear-powered torpedos—endlessly cruising in thousands of feet of water off the continental shelf along the US coasts, ready to wash them off with entirely accidental and perfectly deniable tsunamis, their sporadic pings causing the Joint Chiefs of Staff to soil their diapers every time. Think about NATO planes, ships and submarines quietly going missing for no adequately explored reason, their crews later turning up on some faraway beach very drunk and wearing Speedos in the colors of the Russian flag. Think of hypersonic something-or-others periodically doing zigzags in low Earth orbit over the US mainland, causing every cable TV channel to broadcast Russia Today and causing CNN’s talking heads to explode in impotent fury.
I would think that, in their own enlightened best interest, right-thinking Americans, regardless of party affiliation or lack thereof, would want to clamor for their elected representatives to quit making any more trouble and to just sign the damned security guarantees! But that’s just my own, private opinion.
The first is a preamble. It is from ColonelCassad and is a machine translation. This would form a necessary overview and is a description of the current situation.
The second is Russian Deputy FM Ryabkov’s special video briefing in Moscow and contains some incisive Q&A
The third is a short press release
The fourth is a proposed draft treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on security guarantees
The fifth is a cohesive complement to the draft treaty and is an agreement on measures to ensure the security of the Russian Federation and member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
The sixth is Jen Psaki’s initial response as reported by RT
We await the Saker’s Analysis in the next few days.
Preamble
The Russian Foreign Ministry presented a draft Russia-NATO agreement, which in fact sets forth in writing the security guarantees desired by Russia, which in fact is what was not done when Gorbachev liquidated the Soviet bloc. Thus, the following text presents Russia’s vision of the current state of Russian-NATO relations and the vector of their desired correction in a way that would be beneficial for Russia.
Bilateral relations between Russia and foreign countries and regional organizations
Russian-NATO relations are in a protracted crisis. The decisions of the 2018 NATO summit in Brussels confirmed the line of military-political “containment” of Russia. The long-term course of building up NATO’s coalition capabilities to create troop groupings and further improve military infrastructure near our borders has continued.
The military presence and the bloc’s forced development of military infrastructure in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states is consistently increasing. The number and intensity of military exercises of the alliance and its member countries have increased significantly, for which additional contingents of troops and heavy military equipment of NATO countries are being transferred to the regions bordering Russia.
Sweden, Finland and other partner countries are more and more actively involved in the military activities of the alliance. Advanced command and staff units are being formed, the decision was made to create new joint commands of the coalition forces – in Norfolk (USA) to ensure safety of transport corridors in the North Atlantic and Arctic regions, in Ulm (Germany) on the management, planning and logistics for the organization of military transport in Europe. Pentagon plans for forward storage of military equipment in the CEE and Baltic states have been announced. Groups of ships patrolling the waters of the Baltic Sea were strengthened. The number of visits and duration of stay in the Black Sea of naval ships of non-Black Sea alliance countries, primarily of the USA, has increased. NATO Navy continues to patrol the air space of the Baltic Sea with increased strength, and “interception” sorties are carried out even when there have been no violations from the Russian side. The missile defense complex in Romania is deployed. A similar facility is planned to be commissioned in 2020 in Poland. Of particular concern are the plans for permanent deployment of U.S. troops there and the recent agreements to increase the American contingent, which jeopardize the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, one of the few remaining documents meant to ensure military stability in Europe.
Gradually but systematically, the effective European security architecture and the norms of international law are being destroyed. The abandonment of key agreements that ensure military restraint, with the tacit agreement of most members of the alliance – the situation around the New START treaty is a vivid example here – is fraught with the development of a new arms race, a throwback to the principles of the confrontation era.
Of course, such NATO military preparations cannot remain without our adequate response.
The continuing dragging of the Balkan countries into NATO and the desire to “drive” them into the bloc at any cost confirms the invariability of the course taken to recklessly expand its geopolitical space. Disregard of legal norms and opinion of a considerable part of the population in closing the issue of state name of Northern Macedonia, forcing Bosnia and Herzegovina to join NATO, creating “Kosovo army” with connivance of the “Force for Kosovo” only aggravate already existing contradictions and seriously destabilize the situation in the region.
The unilateral decision of NATO to suspend practical cooperation with Russia on military and civilian lines also remains in force. At the same time, NATO countries do not show readiness to discuss Russian proposals on de-escalation of tensions and prevention of military incidents, handed to them at the May 31, 2018 Russia-NATO Council meeting. These proposals include resuming dialogue on the military line (starting with expert consultations) to discuss issues of mutual interest and concern to Russia and our partners; taking measures to reduce military activity along the line of direct contact between Russia and NATO (the Baltics, There has been no reaction from NATO so far.
All these actions are fraught with long-term destabilizing consequences for both regional and entire Euro-Atlantic security.
Despite the unfriendly steps taken against us, Russia has no intention of getting drawn into the senseless confrontation imposed on us.
We continue to firmly believe in the strategic commonality of aims with all the States and organizations of the Euro-Atlantic region to maintain peace and stability and to counter common threats to security – international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, drug trafficking and piracy. We remain convinced that there is no real alternative to mutually beneficial and broad pan-European security co-operation on the solid basis of international law.
Russia’s position remains unchanged – our country is ready to develop relations with NATO on the basis of equal rights in order to strengthen comprehensive security in the Euro-Atlantic region. The depth and content of such relations will depend on the alliance’s reciprocal readiness to take Russia’s legitimate interests into account.
The video is forwarded to start playing at the start point at 21:47
17 December 2021 13:36
Press release on Russian draft documents on legal security guarantees from the United States and NATO
During the December 15, 2021 meeting at the Russian Foreign Ministry, the US party received a draft treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on security guarantees and an agreement on measures to ensure the security of the Russian Federation and member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
The US party was given detailed explanations regarding the logic of the Russian approach, as well as the relevant arguments. We hope that, the United States will enter into serious talks with Russia in the near future regarding this matter, which has critical importance for maintaining peace and stability, using the Russian draft treaty and agreement as a starting point.
17 December 2021 13:30
TREATY BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION ON SECURITY GUARANTEES
Unofficial translation
Draft
The United States of America and the Russian Federation, hereinafter referred to as the “Parties”, guided by the principles contained in the Charter of the United Nations, the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, the 1975 Helsinki Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as the provisions of the 1982 Manila Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes, the 1999 Charter for European Security, and the 1997 Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Russian Federation,recalling the inadmissibility of the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations both in their mutual and international relations in general,
supporting the role of the United Nations Security Council that has the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security,
recognizing the need for united efforts to effectively respond to modern security challenges and threats in a globalized and interdependent world,
considering the need for strict compliance with the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs, including refraining from supporting organizations, groups or individuals calling for an unconstitutional change of power, as well as from undertaking any actions aimed at changing the political or social system of one of the Contracting Parties,
bearing in mind the need to create additional effective and quick-to-launch cooperation mechanisms or improve the existing ones to settle emerging issues and disputes through a constructive dialogue on the basis of mutual respect for and recognition of each other’s security interests and concerns, as well as to elaborate adequate responses to security challenges and threats,
seeking to avoid any military confrontation and armed conflict between the Parties and realizing that direct military clash between them could result in the use of nuclear weapons that would have far-reaching consequences,
reaffirming that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, and recognizing the need to make every effort to prevent the risk of outbreak of such war among States that possess nuclear weapons,
reaffirming their commitments under the Agreement between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Measures to Reduce the Risk of Outbreak of Nuclear War of 30 September 1971, the Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas of 25 May 1972, the Agreement between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Establishment of Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers of 15 September 1987, as well as the Agreement between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Prevention of Dangerous Military Activities of 12 June 1989,
have agreed as follows:
Article 1
The Parties shall cooperate on the basis of principles of indivisible, equal and undiminished security and to these ends:
shall not undertake actions nor participate in or support activities that affect the security of the other Party;
shall not implement security measures adopted by each Party individually or in the framework of an international organization, military alliance or coalition that could undermine core security interests of the other Party.
Article 2
The Parties shall seek to ensure that all international organizations, military alliances and coalitions in which at least one of the Parties is taking part adhere to the principles contained in the Charter of the United Nations.
Article 3
The Parties shall not use the territories of other States with a view to preparing or carrying out an armed attack against the other Party or other actions affecting core security interests of the other Party.
Article 4
The United States of America shall undertake to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and deny accession to the Alliance to the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The United States of America shall not establish military bases in the territory of the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, use their infrastructure for any military activities or develop bilateral military cooperation with them.
Article 5
The Parties shall refrain from deploying their armed forces and armaments, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas where such deployment could be perceived by the other Party as a threat to its national security, with the exception of such deployment within the national territories of the Parties.
The Parties shall refrain from flying heavy bombers equipped for nuclear or non-nuclear armaments or deploying surface warships of any type, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas outside national airspace and national territorial waters respectively, from where they can attack targets in the territory of the other Party.
The Parties shall maintain dialogue and cooperate to improve mechanisms to prevent dangerous military activities on and over the high seas, including agreeing on the maximum approach distance between warships and aircraft.
Article 6
The Parties shall undertake not to deploy ground-launched intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles outside their national territories, as well as in the areas of their national territories, from which such weapons can attack targets in the national territory of the other Party.
Article 7
The Parties shall refrain from deploying nuclear weapons outside their national territories and return such weapons already deployed outside their national territories at the time of the entry into force of the Treaty to their national territories. The Parties shall eliminate all existing infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons outside their national territories.
The Parties shall not train military and civilian personnel from non-nuclear countries to use nuclear weapons. The Parties shall not conduct exercises or training for general-purpose forces, that include scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons.
Article 8
The Treaty shall enter into force from the date of receipt of the last written notification on the completion by the Parties of their domestic procedures necessary for its entry into force.
Done in two originals, each in English and Russian languages, both texts being equally authentic.
For the United States of America
For the Russian Federation
17 December 2021 13:26
AGREEMENT ON MEASURES TO ENSURE THE SECURITY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION AND MEMBER STATES OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION
Unofficial translation
Draft
The Russian Federation and the member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), hereinafter referred to as the Parties,
reaffirming their aspiration to improve relations and deepen mutual understanding,
acknowledging that an effective response to contemporary challenges and threats to security in our interdependent world requires joint efforts of all the Parties,
determined to prevent dangerous military activity and therefore reduce the possibility of incidents between their armed forces,
noting that the security interests of each Party require better multilateral cooperation, more political and military stability, predictability, and transparency,
reaffirming their commitment to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, the 1975 Helsinki Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, the 1997 Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between the Russian Federation and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the 1994 Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security, the 1999 Charter for European Security, and the Rome Declaration “Russia-NATO Relations: a New Quality” signed by the Heads of State and Government of the Russian Federation and NATO member States in 2002,
have agreed as follows:
Article 1
The Parties shall guide in their relations by the principles of cooperation, equal and indivisible security. They shall not strengthen their security individually, within international organizations, military alliances or coalitions at the expense of the security of other Parties.
The Parties shall settle all international disputes in their mutual relations by peaceful means and refrain from the use or threat of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.
The Parties shall not create conditions or situations that pose or could be perceived as a threat to the national security of other Parties.
The Parties shall exercise restraint in military planning and conducting exercises to reduce risks of eventual dangerous situations in accordance with their obligations under international law, including those set out in intergovernmental agreements on the prevention of incidents at sea outside territorial waters and in the airspace above, as well as in intergovernmental agreements on the prevention of dangerous military activities.
Article 2
In order to address issues and settle problems, the Parties shall use the mechanisms of urgent bilateral or multilateral consultations, including the NATO-Russia Council.
The Parties shall regularly and voluntarily exchange assessments of contemporary threats and security challenges, inform each other about military exercises and maneuvers, and main provisions of their military doctrines. All existing mechanisms and tools for confidence-building measures shall be used in order to ensure transparency and predictability of military activities.
Telephone hotlines shall be established to maintain emergency contacts between the Parties.
Article 3
The Parties reaffirm that they do not consider each other as adversaries.
The Parties shall maintain dialogue and interaction on improving mechanisms to prevent incidents on and over the high seas (primarily in the Baltics and the Black Sea region).
Article 4
The Russian Federation and all the Parties that were member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as of 27 May 1997, respectively, shall not deploy military forces and weaponry on the territory of any of the other States in Europe in addition to the forces stationed on that territory as of 27 May 1997. With the consent of all the Parties such deployments can take place in exceptional cases to eliminate a threat to security of one or more Parties.
Article 5
The Parties shall not deploy land-based intermediate- and short-range missiles in areas allowing them to reach the territory of the other Parties.
Article 6
All member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization commit themselves to refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States.
Article 7
The Parties that are member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization shall not conduct any military activity on the territory of Ukraine as well as other States in the Eastern Europe, in the South Caucasus and in Central Asia.
In order to exclude incidents the Russian Federation and the Parties that are member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization shall not conduct military exercises or other military activities above the brigade level in a zone of agreed width and configuration on each side of the border line of the Russian Federation and the states in a military alliance with it, as well as Parties that are member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Article 8
This Agreement shall not affect and shall not be interpreted as affecting the primary responsibility of the Security Council of the United Nations for maintaining international peace and security, nor the rights and obligations of the Parties under the Charter of the United Nations.
Article 9
This Agreement shall enter into force from the date of deposit of the instruments of ratification, expressing consent to be bound by it, with the Depositary by more than a half of the signatory States. With respect to a State that deposited its instrument of ratification at a later date, this Agreement shall enter into force from the date of its deposit.
Each Party to this Agreement may withdraw from it by giving appropriate notice to the Depositary. This Agreement shall terminate for such Party [30] days after receipt of such notice by the Depositary.
This Agreement has been drawn up in Russian, English and French, all texts being equally authentic, and shall be deposited in the archive of the Depositary, which is the Government of …
Done in [the city of …] this [XX] day of [XX] two thousand and [XX].
White House responds to Russian security proposalsThe US “will not compromise” on NATO expansion, the White House reiterated on Friday, following proposals from Russia outlining how it believes Moscow and the West can deescalate ongoing tensions in the east of Europe.
“We have seen the Russian proposals. We are discussing them with our European allies and partners,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told journalists onboard Air Force One on Friday when asked about the Russian documents.
She added that the US won’t accept the idea of stopping NATO expansion in Europe, despite what Russia wants.
“We will not compromise the key principles on which European security is built, including that all countries have the right to decide their own future and form policy free from outside interference,” she said.
