ANOTHER RUSSIA
PUTIN ALCOHOLISM AND DISSENT IN MODERN RUSSIA
As the crisis in Ukraine has enfolded, fuelled as it
has been by Putin’s ongoing campaign to destabilise the country, it has
obscured another development taking place in the region, and that is the
acceleration of the crackdown on opposition to president Putin in Russia
itself. Ever since his re-election in 2012, and in particular the widespread
protests against the electoral fraud that characterised that election, Putin has
been steadily eliminating all possible sources of opposition.[1] The
remaining few vehicles for dissent are being closed down or taken over, the law
now so restrictive as to make any challenge to Putin’s authority impossible.
Still there is another Russia.
1.
There was always another Russia. As Nicholas 1st
sought to crush all internal opposition and strangle the nascent
intelligentsia, as nihilist fanatics laid down the foundations of red terror
and as Stalin exterminated two generations of the brightest and the best, there
was always another Russia. A Russia characterised by great courage, a love of
humanity and a celebration of the human spirit. The Russia of Belinsky
Kropotkin, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Herzen, the Russia of the Kronstadt
sailors, of Mandelstam and Akhmatova of Sakharov, Solzhenitsyn and Ginsburg.
These are just the names we know, there were hundreds, thousands of others who,
refusing to yield, were swept away into oblivion, initially by a brutal but
inept autocracy, then by a ruthless totalitarian machine. Russians who often
demonstrated superhuman levels of courage as they spoke truth to power. They
represented an enlightened, civilised and humane vision of what Russia could be
and in doing so contributed to wider European culture and the history of ideas.
The whole of European civilisation would be poorer without this Russian
contribution.
Now as Putin
seeks to suffocate civil society and shreds the remaining civil liberties[2] there is
another Russia. It is the Russia of those imprisoned following the
demonstration at Bolotnaya Square,[3] it is
the Russia of Pussy Riot and Gary Kasparov. It is the Russia described toward
the end of Oliver Bullough’s book, ‘The Last Man In Russia and the struggle to
save a dying nation’ [Allen Lane 2013].
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| Father Dmitry |
Bullough’s journey follows in the footsteps of the
dissident Orthodox priest Father Dmitry Dudko. Dmitry, born in 1922 witnessed
the man-made famine created by Stalin’s ‘dekulakization’ i.e. the destruction
of the wealthier peasantry and the seizure of grain to pay for
industrialisation. He also witnessed the
German invasion and occupation of southern Russia and later served in the
Russian Army. Following Stalin’s rapprochement with the Orthodox Church Dmitry,
a committed Christian, began training to become a priest. He was arrested in
1948 for writing a poem criticising Stalin and served eight-and-a-half years in
the gulag.
In the 1970’s in the sclerotic Brezhnev years Father
Dmitry’s preaching became a focal point across the dissident spectrum,
including non-believers and members of the Jewish community. The growing
numbers flocking to his sermons, where he encouraged free speech and an open
exchange of ideas, became too much for the authorities and he was arrested yet
again in 1980.
What then happened provides the decisive moment in
Dudko’s life and it is not surprising that Bullough turns to George Orwell and
1984 in describing it.
II.
There is now a considerable amount of literature
describing life in a totalitarian state. For obvious reasons of dramatic
tension we invariably see life in such a society through the eyes of the
dissident and like to imagine that we too would be the outsider, the lone voice
willing to speak truth to power, even if we doom ourselves by so doing.
The truth however is a little more uncomfortable; for
every dissident there are millions willing to make the daily compromise with
lies, to turn a blind eye, to take whatever steps may be required to lead a
quiet life. From Pinochet’s Chile[4] to South
Africa and the Soviet Union protest and dissent was always an activity engaged
in by a tiny minority. Perhaps we would be brave and take a stand. The
likelihood is however that rather than being the courageous dissident we would
be just another curtain twitcher, consumed by fear and guilt as our neighbour
is taken away.
Few reading this
in this country will ever have to face such an extreme test whilst for Russians
down the ages such terrible dilemmas have been woven into the very fabric of
life and Russia has a proud history of courageous individuals standing up to
tyranny. We know a few of their names, we do not know the names of the
countless others crushed by the Tsarist and Soviet regimes. It is in the nature
of tyranny, particularly of the totalitarian variety, that it possesses the
power to make both its citizens and their protests disappear. The names we know
invariably a tiny minority of a minority who have managed to get their story
out to a wider world.
