Putin's Wars полностью

LDPR

Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia

MAP

Membership Action Plan (NATO)

MID

Ministerstvo Inostrannykh Del Rossiyskoy Federatsii (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation)

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NSDAP

Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party)

OPEC

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries

PARNAS

Partiya Narodnoy Svobody (“People’s Freedom Party”)

ROC

Russian Orthodox Church

OAS

Organisation de l’armée secrète (French far-right paramilitary organization)

PACE

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

PA CSTO

Parliamentary Assembly of the CSTO

PDPA

People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (Communist Party of Afghanistan)

RIA NOVOSTI

Russian News Agency

ROSMOLODEZH

Russian Federal Youth Agency

SA

Sturm Abteilung (paramilitary organization of Hitler’s NSDAP)

SCO

Shanghai Cooperation Organization

SdP

Sudetendeutsche Partei (Sudeten German Party)

SED

Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Communist Party of the German Democratic Republic)

UAV

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

USA

United States of America

USSR

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

VAD

All-Russian Association of Militias

VTsIOM

All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (official state pollster)

WTO

World Trade Organization

Introduction

In December 1991 the Soviet Union ceased to exist. The end of the last European empire came suddenly and unexpectedly, not least for the Russians themselves. However, with hindsight it seemed to be the logical conclusion of a chapter in European history. Other European countries had gone down the same road. Spain had already lost its colonies in the nineteenth century. France, Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands had decolonized after World War II. Even Portugal, a colonialist “laggard” that clung to its possessions in Africa and Asia until the bitter end, had to give up its empire after the “carnation revolution” of 1974. Decolonization—until now—has seemed to be an irreversible process: once a former colony had obtained its independence, it was unlikely that the former colonial power could make a comeback. The history of European decolonization has been, so far, a linear and not a cyclical process. The chapter of European colonialism seems to be closed definitively, once and for all. But is it? Does this analysis also apply to Russia? This is the big question because not only the conditions under which Russia built its empire were quite different than for the other European countries, but also because the process of decolonization was different. Let us consider these differences. There are, at least, five:

First, Russia did not build its empire overseas, as did the other European powers. Its empire was contiguous and continental: the new lands it acquired were incorporated in one continuous landmass.

Second, with shorter communication lines and no need to cross oceans, rebellions and independence movements in the colonized territories could be more easily repressed.

Third, Russian empire building was also different because it did not come after the process of state-building, as was the case in Western Europe. In Russia it was an integral part of the process of state-building itself.

Fourth, Russian empire building was neither casual, nor primarily driven by commercial interests, as was the case in Western Europe, but from the start, it had a clear geopolitical function, namely, to safeguard Russia’s borders against foreign invaders.

Fifth, in Russian history periods of decolonization were never linear, nor irreversible. Decolonization was never definitive. When, for instance, after the Bolshevik Revolution, the colonized lands of the Russian empire were set free, they were soon afterwards reconquered by the Red Army.