Succession is a dirty word…in the Kremlin.
Throughout documented history Russian succession has been a bloody, violent, often tumultuous event with far reaching consequences for the whole of Russia. Will the end of Putin’s regime bring more of the same…?
“History has proven that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government, are transient. Only democratic systems are intransient.”
Vladimir Putin, 1999.
In The Road to Unfreedom (1), Tim Snyder sums up the dilemma facing the Russia people with respect to Vladimir Putin.
He writes, “No one can change Russia for the better so long as (Putin) lives, and no one in Russia knows what will happen when he dies.”
In a single sentence Tim encapsulates the fear and uncertainty that surrounds Putin and the question that is becoming more urgent, almost by the day.
Perhaps, the saddest part of the coming upheaval is that Putin, as the quote above shows, is well aware of the problem the end of his reign will bring, and yet, has done nothing to mitigate the risks beyond securing his own criminally gathered wealth and that of his family.
That such a man can be considered a Russian patriot is a misnomer, a contradiction and a blatant misappropriation of the term. But then the truth and facts, as we know, are alien concepts to Putin, his regime and his band of tyrannical, kleptocratic supporters.
I digress…
It’s not the first time Russia has faced this dilemma. Succession, has always been a dirty word throughout Russian history. It wouldn’t be true to say that peaceful transitions have not occurred, because they have. But ‘peaceful’ in this respect is very much a relative term; to paraphrase Lenin, who characterised transitions in Russia as ranging from “delicate deceit” to “wild violence,” and perhaps anything in between, suggests that succession in Russia is, at best, wildly unpredictable.
So why is succession such a problem for Russia? Why, time and time again, has the transition of power from one generation, or one leader, to the next resulted in so much carnage and loss of life, when in nations across the globe such transitions happen regularly without any of the drama and violence that so has characterised Russian succession through time?
Plumbing the depths of Russian history looking for answers is, in itself, instructive because it gives weight and credence to the iterative uncertainty that besets the Russian people and its’ leaders on each occasion the question of succession rears its head.
The great American diplomat George Kennan, said back in 1947, a few years before Stalin’s death, that “…a great uncertainty hangs over the political life of the Soviet Union (or Russia today). That is the uncertainty involved in the transfer of power from one individual or group of individuals to others.”
At that time the uncertainty was in large part a function of Stalin’s blood soaked rise to power following Lenin’s death in 1924. Until that time, Stalin’s succession had been the only non-monarchical transition that had taken place in Russia since Michael I became the first Romanov to succeed to the throne of Russia in 1613.
Following Lenin’s death two of his closest associates, Kamenev and Zinoviev, were running scared of Trotsky — who was perhaps the most obvious choice to succeed Lenin — as were Stalin and his allies, which led Kamenev to ignore Lenin’s dying request to dismiss Stalin, proposing instead that Stalin remain as Gensec., as they all united to evict and outwit the hated Trotsky (4).
Lenin’s revolution was over. Long live the Socialist Republic!
Or Stalin’s pale imitation anyway.
As Stalin came to power, Lenin’s transitionary dictatorship became a permanent structure. Lenin’s lingering paradox — that the only way to motivate a peasant to work effectively was by allowing them to become capitalist-style, producers ; a measure forbidden under the socialist ethic (5)— was crushed as private production was co-opted by the state for the state.
Power was his, but it took years of intricate, Machiavellian politicking to ensure his power was secure before Stalin could eventually become the all-powerful dictator we know of today. Once his grasp was secure, two of the first to be eliminated were Kamenev and Zinoviev, who having served their purpose became surplus to Stalin’s requirements (6).
With respect to the process of succession there was a difference in the way that Lenin, and then subsequently, Stalin’s Soviet Union viewed it. Succession and the transfer of power was never a concern for Lenin’s revolutionaries because they believed in the global socialist revolution; their dream was bigger than just a single state.
Since the state would cease to exist, succession, they believed, would never become an issue.
But the Soviet Union had a problem with time. Once Lenin’s socialist dream became unattainable the Bolsheviks had to work to consolidate their power across the lands they had taken; they had no choice but to form a state, and in so doing claimed legitimacy from the glorious revolution and the magnificent future the communist state would build for the Soviet Union.
