Article originally in the Financial Times. Other articles .
Tony Barber is a European Financial Times comment editor.
In December 2003, the parliamentary elections were held in Russia and the United Russia party Vladimir Putin stuck Moscow with pre -election posters. They depicted a national flag, a bear, the slogan “Strong Russia is a united Russia” and a map with 145 characters from Russian history – apparently one million inhabitants of the country.
Russia is strong when a strong state
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Putin’s first victory in the presidential election, which is this week, neither the Russians nor the people from the West say that no one has booked them. The map described a version of history, which is close to the heart of this former KGB agent.
Russia is strong when it is a strong state. It is a Messianic superpower with unique features. The prerequisite for the size is that it is necessary to destroy domestic opponents and subversivers from abroad so that Russia remains uniform behind its leader.
On the posters, Alexander Nevský, a medieval prince-fighter, was depicted, which is now celebrated in state historical amusement parks across the country for standing on the Western aggressor.
They also depicted Tsar Peter the Great, who expanded the borders of Russia and strengthened the state. Even Josif Stalin was on them. It was not a Russian, but a Georgian bully, whom they appreciate in Putin’s era for destroying aggressors and the Soviet Union was dreaded and respected abroad.
Has not yet reached its goals
Putin has not yet achieved its basic war targets in Ukraine – to destroy Ukrainian independence and question that Ukraine has its own identity independent of Russian. Thanks to Donald Trump, he can do it. However, we should also think about what this can mean to the Russian people and the basic freedoms that are now denied and which he has only enjoyed over the centuries at short intervals.
If negotiations with the United States would bring a result that Putin could present as a victory in Ukraine, it would be a blow to the Russians who hope for less political repression and a less militarized atmosphere in public life.
There is only a minority against the war. Much more people support it and have lowered their heads to avoid problems with the authorities. However, everyone knows that Putin would triumph in Ukraine interpreted as a defense of his authoritarian rule.
Putin could even remember Katarína’s statement of the great autocracy: “Any other form of government would be not only harmful to Russia, but completely devastating.” However, the Empress from the 18th century is not one of Putin’s favorite historical personalities. You corresponded to the French philosopher Voltair. Putin talks to Tucker Carlson.
Without Ukraine Russia will not be an empire
Putin repression does not reach the level of Stalin’s dictatorship when millions of people were in labor camps. Independent Russian and Western experts estimate that political prisoners are at least 1,500. But for each Galina Starovojtová, Boris Nemcov and Alexei Navaľný, who paid life for resistance to Putin, there are a number of less known persecuted Russians.
The old and young people are catching up to the Putin network. In March this year, the Military Court condemned a 67-year-old Soviet disident Alexander Skobov to 16 years in prison with a maximum degree of guarding because he criticized the attack on Ukraine. In November, they dismissed Arsenij Turbin, who was only 15 years old in 2023, when he was arrested for disagreement with the war, an appeal against a five -year imprisonment.
The suppression of dissent is associated with Putin’s feeling that it is fulfilling an imperial mission in Ukraine. Former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski once noted: “Without Ukraine Russia ceases to be an empire, but when Ukraine gets to its side and then conquers it, Russia automatically becomes an empire.” It was a valuable observation, but the consequences for internal conditions are even deeper.
Terror and Freedom alternate as seasons
The Russian Empire builders have always considered it necessary to submit to the state of the state and to persecute non -conform people, whom they described as a threat to national unity.
This was also true of the dreaded Tsar Ivan Terrny, who conquered the Kazan and Astrakhan Chanat and prepared the soil for Russian expansion to the Caspian Sea and Siberia. Four centuries later, Stalin de facto built an empire in Eastern Europe, imitating Ivan Terrny’s despotism, whom he very much admired.
The same model now appears in Putin’s Russia. In his eyes, liberalization goes at home – as for Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin – hand in hand with the loss of the empire and worsening the position of Moscow in the world. On the contrary, national repression gives his free hand to his efforts to dominate Ukraine and even to restore the sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.
The victory in the war would therefore delay another turn in the cycle of Russian history, according to which repression and at least partial freedom alternate one another as changes in the seasons. Red Terror Vladimír Lenin retreated to a new economic policy. Then Stalin came and after him the reign of Nikita Khrushčov. For Leonid Brezhnev and his successors, the conditions were tightened, but Gorbachev and Yeltsin changed everything.
Now we have Putin. Is it possible that the future leader of the Kremlin will be part of this formula, will liberalize at home and at the same time lead a less militant foreign policy? The answer to a large extent depends on the outcome of the war.
If Putin’s successor inherits control of Ukraine with an extended space in Europe and wants to keep it, then the turnover of the cycle towards domestic reforms can be even more delayed. The lesson from the past of Russia and Putin’s government is that the imperial mentality is incompatible with the freedom of the Russian people.
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