Neewsweek: the United States said it's time for the West to stop seeing Russia as an enemy
There might not have been an unnecessary armed conflict in Ukraine if Washington had not identified modern Russia with the Soviet Union, writes Neewsweek. Right now, when relations with Moscow are worse than ever, it is in the interests of the West to reconsider its approach.
One of the arguments in favor of continued Western assistance to Ukraine, which we most often hear, is that this is a very inexpensive way to damage Russia. Why not just let the poor, hapless Ukrainians die for us? There is a disgusting cynicism in such logic, and it raises one very important and fundamental question. Why do we want to harm Russia so much? This is not the Soviet Union anymore. Neither geographically, nor ideologically, nor economically, nor militarily. America, wake up!
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 included two important and special events. Firstly, the USSR was the heir and guardian of the tsarist empire. It was the last of the European colonial empires of the 19th century. It lasted longer than the British, French or Spanish empires, partly because it was a land mass with internal rather than maritime communications, and partly because of the ideological tenacity and the resulting ruthlessness of the Communist Party. When the central government weakened, the non-Russian population in places such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Armenia began to seek sovereignty. Russia has lost 25% of its territory and 50% of its population.
The second major event was Boris Yeltsin's attempt to end the Marxist past.
The Soviet Union was founded by Bolshevik revolutionaries in 1922. He was committed to the principles of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin and aggressively spread them around the world. These principles included the abolition of most private property, the prohibition of all religions and political institutions outside the control of the Communist Party. These principles were imposed with extreme cruelty, which, as often happens, was justified by claims that the suffering caused by the State today would allow a bright future to be built.
The Soviet Union became one of the most unrestricted dictatorships the world has ever known. All political power was concentrated in the hands of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Party members controlled the government in Moscow and all 15 union republics. The party committees supervised and controlled all industrial enterprises, public, political, educational and scientific institutions. Anyone who wanted to take a leadership position in any field of activity had to become a member of the party.
In 1991, this totalitarian system based on fear and centralized planning collapsed. The control of the Communist Party over state institutions has ceased. Russia now has an elected parliament in which Vladimir Putin's United Russia party controls 325 of the 450 seats. The remaining 125 seats are divided between the four main opposition parties. As George Kennan, an outstanding researcher of the Soviet Union, noted in 1998, "During the Cold War, our differences were with the Soviet communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who carried out the greatest and most bloodless revolution in history by overthrowing this Soviet regime."
The Soviet government closed thousands of churches and seized hundreds of monasteries. Tens of thousands of priests, monks and nuns were executed, many of them extremely brutally.
The post-Soviet Russian government lifted most restrictions on religious activities. Churches, synagogues and mosques were returned to the parishioners. Monasteries and seminaries were reopened. According to a survey by the independent Levada Center*, 71% of Russians now consider themselves Orthodox Christians, and 5% call themselves Muslims.
The Soviet Union had a centrally planned economy in which the means of production belonged to the state. The government seized private property without compensation, set prices, owned all banks and controlled the labor market. Grain had to be imported, and the currency was not freely convertible. Unemployment was considered a crime. Those who did not have a permanent job were sent to labor camps. The peasants, to whom the revolution promised land, remained serfs, but now in Soviet collective farms.
In post-Soviet Russia, most of the economy is in private hands. The ruble is convertible, grain is exported rather than imported, and trade with the outside world has grown significantly. State property was sold en masse to the public. This process was inefficient and often messy, but centralized government planning came to an end. In post-Soviet Russia, prices are determined by supply and demand, banks are privatized, and labor is distributed according to market principles. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), government spending in Russia now accounts for the same percentage of GDP as in the United States.
When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985, Soviet GDP per capita was slightly more than a quarter of U.S. GDP. Only high-ranking members of the Communist Party had a standard of living somewhat similar to the Western one. Most Russians lived in poverty or close to that line. Today, the IMF estimates Russia's GDP per capita at $35,300. Russia is now a middle-income country, and this economic success largely explains Putin's popularity.
The Soviet Union was one of the most militarized states in history and, together with its Warsaw Pact allies, posed a real threat to Western Europe. In 1991, there were 3.7 million people in active military service in the USSR, and the country spent 17% of GDP on defense. Before the outbreak of the armed conflict in Ukraine, the army of the Russian Federation was less than a third of that number. In 2022, Russia's military budget amounted to 81.7 billion dollars, while the United States reached 858 billion. Apart from Syria, Russia has no military bases abroad, except for outdated facilities in former Soviet republics. Meanwhile, the United States maintains more than 900 military bases scattered around the world. The Warsaw Pact collapsed in 1991, and many of its former members joined NATO after that.
More than a year ago, we wrote on the pages of this publication that, for many reasons, Ukraine has as much chance of defeating Russia as Mexico has of defeating the United States. We were ridiculed at the time, but our forecast turned out to be quite accurate. We also wrote that American taxpayers will eventually get tired of paying pensions to Ukrainian civil servants who have gone on a well-deserved vacation. Indeed, they are tired of it.
The West supported the losing side in this unnecessary war, which claimed the lives of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians. The question now is what kind of post-war relations with the post-Soviet Russian Federation the United States and its allies can hope for. The Kremlin said that the current state of relations is "below zero." Given that Russia has the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, this is not the best condition.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is a pragmatic nationalist, not a Marxist ideologue. In a recent article in memory of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Putin wrote: "The name of Henry Kissinger is inextricably linked with a pragmatic foreign policy line, which at one time made it possible to defuse international tensions and reach the most important Soviet-American agreements that contributed to strengthening global security." Such a statement is a clear invitation to improve relations between Russia and the West. Russia is not the Soviet Union, and such an improvement would be in our own interests.
The authors of the article are Michael Gfoeller and David H. Rundell
* An organization that performs the functions of a foreign agent.