Moscow sees the expansion of NATO towards its border as a critical threat to its national security, based on the bloc’s confrontational stance toward Russia.
A verbal promise not to move the organisation to the east was given to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during negotiations on the reunification of Germany. Those assurances were memory-holed after the dissolution of the USSR. In 2017, declassified US documents backed up Moscow’s version of events.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, meanwhile, said that the potential dialog should include the alliance’s concerns and Ukraine’s point of view.
القليلونَ فقط -من المحلّلينَ والمتابعينَ- مَنْ يتذكّر اليوم، ما حدثَ في الماضي القريب، عندما شَهِدَ العالمُ ما يمكنُ تسميتهُ بـ(اللّحظةِ السّوفيتيّةِ عام 1989-1990) آنذاك كانَ الرئيسُ السّوفياتيّ بوريس يلتسين يترنّحُ من السّكرِ في اللّقاءاتِ الرسميّة، ومعه كانَ الاتّحادُ السّوفياتيّ يترنّحُ دونَ سكرٍ،و كان يلتسن زعيماً كحوليّاً وفاسداً ومُثيراً للسخريةِ، والعالم كلّهُ آنذاك سَخِرَ منهَ ومن بلاده، ومثل عملاقٍ بقدمين من طين، انهارَ الاتّحادُ السوفياتيّ العظيم فجأةً في لحظةٍ ماجنةٍ، حينَ وقعَ انقلابٌ عسكريٌّ انتهى بتفكّكه. ترنّحَ العملاقُ وسقطَ فجأةً وسطَ ذهولِ العالم
. اليوم، تبدو الولاياتُ المتّحدةُ الأمريكيّةُ، وكأنّها دخلت (اللّحظةَ السّوفيتيّة) ذاتها، فثمّة زعيمٌ يترنح، وبلدٌ عملاقٌ يتصدّعُ بطريقةٍ مفضوحةٍ. ترامب الأمريكيّ من هذا المنظور يُكرّرُ صورةَ يلتسن السّوفياتيّ، ولكنْ بدلاً من أنْ يبدوَ ترامب سكّيراً، سيبدوُ مُهرِّجاً.. ماذا يعني هذا؟ يعني هذا ببساطة، أنَّ العالمَ دخلَ من جديد في حالةِ سيولة سبقَ وأنْ دخلَها مع انهيارِ الاتّحادِ السّوفياتيّ، بيد أنَّ العالمَ مع ذلكَ يُعيدُ تشكيلَ نفسهِ كمادّةٍ صلبةٍ من جديد، لأنّهُ يُغادرُ عصراً ويدخلُ عصراً جديداً. بكلامٍ موازٍ؛ دونالد ترامب الأمريكيّ هو بوريس يلتسن السّوفياتيّ، وهما معاً منْ يصنعا اللّحظة ذاتها. كِلاهما جاءَ للقيامِ بالواجبِ المطلوبِ منه. تفكيكُ البلد القديم ببنائِهِ المُتهالِكِ وجدرانِهِ المُتصدّعة. أحدهما اختارَ شخصيّة (السكّير) والآخر اختارَ شخصيّةَ (المهرّج)، إنّها حفلةُ إعادةِ بناءِ العالمِ من جديد، وعلى القادةِ
في عام 1987 نشر المستقبليّ الأمريكيّ آليفين توفلر ثلاثةُ كتبٍ هي الأشهرُ بين كتبه (الموجةُ الثالثةُ وخرائطُ العالمِ وتوزيع/ تشظّي السُّلطة .
في الكتاب الأول، تنبأَ توفلر بانهيارِ الاتّحادِ السوفياتيّ في غضونِ بضعِ سنوات، وهذا ما تحقّقَ بشكلٍ مُذهل، فبعدَ بضعِ سنواتٍ بالفعلِ من صدورِ الكتابِ سقطَ العملاقُ ذو القدمين الطّينيتّين.
في هذا الوقتِ، وحين صدرَ كتاب توفلر، كنتُ أعيشُ مع أُسرتي في بلغرد (يوغسلافيا)، وصادفَ أنّني ومجموعةٌ من الشّبابِ الفلسطينيّينَ قرّرنا القيام برحلةٍ سريعةٍ لرومانيا المجاورة، في بوخارست – رومانيا، تحدثتُ مع الملحقِ الثّقافيّ في السّفارةِ الفلسطينيّة، فقال لي إنّهُ عَلِمَ من أصدقاءَ لهُ في قيادةِ الحزبِ الشّيوعيّ الرومانيّ أنَّ الرئيسَ شاوشيسكو طلبَ ترجمة كتابِ توفلر، ثمّ وزّعَ بنفسِهِ عشر نسخٍ منه فقط على أعضاءِ في المكتبِ السياسيّ للحزبِ الشّيوعيّ الرّومانيّ، وكان شاوشيسكو مرعوباً ممّا يجري في العالم، وأيقنَ أنَّ هذه النبوءةَ ليست مجرّدَ نبوءة.
حينَ عدتُ إلى بلغراد دعوتُ إلى منزلي رفاقاً لي من الحزبِ الشّيوعيّ اليوغسلافيّ، كنّا نسهرُ معاً باستمرار، فجاءَ ثلاثةٌ منهم فقط مع زوجاتِهم، وكنتُ أُلاحظُ أنَّ زوجاتِ رفاقي اليوغسلاف كُنَّ حزيناتٍ وهنَّ يُحدثنَ زوجتي عن (تنظيفِ البنادق). انتبهتُ إلى سياقِ الحديثِ لكنّني لمْ أفهم النقاشَ بدقّةٍ، ولذا بادرتُ إلى طرحِ السّؤالِ الآتي الذي كان يلحُ عليّ: “هل بدأتم حقاً بتنظيفِ (البواريد)؟ هذا يعني أنَّ يوغسلافيا تتّجهُ نحو الحربِ؟”، ثم سألتهم: “والآن قولوا لي ما الذي جاءَ من أجلهِ غورباتشوف اليوم، لقد رأيتُ في التلفزيون أنّهُ جاءَ لزيارةِ الرئيسِ اليوغسلافيّ (الشهيد) ميلوسوفيتش، لكنّه غادرَ بعدَ ساعةٍ واحدةٍ فقط، وكان مُتجهِماً وبدا عليهِ الانزعاجُ، ما الذي يحدث؟” فقال لي أحدهم: اسمع يارفيق، جاءَ غورباتشوف اليوم برسالةٍ من الأمريكيّينَ مفادُها الآتي: سيّد سلوبودان ميلوسوفيتش فكّكَ يوغسلافيا بهدوءٍ أو سنأتي لتفكيكِها بالقوّة، وأذكرُ أنّني في اليوم التالي، كنتُ ضمن المتظاهرينَ في شارعِ تيتو -في قلبِ بغراد- حينَ ذهينا إلى البرلمانِ نُحيّي الرئيسَ (الشهيد) سلوبودان ميلوسوفيتش الذي قالَ وهو يُخاطبُنا: سأموتُ دِفعاً عن يوغسلافيا موحّدة، سأقاتلُ إلى النهاية. كان الأمريكيونَ يريدونَ منه تفكيكَ يوغسلافيا إلى (فيدراليّات) وليس تحويلَ يوغسلافيا إلى دولةٍ فيدراليّة؛ أي كانوا يخطّطونَ لتمزيقِها، وكان رسولُهم غورباتشوف هو الدّمية التي تحكّمَ بها السكّير بوريس يلتسن.
في هذهِ اللّحظة، وحين كانَ غورباتشوف يقومُ بتفكيكِ الاتّحادِ السوفياتيّ، تمّ تدبيرُ (الثورةِ الأمريكيّة) ضدّ شاوشيسكو التي انتهت بقتلِهِ بطريقةٍ بَشِعةٍ، وفي يومِ مصرعِ الرئيسِ الشّهيد شاوشيسكو الذي يُوصَفُ ظلماً بالمجرمِ والقاتل –وياللمفارقة- كانت بوخارست تعلنُ رسميّاً أنّها بلدٌ (دون ديونٍ خارجيّة)؛ أي صفر ديون.
في هذه اللّحظةِ السوفيتيّة المأسويّة، كانَ صدّام حسين يدخلُ الكويتَ، وكثيرونَ يعتقدونَ حتّى اليوم أنَّ الرجلَ الأحمقَ تصرّفَ بحماقةٍ وحسب، وبرأييّ؛ الأمرُ كان مُختلفاً، فكان العراقُ يُدركُ أنَّ خرائطَ العالم التي تَنبّأَ بها توفلر وُضِعَت قيد التطبيق، ولذا حاولَ صدّام حسين العبثَ بالخرائطِ، وكان أوّل ما فعلهُ أنْ جعلَ الكويتَ (محافظةً عراقيّةً)، وكانت المعادلةُ بالنسبةِ لبلدٍ طرفيٍّ صغير من بلدانِ العالمِ الثّالث، وهو يراقبُ تفكّك الإمبراطوريّاتِ والدولِ على النحو الآتي: ما دامَ الأمريكيّونَ سيعبثونَ بخرائطِ العالم، فعلى العالمِ أنْ يعبثَ بخرائطِ أمريكا. لمْ يكن صدّام حسين مجرّد أحمقٍ وحسب، هذه صورةٌ نمطيّةٌ مُزعِجةٌ ولا قيمةَ لها في أيّ تحليلٍ علميّ، وفي النهايةِ هو رئيسُ دولةٍ إقليميّةٍ مهمّةٍ كانَ لديها ما يكفي من المعطياتِ عمّا يجري في العالم، ومهما يكن، وأيّاً يكن (ما إذا كانَ غزو الكويت حماقةً أمْ لا) فليسَ هذا الأمرُ المهمُّ في هذا التحليل، المهمُّ أنْ نلاحظَ هذا الجو الدوليّ الذي بدأَ بالتشكّل.
وهكذا، وقُبيلَ احتلالِ العراقِ (مارس/ آذار 2003) بثلاثةِ أشهرٍ تقريباً، وحينَ مضى أكثرُ من عقدٍ من الزّمنِ على انهيارِ العالمِ القديم، وحينَ كنتُ أعيشُ مع أُسرتي في هولندا، ذهبتُ إلى بغدادَ بدعوةٍ من وزيرِ الخارجيِةِ المرحوم طارق عزيز، بالنسبةِ لي كانَ الأُستاذ طارق عزيز -رحمه الله- صديقاً، وكنتُ أعرفهُ منذُ وقتٍ طويل، وفي بغداد التي عُدتُ إليها من المنفى بعد نحو 30 عاماً -كمعارضٍ- التقيتُ السيّدَ عزة الدوري (عزة إبراهيم نائبُ الرئيسِ صدّام حسين). وسالتُه خلالَ لقاءٍ استمرَّ لساعاتٍ، (ما أرويه –هنا- هو تاريخٌ، وللجميعِ الحقّ في اتّخاذِ أيّ موقف، لكن يجبُ احترامُ الواقعةِ التي أرويها لأنّني أكتبُ بموضوعيّةٍ وللتاريخ).
مالذي يريدهُ الأمريكيّونَ منكم، أعني ما الذي طلبوهُ منكم بالضبط؟ لماذا هذا الإلحاحُ على إسقاطِ النظامِ في بغدادَ، رجاء قلْ لي ماذا طلبَ الأمريكيّونَ منكم؟ فقالَ لي حرفيّاً ما يأتي (وباللّهجةِ العراقية):
– يا رفيق.. طلبوا منّا شيئاً قُلنا لهم لا نقدر عليه. خذوهُ بالقوّة.
فقلتُ لهُ على الفور:
– شكراً لكَ.. فَهِمت ما طلبوهُ منكم، لقد طلبوا منكم ما طلبوهُ من بلغراد.
في الواقعِ طلبَ الأمريكيّونَ من صدّام حسين عام 1990 ما طلبوهُ من سلوبودان ميلوسوفيتش عام 1987 (ثلاث سنوات فقط) : تفكيك يوغسلافيا/ تفكيك العراق. بعدَ عشرِ سنواتٍ من العِنادِ والحصارِ الرهيبِ جاءَ الأمريكيّونَ بأنفسِهم لتفيككِ العراق.
ما دامَ سلوبودان ميلوسوفيتش لم يُفككّ يوغسلافيا بهدوء، فقدَ جاءَ الأمريكيّونَ بأنفسِهم وقاموا بتفكيكِها، تماماً كما حذّرَ غورباغتشوف، وحين امتنعَ صدّام حسين عن تنفيذِ ما طلبهُ الأمريكيّونَ جاؤوا بأنفسِهم، وكانت هناك (خرائط العالم) الجديدةِ التي تنبّأ بها آلفين توفلر.
الأمريكيّونَ كانوا يعرفونَ أنّهم سوفَ يتفكّكونَ كبلدٍ عملاق، بعدَ عقودٍ ثلاثةٍ أو أكثرَ قليلاً من تفكّكِ الاتّحادِ السّوفياتيّ، لكنّهم قرّروا أنّهم يجبُ أنْ يُفكّكوا العالمَ كلّه خلال 30 عاماً.
سأُلخّصُ الفكرةَ الجوهريّةَ في كتبِ آلفين توفلر الثلاثة ولمن لا يعرف؛ فإن المؤلّفُ كانَ عاملاً في مصانعِ سيّاراتٍ من أصولٍ تروتسكية، لكنّهُ درسَ وأصبحَ أستاذاً جامعيّاً، ثمَّ انضمّ إلى فريقِ المستقبليّين، وهو فريقٌ متخصّصٌ مهمّته التنبؤ بالمستقبلِ. توفلر قالَ وداعاً للشيوعيّةِ وأصبحَ مُوالياً للرأسماليّةِ.
