The Kremlin’s left turn

Experts, politicians, and observers tend to associate the aggression in Donbas and annexation of Crimea with Vladimir Putin. Such personification of the neighboring country’s expansionist course is justified to some extent. However, it should be kept in mind that foreign policy of a country is determined by its domestic situation. Russia is no exception to this rule, instead, it proves it once again.

The so-called zero years at the beginning of the current century, the 2000s, are called profitable in Russia. In other words, oil and gas revenues were growing, GDP increased, middle class grew in terms of numbers and built up a financial and resource potential. At first glance, a typical liberal development model. Putin and Medvedev tried to prove they were done with the Soviet model of foreign policy and if potential and existing tension did appear, oh well, things happen between good friends.

One tiny cloud was present on this clear and sunny horizon. Moscow insisted on its special influence in the CIS. The first bell rang after the aggression against Georgia. The Caucasian War unleashed by the Kremlin, and the annexation of a part of Georgian territory dealt a significant blow to Russia’s assurances of peacefulness. It is always unpleasant to part with illusions, so Europe and the US reached a conclusion that the problem should not be escalated. After all, there is no point for Russia to break ties with the West. So, that is where they decided to let the matter rest.

European and transatlantic capitals did not find it possible to link the aggression against Georgia and the gradual, but accelerated turn of Russia’s domestic policy to the left. The middle class continued inertial growing, but simultaneous interference of the state in all parts of Russian society’s life increased.

The elimination of the middle class based on the left turn is not related to the extraordinary bloodthirstiness of the ruling regime or Putin personally. After the events in Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Avenue, the ruling elite and the national leader saw a real danger coming from free people that were not connected to the state yet. The winter of 2011-12 can chronologically be considered a fundamental turning point in Russia’s domestic policy. From that moment, total suppression of the middle class in economy started.

As it usually goes, the growth of authoritarian tendencies has been accompanied by converging with a circle of people related to the state. It is not just a marginal part of the society or government officials. These also are people whose existence is fully determined by the state and its bureaucratic apparatus. The militarization of the country binds employees of the military-industrial complex to the size of the defense budget. Just as large infrastructural projects do. The state is everything, nothing is possible without it. This cultivates a desire for the so-called stability in people. Business is viewed as something alien, and people who start their own business evoke envy, anger, and desire to take everything away and divide it.

But such an economy cannot last for long. Problems amount and the only way out is an aggressive foreign policy and resort to a Soviet-style ideology.

A regime that limps in its left foot has to have enemies. There are no problems with the external ones. Except for the West, these are also the Baltic States, Georgia, and Ukraine. But along with the external enemies, internal one is needed. It was found quickly, and also according to Soviet templates.

Owner of the Moscow-based Nezavisimaya Gazeta Konstantin Remchukov provided rather peculiar examples in a program Osoboe Mnenie (Special Opinion) at Echo of Moscow radio station. “I bought a good book, documents on fighting cosmopolitanism in 1948-53, 65 years ago. It is striking, but all you need to do is replace the word ‘cosmopolitan’ with ‘the fifth column.’ And you don’t need to bother anymore, you can look at all the documents, it is a witch-hunt, exposure of people.”

The next concern of an authoritarian government is to cut people off the information sources. The wheel does not have to be reinvented either. Comrade Suslov and his henchmen foresaw everything long ago. “The next decree on sped up production of radios, which do not have short waves, so the citizens cannot listen to enemy’s voices on short waves. You won’t believe, this decree was issued on June 28, 1949. Radios Moskvich and Salut were to be made without short wavelengths. The methodology is absolutely similar. But back then it were radios without short waves, and now it is the limitation on the Internet.”

Everything is like in Orwell’s anti-utopia. War is presented as peace. Aggression is disguised in external pacifism. Division of functions is taking place. Putin and his closest officials talk about the desire to restore peace in Donbas, while federal channels continue an anti-Ukrainian hysteria. They replaced “junta” with “Kyiv government,” “punitives” when talking about Ukrainian soldiers – with “Ukrainian security forces.” The rest remains unchanged.

Perhaps, Moscow is looking for ways to start negotiations, but it wants them exclusively on its own terms.

This goal was pursued by the interview given by Sergey Ivanov, head of the Russian President’s Administration, to the official Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

If we believe everything it says, Ukraine will never find a better friend. Meanwhile, the Kremlin official tries to explain that there are peacemakers in Ukraine, among which we find President Poroshenko and his staff. “We communicate on a regular basis, sometimes we even talk on the phone several times a day with my counterpart, head of the Ukrainian Presidential Administration Borys Lozhkin. Of course, each of us performs the will of his own boss, but we have a normal human working contact, we have a dialog. And this is important, considering that it is developing against the background of the anti-Russian hysteria which overwhelmed Ukraine.” He had better talk about anti-Ukrainian hysteria on federal channels.

And respectively, there are opponents of peace in Kyiv. To be specific, it is Prime Minister Yatseniuk. “Take a look, for example, at the so-called Yatseniuk’s plan, the building of the wall... I am a great fan of Pink Floyd and I find album The Wall, which was followed by a film, to be one of the best music works of the previous century. In my opinion, the building of the wall will make restoration of any relations impossible.”

All this rhetoric is created according to a Soviet standard. There are progressive figures in Ukraine, who Russia is ready to even befriend if they behave. In the Kremlin’s Newspeak this is called “a working contact.” Respectively, there are reactionaries, those who build walls on the border to separate brotherly nations and thus “make the restoration of any relations impossible.”

Aggression in Donbas does not stop, heavy equipment, Russian troops, and subversive groups are shipped there, while one of the most important persons in Putin’s Administration thinks about restoring relations between the two countries.

We are dealing with a typical double standards policy, which has significant propagandist load. Peacefulness is demonstrated on the front while the aggression continues at the back. This is how the Soviet Union always fought for peace verbally, while in reality it had a finger, directly or indirectly, in all local conflicts on all continents. Current heirs of the Soviet Union in Moscow act in the same way.

Ivanov’s interview was made not for diplomats only, but for Russian citizens in the first place. We in the Kremlin are trying hard, we want to pacify Donbas, but it does not always work out. None of our troops are there, the boys took a vacation and went to protect Novorossia from Omsk and Murmansk at their own expense. On their way there, they stopped at roadside stores to buy modern rocket launchers, artillery, tanks, other heavy equipment, and also shells and missiles – everything at their own expense too, of course. Common citizens are not informed that such brave holiday-makers, as well as their commanders who allowed this self-will, also violate Russia’s criminal and military legislation. Volunteers in Spain and other countries also fought in the same way. And this is also an element of the new leftist course. It was more honest in Georgia’s case. Tbilisi was forced by the regular Russian army to accept peace. It was decided to act in a Soviet way with Ukraine, shyly hiding behind some mythical volunteers.

The intensification of the leftist course within and outside Russia contains large dangers for the Kremlin’s host. The majority of rank-and-file citizens at the bottom are satisfied with such a life as long as the state keeps on supporting them at least somehow, because they have never known any better, and they do not want to know it. But discontent is growing in the upper echelons. The case of Sistema JSFC reminds many stakeholders a well-known joke about Stalin’s life, when one man is operating a train and all passengers are shaking with fear. And the most importantly, the leader himself starts being terribly afraid of his own entourage, because he cannot be sure about anyone.

Hence the frantic movement. An aggression was unleashed, but they do not know how to end it. The screws within the country are tightened, but they understand they could blow up at any moment. All leftist dictatorships and authoritarian regimes went through such phases. It is known how they all ended. What makes Putin’s regime any better? Nothing. And it will have the same fate.