TWO VLADIMIRS, facing each other across a century of time: joined and separated by the Russian nation. Two Vladimirs – Lenin and Putin – around whose understanding of, and aspirations for, Russia, the whole world has, reluctantly, been forced to circle. Two Vladimirs, and their contradictory visions of Russia’s meaning, dictating the fate of humankind. Two Vladimirs, more alike than either man would willingly admit.
THE FIRST VLADIMIR, Lenin, saw Russia’s potential. Not, simply, as an empire ripe for revolution in ways that the British and German Empires were not, but as a gigantic Petri dish in which something new and immensely powerful could be cultured.
As a dedicated Marxist, Lenin understood just how dramatically Russia deviated from Marx’s revolutionary schema. It was an quasi-feudal empire of peasants, only slowly beginning to industrialise – the starkest possible contrast with the advanced capitalist economies of the United States, Great Britain and Germany – places identified by Marx as the most likely locations for a humane socialist revolution. Lenin wasn’t bothered. A humane socialist revolution was not on his agenda.
In this respect, Lenin was all Russian. His revolutionary politics were shaped by its traditions of terrorist violence and the imposition of new orders from above.
There was a glittering seam of the most reckless nihilism that ran through Russia’s revolutionary rock. It shrugged-off ethics and laughed at caution, fostering an all-or-nothing approach to politics. Lenin mined that seam assiduously, becoming the most fearless political gambler.
He risked the accusation of being a German spy by allowing the Kaiser to facilitate his return to Petrograd. He risked everything on his Bolshevik Party’s coup d’état toppling the Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky. He risked the survival of Russia itself by accepting the predatory terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, betting that Germany would not win the First World War, and would ultimately be forced to surrender its gargantuan territorial gains.
Having won Russia, Lenin then proceeded to abolish it. Not even its name remained. Lenin named his Petri dish the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Not that his socialism was all that socialist. He drew inspiration from the way the German war economy had been organised by Walter Rathenau. He admired Henry Ford’s assembly-lines. Had he lived, there is every possibility that he would have prefigured the Peoples Republic of China’s Deng Xiaoping, who famously responded to his party’s bitter internal disputes over which “road” to follow – communist or capitalist – by quipping: “I do not care if the cat is black or white – so long as it catches mice.”
What fascinated and inspired the first Vladimir were the glittering possibilities arising out of a political entity that encompassed one sixth of the planet’s land surface. An entity bursting with resources, and now, thanks to a revolution, a civil war, and the emigration of the Tsarist regime’s fondest supporters, an entity unencumbered by all the usual historical baggage. An entity whose people were a blank slate for his party to write on. An entity which, if it was as lucky as the man who created it, would go on to shape the destiny of the entire world.
THE SECOND VLADIMIR, Putin, looking back over the century separating him from the first, can see with equal clarity how much of Vladimir Lenin’s vision was realised, but also the dire, if unintended, consequences of that success. Though raised in Lenin’s Petri dish, and inordinately proud of its achievements, Putin is pinioned by the inescapable fact of its failure.
The Russian people: impassive, resilient, deeply cynical; but also mystical, superstitious and prone to dangerous enthusiasms; turned out to be anything but a blank slate upon which the Bolsheviks could freely write the future. Their country may no longer have been called Russia, but Russians they remained. Their empire also, which, thanks to their heroic efforts against the exterminationist Germans, expanded to encompass all of Eastern Europe.
No Tsar had ever wielded the power of Joseph Stalin. The Soviet Union glowered over Western Europe and the world through black, bear-like eyes: the object, alike, of humanity’s grim admiration and abiding fear.
Lacking in this Red empire was the first Vladimir’s readiness to wager everything to move the experiment forward. Stalin was ruthless, but he wasn’t brave. The man lived his whole life in fear, and made damn sure the Soviet people did the same. Lenin’s Petri dish was poisoned by his fear. The Soviet Empire that evolved may have been bigger and more terrifying that the Tsars’, but Homo Sovieticus was a pretty wretched specimen.
The second Vladimir, like the Russian Federation he rules, is a hot mess of geopolitical and cultural insecurities. He despises the late Mikhail Gorbachev for presiding over the dissolution of the Soviet Union. That event, according to Putin: “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory.”
What Putin missed completely was the historical courage of Gorbachev’s all-or-nothing bet that the entity created by the first Vladimir might yet prove equal to its creator’s optimistic vision.
