Fascism, as defined by those who study it, typically includes three key elements: a perception of deep historical grievance and/or a belief that the modern world is in some way irredeemably decadent; a desire for vengeance and/or national, collective, and/or historical ‘rebirth’ (‘palingenesis’ is the scholarly word for that); and submission of individual will to collective will, often though not always embodied in a cult of the leader or ruler. Modern fascism, as we saw last century, is also industrialized and technological; it mass produces its victims.
The first two elements have become more and more obvious in Putinist Russia. Putin has built on a deep sense of historical grievance, and his desire to rebuild Russia in all its former “glory” has been often articulated, not least in his speeches this past week. Up until yesterday, however, Putin’s fascism (like Trump’s) has been debated, but generally not admitted.
Fascism’s presence, since the end of the second world war, has seemed mostly individual — with lone killers committing mass murder in Oslo, Christchurch, El Paso, and elsewhere — or small-scale and cellular, with neo-Nazis found everywhere, from the US to Germany, France, Ukraine, and beyond, but nowhere near attaining power. (Whether ISIS and its kin in the Muslim world qualify as forms of fascism has also been debated, without clear resolution.)
Putin’s decision to use the second largest military in the world to achieve his palingenetic goals in ways that threaten millions of people has, I believe, changed the landscape of contemporary fascism. Many fascists and ultra-rightists have looked to Putin as a potential savior of the world against liberalism, globalism, and western “decadence.” The war in Ukraine can now be seen as Putin’s decisive response. That he claims he is “denazifying” Ukraine is, of course, completely consistent with fascism’s predilection for the “big lie.”
We now see the face of 21st century fascism: deeply aggrieved, cold and calculating, and starkly technological. This is our new world.
David Oks’s “Waiting for the Russians in Ukraine” is, while skewed in its bigger picture, true enough in most of its details. It also happens to be a microcosm of the world at large.
The dominance of personalistic parties, the thriving culture of corruption and retribution, the regional cleavage within Ukraine, and an elite formation process of economic privatization widely viewed as illegitimate have all conspired to cripple each attempt to establish a stable elite hegemony. Regardless of whether the attempts were of a patronal-regionalist character (Yanukovych or Medvedchuk) or liberal-nationalist character (Viktor Yushchenko or Arseniy Yatseniuk), they have resulted in a succession of ineffectual governments, which quickly lose their popularity as they are unable to deliver on much beyond symbolism. No single faction of the oligarch clans has been able to triumph over the others; neither have any of the liberal-democratic reformers managed to subdue the oligarchs as a class.
The repertoire of contention available to opponents of this system is narrow, and it centers on ideologically vague urban uprisings of a national-democratic character, always centered in the Maidan Square. These are the occasional flowerings of “democratic renewal” or “national salvation,” like the Orange Revolution in 2004 or the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, that briefly capture the liberal imagination. But this results only in some elite circulation. Ukraine’s political economy is largely unchanged, and business as usual eventually returns.
Ukraine is, in all these details, a basketcase. (And all the more so to an economic reductionist.)
But none of these features are unique to Ukraine, and many are more broadly, even globally, systemic. Business as usual is the problem of the world (which is why climate change, for instance, isn’t being solved). The oligarchic class works hard everywhere to retain its privileges, with occasional openings to new elites and new privatizations. (The radical privatization of industry marking the end of the Soviet Union was nothing compared to the privatization of datafied cognition marking the opening of the surveillance capitalism frontier.) Personalistic parties, or party-states, with varying degrees of authoritarian vertykal, rule kleptocratically in their own patronal-regionalist spheres (not always several in a single country, as in Ukraine, but sometimes quite singularly, as in Russia, China, and elsewhere).
The liberal imagination is captured by occasional bursts of democratic energy, and more often than not these defuse soon enough into business as usual. Democracy works mainly to shift the deck chairs around (to circulate elites, as Oks puts it) and to air out some views (and some flatulence), not really to redesign the architecture.
And life goes on: young people go on dates, people joke, drink, discuss Eurovision, muddle through. As Oks asks rhetorically, “what could they do?”
Not every city provides the space and background for life to go on as well as it does in Kyïv.
The piece is nevertheless worth reading, if only to remind ourselves what Ukraine is up against when Russian armies are not on the doorstep.
At the beginning of this past week, I still believed that Putin’s military maneuvering around Ukraine was a form of grandstanding and sowing panic, with the goals of gaining a few more international concessions, asserting a stronger presence on the global stage (in part to reassert his “strength” to a wavering domestic audience), and perhaps biting off a bit more of Donbass. Full-scale war, involving an invasion of Kyïv, seemed to me an incomprehensibly crazy idea, too crazy even (I hoped) for Putin.
