{"id":31335,"date":"2019-01-18T16:01:39","date_gmt":"2019-01-18T15:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libmod.de\/?p=31335"},"modified":"2020-03-28T02:45:47","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T01:45:47","slug":"wolfgang-eichwede-on-dangerous-russia-advisers-in-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/en\/wolfgang-eichwede-on-dangerous-russia-advisers-in-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"Dangerous advisors"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=\u201d.vc_custom_1508251598805{margin-top: 30px !important;}\u201d][vc_column width=\u201c2\/3\u201d css=\u201d.vc_custom_1508252250311{padding-right: 20px !important;}\u201d][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

The book discussed below <\/em>(Why we need peace and freedom with Russia) explicitly presents itself as an appeal for a change in Germany\u2019s policy towards Russia. It brings together authors from across the political spectrum. They invoke Willy Brandt<\/em>\u2019s <\/em>Ostpolitik, but inten\u00adtionally leave out a few of its key corner\u00adstones: It was never only about the Soviet Union, but about recon\u00adcil\u00adi\u00adation with all of our neigh\u00adbours to the east. And the aim was not a special relationship between Germany and Russia, but a pan-European <\/em>Frieden\u00adsor\u00addnung (\u201cpeace order\u201d) that was to be based on normative principles \u2013 the non-use of force, equal sover\u00adeignty of all European states, respect for human rights. Those calling for friendship with Russia today while ignoring the interests of Poland, the Baltic states or Ukraine, are not entitled to invoke the name of Brandt. Where did the habitual equation of \u201cRussia\u201d and an author\u00adi\u00adtarian regime that sees itself as the opponent of liberal democracy come from anyway? Last but not least, the policy of d\u00e9tente was firmly embedded in the Western alliance. Military deter\u00adrence and disar\u00admament policy were two sides of the same coin. We asked Wolfgang Eichwede, former Founding Director of the <\/em>Research Centre for East European Studies <\/em>(Forschungsstelle Osteuropa) in Bremen, <\/em>and a true friend of Russia, for his assessment of the multi-author book.<\/em><\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

The book, edited by Adelheid Bahr, the wife of Egon Bahr, brings together chapters from 26 contrib\u00adutors calling for \u201cpeace and friendship\u201d with Russia, among them politi\u00adcians like Sigmar Gabriel, Wolfgang Kubicki and Oscar Lafontaine, publi\u00adcists like Wolfgang Bittner, Daniela Dahn and Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, and researchers like Peter Brandt and Joachim Spanger, but also the conductor Justus Frantz, to name but a few. Given this high-profile authorship, the collection disap\u00adpoints, right down the line, in the sweeping gener\u00adality of the assess\u00adments and preju\u00addices, with the exception of the more nuanced notes in the chapters by Gabriel und Kubicki. Who in Germany does notwant peace with the country\u2019s large neighbor? Who, including and especially among those critical of the present policy on Russia, wouldn\u2019t like to call Russia a friend? While a number of the chapters give voice to indig\u00adnation about the unfavourable image of Russia, which they describe as a creation of the press, they are not lacking in conspiracy theories about the wicked West, and partic\u00adu\u00adlarly the USA. It would be hard to outdo this book when it comes to one-sidedness. In their censure of the media, more than a few chapters make use of populist figures of speech, who have \u201cfallen into a hysteria that is downright infantile\u201d (Br\u00f6ckers, p. 54: \u201c\u2026 einer geradezu infan\u00adtilen Hysterie verfallen<\/em>\u201d) or \u201cindulge\u2026 in pompous and unreflected Russia bashing\u201d (Kiessler, p. 101: \u201c\u2026fr\u00f6ne \u2026 einem hochtra\u00adbenden und unreflek\u00adtierten Russland-Bashing<\/em>\u201d). What is more, dismissing the call to uphold democ\u00adratic rights as \u201cmoral imperi\u00adalism\u201d (Kiessler, p. 104) amounts to nothing short of mockery of Willy Brandt, whose name the authors so eagerly invoke.<\/p>\n

