The famous British writer Herbert Wells who visited the revolutionary Russia in the middle of the civil war and met Vladimir Lenin in the Kremlin named his book about the Bolshevik coup and the future of the giant country "Russia in the Shadows". Nearly a hundred years after that trip new researchers could also use this name: Russia's future is still obscure and nobody can predict what will become of it in several years.
In 1920, as Wells met the Soviet leader, Lenin was still the head of the government of the Soviet Russia. The other future republics of the Soviet Union – including Ukraine – still existed as independent states with imposed agreements on military and economic unions after the Red Army had occupied them. (As is well known, a similar plan also existed in relation to Poland, but it failed due to the defeat of the Red Army units under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky). The Soviet Union was still two years away from being proclaimed, but hardly anybody doubted that the Bolsheviks had set a course for restoration of their former empire by means of armed forces.
Something of the kind is to observed nowadays. There is no Soviet Union yet, but Vladimir Putin - still as president of the Russian Federation – imposes agreements on economic and military unions on the neighboring states and prepares for their absorption. The Eurasian Economic Union is to become the first stage on the way of reconstructing the former empire and it is quite clear that Putin would like to see not only Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and, possibly, Kirgizstan in such a union, but also Ukraine. I dare say, Ukraine in the first place. Today the time between 1991 and 2013 is regarded my Moscow – and this opinion is shared by the vast majority of Russian society – as a temporary retreat of the empire, which has finally regained enough strength to start the process of taking back its “ancestral” lands from Lviv to Ashgabat. Exactly in these terms did the Bolsheviks regard the time between 1917 and 1922.
Probably, Putin dared not an open war against Ukraine now, had he not been convinced that the EC-Ukraine Association Agreement would have irreparable consequences and prevent Russia from absorbing the neighboring country. While Europe regarded it the best model of cooperation with the former Soviet republics and hoped that the Association would enable the neighboring countries to create effective economic ties with the EU and at the same time to keep their traditional ties with Russia, Moscow, in turn, perceived it as an assault on its “natural” interests and even on the territory of Russia proper. This is the very reason why Putin put fierce pressure on Serge Sargsian and Viktor Yanukovych, the presidents of Armenia and Ukraine respectively, making them refuse to sign the document. And after the Maidan he started the war.
The Maidan made Putin march out earlier, than it was planned – and much more fiercely than it was necessary for a painless absorption of the neighboring country. When the Bolsheviks carried out the occupation of the first Ukrainian independent republic in 1918-1920, nobody could resist them. Europe was dysfunctional and virtually burnt out by the First World War, the United States had no substantial interests on the continent, and Russia itself – after its economy collapsed in the years of war and revolution – was in fact torn out from the civilized world and did not fear its pressure.
But now the situation is totally different. Putin has created the model of economy that Lenin would have been horrified of. The Putin's Russia produces virtually nothing – buying everything in exchange for energy sources. This was the very topic of the speech given by German Gref, the head of Russian Sberbank, at the representative forum "Russia Calling!" – and exactly this is the essence of the Putin's economic model. Another important part of this model Putin inherited from Yeltsin, and that in his turn – from the Soviet times. The gist of it is that the regions are provided with all things needed directly from the center, which role is to redistribute the funds received from donor regions (today there are only ten of such donors) to the rest 72 dependent regions, as well as to the occupied the controlled Crimea, Transdniestria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia. The essence of the Russian statehood consists in such a redistribution. The essence of the Russian economy consists in selling petroleum (a half of the donor regions is just engaged in petroleum production and processing, the rest are mostly the centers of corruption). In case this balance be disturbed, the state collapses.
Now we have come exactly to this civilizational junction. Either the civilized world stops Russia on the Ukrainian borders with the help of economic sanctions on the background of sinking oil prices – in this case the number of donor regions decreases even more, and so will their potential, and the center deprived of money would not just be needed for the majority of its "shareholders". Or Russia gains its remaining strength for a military thrust, occupies and destroys Ukraine and Kazakhstan, annexes Belarus, and there emerges a new Soviet Union on the EC borders – an impoverished, embittered, burdened with its internal problems, but ready for new wars for the "ancestral territory" and "traditional spheres of influence".
