Strife

The Academic Blog of the Department of War Studies, King's College London

You are here: Home / Archives for Russia

Russia

Capturing the humanity of the Cold War

by

By James Brown

A picture taken by renowned Czech photographer Viktor Kolar; his work captured the everyday experience in Ostrava, an important industrial town in communist Czechoslovakia. (Image: Viktor Kolar/Monovisions)

The history of the Cold War has a rich scholarship. The field encompasses International Relations studies, economic history, and, increasingly, cultural approaches, exploring the imprint of the conflict on art, film, and everyday life. Interest in books on the Cold War will likely increase this year as we approach the thirtieth anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union. And while narrative histories of high politics and culture no doubt assist in improving our understanding of the Cold War, the works which will be most important as we reflect on the conflict’s legacy are those dealing explicitly with the psychology and human impact of the Cold War. With the rise of China and continuing instability following the COVID-19 pandemic leading to repeated suggestions of the potential for a Second Cold War, most important in our engagement with the Cold War is appreciating the human mindsets which created that conflict, and those which it created amongst people in turn. We need to ask ourselves what led the world to be so divided for nearly half a century, and then how to avoid the same happening again.

Interrogating this aspect of Cold War history is indeed difficult and few authors truly succeed in illustrating the psychology of the era without resorting to cliche. The Cold War was a conflict defined by high politics and domineering ideologies of capitalism versus communism. Writers, especially academics, have found it hard to move beyond these abstractions to capture the human experience of the Cold War.

In this regard, it has been authors of fiction who have often been more successful. The works of the late great John le Carré endure in the popular imagination as among the most defining portraits of the moral compromises forced on individuals by the ideological restraints of the Cold War. Meanwhile, Francis Spufford’s fact-based novel, Red Plenty, gives insight into how Soviet citizens genuinely began to believe that communism’s material promises would be realised under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev (1956-64). In writing Red Plenty, Spufford, himself acknowledged the difficulties non-fiction authors face in trying to capture the essence of the Cold War’s ideas and their impact on people. He explains how his initial attempts to tell the tale of Red Plenty as a piece of non-fiction fell short and demanded he shift the book to the ‘border between fiction and non-fiction.’

Other Cold War authors, meanwhile, have successfully managed to bridge this gap between storytelling and fact while remaining truer to the latter. Among the most significant are Anna Funder, principally for her renowned book Stasiland, and the 2015 Nobel Literature Laureate, Svetlana Alexievich. These two authors are already widely acclaimed but it feels necessary to revisit their work as we approach the thirtieth anniversary of the end of the USSR, as they capture better than most the human impact of the Cold War, especially east of the Iron Curtain.

Funder’s brilliant Stasiland has been described variously as a personal history and a ‘journalist’s first-person narrative’ that can ‘read like a novel’. The book, through a series interviews intertwined with Funder’s own narrative, captures how the state ideology of the German Democratic Republic created an alternate, corrupt moral reality for its subjects and those who defended it: the notorious Ministry for State Security or Stasi. Funder, however, is not exclusively condemnatory of the former watchmen of state socialism. Her interviews are occasionally sympathetic with former Stasi employees, though without ever failing to address the violations they committed. On the other hand, Funder gives voice to those who resisted the regime and put themselves in extreme danger in desperate attempts to escape to the West. Funder’s main achievement is to shine a light on a society where ideology reigned supreme in a way it rarely does now, while still keeping the human experience firmly at the forefront of her prose.

Alexievich’s works, meanwhile, are less about how people were driven to extremes by ideology, and more about the everyday lives continuing in spite of or in accommodation with ideology. Alexievich’s method sees her conduct interviews with hundreds of witnesses to life in the USSR, focusing on formative events like the Great Patriotic War (1941-45), the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979-89), the Chernobyl Disaster (1986), and the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991). Her excellent Secondhand Time tells the story of the end of communism in the USSR and the responses of its citizens. Alexievich lets her subjects speak for themselves, sympathising with them. What emerges is a portrait of how the Soviet people inhabited a distinct culture of their own in the USSR and that while the political reality of the Soviet Union may have ended in 1991, left behind were millions of Homo-Sovieticus traumatised by the sudden collapse of their generations-old everyday reality.   

If history is about authentically recreating the unique conditions of an era or culture, both Funder’s and Alexievich’s books stand as among the most accomplished studies of the Cold War, even though neither author may be exclusively considered a historian; two other worthy examples are Donald J. Raleigh’s Soviet Baby Boomers and Bridgett Kendall’s The Cold War. Furthermore, both women’s books hold relevance in understanding pertinent contemporary issues in international politics, especially Putin’s Russia and the historical factors which drive Russian foreign policy. 

Modern Russia cannot be understood without an appreciation of the impact on Russian leaders of the loss of superpower status conferred by the USSR’s collapse. Nor can the contemporary rise of the far-right in the east of Germany be understood without knowledge of East German history. Throughout the 2010s, and now in the first years of the 2020s, observers have continued to speculate whether we have entered a new Cold War-style period of international relations. Understanding the human experience of the original Cold War seems a more important exercise than ever as we prepare ourselves for the new era, whatever it brings, and Funder and Alexievich offer the best place to start.

