We are looking for ways not to engage in a world war, but a sadist leads us there. We let him consolidate his power for 20 years. To stop him, a considerable force will be necessary, but above all an adequate strategy to steal the support of a majority of the Russians. First of all, we need to understand the following.
Posted at 12:00 p.m.
The violence accumulated in their history
Let us remember the unification of a disproportionate Russia by Genghis Khan, the tsars including Yvan Le Terrible, then the efforts of Pierre Le Grand, Elisabeth I and Catherine II to unite it with a Europe too divided for an alliance (first chance failed), until anarchy under Nicolas II. There was then an attempt at democracy, immediately crushed for the benefit of totalitarian communism and the Soviet empire, from 1917 to 1991. Lenin and especially Stalin were, like Hitler and Mao, executioners of the masses.
During World War II, the Russians suffered the most casualties. Nazism therefore has resonances that can be eminently manipulated by Vladimir Putin, with whom we are taken when we should be heirs of Mikhail Gorbachev.
Military-industrial complexes
In 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered an American nuclear bombardment. The world discovers its terrible consequences. Albert Einstein said then: “I do not know how the Third World War will be fought, but the fourth will be with stones and sticks. »
In 1958, sociologist Wright Mills spoke of a military-industrial complex leading to World War III. In 1961, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the dangers of this complex. John F. Kennedy suffered it during his presidency.
In 1962, with the Soviet missiles in Cuba, nuclear war was averted because Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev controlled each other’s complexes.
After the crisis, Kennedy and Khrushchev want to prevent another confrontation, consolidate peace and reduce nuclear weapons. Kennedy orders the withdrawal of the United States from Vietnam. He’s assassinated. Khrushchev envisages a reduced Soviet army dedicated to civic aid. A putsch makes him resign. The relaxation vanished. The Cold War resumes until 1985 (second chance missed).
From 1985 to 1991, the USSR had a young leader: Mikhail Gorbachev, married to Raïssa Titarenko. Educated, egalitarian and compassionate, their profile matches democracy. For 23 years they transformed the Stavropol region with glasnost (transparency) and perestroika (economic development): a model for the whole country.
The bold change made by Gorbachev
At the supreme office, Gorbachev discovers the lie of the propaganda on the USSR. The economy is undermined by the military-industrial complex and the elite, absorbing 80% of the budget. Only 20% remains for a demotivated population: they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work. The reflex to lie continues during the Chernobyl nuclear accident. The extent of the danger is hidden from him, but he discovers it and immediately alerts the world.
In Stavropol, Gorbachev verified that collective remotivation begins with glasnost and consolidates in perestroika. It establishes free elections and radically changes foreign policy. At the United Nations (UN), he heralds a new era of collaboration for world peace with total nuclear disarmament.
The USSR takes the initiative: end of the war in Afghanistan, end of Soviet colonialism, fall of the Berlin Wall, withdrawal of the Red Army from Eastern Europe (700,000 soldiers brought back to Russia), etc. The list of his accomplishments is long.
The Western error
At nine summits with Westerners, he asks for economic aid to transform the Soviet peoples. But the Americans limit themselves to encouragement, without giving him what he needs, so that the USSR weakens and America remains the only world power.
Popular outside for his policy of peace, he becomes unpopular inside for the failure of perestroika, even if, for the first time, the Soviets begin to live in freedom.
He wants a participatory USSR of equal members, like a Commonwealth. But the 15 republics, under the despotic power of Moscow for decades, now only want their independence. They engage there in a rapid cascade, of which that of the Ukraine is particularly painful.
A putsch then occurs during his vacation in Crimea. Ill-prepared, the putschists are distraught when Gorbachev refuses to give in. Boris Yeltsin also frustrates the putsch in Moscow, but he carries out his own putsch by proclaiming the independence of Russia and himself as its president. The Americans support Yeltsin, who will in turn suffer a putsch from his heir apparent, Putin. Having no more real authority or resources, Gorbachev could prevent this by force, but he announced, on December 25, 1991, the dissolution of the USSR without violence and became a simple citizen again.
The illusion of American victory
In January, then-President of the United States George HW Bush gave a speech to Congress (he brought evangelist Billy Graham): “We come together at a time of profound promise for the human history on Earth, because in 1991 the world experienced biblical changes. The year began with the victory over Saddam Hussein and ended with the collapse of the USSR. Communism is dead. By the Grace of God, the Cold War Didn’t End, It Was Won by America [le Congrès explose de liesse]. Our grandchildren… will be able to live a normal and peaceful life. The United States is now destined to rule the world.”
This delirium, denying the role of Gorbachev, has become impregnated in the American spirit. Thirty years later, the grandchildren are caught with Putin. Arrogance and stupidity prevented us from seizing the incredible opportunity offered by Gorbachev (a failed third chance). We preferred: Yeltsin, the exploiting oligarchs, Putin the dictator.
Picking up a lesson from Gorbachev
His university education, his complicity with Raïssa, his experiments in Stavropol as well as his lucid analysis of the internal collapse of the USSR and the risk of global annihilation made him understand the process to follow. First, to end the ongoing wars (Afghanistan, Cold War) and the causes of war (remove those with a confrontational profile, frank and collaborative diplomacy, reduction of armaments and the army, end of regimes dictatorships). Simultaneously, democratize societal life (generalized glasnost, free elections, liberation of political opponents, replacement of a dictatorial empire by a union of equal partners, etc.). Third, relaunch the economy by remotivating people to work (perestroika, training, rewarding creativity).
Its glasnost gave access to freedom, denied by seven decades of general censorship. But perestroika had to be added. What good is it to be free, thought the Soviets, if we lack everything even more than before? Because he does not get help in exchange for his overtures, Gorbachev becomes a scapegoat for previous leaders.
The pathological power of the executioners of the masses ceases when they are cut off from what aroused them and still sustains them: the complicity of a majority unaware of the consequences of its desire for a strong man. Gorbachev’s lesson is to remobilize the Russians with a convincing hope of being able to live better in partnership with the democracies, against a brutal society of multi-billionaire oligarchs appropriating all the resources with a bloodthirsty mafia.
It is obvious that Russian culture is related to Western and foreign to Chinese. A democratic Eurasian alliance would be the best way to protect the world from a more dangerous Chinese dictatorship. Speeches of reconciliation and concord should be widely disseminated to Russians and ambivalent Russian-speakers in Eastern Europe, inspired by that of John F. Kennedy at American University.
If we seek to preserve our tranquility and our comfort as long as possible, by neglecting the communications for the adherence of the peoples to democracy, history proves us wrong on all counts.
* Jean Routier is co-author of Collective communication, its discovery and its methods (JCL Editions)