The more determined democracies are to avoid war, the greater the risk that autocracies will wage it. The claim of military success helps autocrats to seize and hold power. Thus, the war in Ukraine will likely be a defining moment for Russia that will also have repercussions all over the world. If the West allows Putin to claim victory in Ukraine, antidemocracy populists everywhere will celebrate, believing that they can do whatever they want, and Putin will cement his dictatorship in Russia. Not only his acolytes in government but also a large part of the Russian populace will believe the Kremlin propaganda telling them that Putin’s leadership is amassing victories. If Russia wins this war, his agents of influence and useful idiots in the West will be singing his praises while police repression in Russia is ratcheted up even more—just to be on the safe side.
A few weeks after the beginning of the invasion, Putin pushed several laws through his puppet parliament and signed executive orders basically criminalizing all forms of dissent and the remnants of independent media. These moves, as Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the now-shuttered Carnegie Moscow Center, wrote, resemble the Nazification of German society (a process known as Gleichschaltung) after the Nazi’s seized power in 1933. Hitler sought to “coordinate” and control all political, social, cultural, and educational institutions in the name of national unity.
But Russia does not need the example of Nazi Germany, however striking the parallels may be, to serve as a roadmap. Russia has its own totalitarian legacy—Josef Stalin’s ruthless dictatorship, which Putin’s Russia is increasingly coming to resemble. For example, a new law passed in March makes public statements that contradict the Kremlin on the war in Ukraine punishable by up to fifteen years in prison. “The history of mass execution and political imprisonment in the Soviet era, and the denunciation of fellow citizens encouraged by the state . . . now looms over Russia’s deepening . . . repression,” writes Anton Troianovski. As in Soviet times, the more that ordinary people fear being suspected of disloyalty to the Kremlin, the more likely they will be to turn on each other. Repression and intimidation are key pillars of a totalitarian state that reduces citizens to an obedient population. In the words of Bertrand Russell, “collective fear stimulates herd instinct and tends to produce ferocity towards those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”
The collective fear of repression is a fierce enemy of democracy, but it is not the only driver of the herd mentality so necessary to totalitarianism. Fear of changing social dynamics—such as cultural pluralism, rapid technical development, and globalization—which many find especially hard to keep up with, also builds the herd. Putin’s base resides predominantly outside of Moscow and other major urban centers, is notably less educated, and comprises a mass of angry, struggling people. The older ones are nostalgic for the days when they were young and the grass was green, forgetting of course that they had frequently suffered under the old order. The younger ones are a mob of poorly educated malcontents looking for a strongman to transform them from the losers of modern society into its winners.
People who are afraid of change seek solace in scapegoating an “enemy,” simply defined as different, untraditional, or foreign. Putin’s propaganda succeeded in portraying Ukraine as an immediate enemy that can and should be trampled for breaking away from Mother Russia and for being the proxy of far greater and more distant adversaries—the United States and NATO. Defeating those enemies would help to keep the Russian herd under control and disprove the idea that Russia’s cousins next door could ever go it alone and choose democracy.
Putin’s full-scale aggression in Ukraine has galvanized the Antidemocracy International—from the Chinese Communist Party to the U.S. ultraright. Many believed that Russia would win quickly and easily. As Washington was warning of the massive Russian military buildup on the Ukrainian border, Chinese president Xi Jinping and Putin met on 4 February 2022, ahead of the Beijing Olympics. They signed a long communiqué outlining future areas of cooperation and claimed there were “no limits” to their commitments.
At about the same time, former U.S. president Donald Trump, still a leader of the Republican Party, spoke admiringly of Putin to a crowd of supporters, saying “they ask me, ‘Is Putin smart?’ Yes, Putin was smart. And I thought he was going to be negotiating. I said, ‘That’s a hell of a way to negotiate, put 200,000 soldiers on the border.’” In those awkwardly worded remarks one can recognize the Putinesque leitmotifs of mocking an elected leader for being weak and praising a dictator for using or threatening armed force, regardless of its being in violation of existing norms of civilized behavior. No wonder it came from a politician who tried to hold on to power despite having lost an election. In Russia, “smart Putin” has freed himself from such burdens by simply doctoring electoral results in his and his supporters’ favor.