ببساطة، مرّت البشريّةُ -برأي توفلر- بثلاثِ موجاتٍ كُبرى، الزراعيّة قبلَ 10 آلاف عامٍ، ثمَّ الموجةُ الصناعيّةُ قبلَ بضعةِ قرون، والآن، يدخلُ العالمُ عصرَ الموجةِ الثالثة (ما بعدَ العصرِ الصناعيّ: عصرُ السّلعةِ النّاعمةِ، أي الـ Software). برأي توفلر، إنَّ العصرَ الصناعيّ انتهى واختفى ولمْ يَعُد لهُ وجود، حتى تعبير (لندن مدينةُ الضبابِ) اختفى؛ لأنَّ لندن لمْ تَعُد كما كانت في القرنِ التاسعِ عشر تستخدمُ الفحمَ في التدفئةِ، وبحيث تتشكّلُ سحابةٌ من الضبابِ في سمائِها، لقد اختفى عصرُ المداخنِ والمحتشداتِ العمّاليّة، والأيديولوجيّاتِ الثوريّة (الشّيوعيّة واليساريّةِ وثورات اللّاهوت الثوريّ في أمريكا اللّاتينيّة)، وفي هذا السّياق وكما اختفت النّازيّةُ، فسوفَ تختفي الصّهيونيّةُ بما هي نتاجُ هذا العصرِ، وكما تزولُ المصانعُ والمحتشدات ويتلاشى الدُّخانُ، ويحلُّ محلّها نمطٌ جديدٌ من إنتاجِ (السّلعِ الناعمةِ) فسوفَ تذهبُ هذه الأيديولوجيّاتِ هباءً مع الدُّخان، والعالمُ سينتقلُ بالفعلِ إلى عصرِ السّلعةِ الناعمةِ؛ أي أنّه سوفَ يتحوّلُ إلى وادي سيلكون.
ولذا، اختفى الاتّحادُ السّوفياتيّ من الوجود.
لكنَّ آلفين توفلر أضافَ ما يأتي: انتبهوا، بعدَ خمسة وثلاثينَ أو أربعينَ عاماً سوفَ تختفي الولاياتُ المتّحدةُ الأمريكيّة أيضاً، فقط لأنَّ العصرَ الذي وُلِدَت فيه ووُلد فيه الاتّحاد السوفياتي قد تلاشى وجاءَ عصرٌ جديدٌ، سوفَ يتمزّقُ المجتمعُ الأمريكيّ بثوراتِ السّودِ/ الزنوجِ وطموحِ الولاياتِ الغنيّة، وفي هذا الكتابِ أيضاً، تنبّأ توفلر بـ(أيديولوجيّاتٍ جديدةٍ) سوفَ تحلُّ محلَّ إيديولوجيّاتِ العصرِ الصناعيّ، وفي خرائطِ العالمِ تنبّأ بأوروبا أُخرى غير التي نعرفها، سوف تختفي أوروبا الغربيّة التي نعرفها، هذه التي قالَ عنها وزيرُ الدّفاعِ الأمريكيّ رامسفيلد بعدَ أسبوعٍ فقط من احتلالِ العراقِ ومن العاصمةِ بغداد: “وداعاً أوروبا العجوز”.
كثيرونَ لمْ يصدّقوا ما قالهُ وليد المعلّم أعظمُ وزيرِ خارجيّةٍ لسورية المُعاصرة، حين خاطبَ الصّحفيّينَ في مكتبةِ الأسد قبلَ أعوام: انسوا أوروبا، لقد شطبناها من الخريطةِ، هناك أوروبا جديدةٌ تولدُ هي أوروبا الشّرقيّة (الأرثوذكسيّة من بلغاريا حتّى اليونان). ولذا يحاولُ الناتو نشرَ أسلحتهُ في أراضيها بيأس، إنّها أوروبا الجديدة التي سوفَ تُلاقي روسيا الجديدة وأمريكا الجديدة (بعدَ عشرِ سنوات)، ولأنَّ الولاياتِ المتّحدةَ الأمريكيّةَ هي اليوم في اللّحظةِ السوفيتيّة، فهذا يعني أنَّ العالمَ دخلَ عصرَ (توريعِ السّلطةِ) أو تشظّي السُّلطة.
في قلبِ هذه اللّحظةِ التاريخيّةِ أصبحت سورية مطبخَ العالمِ الجديد -ويا للأسف-؛ أيّ المكان الذي سوفَ تتقرّرُ فيه حصصُ وأحجامُ الدولِ. إنّها المكانُ الذي سوفَ يتمكّنُ فيه العالمُ من الانتقالِ النهائيّ من (حالةِ السيولةِ) إلى (حالةِ الصَّلابةِ).
لقد لَعِبَ بوريس يلتسن دورَهُ كسكّيرٍ ثمَّ سلّمَ الأمانةَ لبوتين، وترامب اليوم يلعبُ دورَهُ كمهرّجٍ قبلَ أنْ يُسلّمَ الأمانةَ لـ(بوتين أمريكيّ) يُعيدُ بناءَ أمريكا المُتهالِكة. في مزحةٍ عابرةٍ قال بوتين تعليقاً على قراراتِ ترامب “إنّهُ ينفّذُ ما تطلبهُ الآلة”. نعم، هناك (آلةٌ) تأمرُ الرئيسَ أنْ يبدوَ سكّيراً أو مُهرِّجاً، ولكن شرطَ أنْ ينفذَ، ليس مهمّاً ما هي هيئتهُ، سكّيراً يكونُ أو مهرّجاً، ليخترَ ما يشاء. المهمُ أنْ ينفّذَ.
في نبوءةِ توفل نقرأ الآتي: الولاياتُ المتّحدةُ الأمريكيّةُ على طريقِ الاتّحادِ السوفياتيّ سوف تختفي وتتفككّ، لكنّها سوفَ تَعودُ في شكلٍ آخرَ. عاملُ السيّاراتِ التروتسكي الذي أصبحَ من أنبياءِ أمريكا، لا ينطقُ عن هَوى، (إنْ هو إلّا وحيٌ يُوحى) كما في القرآن الكريم. إنّهُ مُتنبئ وليسَ نبيّاً، أي كاهنٌ في المؤسّسةِ الرأسماليّةِ التي تقبضُ على عنقِ العالمِ وقد خرجَ إلى الأسواِق ليتنبأَ مُحذِّراً أنَّ أمريكا دخلت اللّحظة السوفيتيّة، وسوفَ تنهارُ كما انهارَ الاتّحادِ السّوفياتيّ، وأنَّ المهرّجَ الأمريكيّ مثل السكّيرِ السّوفياتيّ يمكنُ أنْ يسقطَ في أيّ لحظةٍ وفجأةً. القوى العظمى كما قالَ ماو تسي تونغ ذاتَ يوم: عملاقٌ بقدمينِ من طين، وحين يترنّحُ العملاقُ في لحظةِ سكرٍ أو تهريجٍ لا فرقَ؛ فإنَّ القدمينِ الطّينيّين سوفَ تتداعيانِ وتتلاشى (المادّةُ الصمغيّة) اللّاصقةُ فيهما.
في مقالةٍ قادمةٍ سوفَ أروي لكم ما سمعتهُ من الرئيسِ بشار الأسد حين التقيتهُ مرتين وأهديتهُ نسخة من مؤلّفي الضّخم (فلسطين المُتخيّلة).
الحربُ على سوريّةَ جرت على خلفيّةِ الطّلبِ نفسه:
فكّك بهدوءٍ أو نأتي لتفكيكِ سورية.
الأسد حين يتجوّلُ في الغوطةِ مع بدايةِ ربيعِ سورية؛ فإنّهُ يرسلُ رسالةً بليغةً:
Only a few analysts and followers remember today what happened in the recent past, when the world witnessed what might be called the Soviet moment of 1989-1990. The Soviet Union was reeling without sugar, Yeltsin was an alcoholic, corrupt and ridiculous leader, and the whole world at the time mocked him and his country, and like a giant with two feet of mud, the great Soviet Union collapsed at a crazy moment, when a military coup ended in its disintegration. The giant lurched and suddenly fell amidst the amazement of the world. Today, the United States of America seems to have entered the same (Soviet moment), a leader is reeling, and a giant country is cracking in a scandalous way. From this perspective, The American Trump repeats Yeltsin’s Soviet image, but instead of trump looking drunk, he will look like a clown. What does that mean? This simply means that the world has re-entered into a state of liquidity that had already entered it with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the world is nevertheless reshaping itself as a solid material, as it leaves an era and enters a new era. In parallel, Donald Trump is the Soviet Boris Yeltsin, and they are together making the same moment. They both came to do the duty required of him. Dismantling the old country with its dilapidated structure and cracked walls. One chose the character of the drunk and the other chose the character of the clown, it’s a party to rebuild the world again, and the leaders have to master/disguise in a specific form.
In 1987 the American futurist Alvin Toffler published three books, most famous among his books (The Third Wave, Maps of the World, and The Distribution / Fragment of Power.
In the first book, Toffler predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union within a few years, and this was achieved in an amazing way. Indeed, a few years after the publication of the book, the two-footed giant had fallen.
At this time, when Tofler’s book was published, I was living with my family in Belgrade (Yugoslavia), and it happened that I and a group of Palestinian youth decided to make a quick trip to neighboring Romania, in Bucharest I spoke with the cultural attaché at the Palestinian embassy, and he told me that he had learned from friends in the leadership of the Romanian Communist Party said that President Ceausescu requested the translation of Toffler’s book, and then distributed only 10 copies of it to members of the Political Bureau of the Roman Communist Party, and Ceausescu was terrified of what was going on in the world, and knew that this prophecy was not just a prophecy.
When I got back to Belgrade, I invited my comrades from the Yugoslav Communist Party to my home. Only three of them came with their wives, and I noticed that the wives of my Yugoslav comrades were sad while they were talking to my wife about (cleaning the guns). I paid attention to the context of the conversation, but I did not understand the discussion precisely, and so I asked “Did you really start cleaning the guns? This means that Yugoslavia is heading towards war?” Then I asked them: “Now tell me what Gorbachev came for today, I saw on television that he came to visit Yugoslav President (martyr) Milosevic, but he left only an hour later, and he appeared to be upset, what is going on? ”
One of them said to me:“ Listen, comrade. Gorbachev came today with a message from the Americans saying the following: Mister Slobodan Milosevic, dismantled Yugoslavia calmly, or we will come to dismantle it by force, and I remember that the next day, I was among the demonstrators on Tito Street – in the heart of Belgrade – when we went to parliament to salute President (martyr) Slobodan Milosevic, he said, “I will die in defense of a united Yugoslavia, I will fight to the end. The Americans wanted him to dismantle Yugoslavia into federalism, not to turn Yugoslavia into a federal state, i.e., they were planning to tear it apart, and their messenger Gorbachev was the puppet ruled by the drunk Boris Yeltsin.
At this moment, when Gorbachev was dismantling the Soviet Union, the (American Revolution) was orchestrated against Ceausescu, which ended in a gruesome manner, and on the day of the death of the martyr president Ceausescu, who was unjustly described as a criminal and murderer— And ironically – Bucharest was officially declaring that it was a country (without foreign debts); That is, zero debts.
At this tragic Soviet moment, Saddam Hussein was entering Kuwait, and many believe to this day that the foolish man only acted foolishly, and in my opinion, it was different, Iraq was aware that the maps of the world that Toffler had predicted had been put into practice, so Saddam Hussein tried to tamper with the maps, and the first thing he did was to make Kuwait (an Iraqi province), and the equation for him was: As long as the Americans tamper with the maps of the world, the world must tamper with the maps. USA. Saddam Hussein was not just a fool, this is a disturbing stereotype that has no value in any scientific analysis, and in the end he is the head of an important regional state who had enough information about what is going on in the world.
Thus, about three months before the occupation of Iraq (March 2003), and when more than a decade had passed since the collapse of the old world, and when I lived with my family in the Netherlands, I went to Baghdad at the invitation of the late Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, for me it was the professor. Tariq Aziz – may God have mercy on him – is a friend, and I have known him for a long time, and in Baghdad, to which I returned from exile after nearly 30 years – as an opponent – I met Mr. Azza al-Douri (Azza Ibrahim, Vice President Saddam Hussein). During a meeting that lasted for hours, I asked him, (What I am telling – here – is history, and everyone has the right to take any position, but the incident I tell must be respected because I write objectively and for history).
What exactly do the Americans want from you? Why is this insistence on overthrowing the regime in Baghdad, please tell me what the Americans have asked of you? He “Comrade. They asked us for something that we told them that we cannot do. Take it by force.”
I said to him immediately:
– Thank you. I understand what they asked of you, they asked you what they asked Belgrade.
In fact, in 1990, the Americans asked Saddam Hussein for what they had asked Slobodan Milosevic in 1987 (before three years): to dismantle Iraq. After 10 years of stubbornness and terrible siege, the Americans themselves came to dismantle Iraq.
As long as Slobodan Milosevic did not quietly dismantle Yugoslavia, the Americans came themselves and dismantled it, just as Gorbachev warned, when Saddam Hussein refrained from doing what the Americans had asked for themselves, and there were new (world maps) predicted by Alvin Toffler. The Americans knew they would disintegrate as a giant country, three or a little more decades after the disintegration of the Soviet Union but decided that they should dismantle the whole world in 30 years.
I’ll sum up the core idea in Alvin Toffler’s three books and for those who don’t know; the author was a worker in Trotsky car factories, but studied and became a university professor, and then joined the Futures Team, a specialized team tasked with predicting the future. Toffler said goodbye to communism and became pro-capitalist.
Simply put, humanity, in Toffler’s view, went through three major waves, agriculture 10,000 years ago, then the industrial wave a few centuries ago, and now, the world is entering the age of the third wave (post-industrial era: the era of soft commodity, software). In Toffler’s view, the industrial age is over and disappeared and no longer exists, even the expression “London is the city of fog” disappeared, because London is no longer what it was in the 19th century, using coal for heating, and so that a cloud of fog is formed in its skies, the age of chimneys and labor tensions, revolutionary ideologies (communism, leftists and theology revolutions) has disappeared. In this context Just as Nazism disappeared, Zionism will disappear as it is the product of this era, and as factories and gatherings disappear and the smoke disappears, and a new pattern of production of (soft goods) will replace them, these ideologies will be wasted with smoke, and the world will indeed move into the era of soft commodity;. That is, it will turn into Silicon Valley.
The Soviet Union therefore disappeared from existence.
But Alvin Toffler added the following: Be careful, after thirty-five or forty years, the United States of America will disappear as well, only because the era in which the Soviet Union was born has disappeared and a new era has come, the American society will be torn apart by the black and black revolutions. In this book also, Toffler predicted (new ideologies) that will replace the ideologies of the industrial age, and in the maps of the world he predicted a Europe other than the one we know, the western Europe we know will disappear, this is what US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said about a week after the occupation of Iraq and from the capital Baghdad: “Farewell, old Europe.”