 

James Brown is a PhD candidate in history at Northumbria University. His focus is on Soviet dissidents and their use in the politics and international relations of the Cold War. He previously studied at Glasgow University, doing a Master’s in East European, Russian, and Eurasian studies. During this time he studied Russian and wrote his thesis, ‘Returning to Machiavelli: Giving Belarus-Russia relations the Original Realist Treatment’, which received the prize for best dissertation from the Centre for East European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at Glasgow.

At Northumbria, he is a member of several research groups, including the Conflict & Society and Histories of Activism groups. James also has a keen interest in literature, especially Czech writers, and had a poem on Jan Palach published in Edge Magazine. Additionally, he remains interested in the Chernobyl disaster, on which he wrote his undergraduate thesis, ‘A Long Half-Life: Responses to Chernobyl in Soviet and Post-Soviet Society’.

The Overextension of Sovereignty: How states have dampened opposition to annexation

by

Kremlin Dome of Senate. Photo Credit: iStockPhoto.

In the twenty-first century the calculation that war is too costly to pursue in the conventional manner has kept large scale inter-state conflict from occurring. States are no longer willing to send tanks rolling across borders to invade neighboring countries. The military, economic, and political cost/benefit analyses simply do not justify those actions in the present state of international relations. Yet, this does not cure a state’s appetite to expand its control in favor of pursuing its national interest. However, it does shift the strategy used to expand its presence. The use of proxies to engage on behalf of a state has been documented in conflicts such as the ongoing war in Yemen. A number of states utilize this strategy to pursue plausible deniability. An alternative method to mollify the international community over aggressive actions has been increasing in prevalence – extending sovereignty over peoples or structures outside of their present jurisdiction in order to more forcefully justify the aggressor’s presence. By over-extending their claim of sovereignty, these states attempt to shift the perception of their actions from aggressors to defenders and dampen any possibility of a united front willing to confront their activities. We have seen this strategy play out in Crimea and eastern Ukraine under President Vladimir Putin in 2014, and more recently in the South China Sea and the Himalayas by President Xi Jinping.

The Russian case in Ukraine

The Russian Black Sea Fleet’s continued access to naval bases in warm-water ports in Crimea and Russia’s support for the fiercely pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych were national interests, but a traditional military incursion into Ukraine would have triggered costly consequences. Instead, Vladimir Putin began using rhetoric related to the protection of ethnic Russians in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Following violence in Kiev, Putin declared that “We understand what worries the citizens of Ukraine, both Russian and Ukrainian, and the Russian-speaking population in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine… we retain the right to use all available means to protect those people. We believe this would be absolutely legitimate.” After mass protests in Kiev and the formation of pro-Russian separatist militias in Ukraine, Putin used the doctrine of Protecting Nationals Abroad (PNA) as justification for sending military supplies to separatists and deploying “little green men” into Crimea and eastern Ukraine. But many of these people Putin claimed to protect were not citizens, but merely ethnic Russians or Russian-speaking peoples. Whether the doctrine of PNA is lawful or simply tolerated, its traditional application has been to citizens, not foreign nationals with ancestry to the state utilizing the doctrine. Nevertheless, in 2019, Putin issued a decree allowing close to 3.5 million people living in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donbass and Luhansk to obtain Russian passports and brings Putin’s actions closer to those previously allowed by the international community.

Putin did not stop at protecting ethnic Russians. He also used historical claims to justify retaking territory. In a speech to a joint session of parliament asking for the formal annexation of Crimea, Putin professed “All these years, citizens and many public figures came back to this issue, saying that Crimea is historically Russian land and Sevastopol is a Russian city. Yes, we all knew this in our hearts and minds”. Russia’s relinquishing of Crimea to Ukraine, in the process suffering a ‘historical wronging’, and its subsequent use as a rationalization to retake territory followed the framework of previous annexations. A number of international leaders compared the move to Hitler’s annexation of Sudetenland in 1938. The UN General Assembly has adopted resolutions urging Russia to withdraw military forces from Crimea and supplies from going to eastern Ukraine. A certain amount of backlash was inevitable following the annexation of territory, but Putin would have been naïve to believe that there would have been silence after such a move. However, other than remarks by world leaders and a number of U.S. and EU economic sanctions, Putin has been relatively free to pursue his interests in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. His use of the PNA doctrine and historical sovereignty over territory allowed him to keep the conflict, and ensuing fallout, below a level of escalation consistent with traditional military invasions.

China’s Mountain and Sea Strategy

While Russia has used the PNA doctrine as justification for interference into neighboring countries, China has used infrastructure. In the South China Sea, the Nine Dash Line asserted by China encompasses vast majorities of the sea that extend far beyond the usual exclusive-economic zones given to each state as a result of the United Nation’s Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Chinese explanations for this broad claim are based on historical use of the sea by China dating back thousands of years. In modern times, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Navy (PLAN) has been constructing artificial islands in the South China Sea since 2013, allowing them to issue claims of sovereignty over disputed territory. In April, China created two new administrative districts in the South China Sea. This month, China drafted a new law that would expand the Chinese Coast Guard’s ability to enforce its sovereignty over the islands, permitting them to destroy foreign construction on islands claimed by Beijing and fire weapons on foreign ships.