The glorious future was thus, known and only needed to be brought into being. Leninism, and later early Stalinism, was a politics of inevitability, and the course of the Soviet Union would follow a set path (1).
The theory was that the workers would build a modern industrial giant using capitalist principles, and once success and dynamism was achieved then the principle of property and individual ownership would be undone, thereby reversing any pretence at capitalist endeavour, and once done all that would remain would be the socialist utopia and the state could literally fade away.
The backbone of the socialist system were the workers themselves who were supposed to inherit the power as the capitalist system decayed. But because there was no succession principle, the Machiavellian manoeuvring needed to outwit and out-live his rivals, meant that Stalin, as leader of the workers Soviets, began to consolidate the power in his own hands rather than parcel it out, in the first instance, as a matter of survival.
Eventually the politics of inevitability was replaced by the politics of eternity, where the future was only a repeat cycle of the past. The woes of a chronically sick Soviet Union were blamed on the West, and the bright future that beckoned was only a return to the glorious past (1).
Never the intellectual theorist like Lenin, or the flamboyant showman like his arch enemy Trotsky, Stalin was a meticulous and methodical planner who, like a great chess player, could anticipate his opponents moves long before they made them.
Stalin’s rabid insecurity would not tolerate the presence of any rival political entities, personages or ideologies. Like Putin, a 100 years later, he used his new power and position in the Secretariat, or in Putin’s case as President, to promote his own men, eliminate rivals and opponents, and secure his own power base.
Stalin gave his allies Molotov, Voroshilov and Sergoi, influential positions that helped secure his own position as the top man (4). He installed his own loyalists to positions of power nationally, regionally and locally ensuring his power was widespread and not merely restricted to Moscow, St. Petersburg and other urban catchments; he developed and fostered close relationships within the Cheka; he forged alliances to defeat and outwit opponents, then turned on those same allies, quite simply outmanoeuvring potential opponents before they even considered threatening his power.
It took Stalin fully 12 years to consolidate his authority, and it came at a terrible price. A cost in millions of lives and the effective end of the Marxist dream of a global socialist revolution in the process.
Almost 80 years later when Vladimir Putin came to power the transition was, unlike Stalin’s, almost unsettlingly peaceful.
But, the problem of time had still not been solved and when, following Gorbachev’s glasnost reforms, the Soviet Union disintegrated, the leader that remained was Boris Yeltsin, a democratic reformer who had risen to power under the Soviet system.
To this day, Russia has still not had a democratically elected leader, not once. “Democracy never took hold…in the sense that power (has) never changed hands after freely contested elections (1),” as it does in true, functioning democracies elsewhere.
When Putin came to power the election was highly staged managed to give the unknown Putin legitimacy in the eyes of the public.
In the months prior to his transition from unknown Prime Minster to President, a series of bombs exploded in blocks of flats across Russia, killing hundreds of civilians in what turned out to be highly dubious and suspicious circumstances (1).
Suggestions that officers of the FSB — Putin had been head of the FSB prior to Yeltsin naming him the PM — had perpetrated the bombings were rife. Local police on the scene had arrested some FSB officers at the time as suspects in the bombings, but Putin dismissed the claims instead blaming Chechen terrorists, despite the lack of any evidence, and it led Putin to start the second Chechen war.
The second Chechen war, which resulted in the deaths of anything up to 200,000 civilians, raised Putin’s profile immeasurably in Russia. Favourable TV coverage and the brutally destructive campaign run by Sergey Surovikin — the man now in charge of the war against Ukraine — raised Putin’s approval ratings from an obscure and unknown 2% to a rampant 45%, effectively giving the manipulated election in 2000 the look of legitimacy and Putin the Presidency (1).
(Thus) the faceless KGB bureaucrat, who just 8 months before no one had ever heard of, taking over from Boris Yeltsin on his recommendation. Without a hint of irony, and betraying a fundamental mis-comprehension of Putin’s character and his relentless, driving ambition, Yeltsin said, “We can be proud that the handover is being done peacefully, without revolutions or putsches, in a respectful and free way. Such a thing is possible only in a free country, a country that has stopped fearing not just others, but also itself…/…This is possible only in a new Russia, one in which people have learned to live and think freely…/…Now we all have something to be proud of. Russia has changed…/…We didn’t allow the country to fall into dictatorship (7).”