That Gorbachev lost the bet is, of course, the best possible proof that Homo Sovieticus was an evolutionary dead-end. That the Soviet Union’s successor states all became hopelessly corrupt kleptocracies merely demonstrated how degraded Soviet Man’s political and economic DNA truly was. That Putin rose to become Russia’s new strongman heaped irony on tragedy.
Because it’s all there in the second Vladimir: the nihilism, the cynicism, the existential wager on nothing more elevating that re-swallowing the Ukrainian people. First devoured by Lenin in the 1920s, and then eaten again by Stalin in the 1930s. The Leninist will-to-power is also there in Putin, but the dream is different. Not a speculative blueprint for humanity’s future, but a necromancer’s resurrection of Russia’s obscurantist past. Not the white-hot ripples of modernist self-confidence, but the poisonous fogs and vapours of the Middle Ages.
You missed out the fact that while Gorbachev was indeed brave, he was also foolish in believing the United States was a good faith actor. His optimistic vision could have materialised if America shared it, but the US simply took the opportunity to kick Russia when it was down and steal everything in its pockets while it was unconscious.
Yep, who could forget Yeltzin the dancing drunken russian bear. And then came Putin. There is a lesson in there somewhere.
Politics of superpowers has become about personal power and wealth of individuals not any interest in their country and people.
Trump hotels charged Secret Service exorbitant rates, inquiry finds
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/trump-hotels-charged-secret-service-exorbitant-rates-inquiry-finds/2KZQTTQ3IRESPMBQ7E7XRJQ3RI/
Neoliberals take note, blind greed and lying is not a good look and it’s not just Putin, but Trump and other presidents who seem stupid and puppet like, that we have to worry about now.
Drain the swamp was a popular slogan because that’s what people want, but is there enough non predator types left in politics to rule when the swamp is drained?
Time presidents need to pass an IQ and character test to be a world leader not just be brutal (Putin) or tax evading, greedy, exTV celeb with good one liner campaigns (Trump).
Biden has been better than I expected, hopefully more honour will return to politics, surely it can’t get any lower in the west?
Russia backfired as the EU has strengthened and actually got them less dependant on fossil fuels, but the damage done by pro Russian donations/propoganda and billionaires making $$$$ to the UK greedy and gullible politicians, with Brexit. Poor Brits who are now facing even worse what our governments have done to us.
They’re not less dependent on fossil fuels, they just have to pay more for them now.And nuclear won’t help, Germany’s reactors have to get the uranium from Russia
that’s about the size of it david..and russians know and understand that.
Once bitten, twice shy.Why would anyone trust the US?
Putin was fool enough to believe Russia could become part of the “European family”
He learnt his lesson, but it took a while and now he’s dealing with the existential threat thats been hanging over Russia since the end of the Soviet Union.Far from wanting to swallow Ukraine(that poisonous toad)he’s trying to neutralise it
Get back to your troll farm Francesca.
Gadflys specialty is making stupid comments that even a free-range tosser like himself could not possibly believe.
Do you believe the scraps of fly-blown maggot muck you write Gadfly ?.
We are all waiting for you to actually rebut Anything
said by the targets of your ‘troll farm/Putinist’ childish putdowns ,,,
…. Or is this all you’ve got?.
You’re a fly alright….. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Putin arose from this https://youtu.be/B3B5qt6gsxY?t=2200
what existential threat? I’m not sure where you’ve been for the last 70 years but there is a stalemate and always will be due to MAD. Anyone who posits that Russia is threatened by US hegemony is a fool. This is purely about turf/resources/street corners and gangsters fighting over control of them.
I venture Putin is happy to make Russia great again.
Don’t believe he has any intentions to create a new empire.
He has restored Russian pride and respect.
Contrary to western propaganda intent on demonising him,he always appears measured,thoughtful and convincing in his arguments and interviews,even with western MSM.
Yeltsin basically installed him to guarantee his safety.
He swiftly put the oligarchs in their place and imposed his live and let live policy…keep your money,keep out of politics.
Successive U.S hawks have never missed an opportunity to try and neuter Russia’s economy and influence.
He beat the West in Venezuela and Syria and Russia has a superior reputation in Africa to the U.S and France.
