As the newly established Russian capitalist class consolidated its position it moved from an initial obsequiousness to US imperialism to an assertion of its own interests. In Socialism Today No.3, November 1995, LYNN WALSH defended the then not readily accepted idea on the left that it was a proto-imperialism that was developing, in an article republished here in shortened form.
Russia’s foreign minister, Andrei Kozyrev, recently set alarms bells ringing in Washington. Referring to the 25 million Russians who live outside Russia in the ‘near abroad’, he said: “There may be cases when the use of direct military force may be needed to defend our compatriots abroad”. (Financial Times, April 21, 1995)
This was not an especially new sentiment. In any case, Russia has already mounted military ‘peace-keeping’ interventions in a number of areas, such as South Ossetia in Georgia, in Dniester in Moldovia, and exerted pressure on Ukraine over Crimea. Nevertheless, in recent months, Kozyrev, the Russian president Boris Yeltsin himself, and other Russian government spokesmen, have been much bolder in asserting Russia’s national interests.
“We should not leave regions that for centuries have been spheres of Russian interest”, asserted Kozyrev. (Independent on Sunday, September 4, 1994) “Russia should be first among equals” in the region of the former Soviet Union, said Yeltsin.
Moreover, Russia could not accept the continental force agreement it signed in 1990, said General Pavel Grachev. (The Guardian, April 19, 1995) The defence of Russian interests, he argued, demands that Russian forces should be based indefinitely in areas like Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, and even in the Baltic states.
The assertion of Russian national interests by Yeltsin’s government reflects an increasingly nationalistic mood amongst Russia’s ruling elite. As the emergent capitalists who dominate this elite begin to find their feet they, together with the military leaders and top state bureaucrats, are pushing to construct a stronger Russian-dominated, multi-nation state within which Russian capitalism can develop. They especially want to reverse the disintegration which followed the collapse of the hardliners coup in 1991.
Yeltsin’s government has not been slow to mount ‘peace-keeping’ interventions in order to strengthen its influence. One of the most brutal has been the Russian military intervention to crush the movement for an independent Chechnya (not in the ‘near abroad’ but within the Russian Federation itself). However, it is the position of the 25 million Russians living outside Russia that Yeltsin, Kozyrev and company have invoked in order to justify an interventionist policy, attempting to utilise the Russian diaspora for their own strategic ends.
In a number of cases, the Russian government or military have covertly intervened to foment rebellions, for instance supporting the Abkhaz rebellion and the South Ossetian independence movement in Georgia, providing military and economic support for the breakaway Dniester Republic in Moldovia, and giving political and economic backing to the Crimean Russians, who are demanding independence from Ukraine. In the case of Georgia, the rebellions were used as the pretext for a large-scale military invasion. The arsonists reappeared as firefighters. As a result of the conflict, Georgia is now militarily and economically dominated by Russia.
In the strategically vital Caucuses region Russia has also supported Armenia’s claim to Nagorno-Karabakh, thus weakening the position of Azerbaijan. As the price of ‘resolving’ this conflict, the Russian government has forced the Azeri leadership to drop its pro-Turkish stance and make valuable concessions to Russia on oil development.
Russia’s policy in the former USSR region has a common aim: to draw all the republics into a common military/political alliance, whether through negotiation or coercion, and mould them into a unified Eurasian ‘economic space’. The degree of integration varies between the different republics, depending on their relative strength.
Belorussia, for instance, is now almost completely integrated in the Russian rouble zone, with Russia controlling its finances. Georgia is now heavily dominated by Russia. On the other hand, Ukraine, a much more powerful republic which has received big Western investments in the recent period, remains relatively independent. In this case, Russia’s ruling elite has to use the carrot as well as the stick.
An opening for US capitalism
In the United States, President Bill Clinton’s policy of ‘partnership with democratic Russia’ has recently come under sharp criticism from the right. Their viewpoint is probably most clearly expressed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor to President Carter and the doyen of Washington’s foreign policymaking elite, who argues that ‘partnership’ policies were ‘premature’.
Bush and Clinton, he says, in their eagerness to support Yeltsin’s drive to restore the capitalist market, treated Russia as an ally (and sometimes even as a client) and lost sight of the fact that Russia, irrespective of the current turmoil, is a major power whose economic and geo-political interests will inevitably rival those of the United States.
