Vladimir Brovkin’s Book, From Vladimir Lenin to Vladimir Putin, is remarkable on many levels. Although his book covers the last hundred years, his knowledge has deep roots in Russian history: its Eurasian dimensions, its ethnic diversities, its economy and finances – and last but not least, the organization of its political institutions. His knowledge of Russian sources, however, is amply complemented by American ones. As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details.” However, while this comprehensive investment in research gives Dr. Brovkin a solid scholarly standing, it also translates – and this requires special gifts – into a kind of ease of communication with the general reader.
To begin with, Dr. Brovkin takes us back to a pre-Soviet period, when much social and political ferment was already taking place in Russia, finally culmination in the Revolution of 1917. The struggles took place between the Tsarist conservatives, the incipient industrial Capitalists or Kadets, the Socialist Revolutionaries representing the countryside, the Mensheviks or Social Democrats resigned to long-term change, and the Bolsheviks determined to push through the radical changes they felt the country needed.
However, the country was not prepared for radical change, and a bloody Civil War ensued. The contest engulfed the vast Eurasian territory; it staged the life-and-death struggle between the Tsarist “Whites” and Bolshevik “Reds;” it fielded Western interventions; it replayed the tradition of Cossack independence in choosing sides; and there was Ukraine – launching anarchist movements and also supporting a German government in Kiev.
All these struggles precipitated a devastating famine. The word to the Russian armies on the World War I front, manned primarily by peasants, had been to leave the Capitalists fight it out among themselves, go home and take over the land. And they did – except for the pushback from the land owners and the life-and-death struggle of the Civil War. But famine had haunted the urban centers as well, and the New Government resorted to forced food requisitions from the newly endowed peasants or kulaks, who responded with rebellion.
About two million people had fled abroad, and Dr. Brovkin explains how the New Regime was handicapped because those that left were the ones who had been running the country: the factory owners, the landed gentry, the central and provincial administrators, the educated middle-class.
To deal with the mounting problems, Vladimir Lenin instituted NEP or the New Economic Policy, which allowed elements of free enterprise in town and country. But Lenin died in 1923, and the personal power struggles between Lenin’s successors reflected the more general clash between centralized party rule and the incipient market economy. Stalin eventually won the contest relying on a new generation of cadres not versed in Marxism but loyal to him in exchange for advancement. Dekulakization and collectivization were resumed, as well as accelerated industrial development.
Dr. Brovkin describes the tools of ruthless oppression used to further these goals: the sacrifice of both oppositional as well as likeminded voices when deemed a challenge; the “public relations” purpose of the New Constitution; the 1936-38 Trials and 1938 Army Purge, which encompassed a massive wave of likely and unlikely “traitors.”
This single-minded pursuit of “order and stability” had been justified to prepare for the looming threat of World War II. This major contest is familiar to Western audiences as well as the subsequent “Cold War,” when ideological differences came to the fore again. NATO or the North Atlantic Treaty was founded in 1949 as a “defense” organization. The Soviet response to NATO, after the expectation of participating in it was rebuffed, created the Warsaw Pact in 1955.
Stalin’s death in 1953 had been followed by a post-Stalinist transition best known from Khrushchev’s famous Twentieth Congress Speech of 1956, which blamed all the ills of the system on Stalin.
But as Dr. Brovkin points out, this also opened a Pandora’s box. On the one hand, Khrushchev was not prepared to alter the central role of the Communist Party. On the other hand, he had triggered an opening known as the “Thaw,” which was a revival of the traditions of Russian dissidence. The writers of the pre-revolutionary Silver Age in literature and the arts had, for the most part, emigrated. The more experimental contributions of the twenties, including the new medium of film, were eventually repressed by Stalin as counter-revolutionary. And now an active group of critically thinking people organized an underground system of communication called Samizdat (self-publishing) – or published similarly challenging material abroad called Tamizdat.
These movements pursued their work after Khrushchev was replaced, after another period of power struggles at the top, by Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982). Dr. Brovkin characterizes this period as a “golden age” for the ruling class or nomenclatura, because they had access to all kinds of privileges: dachas, cars, vacations in Black Sea resorts, access to imported consumer goods. At the lower levels people also participated in the “shadow economy” to gain access to goods through the back door instead of waiting in interminable lines.
In other words, it was all about whom you know rather than what you know. But Dr. Brovkin also calls these elites a “self-deceiving ruling class” because change was happening whether they liked it or not. Reading some obligatory excerpts from Marx or Lenin in school texts had become a chore. Once again, important intellectuals went into exile; large numbers of Soviet Jews “went home” to Israel; satirical plays and protest songs were extremely popular; Mexican serials were absorbing TV watchers; with young people, especially among the elites, Rock N’ Roll became the rage.
