Two centuries of mirror reflections

It's time for Russia and the United States to stop educating each other

The informal meeting of the presidents of Russia and the United States that began yesterday at the Bush family estate in the town of Kennebunkport in Maine is unlikely to resolve all the acute problems between Moscow and Washington. Therefore, as if to sweeten the bitterness of this pill, Moscow and Washington are now remembering that our current strategic partnership was preceded not only by the Cold War, but also by more pleasant things. Such as the establishment of diplomatic relations 200 years ago (and Russia was one of the first to establish them with the United States), which will be solemnly celebrated all year by both sides.

When diplomatic relations were established between Russia and the United States in 1807 (through an exchange of messages between Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Budberg and US Secretary of State James Madison), few people paid attention to this event. Russia at that moment was focusing its efforts on the European direction, where the ever-growing empire of Napoleon the First began to threaten Russian territory. The picture changed only a century later, when the United States emerged from the First World War as the strongest power. And after the Second World War, Russia in its Soviet guise also laid claim to the same title.

The pattern in which Moscow and Washington were the main power centers of world politics has become so familiar to Russians that we have difficulty accepting the new pattern in which the United States pays more attention to ties with India and China than to relations with Russia. The American diplomatic corps is now sharply reducing the number of diplomats working in Europe (including Russia), in favor of countries such as India or Indonesia.

So just when we are celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of our relationship, the question is increasingly being asked: do we even need each other? Are you interested?

At the 26th Russian Forum, held back in May in Washington, dedicated to the analysis of Russian-American relations, the participants came to the conclusion that no improvement in relations should be expected until the end of the presidential election campaigns in both Russia and the United States in 2008. Democrats will try to score points by criticizing the Bush administration for being too soft on the “Putin regime,” and Republicans will preempt this criticism with “anti-Putin” actions.

Speaking at the forum, American Blair Ruble, director of the George Kennan Institute, noted: “We have not yet crossed the point of no return in the deterioration of our relations, but we are approaching it. True, the new crisis will be different from, say, the Cuban “missile” crisis of 1962 At that time, both countries understood that they could not survive without taking into account each other’s interests. There were restrictions that kept the parties from ill-considered actions. But now we see that both sides simply do not need each other, and the natural restrictions of the Cold War have disappeared. "The situation has become less structured and therefore more dangerous."

However, this situation is not new. We should not forget that we are living through a period that followed the victorious end of the Cold War for the United States, as well as the relatively successful interventions in Iraq in 1991 and in a number of other countries in 1994-1999. It may seem strange, but military victories, including those won jointly, have typically been accompanied by a deterioration in Russian-American relations. And the point here is not only the fear of one of the powers of the strengthening of its rival. The point is what could be called the jealousy of bureaucracies.

Both of our states, no matter what ideologists in the USA and Russia say about this, are inclined to create a self-confident, self-sufficient and nationalist-minded bureaucracy. This bureaucracy regards every military or political victory only as its own merit and as proof of its own exclusivity and indispensability for “all progressive humanity.” This causes the jealousy of another bureaucracy on the opposite side of the planet. The result is conflicts that periodically arise precisely after victories and mutual suspicion, which neither American pragmatism nor Russian easygoingness have so far been able to overcome.

A striking example is the actions of the Stalinist leadership after the Great Patriotic War, as well as the policies of three US presidents in the period after the collapse of the socialist bloc in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Victory in the war against fascism was achieved by the exploits and sacrifices of the entire population of the Soviet Union, and not by the “wise leadership” of Stalin and the Communist Party. Victory in the Cold War was achieved by the United States thanks to the success of American business, which created an economy that had a positive demonstration effect for the whole world. As currently published documents and memoirs show, the CIA and the State Department were not actually able to predict the collapse of the socialist bloc in 1989 and the USSR in 1991, which casts doubt on the “leading role” of these organizations in the erosion of communist regimes.

So, the role of the state in the victories won by Russia and the United States is very doubtful. Nevertheless, for forty years the CPSU arrogated to itself the laurels of the winner of fascism, and the American administration, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, behaves as if its achievements represent the end, or rather the crown of history, although the author of the concept of the same name, Francis Fukuyama, abandoned it long ago.

