The Parable of the Isms - a guest post by Matthew Rojansky



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The Parable of the Isms, as Applied to the Former Soviet Union
Guest post by Matthew Rojansky

My colleague Karim Sadjadpour recently published a satirical analysis of Middle East politics, "The Cynical Dairy Farmer's Guide to the New Middle East," riffing on a famous Cold War joke about communism and capitalism, known as "the parable of the isms."  As Karim noted,

 No one really knows how the two-cow joke known as "Parable of the Isms" came about, but most students of Political Science 101 have likely come across some variation of the following definitions:

Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one of them and gives it to your neighbor.

Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and provides you with milk.

Nazism: You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes the cows.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Satire it may be, but the essential truth of the "cow jokes" is what makes them funny. Karim's thirteen terse metaphors for Middle Eastern regimes cut to the heart of a complex region in which increasing American interest has followed increasing investments of blood and treasure, with very little added understanding of what's really going on.

The Soviet Union suffered no dearth of American attention over nearly half a century after World War II. Yet even the keenest observers, like Kennan and Kissinger, were focused almost entirely on Moscow, and within it mostly on the Kremlin. During the Cold War, that made good sense - after all, no one in Kiev or Almaty, let alone in Chisinau or Ashgabat, was making particularly important decisions for US foreign policy and global security.

But twenty years after the collapse of Communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, things work a bit differently in Eurasia. To understand why drugs flow so readily from Afghanistan through Central Asia and into Russia and Western Europe requires some sense of what's going on - and what's not - in places like Dushanbe and Astana. To see why a NATO-Russia impasse over missile defense is so serious requires an understanding of how the people, and the governments, in Kyiv and Tbilisi relate to their massive neighbor.

The former Soviet republics are no longer defined so much by being formerly Soviet, as by what they have become after twenty years of independence. Yet the old categories - socialist, communist, capitalist, fascist - don't easily work to describe a region where political cultures draw on everything from Rome and Byzantium to Baghdad and Beijing. Let's see how the "parable of the isms" might offer a convenient shorthand guide to the fifteen states that once made up the USSR.

Russia
You have six cows and four bulls. Two of the bulls die from alcoholism, and the remaining two form a "tandem" to take the cows' milk and sell it to Germany and China.

Ukraine
You have four of the most productive cows on the farm, two of which allow themselves to be milked by Russia, which upsets the other two so much their milk goes sour.

Georgia
You have two cows and one prize-winning bull. The bull is so distracted winning prizes that Russia runs away with both cows.

Belarus
You have one cow which you savagely beat until it produces milk. The milk dries up after your last savage beating, so now you must sell the cow to Russia.

Moldova
You have two cows and a calf, but the cows live in Italy and Russia and send milk home by Western Union. You ferment the milk into wine, and launch a frenzied campaign to join the EU. Meanwhile, the calf is stolen and sold by rustlers.

Armenia
You have four cows, but three of them live in Los Angeles and think they are horses. They send money for you to build stables.

Azerbaijan
You have one cow that produces lots of excellent milk. You sell the milk to Farmer Browne and buy cattle prods from Israel and Turkey.

Turkmenistan
You had one cow but you sold it to buy a golden statue of a cow that rotates with the sun.

Kazakhstan
You have two cows that produce vast quantities of milk. You sell the milk, buy each cow a gold-plated cow bell, and declare yourself bull for life.

Kyrgyzstan
You have two cows: one Kyrgyz and one Uzbek; they hate each other and refuse to be milked. Instead of hay, feed them tulips. Then sell one each to Russia and the United States. After six months sell them again.

Tajikistan
You have three cows: one Tajik, one Uzbek, and one Russian. You beat the Russian cow until it runs away, and use your misfortune to plead for international aid. Meanwhile Iran milks your remaining cows.

Uzbekistan
You have four cows. You let them drink all the water in the neighborhood swimming pool. Now no one can go swimming. You blame this on "corrupt and lawless elements," and volunteer to remain in power until the problem is solved.

The Baltic States

You have lost half your cows, for which you blame Russia and demand an apology. As consolation, the EU gives you a sleek Scandinavian-designed barn and NATO farmers teach you advanced milking techniques.

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The gas flap in the broader context of Belarusian-Russian relations

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Russia-Belarus Relations at a Political 'Standoff'

Gazeta
www.gzt.ru
June 21, 2010
Article by Fedor Lukyanov: "Russia's Conscience" 
[Translation from JRL - note: see here for another comment on this story]

The latest conflict between Moscow and Minsk is no surprise to anyone, because there has already long been no trace of the "union fraternity." But the present-day opposition does not look like the previous rounds. The general context has changed, which has also influenced the logic of behavior of the parties.

