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CIAO DATE: 2/99
Russia’s National Identitiy in a New Era
Edited and Translated by
Richard Weitz
Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project
John F. Kennedy School of Government
September 1998
Preface
This monograph represents part of a series of publications of the "Whither Russia?" project of the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, based at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BCSIA) at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Sergei Kortunov is Councellor to the Head of the Office of the President of the Russian Federation. He previously was Deputy Head of Staff of the Defense Council of the Russian Federation. He is also a Professor of the Academy of Military Sciences and a candidate of historical sciences.
The focus of Dr. Kortunov’s monograph is what he sees as Russia’s current identity crisis. In the introduction, he explains that the resolution of this crisis of national self–consciousness is closely linked with Russia’s need to define a place for itself in the new post–Cold War world. Dr. Kortunov insists that the new Russia differs fundamentally from the Soviet Union or the old Russian Empire. It has new borders, a new culture, and a new spiritual–ideological framework. However, the Russian people have still not resolved a number of central questions, such as what type of political and economic system the country should adopt and what type of relationship they want with the outside world.
In chapter one, "Russia’s historical mission," Dr. Kortunov argues that Russia has never been a mere nation state in the Western understanding of this term. According to him, Russia’s national idea has always been separate from the idea of Russian nationalism. Russians have traditionally seen human civilization as a single entity in which individual nations such as Russia are only an interim entity on the road to global unity. In fact, Dr. Kortunov believes that, by virtue of the country’s openness towards other cultures and its expansive spiritual values, Russia’s main role in the modern world is to serve as a spiritual catalyst to this unification process. He cites with approval Doestoevsky’s observation that the mission of the Russian people is to lead humanity towards unification through moral perfection.
In chapter two, "The Weight of Russian History," Dr. Kortunov stresses that Russia always has remained an essential component of world civilization. He denies that Russians ever oppressed other nations in the course of their historical expansion. He explains how Russians fell under the influence of Bolshevik Communism, and the destructive effects this ideology had on the Russian idea and Russia’s role in the world. According to the author, one of the most harmful of these results was first the absolute rejection of Western culture and Western values and then, following the Communist system’s collapse, the wholehearted embrace of these values.
In the third chapter, "Overcoming the Myths of a Shocked Nation," Dr. Kortunov identifies what he sees as several myths about Russia that he believes are impeding the country’s spiritual rebirth and development. These myths are: that Russia "lost" the Cold War; that Russia still is an "evil empire"; that Russia is conducting an "imperial policy" within the territory of the former Soviet Union; that the Soviet era represents a totally negative element of Russian history; and that socialism was so badly discredited that the only appropriate path for Russia’s economic development is "wild capitalism." Dr. Kortunov concludes the chapter with an appeal for Russians to stop feeling the compulsion to repent for their country’s alleged historical sins.
In chapter four, "What Kind of Russia is Best for the World?," Dr. Kortunov begins by offering his assessment of the West’s recent policy toward Russia. He is particularly concerned by what he sees as a failure of Western observers to appreciate Russia’s stabilizing role in Eurasia and, more broadly, the world. He argues that, despite its present difficulties, Russia still retains the capacity to remain a Great Power. If the country’s decline were to persist and Russia were to disintegrate, the West must understand that the effects would be disastrous for the entire world. The collapse of Russian civilization, aside from the geopolitical chaos that would ensue, would deprive humanity of Russia’s essential spiritual contribution to world history.
In his concluding chapter, "A Plan for Action," Dr. Kortunov argues that Russia’s immediate national interests are to improve its citizens’ living standards and guarantee their individual rights and freedoms within the framework of a powerful, multinational Russian state. More fundamentally, he believes that Russia’s revival will only follow its spiritual rebirth. The author is eager for Russia to borrow the West’s achievements in the area of material production. But he insists that Russians find an alternative path of development to the West’s mass consumer culture that, while incorporating the best features of a market economy, nevertheless also takes into account the fundamental contributions of Russia’s thousand–year old civilization.
Dr. Kortunov’s monograph should be of particular value to Western students of Russia, for the author stresses Russia’s spiritual and civilizing role in world affairs in a manner not typically found in Western studies of Russian affairs. Although the reader may challenge the author’s views, they cannot be ignored at a time when Russia’s future role in the world remains so uncertain yet so important.
Dr. Richard Weitz, who until recently was a Fellow in BCSIA’s International Security Program, composed this monograph in collaboration with Dr. Kortunov by drawing on several of Dr. Kortunov’s Russian language manuscripts, especially his 1997 book, Rossiya: Natsional’naya Identichnost’ na rubezhe vekov [Russia: National Identity at the Border of Centuries]. Dr. Weitz is currently a Research Analyst of the Policy, Strategy, and Forces Division at the Center for Naval Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia. Funding for the "Whither Russia?" project has been provided by Carnegie Corporation of New York.
In our efforts to present Western scholars and policy makers with the broadest range of views within Russia, we have solicited a range of opinions on highly controversial topics. The opinions expressed in the monographs are those of the authors and do not represent the views of Harvard University, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, or the translators and editors.
Graham Allison, Director
Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project
Introduction
Russia is going through a complicated historical period. A search is taking place for the optimal path of development and the best form of state structure. Social–economic ties are changing in a fundamental manner. Along with the not insignificant positive results of the political and economic reforms that are being carried out, certain negative processes in the economy, in the social sphere and in the relations between the center and the regions are becoming clearly evident. On the international arena, Russia is confronting the desire of a number of countries to use the transitional period to promote their own economic and political interests, often to the detriment of Russians’ national aspirations.
Three overarching factors characterize the Russian domestic situation: the continuing systematic crisis in society, which began in the Soviet period; the country’s development crisis, which appeared during the transitional period; and the difficulties of overcoming the consequences of the former totalitarian regime. These problems are in turn linked to the global crisis that has resulted from the collapse of the Cold War order. It is obvious that the contemporary crisis is on a larger scale than the problems associated with the February and October 1917 Revolutions, the abolition of serfdom, and even the Time of Troubles. We are discussing a crisis that is comparable only to the epic transformation of the 13th century, when the collapse of one superethnos (Kievan Rus’) occurred and a new nation, country, and civilization (the Russian superethnos) was born.
Notwithstanding all the dimensions of the national and world crises Russia is experiencing today, at bottom Russia is suffering from a single phenomenon: a crisis of identity and national self–consciousness. It is closely linked with our inability to return to our traditional path of nation state development, and corresponding need to define a place for ourselves within the international political and economic systems. The protracted nature of this process of self–definition risks depriving Russia of its legitimate, natural, and still widely recognized leading role in world affairs.
One can succinctly identify the core national idea of other countries. The national idea of the United States is "the crusade for democracy." The national idea of Ukraine, Estonia, and the other former Soviet republics besides Russia is the pursuit of national statehood and national independence from Russia. The national identity of the new Germany is the restoration of a unified German state and its economic expansion in Europe.
The new Russia is not the Soviet Union, much less the old Russian Empire. Russia’s new borders, culture, civilization, development path, and spiritual–ideological framework make it a new country that differs from any that existed earlier. It has only existed since 1991, and seven years is a short time to mold a national consciousness, form a new political system, and determine the objectives of national development. Yet, the problem remains that Russians lack a national idea of their country’s proper place in the world. Russians have yet to answer such fundamental questions as: Will the new Russia create a powerful state? Will the country choose a distinctive development pattern or will it adopt the Western liberal economic model? Will the new Russia pursue a policy of isolation or will it seek to integrate itself into the world economic, political, and cultural systems? Will Russia seek self–reliance or will it rely on external assistance? Will the country be satisfied with the status of a major European nation having predominantly regional interests, or will Russia seek the status of a superpower having global interests? Should Russia attempt to restore the multinational Soviet state? Are such traditional Western values as capitalism, liberalism, and democracy possible in Russia? Has the influence of the Russian people already passed its apogee, or do the best times lie ahead? Have the Russians already accomplished their historical mission? This essay seeks to answer these questions and lay out a new national idea for the new Russia.
