When the past becomes real

The Cold War specialist - about Putin - Brezhnev’s doctrine and consequences for Russian politics

The great American writer William Folkner owns the famous phrase he said when he was presenting to him by the Nobel Prize: “The past never dies. In fact, it is not even the past. ” I felt this exactly, watching in the last weeks Vladimir Putin, who dragged Russia back into the Soviet past.

The return to this particular period of history is clearly seen not only in its policy in relation to Ukraine and Crimea, but also by its actions within the country - an increasingly repressive policy aimed at further curtailing rights and freedoms and the destruction of the opposition. Unfortunately, the latter is almost not noticed in the Western media: everyone is concentrated on events in Ukraine and on a crisis in Crimea.

Back in 2005, in his message to the Federal Assembly, Putin said: "The collapse of the Soviet Union was the largest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century." It seems that today he decided to fix this “geopolitical catastrophe” both outside Russia and at home.

The heir to Brezhnev

In his speech on March 18, which in itself, Putin, claimed that Russia not only had the right, but was also obliged to undertake a preventive military operation to protect ethnic Russians in a neighboring country: “If the local Self -Defense Forces of Crimea did not take the situation under control, there could also be victims. And thank God that this did not happen! "

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In the Brezhnev doctrine, the concept of preventive measures was recorded, only instead of protecting ethnic Russians-as in Putin’s doctrine-it was about the protection of brothers-communists

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Reading these words, anyone familiar with Soviet history, immediately recalls the Brezhnev doctrine - a list of arguments that rationalized and explained the introduction of Soviet troops and troops of the Warsaw Treaty to Czechoslovakia in 1968 in order to destroy the peaceful movement of reforms. It was in the Brezhnev doctrine that the concept of preventive measures was recorded, only instead of protecting ethnic Russians, as in Putin’s doctrine, it was about protecting the communist brothers. According to the Brezhnev doctrine, Soviet troops should not wait until the events already happened-as it was, for example, in 1956, when the troops entered Hungary after the revolution began there-but they had to be sent there in advance when something bad (from the point of view of Moscow) was still planned. “We will never take risks again and wait until the Communists are shot and hanged” (as it was in Hungary in 1956), ”Soviet leaders swore, promising that they would always“ come to the aid of comrades in the socialist camp. ” Exactly this was done in 1968, when, under the pretext of hypothetical linema of the communist orthodox, Protestants on the streets in Czechoslovakia were introduced. And although there was not even a hint that this could happen in Prague, the Kremlin comrades were not ashamed to factory such “evidence”. As Putin is not shy now, who, in his speech on March 18, is exactly the same arguments as his Soviet predecessors, proved the correctness of his doctrines of preventive measures aimed at protecting Russian communities in neighboring countries.

Stalin's student

However, a number of other passages in Putin’s speech, borrowed from the Soviet past, looks even worse. There is no doubt: he perfectly understands that Russia is facing serious economic problems and that it can cause discontent, or even a protest among the broad segments of the population. Exactly, therefore, in his speech on March 18, he tried to translate the arrows - pointed to the guilty in future problems and difficulties. Namely, on the “fifth column of national traitors”, which the West is growing. Even in Brezhnev times, Soviet leaders in their speeches tried to avoid such messages. The terms used by Putin are already sending us to Stalin and his era of great terror. Of course, Putin is not Stalin, but the very fact that he began to use such a phraseology is very alarming. Moreover, this is the continuation and strengthening of the measures that he has already taken over the past two years: the law on “foreign agents”, searches and closing of NGOs that received foreign grants, an expanded interpretation of the term “treason”, a campaign against the leaders of the Gay community (who represent as agents of the West), xenophobic rhetoric-all this aims to introduce Putin’s political opponents as inroote West. This is exactly what the Soviet regime did in relation to dissidents and human rights activists, who were also called "traitors."

Putin said that the referendum held in the Crimea on March 16 is a referendum in which the questions were made up in such a way that the result was preceded in advance, “was in full accordance with democratic procedures and international legal norms.” None of his predecessors of the Soviet era could come up with the wording better! Obviously, Putin is so accustomed to falsification of elections in Russia that he does not even consider it necessary to look for at least some good arguments in order to prove that the lack of freedom and the unfair referendum was something other than a strict farce. Unfortunately, - and this is the saddest - Putin seems to know the price of Russian society well. The latest Levada Center surveys show that the President’s popularity rating jumped up to 72%-almost 10 points higher than a year ago. It is clear that partially the growth of his popularity is associated with the Olympics in Sochi, but a considerable part is the result of his policy in relation to Ukraine. Moreover, as polls show, 80% of Russians support the annexation of Crimea. Putin’s return to the practice and rhetoric of the Soviet era frightened the West, but in Russia it looks like a winner.

Photo: Anna Sergeeva/Zuma Press/Russian look