China has now duplicated this strategy on land. In recent weeks, China completed the initial construction of a new village where the borders of India, Bhutan, and China meet in the Himalayan Mountains. This came after a June border clash in the Ladakh region of the Himalayas, near Kashmir, that resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese casualties. The new Chinese village is reported to be constructed within the territory of Bhutan, just south of the Doklam Plateau. Bhutan and China have been engaged in territorial disputes for nearly 35 years, much of which is focused on the western regions of Bhutan. The Doklam plateau is strategically significant for India’s continued access to its eight northeastern states, as well as their land borders with Bhutan and Myanmar. Under Chinese control, they would have the ability to block this access. The new Chinese village may only be the first in a series, much like the artificial islands, that would give China anchor points to protect the ‘sovereignty’ of Chinese territory or peoples.

These anchor points are core components to the strategy of Chinese expansion. States, including Australia, Japan, Vietnam, and Malaysia, are concerned with a resurgent China, its brazen aggression, and the potential of forceful annexation of territory. These fears present a major diplomatic challenge to China’s longer-term strategy. [[i]] Therefore, China has attached rhetoric to provocative actions in an attempt to alleviate concerns over their rise, engaging in a “rhetorical trap”. China has used rhetoric such as ‘China’s peaceful rise’ to assuage fears over actions that would otherwise seem more hostile. The rhetoric emphasizes the protection of sovereign entities, instead of engaging in military conflict on existing territory of sovereign states. This rhetoric has typically been utilized around actions in the South China Sea, but Beijing may begin using similar terminology regarding its efforts in the Himalayas.

Both the Russian and Chinese strategies are aimed at expanding territorial control without the stigma or risk of conventional conflict over existing territory, structures, or peoples. This shifts the conflict from a conventional military one to a more hybrid model that incorporates higher levels of rhetoric and international public opinion. Both the Russian and Chinese approaches try to build a framework that give them a defensive right to use force instead of an aggressive seizure of territory. While these strategies have allowed Russia and China to extend their ambitions over neighboring territories, how long will it take for their neighbors, and world leaders, to effectively respond to these enigmatic strategies… if ever?

 

[i] For more on the diplomatic challenges facing China in Asia over their renewed presence as a great power, Anisa Heritage and Pak K. Lee (2020) use an international order perspective to analyze the tension in the South China Sea, available here.

 

Nagorno Karabakh: What’s Next?

by

by Carlotta Rinaudo

Kids in the village of Karindag, Nagorno Karabakh, 1993 (credit: RedRipper24, Flickr)

In 1988 the kids of Nagorno Karabakh did not attend school. Instead of books, they took stones, sticks and knives and waited in the streets to attack Azerbaijani’s cars. Such inter-ethnic hostility can be traced back to an ill-fated decision taken by Stalin in 1923, when Nagorno Karabakh was made an autonomous region under Soviet Azerbaijan, despite being inhabited by a 94% ethnic  Armenian majority.

In the late 1980s, as the Soviet Union collapsed, ethnic Armenians called for the transfer of Nagorno Karabakh to the jurisdiction of the Republic of Armenia, spurring violent reactions from resident Azerbaijanis. Tensions led to the 1988-1994 war, with both sides engaging in ethnic cleansing. In the end, Armenia took de facto control of Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding seven districts, resulting in the displacement of 600,000 Azerbaijanis.

“The Azerbaijanis wanted to kick us out of Nagorno-Karabakh, but we started to fight back and threw stones”, recalls Aram, then only 14-years of age.

Today, this landlocked mountainous region in the South Caucasus continues to be engulfed by violence. On 27 September 2020 conflict broke out again, and after six weeks of intense fighting a peace deal was signed on 9 November. This time, the conflict translated into a painful defeat for Armenia and a victory for Azerbaijan, while also determining a shift in regional power dynamics: Turkey has strengthened its position in the region, constraining Russia to a secondary role. This raises new questions: what are the implications of a new balance between Ankara and Moscow in the South Caucasus? Also, as Azeri refugees and Armenian separatists will cohabit again, how likely is  more ethnic cleansing?

Many factors suggest that this long-lasting conflict is far from being resolved.

Nagorno Karabakh is not the only territorial dispute that has emerged from the ashes of a disintegrating Soviet Union: other non-recognised states are Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, Transnistria in Moldova, and Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine.

These are categorised as frozen conflicts because of their unresolved nature; within these regions, clashes could re-start at any time. Frozen conflicts can also transform into a boxing ring where international players can flex their muscles and push their aspirations. Thus, after backing opposite sides in the ongoing conflicts in Syria and Libya, in September Russia and Turkey extended their regional competition to Nagorno Karabakh.

Azerbaijan – Turkey

On one side of the ring stand two fighters: Azerbaijan and Turkey, bound by historical, cultural, and ethnic ties. Their alliance, however, goes well beyond brotherly love, indeed, their cooperation benefits both their national interests.

