The Financial Times has an exclusive interview with Russian President elect Dmitri Medvedev. Watch the video or read the transcript. Dima is going to have to work on that delivery. His speech is monotone. His words are technical, almost cold. He lacks the wit of Putin but also the Russian machismo. Perhaps it’s because of the FT audience. Nevertheless, the interview is in depth and gives a good glimpse of what he thinks of Russian society, economy, law, Putin, democracy, the media, Russian history and culture and many other topics. Medvedev is clearly no dummy. His words are careful and nuanced. Worth reading and worth watching.
Medvedev in the Financial Times
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Isn’t this the interview where they ask if he’s a Westernizer or a Slavophile? I’m surprised they didn’t ask what he thinks of Kaiser Wilhelm.
It is and they did. I liked his answer:
“If I lived at the end of the 19th century, I would probably be able to answer this question easily. I suppose that having read the best examples of Russian classic literature it would be possible to give a direct answer to this question. But the world has changed and today we have to be modern. That’s why I am basing my position on Russia’s interests.”
It is a good answer. Just the question I thought was odd — like asking Obama how he stands on the Whigs. It’s a nineteenth-century debate. Sure it has some contemporary relevance, but so do Whigs.
“Russia is a European country and Russia is absolutely capable of developing together with other states that have chosen this democratic path of development.”
Definitely a Westernizer, I’d say.
You are extremist, Candid
In Medvedev’s sense.
He lacks the wit of Putin…
That’s probably a good thing. Putin’s wit may have been good for an audience back home and a few knuckle-draggers abroad, but a lot of his comments served only to strengthen the idea that Russia was run by ill-mannered thugs.
I think a president who is not inclined to make cracks about rape and tell people to teach their wives to make soup is going to be good for international discourse and probably Russia itself.
I’m sort of surprised the Westernizer outlook didn’t take more of a beating after that whole Hitler thing. I know “West” is meant here largely in a normative sense, but the equation of the norm with the actually existing West is a bit belied by history. Fascism and Nazism were definitely Western movements — self-consciously so.
I think Nazis were Germano-philes.
Yes. That’s my point.
If one wants to get technical they were Aryanophiles, that group including (according to Nazis) Germans, the English, and Scandinavians, which were the essence of the greatness of Europe back in the mists of time before yucky non-Western subhumans and evil ideas polluted them from the East and took over places like the Meditteranean. Anyway the definite point was that the West was the source of all good and the East the source of all evil.
Every form of extreme nationalism is ultimately self-destructive, be it German National Socialism or Slavyanophilism.
Nazis proclaimed they were ‘saving the West’, but it was not the West of early XX century or even the West of Enlightenment in XVIII century. I think Nazis ideal West was way back in Teutonic woods. Which makes them as deluded as Slavyanophiles.
Fascism is more tricky issue. The ‘horrible’ truth is that Fascism, if practiced carefully, may produce positive results. Fascism somehow did work in Spain in Portugal. At the least, it kept those countries together, prevented national catastrophes of Naziism or Communism and allowed time for development of parliamentary democracies. Perhaps that’s why Putin was borrowing from Salazar regime so heavily.
http://www.cripo.com.ua/?sect_id=9&aid=23643
One thing to consider is the origins of fascism. On the surface it does look like a Western thing but it is only because it was happening in Europe at the time. At the beginning of the WWI the split within the socialist movement produced fascism and other nationalist socialist movements on one hand and internationalist movement on the other. The split between Komintern and national socialist movements along the lines of nationalism vs internationalism was a very painful event for communist/socialist ideology. Only a few cells, such as Lenin in Zurich, were completely internationalist, while others took interests of their respective nations, like the Italian branch that later transformed into Mussolini’s fascist movement.
Although, if fascism as a movement is analyzed not only as ideology but based on its economic and social outlook, it is not a Western phenomenon. If the ideological (and religious for that matter) pronouncements are left aside, there isn’t much of a difference between state controlled societies (and economies) that emerged then as fascists, and contemporary (or during the USSR stage) situation in Russia and Iran. Unfortunately ideological fluff is considered as the important aspect while socio-economic structures of societies are often ignored.
Add to this the Baath and pan arab concepts together with a direct link to Nazi Germany via the famous Mufti at the core of Baathizm and the whole picture of what fascism was/is gets quite different then simply pointing at Hitler.
Well I think all people who posit themselves as some kind of carriers of historic destiny and see national histories as some kind of unity with a definable essence are delusional (for instance, there is no “West” outside of somebody’s ideological — in the sense of ideas, not ‘ideology’ — construct). But my larger point is that it seems odd for people who glorify the West and equate this ideal construct with actually existing Europe to ignore the Nazis, as if they were just a footnote to history.
(As an aside, I actually don’t think Fascism in its original Italian version was that awful. On the Evil Regimes spectrum, it’s far from the worst.)
(As an aside, I actually don’t think Fascism in its original Italian version was that awful. On the Evil Regimes spectrum, it’s far from the worst.)
A rare occasion we are in agreement, Chris. I do not see Italian fascismo as an awful evil thing. It seems to be a widely used model that spans quite a number of societies and cultures and seems also to be one of the typical stages societies go through. Just like I do not consider Putin and his view/arrangement of contemporary Russia as awful. It is definately a huge improvement over what it was in the USSR. Would I like to see Russia skip this stage, yes, could it be done, I have no idea.
Chrius Maximus,
No, the Nazi Germany was not just a footnote. To the contrary, it was a textbook example how things can go wrong in Corporatist Paradise, just like USSR was a textbook example how things can go wrong in Collectivist Utopia. Fortunately, it’s all in the past now.
I admit, when I say that Russia still has much to learn from ‘the West’, I refer to all the positive Western heritage and dismiss all the bad history. But yeah, there are some horrible episodes and they shouldn’t be forgotten.
Generally agreed Candide.
I was reasonably impressed with Medvedev’s performance. His answers regarding the more pointed questions regarding freedoms and foreign policy were lucid and reasonable.
“Medvedev is clearly no dummy. ”
He’s never been one. He is just younger than Putin. But it’s his time now to come out of shadow
What all this means – Russian will be now two-horse powered telega instead of one-horse powered. So either it will run faster or carry more…
Not if the horses start running in opposite directions. Then Russia will be drawn and quartered.
Then it would be swan, pike or crawfish
(см. басни Крылова)
Bu they look like horses… So I think it will work.
Is that the Russian term for drawing and quartering?