Many did not believe what Walid al-Muallem, the greatest foreign minister of contemporary Syria, said when he addressed journalists in the al-Assad library years ago: “Forget Europe, we have removed it from the map, there is a new Europe that is being born, which is Eastern Europe” (Orthodoxy from Bulgaria to Greece). Therefore, NATO is trying to spread its weapons in its lands desperately, it is the new Europe that will meet the new Russia and the new America (after ten years), and because the United States of America is today in the Soviet moment, this means that the world has entered an era of (scourging power) or the fragmentation of power.
At the heart of this historic moment, Syria has become the kitchen of the new world, and, unfortunately, where the quotas and sizes of countries will be decided. It’s where the world will be able to make the final transition from (a state of liquidity) to a (a state of solidity).
Boris Yeltsin played his role as a drunkard and then handed over the trust to Putin, and today Trump is playing his role as a clown before handing over the trust to (an American Putin) rebuilding a rickety America.
In a passing joke, Putin said, commenting on Trump’s decisions, “He does what the machine requires.” Yes, there is a (machine) that orders the president to appear to be a drunkard or a clown, but on condition that he implement, it does not matter what his appearance is, whether he is a drunkard or a clown, to choose what he wants. The important thing is to carry out.
The Trotsky car worker, who became one of the “prophets” of America, does not utter a whim, (it is only a revelation that is revealed) as in the Holy Quran. He is not a prophet, but, a priest in the capitalist institution that grabs the neck of the world and has gone out to the markets to prophesy that America has entered the Soviet moment, and will collapse like the Soviet Union collapsed, and that an American clown like a Soviet drunk can fall at any moment and suddenly. The great powers, as Mao Zedong once said: a giant with two feet of clay, and when the giant staggers in a moment of drunkenness or clowning, it makes no difference. The clay feet will crumble and the (resin) sticking in them will dissolve.
In a forthcoming article, I will narrate to you what I heard from President Bashar al-Assad when I met him twice and presented him with a copy of the authors of the great (Imagined Palestine). The war against Syria took place against the background of the same demand: “Disassemble quietly, or we will come to dismantle Syria“. Assad when he wanders around Ghouta at the beginning of the Syrian Spring; It sends an eloquent message:
During the 20th century Cold War with the Soviet Union, there were US Soviet experts who were concerned that the Cold War was partly contrived and, therefore, needlessly dangerous. Stephen Cohn at Princeton University, for example, believed that exaggerating the threat was as dangerous as underestimating it. On the other hand, Richard Pipes at Harvard believed that the CIA dangerously underestimated Soviet military power and failed to grasp Soviet strategic intentions.
In 1976 President Gerald Ford and CIA Director George H.W. Bush commissioned an outside panel of experts to evaluate the CIA’s National Intelligence Estimates. This group was known as Team B. Under Pipes’ leadership Team B created the perception that the US faced a dangerous “window of vulnerability.”
In conventional wisdom, in order to close this window of vulnerability President Reagan began an American arms buildup. On this point conventional wisdom is wrong. The Reagan military buildup was as much hype as reality. Its purpose was to bring the Soviets to the negotiating table and end the Cold War in order to remove the threat of nuclear war. Reagan’s supply-side policy had fixed the problem of worsening trade-offs between employment and inflation, thus making an arms buildup possible. In contrast, Reagan regarded the Soviet economy as broken and unfixable. He reasoned that a new arms race was more than the Soviets could afford, and that the threat of one would bring the Soviets to the table to negotiate the end of the Cold War.
The Soviet Union collapsed when hardline communists, convinced that Gorbachev was endangering the Soviet Union by giving up too much too quickly before American intentions were known, placed President Gorbachev under house arrest. The Yeltsin years (1991-1999) brought the dismemberment of the Soviet Empire and was a decade of Russian subservience to the United States.
Putin came to power as the American neoconservatives were girding up to establish US and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. As General Wesley Clark told us, seven countries were to be overthrown in 5 years. The American preoccupation with the Middle East permitted Putin to throw off American overlordship and reestablish Russian sovereignty. Once Washington realized this, the American establishment turned on Putin with a vengence.
Stephen Cohen, Jack Matlock (Reagan’s ambassador to the Soviet Union), myself and a few others warned that Washington’s refusal to accept Russian independence would reignite the Cold War, thus erasing the accomplishment of ending it and resurrecting the specter of nuclear war. But Washington didn’t listen. Instead, Cohen and I were put on a list of “Russian agents/dupes,” and the process of trying to destabalize Putin began. In other words, once an American colony always an American colony, and Putin became the most demonized person on earth.
Today (March 17) we had the extraordinary spectacle of President Biden saying on ABC News that President Putin is a killer, and “he will pay a price.” This is a new low point in diplomacy. It does not serve American interests or peace.
Yesterday a CIA-Homeland Security report was declassified. The “report” is blatant propaganda. It alleges that Russia interfered in the 2020 election with the purposes of “denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US.” “Russiagate” is still with us despite the failure of the three-year Mueller investigation to find a scrap of evidence.
We desperately need a new Team B like the one the CIA commissioned in 1976 to check on itself. But in those days discussion and debate was possible. Today they are not. We live in a world in which only propaganda is permitted. There is an agenda. The agenda is regime change in Russia. No facts are relevant. There will be no Team B to evaluate whether the Putin threat is exaggerated.
The anti-Russian craze that has been orchestrated in the US and throughout the Western world leaves the US in an extremely dangerous situation. Americans and Europeans perceive reality only through the light of American propaganda. American diplomacy, military policy, news reporting, and public undersranding are the fantasy creations of propaganda.
The Kremlin has shown amazing forbearance of Washington’s inanities and insults. It was the Democrat Hillary Clinton who called President Putin the “new Hitler,” and now Democrat Biden calls Putin “a killer.” American presidents and presidential candidates did not speak of Soviet leaders in these terms. They would have been regarded by the American population as far too deranged to have access to the nuclear button.
Sooner or later the Kremlin will understand that it is pointless to respond to demonization with denials. Yes, the Russians are correct. The accusations are groundless, and no facts or evidence is ever provided in support of the accusations. Sooner or later the Kremlin will realize that the purpose of demonizing a country is to prepare one’s people and allies for war against it.
Washington pays no attention to Maria Zakharova and Dmitry Peskov’s objections to unsubstaniated accusations.
When “sooner or later” is, I do not know, but the Russians haven’t reached that point. The Kremlin reads the latest allegations as an excuse for more sanctions against Russian companies and individuals. This reading is mistaken. Washington’s purpose is to demonize Russia and its leadership in order to set Russia up for regime change and, failing that, for military attack.
In the United States Russian Studies has degenerated into propaganda. Recently, two members of the Atlantic Council think tank, Emma Ashford and Matthew Burrows, suggested that American foreign policy could benefit from a less hostile approach to Russia. Instantly, 22 members of the think tank denounced the article by Ashford and Burrows.
This response is far outside the boundaries of the 20th century Cold War. It precludes any rational or intelligent approach to American foreign policy. Sooner or later the Kremlin will comprehend that it is confronted by a gangster outfit of the criminally insane. Then what happens?
In this one, which I promise to be the very LAST of my essays, I would like, first of all, to do a short re-cap on the responses to my three previous ones – feedback so to speak. Always useful.
Although in this essay the main subject will be the reflections on a rather unfortunate current relationship between Russia and USA, in the same vein as I did in my last essay regarding England.
First, here is my brief feedback on those three essays’ commentary.
Quite a lot of comments were highly informative and also supportive in what one was trying to say; quite a few provided the necessary backgrounds and the all-important details; there were also those who were trying to show off some knowledge but unfortunately totally missed the whole point; on the other hand, we also had a few that were attempting to discredit the author by any possible means. Difficult to know what motivates and compels these people to act in such a way. Here, someone who took the trouble to analyse and then write something about the subject that concerns them, not doing a full blown historical or whatever essay, just trying to highlight some concerns and to share those with, hopefully, some intelligent readers. And immediately we will have some people here who would be vying among themselves to pull the author down. Why? What are you hoping to archive? Is it the lack of understanding, the lack of manners, the lack of self-confidence, the sheer mendacity or just trying to prove something? What is it? This site is all about analysing the current events and providing some answers. In my opinion those who can take in the offered piece of writing, understand its context and can respond with some degree of intelligence by providing some valid and knowledgeable comments, need to be here. We want to learn a lot more of what is going on in our world and this is a great forum for it. As for the rest of you, the likes of CNN, WaPo, NYT, BBC, etc would do you just fine. For the closed minds to be reinforced by daily propaganda from the above-mentioned media outlets, would be perfect for supporting your attitudes.
What is obvious with those people – if any incoming information does not fit with these ingrained attitudes, that information will be totally ignored, mocked, and dismissed. Sadly, we see it here again and again.
Let’s move on.
Here is the main subject – relations between two global superpowers. (And this one, without any doubt, will also have those commentators showing lots of their ingrained attitudes. Let’s hope some stuff might actually sink in).
For a start, those relations between Russia and USA have NOT been based on unresolvable animosity as exists between Russia and England, on the contrary, USA and Russia were firm allies in the past, right from the beginning. As I have already pointed out in one of my comments, Russia was totally behind the fledging USA in their fight for independence. Russian Tsar Alexander even sent a naval task force to block the English troops heading for America’s shores. Russia has helped a GREAT deal in America’s fight to get its independence from the English Crown. Not that you will find any of that in your “history” books now. What’s more, for a very long time that relationship was friendly and cooperative.
During WWII Russia and USA were close allies once again, this time help was coming from the other side. Russia very much needed the essential supplies in their fight with Nazi Germany and that help came at the right time from one of their closest neighbours, USA. There is only less than 90 km, about 50 or so miles between those two. That’s about the length of the Bering Strait, between Russia and Alaska. Many people forget that.
Now let’s look at the USA from the beginning of the 20th Century. By then some of that country’s vital organs were already taken over by this Anglo Zionist cancer. The Great Depression, at the beginning, was a planned destruction by that very same Banking Cabal that I had described in my previous piece. US recovered from that horror show thanks to some outstanding Presidents that Americans were very fortunate to have at the time. After WWII, the US economy absolutely boomed, as the rest of the world was laying in ruins and needing everything they could get to recover and to re-build, USA was there to provide, but of course at the price. Some of those countries were still paying that debt LONG after the war.
In US, 50s and 60s were the GOLDEN years. It produced great stuff. Even now, when my husband and I need to buy some tool, I would first look for a second-hand one that was made in USA – these were absolutely awesome in their quality and longevity. It was then that the USA was at its best . Unfortunately, they had spoilt a lot of that with their Korean and Vietnam wars.. sadly.
Then came the 70s – the Hippy Era, with drugs and sexual freedoms and from then on, the rot has established itself and then taken hold of that great country. I am saying “great”, for despite its rather unsavoury beginning, starting with the genocide and then slavery – since then it has tried to make up for it to some degree, well, at least, tried. Blacks in USA have been given every opportunity to advance themselves, unfortunately the lack of motivation on their part was not the white Americans fault. Doesn’t matter how those blacks are trying to spin this now – the self-reflection is the hardest thing. One can only help those who want to help themselves. They haven’t shown that.
Here, for simplicity sake, I would call the US citizens “Americans”, with no disrespect to other Americans, in the south and the north.
As people, the Americans, well, the ones that I have met, were quite genuine, open and friendly, with a good sense of humour- much like the Russians in that respect. Stuff that interested them they knew very well and in depth, although they did possess a very American view on the world affairs, but willing to listen to the alternatives to these views. We had no problems whatsoever in communicating, resulting in having a mutual regard and respect.
Why is it so difficult now to do that between the two nations?!
But let’s continue.
Russia, in the 70s had largely escaped that Hippy Era, being very much under the very strict Socialist Communist control. But there were some other major developments appearing – after decades of such oppression people wanted to have some freedoms – to write and to say what they wanted, to express themselves, without being censored or prosecuted, to have some say in the matters that affected their lives, and also, of course, to see the rest of the world. In Russia that rot had set in for the ENTIRE SYSTEM that was in power at that time.
The late 70s and 80s was a strange decade. Lots of thing were obviously happening under the surface but in the visible part it was rather uneventful. No great culture-social movements, the only exception was the appearance of the ghastly Punk Era, thankfully, a short one. Music scene was also rather uninspiring with just a handful of outstanding talents, like Queen, ABBA, Michael Jackson and a few others. (Here I would probably have an avalanche of rebuttals from those for whom that was their time. That’s all right, as long as you had the good times in those days. : )
But things were happening, the mood was changing.
The late 80s-early 90s had suddenly seen the collapse of USSR, something no-one was expecting, thanks to a few traitors, like Gorbachev and Yeltsin plus some others in that power structure. After 75 years it had basically run its course and had to be replaced with something else. People wanted something different. But what? No-one knew.
Enter the USA’s willing and highly motivated “helpers”! Thousands of them poured in – company executives, “experts”, “advisers”, banking specialists, business managers, you name it –they were ALL there. Bringing Instant Capitalism!
Buying Soviet-built industry, resource production, like oil and gas, mines, etc for pennies – everything they could lay their greedy and grubby hands on was looted in this way. Aided and abetted by local scum, feverishly helping themselves to all of that as well, to become the so-called “Russian oligarchs”, with lots of them immediately running to the West with their stolen loot.
With American (read cabal) “help” the new Russian Constitution was duly written, where Russia, obviously, did not have much say in their own national interests. And, of course, the setup of the Central Bank, to control it all! For them it ALL came true at last – their old wet dream has suddenly been realised. Russia was under their control. Or so they though.
These were the terrible 90s in Russia, when it was on its knees, in the gutter, raped, robbed and abused..
In this dire and practically hopeless situation appears a relatively young man, an ex KGB Colonel, who slowly and carefully, over the years, nurses Russia back to health, being surrounded by dedicated group of Russian patriots. This remarkable man has all the necessary skills and abilities that were absolutely needed at that time. His name is Vladimir Putin.
In 90s in Russia, it was a dangerous time. The vultures were not ready to abandon their feeding frenzy – our Colonel had to be extremely careful, smart and clever among that lot and had to be well protected. The vultures sensed the threat.
Add to this the purposely instigated war in Chechnia and the destruction of the “Kursk” submarine, and the young President had an incredible lot on his plate, right from the start.
He had to make that start by seemingly playing along, to a point, with those that managed to get to some levers of power and control at the time, and then slowly, but surely he eliminated all of them from there, one by one. In the West it is known as ”draining the swamp”. He actually did that!