These changes were also reflected in foreign relations. Khrushchev’s earlier initiatives are familiar in the West because of the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy and Khrushchev found ways to communicate, and a nuclear confrontation was avoided. Eventually, a gradual détente was in progress. President Nixon visited Moscow in 1972 and the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) and ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) treaty were signed. In 1976 the Helsinki Accords focused on the Inviolability of European Borders and Human Rights.
Efforts toward rapprochement continued when Gorbachev became First Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985 during President Reagan’s administration. Their meeting at Reykjavik in 1987 focused on further arms reductions. In 1989 Gorbachev decided to withdraw from Afghanistan. Also in 1989, at a meeting in Malta with Secretary of State James Baker III, Gorbachev offered to withdraw Soviet troops from East Germany in exchange for a promise that NATO would not “move an inch” past the new German border.
These initiatives in international affairs were matched by initiatives on the home front. To achieve results, as Dr. Brovkin puts it, “Gorbachev improvised.” He announced “restructuring” or perestroika. This entailed restoration of private farming, market economy, reform of the judicial system, competitive elections to the Communist Party positions and regional Soviets. To disseminate information on his reforms and invite popular participation Gorbachev proclaimed glasnost, or the open practice of free speech.
But change does not happen overnight, and glasnost facilitated a tsunami of criticisms and grievances. The entrenched elites had no interest in loss of control from above. The liberals insisted on more laissez-faire. The victims of earlier repressions expected reparations. And then there was the fact that the Soviet Union was made up of fifteen republics.
While Gorbachev found himself caught in the middle of contending sides, a new figure, Boris Yeltsin, rose to prominence. He captured the popular support of those who, in the name of “freedom and democracy,” militated for accelerated change. In particular, the status of the Soviet Union was under active consideration. Although a popular referendum taken in the Spring of 1991 had gathered 76% of votes in favor of preserving the Soviet Union, Yeltsin promoted “Russian sovereignty.” A Union Treaty was negotiated to reserve foreign relation to a renamed Union of Sovereign States while local decisions would become the prerogative of the “sovereign” states themselves.
This was opposed by the stakeholders of the Presidium, and since Gorbachev was now deemed unreliable, they ordered his arrest in August of 1991 while he was vacationing at a Black Sea resort. A state of emergency was declared and troops were called in to Moscow. What gained public attention at the time was Yeltsin’s performance when he climbed on a tank, made fiery speeches against the plotters – and the troops held their fire. Dr. Brovkin, however, states that “it is known that certain KGB commanders had had contact with Yeltsin.” Thus, Yeltsin emerged as the leader of the newly “sovereign” Russian Federation.
Dr. Brovkin describes Yeltsin’s period as “the terrible 90s.” State ownership of the economy was privatized. But privatization auctions turned out to be prearranged deals for the benefit of ruling class apparatchiks, KGB bosses and their hirelings. Loans to the government from local and foreign banks were repaid “in kind” by shares in companies at a fraction of the cost. The ways for quick profit while avoiding taxes were many. One of them was “asset stripping” – selling off the best parts of an enterprise to avoid the costs of maintenance. Another device was to sell cheap to an offshore, self-owned company (in tax-free zones like Cyprus or the Cayman Islands), then sell high on the London commodities exchange, thus securing safe deposits abroad.
These “innovative” transactions gave rise to the spectacular fortunes of newly-baked oligarchs. Those “left behind,” however, had but one choice – to survive in the chaotic free-for-all of a disintegrating society. The drying up of tax revenues caused the breakdown of public services. In an environment where drugs, alcoholism, prostitution, the export of sex traffic replaced earnings from reliable wages, gang wars and contract killings proved more effective. Dr. Brovkin cites the figure of 4 million in population loss.
If this was Yeltsin’s version of “freedom and democracy,” there was a call for his impeachment and a constitutional crisis developed in 1993. But the elections due in 1994 were postponed because the Communists were now in the majority in the Duma. It took tanks firing at the Russian Parliament to facilitate Yeltsin’s stay as “interim president” until his re-election in 1996. But the re-election’s success, financed by oligarchs and managed by “experts,” only caused the people to lose faith in elections. Yeltsin’s second term floundered through escalating financial crises. The government placing its reserves in foreign banks turned out to be a form of money laundering, implicating Yeltsin himself. When the government defaulted in 1998 Yeltsin’s game was up.
As Dr. Brovkin puts it, the liberal-minded “Westernizers” were now “on the defensive.” His mentioning the “Westernizers” refers to the balancing of national identity in Russian history between “Westernizers” and “Slavophiles. The subtitle of Dr. Brovkin’s book had announced this “search of identity.” Peter the Great was an early example of “opening a window to the West.” As to the “Slavophiles,” they can trace their traditions to having received their form of Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988. The local development of religious practices, art, and architecture became an important expression of cultural identity.
The example of Peter the Great’s turn to the West was an innovating move of “state” building while the Slavophiles’ defense of traditional values is more associated with the concept of “nation.” Dostoyevsky is a familiar example voicing a critique of Western commercialism in the name of Russian spirituality.
