Putinism by Walter Laquer, and Russia's "Contribution" to the West
I just finished reading Putinism: Russia and Its Future with the West, by Walter Laqueur.
I submit that Russia's main "contribution" to the West and civilization was the export of its best people and genes to other places that didn't want to stifle them at best, kill them at worst.
I'll admit to more than a passing interest in the subject, because myself, and a substantial portion of U.S. Jews, including some of my closest friends and business colleagues have ancestry from the Czarist Russian empire, as it existed in 1914. 1914 was when the Guns of August erupted, bringing an end to La Belle Epoque. As a result of the total destructiveness of Czarist culture, the best and brightest of Russia are here in the U.S., Canada and Australia. Russia, never rich in culture and intellect, had what little it possessed seriously diminished in one of the great "brain drains" in history.
The book is a fascinating exploration of the reasons that Russia, whether under the Czars, the former Soviet Union or post-Soviet iterations has never been “able to get its act together.” Russia's default mode is towards entropy or chaos of one kind or another, with a rich history of alcohol abuse, xenophobia, and zapadophobia (fear of the West). This has resulted in an ability to form alliances or relationships with other countries that are not contentious; unless they are in a dominating or controlling mode.
This malevolent history harks back at least to such Czarist era author and poets as Nikolay Danilevsky (1822-1885), Alexander Pushkin (author of, among other poems, To the Slanderers of Russia) and Georgy Fedotov. The core belief is of Russia being a “great” country, an empire. Russia is not content to be a country with a comfortable standard of living, but not much dominant power. Russia has an unjustifiably high opinion of itself and what it is entitled to.
Around 1990-1, there was great expectation for Russia to democratize, to become a “normal” country, a member of the community of nations. Laquer makes a great case that this was a triumph of hope over experience, much like a third marriage after a succession of divorces.
Among other shortcomings, Russia lacks a real economy. Instead it is a gas station, a petrostate. Laquer expresses little hope for its economy if oil prices remained in the $50 per barrel area.
More or less accidentally I fell into reading a lot about Russia. During the early summer I read The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life by Tom Reiss. This book was ostensibly about a deliberately obscure author, Lev Nussenbaum, writing under other names including Mohammed Essad Bey, who was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, and as the antebellum World War I falls apart, flees to Constantinople, then Berlin, and after a short period in New York City, to Vienna and after the Anschluss to Positano, Italy, where he dies as age 35. Reading that book motivated me to read Stalin: The Career Of A Fanatic by Mohammed Essad Bey. Bey (Nussenbaum), writing in1931, makes observations about Russia eerily similar to those of Walter Laquer concerning Russia’s imperviousness to Western ideas of liberalization.
Some international theorists have postulated that the West lost a historic opportunity by not integrating Russia into NATO, and expanding NATO’s reach to the Baltic states. Walter Laquer dismissing these as wishful thinking.
Nowadays, just as in the Czarist and Communist era, a good portion of the young people want to leave. The upshot of this cannot be good. One of the largest countries of the world, in terms of land mass, continues to sink into the abyss.
Does anyone see any hope for any of this to change?
I submit that Russia's main "contribution" to the West and civilization was the export of its best people and genes to other places that didn't want to stifle them at best, kill them at worst.
I'll admit to more than a passing interest in the subject, because myself, and a substantial portion of U.S. Jews, including some of my closest friends and business colleagues have ancestry from the Czarist Russian empire, as it existed in 1914. 1914 was when the Guns of August erupted, bringing an end to La Belle Epoque. As a result of the total destructiveness of Czarist culture, the best and brightest of Russia are here in the U.S., Canada and Australia. Russia, never rich in culture and intellect, had what little it possessed seriously diminished in one of the great "brain drains" in history.
The book is a fascinating exploration of the reasons that Russia, whether under the Czars, the former Soviet Union or post-Soviet iterations has never been “able to get its act together.” Russia's default mode is towards entropy or chaos of one kind or another, with a rich history of alcohol abuse, xenophobia, and zapadophobia (fear of the West). This has resulted in an ability to form alliances or relationships with other countries that are not contentious; unless they are in a dominating or controlling mode.
This malevolent history harks back at least to such Czarist era author and poets as Nikolay Danilevsky (1822-1885), Alexander Pushkin (author of, among other poems, To the Slanderers of Russia) and Georgy Fedotov. The core belief is of Russia being a “great” country, an empire. Russia is not content to be a country with a comfortable standard of living, but not much dominant power. Russia has an unjustifiably high opinion of itself and what it is entitled to.
Around 1990-1, there was great expectation for Russia to democratize, to become a “normal” country, a member of the community of nations. Laquer makes a great case that this was a triumph of hope over experience, much like a third marriage after a succession of divorces.
Among other shortcomings, Russia lacks a real economy. Instead it is a gas station, a petrostate. Laquer expresses little hope for its economy if oil prices remained in the $50 per barrel area.
More or less accidentally I fell into reading a lot about Russia. During the early summer I read The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life by Tom Reiss. This book was ostensibly about a deliberately obscure author, Lev Nussenbaum, writing under other names including Mohammed Essad Bey, who was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, and as the antebellum World War I falls apart, flees to Constantinople, then Berlin, and after a short period in New York City, to Vienna and after the Anschluss to Positano, Italy, where he dies as age 35. Reading that book motivated me to read Stalin: The Career Of A Fanatic by Mohammed Essad Bey. Bey (Nussenbaum), writing in1931, makes observations about Russia eerily similar to those of Walter Laquer concerning Russia’s imperviousness to Western ideas of liberalization.
Some international theorists have postulated that the West lost a historic opportunity by not integrating Russia into NATO, and expanding NATO’s reach to the Baltic states. Walter Laquer dismissing these as wishful thinking.
Nowadays, just as in the Czarist and Communist era, a good portion of the young people want to leave. The upshot of this cannot be good. One of the largest countries of the world, in terms of land mass, continues to sink into the abyss.
Does anyone see any hope for any of this to change?
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