Look back at Weimar - and start to worry about Russia
The Daily Telegraph
By Niall Ferguson
1st January 2005
Rebuttal interleaved by Sovereignty's Eastern European Correspondent, 14 Jan 2005

In an amateurish sort of way, I am a Russophile. It was reading War and Peace as a schoolboy that convinced me I should study history at university. My favourite film is still the Soviet-era adaptation of Tolstoy's masterpiece. Throughout my twenties, I was a Dostoevsky devotee. Even today, I can think of few pleasures to match reading the short stories of Chekhov. And then there is the music: for me, Shostakovich's chilling, haunting piano quintet will always be the signature tune of the 20th century.

Yet it was always possible to love Russia and to hate the Soviet Union. And it is possible today to love Russia and to hate what Vladimir Putin is doing to it.

Sovereignty's comments follow in dark blue type: Well, of course this is possible. This is the nature of politics, just as it is possible to love Scotland and dislike the Labour Party, to be a patriotic American and oppose the policies of either George W. Bush or John Kerry, or to like cultural differences such as foreign cuisine or language and be against, for example, certain aspects of immigration legislation or the European single currency.

I seldom agree with the New York Times, but Nicholas Kristof was pretty much on target the other day. "The bottom line", he wrote, "is that the West has been suckered by Mr Putin. He is not a sober version of Boris Yeltsin. Rather, he's a Russified Pinochet or Franco. And he is not guiding Russia toward free-market democracy, but into fascism.".

Whoa! Hang on a second. That's a pretty big statement. Fascism was a brutal ideology that led to the deaths of millions in the Second World War and the mass murder of millions more through systematic campaigns of ethnic cleansing and political repression. Pinochet presided through a period of repression that has been documented by an estimated 35,000 testimonials of torture. Franco led one side in perhaps Europe's bloodiest civil war, a period that saw entire cities razed to the ground and the execution of every male inhabitant of many villages used as a method of intimidation.

The 'fascist' label is distorted. It is, in light of the terrible realities that fascism brought upon Europe, a nasty label, and, when it is used in the context of modern European politics it is to all extents and purposes an empty and meaningless label that has essentially come to mean, 'someone that I dislike'. It is an emotional term, adopted by someone who is not interested in having a serious debate, but rather, in making it impossible for his critics to refute his allegations.

The only area in which Putin can be criticised for using political violence (which is, essentially, the essence of fascism), is in Chechnya, which we will deal with later on in this article. But it is interesting that Niall Ferguson contrasts Putin less favourably than Boris Yeltsin. Niall Ferguson might like to remember that it was Yeltsin who started the Chechen conflict, out of pure political expediency, in 1994, and again restarted it in 1999, a time before Putin had even become Prime Minister, let alone President. This unfavourable contrast of the Putin period to the era of Yeltsin is something that we will return to throughout the course of this article.

Correct - except that Russia is not Chile or Spain. Neither of those countries was ever in a position to pose a serious threat to our security; indeed, there were many conservatives who thought it preferable that they should be fascist rather than communist.

True, there were many conservatives who thought it preferable that a large number of states in Europe be fascist, as opposed to communist, as indeed there were liberals. Did Lloyd George not hold an undisguised admiration for Hitler, even remarking in private that Hitler was a 'great man'? Why does Ferguson focus only on 'conservatives' and their 'support' for fascist regimes almost sixty years ago? Is he serious about analysing Putin's leadership in an unbiased way? Or is he trying to make some sort of modern political smear attack?

But Russia is different. According to Goldman Sachs, its economy could be bigger than Britain's and even Germany's by 2030. It remains the world's number two nuclear superpower. If Mr Putin's government is indeed turning it into a fascist regime, we should look elsewhere for parallels.

