DE L'ATLANTIQUE AUX OURALS

 General De Gaulle

De Gaulle 's Heritage

Наследство Де Гол

L'eredità di De Gaulle

 L'héritage de De Gaulle

De Gaulles Erbe

The events occurred in Russia during the last ten years recall to us under several points of view the policies of late French president Charles de Gaulle.

This similarity attains to several facts:

-the need to restore the authority of the State after a period of internal disorders and of colonial uprisings;

-the ambition to maintain France at the height of its great power status;

-the need to balance, for this purpose, the alliance with the USA with a proactive role in Europe;

-the idea that Europe cannot be confined to its western parts, but must include all of its naations, up to Russia;

-the effort to achieve cutting edge technological advance mainly thanks to European  projects in aerospace, defence, transportation.

All of these policies may be summarised under the caption "Europe, from the Atlantic to Urals".

De Gaulles policies were opposed, partially openly, and partially in an indirect way, by may actors: America, anxious tha no challenger could strive to compete with it as a leader of the West; left wingers, wich considered his ambitions as outdated in an area of ideological and social conflicts; ultra-conservatives, who considered him an ambiguous nationalist, who, for his ambitions, had fought against Patainist France and was capable to ally with the leftand with the So viet Union.

For these reasons, De Gaulle was portrayed as a anti-European, as a ridiculous  anachronist, and, especially, as a dictator. These are the same attitudes of mainstream press and politics towards Putin's presidency, which, in fact, has deployed, as regards Russia, policies that recall the ones of De Gaulle in France.

Those European, and, especially, American, observers, who do not lack any occasion for attacking today’s Russia, insist, especially, on the fact that, under Putin’s presidency, Russia would have undergone a dramatical change, in the sense of an increasing authoritarianism, a stronger State intervention in the economy and a more aggressive stance towards the external world.

According to us, the most objective experts remark that these three attitudes correspond to long-term trends of the Russian politics, which were continued also during Eltzin period, with just some nuances, due to the different contexts in which specifics action have been undertaken. Especially in the mid-term of Eltzin’s presidency, and especially at the occasion of the Kosovo crisis, Elzin's Russia had undertaken a much harsher course towards the United States, contrasting in any way the latter tentative to expand eastwards and to destabilize Russia.

Later on, Putin tried to remedy what Eltzin had compromised by his imprudent attitudes during the first “romantic” period. We repeat that these remedial actions had already been started under Eltzin’s pperiod, but Eltzin had not enough strength,nor  enough credibility for completing them.

In a few words, how do we view the achievements of the Russian policies of the last ten years?  First of all, Russia  has restored the credibility of the  State, defeating the Wahhabites in the Caucasus and consolidating there the traditional leadership of the political and religious Sufi Qadīr dynasty, so to avoid the very concrete risk that Caucasus Islamic separatism would have spread also throughout the Ural region - so, in practice, destroying the territorial unity of Russia-. From a realistic point of view, the present status of Chechnya can be considered as the greatest victory possible for Chechen Islamists and separatists, without jeopardizing the interests of Russia, exactly as the independence of Algeria from France could be considered, at its time, as the greatest possible victory for Arab  nationalism. In fact, Chechnya is, today, exactly what separatists dreamed of since the beginning:  a mono-ethnic state, without Russians, organized alongside the model of a rich Middle-East Emirate. Shari’a is the law of the State, and the ruler is, at the same time, a religious and a political chief, as it happens to be in many Islamic  States (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iran) and as it was in Chechnya before its annexation to Russia-.

Secondly, it  has modernized the army and its military technology, so that Russia  is again in a position to withstand an hypothetical attack from any foreign power, what  is not at all unrealistic, as it has been shown by the events in  Southern Ossetia.This sound similar, even if at a larger scale, to the establishment of a French Force de Frappe and the merging of the aerospace industry into Aerospatiale, alongside the same path followed by Russia with Rostechnologia

Third, it  has rationalized thoroughly the main industry and source of revenues of the Country: gas and petroleum. Through a well calculated mix of re-nationalizations, international agreements and new pipelines, it has brought back to the Russian State the revenues that, during the Eltzin period and even  after,  oligarchs had been exporting into the US, the UK and Israel. Russia has also increased the supply capacity of gas to the outside world and has partially imposed, onto the Republics, worldwide gas prices.Also De Gaulle had carried out, during his first mandate, a large wave of nationalisations of strategic industries.

