HOW DO YOU SLAY A DRAGON?

This new striving for superpower status didn’t appear out of nowhere. Determined to use any means possible to prevent the geopolitical transition of Ukraine, Russia’s ruling clan opened up new “mineral deposits”, ones that were much more profitable than oil or gas, under the title of “Russia’s greatness”. Since then, it seems that the authorities have been mining this inexhaustible “fuel” in Russia in industrial amounts. It’s proved to be the ideal ingredient for the engine of Russia’s authoritarian power.

In 2014 Russia swapped one social agreement for another. To the old agreement of “stability in place of freedom”, that had been the case in Russia since 2003, the Kremlin made a significant addition: “greatness in place of justice and prosperity”. So the new social agreement runs as follows: “greatness and stability in place of freedom, justice and prosperity”. Russia’s greatness now justifies all of the regime’s villainy: despotism, corruption, cultural degradation and backwardness. All of this has to be tolerated in exchange for the possibility to attack Ukraine with impunity; to shit on “the American bastards” in Syria and Libya; and to place “our” private armies all over Africa and even, it’s rumoured, in Venezuela.

Why did Russian society agree to this deal so easily? It seems that people were ready for such a turn of events, and were even impatiently waiting for it. It’s indicative that after Crimea was “returned” the majority of those living in Russia experienced genuine euphoria. This joy was genuine, not just imaginary. But it happened not only because people considered that the taking back of Crimea restored historical justice, but also because people had grown tired of defeats, and longed for “victories”. It seemed to them not that Crimea  had been returned, but that Russia  had been; the Russia that they’d known before. This sense that strength had been restored was more important for many than the seizure of Crimea, something which up until that point hardly anyone had thought about. If they had, it was simply as a place to go for their holidays, although in any case if they had the opportunity many now preferred to go to Egypt or Turkey.

There’s nothing surprising in this reaction. For centuries Russia had been an empire, and its subjects were brought up in the tradition of empire. To this day, the majority of people find it hard to imagine that there could be any alternative to the imperial way of thinking. This is not only a Russian problem. Other former empires have encountered similar challenges, and continue to do so. (A clear illustration of this are the events in Britain in recent years around Brexit.) But in today’s Russia, which had not long before experienced the collapse of the USSR, these processes proved even more destructive than anywhere else.

The birth of the new post-Soviet world occurred painfully, and was accompanied by great difficulties, both for society and for the state itself. The inevitable challenges that a transition period brings were compounded by the negative influence of the huge number of strategic and tactical errors made by the leaders of the new Russia. As a result, the economy drastically collapsed and the institutions of state failed, which in turn led to all aspects of life – society’s and the state’s – falling into criminal hands. At that time, the country not only lost a sizeable part of its territory, but also stopped playing any significant role in world affairs. It was as if it went from being centre stage to sitting in the stalls.

The central government’s defeat in the military campaign in Chechnya and the fiasco of Russia’s foreign policy in the Balkans turned into two very powerful stimuli evoking imperial nostalgia. Society regarded each of these events as a national humiliation. This led to the emergence of a “Versailles syndrome” in society – the sense that was felt in Germany after the defeat in the First World War. Instead of seeing itself as a country that could be justifiably proud of achieving a major revolution that had overthrown Communism throughout Europe, Russia mistakenly saw itself as the country that had lost the Cold War.

There were two possible ways to emerge from this post-imperial crisis, that in itself wasn’t unique. It could either spend all its resources on a parody, creating the illusion of strength and an apparent re-birth, whilst simply pushing into the background the ruins of the old society; or it could go through a deep spiritual, socio-economic and political transformation and once again become strong.