00:04 Marko Bojcun: Somebody asked me upstairs as I was coming up which part of Ukraine I'm from. It's [inaudible]. To answer the question — is Russia a new imperialist power? My answer is in the negative. It is not. It's a very old imperial power. It's a power that has been growing since 1482, and with six expansions
00:38 exceeded 20 million square kilometres by the First World War. It was the weakest of the European imperial powers on the eve of the First World War, and it was also an imperialised power by big financial interests of the West European states, and that is why it collapsed under the pressure of the First World War. But it was an imperialist power already, conquering a periphery that extended
01:11 right up to the territories conquered by the other European powers — all the way to China, to the Pacific, to the Baltic, to the Black Sea, into the Carpathian Mountains. Now I suppose the question arises in everybody's head: well, what about the Soviet period? Did this end Russian imperialism as a structure, as a state and military and economic
01:41 structure of domination and oppression of nations by the Russian nation? That's what I mean when I talk. Well, in terms of economic relations it's a very mixed picture, because we do see the emergence of non-Russian peoples from a largely peasant, rural, illiterate existence to fully mature social
02:16 structures, and the acquisition of the capacity to rule themselves quite independently by the time the Soviet Union ended. But this was a very uneven process. What is more important is that in the Soviet period — in the Stalin period, let me be precise — the Soviet state used extra-economic means, state-bureaucratic in their character, to oppress and to deny the right of national self-determination to the non-Russian peoples: through oppression, through the
02:49 extermination of national Bolshevik and communist leaders of the non-Russian peoples, through famine, through migration, through the resettlement of Russians to the non-Russian republics. And if you study the economics of the period, the result in terms of socio-economic development was the uneven development of the nations, of their social structures, of their opportunities in life. If you look at their languages, the same thing happened.
03:20 And so one cannot say that Russian imperialism — and, yes, of course, great Russian chauvinism as an ideology of Russian imperialism — you cannot say that it disappeared in the Soviet period. And after the ten-year hiatus under Yeltsin that Catherine spoke about in the previous presentation, we see the restoration of a
03:53 capitalist imperialism, for the second time, a Russian capitalist imperialism, in the roughly fifteen years of the rule of Vladimir Putin. For the Russian establishment the collapse of the Soviet Union, as Putin has said, was the greatest single tragedy of the twentieth century. This was not a tragedy of the collapse of the Soviet state in the way that we understand it. For them, and for him, it was
04:25 the collapse and the loss of a periphery that the Russian ruling nation had acquired over a period of over 500 years. That was a big tragedy for them, and that is what part of the current project of the Russian state is all about: to reclaim that periphery. Under Putin there has been quite an
04:57 explicit strategy for the restoration of Russian imperial rule. First, from around 1997–98, to reclaim the near abroad, the immediate periphery around Russia, through a state-led strategy of promoting several national economic champions in the energy and
05:28 mineral sectors, to take back the markets and the processing and transiting assets of the former Soviet republics around Russia — namely Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan. And in the second period, to use that reclaimed territory on the immediate periphery to pave the way for Russian transnational
06:01 corporations such as Gazprom, Sistema, Norilsk Nickel and others — to pave the way for their entry into wider markets, consumption markets, investment areas and technologies beyond this immediate territory, so they can achieve transnational competitive status.
