#4 - JRL 6407
IZVESTIA
August 21, 2002
The Relapse of Defensive Mentality
NIKOLAI ZLOBIN
Director of Russian and Asian Program Center for Defense Information (nzlobin@cdi.org)
A View from Washington

The reaction to the arrest of Alimzhan Tokhtakhtunov by the Italian police has, once again, demonstrated the depth and extent of the prevalent backward defensive mentality in the Russian society. The enemy isn’t dozing, we must remain alert. The detention of the aforementioned Uzbekistan-born Israeli citizen was interpreted by many as yet another treacherous act, planned by the US to further strangle Russia. One might wonder – why? The first one to crack this evil plot was Nikita Mikhalkov, who declared that it’s a result of the fear that Russia will "rise up from its hands and knees, square its shoulders and say: 'What do we need you guys for? We’ve got everything!'"

We'll allow the assertion that Russia has everything remain on the great maestro’s conscience. Russia isn’t Greece. And the times of Adam Smith, when the nation prospered that had surplus “simple product,” are long gone – the world’s second largest economic power, Japan, closed the book on that discussion a long time ago. But the prospect that the first thing Russia will do when it rises up from its hands and knees will be -- declare to the entire world “What do we need you guys for, anyways?” cannot but alarm the average Westerner.

There’s a certain duality in Russia’s mainstream political culture which Americans have a hard time understanding. From one side, there is a myth that Russia is at the epicenter of major world events, that everything is connected to Russia in one way or another. Therefore, there exist dark mysterious forces that are furiously trying to push Russia out of the epicenter and into the periphery, destroying its glorious influence.

From this, it follows that no one should be trusted, and no one should be relied upon, because we will be used, betrayed and abandoned. We should never believe in the good intentions of others, since all of that is sheer hypocrisy. The arrest of Taivanchik is part of that very chain.

On the other hand, there is sincere surprise that the world does not believe Russia. When Russian politicians visit Washington, they keep crying out, voices full of hurt: “Why don’t you believe us? Sure, we were kind of bad in the past; we were a little aggressive; we sort of wanted to destroy you. But now we’re warm and fuzzy! Since way back in last September, for almost a whole year! If you must know – we even have a direct order from Vladimir Vladimirovich himself to be pro-Western. How can you doubt us after that?

The combination of deep-seated suspicion towards others and no less profound resentment at not being trusted is a traditional characteristic of the Russian mentality. Russians are known around the world as people who are so afraid of being deceived that they try to deceive everyone else first.

It is maintained that Westerners aren’t capable of understanding Russia. How could they? The Russian soul is so mysterious, and the Russian nature is so sensitive and contradictory that, as is well-known, "one cannot understand Russia with the mind" -- and the West has yet to come up with an alternate organ for the purpose. Therefore, what they see from the Western bank of the Oder River is just a huge, badly-governed country with unpredictable politics. And for an outside observer, that Russian unpredictability that is the most predictable aspect of the country’s image.

Just saying that Russia is a different place now is not enough for the world to join hands and believe it. It will take a lot of time and much effort to change the traditional image and prove to the world that Russia today is not the eternal “gendarme of Europe,” and not the country that, first signed the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty with Germany, and then -- two decades later, when the latter occupied half of Europe -- a friendship agreement; to prove that Russia can enrich the languages of the world with words other than "pogrom," "GULAG," "propiska" and "zachistka"; to admit that Russia is not a Sonya Marmeladova, a poor, but kind and honest victim of mean people and circumstances.

The rest of the world sees Russia’s actual role in history differently than the Russians do. It is enough to look at the only line in Europe – the line made up of our former fraternal countries that are now craving speedy admission into NATO.

Americans say: smart people plan their finances through four generations, stupid people – through the next paycheck. That’s why smart people are usually rich people. The same thing happens in world politics. Strangely enough, the United States today trusts Russia more than does any other country in the world. This comes partly from the geographic remoteness, partly from the American naiveté and messianic thinking, but, mainly from the respect for the recent rival and the awareness of its potential.

There is no gloating in American political culture – the US is too young for that. The Americans are not too intimate with feeling of vengeance – and what would they feel vengeance for? The US is one of the few countries in the world that Russia did not really harm. That’s why Washington – unlike the cynical Europeans, who don’t trust Moscow at all – is on Russia’s side on the Kaliningrad issue and on membership in the World Trade Organization.

America's main question concerns something else: Is it practical to plan for long-term friendship with Moscow -- for four generations ahead of time -- or might the friendship not survive the next paycheck? The question becomes easy to answer when the Olympics are viewed as a war of the worlds in Russia, and when Moskovsky Komsomolets’s Aleksandr Minkin not only compares Bush to Hitler, but also openly wishes America failure in the struggle against terrorism. Who can believe Russia’s good intentions and Moscow’s predictability then?

Time works in Russia’s favor. Over the last year, the Western attitude towards Russia really has changed for the better. But Russia also needs to live in the real world, instead of tormenting itself by looking for new

plots against her wonderful figure skaters and skiers, steel-workers and poultry farmers. Hinting that, once Moscow rises from its hands and knees and regains its former power, it will once again concern itself with the practical necessities of the surrounding world, hurts Russia more than it seems at first glance.

Post Scriptum: To do justice to Nikita Mikhalkov, one must say that he played an impressive role in explaining Russia to Americans. His film, "Burnt by the Sun", earned something of a cult following in the US, which does not happen often with foreign films. And Nikita Sergeevich himself is a popular symbol of a real Russian, a handsome man; he splits that honor with Oleg Menshikov. He is a much more beautiful and positive symbol for Russia than any Yaponchiks or Taiwanchiks.