Russia's economy is indeed growing at a fantastic rate, at some 8% per year since just after Putin took office, and the country is now in a better condition than it had been economically. Much of this growth has been due to the political stability that Putin has brought to the country and his tough stance on corruption, although it is true that he benefits a great deal from high oil prices at the moment. Yet Putin is realistic about his country's chances - he is not harbouring secret hopes of Russia becoming a bigger economic power than Britain. Rather, he has himself admitted that it would take 25 years at present growth rates for Russia to reach the living standards of the poorest country in the European Union, Portugal.

Furthermore, attempts to whip up fears of Russia's military power are laughable. The Russian army is full of underfed teenage conscripts. The biggest danger from Russia's nuclear arsenal comes not from a desire to fight the West, but from nuclear proliferation due to poor state security and corruption. This is why Putin has enlisted help from the United States to decommission a large number of Russia's nuclear missiles.

In 1997, I published an academic article - co-written with the Russian economic expert Brigitte Granville - entitled Weimar Germany and Contemporary Russia. I can still remember being teased by one of my brightest undergraduates - himself a German - that this was excessively pessimistic, at a time when Russia's economic recovery appeared to be gathering momentum. I had to remind him just how long the Weimar Republic took to dissolve into Hitler's dictatorship.

Perhaps your German student was teasing you because he found your claims so laughable? Who cares about the Weimar Republic? That was in a completely different scenario, where fascism had not been discredited by World War and repression, where economic uncertainty and class militancy and revolutionary hysteria hung over the continent. Why compare spaghetti and fish? Compare like with like, and Europe in the 21st century is not Europe in the 1930s.

Most respected academics also are criticising the Lipset theory - that economic growth is the most significant factor in maintaining democratic rule. They point to cultural factors, such as historical experience and the rule of elites as more accurate indications of a country's future potential. India, for example, suffers incredible poverty, but is the world's largest democracy. Mongolia is one of the most backwards states in the world, but has continued to shakily pursuer Westernisation since the end of Communist rule. So, the idea that a wave of popular demand would sweep 'fascists' into office following economic meltdown, while a popular theory, is simply not accepted at face value by many respectable commentators. Plus, Ferguson forgets that Russia already had two economic meltdowns - one in 1992 and the other in 1998. Yet in the Presidential elections that followed each crisis, in 1996 and 2000, the ultranationalist candidate barely gained 5% of the vote.

Born in 1919 in the wake of Germany's humiliating defeat in the First World War, the Weimar Republic suffered hyperinflation, an illusory boom, a slump and then, starting in 1930, a slide into authoritarian rule, culminating in 1933 with Hitler's appointment as chancellor. Total life: slightly less than 14 years.

Born in 1991 in the wake of the Soviet Union's humiliating defeat in the Cold War, today's Russian Federation has suffered a slump, hyperinflation and is currently enjoying a boom on the back of high oil prices. Its slide into authoritarian rule has been gradual since Putin came to power in 1999. Is it going to culminate - 14 years on - in a full-scale dictatorship in 2005? That is beginning to look more and more likely.

This is just silly. Who cares how long the Weimar Republic lasted? As explained above, this has nothing to do with the debate. As for Russia developing a dictatorship in 2005, well, the Moscow Times reported in January 2005 that the Putin-created political group, United Russia, which offers him support in the State Parliament (Duma), has been discussing who to nominate as Putin's successor candidate in 2008. So, Putin's own party is discussing his replacement? And we are to believe that he's going to introduce a 'full-scale dictatorship' this year? Doubtful!

Ferguson says that Russia's 'slide into authoritarian rule' has been gradual since Putin came to power. What slide? What exactly has Putin done to move Russia towards authoritarianism?

Hitler's power was consolidated after 1933 by the emasculation of both parliamentary and federal institutions. Putin has already done much to weaken the Duma.

