Russia at the Crossroads

Republished with the kind persmission of Merkatornet

This week, fresh from an Asia-Pacific economic summit in Australia, President Vladimir Putin meets with a party of 40 academics, international political analysts and foreign journalists to discuss the theme, "Russia at the Crossroads: The Search for Self-Identity". Discussions are also being held with the Speaker of the Russian Parliament, leaders of the country's major political parties and national religious leaders.

The informal meetings have taken place annually since 2004, organised by the Valdai Club(USA) and jointly sponsored by the Russian state news agency and the Independent Council on Foreign and Defence Policy. Among the visitors is Nicolai Petro, Professor of Political Studies at the University of Rhode Island and a scholar of Russian politics and culture. From Kazan, where he was about to join in talks with Muslim leaders, Professor Petro responded to some questions from MercatorNet.

MercatorNet: Western media paint a harsh and negative picture of Russia under Vladimir Putin: increasingly autocratic, run by former KGB agents, corrupt, and aggressively nationalistic. Are we getting the right message?

Petro: Russia today is far more complex than the Western media portrays it to be. It retains much of the Soviet past, but is increasingly driven by commercial forces to embrace globalisation and capitalism, and is simultaneously rediscovering its own pre-1917 religious and cultural heritage that is often at odds with both communism and capitalism. The country's political leadership consequently finds itself responding to a wide variety of forces, some of which have obvious analogues in the West, but some of which do not. One reason for Putin's continued success and popularity is that he has managed not to alienate any significant domestic political constituency. Discussions of Putin that dwell on his early career in the intelligence services, which ended more than a decade ago, but overlook his subsequent training as a lawyer, city administrator in St. Petersburg devoted to attracting foreign investment, and work as Yeltsin's chief of staff, mislead Western readers about the real sources of his political success.

MercatorNet: Has the disappearance of Marxist-Leninism left a vacuum in Russia's self-identity? How could it have disappeared so quickly as an intellectual inspiration?

Petro: Marxism-Leninism disappeared because it was the dogmatic application of the official state doctrine. Socialism, by contrast, retains considerable popular sympathy in Russia (as it does in Eastern and Western Europe), because it is identified with secular humanism, and the tremendously successful social welfare programs that arose in Europe after World War II. When educated Russians speak of wanting "socialism" today they point to Sweden, not to the USSR.

MercatorNet: The Russian Orthodox Church has often claimed to be at the heart of Russia's self-identity. Can there be a Russia without a vibrant Orthodox Church? How is it faring now?

Petro: The question of whether Russia can be "truly Russian" if it is not Orthodox is a matter of philosophical and religious predilection. Many of Russia's most famous writers and philosophers argued that it was so, but one must recall that they did so in the face of one of the most violent assaults against religion that history has ever seen.

Since 1991 (actually, since 1988, the millennium of the baptism of Rus), the Orthodox Church has undergone a veritable resurrection. Once dying, over the past decade the number of monasteries and churches has grown ten-fold. The number of Orthodox Christians has increased less dramatically, but far more significant has been the Church's ever increasing public presence in public charity and philanthropy. Five years ago one could scarcely find a restaurant or market that catered to the religious culture. Today, it is hard to find a good restaurant that does not offer a Lenten menu during the Lenten Fast in Russia.

For some Soviet intellectuals this poses a problem. Many of them were raised as atheists or agnostics, and they tend to identify any religious belief with obscurantism. The more enlightened on both sides, however, have recently joined in public dialogue about the proper balance between the public and private spheres of religion that bodes well for the future.

MercatorNet: You are attending meetings in Kazan, a largely Muslim city, with the largest mosque in Russia. How will the Russian majority cope with the growing numbers of Muslims in their country?

Petro: First and foremost, it is important to remember that Muslims are not newcomers to Russia. There have been large, indigenous Muslim communities in southern Russia and all along the Volga River for nearly five centuries, and over time both communities have come to understand each other very well. This fact puts Russia in a very different situation from that of Western Europe and the United States.

These communities have generally run their own affairs, and the model of Tatarstan, Russia's largest autonomous republic is typical in this regard. It is far from clear whether this model has any relevance for national politics. In the past there have certainly been prominent Muslim politicians (one thinks of Ruslan Khasbulatov, the Chechen who served as the head of Russia's first post communist parliament, or Mintimer Shaimiyev, whom many saw as a king maker during the Yeltsin years), but they all reached out to Russia's many other constituencies. It is hard to imagine a candidate who stresses his "Muslim" roots succeeding in the quest for national public office in Russia.

MercatorNet: Western observers often remark that Russians like autocratic governments. Do you think that Russian traditions can accommodate Western-style democracy?

Petro: Polls usually tell us more about the preconceptions of the poll taker than they do about the real feelings of those they are surveying. That is why the results often differ so widely.