(1) Russia’S Historic Mission
As a rule, among any sufficiently large nation, during a time of crisis or ascent, a national idea has appeared that has stood above the utilitarian tasks of the self–preservation, reproduction, and development of the ethnos. At such crucial points in a nation’s history, the people are instinctively conscious of themselves as the carrier of a certain historical mission that goes beyond the boundaries of everyday life.
If one assumes that every nation fulfills its historic mission and task in world history, it is impossible not to see that only certain nations have "supranational tasks." As for the Russian nation, it was always a center of ethnic and cultural attraction of not only the Slavs, but also of neighboring peoples.
In fact, Russians are defined more by their geographic location than by blood. They have never constituted a nation in the Western understanding of this term. Unlike the nations of Western Europe, the Russians have never been obsessed with the idea of creating a national state, and never equated the nation and the state. Russia’s national idea has always been separate from the idea of Russian nationalism. Russian philosophers and ethnographers have traditionally maintained that human culture and civilization constitute a single whole, and that nation states are an interim stage in the advancement of ethnic groups towards supranational and global unity.
The second half of the 20th century gave a resounding confirmation of this thesis. Now it is becoming clearer and clearer that, notwithstanding the divisive power of passionate nationalism and political and economic separatism, the modern world is undoubtedly moving slowly but steadily toward a new single historical community. But can this movement take place automatically, without any conscious design? It probably can not. How else can one explain the incessant—despite the numerous unsuccessful experiments—attempts of humanity to not only contrive such a project, but to put it into practical effect and test it on itself?
If this is so, then sooner or later a bearer of the unifying mission should appear. As is well known, at present the United States aspires to this role. But does that country have the necessary moral, spiritual, and cultural factors—elements that are needed more than purely military and economic factors—for carrying out the dominating and unifying functions of the new civilization? Not only politicians but also entire nations, states, and continents have serious doubts in this regard.
There are good reasons for asserting that the so–called "new world order" that is being propagated by the United States in no way corresponds to the modern paradigm of the constructive and stable development of humanity. The "new world order" is the death convulsion of "Atlanticism" resulting from the passing from the historical stage of the Anglo–Saxon era. In its place a "post–material" era is coming, along with a "post–economic" (i.e., humanitarian) culture with different intellectual and spiritual values. The basis of this worldwide movement—preventing a global ecological catastrophe rather than increasing the volume of resource consumption—is already taking shape today, and will continue to grow in the 21st century.
Which nation is most suited for the fulfillment of these tasks? Evidently, the one that possesses such features, for instance, as cosmopolitanism, openness toward other cultures, tolerance, and expansive spiritual values. Great Russian writers and philosophers such as Feodor Dostoevsky and Nicholas Berdayev have shown convincingly that all these qualities are most intrinsic to the Russian people. The Russian nation—merciful, tolerant, passionate, and susceptible to other cultures—can serve as a core of this movement towards a new single historical community. Indeed, the Russian spiritual imperium has existed as a combination of the spiritual hierarchies of the whole world. Yes, Russia is indeed an Orthodox country, but it is also a Muslim country, a Buddhist country, and a Catholic, Protestant, and Judaic country. The citizens of Russia can belong to different religions or be atheists, but one must never forget that the spiritual connection of Russia with the world is carried out through them, and that they are the bearers of the results of Russia’s labors to all the other civilizations of the world.
The historic mission of the Russian people lies primarily in the spiritual sphere: the creation of a world–class culture. To lead humanity towards unification through moral perfection is precisely how Dostoevsky defined the mission of the Russian people. The awakening of the spirituality of the Russian people is an indispensable condition for the fulfillment of this mission. Only a nation of high spiritual values—and our nation is only potentially such a nation—is capable of carrying out this unifying mission.
If this hypothesis is true, then all of Russian history becomes understandable. Over the course of centuries, while surmounting innumerable obstacles, the Russian people prepared themselves for the fulfillment of this historic mission. The transformation of Russia from a borderland country into a great Eurasian power—occupying the entire space between the Roman Catholic, Muslim, Indian, Confucian, and Japanese cultures—had great significance. One may suppose that this development was related to the worldwide historical purpose of Russia, and that this territory will serve as an arena for those creative acts that the 21st and 22nd centuries will witness. If a great people are destined to become a catalyst for the transformation of both themselves and the other nations of the world into a single historic community, then it should possess a territory corresponding to the scale of its mission.
If all this is correct, then one can explain why any revolutionary changes in Russia—be they the reforms of Peter the Great, the development of the Russian Empire, or the October Revolution—exert a fundamental influence on the whole world. Those developments that have occurred and are occurring today in Russia are of worldwide significance. These developments were always a precondition for the entrance of humanity into another spiritual dimension, the imparting to it of a renewed cultural impulse of development, and its return to the path of creating genuinely human values.
Historically, Russia has asserted itself as a great power which in one way or another embodied an alternative model of civilization and way of life. Russia frequently embodied a claim to leadership in the solution of some long–felt tasks of mankind (for example, the achievement of social justice in the Soviet period).
At this historical stage of the development of humanity, it is necessary to find an alternative model to the consumer society which is beginning to exhaust itself. The model of progress that devours world resources in an unrestrained consumption race is reaching a dead end. It is being replaced by a "post–material," "post–economic" model of development. At the center of this new model will be "post–economic man," with a different structure of needs, a humanitarian structure, and primarily intellectual and spiritual values. The main universal task for today (and even more so in the 21st century), is not to increase the volume of resource consumption, but to secure stable development. Even today, people, society, and the state must ever more frequently confront the question, "to have or to be?" In the same way, the role of the balance of interests as a regulator of human social relations is diminishing in favor of an increase in the significance of fundamental moral values. For Russia, this transformation of its civilization in the direction of a change in values from "to have" to "to be" will proceed the least painfully; in essence, it will be a path toward self–consciousness. The moral element of the new development model should be the basis of the coming into being of Russia. Moreover, the assertion of a place for Russia in the world and its future high status must lay in the construction of a new paradigm and model of development.
The creation of new moral, intellectual, and new human values, is Russia’s historical predestination. From a broader perspective, Russia’s mission lies in the creation of a culture of global significance. The awakening of Russians’ spirituality is the essential condition for the fulfillment of this supreme task. Only a nation with a generous spirit—and the Russian people, undoubtedly, are such a people—are capable of fulfilling this mission, which by its character is historical and universal.
(2) The Weight Of Russian History
One cannot understand what is taking place in Russia today outside the context of Russian history. It shows that Russia has always remained a part of a single, common cultural civilization, and never "fell out" of it. Therefore talk about Russia’s "returning" to the "community of civilized countries" is not only historically incorrect, but also contradicts common sense.
For two thousand years the Russian people were repeatedly threatened with the danger, if not of extermination, then in any case with absorption and dissolution into other ethnic groups. The Mongol Tatars, the Turks, and others threatened the Russian and Slavic nation with, if not physical destruction, then its existence as a freely developing and independent nation.
In the course of a millennium in which they defended the people of Western Europe (some of whose members, the Crusaders, attacked Russia) from the onslaught of the Great Steppe, the Russian people created an enormous and great country that was bound together by a feeling of unity. The only way the Russian nation could survive this unprecedented protracted two–front assault was to occupy as much territory as possible and to create on it a powerful military apparatus and a super–centralized state that controlled its subjects’ entire political, religious, and economic lives. The effectiveness of this strategy was confirmed on many occasions, and it has continued to influence Russian attitudes towards foreign and defense policy right down to the present day.
