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Lenin at heart but Stalin in action

Published : Sunday, 6 March, 2022 at 12:00 AM  Count : 1164
Shahriar Feroze
Shahriar Feroze

Shahriar Feroze

Flashbacks on Ukraine, Yalta and Mr Putin: It was in the first week of December 2014 when I first travelled to Moscow under a programme titled "The New Generation". It was an eye-opening experience for me. In the same year Crimea was annexed or re-unified with Russia. It is up to you whether you go with the term re-unification or annexation. Similar to any other capital city, Muscovites seemed happy, annoyed and also not interested in politics.

Less than 4 years later, I travelled to participate at a conference titled "4th international media forum of journalists from Muslim countries for partnership of civilisations". But this time the venue was not in Moscow, but at the historic and scenic Crimean Peninsula of Yalta in Ukraine. Going beyond my scheduled activities, I mingled with the locals whenever and wherever an opportunity came in my way. I asked simple and also political questions, and especially relating to the annexation or re-unification issue.

The purpose was not actually to make a report or carry out a survey but to witness firsthand what the Crimean people thought of Vladimir Putin. The majority or my majority for that matter responded - we will go with the one whoever is beneficial for our cause and we have already decided on it. A few admired Mr. Putin's machismo, chess player like style in politics, mostly young women fell under this category.

Interestingly, the millennium's first generation of young Russians in Yalta looked up to the Russian leader with awe and admiration. The senior citizens I had found largely apolitical. Some 4 years later against the backdrop of the military invasion taking place in Ukraine today, when I follow the Russian president's popularity ratings at home and abroad - I can't help asking who prepares them and who believes in them?

As the YouTube and social media platforms launched an all-out anti-Putin campaign - it has turned increasingly difficult to take a side based on the binge of mostly biased news reports, stories and analysis. Various opinion polls make it even more confusing. Where is the time to check on the credibility on who is polling and who is administering it? That said - when it comes to assessing the Putin - Popularity in Russia, one must actually travel and experience it firsthand.

Popularity and approval ratings swings every now and then, but when Crimea came under Russian rule in that year, President Putin's popularity sky-rocketed. Russia's Crimea Conundrum suddenly reminded me, how Mrs. Thatcher's popularity shot up dramatically in the UK after the Falklands War.

Victors and villains are born out of war: However, in any war there will be death to destruction of properties and businesses, ordinary people will suffer, war crimes will take place. Stock markets will crash and oil price would shoot up. International aid and humanitarian agencies would go gaga over human rights violations. Tragic tales of on-the-spot-sufferers and refugees will be penned and made go viral. And we journalists will keep condemning the atrocities - doing our job.

Haven't these happened before?
Whether you admire or abhor Vladimir Putin, remember one simple fact, despite being branded as a 'corrupt tyrant' for well over a decade the man never lost a war. Starkly contrasting to failed American military adventurisms in Iraq and Afghanistan, no world leader has a better track record than the man running the political powerhouse in Kremlin. Whether it is against Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014, and Syria since 2015 till now, the Russian President has repeatedly converted military successes into political victories.

He has been markedly slow, steady and strategic as a war leader - all three at the same time. He never attempted to export his politics abroad or destroy a country in the name of 'Nation Rebuilding'. His victories are often interpreted in such scathing and complex manner by the global media - it is often puzzling to comprehend whether he is a victor or villain.

The man in between Lenin and Gorbachev: Those who think the man sitting in Kremlin has launched a whimsical war are perhaps living in a fool's paradise. 'All the Putin's men' have surely analysed and calculated the risks and repercussions, the list of unexpected challenges and how to triumph over them. Russian rule has surely expanded in some of the key former Soviet states, but I have always disagreed with the widely circulated notion of the Russian leader's extreme ambition to revive the former soviet empire by occupying one after another neighbour.