Over recent years, the Azerbaijani government has grown increasingly frustrated at Armenia’s behaviour, especially when Yerevan rejected the Madrid Principles, which entailed the restitution of the seven districts surrounding Nagorno Karabakh. Thus, by starting a military operation on 27 September 2020, Azerbaijan aimed to re-gain by force the territories it had lost during the 1988-1994 war. Back then, its military power was inferior to Russian-backed Armenia, but today things have changed, Azerbaijan’s rising oil revenues have opened the possibility of a heavy rearmament. Turkish military exports to Baku increased six-fold this year, with Ankara sending drones, aerial support, and even Syrian mercenaries. Thanks to its petrodollars, Azerbaijan has been provided with a decisive military power it did not have in 1994.

Meanwhile, Turkish President Erdogan aims to restore the grandeur of the Ottoman empire. After engaging in a number of disputes throughout the Middle East and the Mediterranean, Ankara has now seen a chance to stretch its neo-Ottoman ambitions to the South Caucasus.

But the conflict is also about securing the energy flow, another sphere where Azerbaijani and Turkish interests converge.

As Nagorno Karabakh sits close to vital Azeri oil and gas infrastructure, long-term disruptions in the region would impact Azerbaijan’s exports towards Southern Europe, but also Turkey’s cheap gas imports, allowing a Russian victory in the European market.

23rd anniversary of the Khojaly massacre: the killing of Azerbaijani civilians during the Nagorno Karabakh conflict (credit: Tom Woods, Flickr)

Armenia – Russia

On the other side of the boxing ring are Armenia and Russia, whose historical alliance has recently become more fragile.

On paper they both are signatories of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, a military agreement of mutual defence. However, Moscow did not intervene to protect Armenia during the recent six-week conflict, supposedly in order to avoid a direct confrontation against heavily-armed Azerbaijan. In addition, over the past years Moscow and Baku enjoyed good relationships. Thus, Moscow might be unwilling to break ties with a friendly ex-Soviet state that is even an arms customer, altering the fragile equilibrium of its “Near Abroad”.

On the other side, Putin seems to have some reasons to be less eager to help Yerevan. The new Armenian government came into power in 2018 following a colour revolution, notably one of Putin’s worst nightmares. The government in Yerevan is also prosecuting former President Kocharyan, who used to enjoy a friendly relationship with the Kremlin. In addition, Yerevan is welcoming Western NGOs, while its media wrote many critical publications about Moscow.

A wall decorated with the pictures of Azeri people who fled the region during the Nagorno Karabakh War (credit: Dariusz Wozniak, flickr)

What’s next?

As Shusha was captured by Azerbaijani forces on 9 November 2020, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan rushed to sign a late-night peace deal with Russia and Azerbaijan, fearing that more territory could be lost. Perched atop a mountain overlooking Nagorno Karabakh’s capital, Stepanakert, Shusha represents a strategic gain, but it also carries historical meaning for both Armenians and Azerbaijanis, often referred to as “the Jerusalem of Nagorno Karabakh”.
According to the peace deal, Baku will assume official control over its recent territorial gains, and Azeri refugees will now be able to return to their lost lands. In addition, Armenia must agree to a transport corridor that will link Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan exclave, so far separated from the mainland.

The peace deal forges new power dynamics: behind the veil of a successful Russian mediation, Moscow’s influence in its own backyard has decreased.

Although nearly 2000 Russian peacekeepers from the 31st Independent Guards Air Assault Brigade have been deployed to monitor the implementation of the ceasefire, Turkish peacekeepers will be dispatched too, cementing Turkish newly acquired key role in the geopolitics of the Caucasus. The increasing Turkish prestige is also demonstrated by the fact that the Russian ally was defeated, while the Turkish ally won.

In conclusion, the prospect of Azeri refugees and Armenian separatists living side by side generates new concerns.

On the one hand, displaced Azerbaijanis carry feelings of resentment against Armenians. Whilst on the other, Armenians often argue their identity was threatened by Turkic peoples; having faced disproportionately higher taxes under Ottoman rule and experiencing mass killing by Ottoman Turks between 1914 and 1923.

Therefore, the recent peace deal is likely to re-open old historical wounds.

Alexei Navalny and the ‘Affair of the Poisons’, à la russe

by

by N. Alexander

Falling ill on a plane from Omsk to Moscow, the ex-lawyer and blogger on corruption in Russia, Alexei Navalny was rushed to the hospital after a suspected – and later proven – poisoning (Image credit: Getty Images/AFP/K. Kudrayavtsev)

‘When will Putin learn?’ It is a question now once again asked after the alleged poisoning of Russian politician and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny. Russian commentators from Navalny’s inner circle, social media news-brokers, as well as Western governments and journalists, lost no time in identifying ‘the perp’ as Russian President Vladimir Putin. After all, is not Navalny ‘the man Vladimir Putin fears most’?

Although German doctors treating Navalny claim to have found traces of a ‘Novichok’-type agent in his system, there is still no conclusive evidence presented publicly, nor is there any viable clue about who Navalny was poisoned by, or why. In such a situation, one would do well to hold out on judgement and to ignore one’s gut feeling. However, the opposite is true. Indeed, why look for certainty, when we already know the answer?

