Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

Russia’s apparent mastery of misinformation has become an obsession of media in the UK and the US. I referred previously to  The Times’  recent front-page lead, which reported a “secret propaganda assault” masterminded by Vladimir Putin, based on a new Sputnik news agency bureau opening in Edinburgh and some Kremlin-sponsored Russian language programmes starting in British universities. The Russian government is supposed to be waging “hybrid war” on the West through an army of pro-Moscow TV commentators, state-backed football hooligans and internet trolls. The word ‘weaponised’ is bandied about with illiberal abandon in countless long-form magazine articles, promoted by brooding, sinister cover images of Putin or Soviet tanks. You don’t have to be a raging Russophile to appreciate the irony. Two of the more recent English language books about Russia have harnessed this mood by looking at the country and its recent history through the lens of its media. Arkady Ostrovs...

Yesterday Mikhail Gorbachev celebrated his eightieth birthday.  The architect of reform in the former Soviet Union is the epitome of a ‘prophet not without honour, except in his own country‘.  Feted in the rest of the world for dismantling the apparatus of a totalitarian state, he is a marginal figure in Russia. There are signs, though, that his contribution is beginning to be recognised.  In the Manezh Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow, within spitting distance of the Kremlin’s walls, an exhibition of photographs,   ‘Mikhail Gorbachev: Perestroika’ , charts his career and political evolution. More significantly Gorbachev was awarded Russia’s highest national honour  to mark his birthday .  President Medvedev decorated the former Soviet leader with the Order of St Andrew.  Medvedev spoke about the ’immense labour’ Gorbachev contributed to Russia and the USSR at a ’difficult and dramatic time’. Elsewhere commentators are using the occasion to ref...

The Yorkshire Post carries an interesting piece by Lord Howell, marking a quarter of a century since Mikhail Gorbachev took power in the Soviet Union. It was during the evening of March 10th 1985 that Communist Party General Secretary, Konstanin Chernenko, who had been slipping into decrepitude for at least a year, died. The Central Committee wasted little time appointing Gorbachev as successor. Much revisionist ink has been spilt diminishing Gorbachev's reformist credentials. By some assessments he was simply engaged in a belated rearguard action, attempting to salvage a crumbling empire. However, at the time of the General Secretary's appointment, neither the shape of 'perestroika', nor the dismantling of oppressive structures which accompanied it, were inevitable. Certainly Gorbachev aspired to breathe new life into a moribund Union. His aim of withdrawing Soviet forces from Afghanistan was not realised until 1989, but it was an ambition from the outset. The U...

Comment is Free carries an article by James Marson examining perceived discontent fomented by the economic crisis, in Russia. It is a more thoughtful piece than the brand of ‘perfidious Kremlin’ geopolitical waffle which most commentators are producing . Whilst the Federation is by no means the oppressive totalitarian state which is frequently depicted by western media, undeniably a more open, accountable approach would afford Russian democracy more air to breathe. Medvedev is by no means a lost cause in terms of steering his country towards that outcome. I have previously insisted that Putinite notions of a ‘power vertical’ and ‘sovereign democracy’ are by no means as insidious as they have often been portrayed. In many respects they simply represent Russian solutions to Russian problems, drawing on a political tradition which differs dramatically from the experience in western Europe and the US. Against the backdrop of a huge, diverse state, Putinism has attempted to strengthen...

I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never read any Solzhenitsyn. The articles which have paid tribute to his work following his death have sharpened my resolve to do so. Open Democracy’s Russia site carries a particularly pertinent piece on behalf of Memorial, which since 1992 has campaigned for a public space in countries of the former USSR, to remember the victims of totalitarianism there and to retain an historical focus and contemporary understanding of the wrongs which were committed under oppressive regimes in those states. In June I wrote about historical memory in Russia , highlighting the importance of Memorial’s aims. Mikhail Gorbachev had offered his support to a campaign seeking to establish a ‘national memorial’ to the victims of Stalin’s purges, an initiative which a fine article in RIA Novosti had commended. On Three Thousand Versts I commented, “Krans, and Gorbachev too for that matter, are quite right to maintain that remembering the wrongs of the past is important, not...

RIA Novosti carries an opinion piece by Maxim Krans which examines Russia’s relationship with its Soviet past. Krans condemns an equivocal attitude towards the darker aspects of the USSR which has become increasingly prevalent as 1991 recedes into distant memory. In particular he is critical of the rehabilitation of Stalin which has crept into Russian textbooks and the teaching of history under Putin’s regime. Notably RIA Novosti is a state owned news agency and the article is published not only on the English language site, but also within the opinion section of the Russian language site . The debate has arisen as Mikhail Gorbachev and others have appealed for a ‘national memorial’ to be established in memory of those who lost their lives in Stalin’s purges. In addition Gorbachev has suggested that Lenin’s embalmed body be removed from the mausoleum on Red Square and buried in accordance with his own wishes. Although the commentator is rather disingenuous in implying from this ...

Like Ian Paisley before him, Bertie Ahern’s announcement that he will resign next month has been greeted with a plethora of political obituaries. Paisley’s resignation was presaged by suggestions of improbity and to say that there was a whiff of fiscal impropriety hanging over Bertie Ahern would be quite an understatement. Nevertheless these retrospective articles have in the cases of both men, at times bordered on eulogy. Columnists and colleagues alike, once a resignation has been tendered, have instantly begun to downplay and ignore the unfolding scandals which caused them. With Ahern, unlike Paisley, the praise has been unambiguous and almost universal. Fintan O’Toole’s article on Comment is Free has been completely atypical: “Allegations that he had taken large sums of cash from private donors while he was minister for finance in 1993 and 1994? That he had failed to pay tax on at least some of that money, even though he was in charge of the tax system? That he had been brazen...

Dmitry Medvedev was 25 when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. He was only 19 when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and introduced Glasnost and Perestroika (openness and restructuring), the twin pillars of reform which were to transform Russia. The 42 year old, who will become the President of the Russian Federation in May, will be in many respects the first genuinely post-Soviet leader that Russia has experienced. In the wake of Medvedev’s election victory yesterday, in which he appears to have claimed in the region of two thirds of the vote, speculation has re-emerged as to whether the outgoing President, Vladimir Putin, who will become Medvedev’s Prime Minister, will retain the bulk of political influence in Russia. Although the incoming President has indicated that he will work closely with Putin and continue to follow a similar policy course, at yesterday’s rally in Red Square he reiterated that he would exercise his constitutional right to formulate foreign policy. Gordon Bro...

Dmitry Medvedev looks set to be the next President of the Russian Federation. Whether he acquires real power or whether Vladimir Putin, who will give United Russia's chosen candidate his backing, retains the bulk of influence will become clear in the months after the March election. Putin’s murmurings about alleviating election fatigue have been interpreted in a sinister fashion by some commentators . The suggestion is that Russia is embarking on a course whereby managed elections could become effectively no elections at all. The difficulty with this argument lies not necessarily with the assertion that Putin is becoming increasingly tyrannical but rather with the conception of Russia between 1991 and 2000 being on a meaningful road to liberal democracy. This view posits a tradition of authoritarianism linking Putin to the Soviet regime, interrupted by movement toward a democratic path under Boris Yeltsin. More subtle commentators may acknowledge a much earlier psychological a...