What exactly has Putin done to weaken the Duma? The only reason the Duma has become less important in Russian politics is because, for the first time, it is not in outright opposition to the President. In fact, as Robert Service argues in his latest book, 'Russia - Experiment with a People', Putin actually sought consensus with the Duma upon his election. He agreed to a political opponent become Speaker. He agreed to meet with both the Communist leadership and the democratic leadership from both the left and centre-right to forge consensus. He even told his political opponents, when United Russia defeated the Communist and pro-Western liberal parties, that his administration would be open to all ideas, and offered meetings with those who, in his words, 'considered themselves the losers this time around'.

Putin's biggest crime in the Duma has been to be so popular that his party won the election and is just one seat short of an overall majority. How undemocratic! Especially compared to that paragon of democracy, Boris Yeltsin, who in his own autobiography, 'Midnight Diaries', admitted that he prepared plans to cancel the 1996 Presidential election, as he believed he could not win.

His latest scheme is to replace elected regional governors with Kremlin appointees.

Well, Britain doesn't have 'elected regional governors'. It doesn't even have regional governors. France does, however, and they are not elected either. They are appointed by the President, just like in Putin's proposals.

Yet a little knowledge of Russian local government is necessary here. When Yeltsin was trying to gain approval for his new constitution in 1995 - a constitution that was, by all means, more authoritarian than the one that preceded it after the break up of the Soviet Union, he faced considerable opposition from the regional elites. In order to gain a political breathing space, he did all sorts of deals with the individual territories and ethnic republics that make up the Russian Federation, without caring that the deals he brokered violated the very constitution he was trying to introduce. As a result, he agreed to all number of agreements that prohibited the development of a stable guarantee of civil liberties in the Russian regions. In replacement for helping to secure the ratification of the constitution, the former Communist elites of Tatarstan, a small minority Muslim enclave in southern Russia, was allowed by Yeltsin to become a one-man Presidential empire. Tatar later issued its own citizenship laws and passports, against the limits set by the constitution. Even banks with branches in Moscow were forbidden to set up shop in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan. Chechnya declared Islamic rule, and the President of Bashkortostan announced that all civil servants of this small Russian republic needed to be fluent in Bashkir language, despite the fact that the republic had an ethnic population of less than 16%. In fact, by the time Yeltsin stepped down as President, 57 of the 89 republics of the Russian Federation had constitutions that went beyond the cope allowed in the Federal constitution, and two-thirds of all legislation coming out of Moscow was unconstitutional.

Can any of us imagine if, for example, Cornwall or Devon announced its own immigration and citizenship laws, and issued their own passports? If Glasgow City Council announced that London-based banks were henceforth banned from Buchanan Street? What about if we suddenly found that our rights to liberty and freedom of expression differed wildly from one part of our country to another?

All of this happened under Yeltsin. Putin's regional reforms are aimed at restoring constitutional order to Russia, and thus enhancing democratic freedoms. There is nothing sinister here, there is nothing evil. But, unless one has a detailed knowledge of Russian local government in the early 1990s, then, yes, it does indeed seem that to 'abolish direct elections for regional governors' is a tad undemocratic.

Hitler's regime also rested on the propaganda churned out by state-run media; Putin already controls Russia's three principal television channels.

No he doesn't. The state runs Russia's three principal television channels. Putin doesn't. Tony Blair doesn't 'control' the BBC, despite what many of us would like to think.

And Hitler believed firmly in the primacy of the state over the economy. The Kremlin's systematic destruction of the country's biggest oil company, Yukos - like its effective renationalisation of the entire energy sector - suggests that Putin takes the same view and that, like Hitler, he regards both private property rights and the rule of law with contempt.

Well, Yukos owed millions and millions of dollars in back taxes. That company was actually acquired by one of Russia's richest men, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, using extremely dubious methods of legality, and all this happened under Yeltsin's watch. It is true that Putin took some media outlets under state control, but not before he offered an amnesty to Russia's 'oligarchs' in exchange for putting their business affairs in order and imposing legal management practices on their companies. Some, such as Vladimir Potanin, accepted Putin's offer. Others chose not to and instead went into political opposition. Ironically, in his actions, Putin has enhanced the legitimacy of property rights in Russia, not undermined them.