The thesis about how Russians allegedly oppressed other peoples in the course of their expansion is nothing but a myth. Small nations at the time preferred to live within the territorial limits of the Russian nation because the Russians were relatively more tolerant toward their ethnic minorities, and because they feared being destroyed by other, less tolerant ethnic groups. Moreover, Russia, by virtue of its geography, provided a natural refuge to emigrants from territories to its west and south. Russia never assimilated these ethnic groups by force. Russia has historically arisen as a political, economic, and administrative union of lands, ethnic groups, and cultures that are consolidated in a common state with common values and interests. No special "Slavic" or even more "Russian" privileges existed. Not one of the component state nationalities was dominated or subordinated. The openness of the Russians to these minority ethnic groups resulted in Russians perceiving other minorities as part of their own ethnic group, and led to the creation of a single ethnic community, the Russian superethnos.
The development of Slavic unity was especially significant in this regard. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire served as a powerful catalyst for the unification of the Slavs, with Russia as their geographic center. It resulted from the free choice of the southern Slavs, especially the Serbs and the Bulgars, who found in Russia a defender against the Turks.
As a result of these circumstances, by the first half of the 19th century Russia had become the largest and most powerful country in the world. In 1814 its troops were deployed from Paris in the west to Alaska in the east, and its soldiers were operating in the Caucasus and in Central Asia. However, Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War in 1854 showed that its traditional policies were failing. The country for the first time tried out the Western model of economic development. However, the results of this approach during the 1861–1914 period were meager. Despite the existence of private property, a market economy, a State Duma, and even a pro–Western government, the country was unable to survive the experiences of the 1904–1905 Russian–Japanese War and the First World War, during which it lost to its eastern and western rivals, Japan and Germany. In October 1917, the Russian people chose a new strategy of development—the Bolshevik path of forced mobilization—whose high costs were paid not only by the Russian people themselves, but the whole world.
The pursuit of communism led to a confrontational and isolationist ("Iron Curtain") approach towards the outside world that was uncharacteristic of Russian culture, which had always been eager to incorporate other cultures and to welcome all peoples and civilizations. It conflicted with Russia’s tradition of adding to its own culture by enriching the culture of others and promoting conditions that heightened intercultural understanding. By definition and history, Russian culture cannot remain isolated from other countries for a long time. By adopting a policy of closure, the communist government entered into an irreconcilable conflict with Russia’s national cultural tradition, which absorbs within itself other cultures, enriching itself and others and thereby fostering the preconditions for the creation of a genuine world culture. Russian culture by definition and by its historic destiny could not long live behind an "Iron "Curtain," isolated from other cultures.
After World War II, it seemed that no one could threaten the Russians, who had gathered around them hundreds of other nations and had again expanded their influence to the north, west, east, and south. But now another form of historical confrontation arose: the Cold War, begun at the initiative of the West. The protracted confrontation exhausted the competing economies in a costly arms race that in the final analysis favored the West more than Russia. By the late 1980s, it had become clear that it was no longer possible for the country to exist in the former system of state and moral values. The Gorbachev policy of "perestroika" was a reflection of this new situation. But right after Gorbachev’s policies led to the collapse of the "Iron Curtain," the great communist state, having lost its moral and ideological pivot, quickly disintegrated.
Another reason for the U.S.S.R.’s collapse was its acquisition of nuclear weapons after the Second World War, and the emergence of nuclear parity between the Soviet Union and the United States. These developments led to a fundamental change in Russia’s international and consequently domestic situation. They allowed Russia for the first time in its centuries–long history to become invulnerable to military invasion. The absence of an external military danger in turn led to a weakening of centralized state power, a softening of the state ideology, and a disintegration of the ties between the peoples of the former U.S.S.R.
Why did Russians on this occasion not find within themselves the strength to gain a victory, as had practically always happened in the past? One must look for the reason in the spiritual realm. Communism was a false and distorted form of the Russian idea. Russia accepted the Anti–Christ for Christ. Under the rubric of proletarian internationalism, the Russian idea was deformed. After 1917, the country proceeded along a false path. False communist values were accepted at the expense of genuine human ones. When it became clear that the spreading of communism ("world revolution") would not happen instantaneously, an "iron curtain" was lowered (by us, not the West) and an extraordinary experiment took place—an attempt to create a world culture on the scale of a single (admittedly large) country.
The nation was susceptible to communism because of its cultural and historical traditions, and because of the historical mission laid upon it. The Russian idea has always had a messianic dimension. Since its earliest times Russia has been conscious of itself as the main carrier of Christian values to the Slavic states, as expressed in the formula: "There have been two Romes, Moscow is the Third, and there will not be a fourth."
The liberation from the remnants of Stalinism, from the Stalinist machine of political terror, and from communism itself was one of the most important spiritual achievements of the Russian people, who were tired of living in a system of lies. Yet, the collapse of communism engendered a moral vacuum among the Russian people after the Soviet state, which had defined its mission as the building and spreading of communism, collapsed and thereby deprived the Russian people of their moral references. The revelation that the road chosen seventy–five years ago led to nowhere brought about widespread discontent. The epiphany shocked the Russian soul. The Russian people fell under the sway of the Anglo–Saxons, who uphold rather primitive consumer society values that do not reflect universal human values.
A weakening of ethnic feelings among the Russians themselves was a parallel process to the loss of those factors that had held the USSR together. This is convincingly shown by the behavior of Russians in the "New Abroad" (the newly independent non–Russian republics of the former USSR), especially their passivity toward the discriminatory measures that have been taken against them. It is also shown by the tolerance with which Russians within Russia treat separatism within their country, whether it be by geographically concentrated national minorities or by Russians themselves living within a particular geographic area (the Urals, the Far East, etc.). This latter development threatens to divide the Russian ethnic community into various sub–ethnic groups and calls into question its very survival.
The ideological and moral vacuum at the end of the Soviet period led to spiritual decay, degradation, and spasmodic attempts to find other bases of support. This temporary historical defeat threw the Russian nation into the embrace of the Anglo–Saxons, and into the orbit of influence of their liberal and material values. But the aftertaste of the anti–Communist revolution of 1991, and the anti–Soviet revolution of 1993, has been bitter. Despite the positive features of the culture of the liberal economies, Russia has remained impervious to its exported version. The ten years of economic and political reforms—which began with Gorbachev and intensified under Gaidar, Yeltsin, and Chubais—have shown that it is impossible to simply graft "classical" Western values onto the Russian people. The market economy described by Charles Dickens and Jack London, the Anglo–American type of democracy, and a foreign type of state structure are elements that would make Russia an appendage to the historical development of the Western countries. Privatization has given birth not to a middle class, but a criminal nouveaux rich. What has been created in Russia is not a Western–type economy, but a phenomenon unknown in history: an economy of criminal clans. We wanted to create a national bourgeoisie, but ended up with opportunists who were unwilling to invest in domestic industries and simply exported capital abroad.
Today Russia is threatened neither by democracy nor by autocracy, but by a criminal oligarchy. Instead of a "Great Democratic Reform," we got a "Great Criminal Revolution." It is time to admit that the attempt in recent years to transplant foreign values onto Russian soil has met with a vigorous rebuff from the Russian people. Russians still do not measure personal success by wealth, and the national mentality scorns the so–called "New Russians" and their values.
The ten years of trial and error in domestic and foreign policy, the excessive and naive expectations regarding the market economy, Western–style democracy, Russia’s rapid integration in the world economy, the rush from globalism to isolationism—all this confirmed that Russia’s path does not have an analog in world history. Moreover, the crisis that has seized Russian society is tightly connected with the impossibility of transferring the ideology and practices of Western liberalism to Russian soil. It has become clear that to expect the Russian nation to accept submissively the ideals, values, and social forms of Western civilization is a dangerous illusion not only for Russia, but also for the whole world.
