Western Hypocrisy Over St. Petersburg Attacks

It was a welcome change to hear the Western media acknowledge that the St. Petersburg bombing might have something to do with Russian foreign policy: the interventions in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria. Yet you will never hear such an angle raised when its an atrocity carried out in an American or a Western European city. In such cases any attempt to explain terrorism would be dismissed as making excuses for violence.

This moral blackmail was not deployed over St. Petersburg. What do we know about the attack? The main suspect Akbarzhon Jalilov, a Kyrgyz national, is accused of killing 14 people and injured 50 others in detonating a bomb in the St. Petersburg underground. Six people have now been arrested. They have been accused of recruiting for ISIS. The suspects are all from Central Asian states. This would fit with the analysis that the bombing was staged in reaction to Russian aggression.

Not only was Central Asia dominated by the Soviet Union, the region was on the frontline in the war in Afghanistan. Once the USSR had invaded Afghanistan, the war aims quickly changed to building a new society and occupying the country for the time being. The United States and its regional allies - particularly Saudi Arabia and Pakistan - established a network of jihadists to fuel the Afghan resistance to the Red Army.

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan would come to a close by 1989. Gorbachev oversaw the withdrawal and warned the West that the forces they had mobilised in Afghanistan would come back to haunt them. Of course, the network behind Osama bin Laden and the attacks on the World Trade Centre had their origins in the Afghan struggle. The war itself would create a space for Eastern European dissidents to challenge regimes backed by the USSR. This combined with economic factors would bring down the Eastern bloc.

Events in Chechnya would be even more crucial for the terror factor in Russia. As the USSR was dismantled in 1991, Chechen Ichkeria declared independence under the nationalist leadership of Dzhokhar Dudayev. Growing instability and tension in the region would lead to the eruption of armed conflict in North Ossetia, the Chechens feared the presence of the Russian armed forces would be the first stage of mission creep. Dudayev imposed a state of emergency after Russia deployed troops to the border.

At the same time, Dudayev was facing a groundswell of opposition in the fledgling state. This opposition would turn to armed force in 1994. Boris Yeltsin pledged Russian support for the attempt to overthrow the Dudayev government. Yeltsin was desperate to bolster his domestic support in the midst of his disastrous economic reforms. The instability in the Chechen region offered an opportunity. The Russians backed the opposition in order to overthrow Dudayev and crush the example of independence.

However, Dudayev held his own from October to November against the forces Yeltsin had mobilised. Russian armed forces would play a clandestine role, but the Battle of Grozny left the Russian government humiliated after the Chechen independence forces captured a large number of military vehicles and personnel. It was meant to be a swift operation to topple the government. Faced with this, Yeltsin sanctioned the invasion of Ichkeria ostensibly to restore the territorial integrity of Russia.

The Russian army began bombing the Chechen air capabilities and within ten days the invasion was underway. Just as Brezhnev had mistakenly thought the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan would be successful within weeks the Russians now thought the Grozny government could be toppled. The war would rage for two years before a ceasefire was signed on Russian terms. Dudayev was assassinated in an 1996 airstrike.

With American help, Yeltsin would survive the Presidential elections of 1996. Estimates of the people killed in the first Chechen war range up to 100,000, along with 500,000 people displaced, in just two years of fighting. A new war would start in 1999 following the apartment bombings in Moscow and the rise of Vladimir Putin. The second war was waged by Russia and its Chechen allies to kill off independent Ichkeria and snuff out the emergent Islamist movement in the Northern Caucasus.

The first aim was secured, but an insurgency continues to this day. Russia has been struck by numerous bombings by Chechen Islamist fighters, and a key reason for the Russian intervention in Syria has been partly to extent the war against those same Chechens - now fighting in Syria alongside the mainstream rebels and an array of jihadist groups. Of course, the main reason has been to back the Assad regime - the only Russian ally in the region.

An honest look at the situation finds that the Russian government relies upon the Islamist threat to  justify its aggression in Syria. Even though Russia has been motivated partly by counter-insurgency in Chechnya, the main targets of Russian bombing have been the Syrian opposition and the civilians living in their territory, not Islamic State or al-Nusra. This in turn is a key factor in the continued threat of terrorism in Russia.

