In the United States, the arts and humanities in the main
are flourishing, but one art seems to have disappeared, the political art of
losing gracefully. Instead, there is the frenetic search for scapegoats to
blame for unexpected and embarrassing defeat. Washington political leaders,
rather than wallowing in allegations of foreign electoral interference in U.S.
elections, might more properly benefit from examining changes in and the
significance of recent events in Russia, a century after the revolutions that
ended the Tsarist regime and led to Communist power. For U.S. officials
concerned with foreign policy, it is useful to reflect on the nature of the
Russian revolutions in 1917, and changes since then.
On
May 9, 2017, a massive military parade was held in Red Square in Moscow in
which 10,000 troops marched, featuring contingents of female servicewomen
dressed in different outfits, and 114 units of equipment were displayed,
including medium range and long range surface-to-air missile systems,
intercontinental ballistic missile system, and battle tanks.
President
Vladimir Putin attended, together with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, took the
salute, and displayed a photo of his father in naval uniform. The parade is
significant in two ways. It celebrated the 72nd anniversary of the defeat
and capitulation in Berlin on May 9, 1945 of Nazi Germany in World War II, and
it was a showcase for Russian military might.
But
from a political point of view, the parade. honoring the 26 million soldiers
and civilians killed in Russia's “Great Patriotic War” was
important. Parades were held throughout Russia but the main one in Red
Square was central. In essence, this parade replaced in importance the former
celebrations of the 1917 revolutions. In reality, there were two
revolutions. In February, (really March in the Gregorian calendar) a
popular uprising of workers and soldiers led to the abdication of the Tsar. In
October (really November) the small Bolshevik group led by Vladimir Lenin
dissolved the constituent assembly and captured power.
Putin's
remarks after the May 9 parade emphasized the military might of Russia which in
2016, spent $69 billion on its military. He was forthright about Russian
strength, but more important for the U.S. policy, Putin also urged
international effort to fight terrorism. In words that may well have been aimed
at President Donald Trump, the Russian leader said, "Our forces are
capable of repelling any kind of attack, but to efficiently combat terrorism,
Nazism, extremism, what we need is the consolidation of the international
community. Russia will always be on the side in the world of those who
fight against these scourges."
What
is important is that this celebration of Russian might and defense of country
has essentially replaced the celebration of the 1917 revolutions, especially
October. It is a commonplace truism that it is difficult if not impossible to
predict the future. Russians for several generations have found it not only
difficult but perilous to predict the past, though memories linger on and there
is, according to recent public opinion polls, a positive view of Lenin’s role
in history. Yet, like the aphorism in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, in Russian
political parlance, “But Sasha was from Russia… and sentences are often left
unfinished from doubt as how best to end them.”
It
is risky to give simple answers to complex problems, but it may be telling
that, apart from true believers in Stalinism, only a minority want to celebrate
the revolution of October 25, 1917, the military coup and insurrection by Lenin
and his Bolshevik group that overthrew the republic established by the February
1917 revolution, and established a dictatorship, and then a totalitarian
regime, started by Lenin and fully implemented by Stalin.
The
former October ceremonies, starting with a speech by Lenin in Moscow on
November 7, 1918, became the main holiday of the year, the glorification of
Lenin, the opportunity for revolutionary propaganda, memories of revolutionary
heroes, and advocacy of world-wide “proletarian” revolution. In 1996, the day
changed to one emphasizing concord and reconciliation. The speech by Putin on
May 9, 2017 was devoted, not to any call for revolution, but to the Russian
patriotic victory over the Nazis.
It
can be argued that the true significance of October and the victory won by the
Bolsheviks in the Russian civil war was that it prevented the development of a
Western-type democratic system, continuing the slow change in Russian politics
after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, the creation of the Duma in 1905,
the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II on March 2, 1917 and the start of the
Soviet of Petrograd on February 27, 1917.
Attempts
after February to introduce elements of democratic freedom, by Soviets
(worker’s councils), factory committees, and popular expression, were crushed
by the Bolshevik dictatorship, which turned out to be not “dictatorship of the
proletariat,” as Lenin proclaimed, but dictatorship and compulsion by a small
group of Bolshevik politicians, and the physical liquidation or persecution of
those people, parties, and publications, who disagreed with the ruler,
and the imposition of state terror.
Not
until the regimes headed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin was there any
real attempt to modify the system and introduce Western political concepts, and
the official renunciation of Marxism and a call for universal Communism. Under
Putin, there is a complex arrangement in contemporary Russia, a developing if
faltering capitalist economy, limited political freedom, political
authoritarianism, a place for the Orthodox Church, a very limited Communist
party, absence of official memories of or monuments to Stalin, and an expanding
middle class. For
President Putin, stability, not revolutionary insurrections throughout the
world is the declared objective. The current celebration is patriotic, not
revolutionary, focused on the political and military power of the state.
In
spite of the allegations of Russian interference in Western elections, Putin
has made his position clear, independent management of Russian destiny, Russian
global power, and cooperation with the U.S. in the fight against the real
threat, international terrorism, not a fictional threat. Washington,
particularly Congress, should be really be spending its time reviewing the
possibilities of such cooperation, not performing in front of television
cameras.