In response Putin spoke at the time of the need for Russia to honour, preserve and defend Russian history, culture and values. Promising that in his actions he “would be led only by the interests of the state,” and then rather ominously finishing off by saying, “I consider it my holy duty to unite the people of Russia, to unite its people around clear aims and tasks, and remember each day and every minute, that we have one Motherland, one people, and together we have one common future (7).”
And much like Stalin, Putin used Yeltsin’s close associates to secure his power base and maintain the illusion that he was prepared to continue with Yeltsin’s liberalising agenda.
And it’s possible that in those first days there was some vague intent to do just that. But it just wasn’t in Putin’s character and was never going to last.
In the background during his inauguration were Putin’s siloviki, his ex-KGB hardmen, all long standing allies from his days in St. Petersburg as Anatoly Sobchak’s deputy; men like Sergei Ivanov, who Putin appointed to the position of Secretary of Russia’s Security Council, the second most powerful position in the Kremlin; Viktor Ivanov who had been a middle man between St.Petersburg’s notorious Tambov Group, which smuggled drugs from Colombia into Europe (7) and for whom Putin, according to a report aired in a London court, provided the protection needed to maintain these dubious operations. Putin appointed him to be Deputy Head of his Administration, becoming his ears and eyes in the Kremlin, watching everybody like a hawk.
But the dictatorship that Yeltsin so wished to avoid was underway and with his blessing. Putin and the siloviki began to dismantle Yeltsin’s democratic reforms and sideline his oligarchs from the off.
Sidestepping the two term Presidential limit stipulated in the Russian Constitution, Putin began his third term as President in 2012, signalling far greater repression with brutal put downs of the public protests that greeted his unconstitutional return.
Greater repression followed and his kleptocratic regime all but emptied the nations coffers. Putin and his oligarchs had stolen so much from the people of Russia that they were all locked into the system by the depths of their own criminality.
Putin, after having eliminated all his rivals, and all his challengers, was just as trapped as everyone else. No one could escape without constantly looking over their own shoulders worrying about where the bullet might come from, or where, or when the poison might reveal itself in their person, or from which window they might ‘fall.’
The lengths that Putin and the oligarchs had gone to in order to build their own fortress of power and wealth had over time “dragged them so deeply into a web of compromise and criminality that the only way to secure their position was to find a way to prolong Putin’s rule (7),” and in so doing, put off the question of succession for as long as possible.
So in January 2020 Putin changed the Constitution giving himself the option of staying in power until 2036, should he wish it. Should he last that long.
The history, the legalities and the facts
“In Russia, the government is autocracy tempered by strangulation.”
Madame de Stael
Governing a country the size of Russia is always going to be a challenge in any age, and as Simon Sebag Montefiore wrote in his history of the Romanovs (2), the role of autocrat could only ever be played substantially by a genius, and they are most certainly not two a penny.
And genius or not, being Russian autocrat was historically, a very dangerous job. To be worshipped as a God and to wield almost unlimited power was a double-edged sword, one that Catherine the Great infamously called a ‘chimera.’
Six of the last twelve Tsars were murdered — two by throttling, one by dagger, one by dynamite, two by bullet (2), and that is without the carnage that was the Russian revolution that removed 18 Romanov family members as the dynasty was brought to violent and bloody end.
Leaders were traditionally chosen by system of male primogeniture, one that had, with a few exceptions, worked reasonably well from the Muscovite civil wars of the 15th Century up right until the first of the Romanov’s, Michael I, came to the throne in 1613 (3) and beyond.
Though not a legalised system of succession, it was sustained until the last years of the reign of Peter the Great (1682–1725) when in 1722, he issued a new law of succession, the first such law in the history of Russia (3).
The Petrine law was proven to be largely ineffective and historically has been viewed as a likely knee-jerk reaction to his own troubled transition to the throne, and a difficult and largely estranged relationship with his eldest son, Alexei, by his first wife, Eudoxia (see Figures 1. & 2.), which may well be the case.