The difference in Russian-Belarusian relations from Russia's relations with other neighbors consists of the fact that they were based on an economic foundation. This may seem like a paradox, because, since the late 1990's, Moscow and Minsk were specifically in a political union and practically always held identical positions on questions of foreign and domestic policy. But this alliance was predominantly declarative in nature. However, thanks to the presence of the Union State, political differences were formally removed and did not require special regulation, including with the aid of economic levers of effect (as was the case with, say, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and the Baltic countries).

The bilateral conflicts of the zero years, which were sometimes very acute, always had the same essence: Attempts to convert political unions into economic dividends. On the part of Russia, the discussion centered around acquisition of Belarusian assets that were necessary for restoration of former Soviet production chains. On the part of Belarus, the goal was to ensure maximal subsidization of the national economy on the part of Moscow. And although the outwardly transitory clashes of Russia and Belarus were reminiscent of the similar Russian-Ukrainian scenario, they did not have the political aftertaste that was characteristic of the latter.

Today, relations have taken on the nature of political opposition. Aleksandr Lukashenka openly spoke out against the Kremlin in an acute and extremely dangerous crisis: The overthrow in Kyrgyzstan and the events that followed it. Having supported Kurmanbek Bakiyev and given him the tribune of the CIS (the ex-president is speaking out in the Minsk staff headquarters of that organization), and in fact accusing Moscow of supporting the overthrow of a legitimate head of state, the Belarusian leader has cast doubt upon Russia's right to post-Soviet leadership. Moreover, this is happening at a moment when objective prerequisites have arisen for such leadership. The other subjects of big world politics are immersed in their own problems and, in essence, do not object to Moscow's sorting out all of the problems on the territory of the former USSR that everyone else has grown tired of.

In prior years, all efforts - intellectual, political-diplomatic, economic, and even military - were aimed at proving to foreign players in the West that Moscow had a predominant influence in that part of the planet. The course was crowned with success, partly because of the consequences of the world crisis, but nevertheless... And here, it turned out that there was no well thought-out plan for restoring leadership. And Lukashenka himself assumed the role of a sort of "conscience of Russia," constantly pointing out to Moscow the inconsistency and contradictory nature of its policy.

The non-recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was reminiscent of Russia's former position on Kosovo, which Moscow rejected in the case of Georgia. Defense of Bakiyev underscored the fact that the interim government, supported by Russia, has no legal basis, that everything that it does is, strictly speaking, unlawful, and that Moscow shares responsibility for the lawlessness. The refusal to join the Customs Union is a confirmation of the unequal nature of integration, under which the strongest partner makes too few steps toward the weaker ones. Finally, the gas conflict exposed the double standards of Russia: It opts for concessions to Kiev, which is not included in any associations with Moscow, yet makes access more difficult for Minsk, which is formally its closest ally.

Lukashenka says all this publicly, with his inherent talent and convincingness, and also rather willfully juggling the facts. Obviously, the President of Belarus is not fighting for the law and justice in general - he is building his own independent line of defense against Russian pressure by raising the stakes in case of a "big deal."

An independent line is needed because he cannot count on the support of Europe, to which Russia's opponents on the post-Soviet area usually appeal. And this is not because Batka's ("Batka" is nickname for Lukashenka, meaning "Father" - translator's note) authoritarian practice does not suit the West - it would close its eyes to this. Actually, the European Union had begun to clearly "warm up" to Minsk even before the Russian-Georgian war, and the process was accelerated after August of 2008. But the economic - and then also political - crisis of the European Union reduced its activity on the post-Soviet area to a minimum. Brussels and the capitals of the leading states clearly cannot be bothered with this now. Belarus, of course, will try to revive the European phobia against Russian energy imperialism, but the repercussions will not be comparable to the previous "gas wars." Furthermore, the volumes of transit through Belarus are many times less than through Ukraine. It is summer now, and what Europe wants most of all is not to be distracted from the battle over the euro.

Minsk evidently understands this, and so it intends to rely on its own efforts. Lukashenka is holding some trump cards. Aside from the Customs Union, which remains a key priority for Moscow, these now also include the CSTO. Russia needs this organization for legitimization of possible actions in Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus is fully capable of imposing a veto. Especially since Lukashenka's position on Bakiyev (we cannot change the status-quo) finds if not support, then at least the tacit understanding of his counterparts - Islam Karimov, Emomali Rakhmon and Nursultan Nazarbayev. All of them fear to one degree or another that, if Russia is allowed to intervene in domestic affairs, sooner or later this will also affect them.