Putin versus the BBC

Last week, BBC Panorama shone a bright light on President Putin and allegations of corruption against the Russian leader. At first the programme focuses on Putin’s lifestyle - his expensive watches and tracksuits - and quickly moves on to hearing journalists, former allies and politicians dredge up old accusations: $40 billion in assets and the Cape Idokopas palace. It notes that the CIA and the FBI agree that Putin may be worth $40 billion in assets.

We’ve heard much of this before. However, Panorama does flesh out its coverage with new goodies for its viewers. The US Treasury’s Adam Szubin makes an appearance to call Putin ‘corrupt’ provoking outrage from Russia. There have been calls for evidence to be put forward. It’s obvious the truth isn’t really the point here. The US and Russia are at odds more so than ever. The crisis in Ukraine and the Syrian civil war have brought tensions to the surface.

Of course, this isn’t to say Vladimir Putin is beyond corruption. He’s often described as presiding over a ‘Mafia state’, and with good reason. The allegations against Putin are certainly plausible given the state of Russia’s body politic, yet the more interesting question may be why the BBC would take aim at Putin now. It’s not like corruption and authoritarianism are new to Russia. No immaculate figure could pass through the system and reach its heights. History tells us all we need to know.

Rule by excrement

Under the Yeltsin administration, the level of corruption was so rife there was an investigation into allegations of embezzlement of funds through the refurbishment of the Kremlin. The coterie of oligarchs around President Yeltsin - particularly Boris Berezovsky, Roman Abramovich and Mikhail Khodorkovsky - brought in Putin as a new weapon to be deployed against the investigators. Putin did a good job in quashing the investigation. He was soon on track to succeed Yeltsin and become the leader he is today.

This background story is removed from most reportage. It’s particularly inconvenient given the West’s love affair with Russian oligarchs. The British media romanticises figures like Berezovsky and Khodorkovsky. Both men are now portrayed as dissident critics of the Putin regime. Evidently, the West still harbours nostalgia for the Yeltsin era, when the Russian economy was prised wide open, and the state was stripped bare of its regulatory powers. Never mind corruption. Never mind the plight of Chechnya.

The Panorama documentary shows us that the system is based upon patronage throughout a state-embedded elite. This is far from the free-market utopia, which was meant to emerge under Boris Yeltsin. Instead the period of primitive accumulation created the basis, not for market democracy, but for Russian nationalism to be rejuvenated. As a consequence of Yeltsin’s rule, many Russians jokingly equate democracy with rule by excrement. Shitocracy might be the word for it in English.

The best parts of the documentary provided some details of Putin’s inner circle. It turns out Putin has maintained his team from St Petersburg. This includes his old lawyer Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as Russia’s Prime Minister alongside President Putin. Even neighbours and childhood friends have done very well for themselves. Putin’s former assistant Igor Sechin, who now chairs Rosneft, and economist Alexey Miller, now the head of Gazprom.

None of this is very surprising. It’s compatible with the kind of political system preferred by the former KGB agent. An admirer of the conservative French strongman Charles de Gaulle, Putin believes in the confluence of national and corporate interests. The idea being that this guarantees capital will comply with the body national and its needs. He thinks he can unite the powers of the state with the economy. This leaves room for state intervention, protectionism and a lot of corruption.

The key difference between Yeltsin and Putin has set out to block the US in its pursuits. While Yeltsin allowed the Soviet Union to be dismantled, Putin clearly mourns the loss of the Eastern bloc as a buffer region. NATO can no longer be kept away from Russia’s periphery. The crisis in Ukraine emerged out of the tension between NATO expansion and Russian nationalism. Now Putin has intervened in Syria to challenge US policy on a new front. The BBC has clearly taken sides, but this is nothing new.

The role of the BBC

Much like the New York Times, the BBC sets the contours of public debate and its coverage becomes history. Contrary to the popular misconception, the BBC does not have a left-wing bias and its coverage really straddles the centre of politics. This is also something the BBC has in common with the New York Times. It's standpoint really oscillates around the so-called ‘centre-ground’. Yet the corporation is as much constitutive of the centre, the left and the right, as it channels the flow of discourse.