As noted historians Jacob Walkin, Sergei Utechin, Sergei Pushkarev, Viktor Leontovitsch and Sir Paul Vinogradoff have shown. Russia's democratic traditions extend back at least as far as those of any Western country. In my own writings I have suggested that it is more useful to think of Russian political culture as one continuous historical tapestry, rather than a stone monument. As God weaves his design for each nation into its tapestry there will be periods when some strands dominate and others are submerged, but none are ever completely lost. Each national tapestry will differ in its design, but the nature of those differences is a question of philosophy, with little practical relevance to the issue of which aspects of the national heritage best serve the country's needs today.

MercatorNet: Winston Churchill described the USSR as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". Do we understand anything much about Russia, even now?

Petro: Churchill's quote continues: "but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest." Churchill is right, especially today. Russia is no more difficult to understand than any other country, if one is willing to appreciate that it has its own national interest, and would like to see it respected by other countries.

END OF ARTICLE

"Spotlight" interview with Al Gurnov on Russia Today TV:

Watch the inteview on New England Cable News (opens in a pop-up window).

Listen to the interview with Professor Petro on WRNI public radio (opens as a standalone MP3 file).

URI Professor Hears from Putin at Russian Conference

The Providence Journal
By Paul Davis
Journal Staff Writer, September 17, 2007

SOUTH KINGSTOWN — Helped by rising oil prices and an aggressive improvement plan, Russia has become an economic and political powerhouse, says Nicolai N. Petro, a University of Rhode Island professor who returned Saturday from a five-day conference in Moscow and Kazan.

The rise comes amid strained relations between the Kremlin and the U.S., which has criticized Russia for backsliding on democracy. Just last week, the Russian military successfully tested a powerful non-nuclear bomb, the latest show of Russia’s military muscle.

“America is becoming increasingly irrelevant to Russia,” said Petro. The country’s leaders, who are tired of being asked if they are good global citizens, are eager to move forward. Increasingly, they want to deal with countries like China, “countries that are less interested in what you do in your backyard,” Petro said.

Petro was one of 40 journalists, academics and think-tank members who discussed Russia’s future during a conference organized by the Valdai Discussion Club. The informal conferences, cosponsored by a Russian news agency and a private political organization, have been held annually since 2004. Various discussions centered on development and religion, but the title of the conference was “Choice and Identity — Russia at the Crossroads.”

The title, said Petro, was picked for dramatic punch. Although the country is changing, experts last week could not agree on whether the country is at a crucial turning point, he said. Indeed, recent political developments argue otherwise, he said. During the conference, the lower house of parliament approved a new prime minister, Viktor Zubkov.

Zubkov was chosen for the position by Russian President Vladimir Putin two weeks ago — less than six months ahead of a presidential handover slated for March. Speaking to the parliament, Zubkov said he was in favor of continuing Putin’s current political course, but he said reshuffling the government might improve its efficiency.

Putin has said nearly the same thing, Petro said. In fact, when Putin met with conference participants for several hours last week, he said he wanted the government “to run like a Swiss watch.” For Petro, who has written a number of books about Russia, the conference was a rare opportunity to observe Putin up close.

Physically, Putin is small, Petro said. At the conference, he wore cuff links and a business suit. Without referring to notes, he ticked through Zubkov’s political and personal history and answered questions from journalists and others. Through it all he ignored a four-course dinner. “He is a real policy wonk. He knows everything,” said Petro. “I don’t know when he eats or sleeps. Every day he’s someplace else. And this is a big country.”

The Berlin-born Petro, who worked briefly for the U.S. State Department, has published articles in Russian and U.S. magazines and reviews. He co-authored the 1997 book Russian Foreign Policy: From Empire to Nation-State. While in the former Soviet Union he monitored local elections in central Russia, Belarus, and Latvia. In 1987, he established the Center for Contemporary Russian Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California.

Petro, who is interested in Russian politics and culture, spoke on a panel about religion and visited Kazan, a largely Muslim city. He also attended a Sunday service at a Christian Orthodox cathedral. The traditional image of the Russian churchgoer is an old woman, a sign that religion is dying, he said. But just the opposite is happening, Petro said. He saw mostly young families in church.

“The number of churches and mosques has grown tenfold in the last decade,” he said. Westerners still have an outdated Cold War picture of Russia, he said. But the country has become wealthy with the jump in oil prices. “They are building pipelines everywhere,” Petro said.

Putin, he added, has a three-year plan to improve housing, invest in technology, and improve roads and sewers. The average middle-class Russian “has more money to spend than the average middle-class American,” in part because the state pays the health and education bills, Petro said.

END OF ARTICLE

Nicolai N. Petro is professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island. He has served as special assistant for policy in the U.S. State Department, and as civic affairs advisor to the mayor of the Russian city of Novgorod the Great. His books include: The Rebirth of Russian Democracy (Harvard,1995), Russian Foreign Policy (Longman, 1997), and Crafting Democracy (Cornell, 2004).

His web site is: www.npetro.net