OUR COMMON MISTAKES (1979-2008)

The Shelling of Belgrade

Europe has Lost 30 Years 

Европа потеряла 30 лет 

L'Europa ha sprecato 30 anni

L'Europe a perdu 30 ans

Europa hat 30 Jahre verpasst

The path towards European Identity is unbelievably slow. Moreover, it seems to progress not by way of a consistent and conscious path, but, on the contrary, mainly  via a process of trial and error. Also the way  toward a new  self-consciousness of Russia is proceeding  slowly and in a contradictory way.

For Europeans at the time of World War II and of Cold War, “Russia” was just a synonym for “Communism” - what was false also then (see: “White Guards”, Vlassov Army, the “patriotic” character impressed, to the War, by Stalin himself). Because of this wrong characterization, most Europeans conceived their attitude towards Russia, at that time, just alongside their own ideological preferences or refusals.

At a later stage, let say during the period of Khruschev’s “Peaceful Coexistence”period, in the Sixties, Europeans were interested to Russia especially for business (see the Lada plant of Togliatti) , and, also, for some, rare, cultural products which arrived to us: some novels, like Doctor Zivago, or some films, like Cistoe Nebo.

“Russia-Bashing” was becoming general in the Seventies: from the side of anti-communists, but also of the left, which denounced a “Treason of Socialism”. In Eastern Europe, Russians were identified with the Soviet Union, and, also there, for this reason, they were submerged by general suspicion.

At the moment of Perestrojka, Europeans were not inclined to a rational attitude towards the proposals expressed by Gorbatschev, whom they did not understand. They could not even have imagined that Russians loved Europeans and would have been happy to coordinate with them their future destinies.

Therefore, there was no real enthusiasm for Gorbatschev. Even the events in Eastern Europe were not so clearcut as they are described, retrospectively, now. The struggle was not between communists and anti-communists, but, on the contrary, between different fractions of the former establishment, with a weak contribution of dissidents which, by and large, could not be defined as “anti-communists”.

Finally, one of the most powerful drivers of the change has been precisely Russia, which at the end supported Gorbatschev  and Eltzin in their choice to overcome Communism.

Only when plays were over without its contribution, the West started to intervene with its rhetoric of “the re-conquered freedom”and its pretension to impose its choices. And, paradoxically, West Europeans were not in a hurry to welcome East Europeans in general among them. This is true both for peoples of Central-Eastern Europe, and for the ones of the Former Soviet Union.

The population in the West did not know anything about Eastern Europeans, but one fact: "they are poor, they need money". What West Europeans did not perceive then, and has not yet perceived now, is that, beyond the contingency of financial aids, Perestrojka was opening up, to Western Europe, an extraordinary opportunity, both in economics, and in politics. It was, and is,  precisely the opportunity to achieve the necessary complementarities and economies of scale, and to become strong enough to become a  real player  on the world scene.

Thus, Western Europe committed three major mistakes: submitting the countries of Central-Eastern Europe to  bothersome membership procedures, so alienating the sympathies of Eastern Europeans and giving time to all Euroskeptical tendencies (small nationalisms, American lobbies, even jihadism), to organize and to gain momentum, precisely thanks to the absence of Europe. This is the explanation of Nagorno-Karabagh, of Transnistria, of former Yugoslavia. Allowing Enlargement of NATO before the one od European Union. Excluding Russia and Turkey.

Europeans were persuaded that, making Europe with  the East meant undertaking huge responsibilities and the need to engage themselves much more in depth. Understanding that would have disturbed their comfortable way of life life,  they preferred to ignore the problem.

The US,  at the times of George Bush Senior, had been very cautious towards the new developments in the East, being afraid to open a space to new phenomena which they considered more dangerous, for them,  than Communism itself, (like for instance  German and Russian nationalisms)  saw , at the end of the day, that neither nationalism had materialized.Then, they felt free to follow an  agenda,  of cultural, political, military and economic “annexation” of Central Europe and of Russia to their tighter sphere of influence. Europe did not show any sign of concern  about that.

