[aaus-list] [Fwd: Window on Eurasia: Putin-Medvedev Regime ‘Proto-Fascist,’ Ukrainian Analyst Says]

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---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Window on Eurasia: Putin-Medvedev Regime ‘Proto-Fascist,’
Ukrainian Analyst Says
From:    "paul goble" <paul.goble at gmail.com>
Date:    Tue, July 7, 2009 7:51 pm
To:      "Paul Goble" <Paul.Goble at gmail.com>
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Window on Eurasia: Putin-Medvedev Regime ‘Proto-Fascist,’ Ukrainian Analyst
Says



Paul Goble



            Vienna, July 7 – Despite the hopes of many in the West for a
more progressive approach from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the Moscow
“tandem” of Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin represents a form of
“proto-fascism,” one that will only get worse for both its people and the
surrounding countries unless Western countries adopt a tough line.

            In Kyiv’s “Den’” on July 4, Ukrainian commentator Volodomyr
Lesnoy said that the current Russian regime can best be classified as
“proto-fascist,” a system he defines as one “in which the characteristics of
fascism exist in an incomplete form” but which are sufficiently developed
that they recall “the first stage of fascism” (www.day.kiev.ua/276377).

            While many analysts had pointed to fascistic elements during the
presidency of Putin, Lesnoy continued, most of them expected that the
situation would improve under Medvedev. But that has not happened, and the
situation, after a brief period of apparent improvement, has “begun a [new]
attack on civic freedoms.”

            As in the early stages of fascism elsewhere, in today’s Russia,
Lesnoy pointed out, “perfectly peaceful demonstrations have been cruelly
suppressed, and supporters of freedom of speech have recalled that this
freedom must now be understood [in Russia] just as it was treated in the
USSR.”

            Moreover, he continued, the creation of the commission for the
struggle against the falsification of history and “threats to pursue both
Russians and foreign citizens” who violate Moscow’s understandings in this
area, “the Kremlin is now forming an extremely important attribute of
fascism – an aggressive state ideology.”

            Also similar to the beginnings of fascism elsewhere, he noted,
“the foreign policy of Moscow has become still more selective,” restrained
and positive in relations with some countries and “openly aggressive in
relation to others,” especially toward “countries which emerged from the
USSR in 1991 and which conduct independent foreign and domestic policy.”

            One reason for this rapid descent, Lesnoy suggested, is to be
found in amazingly rapid rise of Putin himself.  The former president and
current prime minister “is not an hereditary or career politician, who
gradually rose up the political ladder.” Instead, he is someone who rose
unexpectedly quickly and thus manifests “the syndrome of Bonapartism.”

            That syndrome is something, Lesnoy argued, that “the majority of
authoritarian leaders suffer from: with confidence in their own genius and
infallibility and with the conviction that there is nothing impossible and
that they can win at any price and by any means because victors are not
judged.”

            Such attitudes in a leader, the Ukrainian commentator suggested,
“threaten problems in the future both for Russia itself and for [those who
are] its neighbors.” And that is all the more likely because “judging by
everything, the Putin regime or its followers is going to be in place for a
long time to come.”

            Russia will overcome the economic crisis, Lesnoy said, “and the
laurels of the savior of the nation will be laid on Putin after which he
will have the chance to become a lifetime national leader of ‘vozhd’ on
pension, to whom future leading politicians will come for advice and
guidance.”

*            *But Putin’s personality and background are not the only causes
of Russia’s “adventurous aggressiveness.” Another reason is the country’s
“essential weakness.” It remains “a colonial but in civilizational terms, a
backward country,” one in which many of the minorities will continue to
strive for independence.”

            And because of that, Lesnoy went on, “the struggle with
separatism will require enormous financial expenditures and human resources,
neither of which the Russian Federation has in abundance.” Indeed, over
time, it will become ever more obvious that “the enormous territory is both
the wealth of its Russia and its curse.”

            Moreover, Lesnoy pointed out, “the Russian economy except for
oil and gas is terribly weak. If the Russians had to pay for oil and gas as
Ukraine does, then their country would collapse in the course of four or
five years,” especially since “the Russian ethnos is in a deep existential
crisis.”

            What happens next both inside Russia and in Moscow’s relations
with its neighbors depends on what the Western democracies say and do,
Lesnoy argued.  “If they do not draw clearly a line beyond which Russia’s
adventures will not be tolerated, then in the future, they will have the
same kind of problems with Russia that they had with Nazi Germany.”

            And what is most disturbing, Lesnoy concluded, is that the
“roots of fascism in Europe and in the world have not been destroyed.”
Consequently, if that kind of system is established in Russia, “the bacilli
of fascism could again lead to a pan-European epidemic,” with all the tragic
consequences that would involve.
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