Suchergebnisse

Russian streaming services premiered the series "Slovo Patsana. Krov' na asphalte" (The Boy's Word: Blood on the Asphalt). Within just a month, it was breaking popularity records in Russia.

Offiziell galt: Im Sozialismus der Sowjetunion gab es keinen Antisemitismus – die Realität sah aber anders aus. Ab Mitte der 1980er Jahre kam es zwar im Zuge von "Perestroika" und "Glasnost" durchaus in den Großstädten der UdSSR zu einem Aufschwung jüdischer Kultur und Religion. Gleichzeitig nahmen aber auch landesweit Rechtsextremismus ... mehr
Der Beitrag Schutz im Land der Täter – Jüdische Kontingentflüchtlinge aus der Sowjetunion erschien zuerst auf Demokratiegeschichten.

It was never very clear what Mikhail Gorbachev's plan was. He probably did not know it himself. His greatest determination, as he repeated many times, was that "we cannot go on living like this". Dictatorial socialism had failed. Early in his tenure, the CIA speculated that Soviet production must have been half that of the United States, but senior Soviet officials eventually acknowledged to former President Richard Nixon that the actual ratio was a quarter or a fifth. When foreign journalists asked Gorbachev what his model for the future of the Soviet Union was, he usually responded with an elusive "Life will tell." The USSR could not compete with the skyrocketing costs of the arms race launched by President Ronald Reagan, so Gorbachev sought and won remarkable nuclear arms reduction agreements. However, he was always aware that the problem was the Soviet economic and political system itself. When I visited Moscow, Kyiv and Leningrad in the summer of 1989, the system was still in place, almost intact, but there was freedom of speech and some transparency, thanks to the policy of glasnost, which made it possible to break through the wall of propaganda and see how it really worked. The new information, the possibility of hearing and saying aloud what almost everyone had pretended to ignore, made it clear that there was no going back to the old formulas.For the countries of Eastern Europe, Gorbachev replaced the Brezhnev doctrine of limited sovereignty with what was called the Sinatra "do it my way" doctrine. In some of these countries, opinions and movements in favor of democratic socialism emerged. Such an ideology did not take root in the USSR, but progress could have been made towards the production of private goods at market prices and decentralization of the public sector. In fact, Gorbachev only encouraged the creation of small cooperatives in secondary economic sectors and refused to free prices from government control. At each episode of political pressure or resistance, he zigzagged, thus losing credibility. In practice, central planning had ceased to function and the market economy had barely emerged. In a panel I shared with some of Gorbachev's top advisors, economist Nikolai Shmelyov presented his "non-ideological, common-sense proposal" for completing perestroika: abolish all public monopolies by "selling everything" to anyone who wanted to buy, including foreigners, i.e., enterprises, land, housing, materials, tractors..., "everything you can imagine, everything." However, he acknowledged that a necessary condition for success was that Gorbachev could "survive in office for a couple of years," which was already an improbable gamble.It was said that real socialism had proved that it was possible to turn an aquarium into a fish soup, and the problem of perestroika was how to turn a soup into an aquarium. However, the old aquarium was neither capitalism nor democracy, since neither had hardly ever existed in Russia. The result of perestroika could not be a "restoration," but a shaken, perhaps stirred, version of a system that carried a strong feudal, bureaucratic and authoritarian heritage.Despite the enthusiasm of some, perestroika was a movement launched from above, initially with a great concentration of power in Gorbachev, and with sympathy mainly among the "intelligentsia" and the new middle strata, which only gradually achieved a certain institutional and popular support. From the first semi-competitive elections to the Congress of People's Deputies, the radical reformists triumphed in Moscow, led by the future president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, and in Leningrad with Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, Vladimir Putin's godfather. At the same time, independentists rose up in the Baltic republics and soon, as historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse had prophesied, "the empire exploded." Putin argues —with considerable historical foundation, I believe— that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century." The Russian Empire in its Soviet version lost half of its population. We are still living the consequences.In Spanish in La Vanguardia CLICK                                                       Image by Ben Jennings