However, it is also possible that it was in his mind to secure the Naryshkin succession and cut out the Miloslavskii branch of the Romanov dynasty.
In the absence of a succession law, a dynastic feud broke out in the 1680's between the relatives and supporters of the late Tsar Aleksei’s two wives. Peter’s solution to the dynastic crisis, and to the per- ceived shortcomings more generally of the political system that he in- herited in stages (death of his elder half-brother, Tsar Fedor, in 1682; deposition of his half-sister, the regent Sofia, in 1689; death of his other half-brother and co-tsar, Ivan V, in 1694; death of his mother, Tsaritsa Natalia, in 1696), was to lay down a succession law.
James Cracraft, referenced in (3).
Peter, whose mother was Alexei I’s second wife, Natalya, had come to the throne at the height of the feud, installed as co-Tsar with his half brother Ivan V, the youngest son of Alexei’s first wife, Maria Miloslavskaya. Ivan, was both physically and mentally disabled, and being probably incapable of maintaining any sort of grip on power, passed his time in prayer and on pilgrimage, before died, not unexpectedly, in 1696 leaving Peter as the sole occupant of the throne.
This political enmity between the two branches of the family led Peter then to effectively abolish the idea of a dynastic succession by ending the necessity for an Emperor progenitor and allowing the Emperor to choose his successor as seen fit, and even to revoke the privilege if the chosen successor subsequently behaved in an unfit manner.
Even though his eldest son, the treacherous Alexei, was already dead, having died under torture following an attempted coup, Peter saw his ruling as a way that any future Emperors might skip the eldest son if their behaviour was deemed unsuitable, believing that the old system of male primogenitor rendered the recipient lazy, unmotivated and potentially ineffective as a ruler.
Perhaps believing that competition between the various potential successors would bring out the best in them, the Petrine law actually resulted in cut-throat competition with the most ruthless coming to the fore in the years after Peter’s death.
In the end the Petrine law did not end the dynastic feud either, with four of the seven rulers in the next seventy years rising to the throne following coups, in large part supported by one or other branch of the Romanov family.
Whilst his immediate heirs made small changes to the law that placed conditions on the role of the chosen successor, such as that made by his wife, Catherine I, that stipulated that the nominated successor must be Orthodox and not sitting on any thrones elsewhere, as well as providing that Peter I was the Emperor progenitor (rather than Michael), therefore plotting out the subsequent succession as if the descendants of Ivan V were excluded (Figure 1).
This however, didn’t work out as intended when Peter II died unexpectedly without naming a successor, which handed the reins of power back to the Miroslavskii’s, where the unpopular Anna Ioannovna became Empress. She then nominated her 14 month old nephew, Ivan VI, as he successor with his mother Anna Leopoldovna as regent.
Anna Leopoldovna then set up a commission to investigate changing the Petrine Law to cut out the Naryshkins, but before this could come to fruition, the Naryshkins staged a coup, stealing the throne back once again for Peter I’s daughter, Elizaveta (Figure 2.).
From there Peter III followed on, but his reign was short-lived, the throne passing to his wife, Catherine II (the Great), a German princess who had converted to Orthodoxy on marriage, and thence on to Paul I in 1796.
Paul then issued a new law of succession that brought back male primogenitor as the succession model, but made adequate provisions for female rulers in the event of male extinction in the line, as well rulings on the role of regents if the ruler was not age. But perhaps most importantly, the law stated the “heir should be determined by the law itself” and not by the current occupant of the throne, thereby marking the first legal limitation of the power of the Emperor (3).
And now, more than two centuries after Paul’s law of succession became the de facto system, it is ironic that post-Cold War Russian president’s have fallen back once again on Peter’s system, that was deemed so unworkable, of nominating a ruler, albeit under the smokescreen of a faux democratic election.
Whether a transition is smooth and untroubled, or a time of desperate tension and angst, in Russia it is invariably a time of existential necessity which has everyone involved looking over their shoulders in fear and morbid anticipation, when they should be better employed looking to ensure a sleek transfer of power with the minimum of fuss.
