On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin gave us new insight into his philosophy.
The Russian president’s forum was somewhat unusual: a meeting with school children in the far eastern city of Vladivostok. Sitting on the Pacific Ocean and home to Russia’s Pacific fleet, Vladivostok is just 36 miles from the Chinese border and 115 miles from the North Korean border. In recent years, Putin has used Vladivostok as a launching pad for aggressive actions against U.S. fishing vessels. This earned some necessary U.S. Navy pushback during the later period of the Trump administration.
Still, Putin’s school meeting provided us with some valuable education as to his thinking. It also, for that matter, provided an amusing moment when a rather courageous teacher corrected Putin on the proper name for the Great Northern War.
On misinformation (a Putin art form), the former KGB officer told the students that the internet contains “a lot of informational rubbish, which is very often presented as the ultimate truth, but you cannot believe it, because this is not the opinion of real, true experts, but often people who pretend to be such.”
On missile development, Putin is impressed with the youthful character of Russia’s top scientists. Putin said, “When I met a small team of developers for one of our newest [missile] systems ([likely developers at the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology]), honestly, I was so surprised, I said: ‘Where did you come from?’ Very young people. Whole groups came after university to a research institution and created one of the newest — until now it has no analogs — missile systems in the world.”
But it was Putin’s comments on his ideal of a greater Russia that are most interesting.
Putin referenced “the tragedies” of the 1917 Russian revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union. He suggested that had they not occurred, Russia’s population might now be 500 million strong (versus an actual 146 million). This matters because demographics pose a significant challenge to Russia’s long-term viability as a great power. Putin concluded that “It is necessary to look at what was the basis of these tragic events so that in no case can anything like this happen in the future. How can we strengthen ourselves, in what way, how can we build relationships with neighbors?”
Translation: “A stable government, even with my increasingly authoritarian leadership, is preferable to the risk of a revolution that sparks new chaos and suffering.” It’s a powerful message in that Russians traditionally value stability as much if not more than they do freedom and prosperity.
That said, Putin reminded us that his notion of stability requires an imaginative fusing of geography and identity.
Referencing historic Russian emigration to Ukraine, Putin described how Russians had “mastered these colossal territories. Not for yourself. For the future of a country, a common country, for our common future. And we must know all this, and treat the people who did it with respect.” Putin added that understanding this history is “important because it mentally, spiritually binds each person to the land on which he lives. ”
Here we see Putin’s continuing effort to present Russian periphery nations as inextricable organs of the Russia-proper body. Putin uses this ideal to cultivate a nationalist sentiment with which to support his foreign policy expansionism. This bears particular note with regard to Ukraine, and Belarus, which is on the verge of becoming a de facto Russian province.
For Putin, this greater Russia is a moral obligation required by historic sacrifice. And for Putin, the peoples of greater Russia are special and distinct from those of Western Europe. The Nazis explain why. Putin observed that “the fate of the Russian and other peoples of Russia would [have been] different than the fate of the Western European peoples enslaved by Nazi Germany. [The Nazis] perceived those peoples more or less as genetically their own and hoped that they could coexist with them. With our peoples — no, with the Russian people — no, the Russian people were subject to liquidation, destruction.”
Putin’s assessment of Nazi intentions for the eastern Soviet peoples bears some undeniable truth. But we should not ignore Putin’s disdain for the common sacrifice of Western Europeans and the United States in defeating the Nazis. Putin’s intent is to present Russia as a special and distinct entity that cannot be aligned with Western norms and values. Putin’s argument is that only a greater Russia, with the Kremlin as its castle, can be trusted to serve the greater Russian peoples. The connection point between the Nazis and the contemporary West is, by Putin’s argument, measured by a sustaining external threat.
It’s quite ludicrous, but for a people that suffered so much during the Second World War, it’s also emotive and politically powerful.
Top line: it’s worth listening when Putin enters philosopher mode.