Some aspects of the \u201cappeal\u201d, as the publi\u00adcation calls itself, are discussed in more detail below.<\/h2>\n

First off, one simple but appar\u00adently necessary clari\u00adfi\u00adcation: Willy Brandt\u2019s policy was not called a new Russia policy but a new Ostpolitik<\/em>. And the \u201cOsten<\/em>\u201d\u2013 the \u201cEast\u201d (of Europe) \u2013 was not made up only of the broken-up world power but encom\u00adpassed of all of the nations to the East of Germany: the Poles, the Czechs and Slovaks, the Baltic countries, Ukraine and many others. It was in Warsaw that Brandt sank to his knees. It was from Warsaw that he addressed the German people. Nary a word of this appears in the volume under review. In line with old-style German great-power politics, the \u201clesser\u201d nations are simply absent from the discussion. If they do appear, it is in the role of trouble\u00admakers. This is monstrous. Only Russia\u2019s power and size matter. Have the authors ever thought about just whose line of thinking they are tapping into?<\/p>\n

The recog\u00adnition of Europe\u2019spost-war borders in the \u201cOstvertr\u00e4ge<\/em>\u201d (\u201cEastern treaties\u201d) was given vis-\u00e0-vis Poland and Czecho\u00adslo\u00advakia, and, with respect to the northern part of East Prussia, also vis-\u00e0-visthe USSR. Within the FRG, these treaties, with their acknowl\u00adedgement of the historical guilt of Germany, amounted to a revolution in our political culture. Unques\u00adtionably, this guilt exists in relation toRussia as well. But not in relation to Russia alone. The German Reich killed nearly a quarter of the inhab\u00adi\u00adtants of Poland. And it was Ukraine that paid World War II\u2019shighest toll in blood. Against this background, the authors\u2019derogatory state\u00adments about Ukraine and their forgetting the nations between Germany and Russia betray a great deal about their lack of historical consciousness. To describe the Russian annex\u00adation of Crimea in 2014 as \u201crighting a historical wrong\u201d (Frantz, p. 89) is to add insult to injury. Nikita Khrushchev\u2019s 1954 transfer of the peninsula to Ukraine was, among other things, explicitly a way for Russia to thank its neigh\u00adbouring republic for the sacri\u00adfices the latter had made in the war. And by the way, the majority of the population of Crimea voted in favour of the indepen\u00addence of Ukraine in 1991. This volume is rife with distor\u00adtions of history of this kind.<\/p>\n

To return again to Willy Brandt\u2019s policy of d\u00e9tente:just as it brought about a \u201cchange\u201d in our (German) consciousness, it also sought to promote \u201cchange\u201d in Eastern Europe. The point of reducing the level of political and military confrontation was to broaden the scope for movement and internal freedoms on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Ostpolitik operated, by necessity, at the inter\u00adgov\u00adern\u00admental level, but it had societies in mind as well. This was the source of its unusually powerful influence, which, admit\u00adtedly, was lost in the 1980s, as Sigmar Gabriel shrewdly notes (Gabriel, p. 95). Unques\u00adtionably, the CSCE and the Helsinki process helped to create a new basis for trust between East and West. But to frame d\u00e9tente as the origin of human and civil rights (Spanger, p. 168) is to give it more honour than is its due. Presenting the genuine achieve\u00adments of the societies of Eastern Europe in the 70s and 80s as a feather in the cap of Western diplomacy would be a grotesque misrep\u00adre\u00adsen\u00adtation of history. Initially, the freedom-loving, resistant individuals and groupings of Central and Eastern Europe were the archi\u00adtects of the new Europe. Neither they nor the peaceful revolu\u00adtions of 1989\u20131991 figure as relevant points of reference in the volume. Appar\u00adently, many find Vladimir Putin more appealing.<\/p>\n

The authors combine their anti-Westernism with a fixation on power and the state. It was \u2013 or so the gist of many of the contri\u00adbu\u00adtions \u2013 the West that ruined Russia and exploited its weaknesses in the 90s. The wild privati\u00adsation, with its catastrophic social conse\u00adquences, figures as an American strategy. US advisors were indeed involved, but the policy was defined by Russian econo\u00admists and, one shouldn\u2019t forget, was executed along the channels of the old nomen\u00adklatura<\/em>. I knew Anatoly Chubais, the minister respon\u00adsible for privati\u00adsation, back then and argued bitterly with him about the, in my view, wrong path he was taking. German businessmen and high-ranking politi\u00adcians also cautioned against it. No, these were disas\u00adtrous Russian decisions, not skulduggery on the part of the West. And inciden\u00adtally, Putin\u2019s order, so highly praised, has not elimi\u00adnated the extreme inequality in income distri\u00adb\u00adution or the network of oligarchsor the corruption, though it has realigned them to favour the functional elite loyal to the regime.<\/p>\n

As inter\u00adpreted in this book, though, the West did not stop at taking down the Russian economy. By expanding NATO, it also encircled Russia, turning Eastern Europe into a zone for \u201cdeployment\u201d (Wimmer, p. 185 and 187) against the former world power. Here again, the historical realities are far from being this simple. In the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet empire there were high hopes for a pan-European security system. I myself had dreams of such a system. In reality, though, both sides set different prior\u00adities. The wars in the Balkans overlay the visions of the Paris Charter. The Srebrenica murders shook the world. Serbia, supported by Russia, stoked the conflicts. Yeltsin\u2019sFirst Chechen War had already destroyed many illusions about building the \u201cone\u201d world free of violence. The missile attack on Grozny by the Russian Air Force became a factor alien\u00adating us in the West from Russia, and NATO\u2019s bombing of Belgrade had the same effect in reverse on the Russian population. Step by step, Europe lost its common language. Meanwhile, the nations of Central Europe were rushing headlong into NATO \u2013partic\u00adu\u00adlarly eager, given their historical experi\u00adences, to come under the protection of the USA. I visited Warsaw several times back then and never found any convincing arguments for telling the Poles, who had been invaded by Germany in 1939 and compelled against their will to live under Soviet hegemony after 1945, that concerns for Russia should prevent them from acquiring the same security status that we Germans had. Though the authors in the collection may not be aware of it, to suggest arriving at an under\u00adstanding with Russia while ignoring the nations of Central Europe, as many of them do, is to think in the Great-Power categories of the 19th<\/sup>century.<\/p>\n

If one believes the general tenor of the collection, Putin has repeatedly stretched out his hand (M\u00fcller, p. 128), while the West, having expanded NATO eastwards, has sought to desta\u00adbilize Ukraine (Lafontaine, p. 123) or force the country\u00adintoa \u201cWestward turn\u201d (Roggemann, p. 141). Sigmar Gabriel takes a different line, charac\u00adter\u00adizing present-day Russia as \u201ca revisionist power\u201d (p. 92) and Putin as \u201cnot a status-quo politician\u201d (p. 93) \u2013 noting that he changes borders, violates treaties and engages in great power politics. Gabriel remains a lone voice in this publi\u00adcation though. The Maidan in Kiev is presented as staged by the USA or as a brigade of armed commandos. There is no difference between this distorted picture and that of the Kremlin\u2019s propa\u00adganda. But what I find the most aston\u00adishing is the display of a complete absence of under\u00adstanding for social, protest and liber\u00adation movements on the part of authors who self-identify with a milieu critical of society. As they see it, the fact that a movement does not fit into their ideological cluster automat\u00adi\u00adcally means that it is controlled from afar. Who among the authors issuing such scornful judge\u00adments was actually on the Maidan? Which of them has spoken with the individuals or organ\u00adi\u00adsa\u00adtions repre\u00adsenting the vast majority of the Maidan movement? Every\u00adthing is clear: revolu\u00adtions that contradict one\u2019s own vision of the world are the result of behind-the-scenes machi\u00adna\u00adtions, preferably those of the CIA. But even if the movement was supported by funds from abroad, would that be so terrible for a pro-democracy movement? Didn\u2019t the SPD help fund the opponents of Franco for decades, and so render a great service to Spain by doing? Willy Brandt, at any rate, whose biography is also a biography of resis\u00adtance, acknowl\u00adedged this.<\/p>\n

