A paradoxical situation has emerged in Russian politics today. The élite, and society at large, holds predominantly outmoded ideological notions which surfaced when the layer of communist ideology was removed. Take, for instance, the invented dilemma of “who to be friends with”—the East or the West—which echoes the futile and mainly fabricated arguments of irreconcilable people…. This also comes from the lack of a modern vision of the world in the absence of the all-embracing communist idea. Society and the élite have not succeeded in borrowing to any significant degree either Western liberalism or Western social democratic ideas. What we have instead are ideas about a 19th century model of a great power which, unlike communist and liberal ideologies, have nothing useful or practical for the sphere of foreign policy, and moreover, lack an international element.[34]
Luzhkov, although himself not exactly an example of a “crystal clear democrat,” has identified very clearly here the weak spot of present day Russia: the ideological void and, especially, the lack of an international (read: universal) element.
Chapter 4
Putin’s Grand Design
Many Russians consider Putin a providential man. In July 2011 the Kremlin’s political strategist Vladislav Surkov, with no hesitation, said that Putin was sent to Russia by God to save his country in turbulent times. “I honestly believe that Putin is a person who was sent to Russia by fate and by the Lord at a difficult time for Russia,” Vladislav Surkov was quoted.[1] Putin himself, probably, would agree, because Putin—a former KGB Chekist—is a man with a mission. “The Chekists consider themselves completely above the law,” wrote Yevgenia Albats. “Worse, they tend to believe they are their homeland’s salvation, the only voice of authority amidst the political and economic chaos that has engulfed the country.”[2] Putin came to power almost exactly eight years after what he considered to have been the “greatest geopolitical catastrophy of the twentieth century”: the demise of the Soviet Union. This catastrophy was followed by the chaotic, weak, and erratic rule of Boris Yeltsin and his kleptocratic “Family” (of which, we should not forget, Putin himself was a prominent member). When, in December 1999, Vladimir Putin was appointed acting president by Yeltsin it became immediately clear that his priority was not so much to put an end to kleptocracy and lawlessness, because his first move as president was to grant Yeltsin amnesty and immunity from prosecution. His real priorities lay elsewhere. These were to put an end to Russia’s “humiliation” and to restore the lost empire. This reconquista could not, of course, be a simple reconstitution of the former Soviet Union of which the ideological glue that held it together, communism, was no longer available. The neoimperialism of the new Russia had to be based on new foundations. These new foundations were Russian ultranationalism and economic imperialism, a policy that was, in itself, not totally new. It had already been initiated during Yeltsin’s presidency, but could not at that time be fully implemented due to the chaotic economic and political situation. Putin’s policy had two main goals:
1. To reestablish at least a Union of the Slav core countries of the former Soviet Union.
2. To reestablish a close economic and political-military cooperation with the non-Slav former countries of the Soviet Union under exclusive Russian leadership.
BACK TO THE USSR? FROM COMMONWEALTH TO THE RUSSIA-BELARUS UNION STATE
When the Soviet Union was dissolved by the presidents of the Russian Federation, Belarus, and Ukraine on December 8, 1991, they immediately created a successor organization, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). This organization—called in Russian Sodruzhestvo Nezavisimykh Gosudarstv (SNG)—functioned more or less as a receptacle for the broken pieces of the former empire. It was, in reality, not even a faint shadow of the former Soviet Union. The participating countries—including Russia—stressed the fact that it was a commonwealth of independent states. In addition, not all former republics were represented. The three Baltic states preferred to remain outside, Ukraine was not a formal member, Turkmenistan only an associate member, and Georgia left the organization in August 2009. Although the CIS managed to play a certain role in the post-Soviet space, especially in the field of collective security, it remained a loosely structured organization that did not satisfy the Russian ambition to strengthen its grip on the former Soviet republics.[3] Also the economic clout of the CIS was restricted: only 17 percent of Russia’s foreign trade took place within this bloc.[4]
A much more serious and far-reaching initiative was, therefore, the creation of the Union State of Russia and Belarus. The initiative for this Union State was taken on April 2, 1996, by the two presidents, Boris Yeltsin and Aleksandr Lukashenko, and a treaty was signed one year later. Apart from the economic benefits the Union was supposed to bring to both countries the two leaders had their own, hidden motives: “Lukashenko hoped to become president of a large Union State and… Yeltsin felt guilty for presiding over the dissolution of the Soviet Union…. He wanted to be remembered as the leader who started the reunification of the former Soviet republics by signing the Union State agreement with Belarus.”[5] The Union of the two countries was an ambitious project, organized in grand style. It included the creation of a series of common institutions, including a Supreme State Council, a Council of Ministers, a Court, a House of Audit, and a bicameral parliament consisting of a directly elected House of Representatives and an indirectly elected House of the Union. Neither the House of Representatives, nor the Court, however, ever came into existence. The reason for this was that the objectives of both sides diverged too much. Belarus sought a rapprochement for economic and financial reasons; Russia’s motivation was almost exclusively geopolitical. This did not prevent the two countries signing, on December 8, 1999, an even more far-reaching “Treaty on the Creation of a Union State of Russia and Belarus” that resembled the resurrection of a mini-Soviet Union. The Union would have a common president, a flag, an anthem, a constitution, a common currency, common citizenship, and a common army. It was a last attempt of Lukashenko to realize his ambition to become president of the Union State and—in this indirect way—to become the ruler of Russia. This ambition had to be taken seriously, so seriously, indeed, that Anatoly Chubais, who was the chief of Yeltsin’s presidential administration between July 15, 1996, and March 7, 1997, later said: “It was total madness…. It was a constitutional coup d’état, a change of power, not because of a political conflict, but quite simply because we had seen nothing coming.”[6] According to the treaty the supreme power in the Union State of Russia and Belarus would be shared by the two presidents and the presidents of the respective parliaments. With an ailing Boris Yeltsin and the communist Gennady Seleznev as Russian Duma president, Lukashenko would have had a real chance to become the de facto president of the Union State. The Russian press wrote at that time, therefore, that “Lukashenko intends to realize his integrationist plans not with Boris Yeltsin, but through his allies in the Duma.”[7]
34
Yuri M. Luzhkov,
2
Yevgenia Albats,
3
Former Prime Minister Primakov, for instance, did not hide his disappointment. He wrote that after the war with Georgia in 2008, “Russian society was pained by the silence in the beginning from our CIS allies, and still more by that of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Quite certainly we have overestimated relations within the CIS and the CSTO.” (Evgueni Primakov,
4
Cf. Janusz Bugajski,
5
Dmitry Babich, “Russia-Belarus Union State on Shaky Legs,”
6
Chubais quoted in Valery Paniouchkine and Mikhaïl Zygar.
7
Larissa Sayenko, “Kto kogo dushit,”