Of course, this defeat is not final. It is only a result of a perturbation of the spirit, of spiritual enlightenment, of a recognition of the falsity of the path chosen three quarters of a century ago. It represents a temporary spiritual stupor, a condition of moral shock, and happily a reliable sign (and prerequisite) of a spiritual and moral ascent. The collapse of communism has not yet led to the spiritual and moral rebirth of the Russian people. But this will inevitably happen. The historical calling of the Russian people is to preserve Russia’s distinctive civilization, which is based on spiritual principles. The October Revolution, the Civil War, Socialism, the war with Germany, and the revolutions of 1991 and 1993 were the most important boundaries of Russian national history. They were steps along the agonizing path of the development of the self–consciousness of the Russian people—a people that is still very young, and that possesses a great future.
(3) Overcoming The Myths Of A Shocked Nation
Several myths have taken root in our country that hamper Russia’s spiritual rebirth and development. It is the duty of all responsible Russian politicians—if they want to see their country independent, influential, and prosperous—to dispel these myths.
The first myth is that Russia "lost" the Cold War. This myth is of foreign (especially American) origin. However much it serves the interests of the American government to promote this myth, it demoralizes Russians and creates among them a feeling of wounded pride and aggravates the national inferiority complex. In fact, neither Russia nor the Russians lost the Cold War. It is difficult to appraise the ending of the Cold War using the categories "loser" and "winner" insofar as it was a form of trench warfare that did not lead to territorial acquisitions. It was a competition of two ways of life, of two value systems, which on the surface looked like a competition of economies or like an arms race. But neither the Western way of life—although one must not underestimate its influence—nor the NATO military machine won this war. Having accumulated a horde of internal contradictions, the Soviet communist system disintegrated from within. The collapse of the Soviet system (but not of the U.S.S.R.) was both a natural process and inevitable in so far as this system turned out to be grounded on an unstable foundation. And if someone gained a victory over it, then it was the Russians themselves, who found within themselves the strength to reject the Communists’ myths.
The second myth is that the new Russia is still an "evil empire" that has cunningly changed its outward appearance but not its essence. This myth is also quite clearly of foreign origin. It is advantageous to everyone: to the United States, which is mobilizing Americans for a "crusade for democracy"; to NATO, which now has a new enemy for the sake of its own self–preservation; to the countries of Central Europe and the Baltics, which are looking for a pretext to enter this military bloc rapidly; and to certain countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which are forging their nationhood on the basis of independence from "aggressive Russia with its great power ambitions." It is profitable to everyone but Russia itself, where, because of this myth, anti–Western and even isolationist sentiments are growing.
Hatred towards communism and the Soviet system is turning into hatred towards Russia itself. The ideology of "Sovietophobia" is changing into an ideology of "Russophobia." Among Russian politicians a disturbing suspicion is emerging: did not the West from the beginning conceal a struggle with Russia under the fig leaf of its "noble" struggle with Soviet Communism? It is difficult to give a definite negative answer to this question. The latest publications and declarations of such "anti–Communists" and "Sovietologists" as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger give good reason to conclude that the basic motive of certain Western circles during the Cold War was elementary Russophobia. Unfortunately, the same conclusion could be made with respect to many Soviet human rights activists and scholars, who have made no small contribution to the formation of a negative image of Russia and the Russians, and who are trying to inculcate a guilt complex for Russia’s alleged exploitation and repression of its national minorities. This myth serves as an instrument in the hands of those who seek the further disintegration of the state.
The third myth is that Russia is conducting an "imperial policy" in the "Near Abroad" (the territory of the former Soviet Union, excluding Russia), and that the country constitutes the same kind of empire as the former USSR or pre–Revolutionary Russia. This myth is related to the first two, but differs from them in that it is inspired not only by foreign but also by homegrown ideologies.
Is (and was) Russia an empire? To begin with, it would not be bad to "rehabilitate" the concept itself. An empire is not an absolute evil. Many extremely significant breakthroughs in the history of humanity (including in its cultural history) were connected with the formation, ascent, flourishing, and activities of various empires, which unlike small states possess the means to concentrate immense material resources and human energy (including spiritual and intellectual energy) in certain sectors.
It would be a big mistake to assume that an empire is a concept that has irrevocably been left in the past. This is true only for empires of the colonial type—such as that of Great Britain. Other empires have changed only the forms of their activities. For example, few would deny the fact that the United States is a great and mighty economic and financial empire with global interests. In the economic realm, Japan and Germany belong to the same category. The latter, incidentally, is not at all concealing its expansionist plans and ambitions: one only has to analyze its policy with respect to the countries of Central and Southeastern Europe, as well as the Baltics. Such countries as Turkey, Iran, China, India, and South Africa are carrying out an "imperial" policy on a regional scale.
As for the Russian empire, it was never an empire of the classical colonial type. Russians see an "empire" as an "imperium," which is a kind of grouping of the communities (including spiritual ones) inhabiting Russian territory that are united, in the expression of N. Federov, by a Philosophy of the Common Good. In Russian the word "empire" means a (Eurasian) civilization, which embodies within itself a "way of life," and therefore in many respects constitutes a self–sufficient and integrated whole. Russia has contrasted the Western type of imperial nation, with its policies of colonialism and imperialism, with the Russian metaphor and the Russian imperium.
The imperial idea today is the idea of a political union of the multinational population of Russia, but in new historical forms. The Russian state was and remains national. The history of the Russian state is precisely the history of a political union of a multinational population. Such an alliance cannot be exclusively reduced to a legal institution or to mechanisms of state power. The Russian state system invariably consolidated more of a civic identity for the country rather than a national one, while maintaining the historical integrating role of the Russian nation, which was always a center of ethnic and cultural resemblance not only for the Slavs, but also for contiguous nations. In the geopolitical, ethnic, and cultural–civilizational sense, the Russian nation was more than an ethnic group, and by virtue of this was never a nation in the Western sense of the word. The Russians are a metaphor—that is, something more important, precise, and substantial for the world than a nation.
The formation of a Russian nation as a community of all those ethnic groups which live on the territory of Russia is possible now, meaning by this not the formation of a new international community of the type of the "Soviet people," but a national self–consciousness in which a feeling of belonging to a single state plays a most important role in its maintenance and development. The path to a really equal union of all the nations in Russia lies not through allotting them all their own separate statehood, but through a recognition in the basic law of the Russian Federation of the multinational character of its subjects, and through the ensuring of real equal rights to all the various national groups in all areas of life, at all levels, and in all places. The assertion of the principle of equal rights of national groups makes moot debates about which territories belong to which nationalities.
In addition, one ought to remember that the Russians are the basic state–forming ethnos of Russia, and on their shoulders lies the historic mission of ensuring the maintenance of Russian civilization. The preservation of the Russian nation, and its spiritual and moral principles and genetic foundation, is the basis and guarantee of the existence of Russia. If it disappears, Russia will be dismembered into a large number of nation state formations of various sizes scattered throughout the enormous space of Eurasia. It could lead not only to serious inter–ethnic regional conflicts in a struggle for resources and land, but also to a bloody revision of general borders and the beginning of a new re–division of the world. In this sense Russia, as a bearer of Eurasian civilization and a multinational community, simply is doomed to be an empire. Otherwise, it would disappear from the face of the earth and disintegrate into a great multitude of dwarfish border states, with all the ensuing monstrous consequences for the world.
Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine, the Russian Federation, and the other newly independent states constitute unbalanced systems in which a number of ethnic groups feel alien, a fact which they themselves subconsciously sense. They gravitate either towards reunification with their cut–off parts, or towards independent development. A balance can be attained only through unification in historically unprecedented forms and on the basis of new principles (including in new state systems) under the aegis of a new pan–national (Russian) idea. In this regard, the modern Russian idea no longer can be Slavic or even pan–Slavic (the union of the three Slavic states no longer provides anything). It must be European or even broader.