In Russia at present, no State Power or Control belongs to any of the so-called “oligarchs”- they are allowed to have ownership in some business enterprises (paying their taxes of course), but absolutely no power in top political structures. There are a few leftover liberals who still want to hang on to the western idea for Russia, but these people are very much marginalised now. Russia is a democracy not a dictatorship, in Parliament there are quite a few different flavours of various politicians, some quite colourful and entertaining, but the man in charge absolutely knows what he is doing.
The Russian President’s very first task was to re-build Russia’s military power, which he has done truly spectacularly. Russia is now several generations ahead of the rest of the world in its military capabilities. The Russian Constitution has been reviewed and necessary changes made through the people’s referendum. The economy is growing and so are the gold reserves. Next on the list will be the Central Bank, the globalist’s last hook that is still in Russia’s body. Believe me, VVP is working on that as we speak. All takes time. He is against a very powerful and evil entity that wants to be in an absolute control. Careful steps needed.
He is the President of the biggest country on the planet, with 11 time zones, a vast number of nationalities, with infrastructures that other countries cannot even imagine, he has former soviet republics taken over by the western interests that are trying to cause him as much headache there as they possibly can, good examples are Georgia and Ukraine. They are also trying to whip up as much Russophobia as possible, as well as doing other nefarious things, such as building Biolabs. He has an on-going military operation in Syria to eliminate the remnants of ISIS terrorists, which are still being supported and supplied by various players. He had to protect Belarus from the same fate as befell Ukraine, he has the deluded and “ the loose cannon” Turk to deal with, the pathetic EU quislings with their constant inane verbiage, and now he has another instigated war in South Caucuses.
For those who wonder why Russia is having so much trouble with the former Soviet Republics the answer is very simple. These, at the time of USSR break-up, had enthusiastically embraced their newly-found “independence from Russia” thinking that now they can be the ”little kingdoms” with their own “little king”, which is wonderful for one’s ego. Until then, as Dmitry Orlov had wryly observed, they were ”14 greedy little piglets” suckling on emaciated sow, Russia. Once that teat was taken away from them, they were left to fend for themselves and since such was obviously impossible to do – having their own “little kingdoms” and nothing to feed on, they all ran to look for a replacement teat, which was readily offered by the West. With lots of strings attached, obviously. In my previous essay I have already described what these former republics had become since then, so I will not repeat it here, but just to make a point–Russia does not interfere in their affairs, as far as Russia is concerned they are well and truly on their own. There is, of course, a high price to pay for the ungratefulness and the betrayal and that is something that all of them are paying now. Also, sometimes a hard lesson has to be learnt. I believe they are slowly learning that lesson.
At present, any Russian military involvements in these former Republics would be the absolute last resort, I have already explained what a provocation is.
On top of it all the Russian President is also facing the Anglo Zionist Cabal, with their agenda. And that agenda is to start a war with Russia; he is not giving them that chance, as the consequences for the world would be unthinkable. Through all of this he is holding steady and is in control. Meantime, he has re-built his Russia from the ruins, back to being a superpower once again.
Many in the West cannot understand or see that, as their MSM is feeding them something else with regard to Russia. Even here, on this site, we still have some people who are simply incapable of any comprehension as to what the Russian President has to deal with. To them he is either “not doing things fast enough” o,r not doing what they expected him to do, so, “he must be weak” or even some kind of the “western sell-out” then. Really!? Having closed minds has never been a great attribute.
Meantime in USA, there was a different kind of “fun and games” being played on those poor Americans by that very same Cabal. The late 80s – early 90s had also seen quite a lot of changes for US of A. This is when the cabal had decided it was the right time to take over the West’s mass media and education. The Cold War was over, Russia was not in position to be a serious opponent on the global chessboard anymore so, they made their move.
Some people, being adults in that time, no doubt will remember the sudden changes taking place in the large media organisations and what’s more, corporations, appearance of new cable networks, amalgamations, takeovers, sacking of journalists, editors, even directors – it was all happening at once, in USA, in UK, in Europe..
In schools, there suddenly appeared lots of new teachers and subjects, for example something called “social studies” and similar ones that were being introduced, and the subjects that actually gave kids some proper knowledge were taken out and replaced with this weird stuff.
Following that development, (and again some people might remember), was a sudden wave of most disturbing and strange accusations from the kids that their parents had sexually abused them in some ways. Lots of parents had been put through hell at the time. This is what THIS EVIL was doing to those kid’s brains. That was just the beginning, after three decades of such “education” we now have at least two generations of the horrendously brain/mind damaged people, unable to think objectively or even rationally, not looking for facts, unable to have a debate or even effectively communicate with each other face to face. They have been turned into something that can only be described as, yes.. sheeple or even zombies. No other words for them. Looking at them, everyone is with that phone in hand, either lost in that screen or holding that phone above the head to film something so that later they can post that on their FB or Twitter account. All of them doing that, all at the same time, as if some invisible power is controlling them. Which it is.
It is actually quite scary to think that this is the future generations that will soon be in “charge”.
For the Cabal, owing this Mass Media, it is now relatively easy for them to control and manipulate those minds, where they can get them instantly out on the streets, protesting or demonstrating against whatever, (as in “colour revolutions”), most of them probably wouldn’t even know why, but that doesn’t matter. It is that herd mentality.
Such total control of Mass Media also allows this Cabal to easily shape people’s perceptions on various situations and happenings in this world, let alone on issues back in the good old USA. How many Americans think that Iran is their enemy, that Russia is an even bigger enemy and now so is China? Unfortunately, I would say, quite a lot. Where do these perceptions come from? The MSM. All pervasive, powerful, unrelenting. The brainwashing goes on non-stop. Russia has been demonized to such an extent where it is now being made out to be some kind of caricature – on one hand, an all-powerful evil entity that can control your lives and even “influence your elections”, it is “an aggressor, invading Ukraine and annexing it’s territories”, it is planning to “control Europe through its energy supplies there”, “ it’s “bombing sick little children in hospitals in Syria”, but at the same time it is also nothing more than “a gas station masquerading as a country”, “its economy is going down the drain” and “its military is a joke” – all that sounds familiar? This Cabal must be thinking that Americans are absolutely dumb, ignorant and stupid morons, since they continue to feed them this garbage day after day. EVERY SINGLE THING they hear about Russia, or any other country that is supposed to be an enemy of US is a mind-numbing, made-up BS, which is being fed to them CONSTANTLY, and lots of them are swallowing this stinking pigswill. I assume that most of them don’t know any better and I actually feel sorry for them, being subjected to this kind of cruel mental tyranny. No other way to describe it – one can honestly feel sympathy for them as it is obviously very hard to shake yourself awake from that constant, induced, long-term stupor. We can only hope.
Here are few more words that I want to say, this time to the Americans – Russia, as I have said before, is NOT your enemy and never has been, all it wants from you is to STOP this aggressive posturing and provocations – that is not going to end well. Not for the Americans, not for anyone else in this world. Just stop it!
If this insane, deranged doctrine of “maximum pressure” and “containment” (!?) continues towards Russia, Russia will eventually respond. Those imbecilic “Dr Strangelove” characters, that should have been removed from the so-called “administration” long ago, are recklessly and stupidly provoking a very powerful, nuclear armed country and guess what is going to happen to YOUR country when that line is crossed. You, Americans, need to stop these madmen who actually BELIEVE that they can win a war against Russia!! Stop them before it’s too late. You had a great tradition of demonstrating against US instigated wars around the world – bring back that tradition. Right now this is needed more than ever!
You can also go out on the streets and demand that the mind-boggling, trillions of $ worth of military spending budget be spent on adequate health care, on crumbling infrastructure, on proper education, on re-building your economy, reducing massive unemployment (what figures you are fed there is another BS) and to reduce the hardships for the families that lots of them will be facing after this scamdemic is over. This is YOUR MONEY.
The world’s big hope is for US to get itself back to what it used to be. By that, to be once again, just another country on this our planet, the country that looks after its own interests and its own well-being, without trying to control all the others. Not being the world’s belligerent Hegemon that nobody wants and everyone hates. (You, Americans, have no idea just how much you are absolutely hated and despised around the world.)
If there is a will there is a way. Surely you must still have some honest politicians left there who love their country and who have not sold themselves to the Zionists. Commissions that can be set up to clean out your Banking and Wall Street rackets – the way it was done before. Cooperating, trading and dealing with the rest of the world in good faith and with good intentions, without any demands or impositions – you might even get some genuine allies at last, instead of having nothing but pathetic vassals. Closing hundreds(!) of your military bases all around the world and bringing these men back home to their families. Most imperative is to stop this deranged, insane and extremely dangerous “POWER PROJECTION” all around the globe. Tell us what is that all about, for Christ’s sake?! That will bring you nothing but grief.
Both Russia and China have embarked on a great journey of good will cooperation with mutual benefits, also for all of those that want to join in, and my absolute belief is that you, Americans, will do very well by joining them on that journey, as an equal partner. It is THE future for this world.
In conclusion I will repeat it once again – we ALL have ONE COMMON ENEMY, the parasite that needs to be destroyed before it destroys all of us. We must stop fighting among ourselves and concentrate our efforts towards THAT.
May God help us and give us the strength we need for the task.
The head of the prestigious Munich Security Conference warned late last month against efforts to “build a new ‘wall’ between Russia and the West” in light of the Navalny incident and the many other disagreements between both sides, and while it’s unrealistic to expect another Berlin Wall-like physical division of Europe, there’s no denying that their different governing models have created a sharp split across the continent.
Welcome To The New Cold War
Last month will probably go down in history as the moment when the New Cold War became impossible to deny. The US has been attempting to rekindle its fading unipolarity since the onset of its coordinated HybridWar “containment” campaigns against Russia and China in 2014, which only intensified in the aftermath of Trump’s election. The leaders of all three countries addressed the UN General Assembly (UNGA) by video in a series of speeches that laid bare these two sides’ contradictory assessments of contemporary global affairs and related visions of the future. Their keynote speeches were preceded by UN Secretary General Guterres warning the world that “We must do everything to avoid a New Cold War.” Trump obviously didn’t listen to him, which is why the head of the prestigious Munich Security Conference (MSC) followed up that global representative’s warning with his own at the end of that historic week cautioning that “It will result in nothing if we now try to build a new ‘wall’ between Russia and the West because of Navalny and other sad and terrible events.” It’s his dramatic words that form the basis of the present article.
The US’ Hybrid War On Russia
There are many angles through which the ongoing global competition can be analyzed, but the prospect of a new wall of some sort or another accompanying the New Cold War in Europe is among the most intriguing. The MSC head presumably isn’t implying the creation of a 21st-century Berlin Wall, but seems to be speaking more generally about his fear that the growing divisions between Russia and the West will soon become irreversible and potentially even formalized as the new status quo. The author wrote last month that “The US’ Hybrid War On Russian Energy Targets Germany, Belarus, And Bulgaria”, pointing out how even the partial success of this latest “containment” campaign will greatly advance the scenario of an externally provoked “decoupling” between Russia and the West. That would in turn help secure American grand strategic interests in the continent. This “decoupling” would reverse the progress that was made in bilateral relations since the end of the Old Cold War up until the Ukrainian Crisis. Taken to its maximum extent, the spiritual return of the Berlin Wall seems almost inevitable at this point.
Governing Differences
It’s true that the border between the NATO countries and Russia’s CSTO (which importantly includes Hybrid War-targeted Belarus) represents the modern-day military equivalent of the “Iron Curtain”, but the situation isn’t as simple as that. While military divisions remain (albeit pushed much further eastward over the past three decades), ideological and economic ones are less apparent. Russia no long ascribes to communism but follows its own national variant of democracy within a mostly capitalist system, thus reducing the structural differences between itself and its Western counterparts. Unaware observers might wonder why there’s even a New Cold War to begin with when considering how much both sides have in common with one another, but that overlooks their contradictory worldviews which lie at the heart of their mutual suspicions. Russia strongly believes in safeguarding its geopolitical and domestic socio-political sovereignty so it accordingly follows a more conservative path whereas Western countries mostly submit to the US’ authority and generally regard their liberal position on many social issues as universalist.
The End Of The “Great Convergence”
The reason why the thaw in Russian-Western relations failed to achieve the “Great Convergence” that Gorbachev originally hoped for was because the US wanted to impose its will onto Russia by treating it as just another vassal state that would be forced to follow its lead abroad and accept extreme liberal social mandates at home instead of respecting it as an equal partner. Nevertheless, this policy was actually surprisingly successful all throughout the 1990s under Yeltsin, but its fatal flaw was that it went much too far too quickly by attempting to dissolve the Russian Federation through American support for Chechen separatist-terrorist groups. That inadvertently provoked a very patriotic reaction from the responsible members of Russia’s military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) who worked together to ensure their motherland’s survival in the face of this existential crisis. The end result was that Putin succeeded Yeltsin and subsequently set about to systematically save Russia. This took the form of stabilizing the security situation at home in parallel with reasserting Russia on the world stage.
The “Russian Model”
Putin, though, was always a liberal in the traditional (not post-modern) sense. He never lost his appreciation for Western civilization and sincerely wanted to complete Gorbachev’s hoped-for “Great Convergence”, though only on equal terms and not as a US vassal. Regrettably, the Russian leader’s many olive branches were slapped away by an angry America which feared the influence that a powerful “moderately liberal” state could have on its hyper-liberal subjects. All of Putin’s efforts to take the “Great Convergence” to its next logical step of a “Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok” failed for this reason, after which an intense information warfare campaign was waged to portray Russia was a “radical right-wing state” even though it was never anything of the sort. This modus operandi was intended to prevent Europe’s indoctrinated masses from ever countenancing whether a “moderate” alternative exists whereby they’d preserve their domestic and international sovereignty despite remaining committed to traditional liberal values, just like the “Russian model” that Putin pioneered. Understandably, this would pose a serious threat to American strategic interests, hence the campaign against it.
The Rise Of America’s Russian Rival
As time went on, the “Russian model” was partially replicated in some of the countries of Central Europe such as Poland and even within the US itself through Trump’s election, though this wasn’t due to any so-called “Russian meddling” but was a natural result of the ideological interplay between radical and “moderate” liberals. It just so happened that Russia was the first country to implement this model not because of anything uniquely “Russian” within its society, but simply as the most pragmatic survival plan considering the extremely difficult circumstances of the 1990s and attendant limits on the country’s strategic maneuverability during that time. It was considered by the patriotic members of Russia’s “deep state” to be much too risky to reverse the direction of post-Soviet reforms, hence why the decision seems to have been made to continue with them, though doing all in the country’s power to regain control over these processes from Russia’s Western overlords in order to protect national geopolitical and domestic socio-political interests. This struggle led to Russia becoming an alternative pole of influence (in the governance sense) within the “Greater West”, rivaling the US.