Fourth: it  has worked out and diffused, through the majority  Party, Edinaja Rossija,  a well balanced national ideology, based on the continuity with Russian history and on the idea of “Sovereign democracy”, without condoning to extreme Russian Chauvinism. Also De Gaulle founded a new party of national cohalition, initially called RPF.

Fifth: Russia has signed on an equal footing the renewal of the anti-proliferation Treaty , albeit renewing the stock of its own intercontinental ballistic rockets .De Gaulle had striven to achieve a nuclear status also thanks to a negotiated cooperation with the US.

The attitude of Europe towards the Ossetian war was astonishing, because of the differences between its different leaders. This led the Izvestija to publish, on its front page, a map of Europe, where European countries were distinguished among “Russia’s friends”, “Russian Lobbyists”, “Neutral” and “Anti-Russian”. In fact, whilst the Italian Prime Minister declared that it was the moment to stop to provoke Russia, and the French President Sarkozy flew to Moscow and Tbilisi for having a draft cease-fee agreement signed by Russians and Georgians, the leaders of Poland, Czechia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, flew to Tbilisi, but for participating in a rally in favor of the Georgian Government. Sarkozy, who was present for signing the close-fire with Saakashvili, refused even to meet in Tbilisi Poland’s President Kaczynski.

This division among Europeans is a clear symptom that Europe as such has no Common Foreign and Defense Policy. Paradoxically, we find positive that there are such political conflicts among Europeans, because, without them, no new political orientation would even arise, and a seious Common Foreign and Defense Policy would never materialize, as shown still recently by the positions assumed by UK Foreign Minister Hague. 
This division, again, reflects the different attitudes of European capitals towards De Gaulle, gong from the total hostility of UK, to the complete alignment of Germany and Belgium, passing  through the neutrality of Italy.

We have already stressed  many  striking similarities between France and Russia. Let's come to a laast  similarity: the one among the two constitutions. Whilst many observers in the West insist in affirming that Russia’s political structure is not democratic, nobody has remarked  that present days Russia’s “substantive constitution” reproduces, in broad lines, the same schemes of some of the most important West European States, and, in particular, the ones of France.Like in France, we have a very strong President, an important Prime Minister ("coabitation"), a Parliament, where only 4 or 5 major parties are represented, a very strong centralized State, with a powerful army and strong, State-controlled strategical industries.Also the Russian Regions" the private companies which are floated at the stock exchange cooperate tightly with the Administration, and are often governed by former civil servants ("Enarques").

In the cases where such structure  differs from the one of France (like in the case of the centralization of media, of corruption, of criminal and political violence), it shows characteristics which are very similar to the ones of other Western countries, and, in particular, Italy and/or the United States (conglomerates, secret services, tycoons, mafia, bribery, mass killings, special troops).

As it is known, East European and Third World politicians, which are accused without interruption to be undemocratic, are very  (and we add even, sometimes exceedingly) attentive to maintain in their own countries certain features of Western Constitutions, which, by the way, are unfavorable to the leaders themselves, but which are not essential to democracy, and which, on the contrary, derive from historical contingencies of other countries. One of these features is the duration of presidential mandate, which, in the US, is of 4 years, and is not renewable more than one time. Almost all of the constitutions of the former Soviet Union, as well as many developing countries, had introduced thes rules, and a certain type of polemics about this habit seemed to hint that changing this rules would amount to create a dictatorship (without considering that, in countries where the main powers stay with the Prime Minister, the latter has no limitation to his mandate) Let’s think of Italy, where  Berlusconi has been prime minister with broad powers, with short interruptions, since 1993).

So, whilst Belarus,Venezuela and Kazakhstan have abolished, by way of referendum, the limitation to 2 terms, Russia has kept alive this limitation, so that President Putin has successfully candidated to the role of Prime Minister for the last 4 years term. Also this seems, to Westerns commentators, to be an antidemocratic action, while, on the contrary, it has given rise to a certain power-sharing at the top of Russian State, again alongside the French example of “Coabitation”. Always foreign observers (showing, thus, in practice, which are the inconveniences, but also the advantages, of “coabitation”), take profit of any difference in political nuances between Russia’s President and Prime Minister for imagining of political struggle among the two and a future weakening of the Russian State.By the way, also the habit that a leaving leader chooses his successor is a Western use, which was applied, for instance, to Merkel, Rajoy, Brown and Alfano.

