by Stefano Caprio

While the average Russian is not in support the current state of action, neither can they counter it, imobilized by dread at the possibile outcomes of the war: defeat would result in panic, but victory could destabilise social relations. The incognito of the post war period, whatever the outcome of the current events.

There are at least three theories to explain why Russia, in one way or another, always ends up in conflict with the world. The first is that of ‘historical backwardness’, due to having formed as a European state only at the end of the first millennium, and having subsequently suffered two centuries of ‘Tatar yoke’ between 1200 and 1400, failing to adapt to modernity.

The second theory, more of a ‘Slavophile’ orientation, is that Russia has its own original civilisation to develop, which has always been opposed by the enemies of East and West, and thus has never been able to fully express itself. Finally, all the blame is placed on the misfortune of having almost always had inadequate leaders, either due to mental imbalances or insuperable weaknesses, which is certainly true in part. The three theories, moreover, are complementary and amply demonstrable with the events of Russian history.

These explanations also fit in well with Putin's Russia, which has sprung from the historical backwardness of a sclerotic system struggling against the ‘civilised’ world as the Soviet Union was, from having been narcotized by communist totalitarianism and having then tried to find its soul amidst a thousand contradictions, and having had to endure the ineffective reforms of Mikhail Gorbačev and Boris Yeltsin, to find itself with a figure as lacking in quality and adrift as Vladimir Putin.

So we are back to square one, with a Russia that has thrown away the efforts of thirty years, and finds itself having to reinvent itself under the leadership of a debilitated and internationally delegitimised tsar, as had happened with other figures of the ancient and recent past. It has to be said that Putin has fired all his bullets, and now drags out a world war idea with little hope of achieving anything but bowing to the vassalage of China and the unlikely company of international partners like Iran and North Korea.

The confusing images of peace talks in recent weeks, from Switzerland to Hungary via Beijing again, depend on external factors over which Moscow does not really have a decisive influence, despite all its external propaganda efforts, such as the forthcoming US elections that will coincide with Russia's great national holiday of People's Unity on 4 November, the end of the Torbid period in which the Kremlin almost fell into the hands of the hated Poles and their domestic allies, the ancestors of today's ‘foreign agents’.

Putin's trip to Pyongyang last 18 June is the most significant image of the conditions in which Russia finds itself today, finding in one of the world's most refractory countries its only true companion, so much so that these days Russian students flock to the North Koreans' “re-educational holiday” camps to train in blind, militant patriotism.

The prophecy of the ‘great leader’ Kim Il-sung, grandfather of the current president Kim Jong-un, who in 1950 divorced the Soviet Union by proclaiming the ‘autonomy of the body’, a principle of many Asian forms of spirituality, has come true: today it is Russia that has to support itself, seeking the balance of its forces, exalting the so-called ‘traditional moral and spiritual values’.

Until two years ago, before the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia was anything but an isolated and autonomous country; on the contrary, it was highly integrated into the world economy and entirely dependent on foreign relations, especially with the West, in the colossal exchange of resources, especially energy and technology, which has now completely broken down.

Thanks to these past relations, Russia still finds itself in a state of relative prosperity, certainly above the world average, and still dependent on import-export, which it is now frantically trying to re-orient to Asian markets; it remains dependent on foreign countries, however, not having the strength and capacity to stand on a true autarkic economy, which after all would be complete madness in the globalised world.

The obvious sign of this impotence is the unstoppable rise in inflation, due to the imbalances in a foreign trade balance that is impossible to restore to the levels of past decades.

Russia cannot really separate itself from the rest of the world, it is only becoming more and more difficult to really find its place: for imports it depends on China, in exports it remains tied to oil prices, which are less and less convenient for Moscow.

To face the challenges of the future, the Putin regime for now only succeeds in deluding the population that ‘nothing will change’, other ways will be found to maintain the current standard of living, but it risks progressive degeneration, if not complete failure.

The system is now referred to as ‘long-term militant Putinism’, which will determine the country's future far beyond its leader's capabilities and durability; it is a worldview with no return, projecting the image of a world in which Russia is crushed by its own ‘multipolar’ ideology. There is a western and an eastern pole, Russia remains between a rock and a hard place, and no one has any interest in pulling it out of this dead end.

The problem is that when Putin decided on the invasion of Ukraine, backed by a caste of loyalists, neither Russian society nor the elites were actually ready for war, let alone the economy and the war machine itself. Now the regime has adapted to this unexpected challenge produced internally, stifling all protest and uncertainty, and has stabilised itself in a condition now almost impossible to unhinge. It is a downward stability, which can only try to compensate for its growing weaknesses.

Putinism is projecting itself beyond Putin not out of true support, nor even out of true opposition, but out of an adaptation to a condition with no more alternatives. Russia has the problem of preserving itself, in permanent war and the sanctions blockade, in relations with countries completely foreign to its nature and culture; it needs war as its only form of relationship with the outside world and with its own population, there is no longer any compromise or negotiation to discuss.

If Putin were to die tomorrow, no new leader would arise to proclaim an end to hostilities, and re-establish relations with the West.

When there is nothing left, Russia entrenches itself in the most integral and fanatical patriotism, a legacy of its multifaceted imperial past, and this struggles to be compensated for by the anxiety of modernisation, of ‘not falling behind’ once again compared to the rest of the world.

The average Russian does not support this approach, but does not know how to counter it, and looks with dread at the outcome of the war: defeat would throw everyone into panic, but even a victory would risk destabilising social relations, not knowing what might happen ‘afterwards’, whatever the outcome of current events. If we open up the country again to Westerners, they will again appropriate all the resources; if we remain behind the new Iron Curtain, we will not be able to keep up with technological progress, and no one will help us anymore.

The Soviet system had had a similar parabola, from isolation to trying to catch up with its adversaries, and this destroyed it for good. The empire's strength was often based on the critical phases of the West itself, in times of wars and revolutions, while Russia tried to show its inner stability and serenity.

This is another of the fundamental concepts of Putinism: we are fine, we enjoy our traditions and our orthodox purity, while ‘that degraded world’ is losing its identity and its supposed superiority. And indeed, Russia's warlike and imperialist turn today coincides with a deep crisis of Western democracy.

A Sistema poll of Russian, American and other experts and political scientists confirms that Putinism will last long after Putin, unless catastrophes even greater than the defeat of the war in Ukraine occur, such as the explosion of a nuclear power plant or a collapse of the Chinese economy.

The only variant discarded by all is that of a regime change after honest elections open to real competition, which seems completely improbable for Russia, but is not so sure now even in the West.

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