But such is most definitely not the Russian way…
Why succession in a totalitarian state is an impossibility
“It is an undeniable privilege of every man to prove himself right in the thesis that the world is his enemy, for if he reiterates it frequently enough and makes it the background of his conduct he is bound eventually to be right.”
On September 30th 2022 Vladimir Putin announced he was annexing four new regions of Ukraine, none of which were under his full control. And despite such flimsy sway, and his invading, but under pressure Russian forces having control of only one of the regional capitals, Knerson, he boldly announced that Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia were now “new regions of Russia,” calling it the will of the people after holding sham referendums, he said the residents were now “our citizens forever.”
Little more than five weeks later the Russian Defence Ministry announced a full withdrawal from Kherson in an embarrassing admission of overreach, a decision that has led many to question the validity and worth of Putin’s leadership, even suggesting that the war effort had failed and that Putin should be focused on issues at home rather than face more disastrous defeats at the hands of the Ukrainians.
Why, when his forces were already on the back foot Putin took that moment to announce the annexation is not known for sure. Mike Kofman, a Russian military analyst suggests this was Putin’s way of announcing that the war was far from over, and that he was in for the long haul (8), perhaps as way of signalling his intent to outlast Western and NATO support for Ukraine, perhaps as a way of indicating that peace talks are definitely not on the agenda, or perhaps pointing to intention to continue as President regardless of current travails, or perhaps a bit, or even all, of the above.
Even as Putin’s woes continue to build at home as a direct consequence of his actions in Ukraine, Russia’s finite resources are groaning and the economy is finally feeling the weight of Western sanctions.
The kleptocracy that has become the economic standard of Putin’s presidency over the course of the last two decades has hollowed the nation out. Russia is literally creaking beneath the weight of its own mismanagement and corruption.
No amount of refocusing military resources will fix that. No ceasefires or laboured peace negotiations will restore the economy. Putin has cut Russia off from it’s major markets for the foreseeable future; years, maybe even decades.
Almost right from the first it became clear that Putin’s invasion was not going to go to plan. With little in the way of victories to point to, perhaps aside from the destruction of Ukraine’s economy and civilian infrastructure, the poorly led, poorly equipped and poorly treated Russian armed forces have suffered setback after setback, leaving those at the top of Ukraine’s military to suggest that Putin is now running scared, in fear for his life.
Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to the Ukrainian president Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said, “…there is no forgiveness in Russia for tsars who lose wars. He is fighting for his life now. If he loses the war, at least in the minds of the Russians, it means the end.”
Carrying on would seem to be Putin’s only course of action.
Indeed, Peter Stolypin, Russia’s third ever Prime Minister, might concur. He once said, “In Russia, nothing is more dangerous than the appearance of weakness,” and Putin would know this only too well.
For now, however, Putin remains unassailable at home, but the disastrous war, the botched ‘partial mobilisation’ which has led hundreds of thousands of young men to flee the country, and a looming demographic catastrophe, all add to a looming disaster for Putin, and more largely, for Russia as a whole.
Greater and more violent, more drastic repression would appear to be the only workable route left for Putin to maintain control as public discontent and calls for his departure grow to a clamour. Like under fire Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, state sponsored violence against the people seems to be chosen tactic for today’s hard-men dictators in the face of public disorder and disquiet, and Putin is no different.
Brutalising your own people is a strategy that has worked for dictators such as Bashar al-Asaad and Kim Jong Un, but for every one that succeeds there are just as many who have failed, and whilst this current wave of military setbacks has led some in the West to suggest that this is the ideal time to push for peace negotiations, with a few unrealistically calling for the West to demand Putin’s resignation as a prerequisite for peace talks to begin.
It would seem that, any way you cut the diminishing Russian cake, Putin’s options are fast disappearing. Even resignation is no longer possible since what, or who follows, might endanger not only himself, but that of his family, and on a wider plain, that of his criminal fraternity, his siloviki.
The question remains; beyond Putin, what comes next for Russia?
What’s next? Out of the cooking pot & into the fire? Or can Russia extinguish its flames of hatred?