Does an alternative to empire exist for Russia? Yes, it is the classical nation state. But such states, as Otto von Bismarck said, are created by "blood and iron." In Russia it would lead to an outburst of hitherto dormant Russian nationalism with its unpredictable consequences. A nation state would be created under the slogan, "Russia for the Russians." Is our society, and the world as a whole, ready for such a turn of events? I think not.
This theme has another aspect. In affirming that Russia does not have the right to a so–called "imperial policy," one is saying something else: Russia does not have the right to a policy based on its national interests. Instead of such a policy, certain foreign and domestic politicians toss to us a collection of democratic slogans. At least the former group understands perfectly well that such a substitution will lead nowhere. The West’s reaction to the October 1993 events in Moscow and the crisis in Chechnya demonstrate that the West, acting not in the name of "democracy" but exclusively according to its national interests (i.e., proceeding from the principles of Realpolitik), preferred a stable Russia to a democratic one. But then, excuse me, the West (and certain of our democrats) has lost any moral right to lecture Russia about democracy and preach to it about how to behave at home and abroad.
The fourth myth is that the seventy–five years of Communist development in Russia were a disgraceful and unequivocally negative period in Russian history. This myth is also of mixed (foreign and domestic) origin. It played a fateful role in the destruction of the Soviet state and the collapse of the U.S.S.R., which was the legal successor of the thousand year old Russian state.
Enthusiasts of expunging the Soviet period from Russian history ought to remember that, without this period, the history of Russia does not exist at all. This is not even to mention the gigantic role the October Revolution and Russian socialism played in world history. Having tested on itself the model of socialist development, Russia not only played the role of "deterrent," but also contributed to the incorporation within the Western model of the principles of social justice, macroeconomic planning, and the extensive development of government social programs in the areas of public health care, education, science, culture, and other fields.
All this is said, of course, not in order to justify the crimes of the Bolsheviks (or, even earlier, Czarism), but to restore elementary historical justice to several generations of our ancestors and their unprecedented victims, as well as a "sense of history" without which, I am convinced, the country cannot move forward.
The fifth myth is that socialism was a historical mistake for Russia, and that what the country needs now is "wild capitalism" in its pure form. This myth is of purely domestic origin, for nobody in the West even in their nightmares thinks about themselves returning, or dragging some other countries, to a path which humanity long ago left behind.
Russia is now returning to its pre–October paradigm of development and is building Western–style capitalism. But is clear even to non–economists that, first, no kind of classical capitalism is possible anywhere in the modern world, with its high–level of economic interdependence and the tumultuous development of transnational corporations. Second, now it seems also to have become clear that Russia could hardly accept a development model that already has been tried several times by our country (under Peter I, Alexander II, and the Provisional Government) and found extremely wanting. Third, a "reverse transition from socialism to capitalism" is not even theoretically possible. The events of the last few years demonstrate that in Russia (and, incidentally, in the whole world) processes are occurring that are much more profound and significant than "the replacement of socialism by capitalism." In the depths of the modern mass consumption industrial society, a new paradigm of development is maturing: an information society (or, according to the definition of Alvin Toffler, "The Third Wave"). It is a great mistake to assume that the "consumer" civilization of the West will dominate world history also in the 21st century. And the salvation of Russia (and of the whole world) possibly lies precisely in the fact that our country is not susceptible to its charms.
The myth about the erroneous nature of Russia’s experience in the 20th century has a clearly anti–Russian purpose, as it is in essence anti–historical. It essentially relegates the country’s rich history and its substantial contributions to world civilization to the periphery of world development. The question naturally arises: who profits from such an assertion. The answer is obvious: those who do not want a rebirth of Russia and who are therefore striving for its full historical discreditation.
Only after a reasonable rehabilitation of its socialist past can Russia count on the fact that it has a future, and that it has its own history, which has a continuation. For this one ought to recognize that, no matter how much it cost Russia, the socialist experiment was one of the most significant and important periods in the history of both Russia itself and of the world as a whole.
Today in Russia, after the collapse of the communist idea and the defeat of a number of the values of the August anti–Communist revolution, many have the feeling that the country has "strayed from the path." They are gradually losing the sense of themselves as subjects not only of world politics, but also of world history. This presents a real threat of destruction to the conceptual basis of Russian civilization. We must return to our historical roots. Not a single part of Russian existence must be lost, though everything must be reconsidered. Not a single second of our history can be declared empty or black, but all of it must be studied anew. Only in this way can we "return" to world history as a subject with equal rights, and not as a mere object.
The ten years of perestroika and reform have proceeded in Russia under the slogan of repentance. We have repented for Leninism and Communism, for Stalinism and socialism, and for totalitarianism and our lack of democracy. We have confessed our "imperialism" and "barbarism." We have been forced to repent for the fact that in the USSR there were "too many" tanks and missiles, and for the fact that human rights were violated.
Today there is no communism, much less Soviet totalitarianism. The former mighty Soviet army and military industrial complex is no more. But Russia’s opponents, both foreign and domestic, want to force it again to repent. For what? For nothing at all, or, more precisely, for the mere fact of its existence. Fortunately for Russia, it is not they who now determine the public climate in our country. Their time, along with the time for general repentance, has past. Those who are ready to participate in the creation of a new great Russia ought to banish from their conscience false myths and, at last, understand that strictly speaking we Russians have nothing to repent.
(4) What Kind Of Russia Is Best For The World?
The question of what kind of Russia does the world need is hardly the most important question of contemporary world politics. Meanwhile, the answer as usual remains open. Sometimes one even gets the impression that the interest of the developed part of the international community—that which is customarily called the West—towards the new Russia is largely negative. It more or less knows what Russia should not be, but it does not have any constructive ideas or opinions regarding what it can and should be. Most likely, the main reason for this—if we discard the Russophobia of some well–known Western political figures such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, and Alexander Haig—is that any attempt of the new Russia to form its national interests is interpreted as reflecting "imperial ambitions." This is the reason for the ambiguous attitude of the West toward Russia. On the one hand, it is frightened by instability in the territory of the former Soviet Union and the inability of the newly independent states themselves to cope with the problems confronting them—be they ethnic or religious conflicts, the development of a market economy, or the construction of a rule–of–law state. At the same time, they regard very coldly the growing integration processes that are taking place within the Commonwealth of Independent States under Russia’s leading role (even our modest rapprochement with Belarus), seeing in it a "revival of Russia’s imperial potential."
This approach is especially noticeable in the policies being conducted by the United States. American leaders as before regard Russia as an important strategic partner with which it is possible and necessary to maintain a constructive dialog and solve emerging problems, not allowing matters to reach a boiling point or, even more, the level of a new confrontation. At the same time, not an insignificant number of voices, especially in the Republican camp, call on the Clinton administration to "take a pause" and freeze practical cooperation with Moscow, "pending a clarification of the situation."
There are also advocates of a radical reconsideration of the current relationship with Russia. In its most concentrated form their views were recently expressed by Washington political scientist Charles Krauthammer. Posing the question, "Does the United States need a strong Russia?" his answer was categorically negative, asserting that economic stability will serve as a springboard for a revival of Russia’s imperial ambitions and a restoration of its military potential. Krauthammer drew a parallel between the Russian Federation and Communist China and in fact called for the economic and political isolation of Russia.
Finally, there are those who have lately come to agree with the proposition that Russia is generally a "superfluous country." For such figures, the optimal situation would be a controlled disintegration of Russia in which the collapse would not proceed beyond the level of sufficiently large regions with local systems of power, which neutralizes the potentially explosive consequences of disintegration to the lowest "stages." This approach is already being carried out by Western countries who have reoriented their economic cooperation with Russia toward direct dialog with the regions, bypassing Moscow.
The West should understand that Russia is a place from which is visible both the West’s potential and its diseases. Russia is not the West’s rubbish pit, but its drain. In blocking up this drain, the West is killing itself. In hating Russia, it is also killing itself. In converting Russia into an image of itself, it is killing both itself and the entire future of humanity.
