Russia is Obama's chance of a real legacy
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Last week, the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev expressed the concern that we may be heading for round three. He said: "I actually see all the signs of a new Cold War. It could all blow up at any moment if we don't take action. The loss of confidence is catastrophic. Moscow does not believe the West, and the West does not believe Moscow. A war today would probably lead inevitably to nuclear war. But the statements and propaganda on both sides make me fear the worst. If anyone loses their nerve in this charged atmosphere, we will not survive the next few years. I do not say such things lightly. I am a man with a conscience. But that's how it is. I'm really extremely worried."
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Vladimir Putin, the savage Russian leader, effects to not take Mr Gorbachev seriously, describing him after a recent similar warning, as believing himself second only to God - a strange comparison for a former Communist leader. US President Barack Obama does not seem to have taken any notice at all. He should.
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Talking down Putin from the roof would be such an achievement. Telling him that he has been assured by his EU allies that they have no interest in Ukraine, would be a start. Confirming that there is no possibility of Nato trying to site missiles on his border in Ukraine would be even better. For Obama it would have the added benefit of pissing off his opponents in Congress. They will be livid. Every right-wing Republican and Tea Party nutter will go ape-shit, and the shock-jocks on Fox will be apoplectic. They'll say he is soft on authoritarianism, giving in to aggression and letting down his allies. But at the end of the day that will all be so much hot air when set beside an achievement that will stand in comparison - if not total parity - with the original Detente and Nixon's opening up of China.
And if Putin has the sense to respond at all positively to that, then the sanctions could be relaxed and all the pumped up Cold War warriors could warm down and stand easy. And hopefully Mikhail Gorbachev - and the rest of us - can sleep a little easier in our beds at night.
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/russia-is-obamas-chance-of-a-real-legacy-30935109.html
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Back in the '90s there was incredible resentment in Russia towards the West. They saw the great appreciation and admiration from Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Bulgarians, etc., vanish. Their saw their great country collapse. And they heard all kinds of scurrilous things about their past for the first time. They also heard scurrilous things about their present.
And rejected any other reason for this than, "The West and America did this to us." They honestly believed that the Latvians and Czechs and Poles loved them for their sacrifices and leadership. The Latvians and Czechs and Poles thought themselves oppressed and eradicated most of the symbols of gratitude when finances allowed.
Russia--the USSR--was brought down as part of a CIA plot. Not because of forces acting primarily inside the country.
And the idea of the purges, of the GULags, of Stalin's stupidity in preparing for WWII, of perfidy in the Molotov-vonRibbentrop pact, of the banning of things like computer science as "bourgeoisie," all these things weren't possible, didn't fit in with the image of Russia as a good, great, proud country.
They'd also been told how horrible it was in the West. How Russia was the most advanced country economically and technologically, even as they told themselves they had sacrificed for others. They may prefer East German washing machines, but that was a sacrifice for their fellow socialist countries. In the West, we lived in penury. Then they found they were lied to. And had serious problems trying to adjust to this.
Even as at the same time privatization led to massive economic dislocations and the oligarchs, mostly former CPSU members or their associates, became oligarchs. Nobody noticed or cared that by the time Putin was elected all the negative economic indicators had gone positive. The country had bottomed out and was on the upswing. The only thing that mattered was employment and wages, which lag.
Out of this mess came Putin. And resentment over having been told lies about Stalin, having the USSR broken up by the West, etc., etc. But revanchism and jingoism, resentment and a sense of humiliation, brought him to power. Putin "made the country" economically better a month after he was elected, having done nothing to remedy things. But he took the credit and others, unwilling to give Eltsyn any credit, agreed. He promised to restore greatness, honor, dignity, and make people respect and fear Russia. He made things worse: He slighted the Poles, offended the Czechs, dissed the Baltics, and his electorate agreed with him. The relative old-timers liked the reborn Komsomol, "Nashi" ("Ours"
, youth brigades and camps he put together. They liked the nationalism and making all those scurrilous things said about their homeland--concentration camps, abuse of returning prisoners of war, etc.--go away. He was put up on the roof in the '70s and '80s because of the Cold War, his family set him up when his older brother died in Leningrad, he is what his past has made him.
Moreover, he can't believe that lesser peoples could possibly matter. To him, what Latvians or Ukrainians think is utterly irrelevant. It's part of a game between great powers. They have no say in things. The idea that Ukraine might choose something is ridiculous on its face. Putin grew up in a society that had Communist privilege and Russian privilege, much like DUers speak of "white privilege" and "male privilege".