Although the BBC hopes to stand as an impartial intersection, the truth is far more complex. If the BBC wants to get both perspectives on a political issue it usually asks a Conservative and a Labourite to comment. This excludes everything beyond these tribal affiliations. Programmes like Question Time and Newsnight become opportunities for the political class to assert itself. Discussions can only take place within the realm of certain assumptions.

Despite the right-wing accusations of rampant ‘political-correctness’, the BBC was the home of Jeremy Clarkson for many years and Nigel Farage is a regular guest on Question Time. Many BBC journalists were cheerleaders of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Famously, Andrew Marr was eager to herald the vindication of Blair over Iraq. The same was true over Syria. As David Cameron was pushing for bombing in 2013, the BBC aired discussions with hawks Bernard Kouchner, David Aaronovitch and Paul Wolfowitz. The only dissenting voice was Mehdi Hasan, a liberal Muslim journalist.

However, the pro-war bias is not consistent. With the rise of Islamic State, Newsnight allowed Patrick Cockburn to talk freely about the Syrian civil war, and he is far from an advocate of Western intervention. Meanwhile the BBC has, for the most part, supported a narrative around Ukraine favouring the US and the EU over Russia. You can either support the West and its ‘values’, or you’re secretly sympathetic to Russian aggression. Other positions are disregarded from the outside.

‘Objectivity’ is based on the exclusion of particular viewpoints. There is no space for inclusivity here. If you’re beyond the reach of conventional opinion, you will be policed and demonised. For example, you could only be for some kind of austerity and not against it outright. The contours of official truths can only be perceived once you’ve cleaved away everything else. This is only possible if the BBC is partial. In this way, the BBC sets the agenda for the British media. This is why it is both loved and loathed.

This article was first published at Souciant.

What buttons does Putin push?

The national psyche of any country may be made up by a complex web of associations in memory and myth running through history, culture and literature. It would be very easy to put down all of Russia's problems to its long history of authoritarian rule and chauvinism. However, we must remain aware that this is itself a construction of how the West would like to see itself - as standing out against the wretched backwardness of the East. This is a projection and we shouldn't fall into the convenience of old ideas in new conflicts. In fact, that's sort of the problem the Russians are having in the recrudescence of nationalism. I've covered this:

One of the first decisions undertaken by Putin after the 2000 election was to restore the Soviet National Anthem by Alexander Alexandrov. It was a symbolic break with the Yeltsin era. The anthem replaced the Patriotic Song of Mikhail Glinka that the Russian Federation had adopted in the wake of the dissolution of the USSR. Many in the West perceived this as an ominous sign of things to come. As the 1996 election was deemed to be the last hope for Russia’s Communists, the alternative to Yeltsin had always been framed as a throwback to the days of Stalin. 

The return of Alexandrov’s anthem seemed to confirm Putin was looking to recreate the old Soviet Union. This perception was widely shared, particularly by free market advocates, fearful that their revolution was coming to and end. Leading liberal Grigory Yavlinsky said, “We see this as a signal of where our society is heading, of what awaits us in the near future”. Yavlinsky was a proponent of the 500 Day Programme, first articulated in the late 1980s. It called for the mass-privatisation of state assets combined, with market reforms and the stripping away of regulations. All in 500 days. The programme was eventually implemented, in diluted form, under Yeltsin. 

What was lost on market liberals like Yavlinsky was that it wasn’t just about economics. The Soviet anthem has an equally significant nationalist side to it. After all it comes from Stalin’s Great Patriotic War, and supplanted the traditional socialist anthem the Internationale with its revolutionary patriotism. It was this side of the Russian campaign that Putin was tapping into, not a retreat back to the state capitalism of the Communist era.

The Russian nationalist narrative has a lot of sway and popular appeal because it holds factual ground. That isn't to say it is accurate of the full story. Pavel Stroilov recently produced an article exploring the popular claim in Russia that the West - principally, manifested in its expansion of NATO eastwards - reneged on its promises at the end of the Cold War. Stroilov put his own right-wing perspective on it and appears to be woefully uncritical of NATO and Western foreign policy. Even still, it is worth a read. You can read the rest of my article on Russian nationalism at Souciant.