Finally, the overall image of Russia is the one of a large national consensus about very basic strategic goals, as the one to foster a multipolar system at world level, which is, historically,  precisely the aim of French "semi-presidentialism", as created by General De Gaulle for stabilizing France and making it again a powerful and independent State. During the last period (the Medvedev Presidency) new political slogans have been launched, which seem to hint to those new political trends which, according to many observators, would amount to a change of policy, and, hence, to different objectives, of the two Presidents.

Let’s examine them more carefully:

-“Perezagruzka”: this term means, in Russian, “Reset”. It was employed by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and by US State Secretary Hillary Clinton for indicating that, after the election of President Obama, the “frost” in the relationships between Russia and the USA culminating in the Georgian War, had been overcome, and new agreements (starting from the SALT III Agreement) could have been reached. Thanks to “Perezagruzka”, the UE-NATO partnership has been able to re-start its activities by the Lisbon NATO-Russia summit.

-“Evroremont” is a Russian jargon expression, utilized for designating the complete refurbishment of a flat /”European-style Refurbishing”). This was the first designation of “Modernizacija”, in the same way as “Glasnost” was the first designation of “Perestrojka”.

-“Modernisacija” is the slogan inaugurated by President Medvedev, which designate a re-orientation of Russia towards high technologies and legal reforms. This trend, announced by President Medvedev by his article “Rossija Vperiod” (“Russia, Forwards”) in the Nezavizimaja Gazeta, purported to reply to several types of critics which are usually addressed, especially by international observers, to today’s Russia:

-  to be only formally, but not substantively, a democracy, because the rules of law are not applied with the necessary transparency, and because oppositions are not sufficiently operational;

-  to be focused too much on the export of gas, instead of reinvesting in new technologies.

The launch of these campaign is something very similar to the cumbersome activities carried out, often with a long advance, by all candidates to the accession to the European Union, for “preparing to adhesion”. Even if former Premier Primakov has stated recently that "Russia could consider to enter the EU", there is no sign that it is really doing that now.

Up to now, Russia has offered two different answers to the objectionof its "insufficient democracy".

The first is: “Yes, we know that we are not sufficiently democratic, because of the traditions of Empire and of communism, but we are working for remedying to that”(Medvedev).

The second answer is: “We are more democratic than the US, because our President does not declare illegal wars, we are not occupying independent countries, we do not interfere in the internal policies of foreign States, we have no more torture, death penalty, secret prisons and concentration camps”(Putin).

Both answers are true, but both of them are, according to us,  "diplomatic answers", as it is required from politicians, which do not  address yet the core problem directly. 

In reality, what Americans call “Democracy” is not a clearcut political and legal principle, like in Europe: it’s a puritan religious dogma:"Democratic Individualism is a culture rather than a theory.For this reason, it prevails itself of arguments which are 'simpler' than the ones utilised by analytical philosophers.Its tenants are persuaded that the idea and the protection of individual rights cannot rely just on rational justifications.This not just because we are not obliged to justify everything, but first of all because the will to subordinate the democratic will to logical coherence risks to empty the value of human dignity, subordinated it to the success of its justification"(Nadia Urbinati, Individualismo democratico, Emerson, Dewey e la cultura politica americana, Donzelli, Roma, 1997, p.21)

What is important is to believe in the dogma, not to apply the principles. The dogma is that any “symbolical hierarchy” is sinful. Shmuel Eisenstadt, an American-Israeli scholar, has shown since a long time that the main difference between Americans and Israelis is that the former deny “symbolic hierarchy”, whilst the latter accept it. So, in Israel, a rabbi is more esteemed than a billionaire, because his function is, symbolically, more important. The contrary in the United States. The “lack of democracy” which Americans denounce in all other countries (including the European), is precisely the lack of pathos in denouncing “symbolic hierarchy”. 

So, you can adopt all reforms that you want, but Americans will always find that other peoples “are not sufficiently democratic”, even if their president has less powers than the American President, complies with all defense and privacy rights, refuses war, a.s.o..This attitude has  also to do with the "N.I.H.(Not Invented Here) Syndrome": all things which were not conceived in the States are not good.

The question is: are Europeans the same as the Americans? Do they really require all these acts of faith for accepting somebody as their peer?