- Boris Kagarlitsky: “Putin’s only goal is to stay in power” Archived Message
Posted by Der
on July 27, 2022, 9:24 pm
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Boris Kagarlitsky: “Putin’s only goal is to stay in power” May 31, 2022 For the respected Russian analyst Boris Kagarlitsky, sociologist and Marxist theorist, the Kremlin’s current military campaign in Ukraine is driven solely by a desire to keep Russian President Vladimir Putin in power. Professor at the Higher School of Economic and Social Sciences in Moscow and director of the Rabkor portal, he is also a veteran activist punished for dissent both in the Brezhnev and Yeltsin era, and now in Putin’s time. Last year, he was arrested for ten days for posting links to a Communist Party website calling for a demonstration. In May of this year, the Russian government placed him on a list of “foreign agents,” a stigma reminiscent of Soviet times. “At the moment” the label hasn’t changed its mission too much. The university has rushed him on leave, and every time he interferes in a Russian-speaking environment such as the radio, he reports how they rated him. “It’s like a mantra, a prayer. Then I can talk,” he explains. “You must not believe anything the Kremlin says” Q. Russia first sent its troops to different regions of Ukraine, including Kyiv, but then assured that the only target was Donbass. Can we believe it? A. Don’t believe anything the Kremlin or Russian officials say, because over the past three and a half months they have given not only different but contradictory explanations. On the other hand, this operation does not have any specific purpose. When Western and Ukrainian writers or our Russian opponents try to find an ideological framework to guide the Kremlin’s actions, they idealize Russian officials. It cannot exist. Q. Why? A. No figure in the ruling class, from Putin to the last office worker, is ever going to discuss any serious plan with their own strategy. This is part of the nature of Russian commodity capitalism, which lives off the external situation. He does not create conditions for his own development, he is incapable. Distribute energy resources so that development processes take place in other parts of the world. For them, a country is a place with resources that need to be sold. Q. Can Ukraine become part of a larger idea, not necessarily restore an empire, but simply restore influence in the world? A. Putin has only one goal: Putin. And remain the president of Russia in the system with the configuration that we have now. They say that they attacked Ukraine in order to take Ukraine for themselves. I am convinced that they needed this to organize parades and concerts: support for Putin fell in 2020 and 2021, and it needed to be raised. And the war was a great propaganda event. It was planned for three days. But it’s been going on for over three months now because they miscalculated that ad campaign. Q. What explains why the majority of the Russian population supports Putin and the campaign in Ukraine? A. Most of the population of Russia has not even heard of the war. Of course, we have television and propaganda, but most people do not watch political programs on television or read the opposition press on the Internet. When 90% or 95% of the population refuse to answer sociologists, they wonder why. And they explain that most of them are on the side of the opposition, and they don’t want to say what they really think; others say people are not ready to talk. But in reality, people do not understand what they are being asked because they are not interested. People interested in politics, including all movements, for power, against, right or left, a maximum of 20% of the population. Q. However, the polls give Putin strong support. A. Polls in Russia are not representative because this is a survey of 5% of the population. Another thing is that as events unfold, the number of people interested in politics is growing, but negatively. For example, if a factory stops working, people will wonder why we are being fired. And then they will find out that some sanctions have been introduced for the war in Ukraine. “The responsibility for what is happening now lies with Putin and his team, but this does not remove the responsibility of Ukraine in a more complex process.” Q. In the West, Russia is accused of having its troops enter another country. But should we also analyze the role of Ukraine’s leaders since 2014? A. The process is much more complicated, but the fact is that the Russian army is now in Ukraine. And that is why the responsibility for what is happening now, for military operations, lies with Putin and his team. In addition, it is clear that it will not end until the Russian troops return to their original positions, which they occupied on February 23, 2022. But this does not remove responsibility from the Ukrainian elite, which is largely responsible for what happened in Ukraine in the last ten years, because they led the Donbass to the crisis of 2014. It is significant that the Ukrainian authorities did not want to talk to the separatists, who in reality at first there were more for autonomy or federalism rather than secession or joining Russia. They wanted a compromise, but Kyiv refused. This created opportunities for the Kremlin to actively intervene in the situation. “Russia cannot function without the world market” Q. Can Russia become a second Soviet Union, not ideologically, but because of its isolation from the West? A. A funny story came up a few days ago. For the production of, say, weapons, our FEA buys thousands of Chinese refrigerators, extracts chips from them, and then throws them away. The economy of the USSR and Russia have nothing in common, because the Soviet economy was a huge industrial machine, where all the elements were arranged to increase production. The Russian economy is based on raw materials and a consumer society. Therefore, Russia cannot function outside the world market. It will take at least ten years to create a more self-sufficient economy, and it will have to be done in isolation. If you look at Soviet industrialization, it was conducted openly: they bought equipment and technologies from the USA, from Germany and, to a lesser extent, from Great Britain, in order to create their own industrial complex. Now it is impossible because of the sanctions. Russia has been talking about economic diversification for many years. The Putin government has had about ten years to replace its own production with imports. But they weren’t going to do it, they were just nice words. Now it’s too late and impossible. The country has reserves for a period of two weeks to two months, depending on the field of activity. For some, this could spell disaster in August. Smaller provincial airlines whose planes cannot fly are already shutting down; Aeroflot is already starting to dismantle aircraft for spare parts (for other aircraft). Q. But the population will understand what is really happening. The Kremlin may find itself in an unbearable social situation. A. Yes, but you don’t have to wait for people to show up. Rather, a group of people may appear in power who may try to change, or they may mobilize people, perhaps on the periphery in a structure close to power, to influence the center. “If people hear the word ‘war’ they get worried, if they hear ‘special military operation’ they think it’s something vague going on somewhere far away.” Q. Could other factors then be involved? A. Later, other problems may play a role, such as Putin’s poor health or the lack of institutional arrangements to allow for the transfer of power: there are no elections, as in classical democracies, and no process of transfer of power by inheritance, as in monarchies. If something happens to the president, power passes to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, but he is not Putin’s natural successor. So we will have a chaotic process outside the institutions to deal with this problem. Q. Is it important that in Russia this is called not “war”, but “special operation”? A. They understand that if the word “war” is spoken, people will become worried and want to be told what is happening. However, during the “special operation” there is a feeling that something indefinite is happening somewhere far away. We must admit that propaganda works in this sense. In any case, facts are facts. Reality will penetrate people’s minds, but not quickly. Source: lavanguardia.com (Spanish) https://eprimefeed.com/latest-news/boris-kagarlitsky-putins-only-goal-is-to-stay-in-power/99874/ |