During the Soviet period official KGB policy was that the USSR had three primary enemies. They were the USA, NATO, and China. After the USSR dissolved the official policy of the SVR was that that Russia had three enemies. The enemies were the USA, NATO, and China. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Some weeks ago my oldest friend offered to loan me a book he had just finished and thought would interest me. Quite by chance, I began reading it just before the recent Russia/Georgia border dispute broke out. This book, Comrade J, by Pete Earley is a biographical account of the life of one Sergei Tretyakov, who was trained by and served with the KGB during the latter days of the Soviet Union, and made the transition to the Post-Soviet Russian intelligence agency known as the SVR until he defected to the United States in October 2000.
The reason this book is so relevant to the present state of affairs is because of Tretyakov’s reasons for defecting, combined with two essential facts that were part of his training, and official policy in the Soviet and Russian governments. We can begin discussion of these facts with President George W. Bush’s meeting with Vladimir Putin, then President of Russia. Bush returned to the United States stating that he believed that Putin was a man we could trust. John McCain, evidently did not agree, as he has said many times that he sees three letters in Putin’s eyes, and the letters are “KGB.” This coincides with Tretyakov’s statements about official KGB / SVR policy. During the Soviet period official KGB policy was that the USSR had three primary enemies. They were the USA, NATO, and China. After the USSR dissolved the official policy of the SVR was that that Russia had three enemies. The enemies were the USA, NATO, and China. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Tretyakov was, at the time of his defection, the second in command of the Russian intelligence operation in Manhattan, New York. This was an extremely important post because of its proximity to the United Nations. The amount of information that might be obtained through electronic eavesdropping and by skillful socializing with diplomatic staff attached to UN missions was staggering, and according to US sources consulted by Pete Earley, Tretyakov was a master at it. The amount of information he provided to US intelligence before and after his defection was extremely large and highly valuable because Tretyakov was considered a member of the incorruptible, patriotic, “old guard.” He had already been selected for promotion to General due to his accomplishments and apparent loyalty to the regime.
In fact, Tretyakov was a patriot, and he loved Russia. He had been willing to do what the nation required of him during his tenure with the KGB, but he had also seen the opportunity presented by Gorbachev’s new policies and the end of the Soviet government. Instead of a modern democratic state he saw the development of a government by political gangsters who used the system to benefit themselves and their partisans, while running roughshod over the people they were supposed to govern for the benefit of. Because he was a patriot and unwilling to become a gangster, Tretyakov found himself forced to desert his native country and all that it meant to him. In the epilogue of his biography he asserts that he defected for the same reasons that led to the American Declaration of Independence; that the government was self serving, rather than serving the needs of the people.
Vladimir Putin has shown himself to be a traditional authoritarian political figure. If he had any interests in serving the needs of the Russian people before, he has none now. Instead, he has become devoted to restoring the Russian empire, and the move into Georgia was a first step in attempting to do so. His statement that the end of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century history points us further in this direction.
When the USSR came to an end Russia had a choice. It could become part of the West, by taking the same direction that the former Warsaw pact nations had done; allying themselves with the rest of Europe, opening up their societies, and preventing a takeover by rogue elements such as what became the “Russian Mafia.” Instead of taking this route powerful elements in the new Russian government performed essentially the same coup that occurred in 1918. Among the objections that the Russian Revolutionaries had to the Czarist government were the bureaucracy and the secret police, both of which enforced the authoritarian system. Lenin and his successors were no different. They instituted their own bureaucracy and their own secret police using new names and in some cases different people to do precisely the same thing as under the previous government. Modern Russia is no different.
Vladimir Putin is another militarist autocrat. His sole interest is furthering his own authority and the interests of those surrounding him. The Soviet empire he so admires was built by Stalin on the lives of tens of millions of innocent people who were either killed or enslaved at his hands and the hands of his successors. Yet Putin is counting on being able, one day, to pass the reins of power on to someone just like him who will continue to oppress the people in the same way that Stalin, Brezhnev and their colleagues did, and the people will continue to suffer the same as they did for decades in the “worker’s paradise.” As the character of Susan Ivanova says in one episode of Babylon 5, “It’s a good thing I’m Russian; We’re used to hopeless situations.”
