Russia’s Communist U.S.S.R. state model and attempts to export it worldwide crashed. The U.S.S.R. satellites and republics found it too repressive. It was dumped unceremoniously by some half-billion people by 1991.
The model was too authoritarian, unjust, riddled with corruption, poverty, wars, and murders. It was dangerous; dismissed by all except dictators. One of the latest to embrace it, Venezuela, now finds itself in economic and political ruin while it’s substantial energy wealth is sequestered, conveniently, in Russia. True, China’s Communist model works, but to succeed it adopted a healthy dose of western elements.
Now the Kremlin is trying again.
In a Feb. 11 piece in Nezavesymaja Gazeta, President Vladimir Putin’s ideologue and aide, Vladislav Surkov, offers the world the “new Russia model.”
He claims it is gaining acceptance because Putin has averted ‘the impossible, unnatural and counter-historical disintegration of Russia” brought about by democratic “tricks.” Now, Russia has returned to its “natural and only” state of government, “the Putin state.” Many Russian’s say: “What Surkov speaks, Putin thinks.”
His strength lies in understanding its people, says Surkov. Russians accept strong central power because they trust the state: it’s transparent. Unlike the West – envious, mistrustful, anxious and critical — Russia is not a “deep state” — a favorite slur Russia uses against democracies– it is, however, a “deep nation…not influenced by social surveys, agitation, threats or even historic trends.”
This is a clear reference to the U.S.S.R.’s collapse and Ukraine’s categorical turn to democracy; both serious threats Russia’s global aggrandizement.
As the West has no “prophets of its own,” says Surkov, it turns to Russia; to “inevitable Putinisms…not just for internal use… but for export… and for all eternity.” The Putin state already attracts followers as there is understanding that democracy’s experiments with “choice” and “elections”- are “tricks…an illusion requiring no further discussion.”
Meanwhile, surveys indicate that some 50 percent for Russians believe the state lies to them.
Should Putinism find resistance, Surkov proposes that it recover by reverting to the former Soviet Union, “its natural and only possible condition that of a great and growing community of nations that gathers lands.”
This is another nod to resurrecting the Soviet model aimed at enslaving some hundred different peoples most of whom are not too keen to return to the dictates of mother Russia.
Surkov explains how this is to be achieved. “To govern wide territories, political tensions and different peoples, politically motivated military functions of the state are the most important determinants.”
As was the case in the Communist-Russia era, militarism is the key imperative of its new world model. It is already addressed by Russia’s current increases in defense spending.
Surkov believes the new world model will garner “prizes in the geopolitical struggle”. Perhaps he has President Donald Trump in mind. America’s president adulates Putin despite his invasion of sovereign Ukraine, warmongering, head-spinning corruption, so-called “justice,” cyberwarfare, fake news, lies, murders of “enemies of the state”, abject poverty, rampant alcohol and drug problems in Russia, and more.
Given previous failure, it’s doubtful whether this new Russia state will find support: it’s not new at all. It’s a regurgitation of Russia’s historic—from the czars to Putin—state autocracy. It resides in the autocrat-king who controls by depriving citizens of freedoms, outside influence; even elections. The state—read vozhd, warlord–is protected by powerful armed forces under his personal control. (Vozhd, is emerging in Russia’s politics as Putin’s new title coupled with a president-for-life possibility.) The despot is the glue that holds the state together. No thought is given to a successor.
It is an underdeveloped model thrown to the world as it struggles to find a new way in the current confusion brought about, it must be added, more by Russia than not. However, it is too facile to dismiss Putinism, as one internet commentator writes, as “pure shit”: It’s important to know the enemy.
The world has problems but a regressive Putin state is not the fix. Putinism is a platter of leftovers from the USSR wrapped it is anti-democratic half-truths streaming, as Putin admits, from House of Cards television “reality.” His new world model describes Russia’s expansionism based on Putin’s personality cult. It contributes nothing towards the wellbeing of humanity or to global peace and security. Surkov drips Russian cynicism when he says that there’s no need for Western states to worry about elections’ meddling: Russia is already messing with your brains.
Democracies need to find their own model. They must deal with Russia’s mind games effectively because its model is but another instrument of anti-West warfare.
This is paramount because U.S. President Donald J. Trump, the leader of the free world, already acts like a devout neophyte disciple of Putinism.
Oksana Bashuk Hepburn, a former senior policy advisor for the government of Canada and president of a Canada Ukraine relations management firm, writes on international issues. She’s a Canadian snowbird in Florida.