Europe’s far right has had its own romance with the Russian autocrat for many years. Hungary’s Orbán has long been viewed as a potential leader of the new Antidemocracy International by right-wing advocates in the United States. Orbán’s coalition won almost 53 percent of the vote in Hungary’s April 2022 election versus the opposition’s 34 percent. In Serbia, the unapologetically pro-Putin Aleksandar Vučić was reelected president in April 2022 by a sweeping margin. In France, Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally, is literally indebted to Putin. Her party, denied financing from French banks, took out a US$12.2 million loan from a Russian bank in 2014. In the first round of France’s April 2022 presidential election, Le Pen came in second to Emmanuel Macron for a second time, but by a significantly narrower margin than in 2017. (She was, however, soundly beaten in the runoff.)
European and U.S. right-wing populism is similar to that of Russia in the make-up of its political base and in its messaging. Trump, Orbán, and Le Pen voters tend to be less urban, have less formal education, and be more anxious about the rapidly changing cultural and economic landscapes. The rhetoric of these aspiring autocrats, like Putin’s, signals to their followers that the dizzying complexity of the modern world is actually nothing more than a battle between a good “us” and a bad “them,” whose ranks include foreigners and minorities as well as, in the case of Russia, the decadent West and liberals, who represent all the above. This is a sign that democracy is in danger.
The End of Ideology
Despite similarities, however, the leaders of the Antidemocracy International have no unifying or consistent set of ideas. They simply want power for themselves. It is only the rejection of democracy that brings them together. But it cannot mobilize a mass movement to the extent of self-destructive social engineering and world war in the way that messianic ideologies have. The two most portentous examples of such mass madness—Soviet communism and Nazi fascism—were defeated and discredited in the twentieth century. In the twenty-first century, Muslim fundamentalism, another potential stirrer of mass hyperdelirium, has failed to produce anything more than terrorism, thereby securing its worldwide rejection. There is an animated debate concerning the end of history, but the history of ideologies is over, at least for now.
What has emerged in their place? The now-universal ideas of a market economy and a publicly supported government. As it turns out, however, implementing them takes a lot of work. Democracy is not an ideology. But it is the best of all forms of government, all of which (including democracy) are imperfect. Autocracy, in contrast, is a bad form of government. Democracy—with its endless debates and elaborate procedures, and seemingly dominated by a globalized, overeducated elite—may appear too mundane and uninspiring to win over the doubters who are overwhelmed by modern life. They instead take refuge in dreams of reviving the past. Those dreams are what nurture and feed the populists and autocrats.
Yet for many, nothing is more inspiring than freedom. Thus the fearless Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was able to mobilize and unite his people to fight the Russian invaders, and has called for building Ukraine’s democracy and for joining Europe. The international response to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine has also been encouraging. Both sides of the political aisle in the United States have supported providing assistance to Ukraine. A divided electorate in France banded together to defeat Le Pen, and after Orbán’s win at the polls, Hungary supported the EU’s decision to impose a fifth set of sanctions on Russia. Although China and India abstained from condemning the Russian war, they have also refrained from providing Moscow with any meaningful assistance, especially military support. And even though they are clearly taking advantage of Russia’s self-imposed trading limits in the Western markets by buying Russian oil at huge discounts, Moscow’s old dream of creating an anti-Western axis with the two Asian giants remains unrealized. Putin’s friendship with Xi has proved far from limitless. Both Beijing and New Delhi understand the difference between words denouncing the existing world order and deeds able to damage it. In contrast to a declining Russia, China and India are rising and increasingly able to compete with the United State and Europe for influence on the international stage and a better place within the existing world order, amended to their taste but not destroyed.
