Ukraine: India refuses to take a clear position on the Russian invasion / Prominent Russians join protests against Ukraine war amid 1,800 arrests
NB: The article below is provocative. Readers may consider the implications. But two points need to be made about the author's last few sentences. One, the phrase 'Putin's imperial nostalgia' is misleading unless post-USSR geo-politics are examined carefully. Two, the world's 'liberal democracies' don't seem very committed to liberal democracy these days, and neither (to say the least) does the current Indian establishment. Its 'core values' have been eroded and its policies reduced to keeping the Modi government and Sangh Parivar in power.
Incidentally, Jawaharlal Nehru defended Nobel Laureate Boris Pasternak when he was threatened with possible exile by the Khrushchev regime for his path-breaking novel Dr Zhivago.
Here is the article by Deepanshu Mohan:
India's refusal to take a clear position on the Russian invasion may hurt its interests
What follows are some of my observations on the current crisis and the world order as someone who has seen global politics unfold for the past six decades. I will make corrections, and add links and pointers over the next few days, but people can also research the themes by themselves. The comments are incomplete, and so is the research, but I feel I need to say something.
1./ We are used to speaking of countries as if they are persons, with a unified will (as in queries such as 'what does Russia want', 'what do China or America want', etc). Let's be clear that this is a piece of populist ideological rhetoric, and always has been. The 'general will' has always been an abstraction. Even as we speak, Russians are being arrested for opposing this war. There were Englishmen and women who opposed British colonialism, there are Chinese citizens punished for opposing the tyranny of the CCP; there are critics and opponents in every regime on the earth.
2./ Vladimir Putin is a tyrant and an ideological opportunist. An ex-communist and KGB man, he seamlessly transformed himself into a Russian nationalist. He has a record of eliminating opponents, including journalists, human rights activists and politicians. He amasses wealth, and (like many others) is a criminal drunk on absolute power. And he deftly uses propaganda and disinformation:
Peter Pomerantsev's 'This Is Not Propaganda' is quietly frightening
रूस ने गुलाग इतिहासकार की सजा और बढ़ाई / Gulag historian sentenced to 15 years
Solidarity with Memorial: Russia’s most prominent civil rights group in danger
This is added on March 1: Since posting this, it is clear that Putin is already a war criminal. The Russian invasion is targeting civilian spaces, and firing indiscriminately into non military buildings. Innocent people are being killed one of them is an Indian student, who died in a bomb attack yesterday. Russian citizens who oppose the war are being arrested and terrorised. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens are being forced to flee their homes. This senseless violence must end. A massive human tragedy is unfolding and all peace loving people must unite to oppose it.
4./ Russian liberalism has had a shaky existence from mid-nineteenth century, despite its intellectual contributions. After 1917 an authoritarian tradition was revived under Bolshevism. There were no free elections under the one-party state that was the USSR. Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) was a devout Stalinist who became known as a liberaliser after he denounced Stalin's tyranny in 1956. Gorbachev had democratic instincts, but never stood for election; and paved the way for Boris Yeltsin, more a buffoon than a visionary.
Prominent Russians join protests against Ukraine war amid 1,800 arrests
But we should remember that the working class fought for democracy, even against Lenin's regime. The last free elections to the soviets took place in the period from mid-1917 to 1918, and there was a free election to the Constituent Assembly in November 1917. The C. A. was disbanded in January 1918 by the revolutionary regime after meeting for just one day.
Some details are available in these articles:
The Bolshevik Heritage. By Dilip
Simeon
Jairus
Banaji: Rethinking the Origins of
Stalinism
Noam
Chomsky on Anarchism, Communism and Revolutions
Book
Review: Victor Serge; Memoirs of a Revolutionary
An excellent account of post Soviet ideology may be found in this scholarly essay (for those who can find it):
Madhavan Palat: Ideological Choices in Post-Soviet Russia (1997)
5./ For the so-called western world to call for democracy and self-determination is a cruel irony. Its relentless anti-democratic interventions across the world, ranging from the military intervention against the Russian revolution in 1918-1920, the neutrality over the Spanish civil war, the war in Vietnam, which killed 3 million people, the CIA-backed coups in Iran in 1953, Chile in 1973 and Bangladesh in 1975, the CIA's role in the arrest of Nelson Mandela, the wars in Iraq, the refusal to put a stop to Israel's expansion into Palestinian territory, the list is very long.
Some material is given below, but entire books could be written (and have) about Anglo-American hypocrisy.
Vanessa Thorpe: MI 6, the coup in Iran that changed the Middle East
Victor Jara murder:
ex-military officers sentenced in Chile for 1973 death
Andrew Bacevich: High Crimes
and Misdemeanors of the Fading American Century
Lawrence Lifschultz: The assassination of Mujibur Rahman
Uki Goñi - A grandmother's 36-year hunt for the child
stolen by the Argentinian junta
Zack Stanton: Violent
Christian Extremism in the USA
Daniel J. Berrigan, Defiant Priest Who Preached Pacifism, Dies at 94
Mauritius formally challenges Britain’s
ownership of Chagos Islands
Robert Reich - Beware of this deadly mix:
oligarchic economics and racist, nationalist populism
TOM ENGELHARDT: A World at the Edge
Alfred McCoy: The
crumbling delusion of Washington's endless world dominion
Mohammed Hanif: The rest of the world has had it with US presidents, Trump or otherwise
6./ There are powerful lobbies in the UK and USA which look kindly upon Putin's Russia. And a vast section of the American establishment is working tirelessly to destroy democracy and nullify voting rights for social groups seen as likely to vote against the Republican Party. The party of Abraham Lincoln has become the party of Donald Trump; and Rupert Murdoch rules an effective part of US media.
It's funny isn't it? Moscow under the Communist Party was reportedly funding communist parties in the rest of the world, today the Russian mafia is funding right-wing English politicians; and has caused the most long-lasting rift in American politics. Trump is an even bigger buffoon than Yeltsin. The wheel has turned full circle.
Row over unregulated ‘Westminster Russia Forum’ / Trump can't stop praising Vladimir Putin
America isn't breaking. It was already broken
Putin’s tale of two cities – London for his oligarchs, Kyiv for his bombs / Butler to the World
Donald Trump's gift to America: Realizing we've never been a liberal democracy
7/ As for the various factors at play in the Ukraine crisis, some believe NATO's expansionism plays no role, some think that it does. The materials below contain differing views, I am inclined to see post-1989 American triumphalism and the encouragement given to various newly independent states of the post USSR as a major factor. Not to mention the arms industry, a major factor in global politics.
Putin’s absurd, angry spectacle will be a turning point in his long reign
8/ Let's give up the myth of the collective will of nations. Lets leave nation worship behind us. Freedom and democracy are autonomous issues, and have nothing to do with America and Russia and China. The separation of powers, the devolution of authority, and statutory protection of individual and collective (as in trade union rights) liberties are essential for any good polity, regardless of whether they are oriented more or less toward state regulation of the economy. Only a democratic civil movement cutting across national boundaries will make a difference to the behavior of increasingly despotic governments everywhere.
It's time for a new internationalism.
STANISLAV MARKELOV - Patriotism as a diagnosis
Noam Chomsky: Internationalism or Extinction (Universalizing Resistance)
9./ Amidst all this, we should recall the Cuban missile crisis, when the USA under President Kennedy threatened nuclear war over the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba. One Russian submarine officer saved the world from disaster. Today there are long range missiles in Poland, 100 miles from the Russian frontier. Someone should remind the US military establishment of the meaning of the term 'double standards'
Vasili
Arkhipov, the man who stopped nuclear war
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Albert Camus's “The Human Crisis” (March 28, 1946)
The Almond
Trees by Albert Camus