While the theory of Putin’s involvement in the poisoning of his political opponent fits snugly with the flurry of accusations levelled at the Kremlin over the years, a lethal attack against Navalny, in particular, is both unnecessary and harmful to the Russian government. Setting aside the fact that as a method, political assassinations have been employed widely (including by governments which profess the highest of democratic values) such an interpretation fails to take into account both the pattern of Putin’s risk-taking when making political choices, and the level of threat Alexei Navalny actually presents to the Russian President personally, as well as to the political establishment as a whole. This discussion seeks to point to some of the discrepancies which separate the abstractly possible from the eminently probable.

‘No Pain, no Gain’: Putin and Political Risks

Over the years Vladimir Putin amply demonstrated his ability to take risks. However, equally demonstrable is the fact that such risks, with the cost they inevitably carry, also have the potential to bring about enormous dividends. The case of Crimea demonstrates this vividly.

The acquisition of Crimea (unification or annexation, depending on one’s political perspective) carried with it the inevitable risk of an outcry by Russia’s international opponents and antagonists, as well as a high probability of sanctions. Yet manifest as well were the dividends. Crimea might not be of major economic benefit, it might not have oil reserves or uranium deposits, but it is a cultural-ideological ‘trophy’ in a country which puts premium value on history as the bearer of national pride. For a Russian, regardless of personal political views or aspirations, Crimea carries immense historic, ethnic, and national value, and is perceived almost as an element of national identity. For a political leader, the return of Crimea is a manifestation of politics of strength within the context of a historical vision, it is a message of defiance of external pressures in a country particularly sensitive to cultural and political penetration from the outside. In short, Crimea is the example par excellence of Vladimir Putin accepting risks for a particular profit: international outcry for domestic approval, and national sacrifices for his own great Russian vision.[1]

By contrast, the Navalny affair currently unfolding carries no gains, no promises, nor any dividends whatsoever. Putin, his inner circle, ‘the Kremlin’, the ruling elite as a whole gain nothing from Navalny’s potential martyrdom. In fact, they have much to lose from it. Vague and unproven accusations levelled at Russia are already accompanied by threats of sanctions and demands for Russia to open its military research to NATO inspectors.

The Navalny phenomenon

As an anti-corruption blogger, Navalny rose to prominence rather quickly, capitalising on the PR value of high-profile exposés. His investigations, published online for a broad audience, were read widely for years, both by critics of the system and those who, while generally loyal, were critical or suspicious of particular elements of the new ruling elite. Navalny has managed very successfully to give concrete examples to otherwise anecdotal rumours of abuses critics of the system were spreading for years. However, the mere fact of selective dissatisfaction with aspects of the system is not enough to produce active opposition in Russian society. Put plainly, the average Russian citizen can still be loyal to the system and a believer therein, and at the same time find elements to criticise and even resist against. This is one of several key reasons why Navalny’s message has not proven powerful enough to dent the government’s powerbase significantly.

Navalny’s anti-corruption campaign seemed for a time to be the stuff political stars are made of. He has indeed risen from a humble blogger to an organiser of what is seen in the West as mass protests in opposition to the government. Two things, however, have to be pointed out.

First, ‘mass’ is a relative term, and even tens of thousands of city dwellers in a major centre of European Russia are not necessarily representative of a much larger electorate which is generally politically conservative in its outlook.[2] Second, protests, even sizeable ones, although indicative of political awareness, are not evidence of a prominent or permanent change of political perception, as evidenced in the consistently high levels of Vladimir Putin’s popularity. Putin’s approval ratings over the years, even at their lowest, have stayed well above the 50% mark, consistently dwarfing those of even the most prominent Western politicians.

The ineffectiveness of Navalny’s particular brand of activism in augmenting his political capital lies ultimately in its structure. His anti-corruption approach is not unlike that of Putin himself early on in his Presidency when dealing with the oligarchical elite of the 1990s.[3] Like Putin, Navalny consistently focused on high-profile individuals from the socio-political elite, while leaving largely untouched the broader culture of corruption in Russian institutions. The targets of his investigations were prominent enough to generate hype and gossip, but this did not translate into nation-wide opposition. This is because, on the perceptional level, the corruption of the upper strata of a political elite is a given among those who are eager to criticise the political and social status quo. Meaning, Navalny’s main powerbase speaks more to those Russians who are already part of an opposition, rather than attracting a multitude of new political ‘converts’. Furthermore, on the practical level, the exposition of high-level corruption, while excellent headlines material, has little direct effect on the daily life of a population which is harmed much more frequently and harshly by corruption at the lower levels of social organisation – local administration, low-level dispute resolution, police, etc.

In short, while Navalny’s anti-corruption activity has made him well-known as an activist, it has not been enough to make him a political force to appeal widely on a national level, and thus be reckoned with.

Navalny did manage to gather a significant percentage of the vote for mayor of Moscow in the 2013 election. However, it is improbable that his attempts to run for President would have been successful even had they not been thwarted. While a timely conviction and disqualified him from a presidential run in 2018 as an independent candidate, he was not able to gather the necessary signatures to formally register in the first place. Even the 700,000 potential voters he reported as pledged would not have been enough to push him ahead if he was not disqualified.