The Carnegie Center's Maksim Samorukov recently published an article in Foreign Affairs entitled "Putin's brittle regime. Like the Soviet one that preceded it, his system is always on the brink of collapse." The argument is driven by a straightforward historical analogy. The Soviet system appeared strong and immutable, and virtually no one predicted its collapse. But collapse it did. Likewise, the Putin system appears strong and resilient, and few people can imagine its collapse. But collapse it will.One can understand why this argument would be attractive to Foreign Affairs. Wishful thinking always gets an audience: people like to be told what they want to hear. Absent any prospects of a successful counter-offensive in Ukraine, the most likely scenario for Ukrainian victory is regime collapse in Russia.Historical analogies can be attractive but misleading in that they may focus our attention on superficial similarities, while ignoring structural differences. And there are several important respects in which Putin's regime is in a very different place from the Soviet Union of the perestroika era.First, Mikhail Gorbachev was only in power for six years and he was never able to establish effective control over the inner circle of Soviet leaders, nor the bureaucracy at large. As a result, his policy initiatives were blocked from effective implementation, forcing him to adopt more radical measures which destabilized the entire system.In contrast, Putin very quickly established strong control over rival elites after he came to power in 2000, restoring the "power vertical." He has been in charge for 24 years, and most analysts agree that the institutional foundations of the Putin regime are robust and it will likely survive the death of its founder.Second, a critical factor in the unraveling of the USSR was the fact that it was fighting an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, which forced it to enter negotiations with the West. Russia is fighting a war in Ukraine which it is still confident it can win.Third, the Soviet Union was bankrupt, running trade deficits and borrowing money abroad. In contrast, despite the pressure of Western sanctions, Russia ran a $50 billion trade surplus last year. The Soviet planned economy was rigid and value-destroying, a sinkhole of state subsidies. Unlike the Soviet Union, Russia has a dynamic capitalist economy, well integrated into the global economy, and one whose entrepreneurs have been adept at evading Western sanctions.Fourth, the USSR was a federation where ethnic Russians made up 52% of the population. Putin's Russia is a more centralized state where Russians are 82% of the population.Admittedly, the possibility of an Islamist insurrection in the North Caucasus is a potential security challenge. But the logic that turned Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov into a loyal vassal of Moscow would apply to any successor. It is better to enjoy a flow of subsidies from Moscow and buy Lamborghinis, than to have Grozny turned back into a sea of rubble. The Chechens have learned their lesson from the first and second wars: that pursuit of independence is not worth the effort. None of the other ethnic republics in the Russian Federation are remotely interested in starting a war with Moscow.The Crocus City Hall attack of April 22 was not only a reminder that Islamist terrorism remains a security threat for Russia, but it represented a massive intelligence failure by the Russian security services. They were warned in advance by the U.S. that such an attack was coming: they should have placed armed guards at all concert halls in Moscow. However, attacks like Crocus are not going to cause regime change in Russia.The terrorists did not come from North Caucasus, but from Tajikistan. That indicates that the 8 million migrant workers from Central Asia are a potential security risk. But their value in Russia's labor-short economy still outweighs the security challenge, at least for now.The Wagner insurrection in June 2023 was an extraordinary development, the most serious threat to the stability of the Putin regime since its foundation in 2000. We'll never know what would have happened if the dog had caught up with the car: if Yevgeny Prigozhin had not turned back, but had ordered his troops to advance into Moscow. What we do know is that the insurrection failed. Prigozhin is dead and buried, and regime stability was quickly restored.Allowing the Wagner group to develop to a point where it could launch that mutiny was a serious error by Putin — second only to his decision to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But it remains an outlier, and cannot serve as a foundation for U.S.policy.To prevail in diplomacy and war one needs a realistic assessment of the adversary's strengths and weaknesses. The abrupt collapse of the Soviet Union reminds us to expect the unexpected. But Putin (and China's President Xi Jinping) have learned from Gorbachev's mistakes. Washington should not build its Russia policy on the assumption that lightning will strike twice in the same place.