The growing policy divergence in Washington reflects a new phase of US-Russian relations. When Mikhail Gorbachev first embarked on his reform programme after 1985, the strategists of US imperialism hardly believed that he could be opening the door to capitalism in the Soviet bloc. Many subscribed to the view of former-US ambassador to the UN, Jean Kirkpatrick, that the monolithic ‘communist’ states were immune to change from within.
However, when it appeared that Gorbachev’s attempt to modernise the sclerotic bureaucratic apparatus was precipitating a catastrophic collapse of the planned economy, the Western capitalists saw a window of opportunity opening up. Their response was to give Gorbachev the maximum support (including lavish promises of economic aid, not all of which materialised) – on condition that he moved towards the rapid introduction of the market. In the field of foreign policy, the US post-WWII policy of ‘containment’ – that is, of military, political, economic and ideological pressure to block any further advances by the Stalinist superpower – was abandoned. The disintegration of the planned economy meant that the USSR and its East European satellites no longer represented a rival, non-capitalist social system. On the contrary, the possibility was opened up of an extension of market relations into this enormous region.
Moreover, the fissures within the Stalinist state apparatus and the centrifugal forces which detached the East European states and began to pull the Soviet Union apart reduced the former superpower to a state of paralysis. Nothing made this clearer than Gorbachev’s support for the US-dominated coalition during the 1991 Gulf war, which gave imperialism a free hand to intervene against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. The impotence of the Stalinist superpower also created the conditions for peaceful, ‘democratic’ settlements in South Africa and elsewhere.
When Boris Yeltsin, the advocate of a rapid, ‘big bang’ transition to a capitalist economy, was elected president of the Russian Republic in 1991, he received the enthusiastic backing of the US. To bolster his political position against Stalinist rivals, the US government made it clear that economic assistance was conditional on the implementation of Yeltsin’s policies.
Washington also welcomed Yeltsin’s moves to dismantle the USSR and institute a much looser Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Yeltsin was presented in the Western media as a champion of democracy, and the commentators turned a blind eye to the Bonapartist features of his leadership, which were apparent from the beginning.
New order realities
The policy of ‘partnership with democratic Russia’, developed by the Clinton administration, was based on support for Russia as a friendly regional power which could maintain stability in the area of the former USSR. In the case of the Baltic states (Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania) the US pushed for independence, with the withdrawal of Russian forces – in order to strengthen the strategic position of imperialism in Western Europe. At the same time, however, the US accepted that the republics in the Caucuses and the Far East fell into the Russian sphere of influence.
Officially, the US State Department’s position is ‘we don’t accept the concept of spheres of influence’. The reality, however, is quite different. Last year, for instance, the US supported giving UN backing to Russia’s ‘peacekeeping’ operation in Georgia – quid pro quo for Russia’s acceptance of US intervention in Haiti. “It is quite clear to Moscow that if we can intervene in a country that is in our backyard, they can do the same to their neighbours”, said a White House official. “There is linkage and that is why they did not veto the UN resolution supporting action (in Haiti); they wanted to establish the precedent”. (Sunday Times, September 25, 1994)
And on a visit to Russia in August 1994, the US’s UN ambassador, Madeline Albright, gave a clear endorsement of Russia’s ‘peace-keeping’ interventions in the ‘near abroad’: “So long as Russia abides by the international peacekeeping principles, their mandates are creative, and they follow through on them, it is an appropriate thing for them to do. The United States is very comfortable with this”.
Opposing this appraisal, critics like Brzezinski point to the growth in support for Russian nationalists who now regard the dissolution of the Soviet Union as a ‘tragic mistake’ which should be reversed. Referring to the recent statements of the Russian foreign minister, Kozyrev, Brzezinski says: “If not openly imperial, the current objectives of Russian policy are at the very least proto-imperial. That policy may not yet be aiming explicitly at a formal imperial restoration, but it does little to restrain the strong imperial impulse that continues to motivate large segments of the state bureaucracy, especially the military, as well as the public. The underlying and increasingly openly stated consensus behind the policy appears to be that the economic and military integration of the once-Soviet states under Moscow’s political direction would prompt the re-emergence of Russia as a mighty supra-national state and a truly global power”.
Brzezinski argues for the expansion of NATO eastwards to include the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia. The inclusion of Russia would “so dilute the alliance (NATO) as to render it meaningless”. (Foreign Affairs, January-February 1995). He favours an attempt to accommodate Russian interests in Western Europe by “combining the expansion of NATO with new trans-continental security architecture embracing Russia”. This, he believes, might satisfy, at least ‘symbolically’, Russia’s current insistence on an all-European security system.