Since then, Navalny’s political influence has seen a moderate rise on the regional level, where he has sought to ally himself with other opposition parties and groups in order to diminish the dominant influence of United Russia candidates, for example, in the elections for Governor of the St Petersburg region. Yet there is little to suggest that his influence nation-wide is particularly threatening for Putin’s United Russia party.

Off with his head?

The key question is whether Navalny is dangerous enough for it to be necessary to have him taken off the playing field, quite literally. While moderately influential, he is neither a major force on his own nor the leader that would stir the fragmented Russian opposition to and unite around him.

Previously, the Russian authorities have had little trouble blocking Navalny’s various bids for power. They have done so while maintaining a thin veneer of legality, effectively using the various loopholes of the Russian legal system to keep him in check without it being necessary to harm him to achieve this goal. By contrast, an assassination attempt would only reinforce any message that Navalny is carrying, while a fatal outcome could make him into the martyr Boris Nemtsov could never have been.

The usual suspect?

It is, of course, very easy to point the finger at Putin as the usual suspect. It fits into the easily-marketed image of the Russian autocrat, dangerous, unpredictable, and yet oh so transparently evil.[4] Built on a decades-long tradition of mistrust, it is no surprise that criticism of Russia ‘sells’. Often opportunistically self-serving, it is an easy and palatable interpretation, revived as soon as Russia started gaining back its prominence following the collapse of the USSR and a decade of political, ideological and economic crisis.[5]

Yet the truth, perhaps a sad reflection of the modesty of liberal opposition movements in Russia, is that Alexei Navalny, while a man of purpose and a man of recognition, is not dangerous enough for the Kremlin to seek to assassinate him. Doing so, in fact, would create unnecessary complications internationally while bringing no benefit domestically for a leadership which is going through a period of crisis and increased criticism domestically and internationally.

This discussion seeks to point to some of the discrepancies which separate the abstractly possible from the eminently probable.

It is worth, perhaps, remembering that Alexei Navalny has stepped on many toes over the years. The fact that any enemies he has thus made might be part of the political establishment does not immediately substantiate complicity by the Kremlin, particularly as an attack on Navalny would be both unnecessary and harmful to the President and to the Russian Government as a whole. As such,  a variety of possible interpretations present themselves.

At this point, it is difficult to say which of these hold water. The proposition of the Kremlin’s supposed complicity sits very uncomfortably with the lack of a logical justification of such an excessive measure since existing, bloodless alternatives have proven very successful in managing Navalny’s political influence.

Equally implausible is the assumption of a political provocation by the opposition or the West. This has already been aired as a possible scenario by Vyacheslav Volodin, the Chairman of the State Duma, potentially as a rhetorical counter to insinuations in the Western press about government complicity, and to direct threats by the U.S. State Department. Navalny is simply too valuable to both; put bluntly, he is much more valuable alive than dead.

An even more extreme interpretation is that an attack on Navalny is part of a complex coup orchestrated from within government circles seeking to bring Putin down. Dangerously close to a conspiracy theory, this requires extensive corroborating evidence, and possibly also a much more intelligent understanding of the delicate interplay and balance of power in the corridors of the Kremlin.

Perhaps a simpler explanation suggests itself: Navalny’s activism has certainly gained him many powerful enemies, and it is at least as plausible for this attack to be an unsanctioned move for the satisfaction of a personal vendetta. Depending on who the person responsible might be, it is plausible the Kremlin will be forced to save face by covering them up.

Allowing passions, preconceptions, and biases to underpin political opinion, political proclamation, and political resolution has over the past years become more and more the norm. And yet in order to get a more plausible interpretation of events, it is inevitably important to occasionally ask – who benefits?

[1] This polarising issue has resulted in a large outpour of comment and analysis, mostly extremely partisan on both sides of the spectrum. For a balanced overview and assessment, see Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 2015), ch. 5.

[2] An indicative, if somewhat indirectly related example which demonstrates the general conservatism of Russian society is the much-reported Pussy Riot controversy. Following the arrest of its members after an alternative protest performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow in February 2012, widely condemned as sacrilegious, polls conducted reported that about 80% of widely pooled respondents were in favour of a conviction, whether prison terms (37%), forced labour (26%), or a large fine (20%). See Levada Centre, ‘Rossiyane o dele Pussy Riot’ [‘Russians on the Pussy Riot Case’], online at https://www.levada.ru/2012/07/31/rossiyane-o-dele-pussy-riot/.

[3] Richard Sakwa, Putin: Russia’s Choice (London & New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 143-150.

[4] See, for example, Heidi Blake, From Russia with Blood: Putin’s Ruthless Killing Campaign and Secret War on the West (London: William Collins, 2019), and Amy Knight, Orders to Kill: The Putin Regime and Political Murder (Thomas Dunne, 2017). For a more nuanced and balanced recent view, see Richard Sakwa, The Putin Paradox (London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 2020).