When the Russian armed forces are pummelling and killing innocent Ukrainian civilians without mercy, it would seem on the face of it to be the height of perversity to suggest that the Russian people are Putin’s victims every bit as much as the Ukrainians.
But, they are, I believe, albeit on a different plane.
The tragedy of the Russian people goes back far beyond the Putin years. They are, and have been, the serial victims of those at the top of Russian society for centuries.
When biologists first witnessed great apes, chimpanzees in particular, using tools they used to suggest that such behaviours had a genetic basis. That fishing for termites with a fashioned stick was an heritable trait, when of course, we now know that these are merely learned behaviours, passed down from one generation to the next by mimicry; chimpanzee culture in fact.
If there is an allegory here, then it is that being the eternal victim is passed down through the generations of Russians through mimicry. One’s parents are downtrodden so their child grows up expecting to be similarly downtrodden, and so is.
Whilst this might seem to be a very simplistic, even offensive observation to some, it nevertheless goes someway towards a fundamental understanding of why, generation after generation are treated so badly by those in whom they should trust and look up to, and not just fear and die for.
Leader after leader, Tsar after Tsar, dictator after dictator, has abused, misused and mistreated the Russian people when they should have their best interests at heart.
Instead, they serve themselves first, last and everything in between, leaving only the scraps for the majority to squabble over, and then have the gall to tell them their hardships are not the fault of those at the top of the Russian tree, but are in fact, the fault of us, of you and me, and our leaders in the West.
I have no wish to offend anyone. I’m just trying to understand why the only thing that never changes in Russia, is that everything always changes, except the people remain the victim and the West remains the supposed perpetrator.
These days, and perhaps for the last century or more, the Russian people have been lied to consistently through the use of propaganda as a means of exerting control over their thoughts, their actions, their very lives.
Today’s fascist propaganda seeks to portray the Russian people as victims of a satanic West that exists solely to destroy Russia and the Russian people. Russia is portrayed time and again as the innocent victim of a deceitful, decadent and corrupt West, and the strong Russian leaders — take your pick — are the un-moving bulwark against which the West crashes its liberalising, capitalist onslaught.
The leader is what stands between the West and the extinction of the Russian people. I have written so much about this…you can almost select at will from my posts here to probe one or other aspect of this perplexing and immensely frustrating political war Putin et al. have inflicted upon his own people.
Some of the things Russian leaders expect the Russian people to swallow are so preposterous one finds it difficult to believe that any one person would swallow it, let alone whole nations.
And yet, this is why propaganda is so effective. Propaganda “uses the language of virtuous ideals to unite people behind otherwise objectionable ends (9).”
In early totalitarian movements their spokespeople “…possessed an unerring instinct for anything that ordinary party propaganda or public opinion did not care or dare to touch. Everything hidden, everything passed over in silence, became of major significance, regardless of its own intrinsic importance (10).”
In this respect, think about the ridiculous QAnon conspiracy and Pizzagate in the U.S., both currently doing the rounds again courtesy of many Republicans!
Or even perhaps, the most successful propaganda coup of all time; that of the global Jewish conspiracy as detailed in the repeatedly debunked Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
In Russia the propaganda has been so successful that Russian citizens today have disavowed Ukrainian relatives who tell them of the bombs dropping from the sky each day.
But as Arendt wrote, “What convinces (the) masses are not facts, not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably a part. Repetition…is only important because it convinces them of the consistency in time (10).”
Indeed, so ingrained is the belief in the propaganda and its underlying message that in time it begins to feed itself.
An excerpt from a musical programme featuring two titans of the then contemporary classical scene, the exiled Rachmaninov and Holst, performed at the Bolshoi in March 1931, shows that far from a general appreciation of the music for music’s sake, that even the composition of these musical pieces could only be understood in ways that fitted the general theme of Stalin’s Soviet propaganda.
To wit, Holst’s The Planets is seen as a typical reflection and promotion of modern (Western) imperialism, that imparts both open and veiled (diplomatic) messages. Holst is portrayed as an idealogue of modern imperialism who approaches war as a sport, in a ‘naturalistic manner,’ if that indeed, is at all possible.
