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Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Clashing interpretations and policies

Vladimir Radyuhin

The 60th anniversary of Victory in the Second World War celebrated in Moscow last week was as much about the future as about the past.

WHEN 57 world leaders gathered in Moscow for a spectacular military parade on May 9, the celebrations were a fitting tribute to the enormous sacrifice and decisive role of the Soviet Union in winning the world's bloodiest war ever. It was also a moment of personal triumph for Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who during his five-year-old presidency has reasserted Russia's standing as a great power.

U.S. President George W. Bush, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, French President Jacques Chirac, and India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stood side by side with President Putin in the historic Red Square to salute Russia's medal-bedecked war veterans as they drove past in war-model trucks and to pay tribute to their decisive role in defeating Nazi Germany 60 years ago.

The pomp of the 60th V-Day was well justified if only because it was the last big WWII anniversary for the majority of the shrinking army of war veterans given their age and declining health. Even though Mr. Putin has hiked pensions for Russian veterans three-four times above the average level, he could not take away the pain they feel at seeing their great victory betrayed in the break-up of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the socialism they helped defend in the battlefields. But on May 9 they were again the proud heroes of the great nation that crushed Nazi Germany's war machine, basking in the respect and gratitude of the post-war generations. The V-Day celebrations in Moscow reminded the world of Russia's overwhelming contribution to the allied victory in WWII. The Nazi army suffered four-fifths of its losses in manpower and materiel at the hands of the Red Army. The Soviet Union paid a staggering price of 27 million to 30 million lives for the victory — one in every six Soviet people got killed in the Great Patriotic War, as the Second World War is known in Russia. Mr. Putin's parents barely survived, losing a child and more than half of their relatives.

Differing conclusions

Moscow festivities did more than pay homage to WWII heroes and sacrifices. They highlighted two clashing views on the lessons the world should learn from the War. For President Putin, the main lesson of the War is that evil triumphs when nations are divided as they were before WWII but it has no chance when nations join forces as they did in confronting Nazi aggression.

"We are invincible as long as we stand together," Mr. Putin said on May 9 addressing the world leaders gathered in Moscow. "Together we can safeguard the world from new terrible threats and challenges."

President Bush drew very different conclusions from the past war. His lesson was that democracy is more important than stability. He denounced the 1945 Yalta agreements between the WWII allies, which paved the way for the establishment of the United Nations, a universal mechanism of collective security, as an "attempt to sacrifice freedom (of small European nations) for the sake of stability."

Mr. Bush's unstated suggestion was that the U.S. and Britain should have taken on the Soviet Union over democracy in Europe instead of signing the post-war peace pact. He stated in most clear terms that the U.S. would never repeat this mistake of choosing international stability over democracy.

"We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability," Mr. Bush declared during a visit to the former Soviet Baltic state of Latvia before attending V-Day celebrations in Moscow.

President Bush's trips to Latvia and Georgia, which bracketed his visit to Moscow, showed that the goal of the U.S. pursuit of liberty in the former Soviet Union is isolation of Russia.

Mr. Bush conveyed strong support for the Baltic states and Georgia, which have recently emerged as Russia's main opponents in the ex-Soviet space.

In Riga Mr. Bush voiced solidarity with the Balts' demand that Russia bring its apology for the years of "communist oppression" and Soviet "occupation," and in Tbilisi he pledged support for Georgia's bid to join NATO. Earlier he promised NATO membership to Ukraine, home of another "velvet revolution" in the former Soviet Union.

He hailed Georgia, where a "rose revolution" brought a pro-Western regime to power a year ago, as a "beacon of liberty for this region and the world," and denounced Russia's closest ally, Belarus, as "Europe's last dictatorship."

"In recent months, the world has marvelled at the hopeful changes taking place from Baghdad to Beirut to Bishkek," Mr. Bush said in Tbilisi. "... Now across the Caucasus, in Central Asia and the broader Middle East, we see the same desire of liberty burning in the hearts of young people."

The world has indeed been reaping the consequences of the U.S. fundamentalist crusade for democracy in Iraq, and is now witnessing them in Central Asia, which totters on the brink of regional conflagration. The fire of "democratic revolution" the U.S. helped lit in Kyrgyzstan earlier this year has now spilt over to neighbouring Uzbekistan, where it predictably took the green colour of Islamist revolt last week.

Georgia's leader Mikhail Saakashvili, who offered Mr. Bush to be "America's main partner in spreading liberty and democracy in the post-Soviet space and the Middle East," clearly formulated the goal of this partnership: create a cordone sanitaire around Russia.

New Yalta Conference

In a keynote article symbolically carried in The Washington Post on May 9 Mr. Saakashvili called for "a new Yalta Conference" to create "a voluntary association of new European democracies" that "must extend the reach of liberty in the Black Sea region and throughout wider Europe." Russia, of course, has no place in this "new Yalta pact," which is nothing but a call for drawing new dividing lines in Europe.

Clashing interpretations of WWII reflected clashing policies of today.

"We have never divided victory into ours and somebody else's," Mr. Putin said on V-Day. The following day he demonstrated Russia's commitment to overcoming the post-war divisions in Europe by signing a breakthrough pact with the European Union to promote cooperation along four "road maps" that call for closer ties in the key areas of the economy, freedom, security, education, and science.

Mr. Putin called for building a united "Greater Europe" with Russia as its integral part.

"We want a Europe without dividing lines," he said. "Strategic partnership with the EU is an important priority for Russia."

The U.S. strategy is just the opposite. Its goal is to keep Russia out of Europe. First it pushed for NATO expansion towards Russia's borders, now it is supporting the attempts of the Baltic and East European states to put Russia in the dock over WWII legacy. It is also using this issue to widen a rift between the new members of NATO and the EU and the "old Europe" led by France and Germany.

The leaders of France and Germany both took advantage of Victory Day to pay glowing tribute to Russia's war sacrifices and reiterate their rejection of new fault-lines in Europe.

"An aspiring, peaceful Europe which has gained maturity in overcoming its tragedies, will be, not just a partner for great Russia, but its true friend," President Chirac said in Moscow.

V-Day celebrations in Moscow demonstrated that 60 years after the end of WWII the world once again stands at a crossroads: to build a new cooperative future as envisioned by the Yalta agreements or to follow the path of zero-sum games and confrontations that the world already covered during the Cold War.

Mr. Putin used V-Day celebrations to urge cooperation, not confrontation:

"It is our duty to defend a world order based on security and justice and on a new culture of relations among nations that will not allow a repeat of any war, neither `cold' nor `hot'."

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