Where was the outrage over Chechnya?

There's plenty of outrage in the West over Russian actions in Ukraine. Where was all this bluster in the 1990s when Russia waged war on Chechnya? Tariq Ali wrote a great article for The Guardian today raising this very question. He concluded:

The Crimean affair led to barely any loss of life, and the population clearly wanted to be part of Russia. The White House's reaction has been the opposite of its reaction to Chechnya. Why? Because Putin, unlike Yeltsin, is refusing to play ball any more on the things that matter such as Nato expansion, sanctions on Iran, Syria etc. As a result, he has become evil incarnate. And all this because he has decided to contest US hegemony by using the methods often deployed by the west. (France's repeated incursions in Africa are but one example.) 

If the US insists on using the Nato magnet to attract the Ukraine, it is likely that Moscow will detach the eastern part of the country. Those who really value Ukrainian sovereignty should opt for real independence and a positive neutrality: neither a plaything of the west nor Moscow.

Putin inherited the legacy of Russian policy in Chechnya. He has capitalised on this enormously over the years in different ways and it's a record worth exploring. In his bid for power Boris Yeltsin had conspired with the leaders of Soviet republics to dissolve the Soviet Union. In the aftermath secessionists in less convenient parts of the former Soviet Union, including Chechnya, which would make a bid for independence from Russia as soon as the old Communist leaders were overthrown. Yeltsin had gotten more than the powers he had sought at home. The Chechen nationalist Dzhokhar Dudayev was elected President of Ichkeria - effectively the independent Chechen state - in the midst of increasing instability and tension in the region. With the eruption of armed conflict in neighbouring North Ossetia the Chechens feared the presence of Russian troops and the prospects of escalation.

Dudayev initiated a state of emergency after Russian troops moved to the Chechen border. He had already faced a coup attempt from his opponents. The opposition would turn to armed means of deposing Dudayev in 1994. By this point Yeltsin was keen to bolster his popularity at home after his economic policies had led to disaster. The instability in Chechnya offered an opportunity for Yeltsin. The Russians lent support to the armed opposition in order to overthrow Dudayev and crush his example of independence. Dudayev held his own from October to November against the forces Yeltsin had mobilised. Eventuating in the Battle of Grozny the Russian government was humiliated after the Chechens captured a large number of military vehicles and personnel. It was meant to be a swift clandestine operation to topple the government.

Still looking for a boost in ratings Yeltsin issued an ultimatum to all factions in Chechnya (though not his own forces) demanding that they disarm and surrender. Knowing that this wouldn’t happen, Yeltsin ordered the Russian army to invade and restore order and defend Russia’s territorial integrity. The Russian Security Council had already set its plans to intervene before Yeltsin even made the ultimatum. The Russian army began bombing the Chechen air capabilities and within ten days the invasion was underway. Just as Brezhnev had mistakenly thought the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan would be successful within weeks the Russians now thought the Grozny government could be toppled. The war would rage for two years before a ceasefire was signed on Russian terms. Dudayev was assassinated. Yeltsin would survive the Presidential elections of 1996. Estimates of the killed range to 100,000 along with 500,000 people displaced.

Yeltsin Nostalgia.

Today’s tensions with Vladimir Putin probably make American policymakers nostalgic for the days of Boris Yeltsin. If we wish to understand today’s Russia, we have to look at the way the Federation emerged from the tumultuous collapse of the USSR. Putin’s allegiances were clear from the beginning. He was not a mindless KGB thug, as he is often portrayed.His intelligence career ended with a principled stance in support of Mikhail Gorbachev, and against his superiors, when he opposed the Communist attempt to overthrow the leader and turn back the tide in 1991. Years later, much of his ideology would be affected by its fallout.

The possibility of a new order was realistic in the days before the attempted coup. Gorbachev had initiated a modicum of reform. The bloody war in Afghanistan was over. It looked as if the US might actually want a settlement on missiles. Bush had promised the Soviet leader that he wouldn’t expand NATO any further eastwards. It’s no wonder  that the majority of Russians, along with Putin, were on the side of glasnost and perestroika.