Putin’s war on Ukraine has laid bare the critical need to defend and promote democracy in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere. But it has also demonstrated democracy’s amazing resilience. The brutality of the Russian war has reminded people everywhere of the existential danger that autocracy poses because it relies on violence at home and, in many cases, abroad. Prodemocracy forces in the West and beyond have mobilized once again. Democracy is still on the march, however treacherous the path ahead may be
Authoritarian Aggression Must Be Checked
The more determined democracies are to avoid war, the greater the risk that autocracies will wage it. The claim of military success helps autocrats to seize and hold power. Thus, the war in Ukraine will likely be a defining moment for Russia that will also have repercussions all over the world. If the West allows Putin to claim victory in Ukraine, antidemocracy populists everywhere will celebrate, believing that they can do whatever they want, and Putin will cement his dictatorship in Russia. Not only his acolytes in government but also a large part of the Russian populace will believe the Kremlin propaganda telling them that Putin’s leadership is amassing victories. If Russia wins this war, his agents of influence and useful idiots in the West will be singing his praises while police repression in Russia is ratcheted up even more—just to be on the safe side.
A few weeks after the beginning of the invasion, Putin pushed several laws through his puppet parliament and signed executive orders basically criminalizing all forms of dissent and the remnants of independent media. These moves, as Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the now-shuttered Carnegie Moscow Center, wrote, resemble the Nazification of German society (a process known as Gleichschaltung) after the Nazi’s seized power in 1933. Hitler sought to “coordinate” and control all political, social, cultural, and educational institutions in the name of national unity.
But Russia does not need the example of Nazi Germany, however striking the parallels may be, to serve as a roadmap. Russia has its own totalitarian legacy—Josef Stalin’s ruthless dictatorship, which Putin’s Russia is increasingly coming to resemble. For example, a new law passed in March makes public statements that contradict the Kremlin on the war in Ukraine punishable by up to fifteen years in prison. “The history of mass execution and political imprisonment in the Soviet era, and the denunciation of fellow citizens encouraged by the state . . . now looms over Russia’s deepening . . . repression,” writes Anton Troianovski. As in Soviet times, the more that ordinary people fear being suspected of disloyalty to the Kremlin, the more likely they will be to turn on each other. Repression and intimidation are key pillars of a totalitarian state that reduces citizens to an obedient population. In the words of Bertrand Russell, “collective fear stimulates herd instinct and tends to produce ferocity towards those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”
The collective fear of repression is a fierce enemy of democracy, but it is not the only driver of the herd mentality so necessary to totalitarianism. Fear of changing social dynamics—such as cultural pluralism, rapid technical development, and globalization—which many find especially hard to keep up with, also builds the herd. Putin’s base resides predominantly outside of Moscow and other major urban centers, is notably less educated, and comprises a mass of angry, struggling people. The older ones are nostalgic for the days when they were young and the grass was green, forgetting of course that they had frequently suffered under the old order. The younger ones are a mob of poorly educated malcontents looking for a strongman to transform them from the losers of modern society into its winners.
People who are afraid of change seek solace in scapegoating an “enemy,” simply defined as different, untraditional, or foreign. Putin’s propaganda succeeded in portraying Ukraine as an immediate enemy that can and should be trampled for breaking away from Mother Russia and for being the proxy of far greater and more distant adversaries—the United States and NATO. Defeating those enemies would help to keep the Russian herd under control and disprove the idea that Russia’s cousins next door could ever go it alone and choose democracy.
Putin’s full-scale aggression in Ukraine has galvanized the Antidemocracy International—from the Chinese Communist Party to the U.S. ultraright. Many believed that Russia would win quickly and easily. As Washington was warning of the massive Russian military buildup on the Ukrainian border, Chinese president Xi Jinping and Putin met on 4 February 2022, ahead of the Beijing Olympics. They signed a long communiqué outlining future areas of cooperation and claimed there were “no limits” to their commitments.
At about the same time, former U.S. president Donald Trump, still a leader of the Republican Party, spoke admiringly of Putin to a crowd of supporters, saying “they ask me, ‘Is Putin smart?’ Yes, Putin was smart. And I thought he was going to be negotiating. I said, ‘That’s a hell of a way to negotiate, put 200,000 soldiers on the border.’” In those awkwardly worded remarks one can recognize the Putinesque leitmotifs of mocking an elected leader for being weak and praising a dictator for using or threatening armed force, regardless of its being in violation of existing norms of civilized behavior. No wonder it came from a politician who tried to hold on to power despite having lost an election. In Russia, “smart Putin” has freed himself from such burdens by simply doctoring electoral results in his and his supporters’ favor.