The opening sequence on the theme of Mars, by coincidence also the name of the Roman God of war and admittedly entitled ‘the bringer of war’, is written of thus:
“Capitalism needs to quicken the pace, to increase the readiness for battle. The bourgeoisie does that, for example, through its extensive development of such an abstract ‘sphere’ as sport. When we have to fight, we will be better soldiers and better at smashing heads. For what purpose however? For the glory of the bourgeoisie (11).”
Such rudimentary messaging underlines the anti-Western theme and backs up the political statements that the West’s sole reason to exist is the destruction of Russia.
As if to rub it in, the next sequence in Holst’s masterpiece is Venus, ‘the bringer of peace,’ and here the programme has Holst donning ‘a cloak of pacifism’ that obscures the truth of the West’s imperialistic ambitions, and features, what I would call a hauntingly beautiful violin solo, but the programme says is so “sickly sweet, so slobberingly sentimental, that it (envelops one) in a cloud of incense… (11)!”
The point here being that the totalitarian message is such a part of the Russian psyche that “…they do not believe in anything visible, in the reality of their own experience: they do not trust their own eyes and ears but only their imaginations, which may be caught by anything that is at once universal and consistent (10).”
“Repetition! Repetition! Repetition! The only thing in rhetoric that is worth a damn!” A quote by, I think, Napoleon, but I couldn’t find a reference anywhere.
Thus, for the Russian people to move on to something new beyond Putin they need to be separated in whole from their imaginations. And that will be no easy task.
Alexei Navalny, writing an op-ed, smuggled out of prison, in WaPo a few weeks back, said that there are several things that need to be understood about the Russian people.
Firstly, with respect to Putin, he said that he must be defeated. And thoroughly defeated. There should be no ceasefires or peace talks. This would only end in “…a fresh cycle of hybrid warfare and provocations, eventually escalating into new wars.”
Okay! Point taken! And, for what it’s worth, I agree.
Then, with respect to the Russian people, we need to understand and appreciate the innate Russian jealousy of Ukraine. Navalny writes:
“Control over Ukraine is the most important article of faith for all Russians with imperial views, from officials to ordinary people. In their opinion, Russia combined with a subordinate Ukraine amounts to a ‘reborn U.S.S.R. and empire.’ Without Ukraine, in this view, Russia is just a country with no chance of world domination. Everything that Ukraine acquires is something taken away from Russia.”
Here I might add that Russians with imperial views are seen as being protectionist; looking out for Russia. But any pretence in the West at imperialism is obviously anti-Russian to its core.
And they see no contradiction with this…
Secondly, that war is not seen as a catastrophe but as means of solving problems! It is always, Navalny stresses, about profit and success.
Thirdly, that any hopes of a Putin replacement from within the current elites who will change the narrative is naive at best.
Again, I agree.
And finally, he says, that the young in particular, and especially those in the great urban conurbations of Petersburg and Moscow, are not tied into the anti-Ukraine messaging and have not bought into the overriding propaganda narrative.
And perhaps therein lies Russia’s best hope. The problem being is the generational lack of experience in anything beyond what Russia has known for centuries. The Russian people simply have no experience whatsoever of what true freedom looks like, feels like or smells like.
This is a problem.
Navalny points out that there has been a clear pattern in the progress of post Soviet states. Those that chose the ‘parliamentary republic model’ — the Baltic states — have thrived and joined Europe. Those who chose the ‘presidential-parliamentary model’ — Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia — have had persistent troubles, and those who went the way of a ‘strong presidential model’ — Russia, Belarus, the central Asian republics — “have succumbed to rigid authoritarianism, most of them permanently engaged in military conflicts with their neighbors, daydreaming about their own little empires.”
Nothing is, of course, guaranteed whichever way Russia should jump after Putin, but the important thing is, stresses Navalny, that the people are given the space and freedom to decide which route they wish to take.
Yes, I couldn’t agree more.
Speaking on The Democracy Paradox podcast Mohammad Ali Kadivar says that durable democracy can best be achieved if robust institutions are in place prior to political change, whether that change be a result of a revolution, a coup or otherwise.