[5] For an overview of the crucial period of the 1990s see Roy A. Medvedev, Post-Soviet Russia: A Journey through the Yeltsin Era (New York & Chichester: Columbia University Press 2000), and Andrew Felkay, Yeltsin’s Russia and the West (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002). For a good overview of the ‘new Cold War’ currently raging, see Richard Sakwa, Russia Against the Rest: The Post-Cold War Crisis of World Order (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

N. Alexander a historian teaching at King’s College London and a keen observer of Russian politics.

 

 

 

 

Russian and British Imperial Policies towards Ukrainian and Welsh

by

by Daria Platonova

The Ems Edict of 1876 banned the use of the Ukrainian language in print (Image credit: Mozok)

In 2014, language came to the forefront of politics in Ukraine for the second time since 2012 and with far serious consequences than before. After the flight of President Yanukovych on 21 February 2014, the new Ukrainian government provisionally repealed the 2012 Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law that granted Russian, among other minority languages, the status of the regional language in the east of Ukraine where it was most widely spoken. This had meant that Russian could be used at courts, schools, and businesses as the regional language in the east. People of the eastern cities and towns, such as Donets’k[1] and Kharkiv, took to the streets, protesting against the repeal with the slogans “Russian is our language”. Many appealed to Russia for help.

Radicals such as Donetsk Republic (a radical movement calling for the secession of the Donbas from Ukraine), who called the former President Viktor Yushchenko’s (2005 – 2010) language policies of Ukrainisation “the genocide of Russian speakers”, came to the forefront of the protest movement in Donets’k. The fact that the interim President Oleksandr Turchynov vetoed the repeal of the language law on 28 February 2014 and the new government pledged to revise its language policies failed to register with the people in the east, and the protests continued. These protests later morphed into an insurgency, with the help of Russian non-state actors, and led to the eventual secession from Ukraine of two regions, Donets’k and Luhans’k, in May 2014. The local elites in Donets’k lay the blame for these developments on Kyiv who, to them, pursued “incorrect policies” towards the east. In this article, I draw attention to somewhat more far-fetched but no less significant historical events. I present a comparative review of Russian and British imperial policies towards Ukrainian and Welsh respectively to demonstrate that empires would often suppress native languages in the public sphere in order to promote their lingua francas (most commonly spoken languages), for a variety of reasons.

Many Ukrainian nationalists, such as Ivan Dziuba, and the generations of Ukrainian writers since decried Russian imperial and later Soviet policies of russification which suppressed the use and development of Ukrainian. They emphasise how these policies damaged the development of Ukrainian identity. In the 21st century, language in Ukraine became a plaything of various political forces, such as the Party of Regions, who would often campaign with a promise to make Russian the official language of Ukraine, only to renege on their promises once in power. By contrast, President Yushchenko (2005 – 2010) pursued consistent policies of Ukrainisation, making Ukrainian the official language of the public sphere and all levels of education, which was used as a negative campaign ploy by the Russophone Viktor Yanukovych in his presidential election campaign before he was elected President in 2010. I argue that when it comes to the language policies in the Russian Empire, it was not alone in suppressing local native languages.

Ukrainian in the Russian Empire

In the second half of the 19th century, the Russian imperial bureaucracy began to target the Ukrainian or Little Russian language and Ukrainophiles (the promoters of the Ukrainian culture and language), such as Mykhailo Drahomaniv, systematically. Alexei Miller has written extensively on the origins, successes, and failures of these policies. Thus, in 1863, the Russian imperial bureaucracy issued the so-called Valuev circular, which aimed at curbing publications in Ukrainian intended for primary mass reading, including textbooks and religious texts. It also prohibited primary education in Ukrainian. Miller and other historians such as Olga Andriewsky trace the origins of the circular to the political situation in the Russian empire, such as the Polish Uprising of 1863 and Russia’s defeat in the Crimean war.[2] Valuev himself thought of the Ukrainian language as “a Polish tool in the struggle against the Empire”. The makers of the circular argued that the language “has never existed and, despite all the efforts of the Ukrainophiles, “still does not exist“.

Miller traces the origins of the second significant legislation, the Ems edict or ukaz, to the concern about the “manifestations of Ukrainophile activities, such as book publications in the Little Russian (malorusski) dialect (or Ukrainian)”. One of the explanatory notes to the edict that was finally issued in 1876 tellingly says, “The emergence of literature among Latvians can be considered as safe for the unity and integrity of Russia. On the contrary, it would be the greatest political imprudence to allow a separation of 13 million Little Russians by the means of giving the Ukrainian dialect the status of a language of high culture”. Further, the note maintained the central role of the Little Russia in the Russian-Polish conflict, saying “if the Little Russia becomes Polish again, the present greatness of the Russian state would be in grave danger”. The Ukrainophile movement was consequently labelled “the brainchild of the Austrian-Polish intrigue” that endangered the unity and integrity of Russia.

Hence, according to the Ems circular, the publication of literature in Ukrainian, with the exception of ancient texts and works of fine literature, was circumscribed; literary imports from abroad were forbidden; Ukrainian literature was now completely under control of the Chief Directorate on Publications. Miller shows how the imperial bureaucracy sought to minimise the grammatical and orthographical differences between Russian and Ukrainian. Other parts of the edict prohibited elementary instruction in Ukrainian as well as led not only to the closure of the Ukrainophile Kyiv Geographical Society but also the immediate exile of Ukrainophiles Drahomaniv and Chubinskiy. Thus, between 1896 and 1900, the Kyiv censorship committee forbade 15% of Ukrainian publications every year, compared to 2% of publications in other languages. Russian remained the language of administration, economy and mass communication. This was particularly true in the great cities of Kyiv and Odessa.