Hitler's arbitrary rule made him a mortal danger to many Germans. But what made Hitler such a threat to the rest of the world was his desire to extend Germany's power beyond her own borders. Here, too, Putin fits the bill. Just ask Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian presidential candidate opposed by Moscow, who was mysteriously poisoned. Even if the Kremlin did not order Yushchenko's murder, its overt interference in the Ukrainian election was a shameless attempt to reassert Russia's Soviet-era influence over Kiev. Only the unreconstructed fellow-travellers of the Guardian had the nerve to claim that it was the CIA that was seeking to overturn a legitimate victory by the Russian-backed candidate, Viktor Yanukovich.

Are we still talking about Hitler? Hitler invaded Poland, the Soviet Union, France, Belgium, Greece, and occupied much of mainland Europe. Putin went on a state visit to Ukraine two days before a Presidential election. Hardly a fair comparison! Of course, we shouldn't remember that the George Soros Foundation pumped millions of dollars into the Ukrainian opposition, nor reports that the Israeli Government authorised a large sum of money to be transferred for use in Yushchenko's campaign. Did the Russian security services attempt to poison the Ukrainian President? Ferguson can't prove that claim, but neither can I disprove it, just as I can't disprove that MI5 didn't murder Princess Diana, that the moon landings are fake, and that space aliens are controlling our thoughts through radio signals emitted from our televisions.

Nor is this the only example of attempted Russian intervention in the affairs of former Soviet republics. Putin opposed, vainly, the Belorussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko's campaign for a third term in office.

What!?! Belarus - if, indeed, that's what Ferguson means by 'Belorus', is a one party state described as Europe's last dictatorship. The regime recently banned Belarussian children from Chernoybl and suffering from cancer from visiting the United Kingdom for rest and medical treatment. Lyukashenko's (or, indeed, Lukashenko's) sordid second term was constitutionally supposed to be his final one. And Putin is against democracy because he opposed this regime? Why?

And he was hostile to the so-called ''Rose Revolution'' in Georgia that replaced the old Soviet autocrat Eduard Shevardnadze with the pro-Western Mikhail Saakashvili.

Ah, the 'Rose Revolution' in Georgia, that has resulted in the Georgian Cabinet having their salaries paid for by the Soros Foundation. Well, certainly no conflict of interest there. Yet funny how this little piece of information has only been covered by the media in the former Soviet Union, and not in the West. Talking about the Soros Foundation, who pays you to write this stuff, Niall?

Pro-Western should not be taken to be pro-democratic. The state of Uzbekistan, a state that, according to Craig Murray, the former British ambassador, boiled political opponents alive, is pro-Western. As is Pakistan, Belize and Guatemala, hardly paragons of democratic values. Perhaps when Ferguson says pro-Western, he means anti-Russian. Yet, the two are not mutually exclusive.

Faced with such insubordination from former Russian satellites, Putin has not hesitated to play the separatist card. He has sought to encourage Abkhazia to secede from Georgia. In Moldova, he has favoured autonomy for the enclave of Transdnistria. When eastern Ukrainians started talking about dividing the country in two rather than concede victory to Yushchenko, you didn't need a degree in Kremlinology to know who was feeding them their lines.

How many people reading this ever heard of Abkhazia before they read this article? Abkhazia is a Russian-speaking enclave of Georgia that has never belonged to the Georgian state - they only ended up in Georgia due to the artificial boundaries drawn up during Soviet times, boundaries that did not correspond with the geographical location of ethnic peoples. It needs no encouragement from Putin in its attempts at separatism, attempts that were going on long before he became President of Russia. And, as for Ukraine, don't forget that the pro-Russian candidate backed by Putin, Viktor Yanukovich, actually said that he would refuse to accept the Ukrainian Presidency if it meant the country dividing in two. Who was being magnanimous and statesman-like? Certainly not the West's blue eyed boy Yushchenko, considering he has threatened 'criminal proceedings' against those calling for separation.