Hillary & Trump: Same Anti-Russian Strategy, Different Infowar Tactics
With this insight in mind, the New Cold War was inevitable in hindsight. Had Hillary been elected, then the infowar narrative would have focused more on Russia’s different “values”, seeking to present its target as a “threat to the (hyper-liberal) Western way of life”. Since Trump’s America interestingly enough shares many of the same values as contemporary Russia does, however, the focus is on geopolitical differences instead. From the prism of International Relations theory, Hillary’s angle of attack against Russia would have been more liberal whereas Trump’s is more realist. Either way, both American leaders (theoretical in the first sense and actual in the second) have every reason to fear Russia since it challenges the US’ unipolar dominance in Europe. Hillary would have wanted to portray Russia as being outside of the “Western family of nations”, though Trump can’t convincingly do that given his much more high-profile provocations against obviously non-Western China, hence why he’s basically competing with Russia for leadership of the “moderate” liberal model of Western civilization, ergo accepting their structural similarities but instead over-hyping their geopolitical differences.
Post-Soviet Russia’s Irreversible Impact On Western Civilization
Taking all of the aforementioned into account, it’s understandable why the US wants to build a “new wall” in Europe by “decoupling” its NATO-captive subjects from Russia through a series of Hybrid Wars, though the genie is out of the bottle since some Central European countries like Poland the even the US itself under Trump already implement elements of the “Russian model”. This means that while the physical separation of Russia and Europe along military, geopolitical, and soon perhaps even economic-energy lines is practically a fait accompli at this point, the ideological-structural influence emanating from Moscow is impossible to “contain”. No “wall” will reverse the impact that the “Russian model” has had on the course of Western civilization, though it should be remembered that the aforesaid model wasn’t part of some “cunning 5D chess plan” but an impromptu survival tactic that was triggered in response to American unipolar-universalist soft power aggression on post-Soviet Russia. It’s not distinctly “Russian”, which is why the hyper-liberal Western elite fear it so much since they know very well that it could take root in their countries too, just like in Poland and the US.
Concluding Thoughts
The typical Western mind is conditioned to think in terms of models, especially historical ones, which is why they imagine that the New Cold War will closely resemble the Old Cold War simply because of the effect that neuro-linguistic programming has on their thought process. This explains why the MSC head warned against the creation of a “new wall” between Russia and the West even though no such scenario is realistic. No physical barrier like the Berlin Wall will ever be erected again, and even though the geopolitical, military, and perhaps even soon economic-energy fault lines between them might become formalized through the impending success of the US’ “decoupling” strategy, this will not address the root cause of the New Cold War which lies with Russia’s “moderately liberal” model of state sovereignty in contrast to the US’ (former?) hyper-liberal universalist one of state vasselhood. It’s this difference that’s primarily responsible for every other dimension of their competition since it placed Russia on the trajectory of supporting a Multipolar World Order instead of the US’ hoped-for Unipolar World Order.By Andrew KorybkoAmerican political analyst
The U.S. Department of Defense’s website, when it issued the transcript of Esper’s statement “so that we can all deter Russia and avoid peace in Europe,” added in brackets, “[editor’s note. Secretary Esper intended to say ‘avoid conflict in Europe’]”; however, that does not appear to reflect Esper’s statement, for the following reasons:
1. The assertion “so that we can all deter Russia and avoid peace in Europe” was so inflammatory as to demand a ‘correction’ regardless of whether that statement was consistent with everything else that he has been saying, and it is consistent with everything else that he has been saying.
2. Esper’s 4,800-word speech on that occasion did not use the word “conflict” even once. It is not a word that he typically uses. By contrast, against that zero frequency for “conflict,” he used there “deter” 21 times. He used “peace” three times. Each of those was in a hostile context: First, “One of our primary missions is to prevent another great power war, and to maintain great power peace. The National Defense Strategy, the NDS, guides our efforts to adapt the force, and the EUCOM plan optimizes our force posture in Europe as we seek to deter malign actors there.” Second, “These efforts all increase our opportunity to generate greater peace in Europe and enhance the U.S.’s effectiveness in great power competition.” Third, “And I’ve said that very publicly, I’ve said that very privately to my counterparts as well, about the importance of NATO, any alliance, sharing the burden so that we can all deter Russia and avoid peace in Europe.”
He used the phrase “great power competition” five times: First, “Today, we want to update you on the status of our U.S. European Command review, which was accelerated with the president’s decision in early June to reduce our footprint in Germany, and our plans to reposition our forces in Europe to be better-situated for great power competition.” Second, “As we’ve entered a new era of great power competition, we are now at another one of those inflection points in NATO’s history.” Third, “One of our primary missions is to prevent another great power war, and to maintain great power peace.” (“Great power peace” did not mean “peace” in any broader sense but only that the U.S. does not want to become a battlefield in World War III — that’s for Europe, etc., not for the U.S., to serve as the war-fields; it would be like happened during WW II. This was a very careful usage of words.) Fourth, “We focus on actions inside and outside our area of responsibility, and vigilance with respect to great power competition is an absolute imperative.” (That reaffirms Esper’s focus on “great power competition.” Europe’s nations are vassal-states. They are expendable. The way that Barack Obama said this was “The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation.” Every other nation is “dispensable.” How much clearer can it be? Furthermore: Esper explicitly asserts there that “We focus on actions inside and outside our area of responsibility,” which means that the U.S. military imposes its will “outside our area of responsibility” — anywhere in the world — meaning against any real or imagined “great power competitor,” which refers specifically to both Russia and China. Consequently, the U.S. regime demands that Europe get in line with the U.S. Government’s objective to defeat both Russia and China. He says that this is “an absolute imperative.”) Fifth, “These efforts all increase our opportunity to generate greater peace in Europe and enhance the U.S.’s effectiveness in great power competition.” (“Greater peace in Europe” implies that European nations are at war. It’s a lie. Esper has made clear that “great power competition” is the U.S. regime’s obsessive focus.)
The other assertion, that “We are moving many troops further east, closer to Russia’s border, to deter them,” is a clear affirmation of the U.S. regime’s lie to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 when he was ending the Cold War on Russia’s side — ending its communism, ending its Warsaw Pact military alliance, ending the Soviet Union — and George Herbert Walker Bush deceived him into believing that NATO would not move “one inch to the east.” The sheer evilness of that man and of all subsequent U.S. Presidents, for their ceaseless efforts ultimately to conquer Russia, and now with Trump also to conquer China, is perhaps unsurpassed in human history, competing even with Adolf Hitler. It’s what happens when a country — in this instance the United States — gets taken over by its aristocracy, its billionaires.
Europe is to serve, along with the Middle East and elsewhere, as America’s battlefields to conquer Russia and China. That’s the plan.
في ذكرى 23 تموز/يوليو 1952 (إقامة النظام الجمهوري في مصر) وفي ذكرى إنهاء النظام الملكي وإقامة النظام الجمهوري في العراق (14 تموز/يوليو 1958)، وما جرى بين هذين التاريخَيْن من محاولة بناء السد العالي وتأميم قناة السويس والعدوان الثلاثي (البريطاني والفرنسي والصهيوني، سنة 1956 ) ضد مصر،
نستذكر دور الإتحاد السوفييتي (رغم الإختلافات معه، ورغم النقد الذي يمكن توجيهه بشأن المسألة القومية وقضية فلسطين، وغيرها)، ونستذكر الدّعم (رغم الشّروط) الذي مَكّن مصر من استكمال بناء السّد العالي، ومساندة مصر سنة 1956، ومن إعادة تسليح الجيش المصري، ليقوم ب”حرب الإستنزاف”، بعد هزيمة حزيران/يونيو 1967، ونقف على الوضع العالمي، حاليًّا، بعد انهيار الإتحاد السوفييتي، حيث لا رادع للإمبريالية الأمريكية وحلف شمال الأطلسي، سوى إرادة الشّعُوب، ونضال الفئات الكادحة…
بَدأت عوامل الوَهَن تظهر على الإتحاد السوفييتي، منذ عُقُود، وساهم “سباق التّسلّح” والوضع الإقتصادي (الجفاف وإغراق أسواق العالم بالنفط السعودي الرخيص…)، وحرب أفغانستان، وغيرها في تَسْرِيع عملية الإنهيار، زيادة على نمو فكرة التخريب من داخل الحزب الشيوعي السوفييتي وقيادة الدّولة الإتحادية، وخصوصًا عندما تولّى “ميخائيل غورباتشوف” (كَرَمْزٍ لتيار مُعادي للشيوعية، داخل البلاد) رئاسة الحكومة، بالتوازي مع انهيار أسعار النفط (المورد الرئيسي للعملة الأجنبية)، قبل توليه قيادة الحزب والدّولة…
حصل “غورباتشوف” على العديد من الجوائز، منذ بَدَأ (مع مجموعة من الحزب والدّولة السوفييتِيَّيْن) العمل على تخريب وانهيار الإتحاد السوفييتي، وعلى “إثبات” فشل مبدأ أو فكرة الإشتراكية من أساسها، وليس فشل وسائل تطبيقها، ومن بين هذه الجوائز “ميدالية أونوهان للسلام” (1989)، و”جائزة نوبل للسلام” (1990) التي فقدت من قيمتها عندما مُنِحت للعديد من المُجْرِمين الصهاينة، وللخونة، مثل أنور السادات، وجائزة “هارفي” (1992)، والعديد من شهادات الدكتوراه الفَخْرِية، وشهادات التّقْدِير…
ما الدّاعي لِمَنْحِهِ هذه الجوائز، في حين خان الرجل (الإنسان والزعيم السياسي والرئيس ) بلادَهُ، وباعها بثمن رخيص للإمبريالية الأمريكية وللبنك العالمي، وصندوق النقد الدّولي… يكْمُن سِرُّ هذه الجوائز في مكافأة رجُل نفّذ بإخلاص وتفاني خطط وكالة الإستخبارات الأمريكية، وساهم في تهديم ما بنَتْهُ أجيال من السوفييتيين، وخيانة تضحيات ملايين الشُّهَداء الذين سقطوا دفاعًا عن وَطَن الإشتراكية…
نَشر موقع “إلهيرالدو كوبانو” (كوبا)، يوم الثامن عشر من أيلول/سبتمبر 2017، تعليقًا على بعض الوثائق التي أصبح اطّلاع الباحثين عليها مُتاحًا، بعد إفراج وكالة الإستخبارات المركزية (الأمريكية) عنها وخروجها عن نطاق السرية، واقتصر التعليق على بعض ما نُشِر عن خطط غورباتشوف ومجموعته ( من بينهم زوجته “رايسا” و “شيفرنادزي” و “ياكوفليف”…) “للقضاء على الشيوعية”، بحسب تعبيره في مداخلة علنية، سنة 2000، بالجامعة الأمريكية، في تركيا، كما تكشف هذه الوثائق دعْمَ وكالة الإستخبارات الأمريكية لمجموعة “غورباتشوف”، سياسيا وإعلاميا، لعدّة عُقُود، فيما تكفلت مؤسسات الملياردير “جورج سورس” بتمويل نشاط وإعلام “المُنْشَقِّين” السوفييتيين، وجميعهم يمينيون وصهاينة.
نشر “واين مدسن” (موظف سابق في وكالة أمن الفضاء – إن إس إيه ) من جهته، وثائق تتضمن بعض الوقائع والحقائق، ومنها تصرحات”ميخائيل غورباتشوف”، العلَنِيّة، وكذلك تمويل النشاط والإعلامي السياسي لحكومة “غورباتشوف”، ونشر عبارات “بريسترويكا” (إعادة الهيكلة) و “غلاسنوست” (الشفافية)، على نطاق واسع، والإدّعاء أن “غورباتشوف” ثوري يُكافح ويُجاهد ضد البيروقراطية والجمود، وحصل التمويل والإعلام على نطاق واسع، بغطاء حكومي أمريكي، وبواسطة مؤسسات “جورج سورس” والمنظمات الأمريكية، الموصوفة “غير حكومية”، من 1987 إلى 1991، ومن بينها منظمة “يوس” (أو معهد دراسات الأمن شرق-غرب” )، ونجحت هذه الحَمْلَة الأمريكية في خلق انشقاقات داخل الأحزاب “الشيوعية” التي كانت لا تَحيد قيد أُنْمُلَة عن الخط الرسمي للإتحاد السوفييتي، ولكن عندما يظهر الإنقسام داخل قيادة “الأخ الأكبر”، ينعكس ذلك على بقية الأحزاب التابعة.
أظهرت وثائق الإستخبارات الأمريكية أن ما حصل في المَجَر وبولندا وتشيكوسلوفاكيا، وفي الإتحاد السوفييتي لم يكن بمحض الصّدفة، أو نتيجة صراعات داخلية فحسب، بل كان تتويجًا لمسار طويل، لِخِطّة مدروسة، رغم بعض التّغييرات، وقع تَبَنِّيها، منذ نهاية الحرب العالمية الثانية، وتَمثّلَ دور “ميخائيل غورباتشوف” ومجموعته في تكرار الدّعاية الأمريكية بأن “النظام الإشتراكي” (وليس التجربة السوفييتية، فحسب) فاشل، وغير قادر على حل المشكلات الحديثة للمجتمعات، وبذلك استبق هذا الشق في الحزب الشيوعي السوفييتي “فرنسيسكو فوكوياما”، صاحب نظرية “نهاية التاريخ” والإنتصار النهائي للرأسمالية، و”صامويل هنغتنغتون” المعروف بترويج نظرية “صراع الحضارات”، بدل صراع الطبقات، وصراع الأمم المُضْطَهَدة، ضد الإمبريالية والإستعمار…
قامت وكالة المخابرات المركزية بتصميم وتنفيذ عملية تغيير هيكلي كبرى ، في الاتحاد السوفييتي وأوروبا الشرقية، وتم تمويل هذه العملية من خلال شبكة المنظمات الممولة من الملياردير “جورج سوروس”.