Also the Roman Catholic Church, which, at least in theory, had interpreted the evolutions in the East not just as a revolt against communism, but also as a revolt against saecularization, did not draw from that point  its  correct consequences, which woul have implied to continue, in another form,  the old struggle of Solidarność, in the same direction, but, this time, not against Communism, but against the dictature of economy, proper to the West. Pope John Paul II often preached that concept, but did not implement it.

Also the East made several mistakes. Gorbatschev pretended to transform communism into social-democracy without neither any effort to draw the of the consequences from a marxist point of view, nor any program of ideological change, nor any written guarantees from the West. Also Eltzin showed a  blindfolded confidence in the West, giving to foreigners free access to the most precious Russian resources.

Yugoslav leaders started a suicidal war of all against all, without understanding that this would have ruined all the Republics for many decades at the same time.

The Polish Leadership and the Catholic Church forgot every  point of Solidarnosc program, and, instead of  complying with Walesa's promise "to build up a society which would have been better than East and West", simply copied the Western, if not the American, standards.

All other East Europeans took that occasion for starting a mutual and generalised conflict without any serious  objective, a conflict which, in many case, has not ceased up to now. Above all, they had not understood that Europe should be an opportunity for counting more all together, not to spoil each one's neighbours.

Now, Europe is shaken, also because of those mistakes, by a series new crises: the financial, but also a political one, created by xenofoby, separatism and lack of vision, a social one, with the lack of motivation of the youth, and a spiritual one, with the abandonment of any kind of serious engagement. 

The past mistakes should have teached  us what we shall not absolutely repeat. 

According to us, the first lesson  to be learnt is that we need much more culture and much more political debate about these themes.

Just culture shall allow us to understand the historical moment in which we live, our most dramatical problems, the possible solutions, the role of Europe in the world.

East-West cultural exchange is the focal point of this required culture. For this reason we are insisting on this concept.

The initiative "Starting Again, from Culture", and the manifesto "The World of Culture against the Jettison of European Ideal", initiated by the associations of the City of Torino,  are aimed at this goal. Following to the launching of thisd blog, we will launch parallel initiatives specifically devoted to the East-West dialogue.

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?

RUSSIA DISAPPOINTED BY AMERICA

 From the fall of USSR to the II Afghan war

 из распада СССР до II Афганской войне

 Dalla caduta dell'URSS alla II Guerra dell' Afganistan

 De la chute de l'URSS à la II Guerre d'Afganistan

 Seit dem Fall der UdSR bis zum zweiten afganischen Krieg

Since Europe had not allowed for a long time  (1989-2004) East Europeans to enter  the Union , during the meantime the latter   cared much more the relationships with the US and with  NATO, with whom things seemed to go on much faster.

This gave rise to a new problem. Thanks to the adhesion to NATO of many East European countries, the American Army was moving nearer and nearer to the core of Russia, what ran contrary to the deepest rooted requirements of any Russian government, as well as to the informal agreements reached when the Soviet Union withdraw the Red Army from Eastern Europe. Throughout the centuries, Russia has accumulated a series of strategic convictions, focussed on the idea that its territory is very exposed to foreign attacks, and that, therefore, a series of precautions have to be taken. Historical experience, including Mongol, Tatar, Polish, Swedish, French, German, British, American, Japanese and  Czech, invasions, have  shown that this is not just paranoia, but a matter of fact.

The first of these precautions had been the one  to have, if not satellites, at least friendly or neutral states, surrounding Russia's borders. Such States had been, over the centuries, the Cossack Republics, Finland, Poland, Persia,  the Muslim Emirates, Sweden, Austria, Afganistan,  Belarus, Ukraine, Caucasus, Outer Mongolia,   the Warsaw Pact States,Yugoslavia, North Korea, Syria, a.s.o.. Now, if precisely some of those states host the military bases of Russia’s most likely military foes, all security of the country vanishes, and Russia must devote a larger and larger part of its resources to a continuous preparation for war. By the way, Gorbatschev mantains that he had been persuaded, by Americans, that this would not have happened if he had withdrawn his troups. Now, at the contrary, it is precisely what was happening. Russia felt encircled and threatened, in a period in which many other countris started to feel  desillusioned by America.