Lack of robust institutions or a clear path forward invariably renders the budding democracy weak, unstable and more often than not, ephemeral, as the fledgling Egyptian democracy was after the Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) descended into infighting.
And by way of setting out a clear path, in early November the First Congress of People’s Deputies of Russia met in Poland to try and lay out a structure for the future of Russia after Putin. Speakers were mostly opposition figures from national and regional governments in Russia who are currently in exile.
Like Navalny suggested, they proposed a parliamentary democracy, along with other more pressing proposals such as ending the war with Ukraine, paying reparations, and even vacating claim to Crimea.
There were other proposals, but there was also disagreement on some issues, and other issues were left unaddressed entirely. It wasn’t ideal, but for a first meeting it was a start, but there’s a long way to go, not least joining hands across the divide with other Russian anti-war organisations and programmes to find a more unified, and far stronger opposition plan that works right across the board.
Right now the future of Russia is anyone’s guess. It’s a lottery! There are many potential winners, and many, many potential losers should the worst happen and we continue in much the same vein, with a Putin Mk.II.
I guess all we know for sure is that for all his promise at the beginning Putin has turned out to be a nightmare for Russia, for Ukraine, for Europe, and for the world. Putin’s Russia is a hostile space for almost everyone now, and sadly it seems to be deteriorating further almost every day.
Trying to characterise what political space Putin’s Russia now occupies is, I would suggest, a largely subjective exercise, but one that many Russia experts now agree is a totalitarian state, pure and simple.
And for me, that characterisation seems to fit best of all.
Arendt says, “The ‘totalitarian state’ is a state in appearance only, and the movement no longer truly identifies itself with the needs of the people. The movement is above state and people, ready to sacrifice both for the sake of its ideology (10).”
The movement in this case is Putin’s kleptocratic regime, given farcical political credence with his United Russia party.
But the truth is that the regime is Putin, the party is Putin, the movement is Putin, Russia is Putin.
And he has shown his willingness to sacrifice both his state, and his people for his own ends. He thinks he is above such things, and I believe he feels Russian lives are his to play with. He thinks he is a God, and that is because in Russia they have given him that status.
The system he created has made him into something he is not; to all intents and purposes he is Tsar. He has made himself into Russia’s putative saviour, into Russia’s living God, and he thinks is irreplaceable.
He has systematically dismantled the Russian state until it is no more than a hollow shell; scratch the surface and all you find is Putin. And since there is no state, there can be no transition. Just like Lenin’s socialist utopia; when the state ceases to be, there is no requirement for succession.
Thus, whatever comes next for Russia, I cannot see anyway that it will be peaceful, either for the Russian people, or most likely for the rest of us.
Anarchy springs to mind, but I hope that doesn’t come to pass…
I think the best we can do is offer ways that Russia may take the high road of securing human rights for its’ peoples, of setting up workable, legitimate and non-criminalised institutions, of learning to live within the rule of law, and if all that can happen, then perhaps the Russia people may end up with the workable democracy they would probably have earned, and they may then finally be fit to rejoin the world, in peace.
Thanks for reading!
- The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America; Timothy Snyder, 2018.
- The Romanovs; Simon Sebag Montefiore, 2016
- Law, Succession, and the Eighteenth-Century: Refounding of the Romanov Dynasty; Russell E. Martin (pdf download from https://www.russianlegitimist.org/new-page-1)
- Before Evil: Young Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, and Kim; Brandon K. Gauthier, 2022.
- State and Revolution; V.I.Lenin, 1918.
- Stalin: The court of the red Tsar; Simon Sebag Montefiore, 2014.
- Putin’s People: How the KGB took back Russia and then took on the West; Catherine Belton, 2020.
- The Winter War; Mike Kofman talking to Brian Whitmore in The Power Vertical podcast, November 18th, 2022.
- How Fascism Works: The politics of us and them; Jason Stanley, 2018.
- The Origins of Totalitarianism; Hannah Arendt, 1951.
- Heavenly Idyll or Fascism in Priestly Garb; N. Vygodsky, in Music and Soviet Power, 1917–1932; (Eds) Marina Frolova-Walker and Jonathan Walker, 2012.