Europe’s far right has had its own romance with the Russian autocrat for many years. Hungary’s Orbán has long been viewed as a potential leader of the new Antidemocracy International by right-wing advocates in the United States. Orbán’s coalition won almost 53 percent of the vote in Hungary’s April 2022 election versus the opposition’s 34 percent. In Serbia, the unapologetically pro-Putin Aleksandar Vučić was reelected president in April 2022 by a sweeping margin. In France, Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally, is literally indebted to Putin. Her party, denied financing from French banks, took out a US$12.2 million loan from a Russian bank in 2014. In the first round of France’s April 2022 presidential election, Le Pen came in second to Emmanuel Macron for a second time, but by a significantly narrower margin than in 2017. (She was, however, soundly beaten in the runoff.)
European and U.S. right-wing populism is similar to that of Russia in the make-up of its political base and in its messaging. Trump, Orbán, and Le Pen voters tend to be less urban, have less formal education, and be more anxious about the rapidly changing cultural and economic landscapes. The rhetoric of these aspiring autocrats, like Putin’s, signals to their followers that the dizzying complexity of the modern world is actually nothing more than a battle between a good “us” and a bad “them,” whose ranks include foreigners and minorities as well as, in the case of Russia, the decadent West and liberals, who represent all the above. This is a sign that democracy is in danger.
The End of Ideology
Despite similarities, however, the leaders of the Antidemocracy International have no unifying or consistent set of ideas. They simply want power for themselves. It is only the rejection of democracy that brings them together. But it cannot mobilize a mass movement to the extent of self-destructive social engineering and world war in the way that messianic ideologies have. The two most portentous examples of such mass madness—Soviet communism and Nazi fascism—were defeated and discredited in the twentieth century. In the twenty-first century, Muslim fundamentalism, another potential stirrer of mass hyperdelirium, has failed to produce anything more than terrorism, thereby securing its worldwide rejection. There is an animated debate concerning the end of history, but the history of ideologies is over, at least for now.
What has emerged in their place? The now-universal ideas of a market economy and a publicly supported government. As it turns out, however, implementing them takes a lot of work. Democracy is not an ideology. But it is the best of all forms of government, all of which (including democracy) are imperfect. Autocracy, in contrast, is a bad form of government. Democracy—with its endless debates and elaborate procedures, and seemingly dominated by a globalized, overeducated elite—may appear too mundane and uninspiring to win over the doubters who are overwhelmed by modern life. They instead take refuge in dreams of reviving the past. Those dreams are what nurture and feed the populists and autocrats.
Yet for many, nothing is more inspiring than freedom. Thus the fearless Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was able to mobilize and unite his people to fight the Russian invaders, and has called for building Ukraine’s democracy and for joining Europe. The international response to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine has also been encouraging. Both sides of the political aisle in the United States have supported providing assistance to Ukraine. A divided electorate in France banded together to defeat Le Pen, and after Orbán’s win at the polls, Hungary supported the EU’s decision to impose a fifth set of sanctions on Russia. Although China and India abstained from condemning the Russian war, they have also refrained from providing Moscow with any meaningful assistance, especially military support. And even though they are clearly taking advantage of Russia’s self-imposed trading limits in the Western markets by buying Russian oil at huge discounts, Moscow’s old dream of creating an anti-Western axis with the two Asian giants remains unrealized. Putin’s friendship with Xi has proved far from limitless. Both Beijing and New Delhi understand the difference between words denouncing the existing world order and deeds able to damage it. In contrast to a declining Russia, China and India are rising and increasingly able to compete with the United State and Europe for influence on the international stage and a better place within the existing world order, amended to their taste but not destroyed.
Putin’s war on Ukraine has laid bare the critical need to defend and promote democracy in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere. But it has also demonstrated democracy’s amazing resilience. The brutality of the Russian war has reminded people everywhere of the existential danger that autocracy poses because it relies on violence at home and, in many cases, abroad. Prodemocracy forces in the West and beyond have mobilized once again. Democracy is still on the march, however treacherous the path ahead may be
You lost me at "Russia's unprovoked war".
Slava ukrani traitor