Both concepts of “state” and “nation,” however, have been repeatedly called upon to unite in times of danger. Even Stalin, although the Bolsheviks had attempted to eradicate religious faith, opened up the churches to call on the people to defend the motherland during the German invasion. All along in Russian history, the challenges of governing a huge country of diverse peoples or of struggling against repeated invasions, had argued for the need of a central authority empowered by religious faith.
However, the French Revolution – and later, the writings of Karl Marx – modeled alternative ways of progress, which inspired Russian educated classes or the intelligencia. But the dilemma of how to further change when there is powerful resistance whether from internal or external defenders of the status quo is a perennial problem of human history. And in the case under study, Dr. Brovkin’s analysis finally leads to the question: “Why Putin?”
The power brokers around Yeltsin were looking for solutions. Putin was noted as a likely candidate because he was associated with the FSB (the Russian FBI), yet not involved in corruption. A deal was struck to get Yeltsin to resign if granted immunity. At the same time, Putin had had experience abroad and was favorable to relations with the West. As Dr. Brovkin concludes, “he suited all political forces.”
As prime minister and later president, Putin practiced “selective justice.” He subjected some oligarchs to criminal investigation while granting others judicial immunity if they stayed out of politics. He also reverted to tighter centralization: provincial governors were appointed, not elected. Trained as a lawyer, he focused on revising legal codes. In economics, he supported foreign investment but practiced “state capitalism,” which allowed profits but not political control.
These exercises of Putin’s “statecraft” were challenged by Liberals, Communists, and Nationalists. The Liberals cried out against authoritarian practices like the control of the media. The Communists objected to the sellout to “crony Capitalism.” The Nationalists thought Putin was too conciliatory with the West.
Dr. Brovkin gives a comprehensive account of personalities and parties active in these movements. However, he also describes Putin’s Citizen’s Conferences: Putin would take as long as four hours to answer people’s questions – then follow up with calls on governors, mayors and tax collectors to take action. While these practices are often criticized as “authoritarian,” Dr. Brovkin proposes to call them “authoritative.” Similarly, Putin’s support of a resurgent Russian Orthodox Church has also led to the renewal of a “national consciousness.”
But once again, the concepts of “state” and “nation” are coming together to resist an increased sense of endangerment – even betrayal. After all, Putin had cultivated friendly relations with American and European leaders. He had abandoned the support of anticolonialism in favor of pro-Capitalist practices. He had even invited American bases to Central Asia at the time of the September 11 attack in New York. However, NATO kept inching up to the Russian border in spite of promises made to Gorbachev. President Obama’s invitation to Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO in 2008 was “a last straw.”
At the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, when the Baltic and non-European republics had gone their separate ways, the Russian Federation, Belorussia and Ukraine, given their related histories and economic interdependencies, had formed a Federation. Ukraine, in particular, had also undergone chaotic changes from Socialism to Capitalism, which had been mediated by an “Orange Revolution” in 2004 and then the Maidan Revolution of 2014.
Since it became clear that the United States had supported these regime changes to further the stated goal of Ukraine joining NATO, Russian leadership called out these actions as an “existential threat.” In particular Crimea, which had been assigned to Ukraine for administrative convenience by Khrushchev in 1954, was immediately transferred to the Russian Federation in 2014.
In Kiev, the new unelected government legislated extreme measures – in particular the banning of the Russian language, which about 50% of Ukrainians use, especially in major cities and the Eastern region of the Donbass. Despite the Minsk Agreements of 2014, which negotiated some autonomy for the Donbass region, the Kiev regime pursued concerted military attacks on the Donbass, thus triggering a civil war. Although Volodymir Zelensky was elected on a peace platform in 2019, the war in Ukraine continued to escalate: when Putin’s ultimatum about the further buildup of NATO’s military support to Ukraine was ignored in 2021, Russian troops invaded Ukraine in 2022 in a “Special Military Operation.”
These events “on the ground” were also fought out in the media. Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 election had been blamed on “Russia Gate,” presumably the manipulation of American public opinion by Russian internet hackers. On the Russian side, Soros’ Open Society and various NGOs were blamed for seducing the gullible Russian liberals to buy a “freedom” which had robbed them blind, and a “democracy” which had been but a front for it.
And once the Russian troops crossed the border into Ukraine, the American media escalated the urgency of saving Ukraine while the Russian media militated for the salvation of their own country from NATO. To convince the public the American narrative parades Putin on the list of “dictator supervillains” while the Russian narrative presents Western Democracy as a “woke culture” of identity politics intended to undermine “family values.”
As American elections capture the headlines and an “informed citizenry,” as President Jefferson advised, would be essential, this is hardly the case on the issue of Russia and Ukraine. At a time when even nuclear weapons are on the table, Dr. Brovkin’s deeply grounded and fair-minded book is indispensable reading.
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