Thus it was for Father Dmitry when he was taken yet
again by the KGB. It took, given all they had previously subjected him too,
very little to break him. Six weeks after his arrest he appeared on Soviet
television ‘confessing to his crimes’ and recanting his former beliefs. More
than that he also openly named those who, at great risk to themselves, had
assisted him. It was a moment that shook the whole ‘dissident’ world, a great
public act of betrayal. Bullough does not condemn him, he condemned himself at
first, then unable to stand the guilt sought to justify himself by embracing
ever more extreme views, including anti-Semitism as a means of explaining his
actions.
The real reason for his betrayal are unclear, perhaps
nothing more than a moment of weakness, he had already spent one extended
period in the Gulag, perhaps the idea of facing another was just too much for
him? We who have never faced such a predicament are not in a position to pass
judgement. Perhaps the most penetrating criticism came from another dissident,
a friend of Dudko’s, who reflects that if he was not strong enough to face the
consequences he should never have raised his voice. Better to be silent than
betray.
From this sad morality tale Bullough explores the whole
history of modern Russia addressing the great sickness that Dudko sought to
combat, a sickness at the heart of Russian society, alcoholism. For Russia is a
dying society, its birth rate has collapsed, its villages becoming empty
shells, mini Marie Celeste’s, and the
country, both men and women, is drinking itself to death.
III.
A Dying Nation
The most remarkable thing about Vladimir Putin is that
he is teetotal, truly in the country of the blind the one eyed man is
king. According to a World Health
Organization [WHO] 2011 report annual per capita alcohol consumption in Russia
is about 15.76 litres, or the equivalent of about 22.5 700 millilitre bottles
of vodka; the fourth highest volume in Europe.[5] ‘A
study by Russian, British and French researchers published in The Lancet
scrutinized deaths between 1990 and 2001 of residents of three Siberian
industrial towns with typical mortality rates and determined that 52% of deaths
of people between the ages of 15 and 54 were the result of alcohol abuse.’[6]
Male Life expectancy reached an all-time low in of 58 years in 2003, it
currently stands at 63 years.
These facts would be disastrous enough on their own
they are combined with a disastrous collapse in the Russian birth rate. The
number of Russians has been shrinking by 0.5 percent each year. Whilst attempts
have been made to improve fertility rates from about 1.2 children-per-woman in
2002 to 1.6 in 2011, they still fall short of the 2.1 level experts say is
needed to sustain a population.[7]
Bullough describes the physical consequences of these
realities in the graveyards and deserted villages.[8] There is
a pervading sadness about the book and Bullough believes, as indeed do I, that
there is a link between the current state of Russian society and the trauma’s
inflicted on Russia in the twentieth century.
Of all mental health conditions alcoholism is most
often comorbid with depression; depression itself a complex problem with
diverse roots, one of which is inverted anger and rage connected with feelings
of impotence and powerlessness. Alcohol serves to temporarily alleviate the
symptoms and create feelings of power and control, as when shy people suddenly
find a voice and are able to connect with the extrovert aspects of themselves.
Alcoholism separates from problem drinking when drinking is no longer merely a
means to make reality easier to handle but an attempt to create and live in a
different reality altogether. It is therefore perhaps not too fanciful to
suggest that from Smolensk to Vladivostok millions are seeking to create
another Russia. An attempt of course doomed to failure, to a vicious cycle of
elation, remorse and increasingly severe bouts of depression only temporarily
relieved once more by short spells of drunken elation. The cycle only broken by
an early death.
IV.
There is a potent passage in the book when Bullough
speculates on what kind of Russia might have emerged had the best in Russia not
been destroyed by Stalinism. He leaves the question hanging.
What kind of Russia might have emerged had the warped
ideology of Marxist/Leninism not consigned the brightest and the best to, to
adapt a phrase of Trotsky’s, ‘the dustbin of history.’
