Decision by the Yabloko Federal Political Committee No 156 of 20 October 2022, published on 1.11.2022

Photo (left to right): French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Anthony Blair at the Kurhaus complex in Heiligendamm / Photo by Dmitry Astakhov, RIA Novosti

The legacy of late Stalinism, combined with the collapse of the USSR in Belovezhskaya Pushcha [by the Belvezh Accords], illiterate and voluntaristic economic reforms, and Boris Yeltsin’s stake on power politics, made in the early 1990s, led to the formation of a system of peripheral authoritarianism in Russia – a neo-Bolshevik model of the state with an eclectic populist ideology of “political Eurasianism”. In such a system, all institutions and understanding of social justice are subordinated to the “state interest”, personalised in the leader.

The formation of such a model of the new Russian state met with support from the leading political forces of the West. The development of Russia was considered there superficially, outside the global context, mainly as simply a “problem of Russians”, as an occasion for both arrogance and indifference with primitive but persistent recommendations to construct the Russian world in a way similar to the Western.

The future of Russia has been considered and is being considered by the West in the context of a personal search for the “names” of candidates for new “national leaders”. In fact, there were no meaningful discussions on the topics that are important from the point of view of basic human rights, the search for mutual understanding on global issues.

The open military confrontation with its closest (in every sense) neighbour launched by Russia in February 2022 caused a shock reaction in Western countries, corresponding to their vision of their role in today’s world and the current specific tragic and absolutely unlawful situation, the responsibility for the creation and development of which lies primarily with Russia.

At the end of the eighth month of criminal bloodshed, the politicians of the leading countries of the world are at a complete impasse in terms of determining the political meaning of the situation and finding solutions for the future.

Russia, like Ukraine, the EU countries, and the United States will not cease to exist – despite the fact that they consider each other exclusively as a strategic threat today. It is impossible to imagine that anyone in Europe can seriously hope for a peaceful existence in the total isolation of a country with 140 million people, the largest territory in the world and possessing nuclear weapons on a level equal to the United States. Fragmented development of the world in the 21st century and the conditions of modern digital technologies is impossible.

The idea of ​​a “Eurasian” authoritarian separate civilisation being imposed in Russia is a utopia that contradicts the history and culture of Russia as a European country.

But the civilisation of the West, despite its achievements in law, technology, and education, will not cope with global challenges and internal problems if political entropy increases – separation of politics from culture, professional knowledge, human values ​​and faith, knowledge and understanding of history. If there is no understanding of the peculiarities of the present time, which is missing today among Western leaders. If the key problems of modern life and, above all, the global ones continue to be considered as tactical and technical, requiring only quick definite “reactive” solutions, and electoral goals will overshadow, every two or three years, the strategies and accumulating fundamental contradictions.

The attempts to think today by the analogies with the events of the Second World War are devoid of substantive meaning. It is absolutely obvious, that both the content and the forms of the current military conflict in the 21st century, involving the country possessing a gigantic arsenal of nuclear weapons, are qualitatively different from the war of the first half of the 20th century.

So many different weapons have been accumulated that it is enough to cause destruction to an almost unlimited extent. The resource of mobilisation from different sides is also very extensive. Today we see an extremely dangerous situation with the possibility of an exceptionally powerful escalation of unlimited duration. The prospect of a nuclear conflict is becoming real.

Despite proposals to reach at least a ceasefire agreement, the leading decision-making centres ignore or reject such a possibility. At the same time, they do not express any political plan at all. The outcome becomes completely unpredictable both as of its content and time.

This is extremely dangerous from a military and political point of view, and extremely tragic from a human point of view.

The main result of the Second World War and the basis of European ideas of the middle of the past century was saving human lives. Unfortunately, it did not reach Russia – neither during the USSR, nor for the entire post-Soviet period. If, as a result of the tragedy that has now befallen Ukraine and Russia, it turns out that Western Europe has also abandoned saving human lives, then the darkest times are ahead of us.

Today, politicians of a global scale, who are responsible for the fate of mankind, require most of all political thinking, will and action.

Grigory Yavlinsky,

Chairman of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko