Ivan Safranchuk, an adviser to the Russian government, recently told the Economist that with regard to the United States, “Moscow’s general policy is one of disengagement.“ However others are arguing the precise opposite, that recent actions show that Russia is attempting to put an end to its longstanding diplomatic estrangement. From Jon Haron-Feiertag in the Diplomatic Courier:
President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin preside over a country that has never been isolated, nevertheless it has for a long time been estranged. Not since the era of the Holy Alliance has Russia had the benefit of a real, reliable ally in peace time. Today Russia has been abandoned by all her confederates from the Warsaw Pact. She has proven unable to resist the NATO enlargement, or block its interventions in either Bosnia or Kosovo. Her actions in Georgia go unaided, and have become the subject of continuing scorn by the U.S. and Europeans. And her longtime military customers, like Ethiopia, Syria, Algeria, India, et al, have turned away from her influences and begun to seek new combinations for security.
It is little wonder therefore that Russia would seek to reinvigorateits diplomacy with a blitz of new initiatives. In recent weeks theRussian President and Prime Minister have been host to a myriad ofevents in an effort to refashion the dress of Russian diplomacy. Thereset in U.S.-Russian relations among these represents just one. It isan important development, especially from the U.S. perspective. But forRussia it may not even be the most important. Consider a few others.
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“The years that followed, which are colorfully termed “the Cold War”, were not so much a war (actually not a war at all), but a long struggle by Russia to relax the strained relations with the West and achieve some kind of détente. The solidarity of the West had proved both too strong for her to break and too formidable for her to confront.”Indeed, and even Kozyrev’s policy of preemptive concession to every US demand failed to appease the West’s fundamental hostility to Russia. It managed merely to temporarily suspend the overt manifestation of it. That returned whenever the Russian government even considered suspending the flow of concessions, and increased when President Putin determined that Russia would no longer subject herself to every Western whim.Of course, he was careful to arrange matters so that Russia depends on Western goodwill for nothing, and Western threats hurt the West as well as Russia.No wonder he’s so hated on US editorial pages!
Remember, the West’s hostility was also based on Stalin’s actions which were far from friendly towards the West — Yalta and Potsdam made it clear that the post-WWII world would not be one of great unity against the shadow of fascism, but rather one of two great blocks confronting each other. And the life of those countries who found themselves in Stalin’s block was quite unhappy — as we can see by the eagerness with which they immediately flew to the other side as soon as they had a chance.It was not President Putin who freed Russia from ‘Western whims’ (which never really had any currency in Russia — the country was actually never under Western occupation, ever since the Polish left Moscow) — he simply went back to the old ‘we-are-encircled-by-enemies’ policies that the Czars had already used, and after them the Soviets.There is no evidence of ‘Western whims’ or ‘Western domination’ anywhere in Russia — no more than there is anywhere else in the world. Russia is not a special target, not even an especially desirable one, to any ‘Western whim’ (as if the West were unified enough to even have whims!
. No–it’s just run-of-the-mill, old-as-ever xenophobia. ‘They want to get us! Quick, let’s get angry!’ Stalin, Hitler… Go back in time, you’ll see that playing itself out so many times… Clausewitz was already talking about that, so was Machiavelli. But I prefer Orwell’s formulation: the Enemy is necessary as an element to concentrate hate and distract the people from what is really going on. So Orange and Rose Revolutions ‘must be’ pre-planned in Washington (no! the natives, of course, couldn’t possibly have any desire to do these things by themselves! they were little angels, so pure and innocent, before the Hand of the Foreigner soiled them!…)Maybe someday Russia (China, etc.) will grow up and realize that most of the problems it has with its own peoples are actually home-brewed. Let’s hope this doesn’t happen to late… for Russia (or China for that matter).