Over the last thirty years, the Italians have tried almost everything, nothing has resulted as expected, the country is stagnated, and this is the only dish on the menu that had not been tasted yet. Economic growth was flat since 2000, and after the Great Recession and the pandemic, the per capita GDP is 5% lower than fifteen years ago. Public debt amounts to about 150% of GDP (the second in Europe, only after Greece, which is a much smaller economy).This permanent turmoil is in sharp contrast with the more than forty years of political stability and economic growth since the establishment of the Italian Republic at the end of World War II. In the first edition of my textbook Political Institutions in Europe, the author of the chapter on Italy, Gianfranco Pasquino, summarized that period as one with unstable governments (one-year average duration), lasting coalitions (always around the Christian-democrats), repeated presidents of the Council (up to De Gasperi eight times, Andreotti seven, Fanfani six…), and stagnated policies. After the Cold War and the dissolution of both the Christian-democracy and the Communist Party, there have been sustained attempts to force alternations in government via political polarization. Five electoral reforms replaced the previous proportional representation system with mixed systems including single-member districts by plurality rule and a "majority bonus" to the largest party. The results have been, paraphrasing Pasquino: slightly less unstable governments (lasting on average 18 months, but remember that Germany had only three chancellors in forty years); changing coalitions with many alternations (about eight, plus two national unity cabinets); repeated presidents of the Council (Berlusconi four times, Prodi two…); and extremely stagnated policies, despite government alternations, because they now largely depend on the European Union. Against some expectations, new parties proliferated. The most significant electoral reform has been the most recent one, used for the first time in this election: an unprecedented cut of the number of seats in both chambers of Parliament (by 37 percent), which has reduced the number of parties and attenuated fragmentation.In this context, the emphasis on the fascist precedents of the current largest party, Brothers of Italy, is largely biased. In the early 1990s, in parallel to the dissolution of the Communist party, the Social Movement with fascist roots also experienced a "perestroika." It first formed the National Alliance, which won the popular vote in the South, merged with Berlusconi's party, and after being in government for a while with Giorgia Meloni as a minister, a group split to form the minor Brothers of Italy, which became the only opposition to Mario Draghi's government. Accusing Meloni of fascist origins is as distracting as it would be accusing the former president of the Council Massimo D'Alema, at the time leader of the Party of the Italian Communists, of being the heir of Stalinism. While D'Alema furtherly evolved and became Vice-president of the Socialist International, the Brothers of Italy became a member of the European Conservative Group (which was founded by the British Tories), a more pro-EU alignment than the Identity Group that includes the Italian League, the French Le Pen, and the Alternative for Germany.Meanwhile, the European Union is reinforcing its fiscal and financial resources. Italy is prepared to receive the largest amount of loans and donations from the EU's programs for recovery and investments. The intended amount is a programs' percentage double the size of the Italian population and economy's share in the EU (as similarly happens with Spain, but the latter is a smaller economy). At some moment, Meloni hinted at renegotiating the conditional reforms on the judiciary, the tax code, or the anti-trust and competition rules. The size and interdependence of the Italian economy in Europe may give her some leverage, as the country is too big for the EU to let it fail. On this basis, the new Italian government could threaten the EU. But the EU is right now also menacing by being stern on that kind of attitude with its firmness on Hungary.This unbalanced game of mutual threats reflects the general political situation in Europe: the Union is already sufficiently strong to nullify many sovereign powers of the states, but not yet enough to establish the EU as the prevailing institutional level in all respects. Perhaps things must go still worse to go better. Worse with the useless politicking in the states to go better with a European more effective union.President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella was aware of this risk when he prevented the League's Matteo Salvini from becoming president of the Council after the last election and appointed the European leader Draghi. He could still try something of the sort.