I would be very surprised if he is even interested in a complete takeover of Ukraine.
lol – Putin is nothing more than an arbiter of the elite political groups/clans/gangsters who now own Russia. The fact he is still President means he’s obviously a very good one. The Ukrainian adventure, as with the Syrian and Venezuelan, is nothing more than business. Russia is a gangster state and Putin is a made man. One of the family. Doing business with back-handed deals and a big gun. Of course the US is no different – gangster state – they just smile at you when they do it.
In my life I’ve experienced more than one perfectly viable, potentially wealthy state (actually colonies), collapse soon after they gained independence under the rule of local leaders. As soon as the locals took over, they started stealing. Yet when subsequent elections came, they were voted right back into office by the citizens of these fledgling states. The latest case of that is South Africa of course – by now there’s not much left to steal!
I’ve been perplexed by this for many years and the only conclusion I can come to is that the citizenry expects nothing more. So maybe Russians see tyrannical kleptomaniacal rule as the norm. More than half of that country still uses long-drop toilets and relies on village bath houses to wash themselves. It’s a brutal place full of brutal people who would also steal what they could, if they got the chance. So, both Vlads are just business-as-usual in their eyes.
Andrew, who has previously quoted Brenton Tarrent at us ,,,, is a not so in the closet racist.
Stereotypes ….
Israel and land theft “It’s a brutal place full of brutal people who would also steal what they could, if they got the chance. So, both Bennet & Netenyahoo are just business-as-usual in their eyes.”
Yes, Mr Putin is an arsehole of the first and supreme order, but it is an insult to anyone with a marxist world view to compare him to VI Lenin given the different worlds they operated in, and the major technological development of Analog vs Digital–Lenin did not have nukes either.
Maybe if Uncle Sam did not have so many bases and facilities on foreign territory, and enlist NATO to surround Russia by proxy, and supply arms to Israel and the Saudis, AND interfere directly in the ex Soviet Republics etc. things would be different, but they are not, US Imperialism is still the major threat to world peace.
Gorbachev was one of the biggest scabs of all time in my books, Gorby even liked Thatcher. The problem with authoritarian countries is rather obvious–and don’t think it cannot happen in what are currently considered bourgeois democracies–as the Jan 6 attack on the US Congress showed, and in a minor form, the NZ Parliament grounds occupation, and country on country flirting with neo fascism–yes like you Mr Orban.
Many relevant points could be made, like the invasion of “the 12 Armies”–Churchill’s insistence that the “Bolshevik baby must be strangled at birth”. If imperialist powers had butted out and left the early USSR to it, who knows how it might have developed. As per Cuba–isolated and blockaded for 50 years by US Imperialism, yet they still developed a COVID vaccine and various interesting cancer drugs–New Zealand capable of that?
Chile–the yanks would not even allow a mild social democratic Govt. to proceed without enabling a murderous dictatorship that reverberates to this day.
The Soviet Union after Lenin’s early departure became a degenerate workers state as Trotskyites have described. The means of production technically owned by the people, but with control in the hands of the state and an elite group rather than active workers power. It should not have been first cab off the rank in the socialist stakes, Germany almost had that honour…but history zigs and zags.
Roger Douglas famously lectured for the World Bank in 1992 when he delivered a bunch of speeches on economics in Russia, as part of a WB privatisation advisory committee. So Roger helped the new Russian ruling class to more effectively rob the working class of their pensions and state property.
The old punching bags get bought out in situations like Ukraine–an awful unnecessary situation for the various members of the working class that pay for it all. This is an imperialist proxy war, and as always many side with who they see as “their” Imperialist/s rather than the international working class.
From what I’ve read from all sides of this story – I disagree with your framing Chris -not because I think Putin is a good guy -I don’t -but this very personification -good or bad – is classic propaganda. And there has been so much propaganda and censorship. Such profound manipulation.
You will be aware of the history, the breaking of The Minsk agreement, the deliberate provocation over years. I’m sure you will have read Pilger and Hedges, for example. At the very least, this disaster is being grossly misrepresented by the media.
This is an historical moment in regard to information-control by global elites – the sophistication of psychological warfare in the face of a near extinction of journalism. We are reduced to best guesses to an unprecedented extent.
My best guess that the brutal destruction of the Ukranian people and their home is most powerfully a symptom of the instability of the US empire in decline and the changing political landscape as a result. The desperation to cling to supremacy and the need to create an enemy of a large state with greater energy reserves at this time beyond cheap energy.
An empire in decline is a dangerous phenomenon. The US elite predictably refuses to adjust, choosing instead to fight against the inevitable.