The fact that Russia is integrated in the world economy makes the first variant more realistic. But we should be keenly aware of one thing: there will be no return to the "status quo" that used to exist before the occupation of the Crimea.
In 1920, as Wells met the Soviet leader, Lenin was still the head of the government of the Soviet Russia. The other future republics of the Soviet Union – including Ukraine – still existed as independent states with imposed agreements on military and economic unions after the Red Army had occupied them. (As is well known, a similar plan also existed in relation to Poland, but it failed due to the defeat of the Red Army units under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky). The Soviet Union was still two years away from being proclaimed, but hardly anybody doubted that the Bolsheviks had set a course for restoration of their former empire by means of armed forces.
Something of the kind is to observed nowadays. There is no Soviet Union yet, but Vladimir Putin - still as president of the Russian Federation – imposes agreements on economic and military unions on the neighboring states and prepares for their absorption. The Eurasian Economic Union is to become the first stage on the way of reconstructing the former empire and it is quite clear that Putin would like to see not only Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and, possibly, Kirgizstan in such a union, but also Ukraine. I dare say, Ukraine in the first place. Today the time between 1991 and 2013 is regarded my Moscow – and this opinion is shared by the vast majority of Russian society – as a temporary retreat of the empire, which has finally regained enough strength to start the process of taking back its “ancestral” lands from Lviv to Ashgabat. Exactly in these terms did the Bolsheviks regard the time between 1917 and 1922.
Probably, Putin dared not an open war against Ukraine now, had he not been convinced that the EC-Ukraine Association Agreement would have irreparable consequences and prevent Russia from absorbing the neighboring country. While Europe regarded it the best model of cooperation with the former Soviet republics and hoped that the Association would enable the neighboring countries to create effective economic ties with the EU and at the same time to keep their traditional ties with Russia, Moscow, in turn, perceived it as an assault on its “natural” interests and even on the territory of Russia proper. This is the very reason why Putin put fierce pressure on Serge Sargsian and Viktor Yanukovych, the presidents of Armenia and Ukraine respectively, making them refuse to sign the document. And after the Maidan he started the war.
The Maidan made Putin march out earlier, than it was planned – and much more fiercely than it was necessary for a painless absorption of the neighboring country. When the Bolsheviks carried out the occupation of the first Ukrainian independent republic in 1918-1920, nobody could resist them. Europe was dysfunctional and virtually burnt out by the First World War, the United States had no substantial interests on the continent, and Russia itself – after its economy collapsed in the years of war and revolution – was in fact torn out from the civilized world and did not fear its pressure.
But now the situation is totally different. Putin has created the model of economy that Lenin would have been horrified of. The Putin's Russia produces virtually nothing – buying everything in exchange for energy sources. This was the very topic of the speech given by German Gref, the head of Russian Sberbank, at the representative forum "Russia Calling!" – and exactly this is the essence of the Putin's economic model. Another important part of this model Putin inherited from Yeltsin, and that in his turn – from the Soviet times. The gist of it is that the regions are provided with all things needed directly from the center, which role is to redistribute the funds received from donor regions (today there are only ten of such donors) to the rest 72 dependent regions, as well as to the occupied the controlled Crimea, Transdniestria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia. The essence of the Russian statehood consists in such a redistribution. The essence of the Russian economy consists in selling petroleum (a half of the donor regions is just engaged in petroleum production and processing, the rest are mostly the centers of corruption). In case this balance be disturbed, the state collapses.
Now we have come exactly to this civilizational junction. Either the civilized world stops Russia on the Ukrainian borders with the help of economic sanctions on the background of sinking oil prices – in this case the number of donor regions decreases even more, and so will their potential, and the center deprived of money would not just be needed for the majority of its "shareholders". Or Russia gains its remaining strength for a military thrust, occupies and destroys Ukraine and Kazakhstan, annexes Belarus, and there emerges a new Soviet Union on the EC borders – an impoverished, embittered, burdened with its internal problems, but ready for new wars for the "ancestral territory" and "traditional spheres of influence".
The fact that Russia is integrated in the world economy makes the first variant more realistic. But we should be keenly aware of one thing: there will be no return to the "status quo" that used to exist before the occupation of the Crimea.