However, Yeltsin, and his backers, had other plans. His ambitions were right for the time, although they were wrong for Russia. His ascendency came at the heel of the Bush administration’s efforts to back nationalists in Yugoslavia, adjusting its aid policies accordingly and ending Josip Broz Tito’s dream of a state for all Southern Slavs. Following suit, Bush took the side of Russian nationalism in order to definitively break up the Soviet Union.

The “great reformer” Gorbachev, and his supporters, were a hindrance to these objectives. Thus, the United States backed Yeltsin, who became instantly popular in the aftermath of the botched coup. Many democrats hoped that their new political centre would guide Russia into a new era. However, the enthusiasm wouldn’t last, since Yeltsin’s real agenda had little to do with democracy.

The right-wing consensus was that a selection of tiny, fractured states would succeed the USSR. They were designed in this manner so that they could easily be picked off, and be subjected to economic underdevelopment. These plans aligned with Yeltsin’s personal aims for power and grandeur in the post-Cold War era.

The Russian President was integral to it happening. In a series of manoeuvres, Yeltsin cut deals with the various leaders of Soviet republics, including Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine, and saw the Soviet Union dissolved. Yeltsin could do this because Gorbachev had guaranteed a policy of non-intervention towards Eastern Europe. Signalling just how much the balance of power had shifted after the events of 1991, Gorbachev’s resignation was accepted pre-emptively.

Shock Therapy

The fall of Gorbachev marked the end of the Soviet era and set things in a completely new direction. Russia’s Parliament gave Yeltsin free reign to implement an economic programme of rapid deregulation and privatisation, known as shock therapy. Yeltsin had the advice of US economist Jeffrey Sachs and Clinton administration official Larry Summers, who is often blamed for the post-Communist Russia’s first, and most severe downturn. The plan was to establish the conditions for a market society as fast as possible.

First, price controls were eliminated. The resulting hyperinflation quickly ate through the savings of most Russians. This was soon followed with a rapid privatisation of over 200,000 state-run companies.

The Russian people suffered greatly for this and the rouble was tremendously devalued. Living standards plummeted. Millions fell into unemployment. Even the employed were not guaranteed a wage. Every Russian was given vouchers to buy shares in the newly private companies. However, since most were desperate for cash, they sold their vouchers cheaply to ruthless businessmen who began to organize the early phases of “mafia rule.”

After a year of ruling by decree, Yeltsin’s struggles with wresting government controls from parliament and state institutions reached a head. Apart from its effects on citizens, the privatization program had also led to a credit crunch and heavy taxes, causing a prolonged depression. Legislative-executive tensions peaked with the 1993 constitutional crisis, when Parliament presented its own draft constitution.

This quickly led to a general repeal of ‘shock therapy,’ and Yeltsin responded by dissolving the legislature and suspending Russia’s constitution. The Clinton administration, along with many Western governments, backed Yeltsin’s decision to shell Moscow’s White House when it was occupied in protest. This was the bloodiest non-foreign violence that Moscow had seen since the October Revolution. Yeltsin justified it by saying it was necessary to remove impediments to a market economy.

After he regained control, the market reforms went further. More price controls were removed, going as far as basic food stuffs like bread. State expenditure on social services was slashed, and the rate of privatization increased dramatically. Yeltsin found enthusiastic support in a newly ascendant upper-class, later to be dubbed “the oligarchs.” He assisted them in wiring approximately $2 billion out of the country per month. He also undersold enormous industrial assets and resources to his constituents at sometimes less than 2% of their actual value.

The end result was that by 2000, 74 million people were in poverty, with 37 million of them ranked as “desperate.” Meanwhile, Moscow became home to more billionaires than other city in the world.

Yeltsin was a barely functional figurehead by 1999, and kept a coterie of close advisors and friends around him at all times. It included oligarchs like Roman Abramovich and Boris Berezovsky. Although corrupt, and exploitative, many Western leaders were relieved to see the Federation controlled by people who were reliably compliant. This same entourage would be the one that ultimately selected Putin as Yeltsin’s successor.

He was an appealing choice. Yeltsin may have survived multiple crises, but the Kremlin was wracked with corruption scandals. Putin was head of the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB, and oligarchs thought it could use him as a battering ram against their enemies who were looking to crack down on their activities. Putin was soon made Prime Minister in 1999, and Yeltsin’s resignation was secured the same year.