For Moscow, the conflict with Minsk this time is also primarily political. Integration projects - the creation of the Customs Union, the strengthening of the CSTO - are attempts by Russia to use the world situation and the absence of interest of other players to stop the expansion of other centers of power (EU, China, US) on the post-Soviet area. As strange as it may seem, it is specifically Belarus that has become the main obstacle in the path of realization of this goal, especially because Lukashenka cannot be called either anyone's puppet, or a Russophobe dreamer.

Russia's relations with Belarus today are at a crossroads. It is no accident that the Russian envoy to Belarus, Ambassador Aleksandr Surikov, stated that, if Minsk refuses to join the Customs Union, Moscow may return full customs control to the border between the two countries. This is logical. The project of the Union State in the form in which it was once devised by Boris Yeltsin and Aleksandr Lukashenka has fully exhausted itself. Now there must be a qualitative change. Either this is the beginning of real step-by-step integration, which the Customs Union project envisions. Or it is a return to the fully autonomous existence, with total re-computation (deliveries, transit, duties, markets, payment for military facilities, etc.).

Then again, the second variant would be a political defeat for Russia, because it would demonstrate its inability to convince even its closest ally of the benefit of cooperation. For Belarus, this is also fraught with difficulties: Without preferential conditions and subsidies on the part of Moscow, the Belarusian economy would find itself in an extremely difficult position, and it does not have anyone in particular to count on.

The current opposition of Moscow and Minsk is a war of nerves. Russia needs to prove at any cost that it is capable of overcoming any opposition and achieving its set goals. Belarus must stake out the status of a privileged partner, with whom one must come to agreement seriously and with full respect. And the standoff continues.

(Begin boxed material) Fedor Lukyanov

Lukyanov's biography is an example of how devotion to a beloved cause becomes a guarantee of success. He began his activity in the foreign broadcast editorial office of Moscow Radio. After that, he worked at the newspaper, Segodnya, and later assumed the duties of deputy chief editor of the newspaper, Vremya Novostey. In 2002, Lukyanov headed up the journal, Russia in Global Politics. A year later, he became a member of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. Lukyanov has a rare hobby - political caricature of the Soviet period. (End boxed material)

Жертва Телевидения*

While the video below (titled "Attention: Lukashism is hazardous to your health" by the person who posted it to YouTube) shows an individual who is an extreme case, it nevertheless is instructive to anyone who wonders why political opposition is so unsuccessful at gaining traction in places like Russia and Belarus.

There are many reasons, of course: incompetence of the opposition overall, lack of an appealing platform or practical solutions, limited access to media or the "administrative resource," and opposition leaders who refuse to cooperate with each other. But one very important reason is the potency of government propaganda, which portrays any non-loyal opposition as externally funded and dedicated to the collapse of the state, and the susceptibility of certain segments of the population to that propaganda.

The interview subject here talks at various times about shooting, skinning alive, and gassing to death those who protest Lukashenko's rule, and makes repeated and irate references to their American funding, before completely losing it at the end and cursing out whoever is doing the interview. Apparently this was filmed in either early or late 2008 in Gomel', Belarus.

This comes via drugoi - where commenters pointed out that this clip did not actually appear on Belarusian TV and wondered whether the person shown might be mentally ill (watch the clip and you'll see that's not an outlandish question).

*With apologies to Vysotsky.

Random

A few interesting links that I've run across in the past few days:

- Belarusian bloggers present President Lukashenko with his very own "LuNet."

- News.ru's roundup of Russian and foreign media coverage of Patriarch Alexey's speech at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

- Dmitri Minaev, who blogs at De Rebus Antiquis Et Novus, has a series of posts summarizing Yegor Gaidar's recent book about the collapse of the USSR. Well worth a look.

- Popular Mechanics magazine encourages Russians to vote for a Russian mission to Mars:

Russian TV online

For those of you no longer in Russia who miss Russian TV, it looks like there's a new service called WebTelek which might satisfy your longings. They offer a subscription, but at the same time it's possible to view many Russian channels live for free on their website (at least for some amount of time - maybe they cut you off eventually). The channels are sorted by country of origin using the pull-down menu in the top right corner. So whether it's AZTV, Romania's Antena 3, or even Belarus TV, if it's post-Soviet or in the neighborhood (or not - they also have Chinese and
channels), they've got your fix. Enjoy!

Elsewhere in the CIS

Kyrgyzstan is not the only place where things are happening today. Veronica of Neeka's Backlog mentions some unrest in Minsk today; and Andy at Siberian Light has a truly excellent post which might well be titled "Whither Moldova?" A topic near and dear to my heart.