فيما يتعلق بالاتحاد السوفييتي، أعلن غورباتشوف في الجامعة الأمريكية في تركيا عام 2000: “استفدت من موقعي القيادي داخل الحزب وفي البلاد ، لتغيير قيادة الحزب والدّولة، في الإتحاد السوفييتي، وكذلك في جميع البلدان الاشتراكية في أوروبا “.
منذ العام 1987 ، قامت وكالة المخابرات المركزية، وشركة الأغذية متعددة الجنسيات “كارغيل” (التي تتعامل تجاريا مع الاتحاد السوفياتي منذ عقود) ، و معهد دراسات الأمن شرق-غرب” أو ( IWSS )، وشبكة سوروس ومنظمات “حقوق الإنسان”، التي تتعامل معها وتمولها، بتشجيع ومساعدة الحركات المعارضة والإنفصالية، والمُنشَقِّين، لإضعاف الاتحاد السوفييتي، ثم الاتحاد الروسي الجديد (منذ العام 1991). كما دعمت، ومَوّلت الصناديقُ والأوقافُ الأمريكيةُ حركاتِ الاستقلالِ، أو الإنفصال، في كوزباس (سيبيريا)، من خلال حركات اليمين المتطرف في ألمانيا، ومولت النشاط والتدريب للقوميين الشوفينيين ( اليمين المتطرف) من ليتوانيا، وتتارستان، وأوسيتيا الشمالية، وإنغوشيا، والشيشان، وفقًا لهذه الوثائق الأمريكية.
أقامت منظمات سوروس فروعًا في جميع البلدان المجاورة لروسيا: في أوكرانيا وإستونيا ولاتفيا وليتوانيا وفنلندا والسويد ومولدوفا وجورجيا وأذربيجان وتركيا ورومانيا ومنغوليا وقيرغيزستان وكازاخستان وطاجيكستان وأوزبكستان… كانت هذه الفروع بمثابة قواعد تدريب لأعضاء الجماعات الإرهابية، منها الجماعات الفاشية الأوكرانية والجورجية والهنغارية والمولدوفية.
في العام 2017، طردت الحكومة الروسية العديد من المنظمات من شبكة سوروس (مثل مؤسسة المجتمع المفتوح) وغيرها من المنظمات غير الحكومية التابعة لوكالة المخابرات المركزية الموجودة على الأراضي الروسية ، مثل NED (المؤسسة الوطنية للديمقراطية)، والمعهد الجمهوري الدولي، ومؤسسة ماك آرثر، ودار الحرية (فريدوم هاوس)، وغيرها، وصنَّفت الحكومة الروسية هذه المنظمات “غير مرغوب فيها وتشكل تهديدًا لأمن الدولة الروسية”. هذه المنظمات نفسها (أو الفروع التابعة لها) هي التي تضع خططًا لزعزعة استقرار بلدان أمريكا الجنوبية (كوبا ، فنزويلا ، بوليفيا ، إكوادور ، نيكاراغوا …) أو إيران والدول العربية، وآخرها “الجزائر”، حيث أوردنا في مقال سابق، بمناسبة الذكرى الثامنة والخمسين للإستقلال، بعض نماذج العمل التّخريبي لمثل هذه المنظمات، والدّعم الذي يحظى به بعض الرموز الرجعية والمُتصهْيِنة، والمُساندة للإستعمار…
Color Revolution is the term used to describe a series of remarkably effective CIA-led regime change operations using techniques developed by the RAND Corporation, “democracy” NGOs and other groups since the 1980’s. They were used in crude form to bring down the Polish communist regime in the late 1980s. From there the techniques were refined and used, along with heavy bribes, to topple the Gorbachev regime in the Soviet Union. For anyone who has studied those models closely, it is clear that the protests against police violence led by amorphous organizations with names like Black Lives Matter or Antifa are more than purely spontaneous moral outrage. Hundreds of thousands of young Americans are being used as a battering ram to not only topple a US President, but in the process, the very structures of the US Constitutional order.
If we step back from the immediate issue of videos showing a white Minneapolis policeman pressing his knee on the neck of a black man, George Floyd, and look at what has taken place across the nation since then, it is clear that certain organizations or groups were well-prepared to instrumentalize the horrific event for their own agenda.
The protests since May 25 have often begun peacefully only to be taken over by well-trained violent actors. Two organizations have appeared regularly in connection with the violent protests—Black Lives Matter and Antifa (USA). Videos show well-equipped protesters dressed uniformly in black and masked (not for coronavirus to be sure), vandalizing police cars, burning police stations, smashing store windows with pipes or baseball bats. Use of Twitter and other social media to coordinate “hit-and-run” swarming strikes of protest mobs is evident.
What has unfolded since the Minneapolis trigger event has been compared to the wave of primarily black ghetto protest riots in 1968. I lived through those events in 1968 and what is unfolding today is far different. It is better likened to the Yugoslav color revolution that toppled Milosevic in 2000.
Gene Sharp: Template for Regime Overthrow
In the year 2000 the US State Department, aided by its National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and select CIA operatives, began secretly training a group of Belgrade university students led by a student group that was called Otpor! (Resistance!). The NED and its various offshoots was created in the 1980’s by CIA head Bill Casey as a covert CIA tool to overthrow specific regimes around the world under the cover of a human rights NGO. In fact, they get their money from Congress and from USAID.
In the Serb Otpor! destabilization of 2000, the NED and US Ambassador Richard Miles in Belgrade selected and trained a group of several dozen students, led by Srđa Popović, using the handbook, From Dictatorship to Democracy, translated to Serbian, of the late Gene Sharp and his Albert Einstein Institution. In a post mortem on the Serb events, the Washington Post wrote, “US-funded consultants played a crucial role behind the scenes in virtually every facet of the anti-drive, running tracking polls, training thousands of opposition activists and helping to organize a vitally important parallel vote count. US taxpayers paid for 5,000 cans of spray paint used by student activists to scrawl anti-Milošević graffiti on walls across Serbia.”
Trained squads of activists were deployed in protests to take over city blocks with the aid of ‘intelligence helmet’ video screens that give them an instantaneous overview of their environment. Bands of youth converging on targeted intersections in constant dialogue on cell phones, would then overwhelm police. The US government spent some $41 million on the operation. Student groups were secretly trained in the Sharp handbook techniques of staging protests that mocked the authority of the ruling police, showing them to be clumsy and impotent against the youthful protesters. Professionals from the CIA and US State Department guided them behind the scenes.
The Color Revolution Otpor! model was refined and deployed in 2004 as the Ukraine Orange Revolution with logo and color theme scarves, and in 2003 in Georgia as the Rose Revolution. Later Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used the template to launch the Arab Spring. In all cases the NED was involved with other NGOs including the Soros Foundations.
After defeating Milosevic, Popovic went on to establish a global color revolution training center, CANVAS, a kind of for-profit business consultancy for revolution, and was personally present in New York working reportedly with Antifa during the Occupy Wall Street where also Soros money was reported.
Antifa and BLM
The protests, riots, violent and non-violent actions sweeping across the United States since May 25, including an assault on the gates of the White House, begin to make sense when we understand the CIA’s Color Revolution playbook.
The impact of the protests would not be possible were it not for a network of local and state political officials inside the Democratic Party lending support to the protesters, even to the point the Democrat Mayor of Seattle ordered police to abandon several blocks in the heart of downtown to occupation by protesters.
In recent years major portions of the Democratic Party across the US have been quietly taken over by what one could call radical left candidates. Often they win with active backing of organizations such as Democratic Socialists of America or Freedom Road Socialist Organizations. In the US House of Representatives the vocal quarter of new representatives around Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib and Minneapolis Representative Ilhan Omar are all members or close to Democratic Socialists of America. Clearly without sympathetic Democrat local officials in key cities, the street protests of organizations such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa would not have such a dramatic impact.
To get a better grasp how serious the present protest movement is we should look at who has been pouring millions into BLM. The Antifa is more difficult owing to its explicit anonymous organization form. However, their online Handbook openly recommends that local Antifa “cells” join up with BLM chapters.
FRSO: Follow the Money
BLM began in 2013 when three activist friends created the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag to protest the allegations of shooting of an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin by a white Hispanic block watchman, George Zimmermann. Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi were all were connected with and financed by front groups tied to something called Freedom Road Socialist Organization, one of the four largest radical left organizations in the United States formed out of something called New Communist Movement that dissolved in the 1980s.
On June 12, 2020 the Freedom Road Socialist Organization webpage states, “The time is now to join a revolutionary organization! Join Freedom Road Socialist Organization…If you have been out in the streets this past few weeks, the odds are good that you’ve been thinking about the difference between the kind of change this system has to offer, and the kind of change this country needs. Capitalism is a failed system that thrives on exploitation, inequality and oppression. The reactionary and racist Trump administration has made the pandemic worse. The unfolding economic crisis we are experiencing is the worst since the 1930s. Monopoly capitalism is a dying system and we need to help finish it off. And that is exactly what Freedom Road Socialist Organization is working for.”
In short the protests over the alleged police killing of a black man in Minnesota are now being used to call for a revolution against capitalism. FRSO is an umbrella for dozens of amorphous groups including Black Lives Matter or BLM. What is interesting about the self-described Marxist-Leninist roots of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is not so much their left politics as much as their very establishment funding by a group of well-endowed tax-exempt foundations.
Alicia Garza of BLM is also a board member or executive of five different Freedom Road front groups including 2011 Board chair of Right to the City Alliance, Board member of School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL), of People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), Forward Together and Special Projects director of National Domestic Workers Alliance.
The Right to the City Alliance got $6.5 million between 2011 and 2014 from a number of very established tax-exempt foundations including the Ford Foundation ($1.9 million), from both of George Soros’s major tax-exempts–Open Society Foundations, and the Foundation to Promote Open Society for $1.3 million. Also the cornflake-tied Kellogg Foundation $250,000, and curiously, Ben & Jerry’s Foundation (ice cream) for $30,000.
Garza also got major foundation money as Executive Director of the FRSO front, POWER, where Obama former “green jobs czar” Van Jones, a self-described “communist” and “rowdy black nationalist,” now with CNN, was on the board. Alicia Garza also chaired the Right to the City Alliance, a network of activist groups opposing urban gentrification. That front since 2009 received $1.3 million from the Ford Foundation, as well as $600,000 from the Soros foundations and again, Ben & Jerry’s ($50,000). And Garza’s SOUL, which claimed to have trained 712 “organizers” in 2014, when she co-founded Black Lives Matter, got $210,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation and another $255,000 from the Heinz Foundation (ketchup and John Kerry family) among others. With the Forward Together of FRSO, Garza sat on the board of a “multi-racial organization that works with community leaders and organizations to transform culture and policy to catalyze social change.” It officially got $4 million in 2014 revenues and from 2012 and 2014, the organization received a total of $2.9 million from Ford Foundation ($655,000) and other major foundations.
Nigeria-born BLM co-founder Opal Tometi likewise comes from the network of FRSO. Tometi headed the FRSO’s Black Alliance for Just Immigration. Curiously with a “staff” of two it got money from major foundations including the Kellogg Foundation for $75,000 and Soros foundations for $100,000, and, again, Ben & Jerry’s ($10,000). Tometi got $60,000 in 2014 to direct the group.
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization that is now openly calling for a revolution against capitalism in the wake of the Floyd George killing has another arm, The Advancement Project, which describes itself as “a next generation, multi-racial civil rights organization.” Its board includes a former Obama US Department of Education Director of Community Outreach and a former Bill Clinton Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. The FRSO Advancement Project in 2013 got millions from major US tax-exempt foundations including Ford ($8.5 million), Kellogg ($3 million), Hewlett Foundation of HP defense industry founder ($2.5 million), Rockefeller Foundation ($2.5 million), and Soros foundations ($8.6 million).
Major Money and ActBlue
By 2016, the presidential election year where Hillary Clinton was challenging Donald Trump, Black Lives Matter had established itself as a well-organized network. That year the Ford Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy announced the formation of the Black-Led Movement Fund (BLMF), “a six-year pooled donor campaign aimed at raising $100 million for the Movement for Black Lives coalition” in which BLM was a central part. By then Soros foundations had already given some $33 million in grants to the Black Lives Matter movement. This was serious foundation money.
The BLMF identified itself as being created by top foundations including in addition to the Ford Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation and the Soros Open Society Foundations. They described their role: “The BLMF provides grants, movement building resources, and technical assistance to organizations working advance the leadership and vision of young, Black, queer, feminists and immigrant leaders who are shaping and leading a national conversation about criminalization, policing and race in America.”
The Movement for Black Lives Coalition (M4BL) which includes Black Lives Matter, already in 2016 called for “defunding police departments, race-based reparations, voting rights for illegal immigrants, fossil-fuel divestment, an end to private education and charter schools, a universal basic income, and free college for blacks.”
Notably, when we click on the website of M4BL, under their donate button we learn that the donations will go to something called ActBlue Charities. ActBlue facilitates donations to “democrats and progressives.” As of May 21, ActBlue had given $119 million to the campaign of Joe Biden.
That was before the May 25 BLM worldwide protests. Now major corporations such as Apple, Disney, Nike and hundreds others may be pouring untold and unaccounted millions into ActBlue under the name of Black Lives Matter, funds that in fact can go to fund the election of a Democrat President Biden. Perhaps this is the real reason the Biden campaign has been so confident of support from black voters. What is clear from only this account of the crucial role of big money foundations behind protest groups such as Black lives Matter is that there is a far more complex agenda driving the protests now destabilizing cities across America. The role of tax-exempt foundations tied to the fortunes of the greatest industrial and financial companies such as Rockefeller, Ford, Kellogg, Hewlett and Soros says that there is a far deeper and far more sinister agenda to current disturbances than spontaneous outrage would suggest.
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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Between 1989 and 1992 Soviet GDP per head fell by approximately 40 per cent. What happened?
The short century of the Soviet Union which began in 1917 reached its nemesis in 1989. The great experiment was, to all intents and purposes, over. Symbolically this was occasioned by the fall of the Berlin wall when huge crowds of East Germans simply strolled, unmolested by the Volkspolizei, into the western sector of the City. Moreover this historical watershed was to become highly infectious and led to a succession of Potemkin states in the rest of Eastern Europe going their own way (with a little encouragement from the west of course). These monumental events represented an unexpected application of the American ‘domino theory’.