This is where the resemblance between Russia now and Germany in the 1930s seems especially apt. Back then, it was possible for Hitler to point to large German populations in Czechslovakia, Austria and Poland to justify his demands for territorial expansion. Today, the Kremlin can, if it chooses, play much the same game with the Russian minorities in Kazakhstan (where Russians are 30 per cent of the population), Latvia (just under 30 percent), Estonia (28 per cent), Ukraine (17 per cent), Moldova (13 per cent) and Belarus (11 per cent). Somewhere in that list could lurk the Sudetenland crisis of the 2010s.

My God! The man's still talking about Hitler! Why are you so obsessed about Hitler, Niall? Are you a Nazi? Are you a racist? Actually, some of Niall Ferguson's statistics are a little off. Kazakhstan, for example, actually has a minority Kazakh population - again, due to the ridiculous boundaries set by the Soviet Union, which has actually left the Kazakh state with a border that shows up as a perfect flat line in a map.

Yet who really cares about 'territorial expansion' anymore anyway, apart from a small number of African dictators? Come on, Niall Ferguson, 'territorial expansion'? That is so last century.

With its hands full in Iraq, the Bush Administration has until recently been reluctant to lean on Putin. At times, the White House has even seemed willing to accept the Kremlin's claim that its brutal five-year war against Chechen separatists is analogous to the American ''war on terror''. (To many ordinary Americans, the harrowing Beslan school siege did indeed look like a Russian 9/11.) Thankfully, however, the Ukrainian crisis elicited a stinging response from the outgoing Secretary of State, Colin Powell.

The Chechen War was started in 1994 by Boris Yeltsin - a time when Putin was the mere deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. The Chechen War has been brutal, but Putin has encouraged democratic elections, a new President and an aid package for the region. Russian atrocities are still being committed, that much is true. But don't forget the terrible carnage of 2004, including suicide bombs on crowded airplanes and metro cars, and the horrifying siege at the school in Beslan. Like Israel and Palestine, the issue is not clear cut.

It hardly needs saying that appeasing dictators is a strategy with a dismal historical track record.

Sure! This is true! But what is the relevance of this statement? Who is being appeased? And in exchange for what?

Yet Washington needs to proceed with caution; rubbing Mr Putin's nose in the failure of his Ukrainian meddling might simply encourage him to become still more of a dictator.

Umm… Encourage Putin to become more of a dictator? Why? If a man is mature enough to serve in the intelligence services, to be employed as the rector of a university responsible for foreign students, to enter politics as deputy mayor of a city of more than 5 million inhabitants, and to serve his country as Minister for Intelligence Services, Prime Minister and President, he's not going to change his entire course of domestic policy in the face of a small piece of foreign policy setback. He's the President of Russia, not a five year old child!

We must all hope that events in Georgia and Ukraine will inspire a democratic revolution in Russia itself. But the Weimar parallel is not encouraging. Germany's descent into dictatorship went in stages: there were three more or less authoritarian chancellors before Hitler, each of whom sought to rule Germany by decree.

The best thing for Russian democracy is that Putin step down in 2008, as he is bound to by the constitution, and as he has always promised he would do, and then the electorate decides upon his successor in a Presidential election. Or is George Soros a better man to decide these things?

The question that remains open is whether Putin is just a more successful version of one of these authoritarian warm-up acts, or a fully fledged Russian führer. Either way, he is fast becoming as big a threat to Western security as he is to Russian democracy.

What a ridiculous conclusion. Where is the threat to the West from Russia? How is Putin comparable to Hitler in any way, shape or form? Once again, in the absence of a logical conclusion or hard facts, the author resorts to emotional insults in a bit to stoke outrage against something that, in all reality, isn't really that much of a big deal at all.