There was only one revolution in Russia in 1917, which
took place in February. There followed a coup d'état in November of the same
year in which a small, disciplined party of professional revolutionaries seized
power espousing a toxic ideology, a mix of Marxism, wishful thinking and
ruthless zeal. Marxist Leninism was a disaster of gargantuan proportions both
for the Russian people and then for the whole world. Stalinism was its logical
manifestation, Pol Pot its final frenzied conclusion. Millions upon millions of
workers, peasants, petty bourgeois, and technocrats were sacrificed on the
altar of its deranged vision. The struggle for socialism and equality was
irreparably set back as a consequence.
Germany’s much vaunted de-Nazification was always
little more than skin deep, but at least some effort was made to acknowledge
there was a serious problem. There was never an equivalent recognition in
Russia after the collapse of totalitarian communism.[9] One of
the consequences now being that an ex KGB man, who holds Yuri Andropov as a
role model, is now head of state.[10]
Putin’s vision is not new, it is the traditional
Tsarist vision of an ascendant Russia, which subjugates and dominates its
neighbours providing an alternative authoritarian model of social order to that
of the decadent democracies of Western Europe and America. To implement this
vision he must destroy all domestic opposition and consequently is now extinguishing
the last few sources of free expression.
Unfortunately
for Putin there is another Russia.
V.
Pussy Riot
On February 21, 2012, five members of the Russian Punk
group Pussy Riot staged a performance in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.
Their actions were stopped by church security officials. They later turned the
performance into a music video entitled "Punk Prayer - Mother of God,
Chase Putin Away!" The women said their protest was directed at the
Orthodox Church leader's support for Putin during his election campaign.
The mutual embrace of Putin and the Orthodox Church is
the least surprising development in contemporary Russia for anyone who knows
the history of the country. Orthodoxy and Tsarist rule was indivisible, the
Tsar was viewed by the peasantry as a combination of saint and God’s representative
on Earth. The Orthodox faith underpinned Tsarist rule. Later, though much less
reported, the Church also cozied up to Stalin and the ‘atheist’ Communist state.
Father Dmitry was as much the victim of the Orthodox Church, the patriarch of
which was a fully-fledged KGB agent, as the KGB.
Now the Church and Putin have entered into a similar pact,
as ‘unholy’ as it is cynical and mutually convenient. It was this that Pussy
Riot was drawing attention too.
 |
| Pussy Riot on Trial |
The reaction of
Putin and the church was as swift as it was cruel and vengeful. ‘On
March 3, 2012, two of the group members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria
Alyokhina, were arrested and charged with hooliganism. A third member,
Yekaterina Samutsevich, was arrested on March 16. Denied bail, they were held
in custody until their trial began in late July. On August 17, 2012, the three
members were convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious
hatred", and each was sentenced to two years imprisonment.’[11]
On their release however they refused to be cowed and
have continued to defy the Putin machine. They stand in a long line of Russians
who have refused to bend, they too represent another Russia.
VI.
Putin’s Plight
Putin has the power to silence the majority of his
domestic critics and now possesses a subservient mass media which pumps out the
Kremlin propaganda line every hour of the day. He can also gain short term
popularity by exploiting the crisis in Ukraine and appealing to Russian
chauvinism. But the long term problems of Russian society continue to fester as
the economy begins to stagnate and decline following a prolonged period of
boom. As many an autocratic ruler has learnt before him Olympic circuses and
military adventures only last so long and when whatever plaudits he receives
from tweaking the nose of NATO and the EU fade he will be left with the reality
of a nation that is deeply sick. His most likely response will be further
repression. Should he so respond we can all be grateful for that other Russia?
[3]
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/russia-guilty-verdict-bolotnaya-case-injustice-its-most-obvious-2014-02-21
[4]
It is worth noting that it is alleged that Putin is a great admirer of the
former Chilean dictator.
[5]
Interestingly all those with higher rates were former Eastern Bloc countries.
One being Ukraine, which during the Soviet era was seen as little other than a
province of Russia.
[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_consumption_in_Russia
[9]
Nor indeed in Bulgaria, with equally dire consequences all too clear to this
day.
[10]
Andropov was the ex-head of the KGB, who had been heavily involved in crushing
the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 and the destruction of the Prague Spring in
1968. HE always pushed for the hardest possible line against dissent. For a
brief period he became Soviet President. It
also something of a moot point how much of an ‘ex’ KGB [now re-branded FSB] Putin actually
is.
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