President Bush was mistaken in thinking he could trust Putin to deal squarely with him. The evidence was all there in the Russian society and in the way that Putin handled the power of his office. It is axiomatic that when a society can trust its own leaders other nations can do so as well. However, only open societies with leaders who have specifically defined and limited powers can be trusted and then, only as long as the powers remain limited. For Russia to attain a 5th empire, which some people believe is Putin’s goal, Russia cannot be an open society.
To make matters more difficult, Putin and his associates have learned that they can use economic warfare as an effective tool to augment military and political methods of bullying and perhaps subjugating their neighbors. They are counting on this to intimidate not only their former satellites, but other nations as well, including a poorly led United States. There can be no question that the present Russian regime, as well as other authoritarian governments around the world is hoping that this November will usher in an era of weak, indecisive and poorly prepared governance in Washington DC. They know that such a government will be a pushover for threats and an easy mark for confidence games. And if such a government is even more trusting of the Russian bear than the present administration, who knows how far it may spread its claw marks on the newly freed Eastern Europe, as well as on the nations of Western Europe who generally stood against intimidation during the Cold War. We can only hope that their sacrifice was not in vain.
slaib@intellectualconservative.com
http://intellectualconservative.com
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I have expressed my opinion on this matter before. I'll just say, I hope you are wrong and I hope the USA can show that it is not an enemy of Russia. We have enough problems with the Islamists.
I have David Remnick's book "Resurrection" and I'll see if he agrees with you in a few days.
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | August 18, 2008
Steven,
Interesting write up. Only thing I strongly disagree with is Putin. He isn't so much another Stalin as Russian restorationist. If I were to pin an ideology on him it would be closer to the xenophobic national-socialism of 1930s Germany than the 'ignite-the-world' international-socialism of early Soviets, but without some of the extreme racism and hyper-idealism.
I did an article on Putin and Russia back in February in which I tried to determine where Russia was heading. It didn't make the cut here at IC, but did get published at another conservative site. I had an idea then Russia might be heading for a confrontation in her own backyard (but would have thought Ukraine sooner than Georgia), and with the West regarding Russian 'spheres of interest'. I guess it was too soon and people were more interested in Obama v. Clinton. I think I’ll dust it off and resubmit it as, now, people are interested.
Of particular relevance to your argument was an item at Heritage Foundation ( http://www.heritage.org/Research/WorldwideFreedom/bg2088.cfm ) entitled 'Advancing Freedom in Russia’. In it, Steven Groves has a graph showing Russia's shift toward democracy in 1990, peaking mid-1990s, and then drifting back to autocratic government. He describes this as an arc; like a rocket trying to break free of gravity, but lacking sufficient thrust to do so. Russia is a nation of people who have never quite decided they want to be Western more than they want to be powerful and respected. Given the choice, they choose the latter and they choose strong autocratic leaders to get and keep them there. Even Yeltsin had some of the autocrat about him, despite his resolve that Russia would be more Western. The 1990s democratization happened only because Russia was bankrupt, exhausted, impotent, humiliated, and unable to hold onto its empire. Both Russia’s leaders and people were nonplussed by the way world turned strongly against them and their ideology (no small credit to Reagan, Waleska and the Pope), most of the world viewing them as the problem and not the answer. I can’t stress enough how strongly most Russian apparatchiks still believed (and believe) in the power of communism to transform their country from backwater to superpower. Poverty and economic failure did not seem to penetrate this belief, only the rebellion and disapproval of ‘clients’ seems to have done that and only a little. The experiment with democracy, then, was little more than a means of staying relevant. Once Russia had its oil-wealth with which to rebuild, it quickly lost interest in Western-style democracy and our approval. Thus, Russia has reverted to type.
Tretyakov is only telling us part of the narrative, the part where he is part of the brief democratization. Before that, he must have been a loyal KBG-communist operator; else he'd have defected much sooner. Tretyakov is more likely disapproving of Putin because Putin is a pragmatist who does what he does for Russia and not for Russians (from the communist viewpoint). In Putin's own mind, he is a patriot and uniquely qualified to restore Russia to her place. To the communist faithful (of which there are many), communism represents ‘true’ democracy and Western democracy a cheap imitation; so, where Tretyakov says 'democracy' read 'communist paternalism'. Even as they wallow in oil-wealth, Russians pine poetically for the lost purity of collectivist-poverty, for the days before they were 'corrupted by capitalism'. Ironically, it was Western concern for Russia that lead us to develop Russian-oil that Russia might quickly rejoin the community of nations, and it is that which has turned it around for Russia.
Comment by Bob Stapler | August 19, 2008