The uncertain future of the European EmpireThe European Union faces two paths that could lead to a dangerous fork in the road. On the one hand, the EU has increased its powers during the Great Recession and the pandemic. Specifically, it has increased public spending through the multiannual budget and recovery programs, for the first time it has issued its own debt bonds, it has strengthened its surveillance of state finances, it has established common rules on banking, and is trying to control the external borders. On the other hand, after ten years without accepting new members and Brexit, Ursula von der Leyen's Commission and Charles Michel's Council are now proposing a new wave of enlargements with Ukraine, Serbia, and up to nine countries.Internal reinforcement and external enlargement are not easily compatible paths. The more integration increases, the more difficult it will be to assimilate new members with lower economic levels, less compliance with the laws, and more corruption, like the existing candidates. And the more members are accepted, the more difficult further integration will be. Even with its 27 member countries, the euro is only used by 20 and the opening of internal borders by 23; energy policy clashes with the interests of different countries in oil, coal, gas, nuclear or renewables; common defense and security is the most lagging part of foreign policy; and the regulation of the labor market or Social Security is not even considered.In its current stage, the EU can be characterized as an Empire, a fluid, intermediate formula between national states and a consolidated federation. A few years ago, Oxford professor Jan Zielonka and the author of this Blog, who at the time did not know each other, concurred on publishing two books on the subject (his, Europe as Empire; mine: Great empires, small nations, and later The European Empire).The greatest echo came from the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso. At a massive press conference in Brussels to present the Treaty of Lisbon, he indicated that "The European Union is not a super-state like the United States nor an international organization like NATO. We have the size of empires," he noted, "and we are now what some authors call the first 'non-imperialist empire'."An empire as a form of political organization, like the EU, differs from a state and a federation in two characteristics. First, it has no stable external borders, but rather expands and contracts with expansions and exits. Second, the center maintains asymmetric relations with the territorial units.The best comparative reference is the process of building the United States. About 125 years passed from independence at the end of the 18th century to the consolidation of a stable federation. One of the first presidents, Thomas Jefferson, contemplated the creation of "an empire of liberty"; another of the founders, Alexander Hamilton, said that the United States was "the embryo of a great empire"; and in the mid-19th century, President James Polk declared that it was already "a country large enough for a great empire."The subsequent federal project almost failed due to a terrible Civil War. A more stable federation was only consolidated in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. Fixed borders were established in 1912 when the initial 13 republics on the East Coast of North America had expanded to 48 states from coast to coast (later, two more without territorial connection, Alaska and Hawaii, were added). In those same years, just before World War I, democratic representation was stabilized by fixing the size and form of election of the House of Representatives and the Senate, a single currency and robust public finances were consolidated through the Federal Reserve, and the FBI was created in charge of security throughout the country.In comparison, the construction of a united Europe has developed through only about seventy years. We can avoid the civil war because we already had it before, the so-called Second World War. In 1912, US public spending was 7% of GDP, a milestone that could perhaps serve as a horizon for the current EU. A Council with more and more diverse members would have even more difficulty making decisions unanimously, requiring intricate reforms of the decision rules.Meanwhile, integration advances at different speeds for different countries or a la carte, which produces, in eurojargon, a variable geometry or concentric circles: there is a strong core of three or four countries, the other members currently integrated, those not completely in, and several external partners on some issues. Ukraine's candidacy rules out a neutral zone or intermediate cushion against Russia, as Austria and Finland were during the Cold War, but the pending enlargements will not be consummated before 2030. The European Political Community, which met last week in Granada, seeks cooperation between the 47 geographically European countries.The European Union is already the third political unit in the world by the size of its population and economy. In the long term, it could evolve into a more stable and homogeneous democratic federation, as was the case with the United States, or break up into multiple territorial units, as happened to the Russian Empire first with the Revolution and then with perestroika. The difficult combination of internal reinforcement and external enlargement will determine its future, that is, ours and that of global balance.