Welsh in the British Empire

In his book on the Ukrainian question, Miller notes that in France and Britain similar assimilatory processes took place over the 19th century and early 20th century, but there were no attempts to restrict minority-language publications through censorship. Assimilation was practised primarily through schools and in the workplace. In fact, in the 18th century, elementary education in Welsh flourished. Yet, by the 19th century political instability (Jacobin revolts) hit the schools hard. By the early 20th century, like Ukrainian, Welsh became associated with peasantry, working classes and, above all, urban disorder and political instability. In the industrial south-east (almost a mirror image of the rural Ukraine), there was a large “unstable” working-class population. Many of them were not Anglicans and most of them did not speak English as their first language. In 1800 – 1, there was a revolt over food prices, and massive demonstrations against wage cuts took place in 1816. Overall, riots were endemic in the 19th century in Wales. After one such riot, called the Newport Rising in 1839, the failure of the authorities to identify the instigators was attributed to the language barrier.

In 1847, the government inquiry into the state of education in Wales led to the publication of the so-called “Blue Books” in which “the Welsh were portrayed as ill-educated, poor, dirty, unchaste and potentially rebellious”, while the Welsh language was described as “the great evil”. Evans writes that the Welsh language and Nonconformity were made to carry most of the blame for the poor state of Wales. The books paved the way for government and state intervention in education so that by 1870 a wholly English system of instruction could be applied to Wales under Forster’s Education Act of the same year. The Reports also reduced the self-confidence of Welsh people and created in many quarters a strong sense of national inferiority.

In the 1850s and 1860s, Evans writes that “there occurred a massive cultural and political shift … and the Welsh were encouraged to forget their past with its passion for poetry, legend and history. The new emphasis was on practical knowledge, industriousness, progress, the language of success and the Victorian ethos of self-improvement”. Schools and parents became resistant to the introduction of Welsh because it prevented further integration with England and career success. Thus, a Welsh-speaking Anglican clergyman, the Revd Shadrach Pryce, considered the Welsh language to be useless in educational terms. Many were of the view, for example the rector of Merthyr Tydfil Revd Daniel Lewis, that the introduction of Welsh in the schools was dangerous and undesirable: “the language is a spoken one; it has really no body of literature of its own”, except for “very feeble poetry”. This is eerily reminiscent of the key Ukrainophile Mykhailo Drahomaniv’s remark that if Ukrainian was to become the chief language of instruction in Ukraine, the pupils would be put on the literary “St Anthony’s diet”.

By the early 20th century, due to the rapid urbanisation, English became “the language of advancement and promotion”, just as Russian was in the Russian Empire. Pupils at schools were learning English and its enforcement became associated with physical punishments, such as the infamous Welsh Knot. Smith writes,

“Welsh was not accorded any status as a medium of official business, nor the language of genteel society, nor of the expanding commercial and industrial world, and neither was it the language of academia and learning. Indeed, the domain of the Welsh language was increasingly limited to domesticity and religious worship, and it was regarded as a hindrance rather than an advantage to personal advancement and social progress”.

Thus, according to the calculations of E.G.Ravenstein, 71.2 per cent of the population of Wales was able to speak Welsh in 1871. By 1901, this figure was slightly less than half of the population . According to J. Southall’s Wales and Her Language published in 1892, Welsh was becoming disused and many children were becoming ashamed of their native tongue. Smith concludes that the opposition to the Welsh language reflected underlying social attitudes rather than any specific language policy. In contrast, the Russian imperial government pursued specific language policies towards Ukrainian, as later did the Ukrainian government towards the official language of the country and other languages.

Conclusion

In the 21st century, language remained an important issue in Ukraine and it became entangled with politics. This has deeper historical roots as the Ukrainian language was also a deeply political issue for the Russian bureaucracy in the Russian Empire. Two edicts forbade publications for mass reading in Ukrainian and instruction in the language. It was deemed that the development of Ukrainian endangered the Russian Empire as it was associated with “Polish intrigues”. Similarly, Welsh language became associated with the “unstable” working classes and urban riots in the British Empire. Publications in Welsh were not forbidden as such, but the language was gradually suppressed in schools. English became the language of career advancement and increasing urbanisation. In both empires, the lingua francas became unassailable by the minority languages by the early 20th century. By the time of its independence, the Ukrainian government therefore faced with the legacy of the Russian imperial policies towards Ukrainian the impact of which it persistently strove to override.

[1] I have used the Ukrainian spelling in line with the established academic practice.

[2] Olga Andriewsky, “The Russian-Ukrainian discourse and the failure of the Little Russian solution, 1782 – 1917” in A. Kappeler et al., eds. Culture, Nation, and Identity: the Ukrainian-Russian encounter

Daria is a PhD student at King’s College London. Her research focuses on violence and the unfolding of conflict across several regions in eastern Ukraine, 2013 – 2014. She also leads one of the Causes of War seminars in the War Studies Department. Prior to joining King’s, she worked as a teacher. She graduated with a degree in History from the University of Cambridge in 2011. Her broader interests include European history, war studies, and interdisciplinary methods.