(As regards the Biden administration’s announcements of imminent war, they really do appear to be a well considered strategy of “calling Russia out” so as to avert an invasion, rather than egging them into war. That’s a long conversation, for another time.)
My perception has changed over the course of the week. Hearing Putin’s accusation of “genocide” by Ukraine stuck in my craw when I heard them uttered in his meeting with Olaf Scholz. The accusation is ridiculous, and could only be taken as an attempt to create a new narrative pretext for invasion. (Get ready for the social media blitz, especially if you hang out on Telegram, VKontakte, Parler, et al.) But it is not new, and it was at least reassuring to see that western governments cared enough to take note of it. One day we will be analyzing how well Biden/Blinken’s “‘we see what you’re doing’ (even if you know we won’t do much about it)” strategy worked…
By yesterday, though, after listening to Putin’s and Lukashenko’s speeches in their joint press conference, hearing about today’s joint Russian and Belarusan nuclear “exercises” (which include ICBMs and cruise missiles), seeing the beginnings of the DNR/LNR’s announced evacuations of their own “citizens” to Russia, and tuning in to some increasingly hysterical Russian media conversations, I became pretty confident that full-scale war is imminent. Putin has simply judged the likely costs — in lives, and in sanctions — to be inconsequential compared to the perceived gains of becoming a global strongman. The West does not have the belly to be drawn into a global war, and enough people and states around the world (China, among others) are prepared to let him have what he wants. And he relishes that information war that will accompany it all (with the Tucker Carlsons of the world lapping at his feet).
I have many friends who advocate peace and diplomacy. (I do, too.) Today’s Trilateral Contact Group meeting on Ukraine did not happen because the Russian side did not show up. That raises the question: what happens to diplomacy when one side refuses it? Of course, peace requires trying harder. But at some point that can end, too.
If an invasion of Ukraine goes forward, and if, as I suspect, it goes on for a while, the only hope I see is that it will overextend the Putinist state to the point, ultimately, of collapse. (He is, after all, deeply misjudging Ukrainians’ readiness to resist a Russian takeover.)
As Russian sociologist and lawyer Sergei Davidis said in a recent interview with Open Democracy, the hope is that “All this darkness will somehow lead to a collapse…” That, to my mind, would be a moment of great danger, but also a moment of genuine possibility — one in which it will be exceedingly important for global civil society to act to help Russia come together again as a post-Putinist society. (Needless to say, and as happened once before in the early 1990s, there will be others moving in with other agendas…)
At the moment, the Russian anti-war movement is small and inconsequential because of the many factors that limit its expression. That movement will also need our help as this madness unfolds.
I have been conducting research in Ukraine, intermittently, since 1989. This period encompasses at least two ‘revolutions’ (three, by some counts), one short-lived military coup (in 1991), one declaration of independence (later that year), a boundary war that has now gone on for the last eight years, and confusing and varied accounts of relationships between U.S. political figures and Ukrainian and/or Russian ‘oligarchs’ and political advisors (such as Paul Manafort). I recognize that news about Ukraine can wear thin on people. But I am also aware that my academic colleagues, friends, and family in Ukraine are deeply concerned about the likelihood of a military incursion, and potentially an invasion, of Ukraine by Russia. The following statement is intended to help us think about what western scholars and citizens can do to help.
Peace with Sovereignty
Russia and Ukraine, we are told, are poised on the precipice of war. Russian armed forces have gathered on Ukraine’s eastern, northern, and southern borders, purportedly to prevent Ukraine from joining Nato and/or the European Union, or otherwise moving away from the Russian “sphere of influence.”
It is important to understand that Ukrainian opinions about their country’s foreign policies — i.e., whether to embrace their western (EU, Nato) or Russian neighbors — have varied greatly over the years, but that those opinions have more recently shifted toward the West and away from Russia. Recent surveys confirm that significant majorities of Ukrainians support joining the EU and/or Nato, the latter primarily to help with defending against the kind of foreign incursion that is now being threatened. And a survey conducted in December by Ukraine’s most respected sociological institute, the KIIS Institute of Sociological Research, showed that 33.3% of Ukrainians are prepared to take up arms against a Russian invasion, another 22% are prepared to resist through demonstrations, marches, boycotts, and other nonviolent means, and another 15% are prepared to move to a safer region of the country.