Let's not forget, the socio-political-economic reality of the former soviet countries has also gone through a transformation - there is no need to experiment with newer military operations when you can exert influence sitting in Moscow. Take Belarus for instance, according to a latest recognition it will now host Russian weapons as well as accommodate Russian troops in its soil. Where is the need to invade it?

As I keep studying Mr. Putin, I often consider the Russian president as a remarkable mixture of typical soviet era political elements, but frequently customized to safeguard Russian interests. Born out of the Cold War era, he is a staunch nationalist as Lenin, equally ruthless as Stalin, no less deceptive as Khrushchev, cautious not to repeat the military blunder of Brezhnev and hell-bent as ever to wipe out the painful Gorbachev legacy of defeatism. And he is reportedly free of alcoholism and compromising characteristics of late Boris Yeltsin.

However, when the Western media, academics and intellectuals repeatedly point finger on democratic practices in Russia, this writer is compelled to ask - was Russia ever a democratic state, before or after communism? Quite a bit of President Putin's past KGB career in former East Germany is re-surfacing these days. These politically-motivated-mementos actually remind me of a couple of lines from the epic Cold War espionage novel - The Spy who came in from the Cold by John le Carré.

The first - Intelligence work has one moral law, it is justified by results. Given his career with the KGB, the Russian President surely knows how to deliver on that saying.

And second - half a million liquidated is a statistic, and one man killed in a traffic accident is a national tragedy. I believe it is time to compare, how many died in the name of nation re-building in Iraq and Afghanistan to how many died in Putin led wars.

 An alternative to vanished Warsaw Pact: The latest Ukraine War has once again reinstated the old truth - if you are militarily powerful and your core interests are threatened - you can wage war anytime.
In short, the era of hard power politics is back. One might well ask, what's the point in digging the grave of the Warsaw Pact after so many years? Its skeleton will remind you the key strategy behind the formation of the pact. The key reason behind the pact was to prevent Central and Eastern Europe being used as a base for its enemies.

Minus the Central Europe, it is only left with Eastern Europe today. Accurate geographical reading will suggest, the military security threat becomes only visible in the former Soviet states acting as buffer zones between Russia and EU. No matter for how long the war continues, Mr. Putin is in need to form an alliance with former Soviet states and perhaps include China in this grand scheme by exclusively focusing on economic and military cooperation.

Will the war change the world order?
At least this writer believes, this particular invasion of Ukraine in the post - pandemic world is the stepping-stone to change the existing order in Europe and Central Asia. Observe in depth and compare this invasion with the rest of all military campaigns in the past four decades - never before the world seemed so geopolitically polarised.

Apart from a number of former Soviet states China, Turkey, India have already taken sides - if not through official declarations but through tacit and silent support in different shapes. Old-school methods to offer international support have manifestly changed. Surprisingly, Bangladesh also refrained from voting on UN resolution to penalise Russia.

However, it requires more than a legend to change a World Order, but the process begins with watchfully planned decisive actions. Given the changing dynamics of limited scale war, it is important to prioritise between political and military victories. Despite having both military and economic superiority - American presidents have won battles at the cost losing wars.

Kremlin surely has a long-term vision, and it is not up to this common journalist to analyse it. No matter what, Russia today has that overpowering leadership and also military potentials to team up with its Asian allies to address its security threats by forming a grand alliance.

Is Putin more Lenin or more Stalin?
Both Lenin and Stalin are history today. It is a subject of lively debate how far they succeeded or failed. What matters is that they were game changers in global politics and military conflicts. Mr Putin is manifestly addressing his regional security threats. Confined within his orbit, he is apparently protecting Russian interests only. Unlike the former Soviet Union, today's Russia is not in possession of a political ideology to export to the rest of the world. An economic ideology is also missing.

Can Mr Putin bring out a new order in his region out of the Ukraine conflict by weakening the NATO alliance? While his 'Leninist patriotism' is omnipresent sitting firm on 'Stalinist ruthlessness' displayed in battlefields - how strong is he in terms of breaking up or forming treaties and alliances?
The writer is assistant editor, The Daily Observer













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