It is interesting that thoughtful diplomats on both sides subtly noticed this feature of the bureaucracy, its harm to national interests, but, as a rule, not in their own country, but in a rival country. Today, as we search for the cause of hostility toward Russia on the part of our former “allies” in Central and Eastern Europe, it is worth recognizing as prophetic the predictions made in the mid-forties by George Kennan, an American diplomat who briefly became the American ambassador to the USSR in 1952.

The words of an American diplomat are worth quoting: “This gigantic expansion of territory in the absence of at least a single rival superpower in the Eurasian space created not only advantages, but also problems for Russia. Many of the non-Russian territories now occupied by Soviet troops were once parts of the Tsarist empire; but even then they ultimately turned out to be the source of the weakness of this empire, and not its strength. The presence of a large number of national minorities in the revolutionary movement that led to the catastrophe of 1917 confirms this.” And further Kennan continues: “The Soviet state, deprived of these lands.” in its first two decades of existence, it was perhaps only strengthened by this circumstance. But now it has again shouldered the burden of owning these territories. It will be necessary, for example, to find personnel for the communist governments in these lands. If we send Russian managers there, it will become clear. that they are insensitive to the characteristics of local society, and therefore ineffective. If these people enter the local society, they will soon lose their Russianness and become disloyal. If you hire local managers, then there will be no trust in relations with them, nationalistic feelings will sooner or later break out and control will quickly be lost...”

In these lines, written in 1945, many future events are visible, like in a magic crystal. It is worth remembering that among the leaders of the movement for the independence of the Baltic republics were the former leader of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Latvian SSR, Gorbunovs (the first head of the Supreme Council of independent Latvia), and the prominent Lithuanian party member Berezovs. Here you have Russian managers who have “entered the local society.” The fact that the main persecutor of the Bronze Soldier in Estonia, Prime Minister Andris Ansip, was also an instructor in the district committee of the CPSU, reminds us of nationalist feelings that “broke out.” One can also recall Eduard Shevardnadze, for whom in Soviet times “the sun for Georgia rose from the north,” until after 1991 it began to rise from the west.

The geopolitical fate of Russia and the United States has developed in such a way that economically we can be more or less independent of each other, at least in the short term. But Kennan's words show that we can be useful and interesting to each other as intellectual mirrors, into which it is sometimes worth looking. Experience shows that attempts to educate each other by instilling American values ​​in Russians or Russian values ​​in Americans are, as a rule, fruitless. But when, having tamed our educational fervor, we begin to judge each other with Machiavellian composure, observations can be surprisingly accurate. An example is the pessimistic forecasts of Russian experts before the American invasion of Iraq. The predictions of our experts about a “bloodbath” turned out to be closer to reality than the mischievous plans of Washington strategists about “building a new nation” on the land of the Tower of Babel.

Interestingly, in the last years of his life (he died in 2006, having survived his own centenary), George Kennan opposed the expansion of NATO, calling the advance of this military bloc to the borders of Russia “the biggest mistake since the Cold War.” And in a speech before the Senate in 1975, he called the idea of ​​“containing” Russia, formulated by him in the late forties, “the biggest mistake of my life.” Unfortunately, this idea is becoming popular again in the United States. However, American history, like Russian history, is cyclical. Following the period of bureaucratic complacency and self-confidence comes a period of reform, quest and change. Sooner or later, American history, like Russian history, will enter this new cycle.

---

The US will return valuable documents to Russia

US Ambassador to Moscow William Burns, on behalf of his government, will hand over to the Russian side about 80 archival documents published in the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire. As American diplomats told Vremya Novostei, the ceremony will take place on July 5 at the US Embassy in Moscow. Some documents bear the signatures of Alexander I, Nicholas II, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev.

The transfer of the archives was preceded by many years of intrigue - for four years, law enforcement agencies in Russia and the United States found out how valuable materials ended up in America and in the spring of 2003 were put up for sale on the Internet. It was possible to find out that the archives were illegally exported from Russia and were also illegally imported into the United States. The ceremony of their return is timed to coincide with several dates - the celebration of US Independence Day on July 4 and a series of events dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the establishment of relations between our countries, celebrated this year. Coincidentally, the day after the ceremony - July 6 - US President George W. Bush will celebrate his 61st birthday. "TIME FOR NEWS"

Dmitry BABICH, Russia Profile magazine, - specially for Vremya Novostei