An invasion and takeover, military coup, or greatly expanded war would therefore not be taken lightly by Ukrainians. On the contrary, it would result in severe human costs. It would also place many other Eastern European countries – which have themselves joined Nato precisely to protect themselves against potential Russian military aggression – on high alert. In global terms, it is also likely to result in destabilization of other zones of relative stability (such as Taiwan, which would feel threatened by China as a result of China’s and Russia’s recent statement of solidarity with each other’s territorial ambitions).
To prevent the world from sliding into global war, at a time when our hands are full with the Covid pandemic, climate change, and other global challenges, requires concerted action by citizens and by governments to apply pressure on all the relevant players.
You’re probably wondering: but what can we do? Here are a few things:
1) Support peace: Make it known, including to your political representatives, that the power of diplomacy and sanction should be maximized to prevent war, which itself could threaten the stability of the world at a time when the challenges we face (social, environmental, et al) are already momentous enough.
2) Support Ukrainian sovereignty: Make it known (to the same representatives) that you care about Ukraine and wish to support its national sovereignty. Why care about Ukraine? It is the first country to have unilaterally disarmed of a huge nuclear arsenal, third largest in the world (at the time) , in exchange for security guarantees that its borders and sovereignty would not be violated. One of the signatories of that agreement, known as the Budapest Memorandum, has now violated its boundaries and is threatening more dramatic violation. The precedent this sets up for global security is frightening and should be avoided at all costs.
3) Support the Russian anti-war movement: As with the late Soviet movement for “people to people contacts” between citizens across the Cold War divide, professionals and academics could reach out to their Russian colleagues to let them know that a military invasion of Ukraine would be disastrous, both for Russia and the world. There is a growing anti-war movement in Russia, and while many academics rightfully fear their government’s ability to curtail their professional opportunities, international solidarity with academic colleagues can ultimately strengthen their resolve to work with us for peaceful, negotiated solutions to conflicts.
Some would say that these three goals contradict each other: that supporting peace might mean “sacrificing” Ukraine, or that defending Ukraine’s sovereignty might mean supporting one side of a growing global arms race (e.g., the Western side versus the Russian side). They do not. Sacrificing Ukraine means placating Russian militarism and placing other countries at risk, leading to an enhanced arms race in Europe. Supporting Russian militarism gives fuel to other forms of expansionism across the world. Long-term peace is only possible with sovereignty, dignity, self-determination, and the rule of law, applied everywhere equally.
There are no “angels” and “devils” here; the U.S., Russia, China, and other powers have all played the bully in international affairs. The way to build a world of peace and prosperity is by supporting institutions that would keep such bullying in check wherever it may arise. Today it is arising on the borders of Ukraine. Ukrainians themselves know this; it is time that their views be recognized and supported.
For further information on the background to the current situation, see the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute’s web site on the crisis. And please read and, if you agree, share this “Open Letter to the Russian Leadership” from the Russian Congress of Intellectuals.
Rutgers political scientist Alexander Motyl has a perceptive decoding of Vladimir Putin’s “state of the union” address to Russia’s Federal Assembly from a few days ago. You can read it here.
In his “Letter from Moscow: Watching the Eclipse,” Long-time New Yorker editor David Remnick provides a detailed and informative examination of Putinism and US foreign policy responses to it, with a focus on recent US ambassador Michael McFaul. The article is worth reading in full.
In “Putin’s Failing Ukraine Scorecard,” Forbes’s Paul Roderick Gregory lays out the case against the more popular narrative that Putin has succeeded in “outwitting” the West in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
While I agree that Putin’s success in Ukraine itself appears limited, he remains very popular in Russia, and as the EU elections showed, seems to have a growing number of supporters in the European right (and far left). The jury is still out on whether and to what extent he is failing in his goals.
“In Putin’s actions at home as well, the Russian president is eschewing the pragmatism that marked his first administration. Instead of being the arbiter, brokering a consensus among various clans and interests, today’s Putin is increasingly autocratic. His circle of allies and advisors has shrunk to those who only share his exact ideas. Sober technocrats such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu played seemingly no role in the decision-making over Crimea and were expected simply to execute the orders from the top. [. . .]
Articles posted on this blog have refererred repeatedly to Eurasianist ideologue and “conservative revolutionary” Aleksandr Dugin and his connection to Vladimir Putin’s expansionist strategy in Crimea. This article in the Council on Foreign Relations’ journal Foreign Affairs puts the Putin-Dugin relationship into some historical and political context.
While the article doesn’t discuss this in any detail, the Dugin-led Eurasianist Youth Movement has been influential in fueling opposition to Ukraine’s interim government in areas of southern and eastern Ukraine.Read the rest of this entry »
