Putin, Poland and WWII

A couple of articles in today's Moscow times, one by Vladimir Ryzhkov and another by Stefan Wagstyl (no link on the MT site, but here is the FT original article). Both very good articles and highly recommended, but I think that they miss the key point about why WWII is so important to Russia's current leadership.

The key thing to understand is that the victory over Germany was one of the few things for which the Soviet government could really claim credit. They knew, and the people knew, that living standards in the Soviet Union were way lower than in the West, and that in general, accepting to live under the Soviet government meant that its citizens denied themselves material and spiritual benefits. There had to be something to justify this sacrifice. Yes, there was the promise of building Communism, and the bright future, but no one really believed in it. The key to the legitimacy of the Soviet State was victory over Fascism. The Soviet State was a retired war hero who felt that the world owed him a living because of what he had done in the past - while that works at the level of the individual, it doesn't really extend to the State. But that was all they had, and they milked it for all they were worth.

This was key, because it justified all the abuses that the Soviet State heaped on its citizens. Any KGB or MVD thug could justify, in a twisted way, their corrupt practices as being somehow necessary for the defence of the People. This was particuarly extant in the case of Beslan, which happened five years ago today - there could not be any investigation or questioning of what the Army did then, and it had to be claimed as a victory, or suddenly the government would have to answer a lot of difficult questions and calls for compensation. If the Security apparatus is not shown to be providing basic security to its citizens, then the State is not really providing much to its people. This was all quite easy during the Cold War, when there was a nice comfortable enemy who was perfectly happy to stay on the other side of the Atlantic. Putin and his securocrat friends know that they need to maintain this rehtoric, or the legitimacy of the Soviet security apparatus will come under question, and so by extension will the legitimacy of its successor. So it's important to maintain the legend of what the Soviet State achieved in WWII.

George Orwell got this right in Animal Farm - totalitarian states need an external enemy to maintain their legitimacy. And given that the foundations of the Russian State are the Soviet State, then that knee-jerk reflex is still there. This is an issue for the future of Russia, of course, because eventually the last veteran will die, and so will their children, and there will be a generation who really don't remember or care about the war. That's why Medvedev took time out in his address to schoolchildren today (the official first day of school across the nation) to remind them of Georgia's egregious attack on South Ossetia. The Russian State is in desperate need of a new enemy, but to cast Georgia in this role is really grasping at straws.