Carnegie Moscow Center
The Victory Day parade in Moscow has sent a number of important messages, which outsiders would do well to reflect upon.
In a system that requires participation, mere nonparticipation comes across as a sign of foreign political culture to the regime. Even more so, it is a form of resistance.
Old totalitarian practices can reemerge with new symbols, from new directions. And a struggle against the symbols of past unfreedom isn’t enough to protect against a lack of liberty in its latest incarnation.
In order to keep the ranks closed and to sustain the Stockholm syndrome of the fortress’s defenders there must be constant discoveries of “a fifth column” and “national traitors.” That’s the only sense in which Russian authorities need liberals.
On May 9—the Victory Day—the majority of top-level visitors will come to Moscow from the non-Western countries. Russia’s quest for acceptance in or by the West is finally over, and its foreign policy will require a new identity and new orientation.
There is little reason to believe that the Russian middle class will react to the ongoing financial and economic crisis with protests or renewed calls for change. Instead, it seems almost certain that it will opt for strategies of survival and perseverance.
Russia’s problems with Crimea and Crimea’s problems with Russia will only continue to grow.
The Western approach to Russia is predicated on the supposition that continued pressure on the country will cause Vladimir Putin’s regime to make concessions or even crumble. However, this is far from the truth.
Putin and his policy attract sympathizers in Europe from both far left and far right. However, Russian ideologists have such a poor idea of who supports them overseas that they failed to assemble and present a convincing contingent of supporters, only embarrassing themselves in the end.
The post-Soviet elites use the system that Lee Kuan Yew constructed in Singapore to justify political crackdown. However, Lee himself believed that resource-based dictatorships will fail to replicate Singapore’s success, since restricting freedoms is not the cornerstone of his model.