06:32 The paradox of this process is that the Russian economy has been very weakly driven by domestic demand as it has grown, and it does not satisfy its domestic demand. It is not a diversified economy as a result of this growth, nor is the bourgeoisie interested in diversifying that economy. Property
07:06 ownership is too insecure in Russia, and markets and strategic resources are in the gift of state authorities. So it has been more profitable for the oligarchs, who have accumulated wealth from the exploitation of raw materials and energy resources, to invest those proceeds beyond the Russian Federation, and they
07:40 have invested them beyond the Russian Federation in economies that are more diversified, more technologically superior to the Russian one, and which afford them security of ownership of their property and their investments. So the paradox is that while the Russian national economy is not diversified, Russian capitalism is diversified — and is diversified sectorally and
08:12 geographically, among transnational lines of production, consumption and investment. What are the destinations of that investment? A Deutsche Bank report in 2006 showed that by that year Russia was the largest overseas
08:42 investor of capital, outside of its own borders, of any of the BRIC countries. And in 2006 it was investing 160 billion US dollars. It was the second largest investor in the so-called emerging market economies in the world after China — after Hong Kong, let me be specific. And if you look at the
09:13 structure of overseas investment by Russian capital around 2008–2010, 52 per cent was invested in Western Europe, around twenty per cent was invested in the near abroad countries — that is to say immediately around the Russian
09:43 Federation — and about ten per cent in east-central Europe. How much time do I have, please? [inaudible] I'll come to the Ukraine crisis. The Russian state has been targeting Ukraine for reintegration
10:18 into its economic, security and diplomatic space ever since the Ukrainian state became independent. Its leaders have for years been saying to Ukraine's leaders: when are you going to give up your little game of nation-building, when are you going to finally give up and return to the fold? What is the
10:52 rationale — as opposed to ideological, sentimental reasons — why Russia would want to prioritise the reintegration of Ukraine into its sphere? Apart from the fact that it was the second biggest Soviet republic, it was economically highly developed, it had a quite diversified industrial sector, it's
11:22 in the south on the Black Sea, and so on and so forth. But the main reasons, as I understand it, are: number one, the Russian state and private corporations retained ties with the high technology sectors of the Ukrainian economy — notably defence industries, aerospace, aeronautical, shipbuilding — and
11:54 they wanted to hold on to them. Secondly, the oil and gas pipelines which take over eighty per cent of Russian oil and gas out of the Russian Federation to overseas markets run through Ukraine, and Gazprom and its state sponsors were determined to secure control — full control, ownership — of these transit facilities. Thirdly, Ukraine holds the
12:25 processing plant for important Russian raw materials being exported abroad, minerals as well as oil. And finally, Ukraine is on the westward path of transnational investment of Russian capital abroad into Western Europe. Without securing Ukrainian economic territory and its assets and its strategic objects like this, the Russian
13:00 imperialist project could not break out westward. Its capital could not move out westward and invest upstream from its base industries in energy and minerals into higher-profit, higher-technology sectors of the global economy.
13:31 Secondly, Russia calculated correctly that it would not be challenged by the United States of America and its NATO allies in Europe if it sought to subordinate Ukraine. I use the word subordinate advisedly here, because I don't believe that the Russian state has ever sought really to conquer Ukraine and to rule it as it once did, as a set of provinces of the
14:02 Russian state. In terms of strategy, no, of course not. The Russian model of imperialism is quite similar to that of the United States in the twentieth century: that is, to provide military security to a country in exchange for that country's agreement to subordinate itself to Russian foreign policy, and to open up markets to that country's businesses for trade in exchange for that country opening up its borders to direct Russian
14:34 investment. That is the basic deal that Russia has sought with Ukraine, with all the countries in its periphery, as the model of creating the zone of its economic territory and creating the tributaries through which the Russian heartland accumulates wealth from those countries that enter under its umbrella.
