The American Spectator : Russian Thunderclouds

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Russian Thunderclouds

By Michael Johnson on 1.14.11 @ 6:06AM

How do you say "tipping point" in Russian?

A series of violent street clashes across Russia in the past few weeks may be mere thunderclouds destined to dissipate, but one leading historian, Anatoly Bernshtein, wonders in print this week whether something more grim is happening to his country. I think he has a point.

"It's like modifications in the weather -- I can feel it," he writes in a recent edition of the newspaper Ezhednevny Zhurnal. "Change is hanging in the air."

Bernshtein cites three major clashes with authorities in the month of December, most prominently the Manezh Square riots of some 5,000 nationalists and religious groups. City center and access roads were blocked off by police as sporadic violence broke out and participants chanted "Russia for the Russians." Similar clashes erupted in St. Petersburg.

Other incidents:

-- In the far eastern city of Vladivostok, the "Primorsky Partisans" have armed themselves and conducted urban guerrilla warfare against the police for the past few months, killing and injuring several officers. A video of their leaders, shirtless in the forest, was a popular Internet download in recent months. Their complaint is police brutality and they have gained quiet support across Russia. Such slogans as "Glory to the Partisans" has appeared on walls across Vladivostok.

-- And an ecological protest group clashed with police after demonstrating in the town of Khimki, near Moscow, to attempt to halt destruction of a historic woodland where a new Moscow-St. Petersburg highway is planned. The project was given a final go-ahead in December and a wave of protests led to the arrest of leader Yevgenia Chirikova.

Finally, the recent draconian sentences of oil tycoons Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev were also cited as prompting concerns of a tighter authoritarianism in the making and an end to President Dmitry Medvedev's reform plans.

Abroad, the implications are clear. Russia's economy is now considered an "extreme risk" by the UK risk-assessment group Maplecroft. Criteria include terrorist threats, the rule of law, and the regulatory and business environment.

Street violence was virtually unknown in Russia prior to the 1990s but occasional riots have erupted as Russians feel their way in the evolving political atmosphere. Conciliatory words but harsh reprisals have been the official responses, leading to fears that another period of oppression is imminent in the long history of Russian freezes and thaws.

Bernshtein addresses this eventuality with speculation that order could be restored by "extraordinary measures." Bernshtein half-apologizes for his "neurotic expectations" but says the "polarization of society is too great" to ignore any longer. Today in Russia, he wrote, some people live a life of luxury, like foreigners, and the only reality is "each man for himself."

Also contributing to the dissatisfaction, he wrote, is the failure of much-advertised Kremlin foreign policy initiatives to bear fruit -- the "reset" of U.S.-Russia relations and the efforts to obtain visa-free travel into the countries of the European Union.

Bernshtein sees the new decade as a turning point, "not only on the calendar but symbolically, ending an era of stable stagnation."

Mr. Johnson was a Moscow correspondent of Associated Press from 1967 to 1971.

About the Author

Michael Johnson spent 17 years at McGraw-Hill, including six years as a news executive in New York. He now writes from Bordeaux in France.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (18) | Leave a comment

PJ| 1.14.11 @ 8:27AM

I'm in total agreement w/this article. There are many different groups in Russia that are rioting against the autocrat, Putin, including the Muslims. Not only that but the people are starving both physically, mentally, & spiritually. It's just a matter of time before Putin's government implodes.

Alan Brooks| 1.14.11 @ 12:39PM

But how many will die?

canuckistani| 1.14.11 @ 10:23AM

There's an old axiom in Russia that all men will follow any leader as long as they have a bottle of vodka to draw and some form of domestic lovelife to service nightly.
It is still true - as it is true in China or any other substandard system, if your needs are being met, freedom is just a quaint subject for the academics and arty freaks.
Putin's government will not implode, it is what the people want.

canuckistani| 1.14.11 @ 10:26AM

What is also apparent, after repeated attempts to refute it, is that Patton was right - Russians are not European in nature or nurture, but asiatic. This explains their preference for paternalistic autocracy over other forms of civic enterprise.

When we start to peceive them this way in our foreign policy, it will be revealed that the China strategy applies to them as well.

Marko| 1.14.11 @ 3:11PM

"...fears that another period of oppression is imminent in the long history of Russian freezes and thaws."