After World War II, America had presented herself as a “status quo power”, which had helped the entire world to repeal the attack of Nazism, and which would have been ready to go on helping everybody to repeal communism (two “revolutionary” forces), precisely because they were aggressive worldwide movements that threatened the peaceful life and the independence of the peoples. The USA  were   very attentive, in that period,  not to give  to anybody the impression to be, themselves, a “revolutionary” power,  which would have been  kin  to aggress foreign nations for ideological reasons, i.e. for imposing, onto them, certain political principles and/or  military alliances. This “neutral” attitude of the USA seemed  confirmed, at that time, by the fact that America was friendly not just  with Western-style democracies, but also with a set of completely different States, such as Maoist China, Hiberian  and South American fascist dictatorships, Islamic kingdoms and republics and any other kind of regimes all over the world.

Unfortunately, as soon as the Soviet “threat” disappeared, the attitude of America started to change. America started waging wars against several States (Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan) purportedly for curbing their violations of international law, but, substantially,  but just because their political orientations or their strategical interests conflicted with the ones of the USA.

Among  the  States which were obliged to reconsider their relationships with America, there were, in first instance, Russia and China, but also France and Germany had serious reasons of disagreement.

Moreover, the West had also promised to help economically Russia to overcome the impending economic crisis, but this did not succeeed. 

The history of foreign relationships of Russia during the Eltzin period is  complex. At the beginning, Eltzin and his followers acted according to what has been called “political romanticism”. They had believed seriously what Americans and Europeans had told Gorbatschev during the Perestrojka period - i.e. that they were enchanted that Russians were making their own reforms and freeing their “satellites”, that Europe and the West were part of a great brotherhood, and that, once Russia would have followed the Western schemes, it would become very rich and very influential worldwide, inside this large brotherhood-.

So, Eltzin and his government retired completely their troops from the former “satellites”, and, partially, also from the former Soviet Republics; they reduced drastically military expenditures; they accepted foreign consultants for transforming Russia’s economy; they decentralized power to the regions and to autonomous Republics and Provinces.

The result of all that was that the economy got worse and worse, causing a dramatical fall in the standards of living, and even in life expectation; uprisings took place in Chechnya and the neighbouring territories;  civil wars exploded in Georgia,  Moldova and former Yugoslavia; Russians and their Serb allies were obliged to flee by millions from certain  Republics; Russia-friendly autonomous Republics, such as Abkhasia, Ossetia or Transnistria, were exposed to assaults by their former "titular" nationalities; millions of immigrants arrived in Russia from former Soviet Republics.

At that moment, Eltzin was obliged to reconsider, at least partially, his policy, slowing down privatizations and  fighting youghly  in Chechnya and in Moldova. The results of all that remained modest. The economy got worse and worse,  oligarchs started to grab larger and larger slices  of national finance and strategic industries, and Russia was obliged to grant some form of independence to Chechnya.

In the last period of Eltzin’s Government, the situation became even worse.  Oligarchs had started transferring abroad their shares in strategic public companies, including defense and gas, and wahhabite guerrillas, not satisfied with the independence of Chechnya, used the latter as a basis for attacking other Republics. Last, but not least, NATO attacked Serbia, an old friend of Russia, for helping Kosovo Albanians, and Eltzin was obliged to send some tenths of tanks to Kosovo for protecting ethnic Serbs.

Bombing Serbia was a very tragic experience for many Europeans, which had dreamed that, with 1989, all of Europe should had become only one country, and, now, saw themselves obliged, on the contrary,  to participate in shelling a Central European capital.

All of that lead to a change in the official and people's view of America, from a model to imitate and an ally to rely on , to a hostile power, erodingv the sovereignty, the unity, the riches and the development prospects of Russia.

What appears suspicious is that, when the Soviet Union was the State which lied the farthest from the American way of life (a party dictatorship, a State-Owned economy, a military bloc covering one half of the Globe), the USA had no difficulty in dealing with the USSR, but, since Russia has adopted democracy and free market,an has withdrawn the former Soviet troops, it has started to be considered suspect and anti-democratic.And, paradoxically, this is increased since Russia has been able to recover its economic and political strength.

Now, with the tentative Perezagruzka, this impression could vanish. However, the present difficulties in founding a joint solution for the problem of anti-ballistic missiles risks to reinvigorate mutual diffidence.