Brzezinski dismisses the idea that Western imperialism faces a new ‘Yalta’, that is a re-division of Europe into antagonistic spheres of influence with the imminence of a new Russian military threat. He warns, however, that “a major disruption in European Russian or Russian-Ukrainian relations cannot be ruled out. The Russian obsession with big-power status, the growing desire to reconstitute a bloc of at least satellite states within the territory of the former Soviet Union, and the effort to limit the sovereignty of Central European states could produce a crisis with the West. In such a case, an enlarged NATO would have no choice but to become again a defensive alliance against an external threat”. (Foreign Affairs, January-February 1995)
What is imperialism?
Is Brzezinski’s claim that the new Russian regime is attempting to “regain control of the old Soviet empire” justified? Is there a “strong imperial impulse” at work? We shall leave aside, on this occasion, the astounding hypocrisy of US strategists like Brzezinski, who speak for the world’s most powerful imperialist state, which has never hesitated to dominate other states and regions through the exercise of its military and economic muscle. The question here is: can the term ‘imperialism’ properly be applied to the former Stalinist regime or to the present Russian regime?
Imperialism literally means the rule of an emperor. In a loose rhetorical sense, it could be applied to any mighty state which uses its power to dominate and exploit oppressed classes and subject peoples, both within its own multi-national frontiers and beyond in colonies, semi-colonies, or client states. In this very loose sense, the Stalinist Soviet Union replicated some of the features of the earlier Tsarist empire. While the planned economy, during its progressive period, raised the living standards of even the most underdeveloped areas of the federation, the military-police state – the powerful apparatus of the bureaucratic ruling elite which was essentially Russian-dominated – oppressed both the minority nationalities of the Soviet Union and the peoples of the East European satellites. Military interventions in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 demonstrated that Russia’s ruling elite claimed ultimate control over these nominally independent states.
This relationship, however, was not imperialist in the true sense of the word. The concept of imperialism was pioneered by the liberal economist JA Hobson, early this century, and was then developed by Marxist theoreticians, notably Hilferding, Kautsky, Bukharin and, most importantly, Lenin. There were significant theoretical variants, especially concerning political conclusions. But there was common agreement that imperialism arose from the tendency of the capitalist system, particularly in the period when it was dominated by big monopolies based in powerful, rival nation states, to spread out and impose its exploitative socio-economic relations on all countries, reducing many to colonies or informal dependencies.
Before 1914 imperialism took the form of a competitive scramble for colonial possessions, which erupted in armed conflict. After the second world war, when the imperial powers were forced to grant political independence to most of their former colonies, imperialism changed its form, now involving the collective exploitation of the underdeveloped lands by the big corporations based in the advanced capitalist countries.
On this definition, Stalinism, a non-capitalist form of society based on a centrally planned economy, clearly was not imperialist. The bureaucracy’s motive for establishing strong administrative and ultimately military control over the border republics of the USSR and satellites on its western flanks was primarily strategic. They constituted a cordon militaire designed to guarantee the power and privileges of the ruling elite. There were undoubtedly elements of economic exploitation, with the central bureaucracy drawing on resources, especially food and raw materials, from different regions of the bloc. But in the overall economic balance, the Soviet Union, and its key urban-industrial areas in particular, actually heavily subsidised the outlying republics and the East European satellites. The ending of subsidised fuel supplies after 1989, for instance, exacerbated the economic crisis in many republics in the East European states.
A proto-bourgeois with imperial intent
Since 1989 everything has changed utterly. Remnants of the large state-owned industries remain, but the centrally-planned economy no longer exists. The capitalist market and the pursuit of private profit now dominates the dynamic of the economy. This does not mean to say that there is, as yet, a coherent, consolidated capitalist class. There is a motley band of profit-seekers and exploiters.
A section of the former bureaucrats and top managers have taken over sections of the state enterprises, whether strictly legally or unofficially, and are now running them as private businesses. On the other hand, there is the mafia, not a single organisation but competing gangs of robber-capitalists who dominate the trade in food, consumer goods and precious raw materials, drugs, etc. In between and intertwined, there is a whole gamut of bankers, entrepreneurs, traders, financiers, fraudsters, etc. This is a capitalist class in the process of formation, struggling to remould society under conditions of economic anarchy. This is a proto-bourgeoisie, which is groping its way towards new social relations and the construction of a new state machine which will promote and protect the interests of an emergent capitalist class. This proto-bourgeoisie is also struggling to elaborate an appropriate ideology and policy to further its interests.
