Alexander Oslon. Deadly illusion

Deadly illusion
book About Steven Cohen's "The Failure of the Crusade. The USA and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia" .

Alexander Oslon

Publication date: March 1, 2001

I don't think this book is a unique phenomenon. In fact, it is an indictment of the American policy of the 90s in relation to Russia, and made by an American - a professor at Princeton University, a famous expert on Russia, the author of the first reliable biography of N.I. Bukharin, who has visited Russia many times, knows its history well and feeling its originality.

S. Cohen's main reproach is that America, on the crest of its triumph from victory in the Cold War, having decided to help Russia, did not offer anything other than recipes for life in the American image and likeness. Moreover, with undeniable categoricalness, America elevated its prescription schemes to the absolute, regardless of the cultural, historical, mental specifics of Russia, and took an arrogant mentoring position towards Russia.

Many newly-minted “Russia specialists” in the early 90s rushed to implement the general strategy for the “education and re-education” of a foreign country, a foreign people, relying on formal schemes and stilted ideas, “implemented” for many years, despite obvious failures and failures .

Rigid imposition of “tested” schemes, petty interference, including personnel decisions, rejection of real information that contradicts dogmas, missionary fanaticism, self-perception of a guru for the natives, who also distribute money - this is what S. Cohen blames the American “doctors” relying on numerous documentary sources and arguing literally each of his thesis. Moreover, he claims that even the volume of financial assistance was obviously insufficient to implement plans for “treating Russia,” and most of it was spent on American consultants themselves, which caused an influx of “lovers of easy money” into their ranks.

In other words, he describes the US role in Russia as a mixture of hypocrisy, dogmatism, didactics, incompetence and disrespect for the country, in relation to which America has taken upon itself the “high mission” of carrying out democratic and market reforms and building a civil society. Instead, says S. Cohen, an ugly combination of corrupt oligarchic capitalism for a few and a massive degradation of the standard of living of the bulk of the population, accompanied by a massive dullness from a kaleidoscope of semantic imitations denoting the non-existent, arose in Russia.

He lists concepts that have a clear meaning for America itself, but for Russia they do not describe anything - illusions and emptiness. He includes the frequently used phraseology of overseas consultants among such simulacra concepts: including “successful reforms” that led to poverty; “free market” - permeated with all types of racketeering, from criminal to state; “banks” are not lending, not earning, but distributing and plundering budget resources; “victory over inflation” - achieved by huge debt obligations and salary delays; the “middle class” is an insignificant part of the population existing on islands of precarious prosperity; “free press” - bought, controlled and playing the role of an instrument of information confrontation and manipulation, etc. and so on.

In terms of these concepts, it is good to write reports on the implementation of the Mission to transform Russia into a semblance of America. But these concepts have little relevance to Russia, and today - after the turbulent 90s - this is obvious to the author. He calls on those politicians and experts who are still blinded by bright phrases, those who cannot give up ridiculous stereotypes, as well as those who, disillusioned with Russian reforms, went to the other extreme and switched to aggressive and accusatory positions, to understand this. claiming that Russia is incapable of “progress”, that it was and remains wild, unsettled, uncivilized. He is categorically against new - but already anti-Russian - stereotypes that require a transition to the method of punishment and isolation.

This is the brief impression from the “ negative ” part of S. Cohen’s book, the fervor of which largely covers up many bitter descriptions of what happened in Russia in the 90s. But this was written by an American professor who, at risk, violates all the axioms of political correctness, so significant for his work and academic career! The fact is that S. Cohen literally goes against the positions of the so-called “experts on Russia”, cemented by ideological stereotypes, which the author compares with McCarthyism and Marxism in their schematic nature, in the cohesion they create, in the suppression of dissent they generate (all of the 90s For years, S. Cohen’s ideas were ignored, hushed up and ignored by the “Russian aid machine”).

But there is also a “ positive ” part of the book, revealing S. Cohen’s ideas about the “correct” US policy towards Russia.

At its core, S. Cohen sees several basic principles, including, first of all, the pointlessness of efforts to remake Russia into America, attempts to mechanically implant American concepts and stereotypes on Russian soil. His idea is to assume that Russia has enough intelligence to follow a progressive path and independently decide at each moment in time how to move, what problems and tasks to put at the forefront. America's help, in his opinion, should not consist in the didactic imposition of certain templates, but in intellectual assistance, in expert analysis, in presenting in certain situations a range of possible alternatives for subsequent independent Russian choice, taking into account the traditions, culture and mentality of Russians .

Another basic position of S. Cohen is that Russia needs a financial resource in order to overcome the crisis, in comparison with which the loans received by Russia are just crumbs. His estimate is at least 500 billion. If the United States really wants to see Russia prosperous, stable and integrated into the civilized world, then it is necessary to mobilize this resource through the efforts of developed countries. He writes about the tax noose thrown over Russia, and regards it as one of the signs of a short-sighted and hypocritical double standard policy, in which the words and intentions of those carrying the banner of the Mission differ significantly.

As part of his concept of effective and reasonable assistance, he proposes a whole series of steps that are radically at odds with the existing policies of the United States and the IMF. We are actually talking about a kind of “Marshall Plan”, which allowed the rise of war-ravaged Germany and assumed that the Germans would largely rely on their own forces, as well as on financial resources in the necessary and sufficient volume.

S. Cohen's book, along with meaningful negative statements and positive proposals, clearly reveals the author's motivation , and it should be recognized that this motivation is extremely rational. He, knowing Russia and respectfully experiencing its failures, first of all sees and justifies the extreme threat to the whole world from an unstable, unmodernized and isolated Russia.

The phrase “a threat comes from Russia” is often found in the book, but behind it is the idea of ​​a Russia that has not overcome the crisis, that has failed to include rational economic, political and mental mechanisms of development, that has not found a reasonable balance between the government and the population, between the center and the regions, between elite, ethnic, ideological and other social groups. Such a Russia, saturated with nuclear, chemical, and bacteriological weapons, will be unpredictable, insane, uncivilized and, ultimately, dangerous. Moreover, S. Cohen argues that the American policy of the 90s is leading Russia along precisely this trajectory, and his book sounds like an alarm bell calling for people to come to their senses and radically change their disastrous approach.

At the same time, S. Cohen speaks vividly about the uniqueness of Russia, its culture, its traditions, that they cannot be ignored, they cannot be ignored. His position is based on the idea that the world is unthinkable without Russia, and that the world will largely be the same as Russia. And the United States, according to the American professor, is largely responsible for what the world will be like.

This position can rightfully be said to be both respectful and pragmatic; it involves a rejection of the “model of words” that generates illusion, imitates results and, ultimately, does not remove the Russian crisis from the world agenda, and a transition to a model that strategically clear, pragmatic and effective political and economic actions.

S. Cohen's book is directly addressed to the new US president , but it was written before the elections. The very fact of its appearance suggests that in the American expert and analytical community there are difficult processes of understanding not only the Russian crisis, but also the impasse into which US ideas regarding Russia have reached and into which Russia itself has reached, not without the implementation of these ideas. After the joyful excitement of the destruction of the Soviet system through the illusion of “Russia’s leap into democracy,” these ideas led to dangers and threats for America that were by no means less large-scale than during the Cold War. Therefore, says S. Cohen, it is necessary to stop the “crusade,” abandon the missionary impulse, discard ideological templates and build new priorities.

S. Cohen's book is certainly significant , and there is a high probability that a new intellectual wave will arise in the United States under its influence, within the framework of which, along with attempts to really understand what happened in Russia in the 90s, a new and more sound doctrine may emerge that America can and should do for Russia. Which is in line with Russian interests.