Canuckistani is correct. The history of Asiatic cultures and empires is different from the Western experience. We in the West fail to see this at our own peril.

Jeff Nyquist wrote an excellent article last week explaining the origins of what we see in Russia today. In the article he talked with ex-KGB Lt. Col. Victor Kalashnikov, and the conversation they had was very insightful.

From the article:

----
Conquest is the obsession of the Russian political culture. Lenin has been described as a "militaristic politician." Here is the true character of Russia's political tendency laid bare. "An important point," added Kalashnikov: "We should not forget that in terms of Soviet military strategy, the full country was regarded as a sort of rear area for international global expansion. This is very important, since most Sovietologists consider the Soviet regime to be a totalitarian system as such. This is not correct. A totalitarian system was there for another reason; namely, for mobilization of resources, for war readiness.
----

The reality of Russia today is not that the Soviet system collapsed because it was a failed attempt to implement socialism, but that socialism was used as a cover for the Soviet system, which is military in nature - and destined to conquer, or be conquered. Sadly, almost everyone in the West thinks that the 'Evil' in "Evil Empire' has been conquered. It has not.

Nyquist's article:

http://www.financialsense.com/.....ller-state

PJ| 1.14.11 @ 3:55PM

What makes you think that Asiatic cultures are so different from Western cultures, besides from the religious experiences?

I keep thinking of all those barbaric wars, political power struggles if you may, within & among European tribes then countries since the collapse of ancient Rome.

Freedom is not a quaint subject but a very serious one. It is a characteristic of natural law; thus it transcends all cultures. Everyone has a right to live freely & in peace.

I guess I'm about as naive as Ronald Reagan & Pope John Paul II. You know-------those guys who single-handedly toppled the Soviet regime with their naivety.

Marko| 1.14.11 @ 5:05PM

Yes, you are naive, if you think that Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II toppled the Soviet Empire single-handedly.

There is ample evidence to conclude that the Soviet regime was dismantled *from within* as a strategic action to enable the Kremlin masters to come back and fight another day. It had less to do than we would like to admit with the lure of freedom or with the failure of Marxist ideology, which is the point that Kalashnikov is trying to make in the article above. Did you read it?

Tenn Slim| 1.15.11 @ 9:07AM

PJ
You need to re read the USSR, RUSSIAN, history.
Czars, Stalinists, Putinists, all are RUSSIAN Rulers. Freedom does not, nor can it exist in a country dominated by RULERS AKA Stalins, for so long. It took a NEW America, a NEW World of raw resources, courage and ability to hew out our current set of 4 Freedoms. Russia does not nor ever will have that opportunity.
end
Semper FI

PJ| 1.14.11 @ 4:04PM

And what makes you think Asian countries can not have some sort of western-style democratic government?

I guess India, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, & Taiwan are not located in the Asian hemisphere.

Occam's Tool| 1.14.11 @ 8:01PM

India got its democracy from the Brits, China (Taiwan) from contact with Europeans, South Korea from us, Japan from us, and I forget about Thailand, which recently had a military coup, eh?

The concept of free citizen originated in Greece, PJ.

Always Right| 1.16.11 @ 2:48PM

"socialism"? Socialism is one of the two political philosophies that make up fascism. The other is communism. Both socialism and communism are fascist. Fascism always comes from the left!

ACynic| 1.14.11 @ 3:46PM

There is this a very old Russian "joke" that goes something like this;
Everyday a farmer with his flock of well fed sheep would walk by a poor, impoverished farmer's home. One day, a genie appears and offers the poor farmer one wish, and it would be granted. But one wish only; absolutely anything at all.
The poor farmer's wish???
He instructs the genie to kill all the sheep of the wealthy farmer.
This must say something about the Russian mindset.

BackToBasics| 1.14.11 @ 5:55PM

The saying says a lot about envy and there's no shortage of that in Russia, America or anywhere else.

sky| 1.15.11 @ 3:18PM

endfinancialfraud.org soundmoney

Yosemeti Sam| 1.14.11 @ 10:09PM

Yo, Yeltsin.

Yo, Gorby.

What happened to Mother Russia?

IzeHavitt| 1.16.11 @ 1:29AM

Castles made of sand fall in the sea.......eventually.

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