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.

BOLSHEVISM, A PAN-EUROPEAN PHENOMENON

 

Germans, Jews, Russians, , Georgians, Hungarians, Italians, French, etc...

Немци,Евреи , Россяне, Грузини, Венгри,  Италянци, Французи, и.т.п.

Tedeschi, Ebrei, Russi, Georgiani, Ungheresi, Italiani, Francesi, ecc...Des  Allemands, des Juifs, des Russes, des Géorgiens, des Hongrois, des Italiens, des Francais, etc..

Deutsche, Juden, Russen,Georgianer, Hungaren, Italiener, Franzosen u.s.w. 

Thousands and thousands of books have been devoted to the reasons, to the origins, to the nature, to the history, and to the fall, of Soviet Union. It goes without saying that we are not purporting, within the limited scope of this work, to draw any conclusions about such themes, which do not constitute the core of our blog.

It goes also without saying that the role of the communist era in Russia cannot simply be ignored, because it had influenced the whole world for about one century, and, above that, it still exerts its influence in present-days perception of Russia, by itself and by the rest of the World.

First of all, it has not to be forgotten that marxism, and communism, have developed in Europe, and they are still strong in several parts of the world, but, especially, in Asia and in Latin America, not in Russia. The period, during which Russia has been the center of a worldwide marxist movement have been 70 years, from 1918 to 1989. Before and after that period, Marxism has not been a relevant force in Russia. So, any kind of wholesale identification of Russia with Communism is misleading.

On the contrary, we have had, all over Europe, so relevant Marxist leaders and/or thinkers, as Engels, Lassalle, Kautski, Bernstein, Liebknecht, Luxemburg, Gramsci, Lukacs, Tito, Togliatti, Althusser, a.s.o.. Under certain points of view, popular consensus for the Communist Party could be considered as more astonishing in Italy, where it was an opposition party, than in Russia itself.

 

 

 

 

1.     European Marxism and Russia: a controversial endyad

It is well-known that Karl Marx was a German philosopher and economist of Jewish descent, who wrote most of his books in German and in English, and that, after him, Marxism developed mainly in Germany.

A widespread opinion purports that Marx was prejudicially hostile to Russia, and pretended, as a good German, that socialist revolution should have started in Germany. According to a more attentive reading, albeit it is confirmed that he did not love very much Russia and Russians, it is not true, on the contrary, that he thought that a socialist revolution would not have been possible in Russia. A letter to Viera Zaslavskaja opens up an interesting view about his idea of a possible Russian Revolution. Whilst it has been generally considered that, according to Marxism, the socialist revolution could not have taken place in Russia because the latter had not yet underwent a “bourgeois revolution”, in reality, in the above mentioned letter, Marx affirmed that a socialist revolution could indeed have taken place in Russia, if capitalistic forces could have not been in a position to eliminate, before, the traditional Slavonic forms of land administration, the Mir and the Obščina (which the conservative German aristocrat Haxthausen had constructed as directly deriving from “primitive communism”). In such case, a socialist revolution in the Country could really have taken place. This letter is highly interesting because it shows that Marx was less dogmatic than many of his followers, and even admitted the possibility of an evolution, in the sense of socialism, starting from “feudal realities” - thus, not necessarily connected to the “Western” view of Russia-.

This problematic was not unknown, either to the Russian social thinkers of the XIX Century, nor to Lenin himself. However, the latter thought that, in reality, Russia had already evolved, at his times, toward a form of bourgeois hegemony. Lenin, fundamentally an Occidentalist, thought also, in conformity with “mainstream” marxistic teaching, that such “bourgeois” phase would have really been necessary for the Russian Revolution. This was the motive which brought about the creation of the NEP (“Novaja Ekonomičeskaja Politika) in 1923, a short reformistic phase necessary for increase the material bases of Russian economy, so also for conforming to the theoretical need, according to Marxist orthodoxy, of a “capitalist phase” of development before socialism.

It is interesting to note that Lenin preferred, among the different possible forms of evolution of “bourgeois” society in Russia, the American one. In fact, Lenin was always (like Gramsci, and even Stalin), an admirer of America, which, according to him, at best personified the technocratic trend towards modernization, that also socialism should have showed at a certain moment. It has also to be noted that, during the whole Leninist period, a huge quantity of features of American society were imitated in Russia: from the “Tresty” (trusts), to industrial design, from skyscrapers, to modernistic fashion.

Also Trockij admired the high level of economic development of the US. However, since he, contrary to Lenin, thought that the revolution, either was successful in the whole world, or could never had thrived, considered Europe with much more attention as a suitable basis for it. The “United Socialist Republics of Europe” would have constituted, for him, an appropriate basis for world revolution. Lenin, on the contrary, was persuaded that the European Union would have been an  unavoidavbly capitalistic project.

Among Russian Revolutionaries, there was also somebody, like the German Jew Radek, and the “Rjurikovič” aristocrat Čičerin, who admired in a special way Germany, as the true place for German Revolution, and also, for this reason, would have even had been ready to cooperate with a “burgeois” Germany, as imagined by Marx. Radek tried to organize in Germany a form of national-communism, being ready even to cooperate with National-Socialists for creating a united revolutionary front. As to Čičerin, he strongly influenced the negotiations between Bolsheviks and Germans for the signature of the Treaty of Rapallo.