Earlier the West understood this, but it has forgotten about it. And now it is in a state of euphoria associated with the "victory," as it sees it, of its liberal values, and cannot remember that there is a common human history and culture. This is terrible. It is even more terrible when, being incapable of realizing these things, shortsighted interests in the West cling to their technology and dehumanized science as to the Universal. And it is completely dreadful when, suffering from amnesia, the West practices Russophobia. Russia is the West’s memory of the Universal, a reminder of the West about itself, and the West wants to kill this memory. That is why a genuine Russian patriot is simultaneously a patriot of the West. Russia is an element of the Universal, its spiritual hypostasis, and the embodiment of its free will.
Of course, without Russia, there is no Great Problem for the West, but this means that there would be neither a Great Culture, nor a Great Theory, nor a Great Policy, nor a Great History. Without Russia, there is no Universal.
It would hardly be productive, however, to blame the West for everything. No one from the outside, of course, can explain to us our place and role in world politics. It is obvious that Russia must itself define them, which would permit it to formulate its national interests and, consequently, the limits of its concessions to the West. This is in everyone’s interest insofar as the policy of Russia will become more predictable, which, in turn, would permit the construction of a viable partnership with the West that would manifest itself in fruitful cooperation based on equal rights with respect to a wide range of fundamental issues in world politics.
The further dragging out of the process of national self–definition is fraught with Russia’s loss of its legitimate, natural, and hitherto recognized by other states place and role in world politics and, on a larger scale, in the global historical process as a whole. The result would be Russia’s relegation to the periphery of world development, which would have extremely negative consequences not only for it, but also for the whole world.
What is Russia Today?
History itself always forces Russia to think not only about itself, but also about the world as a whole. The time has come when it must again think about its position in the world, its historical purpose, and its civilizing role.
Let’s begin with things that are obvious to all. Being the descendent of Ancient Rus’, the Moscow Czars, the Russian Empire, and the Union Republic of the USSR, Russia occupies a unique situation in Eurasia, which from time immemorial has permitted it to play an important stabilizing role in the global balance of power and interests. Russia is the guardian of an ancient spiritual tradition that is recognized to embody the highest ideals of justice, morality, and brotherhood. It also represents a most complex ethnic community, which is united by the historical destiny of the Russian nation, and which interacts on a voluntary and equal basis with other peoples that have expressed a desire to live in the same state with it. Russia’s abundance of natural resources, and its economic and intellectual potential, could secure for it a maximum of economic autonomy with the emergence of threats to its national security and its development as a sovereign state.
It is also necessary to recognize the following objective condition. Despite the collapse of the USSR, Russia remains one of the great powers thanks to its political significance and influence on the course of world affairs, including its responsibilities as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Apart from its geopolitical situation and its nuclear weapons, which by general recognition allow one under contemporary conditions to consider Russia a great power, its opportunities and prospects in the areas of demography and natural resources, and its high scientific and technological potential, place it in this category. These very factors (i.e., the scale of the country, its economic, demographic, and intellectual potential, and the presence of all kinds of raw materials and natural resources) objectively make Russia one of the world’s most important centers.
At the same time, nothing guarantees the continuation of these advantages. The country could loose them in the next few years if it does not escape from its economic, scientific, and spiritual crisis. On the other hand, Russia’s opportunities to secure a high quality of life for its citizens and exert influence on the course of world events will be enlarged, provided the country successfully escapes its crisis and completes its social and economic reforms.
It ought to be recognized that all the preconditions for this exist. A sufficiently high level of education and culture, on the whole, characterizes the population of Russia. A high proportion of its workers consists of highly qualified specialists. It is important that the correlation of the relative GDP indicators of Russia and other countries during the 1980s and 1990s has not qualitatively changed. In other words, Russia remains a developed country according to its industrial and partly its scientific and technological potential, which does not differ in principle from those in the West. Unfortunately, for a long time other production relations and a different social organization held sway in Russia, preventing it from attaining the levels of productivity prevailing in the West.
Of course, many years will be needed in order to catch up with the United States, Germany, France, Italy, and the other most economically developed Western countries in terms of per capita GDP. But as far as such countries as Spain, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, and Chile are concerned, these countries are in principle at the same stage of economic development as Russia, whose per capita GDP indicators (and correspondingly its standards of living and quality of life) could attain such a level in the near future should its reforms succeed. And this is a sensible, realistic prospect for Russia.
All that has been said permits one to characterize Russia today as a great power that is temporary experiencing large–scale economic difficulties caused by the changes in its economic and geopolitical situation. The preservation and mobilization of its available internal resources provides the potential means for a speedy recovery of its economy and its transition to the model of democratic and vigorous development. Largely positive changes in the world provide favorable opportunities for the solution of this task.
If and when new public attitudes and labor morale take shape in Russia, and the destructive consequences of the transition period are overcome, Russia according to the absolute scale of its production will be fully able to attain again the very highest levels of world standards, or even exceed them. If the CIS itself becomes a real economic organism, there is a possibility of regaining economic dimensions on the scale of that possessed by the U.S.S.R. In any case, even taking into account the fact that this will not occur immediately, the situation is not worthy of excessive dramatization. Historical experience shows that the loss of superpower status by no means deprives a country of the possibility of social progress and prosperity.
However, it is extremely important to assimilate the fundamental fact that, having lost its superpower status, Russia can successfully develop provided its policies have changed in accordance with this fundamental fact. It would be ruinous to make any attempt, consciously or unconsciously, to occupy the same geoeconomic or geopolitical position in the world as that of the Soviet Union.
Today, Russia has all the means to ensure its national security and development. It no longer is engaged in the struggle for global domination that took place between the USSR and the USA, and which required incredible expenditures. It only has to ensure its own national security, which requires from Russia significantly lower expenditures and forces, but on which its very physical existence depends.
The European Geopolitical Balance
Russia occupies a key position in Central Eurasia, a region that is an axis of world politics. It is this position that creates the prerequisites for Russia to carry out its geopolitical mission as a holder of the balance between Eastern and Western civilization. In this geopolitical mission Russia is underpinned by its rich cultural tradition, which combines three world faiths—Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.
The preservation of the long–standing geopolitical role of Russia as a world civilization and power "balancer" is one of the main means of preventing the fall of Europe, and the world as a whole, into geopolitical chaos. In today’s chaotic world, engendered by the end of the military confrontation between the two superpowers and the disintegration of one of them, diverse political forces are striving to realize their interests. In the aggregate, this is capable of causing a real avalanche of geopolitical changes that might become uncontrollable. In this regard, the matter will not end with a change of the borders of Russia or the other adjoining newly independent states. A chain reaction of territorial and other geopolitically significant changes is threatening to spread to the whole globe. It has already become clear that the United States, as the single remaining superpower, cannot cope by itself with this global challenge. However, for Russia to be able to fulfill its role of power balancer and extinguisher of cataclysms—and its has repeatedly played this role in world history—one must not allow the splintering of Russia itself. If Russia were to find itself in a state of unbalance and chaos, these latter conditions would spread out in all directions.
The weakening of Russia would inevitably lead to an acute aggravation of the military–political situation in the countries of the CIS, the Baltic region, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, and, as a result, in Western Europe and the whole world. Then there would be a real threat of total geopolitical instability in Eurasia. A weak Russia would be an object of expansion for Islamic fundamentalism, a rapidly developing China, and myopic representatives of certain Western countries. Those groups that are now striving to destroy the Eurasian geostrategic balance and reduce Russia to the position of a third–rate power in Europe and Asia are conducting a dangerous game.
The formation of new centers of power in the world arena, the contours of which are already visible (the United States, Germany, Japan, and China), places Russia, which occupies an important geostrategic position, under the active influence of these centers, which will strive to draw the newly independent states into their orbit. In this case, one can expect a new re–division of the world and a re–division of spheres of influence in the 21st century. In order not to become an apple of discord and an object of division, Russia must be economically and militarily powerful, internally stable, and the nucleus of a Eurasian center of forces on the territory of the former USSR.