The outlook of the emergent Russian capitalists has changed since the post-natal phase. Then, when Gaidar and Fedorov were attempting rapidly to implement ‘free market policies’ in line with the IMF and World Bank recipe for instant capitalism, the Yeltsin leadership relied heavily on the support of US imperialism to overcome the residual resistance of hardline sections of the bureaucracy and to ride out mass opposition to the dire consequences of rapid economic reforms. However, since the resignation of Gaidar and Fedorov in January 1994, the representatives of the Russian capitalists have become increasingly aware that their interests are far from identical with those of US imperialism.
In particular, US pressure aimed at accelerating the disintegration of the former Union threatens the fragmentation of the economic space which the Russian capitalists feel they need in order to thrive. Russia, stated the former ambassador to Washington, Vladimir Lukin, “has suffered from an excess of pro-American romanticism”. (Wall Street Journal, September 27, 1994) Within the Russian parliament there has been a rising chorus of criticism of Yeltsin and his foreign minister, Kozyrev, for ‘kowtowing’ to the ‘West’.
This trend reveals that Russia’s proto-bourgeoisie is giving rise (as Brzezinski correctly notes) to a new Russian proto-imperialism. There are many different shades of Russian nationalism. But there is now a common theme among the strategists of the emergent capitalists: the disintegration which followed the abortive coup in 1991 must be halted and indeed reversed; the Commonwealth of Independent States must be transformed from a loose federation of equal states into a coordinated economic zone, dominated by Russian capitalism. “Rapprochement between our countries is underway”, Yeltsin told parliament. “It is Russia’s mission to be first amongst equals”. (Independent, January 13, 1994)
This proto-imperialism involves constructing a strong Russian state which will dominate the former USSR republics. The armed interventions in the ‘near abroad’ are aimed generally at establishing the hegemony of the Russian state. Among the conditions being imposed on republics like Georgia, for instance, is that they legitimise the permanent existence of Russian military bases. But this drive for hegemony is not merely motivated by strategic military interests: “Russia’s new sphere of influence is economic as well as military… Kazakhstan, whose energy riches promise to make it the most viable of the former Soviet republics, has now been told that Russia demands 20 per cent of the takings of the Kazakh deal with the US oil giant Chevron, to develop the giant new Tingiiz oil field”. (Martin Walker, The Guardian, January 28, 1994) Part of Moscow’s leverage is that 40 per cent of Kazakhstan’s 17 million people are ethnic Russians, who are uneasy about their status and can be manipulated by Russian nationalists.
In the case of Belorussia, the price extracted for re-joining the rouble zone is that Russian will in effect control its finances. “Russia has agreed to have debt repaid in the form of property instead of cash”. (The Observer, July 17, 1994)
The assertion of the Russian capitalists’ interests involves the strengthening of the Russian state and the reinforcement of economic interests. Strategic pressure or outright military intervention are used to gain economic advantage; economic and financial leverage is used to secure strategic influence. But in contrast to the Stalinist period, this emergent imperialism is based on capitalist interests.
The emergent Russian capitalist power, certainly, has nothing like the military strength or economic weight of the US, the dominant imperialist power in the West. Russia’s role will be limited by its economic problems and by the dilapidated state of its armed forces. However, as the strongest regional power, Russia can play a regional imperialistic role. And in the future, the predatory role of Russian capitalism and renewed military intervention will provoke further explosive national conflicts.
Moreover, on the perimeter of its sphere of influence Russia is likely to come increasingly into conflict with the clients of US imperialism, with Turkey, for instance. Support for Milosevic’s regime in Serbia has already revealed the outline of conflict with the US through direct conflict with its regional proxy, the Croat-Bosnia Federation. Under Stalinism, the existence of the planned economy acted as a counterweight to the imperialist camp, and allowed some room for manoeuvre to Third World states attempting to loosen the chains of economic domination by the West. The restoration of capitalism means, however, that a conflict between the Russian state and US imperialism, notwithstanding the great disparity in power, is a conflict between rival imperialisms.