Putin’s Wager

The oligarchs had underestimated Putin. He skilfully used a series of terrorist attacks as a justification to wagewar in Chechnya and consolidate his rule. The conflict boosted his popularity, and also legitimized his budding push for an Orthodox Christian nationalism.

He followed up by turning on The Family, rather than simply rubber-stamping their extraction of wealth. Shortly after Putin became President in 2000, Boris Berezovsky fled to London to escape arrest, and was soon joined by other oligarchs who now live in exile. They were smashed by Putin, who strengthened his position as a Hobbesian force of stability after the disarray of the 1990s.

Putin didn’t take long to find new oligarchs to support his rule, ones that were subservient to him and disproportionately employed in the energy industry. He reasserted the role of the state and buttressed his rule with tough appeals to populist chauvinism, which affected such decisions as the 2002 storming of the Dubrovka theater.

Putin is now seen as the man who can flush out all the “problems” affecting Russian society, whether they be Chechen terrorists, corrupt oligarchs, or more recently, homosexuals. The contrast with Yeltsin is stark. The Soviet Union isn’t back, but for Putin’s supporters, Russia is strong again.

This is exhausting for Western leaders, who yearn for a Yeltsin Kremlin. The difference between Putin and Yeltsin is the spin of the strongman policies. Yeltsin’s policies rarely antagonized the West, while Putin almost craves the opportunity.

This is how we should read the international outcry against Russia’s most recent military incursions: one in Georgia, with Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008, and Ukrainian Crimea in 2014. Both efforts were preceded by Yeltsin’s decision to invade Chechnya in 1994, setting off an ongoing conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people. However, Chechnya still rarely gets substantive coverage in Western media outlets, and certainly did not provoke the same level of Western outrage when Yeltsin was at the helm.

The real problem is Putin himself, who is comparatively disagreeable to say the least. His Kremlin is also much less willing to accept the expansion of NATO outposts into bordering states. Putin’s Russia is a brutal one, which deserves the fear and loathing it provokes. However, for Western leaders, it is despised mainly because of what it represents. Putin’s Russia is a Russia that has abandoned Yeltsin’s subservient market reforms, and positions itself against the United States in a manner that many believed had died with the Soviet Union.

The evaporation of Viktor Yanukovych’s government was welcomed by many in Ukraine and in the West. It was not welcomed in Russia, partly for reasons that any military historian can grasp. Russia has long been vulnerable to invasion on its Western frontier. One of Stalin’s major motivations for building the Eastern bloc was to create a buffer-zone between “the motherland” and Western powers. This is understandable, given that 23 million Russians died during World War II. Those concerns also framed the vicious crackdowns of 1956 and 1968.

However, since the world appears to have moved beyond major interstate warfare, these concerns are moot, for the most part. They make for strong rhetoric, but the real problem is that Putin recognizes how the EU’s and NATO’s presence in Ukraine will affect gas pipelines. This is part of the reason that Russia’s military assets in the Crimean Peninsula are so important: a state’s military presence bolsters its market activity in an area.

Putin’s actions are currently forcing a political compromise that Yeltsin wouldn’t have dared to even mention.

It is likely that Crimea will leave Ukraine, giving Putin a major strategic victory as well as a domestic image of rebuilding a foregone era of Russian glory.

He has proven himself so cunning that a future Ukrainian NATO bid is now effectively impossible, even if it does slip into the European orbit. It appears that due to Russian hostility, the future of the EU may be tied to it easing away from NATO.

Putin can also be a little more secure about the state of gas pipelines in the country, which are an even greater concern for him now that North America’s fracking boom threatens to corner Russia out of the market.

The wider picture, though, is that Putin has continued his original allegiance to Gorbachev into a rollback of the short-lived dream of a Western-friendly Russian Federation. For better or worse, the West now has to deal with a Russia that is an opponent again. Hence the fond memories of Yeltsin. Statements of “remember when we didn’t have to deal with this” are probably ringing through every Western capitol at the moment.

Originally written and published at Souciant Magazine on March 12th 2014.