There is no concern for the human casualties including the military canon -fodder -on any side. The people don’t matter. The terrible human losses have been sentimentalised into a grotesque snuff-movie in the ‘Western’ genre of goodies versus savages. Promising attempts at peace that would not have involved a massive carving-up of Ukraine and could have allowed the people to grieve their dead and begin to rebuild, these have been scotched by the West.
And this has now been turned into the very imperialist scorched-earth that was initially portrayed in the western propaganda.
So what you’re saying Chris is. Putin Good. Biden & the NATO, EU and Ukrainian Nazis are bad!?
Jeez, Denny! How did you get from my post to your comment?
What I’m saying is: both Vlads are bad, but Vlad 1 (Lenin) wasn’t quite as bad as Vlad 2 (Putin).
Try reading it again.
Putin brought stability to Russia. After the collapse of the USSR in the 1990s there country was in ruins there system was in shatters thanks to the communism’s regime but also the forced implementation of western neo-liberal economics and privatization of there massive resources that killed millions of Russian citizens virtually overnight and brought about the rise of the opportunist that created the Russian oligarchs.
Crime was endemic and Putin brought that under control with harsh but nevertheless needed sanctions with his famous quote ‘you can’t bring a knife to a gunfight’ and now Moscow and the wider Russia live a rather secure existence. And Russia isn’t a communist country which ended after the collapse of the USSR, its a democratic/semi-authoritarian right-wing leadership that practices capitalism and it works and it suites it’s people. Liberal Democracy isn’t for everyone but that discussion is for another time.
Less haughty hyperbole and more objective inquiry would be good Chris
A cartoonist who abjures hyperbole, Malcolm, is like a chef who abjures spices!
For a cartoonist hyperbole is one of the tools of the trade, whereas more is expected from a seasoned political commentator. From my reading of posted comments, most seem to agree that the only thing the two Vladimirs have in common is their first names.
Well said…Trotter’s 2 Vlads…is cheap..clik bait.
Cool. Loved it.
Enjoyed reading that, cheers Chris.
I’d suggest both Vlads are a reaction to liberal imperialism. This item, by a US newspaper proprietor was published 2 days prior to the invasion. Understand what Russia is up against before judging Putin.
https://archive.ph/C5uY1
After the Minsky agreement was broken and threat/encroachment into former Soviet Bloc countries progressed over time, NATO munitions have been installed in those countries. it came down to one country left, Ukraine.
There are recorded instances of Putin requesting admission to NATO on several occasions during the early 2000’s and being refused. The Cold War must continue, to support the US Industrial Military Complex.
Once the US engineered the political landscape in Ukraine in 2014 they later moved to support Zelensky. His millionaire backer owns important infrastructure in the disputed Eastern areas so they are motivated to keep it from Russia.
If you were Russia, wouldn’t you be concerned about defending yourself from the next-door country installing NATO missiles? And stopping the 8-year civil war in the Eastern areas with a natural Russian population?
Zelensky doesn’t need to be a member of NATO. He could have avoided this war. But Uncle Sam would have been very disappointed.
earlier comment didn’t come up so I’ll repost the substance
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/map-russian-empire-1914
come on – the US has the best drugs and everyone wants to buy off them – it’s only MAD that is keeping Russia in the game and the sad thing is they’re prepared to alienate the rest of the neighbourhood to keep their corners of it. China is peddling some good shit but they’re smart enough to keep to their own patch or push in to new neighbourhoods – it’s all just gangster shit and we should tool up to keep them out. Yes – I’m advocating a nuclear deterrent. Gotta be in the game to play your own hand or you’re just a spectator and along for the ride, or worse, part of someone elses stake. Go team West. Rah Rah! We’re rooting for you and our future because we don’t have shit.
Agree 100% Magit.
Would also add that the US energy giants have quadrupled their profit since Feb 24th.
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipeline sabotage happened to keep Russia out and the US in.
Always follow the money.
Your recounting establishes how small points can determine major outcomes. Oh,woe, is all I can say.
Russia has been such an enlightening for us these past two hundred years, I only wish we could do her an equal good.
God, you’re great.
Chomsky begs to disagree. But Putin is a busted flush as long as we continue to support Ukraine. His nukes response to incursions on Russian territory threat is gone.
The world isn’t safe with dictatorships nor with weakened democracies. The two go together.