Lastly, the call for pragmatism in foreign policy.<\/h2>\n

Spanger\u2019s call to accept Putin\u2019s Russia for what it is and \u201cwill remain for the time being\u201d (p. 168) purports to be an attempt to ground us in reality. Of course, his \u201cplural peace\u201d ignores the fact that internal plurality can foster liberty, and conversely, the suppression of plurality can promote conflict. As a conse\u00adquence, it runs the risk of cementing hegemonial struc\u00adtures, recog\u00adnising Russia\u2019s claim to power with respect to its neigh\u00adbouring countries and endorsing the system that resulted in the Russian bombings in Syria. So there can be no misun\u00adder\u00adstanding: peace is a categorical imper\u00adative of German policy. But how do we talk to someone who destroys peace in Europe and violates treaties we have jointly and solemnly signed with him? We do talk with him and negotiate with him nonetheless, even knowing that he is showing himself to be our adversary. However, there is no point in trying to court him, an approach advocated, in a show of alarming naivet\u00e9, in many of the chapters. Instead, we must show him our, and indeed also his limits, limits that arise out of inter\u00adna\u00adtional law and the rights of the smaller, not so powerful states. Their recog\u00adnition is the basis for turning an adver\u00adsarial relationship into a partnership.<\/p>\n

Put somewhat provoca\u00adtively: I do not want to be the friend of a president who reduces Aleppo to rubble and wages war on Ukraine, despite the love I feel for the culture of his people \u2013 and my awareness that many Russian artists and intel\u00adlec\u00adtuals are ashamed of his. Bahr\u2019svolume conflates every\u00adthing: because Russia has a great culture, we should come to an under\u00adstanding with its author\u00adi\u00adtarian leaders. Or, to put the question differ\u00adently, did an appre\u00adci\u00adation of Thomas Mann or Carl von Ossietzky mean that the democ\u00adratic forces of the 1930s had an oblig\u00adation to make friends with the leaders of the German Reich? This is not meant to imply any equation of present-day and historical figures.<\/p>\n

Return to realpolitik: how do we know that Vladimir Putin is in any way inter\u00adested in having the European democ\u00adracies, which seek to unite the continent, as partners? As buyers of natural gas and suppliers of technology, we are useful, but we are not an equal partner in a world in which Putin measures himself against the USA and China. Putin uses confrontation to boost his geopo\u00adlitical weight. Peter Brandt\u2019s idea of an economic union stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific pursues imaginary capital interests, if any at all (p. 50). To act in his father\u2019s cause would be to fight for an area of freedom and justice<\/em>. This not up for discussion if we think in terms of a \u201cplural peace\u201d however. What is more, it is foolish to believe that we Germans could play Putin off against Trump. These are fantasies of power with nothing behind them. They would tear Europe apart.<\/p>\n

This brings me to the greatest weakness of the volume: it is completely devoid of prospects of any kind whatsoever, whether I define them as anchored in realpolitik or as emanci\u00adpatory. Not one of the chapters even begins to discuss what we should do or can do to advance the idea of a united Europe, a \u201cEuropean House\u201d in peace and freedom. Fine: so, we sacrifice Ukraine and inter\u00adna\u00adtional law, we gravitate only toward Russia, for us, Poland and the Baltic states do not exist. We know that all is not well with democracy in Russia, but then, the country was never made for democracy anyway (Egon Bahr). But then what? We cultivate our \u201cfriendship\u201d with Putin, knowing all the while that he is building up his alliances in Europe with anti-Europe forces and populists, in a bid to perpetuate our weaknesses. Obviously, we have to talk with him, but we also have to know that he is acting in funda\u00admental opposition to our values and interests in European democracy and unifi\u00adcation. Putin is reactionary<\/em>. But Russia is a thousand times richer than he \u2013 and therein lies great hope.<\/p>\n

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\"Textende\"<\/p>\n

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