Of the Soviet Union and the European Union

Do you remember when the Soviet Union disappeared?  Do you recall how and why?  I hope that Vladimir Putin does.  An accompanying question that needs to be considered is, why is Ukraine so attracted to the European Union?

To answer the first question briefly, we have to turn our attention to the final days of the old USSR, then led by Michael Gorbachev.  Russia, the largest member of the 15 “Republics,” was led by Boris Yeltsin.  Under Yeltsin’s leadership, Russia chose to withdraw from the Soviet Union.  He said that Russia was weary of carrying the burden—economic, military, and otherwise—for the others.  Russia just left, and after a brief try there was nothing that Gorbachev could do to make Russia stay.  Without Russia, there was not much left to the Soviet Union, and the other members said “enough,” too.  The Soviet Union was gone with hardly a whimper and little lamented except by the class of privileged communist leaders.

The word is that current Russian President, Vladimir Putin, wants to put the band back together, that he wants to reassemble the old Soviet Union, with the coercive influence of the Russian military as his chief tool.  Not that he wishes to recreate the communist paradise of Lenin and Stalin.  His vision reportedly reaches back to the great days of the czars—though presumably without the trappings of monarchy and royalty.  Putin is through and through a Russian, so he wants to recreate a Russian Empire.  Continuing along the path that he has set out, the path of creating an empire of the czars after the mode of the Caesars, he is unlikely to succeed.  Been there.  Tried that.  Did not work.

It is hard to understand why Putin would choose that model.  Why would he want to deal himself and the Russian people a losing hand?  The Russian-dominated Soviet Union, assembled by the Red Army, failed.  It did not fail because the Soviet leadership did not try hard enough, or was stingy in expending resources, or showed too little military muscle, to hold it together.  It failed because—as Yeltsin recognized—it was costing too much to hold it together, draining too much life from Russia.  The USSR was a bankrupt model (morally and financially) for building an empire, especially for keeping an empire.  There were not enough hands to hold on tight to everything and everyone.

Perhaps Putin figures that without the burden of communism a strong Russian government could hold and control successfully where the commissars could not.  In other words, he would reject the model of Soviet communism and embrace the model of a modern non-communist authoritarian regime, like the Third Reich.  That one did not work so well, either.

There is a model available, tried and tested, that would work.  It would unleash the power and greatness of the Russian people and at last make the most of the amazing resources of the Russian land.  The results would exceed by far even the exaggerated dreams of czars and commissars.  Does Putin have the vision?

I refer to the model of freedom, only briefly known to the Russian people, only occasionally offered in limited experiments, experiments that were always wildly successful, surprising only to the governmental leaders who tried them and then abandoned them, frightened by the successes.  Applied boldly, we would see a Russian miracle that would change not only Russia but the world—all for the better.  Free men and women, operating in free markets, protected by the rule of law enshrining individual rights, erected on the foundation of a constitutionally limited government, would be a model offering limitless growth and prosperity.  Moreover, the variety of peoples and cultures in a land as vast as Russia could be recognized and accommodated, attracted and joined together, within a strong but genuine federation, united by the ties of thriving national markets, reassured by the rule of law supported by a just and independent judicial system to safeguard fundamental rights.

A dream?  Perhaps it is, but a realistic one.  This offers the answer to the second question.  Why is Ukraine attracted to the European Union?  Does not the European Union offer just such an option?  Is not the economic prosperity and individual freedom—and room for national expression—found in the European Union obviously different from the offering of today’s Russia and the memory of the old empire?  Is it not fear of the specter of the czars and commissars that haunts Ukrainians? 

Was not the creation of the European Union once just such an impossible dream as a truly free and just Russian federation?  For hundreds of years the fathers and mothers of the peoples of the European Union made war, large and small, upon each other, French against Germans, Germans against Austrians, Austrians against Poles, Poles against Germans, and round and round again.  Today such wars among these same people are unthinkable.

Assembling such a federation takes time, patience, and skill.  It may be too tempting for an impatient Putin to rely on his military muscle to make an empire.  Perhaps for a brief time he could succeed by force to reassemble much of the old Soviet Union as a greater Russia.  The greater challenge, the one that has proven impossible, is to hold such an empire together by force. 

Such empire of force would very soon prove ungovernable, with rebellions large and small flaring up constantly.  The brutality exerted to try to hold it all together would make the task of unity even harder and progress nigh impossible.  It would drain away, once again, Russia’s strength in an unending effort, just as it eroded the strength of the USSR.  Maintaining greater Russia by force has always proven a burden far greater than its worth, in the long run a losing effort that has collapsed in a weaker and vulnerable Russia.  World War I was one example, the end of the Cold War yet another.

The people of Russia—along with its neighbors—can have a better and brighter future.  A Russia built on individual freedom, free markets, free peoples, would unleash a new era of prosperity.  Russia would become a beacon of wealth and success, with all Russians participating.  Instead of Russians leaving to find their future, they would return to their homeland.  If Japan can prosper on islands scarce in natural resources, imagine what free Russia could do, rich in resources, harnessed efficiently by the discipline of the markets.

Instead of an empire of force, a free and flourishing Russia would draw its neighbors to it as the European Union beckons to them today.  No longer facing Russian fists, neighboring nations will come knocking at the door, eager to associate with Russia voluntarily, attracted by opportunities for betterment.

Of course, that is the theory.  In practice, the more that Russia seeks the path of freedom and abandons the chimerical lure of military conquest, it will succeed.  Russia would then achieve its real greatness in the world, the only way that it ever really could.