Without a powerful and friendly Russia, the West can hardly succeed in creating a stable and predictable world order in the next century. If Russia is mindlessly relegated to the camp of marginal nations (and NATO expansion, for example, could lead to this), the entire international system will be hanging in the air, deprived of a solid base. Washington’s declared readiness today to rely on military force will not work.
In a world in which Islamic extremism is acquiring new, more aggressive forms, Russia is objectively turning into a barrier to the threat from the South, which is emanating from aggressive Middle Eastern regimes. If the Euroatlantic community needs to contain an unpredictable and conflict–ridden South, then the national interests of Western Europe and the United States would best be met by the preservation of a similar mission for Russia. Therefore, the West is objectively interested in maintaining and strengthening the territorial integrity and unity of Russia, and in promoting its revival as a powerful country that is able to cooperate with it to carry out an influential policy both in Europe and in Asia.
Does such a role correspond to the interests of Russia itself? Russia simply does not have a choice: by virtue of its geographic situation, it cannot "shelter itself" from the potential threat from the South. On the other hand, to be a pier of stability in Central Eurasia is not only its inevitable fate, but also opens up the prospect of a revival of Russia’s authority. It is an historical opportunity that allows it to occupy a worthy and, in essence, real place in the hierarchy of the world’s great powers.
One ought not to be surprised by the fact that today, regardless of political orientation, Russian political and government circles are preoccupied with one issue: restoring the possibility of Russia’s fulfilling its appointed role in the world. And this is not the notorious "imperial ambitions" of old, but a concern for Russia’s and the world’s secure development. This is understood in the more farsighted policies of the United States, Germany, China, Japan, and the other countries that need a strong, vibrant, and cooperative Russia.
We are not talking about the "Small Russia" that in 1991 emerged out of the "Big Russia," but precisely about the kind of Eurasian geopolitical monolith that Imperial Russia and the USSR were like, and which modern Russia and many other CIS states were until quite recently in the process of forming. The supporters of the final break–up of this monolith, and the inevitable ensuing fragmentation of Russia itself, ought to be reminded that the current international status of the former Soviet republics has been harmed since they have been deprived of their legitimacy as the USSR’s constitutional successors. The Soviet Union (like the Russian Empire earlier) was declared dissolved by unconstitutional means without giving the ethnically mixed inhabitants of its territories an opportunity to decide their fate for themselves. The conflicts in Abkhazia, Tajikistan, Ossetia, and elsewhere (including in the former Yugoslavia) were a direct consequence of the country’s illegitimate division. Matters stand otherwise with respect to the Russian Federation, for it was the only republic not to declare its exit from the USSR, and thus is now its legal and international successor.
All this explains the extreme shortsightedness of certain groups in the United States and Western Europe, which have placed their bets on "geopolitical pluralism." Even more dangerous are the attempts at stirring up conflicts between Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and the other former Soviet republics according to the "balance of power" principle. "Neo–Wilsonism" is a provocation not only with respect to Russia, but also with regard to the world, in which today extremely heterogeneous and unpredictable forces interact. It is precisely multipolar balancing, with absolute certainty, that earlier led to world wars. In an age of nuclear missiles, this policy is suicidal. Both the West and the whole world should be interested in preserving a global balance of power. Attempts to play diplomatic games at the expense of a "weak" Russia could end in a catastrophe.
The Clash of Civilizations
Russia’s role and place in the world cannot be reduced to only its geopolitical dimension. It is impossible to abolish the principle of polycentrism, just as it is impossible to annul the law of gravity. Communism could not do it in 1917, fascism could not do it in 1941, and no one can do it today, including the United States, notwithstanding its new variant of "common human values." A single world empire, or the dominance of one center of the world at the expense of the others, would be a catastrophe for its peoples insofar as it would encroach upon the versatility of the world (i.e., upon the laws of the universe).
Russia is a special civilization; a special world with its own values and interests. Each civilization has something special to contribute to the universe, and by this means world civilization as a whole is created and maintained. Having a common source, civilizations are alien but not hostile to one another. World stability is ensured by this fact. Each of these centers of the world embodies one of its ideological manifestations: France, "beauty"; Germany, "science"; America, "business"; etc. Russia’s contribution is "sacredness." This system of civilizations constitutes a mosaic of values and landscapes of all the centers of the world. Russia is fulfilling a special existential and civilizing role in this system. Any impediments to this role are a threat to the safe development of the world.
One such obstacle is American messianism. During the past few years some American geopoliticians have called on the West to exploit its "victory" in the Cold War (against whom?) and the disintegration of the Soviet Union to further advance U.S. interests in Europe and in the other regions of the world. Moreover, the impression has arisen that certain figures in the West seriously perceived the end of the Cold War as a major "defeat for Slavic civilization" and as an opportunity to direct the development of the whole world in a direction that corresponds to their own traditional values and their own distinct visions of the future. This explains their widespread use in international relations of the principle of "the double standard," which imposes obviously different rules of the game on the world arena for states representing different cultural and religious regions. This also dictates their unstoppable desire to expand NATO until its borders reach the "natural" boundaries of Western civilization, and to turn the alliance into this civilization’s political–military foundation. From this also arises the conceit and doctrinarianism of American officials’ self–identification as "agents for the spreading of democracy." Knowing neither our country nor our traditions, they take it upon themselves to expostulate about Russia’s fate and instruct Russians how to carry out elections and reforms.
The Cold War began at the end of the 1940s not in the least because of Stalin’s desire to spread the Soviet communist system to the entire world. Today we are witnesses to how the desire to "accelerate the victory of democracy throughout the whole world" is beginning to provoke new conflicts, and a new estrangement between nations. However, it is known from the experience of the Cold War that sooner or later ideological confrontation escalates into political confrontation, which frequently leads to war.
Discussions about Russia’s entering into the "civilized" Euroatlantic community are an effort to join the country to an alien superethnic system. The West is conducting a war in Russia for the domination of its own alien values, not realizing that a victory in such a war would mean Russia’s downfall, and after this the collapse of the entire world. Twice before in this century Russian civilization was under threat, and the consequences of this were the wreck of an enormous empire, and the whole world began to stagger on the verge of a catastrophe.
Western civilization is characterized by its entrepreneurial spirit, which has resulted in its citizens’ enjoying an extremely high standard of living. Russian civilization has not perfected its production of material goods and services to such a degree, but it is creating for the entire world unique conditions for the production of uniquely eternal values, new human qualities, and a new man. The new moral values and human qualities are being born in the eternal embodiment of the dreams of Russia: the creation of God’s Kingdom on earth—that is, of a civilization that consciously embodies in its social structure the higher laws of the universe. That is precisely why the Russian state is always an empire, but without imperialism.
(5) A Plan For Action
Russia must have a national idea. It is very difficult for any people to survive without such an idea, and it is impossible for them to preserve their culture without a vision of their future. Russia has its own national values. Their content boils down to three core principles: the preservation and flourishing of the nation; the defense of its territory; and the conservation and development of the national way of life. Yet, today it is important to find a harmonious combination of universal and national values. Russians must assimilate the most important achievements of humanity while preserving and developing their distinctive national characteristics.
In order to serve as the basis of the political strategy of the state in the area of national security, national values must be expressed in the form of national interests. National interests lie at the basis of the formation of the strategic tasks of domestic and foreign policy. They represent an integrated expression of the vital interests of the individual, the society, and the state. At the present stage, the supreme national interest of Russia is the guaranteeing of both a stable growth in its population’s living standards and the well–being of individual Russians on the basis of stable economic development and the observance of individual rights and freedoms.