Which hostile actions were those? Stalin’s 1935 alliance with Czechoslovakia, which was destroyed by Anglo-French action at Munich? Or was it the Soviet alliance offer to Great Britain and France in April 1939? I do imagine that when British military experts explained to Britain’s Russophobic Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that the Soviet proposals concerning Soviet military action in Poland and the Baltics were a requirement for successful resistance to German military action, it was not in accordance with Chamberlain’s concept of “Germany and England as two pillars of European peace and buttresses against communism”. Chamberlain was very put out to be handed substantive proposals for an Anglo-French-Soviet war plan against Nazi Germany,contradicting his desire for Anglo-German agreement.And Russia certainly was occupied in the 1990s, with her economic policy, down to the privatization plans for individual enterprises, being written by USAID and USAID contractor personnel.
Well, for starters, the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement which came right after the offer to Chamberlain (i.e. Stalin would try anyone — whoever stuck was OK, to hell with any ideology, and he apparently, like everybody else, never read what the Mein Kampf said about the Slavic Untermenschen).By the time Stalin made his offer to Chamberlain, he had already killed more than 10,000,000 people in the Soviet Union because of a strange desire to destroy the kulaki without their being any danger to his regime (comparable to Hitler’s anti-Semitism in terms of how misguided and self-damaging it was), he had purged his own military of the best generals because of ‘ideological impurity’ (which would hurt him to no end during the Winter War), he had already crushed any hope of freedom of speech (to the point of violently persecuting ex-comrades like Trotsky) and he had already started his policy of simply relocating ethnicities (and killing 10-25% of them by ‘accident’ in the process) to Central Asia if they showed any sign of ‘dissent’ — thus attributing the sins of individuals to the whole group. Ah, talk about the whole intelligentsia of many non-Russian ethnic groups like the Mari, whose writers and poets were all killed in the ’30s because of some ‘Finno-Ugric conspiracy theory’!Frankly, if you were Chamberlain in the late ’30s, who would you think was the greatest threat? Remember: Communism claimed it had the historical mission to destroy Capitalism. And it had been saying so since way before 1917 — remember all the problems in Germany (leading up to the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht). Nazism had not.In retrospect, we can see how stupid Chamberlain was to believe that appeasement would be sufficient against Hitler. At the time… and considering Stalin’s then much more impressive crimes… I’m not sure we’d been able to decide so clearly.Russia occupied in the ’90s? Don’t say that out loud — Medvedev’s history committee could prosecute you for that
Also, rkka, here’s one thing I don’t understand: when not enough financial help went to Russia in the ’90s (which I agree with — this was bad, there should have been a Plan Marshall for Russia), you complained that the West simply left Russia in the wilderness. But then, about the help that was offered — USAID personnel — you complain that it was “an occupation”. Hell, if money had flown in rivers to Russia, would you be now here saying that the West “wronged Russia” by “buying it like a commodity” or something? Hey, there’s no way to win this game!…
Regarding the M-R Pact, do note that on 19 August 1939, when Hitler’s letter to Stalin arrived proposing that Ribbentrop visit Moscow, with the German invasion of Poland only a week away, which date was known to the British government, the British military delegation to the Moscow military staff talks still had no authority to agree to anything, or to conduct joint planning to resist the coming German invasion of Poland. The alternative to the Pact was to allow the German conquest of all of Poland, the German occupation of the Baltic States, and the launching of Operation Barbarossa against the 1938 Soviet border.Oh, and British discussions with the Germans on how to satisfy German demands on Poland continued while Admiral Drax was in Moscow.