It would be wrong, however, to understate the achievements of Soviet communism. No political/economic system is all bad; name one which is? Russia and its periphery were transformed from rural backwardness into an industrial and military super-power, albeit at a tremendous cost of civil wars and the great purges of the 1930s. That being said the modernization of the USSR enabled it to defeat the Wehrmacht in the Great Patriotic War 1941-45. In Winston Churchill’s words the Red Army had ‘torn the guts’ out of the once mighty German military machine in titanic battles most critical of which were Stalingrad and Kursk – but at a huge cost both economic and human.
On the more positive side the system introduced mass education and welfare systems which provided social security for its citizens. However, all this was achieved at a terrible cost in human lives, economic and social mayhem, including famine in the Ukraine, and absurd and inquisitorial show trials, and the mass destruction and near extinction of the country resulting from its ill-preparedness for war. But the USSR survived and counter-attacked.
As the Red Army went on the offensive and rolled forward into Eastern Europe after Kursk (1943) Soviet client regimes in eastern Europe were created in the Soviet image with the imposition of the Stalinist political and economic system. This was essentially a setting up of puppet states, but almost certainly a mistake as many of these regimes had been former enemies including Romania, Hungary and Slovakia who were integrated into the Soviet bloc with their own little marionette leaders such as Ceaucescu in Romania. Unfortunately, this was accompanied with an unprepossessing and macabre parody of the Great Terror of the 1930s ‘Yezhovschina’ – accompanied by the sinister pantomime of show trials and summary ‘liquidations’.
Moreover, armed insurrections against the regimes in both East Germany 1953 and Hungary 1956 were brutally suppressed. The system became a little more tolerant after the 1960s but never really lost its essentially totalitarian character. This was unquestionably a rigidly hierarchical society and, contrary to its claims, never in any sense egalitarian. However, unlike capitalism where power was in the hands of the owners of the means of production and their political apologists, power in these societies was concentrated in the state bureaucracy which included most importantly the communist party and the secret police.
It is in the nature of things that wherever societal scarcity exists – and this includes just about all societies – inequalities will arise. In this respect communism was no different to capitalism. The prominent East German dissident, Rudolf Bahro drew attention to this in 1978 as follows. ‘’ … Individual opportunity in our society – the DDR – is on the whole just as unequally distributed as in late capitalist society.’’ (1)
However it was the structural anomalies internal to the system rather than individual shortcomings of particular party officials such as Stalin and Ceaucescu, although these certainly played a key role. No, the problem was ultimately systemic, and it was this which eventuated in the final collapse. These internal structural weaknesses – which incidentally were just as applicable to capitalism and communism, given that the nature of these fault-lines and the dates were different – gave rise to inertia, and stagnation. The crisis became unavoidable.
This situation was in the fullness of time to become common knowledge as early as 1960. Disturbing reports from Soviet economists showed slowing rates of growth particularly in agriculture and manufacturing, in addition the poor quality of many goods and the most backward industry in the modern world. In particular there was criminal wastage in production ranging from timber to steel. Among the workforce there was widespread absenteeism and alienation. By 1980 the situation had reached critical levels. Gorbachov’s perestroika and Glasnost reforms were too little, too late, since by this time the entire system was beyond reform.
Various reasons have been put forward to explain this collapse. What gave rise to this systemic failure of communism and the command economy? The short answer was a lack of understanding of economic policy based upon a system of central planning and the role of the market mechanism. In a market economy price signals tells producers what, how, and when to produce. Take away this mechanism and decisions of these types are left to the planners. This is not to say that a market mechanism cannot be part of an integrated system of overall economic planning. Models of economic integration based upon markets and planning have been part of state-capitalist and social-democratic economic systems for at least a century and perhaps more. But the Gosplan model was characterised by the almost total exclusion of the market mechanism from economic policy. Instead of which various ministries were set up with a brief to oversee the establishment and implementation of what turned out to be policies with which none had any experience of the business end of economics whatsoever. Ministries responsible for the production of goods were not joined up to other ministries responsible for packaging, production and distribution. The situation was frankly amateurish, and the lack of overall coordination was built into the system from the outset.
Then there were also additional problems of accountability. These unwieldly and unresponsive bureaucracies, which were becoming increasingly parasitic and self-serving had little idea of what to produce and how much. In a market system a product which is shoddy will often fail as consumers turn to other producers to spend their hard-earned cash. In a command economy firms which do not deliver the goods go bust. But this was not a market economy; it was a centrally planned economy which could not go bust and there was insufficient incentive to maintain standards of excellence. In defence of a command economy it could be argued that it is good for producing T34 tanks, but the war was over and economic diversification was conspicuous by its absence.
Certainly efforts at quality control were attempted but none of them worked satisfactorily. Planners would specify a number of tractors to be produced by tonnage and the response of the local manager was to weld steel plates to each tractor as it moved off the assembly line. Tonnage quotas were thus being duly met and even over-fulfilled.
Given the distance between the planners and the local managers the imposition of production targets by the former tended always to be overoptimistic and politically driven. It became a pretend game. Everything was fine and dandy and nobody wanted to rock the boat. This was eerily similar to the current situation of western capitalism in 2008 and 2020. A much vaunted but totally overblown, western economic model – wholly deregulated, privatised and liberalised and based upon ‘pretend and extend’ gimmicks as well as other exotic variations of a Ponzi scheme whereby existing (record) debt levels are serviced by newer injections of debt.
But let’s get back to the USSR (courtesy) of the Beatles. This lack of economic realism was mirrored on the part of the local managers. These functionaries had a vested interest in keeping the production figures low and exaggerate the need for as much as possible in terms of resource allocation. So from the outset the information flow from managers to planners was invariably mendacious and distorted. Resources required would always be overstated, capacity underestimated and hoarded resources undeclared. This of course resulted in a gross misallocation of resources. Colossal waste was also a feature of this system since there was no incentive to reduce costs.
The system was to become ossified with the final nail in the coffin, being the Soviet economy’s inability to integrate the new technologies – which were just coming on stream in the 1970s and 1980s – into its production methods. A writer at the time noted that ‘’ … the most telling evidence of the command economy’s failure … was its inability to absorb and apply the latest developments in science and technology to the Soviet economy.’’ The book further quotes Gorbachov as saying: ‘‘At a time when the western countries started a large-scale restructuring of their economies with the emphasis on resource saving and the latest science and state-of-the-art technology, scientific progress slowed down (in the Soviet Union) mostly because the economy was not responsive to change.’’ (2)
This was hardly surprising given the universal nature of bureaucracy (the ‘Iron Cage’ as the great social theorist Max Weber 1864-1920 had called it) and its tendency toward routine and inertia. Like it or not this is a universal drift in the modern age. For those pursuing career paths within the organization, it became no longer a means to an end, but an end in itself. In sociological jargon this is known as ‘’goal displacement’’, This is explained as follows:
‘Initiative within a bureaucracy is always restricted and discouraged … not so much by getting the initiator into trouble … but rather by the experience of the fruitlessness of personal investment in any affair which oversteps one’s realm of competence. As far as careers are concerned … a progressive image is far more useful than any genuine activity, which disturbs the ‘’normal functioning’’ and may always be inconvenient, for whatever reason. The purpose of rivalry between employees who wish to get ahead can only ever be to present a ‘’positive appearance’’ to those above. The incentive to conform is thus built into the initiative mechanism from the outset … Bureaucracy, as the dominant form of management and work organization produces a specific human type of conservative mediocrity.’ (3)
By the 1980s the USSR was lagging badly behind the capitalist west in the development and application of computer technology, cybernetics, robotization, new energy sources, chemically-created construction materials, biotechnology and the like. Military spending was double that of the US from an economy half its size. What had become known was that ‘actually existing socialism’ was losing and eventually lost the economic cold war with western capitalism.
By 1990/91 the jig was up. The end of the Soviet system had sealed the initial, and I emphasise ‘’initial’’, triumph of globalization. The country was then thrown open to the vagaries of unrestricted competition both internal and external. The Soviet Union was fragmented into a number of smaller quasi-states with Russia being stripped of its industries. This involved the giving away of most massive of former state enterprises for pennies in the pound to ex-communist technocrats and secret service thugs. Russia was left with 70% of its economy in the hands of thirty-six corporations. That is to say, 36 men. It had been converted from a highly centralised public system into the most concentrated private sector of the world’s big economies. This was the beginning of the Yeltsin catastrophe: privatisation, liberalisation and free-trade became the new orthodoxy; about which the less said the better. It took Putin to stop the rot in 2000 but the struggle between the Atlantic integrationists and Eurasian Sovereignists – continues and is far from over.
The damage done during the Yeltsin period set back Russia and its economy to a semi-peripheral status. Trade policy became a case in point. It shouldn’t be a secret to anybody with a rudimentary understanding of international trade relations that when developed nations trade with developing nations most of the trade advantages accrue to the developed nations. This is due to the formers lower cost structures, higher levels of productivity, and comparative advantages in higher, value-added, research-intensive goods in the secondary product markets. However, the peripheral economies tend to produce primary goods – predominantly agriculture, raw materials, and plantation fruits.
As income rises expenditure on these income-inelastic primary goods stays static, or actually falls; contrariwise the demand for secondary goods, which are income-elastic – predominantly cars, computers, IPhones, etc. – rises in line with rises in incomes. From this it follows that primary exporting states need to sell more of their goods to developed states because the ‘Terms of Trade’ (see below fn 4) have a tendency to move in favour of the developed economies and against the developing states. It is argued that contemporary Russia is in international terms a semi-peripheral economy.
It has been particularly difficult for Russia to break out of this straight-jacket since Russian leaders have been seriously handicapped by the need to struggle against this internal corporate/criminal power structure. And it is a struggle which continues. Underdeveloped or semi-developed economies will not ascend the ladder of economic growth by relying on the production of primary goods. A policy of free-trade (actually there is no such thing, but let that pass) was rejected in the 19th century by the United States – under the influence of Alexander Hamilton, and in Germany by Friedrich List. The object of their mercantilist strategic trade policy was to catch up and pass Britain during the course of the 19th century, which they did. Russia would do well to note this.
Summing up: The development of the USSR so long as the economic goals were simple and could be calibrated quantitatively – tons of steel, kilowatts of electricity, or numbers of tractors produced – centralised planning worked relatively well. Alec Nove, probably the most objective analyst of the Soviet economy over the years said.
‘’Planning worked in those sectors to which the state gave priority and whose needs could easily be quantified. This applied first and foremost to armaments, but also to electrical energy, where the product is homogeneous and thus readily ‘plannable’. It also applied to the production of oil and gas, and to the construction of a network of pipelines. In each of these fields the Soviet Union made impressive gains.’’ (5)
However as the Soviet economy became more complex, as the number and variety of products expanded, and it became increasingly obliged to measure its performance against that of advanced capitalism the systems inherent limitations and negative aspects were revealed.
‘’The plan as it turned out, was not really a plan at all. Simply at the technical level the central apparatus had no way to process – let alone to absorb and evaluate – all the necessary information on resources, performance, transportation, warehousing, technology, consumer needs, and so on that would have to go into developing a realistic plan. (Since computers might have made at least the gathering and processing of such information possible, the fact that the Soviet planners never managed to ensure the full development and employment of computer technology is itself highly suggestive of the plans arbitrary character and the systems inherent inertia.) (6)
The Soviet Union and the other command economies stagnated and collapsed due to their general backwardness and involving inter alia the absence of any reliable method of resource allocation and quality control. The absence of the market mechanism in this respect left production and allocation decisions dependent on the subjective judgements of the planners as well as those nefarious semi-criminal activities cited above. This resulted in a misallocation of resources on a gigantic scale as well as inferior quality goods
However, it should be noted that the collapse of the command economies in Eastern Europe did not herald the beginning of any capitalist nirvana – quite the contrary. If anything the post-communist societies all experienced a catastrophic fall in production, living standards and most seriously of all depopulation. Some have now recovered but many are still worse off than before the fall of communism, and many are nostalgic for the old days of communist rule. The move from the command economy to the most extreme form of capitalism was in fact a jump out of the frying pan into the fire for some.
Thus by way of conclusion we may say that in contemporary society any viable economic system must include both planning and market/price mechanisms. Heeding the lessons of history it can clearly be discerned – unless we are ideologically blinkered – that both pure free markets (if they ever really existed) and command economies simply do not work in the narrower sense and record; the first because it is based upon totally unrealistic assumptions and works with timeless and purely formal categories of value, price and efficiency; these categories have little or no relation to the real world of actually existing capitalism, devoid as they are of any human or empirical dimensions; and the latter because it is simply too rigid and unresponsive to change and innovation which, because of its essential characteristics, it will tend to stifle and suffocate.
Markets are a good servant but a bad master. A system of regulated markets – this regulation being particularly rigorous in the case of financial markets – and economic planning are essential to any economic system since it is necessary to combine innovation and dynamism with stability and continuity. It is to be hoped perhaps some time in the future economists will remember these lessons when attempting to construct any social and economic orders.
(1) Rudolf Bahro – The Alternative in Eastern Europe – 1987
(2) Irwin Silber – Socialism: What Went Wrong? – 1996.
(3) Bahro – Ibid
(4) Terms of Trade. The main theory for the declining commodity terms of trade is known as the Prebisch-Singer thesis, after two development economists who explored its implications in the 1950s. They argued that there was and would continue to be a secular decline in the terms of trade of primary commodity exporters due to a combination of low income and price elasticities of demand. This decline would result in an ongoing transfer of income from poor to rich countries would only be combated only by the efforts to protect domestic manufacturing industries through a process that has become to be known as import substitution. But as well as this growth and modernisation can and has been achieved by export driven growth characteristic of East Asian countries. It could be argued that this problem of primary producing countries is not dissimilar to the position of Russia. It was argued that,
‘’After the Soviet Union collapsed, its former constituent republics embarked on the transition to capitalism. But this was not, and could not be, a transition to the highly developed capitalism of the global centre … within the framework of the world capitalist system, these newly converted states could only occupy a place in the backward and dependent periphery … The share in exports represented by products of manufacturing industry is very low … (Moreover) the data shows that the net outflow of private capital is a persistent tendency of the Russian economy. In the crisis of 2014-15, alone, it exceeded $210 billion. This huge amount could have been used to increased wages and investment and overcome the slump.’’ See Semi-Peripheral Russia and the Ukraine Crisis, Ruslan Dzarasov – Department of Political Economy, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow.
(5) Abraham Brumberg – Chronicle of a Revolution – 1990 – p.54)
(6) Irwin Silber – Actually Existing Socialism – Socialism: What went wrong. pp,124/125 – Pluto Press 1994
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 