We are not witnessing "the end of history." There has been no universal triumph of the Western values of liberalism, materialism, and consumerism. The true competition among nations involves not only their economies, but also their cultures, civilizations, intellects, and spirit. History provides Russia with a critical advantage in this competition. The country is the "world’s cultural laboratory" and a center of cultural attraction for other ethnic groups. The challenge for the current generation of Russian politicians is to channel the historical competition between ethnic groups in a way that most favors their country.
Today Russia is engaged in an agonizing and intense search for a new mode of existence. The answer to this quest may be found in Russia’s spiritual rebirth and development.
The constructive development of any country rests on two pillars: freedom and technology. So far Russia has both. Technology is the brains of the nation or, more precisely, a product of the activities of these brains. Their preservation is central to a nation’s survival. For this reason the West wants to buy up other nations’ technologies and put them to use for its own interests. This explains the West’s manipulation of the world high–technology markets. (China’s behavior in this respect is similar.) Russia must do everything it can for the sake of preserving its high technologies and thereby safeguarding its leading role in the 21st century.
Freedom must be equally protected since we have already paid a very high price for it: the break up of the Soviet Union, deteriorating living standards, a curtailment of Russians’ average life expectancies, and the unnatural dismemberment of the Russian superethnos. In the course of history there are naturally pauses and temporary reverses. But in the end Russia is doomed to freedom and its own distinctive variant of democracy. It has tried all the other variants of development and state structures (with the exception, perhaps, of fascism) and has rejected them.
Russia is threatened with assimilation into the mass culture of the West. "Mass culture" is the other side of the coin of the mass economic civilization of the consumer society of the West. It represents its modus vivendi, the indispensable condition for its existence. But in Russia mass culture has only existed when the nation has been in a state of psychological shock. Now, people are sobering up. Insofar as the country experiences a spiritual rebirth, this surrogate culture undoubtedly will be displaced from public consciousness.
One ought not to forget that the struggle between Russia and the West, which Nicholas Berdyaev called the struggle of the spirit and the machine, is not a simple thing. Russia has not become a slave to the machine. But this does not mean that Russia must prefer only the force of spirit. Material development opens new horizons for the Russian spirit. Certain elements of modern society—such as the market, private property, and scientific and technological progress—are universal values that create the preconditions for the stable development of any society. Russia must not hesitate to incorporate them in its national model of development, but not blindly. The nation must do so in accordance with its own distinctive culture and history, and its centuries–old tradition.
Any conception of how best to guarantee the country’s national security must reflect, if not an absolute consensus, then at least a sufficiently wide range of agreement among political leaders with respect to a number of fundamental questions relating to the country’s optimal model of social–economic and social–political development. It must synthesize the political preferences of the people and the elite with respect to the type of state structure and economic system appropriate for Russia, and the nature of our relationship with the outside world. Its formation will be a lengthy process in which scholars, political figures, a wide circle of society, and of course Parliament must participate.
At present, a shaky consensus has matured in favor of the necessity of preserving Russia’s distinctiveness. Of course, national peculiarities can have both pluses and minuses. Spirituality is undoubtedly a positive feature of a nation’s uniqueness. In the final analysis, it is the guarantee of Russia’s independence and security against the impossibility of instilling alien values into Russia. In this regard, a powerful state is clearly an instrument for preserving Russia’s distinctiveness. It is for this reason that the idea of a strong state always has been an integrating idea for Russian society. And now in this society the political divide lies not between leftists and rightists, but between those who advocate a strong state as an instrument of escape from the present crisis, and those who are against it.
However, behind this confrontation lies a more profound division concerning the question about what kind of Russia will exist in the 21st century and, consequently, along which path of modernization the country will proceed. Will Russia pursue the Western, evolutionary path, which sees Russia as a junior partner and raw material appendage of the industrially developed countries? Or will it follow its own distinctive route, which offers the prospect of its rebirth as a great power?
Ten years of reform have showed that liberal democracy, and least in its pure form, does not work in Russia. The ugly, distorted forms that Western values acquired in Russia should serve as a warning to all of humanity. Russia has, as it has always done in its history, unmasked the true nature of these values. We must pursue a different development path.
Enlightened democratic patriotism will be the ideology of the Russian renaissance. It is already apparent that this ideology will combine the ideas of an open society and individual freedom with strong and responsible state power. The type of democracy that is beginning to emerge in Russia represents a constitutional combination of the advanced social technologies of the West, the best features of Russia’s thousand year old historic tradition, and a socially oriented market economy. Russia’s path lies in the development of neither a purely formal, pseudo–democracy, nor a totalitarian dictatorship, but of a democratic but simultaneously national type of political system that most closely resembles a corporative democracy and corporative state system. Russia will have a modern political system with a strong state that acts strictly within the framework of the law (i.e., a rule–of–law state) and which has found the optimal balance between the concepts of freedom and justice. If the country does not deviate from this path, then for the first time in history Russia will attain a compromise between freedom—which leads in its absolute manifestation to anarchy, the breakdown of the state, rebellions, and internecine strife—and justice, which engenders in its extreme form despotism and totalitarianism.
The formulation and implementation of national development policies on the scale of a country such as Russia requires a strong state, strong not in the physical but in the intellectual sense. The foundation of such a state is above all the intellectual and spiritual resources of society. In the use of these resources one sees the essence of modern democracy, which makes it possible to ensure both the power of the majority and the rights of minorities.
There is no need to fear that the democratization of Russia, and the coming into being of a state governed by the rule–of–law, signifies the loss of Russia’s distinctiveness. On the contrary, only a state governed by the rule–of–law offers a reliable means of ensuring the country’s truly independent and distinctive development. A democratic orientation, trust in society, and a policy of openness—all these make it possible for Russia to pursue its own development path.
The Russian state was and for now remains in principle supranational. Recent experience affirms that its transformation into a national state would expose it to serious dangers. The identification of Russia with its national–ethnic dimension would inevitably raise "the Russian question" and the insoluble problem of the country’s borders with the other former Soviet republics (many of which contain large Russian minorities).
A new Russian empire—that is, a new super national state with a strong national idea—must and should become an alternative to a fascist or communist mutation or a liberal "multiple sclerosis." Russia can achieve more than merely modernization, a national state, and a materialistic civilization: it can be a country that combines the latest Western ideas (meritocracy, post–industrialism, etc.) with the traditions of Russian development, including Soviet traditions, and the achievements of Russian philosophical thought. All this is something absolutely new, something that has been sought for and not found either in the West or in the East. The new Russian empire should combine the coming dynamism of the 21st century and the great spirituality of our country, our democratic values and national interests, and the mechanisms of market economics and the national idea.
From the ontological point of view, and this is confirmed by the entire course of world history, Russia is a bridge between three continents. It is a bridge between civilizations that also ensures the global balance of stability. It is not only we Russians, who are building this bridge, that need it: everyone needs it: Europe, the rapidly developing Pacific Ocean region, and America. The great national idea of Russia lies in the transformation of this bridge between continents and diverse civilizations into the reliable foundations of the world order of the 21st century. The world needs exactly such a Russia.
The goal of the "Whither Russia?" project is to illuminate for the international community the ongoing debate in Russia about the country’s identity, security, and interests. Our central question is: what will emerge as the dominant conception of Russian identity, Russian security, and Russian greatness? More specifically, we hope this project can help clarify: competing images of Russia across the political spectrum; how these competing images are reflected in policy; the shape of the debate in specific arenas; the views of the political elite and the public about the debate; differences between views in the regions and those at the center; common threads in the competing images of Russia; and, based on the conclusions drawn, Russia’s fundamental geopolitical and national interests.
As part of the project, we are publishing important works by leading Russian policymakers and academics addressing a set of three broad questions:
In our efforts to present Western scholars and policy makers with the broadest range of views within Russia, we have solicited a range of opinions on highly controversial topics. The opinions expressed in the monographs are those of the authors and do not represent the views of Harvard University, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, or the translators and editors.
Graham Allison, Director
Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project
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