Well, for starters, the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement which came right after the offer to Chamberlain (i.e. Stalin would try anyone — whoever stuck was OK, to hell with any ideology, and he apparently, like everybody else, never read what the Mein Kampf said about the Slavic Untermenschen).By the time Stalin made his offer to Chamberlain, he had already killed more than 10,000,000 people in the Soviet Union because of a strange desire to destroy the кулаки without their being any danger to his regime (comparable to Hitler’s anti-Semitism in terms of how misguided and self-damaging it was), he had purged his own military of the best generals because of ‘ideological impurity’ (which would hurt him to no end during the Winter War), he had already crushed any hope of freedom of speech (to the point of violently persecuting ex-comrades like Trotsky) and he had already started his policy of simply relocating ethnicities (and killing 10-25% of them by ‘accident’ in the process) to Central Asia if they showed any sign of ‘dissent’ — thus attributing the sins of individuals to the whole group. Ah, talk about the whole intelligentsia of many non-Russian ethnic groups like the Mari, whose writers and poets were all killed in the ’30s because of some ‘Finno-Ugric conspiracy theory’!Frankly, if you were Chamberlain in the late ’30s, who would you think was the greatest threat? Remember: Communism claimed it had the historical mission to destroy Capitalism. And it had been saying so since way before 1917 — remember all the problems in Germany (leading up to the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht). Nazism had not.In retrospect, we can see how stupid Chamberlain was to believe that appeasement would be sufficient against Hitler. At the time… and considering Stalin’s then much more impressive crimes… I’m not sure we’d been able to decide so clearly.Russia occupied in the ’90s? Don’t say that out loud — Medvedev’s history committee could prosecute you for that
And frankly, I don’t understand: when not enough money went to Russia in the ’90s (with which I agree — there should have been a Marshall Plan for Russia, it’s a pity that the West missed this opportunity to help Russia), you complained about the West leaving Russia in the wilderness; but then, whatever help there was, you complain it was too much — USAID deciding everything. So if lots of money had come to Russia, you’d be complaining that the West tried to buy Russia like a commodity? Hey, there’s no way to win this game…
It strikes me that a reasonable discussion really is not possible when speaking with someone who is defending the likes of Stalin. Without him, Russia may have been one of the largest and most populated countries of the world.
I tend to agree, James, but as long as people use real arguments and real facts (so that I can tell fact from interpretation, etc.), I think it is possible to argue in a civilized manner. I don’t mean convincing; but a civilized discussion can happen even if nobody is convinced in the end. At least, both partners may learn some new facts as they go.Rkka, I’m afraid your interpretation of the facts of the M-R pact are quite erroneous. Yes, in August 1939, the British delegation still had no authority to agree to anything. This actually supports the point I was making: it was not clear to Chamberlain that Hitler was worse than Stalin. Remember: Communist had vowed to destroy and replace Capitalism via an international revolution; Nazism had not. Which one ended up being the worse is perhaps visible in retrospect — but note that this is still debatable (there are good arguments to say Stalin was worse than Hitler, at least for non-Jews). I affirm: it was not easy to tell, in Chamberlain’s days, that Hitler would end up being the bad guy fighting against everybody else in the world instead of Stalin (again remember: Communism had already promised it would fight everybody else).You claim that “the alternative to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was to allow the German conquest of all of Poland, the German occupation of the Baltic States, and the launching of Operation Barbarossa against the 1938 Soviet border”. Nothing could be farther from the truth. First of all, Operation Barbarossa didn’t even exist yet (its planning started in the summer of 1940), so it couldn’t be part of the other option. Second, why would a German occupation of the Baltic states seem worse to Chamberlain than a Soviet one? Again remember: at that point it wasn’t clear which of the two dictators, Stalin or Hitler, was the more dangerous in the short term. From Britain’s viewpoint, the Baltic states would be occupied no matter what, the difference is only which dictator would get its claws on them. As for the occupation of Poland, the same can be said: what difference would it make if all of Poland was occupied by one despotic tyrant, or one half by one despotic tyrant and one half by another one?The fact that the British discussions with the Germans continued while admiral Drax was in Moscow further supports the idea that Britain didn’t know which despotic tyrant was more dangerous — talk to both as long as possible, don’t decide (yes, they hesitated and hesitated) as long as you can, etc. This ended up being the wrong policy; but frankly, if I were in Chamberlain’s shoes, I don’t know what I could do. Considering the personalities of the two tyrants in question, a war was going to come anyway, the only question was when. That is perhaps what Chamberlain should have understood: either Hitler or Stalin would eventually start a war.Rkka, you seem to believe that Stalin was better than Hitler — your arguments only make sense with this assumption. I assure you, this is a very difficult viewpoint to defend.