15:08 Militarily, Putin calculated that NATO would not respond — not only because it hadn't responded in 2008 to the Russian attack on Georgia, nor because it saw that the US became increasingly reactive rather than a
15:40 proactive power in Central and Eastern Europe, but because Russia is militarily stronger than NATO in its own near abroad. To make an abstract comparison between US military force, or NATO military force, and Russian military force, to my mind explains very little if anything at all. One has to talk about the capacity to make a real allocation and deployment of military force in specific places, and NATO has neither the
16:13 logistic capacity nor the subjective will, I should add, to intervene against Russia when it seized Crimea or when it armed the separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. Not only that: the leading European allies — in the first instance the Germans, the French, the Italians — are not prepared to commit NATO forces to
16:45 the defence of NATO members in Eastern Europe, such as Lithuania or Estonia, should they be invaded by Russia. And that became very clear a few months ago when direct questions were put to the leaders of those NATO countries, whether they would do so, and they said no, they would not. So Putin calculated rather correctly how far he could go. Putin's ambitions were much greater — he wanted to seize eight provinces; he seized 500 square kilometres [?] —
17:16 so his bargaining position is much weaker today. But nevertheless, I believe he calculated correctly. As the Estonian defence minister said in June of 2015, Putin believes that he enjoys regional superiority, in a military sense, on his immediate borders — as he does. Finally — I've got a couple of minutes left — I'd like to say something about the
17:48 changing balance of powers in the region. Russia and the European Union are vying with one another to incorporate Ukraine into their respective integration projects: the European Union on one side and the Eurasian Economic Union on the other. On
18:21 the European side — and I see the European Union as a kind of sub-imperialism of global American hegemony, for reasons we could talk about, but I do see it as an imperial project, of a subordinate kind to a larger one — the biggest state on the European side in this effort is Germany. Germany
18:52 is the biggest investor of any country in the world in Russia, and Russia gains entry for much of its foreign investment into the European Union through Germany. The relationship between the technologically most powerful and economically most powerful state in the west, and the most endowed as far as resources are concerned state in the east, is a critical one. And what they are most
19:26 concerned about, these two states, is to resolve the so-called Ukraine crisis so as to restore what had been rather dynamic economic relations, certainly up to the 2008 financial crisis. The conventional wisdom on the left is that the United States of America, as the hegemonic power in Europe, will intervene militarily if it is threatened by an upstart power. I ask the question: what
20:01 would happen if American leadership in Europe is challenged from within the alliance, by a country like Germany that wants to change — that has its own strategy of normalising relations with the Russian Federation, which has deep economic interests, ties with the Russian Federation that the US economy does not have? What would happen if that occurs?
20:33 And I think that the Ukraine crisis — I'll finish on this — is a potential point of bifurcation between NATO allies, principally between Germany and the United States of America, over the Ukraine crisis and relations with Russia.
20:51 Question from the floor: *[on Azerbaijan]*
21:05 Marko Bojcun: What is the extent of Russia's borders is a kind of unanswerable question. Russia historically expanded as a land-based empire and it knew no borders; it only came up against competing imperial powers, and that was where it stopped. In the present period Azerbaijan occupies this interesting position. First of all it stands between Russia and Iran. There's a significant
21:36 Azeri minority in northern Iran, and so Azerbaijan, and the Azeris in Iran, are objects of joint interest for Iran and Russia. Secondly, the Azerbaijani elite is trying to find an independent route to Western markets for its oil. It is quite self-sufficient in
22:09 terms of its capacity to earn, as long as it can find that route. And unfortunately the pipeline heading west that Azerbaijan has been trying to consolidate runs, one, through Chechnya in the Russian Federation, and two, through Georgia. And if you look for the reasons — one of the reasons — for the Georgian–Russian war in 2008, it was to block Azerbaijan's capacity to break out through to Western
22:39 markets. But thirdly, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been deadlocked for years now, since 1990, over Nagorno-Karabakh, and here the Russian state plays a very interesting sort of game as well, in playing off Armenia against Azerbaijan, arming both of them, giving each one concessions, and so on and so forth. So Azerbaijan is in Russia's orbit, but its leaders seek a way to break out, and
23:10 Western powers have tried to help Azerbaijan break out in some way, first of all by including them in an alliance of states — it's been referred to here already, the European Union has tried to do that through the Eastern Partnership group of countries. And that's basically where it stands at the moment.
23:47 On NATO and Russia and their military — this business was raised earlier as well — what is the real balance of forces around Ukraine, let us say, in terms of Russia and NATO forces? It was really revealing, what happened in Wales at the NATO summit last August. Poroshenko
24:18 came away with absolutely nothing that he asked for. He was not going to be armed. I know there are American advisers in Ukraine, there are some training forces there, but neither the US nor NATO are supplying Ukraine with lethal weapons. Some NATO countries — a very small NATO country like Lithuania — have promised to, but this is really not serious.
24:50 So NATO is concerned first of all to secure its own member states, and it doesn't have the capacity to do that in the event of a crisis, to my way of thinking, should Russia make a move northward to the Baltic states. And that is a cause of great concern. Russia on the other hand has military bases beyond its border in eight of the former Soviet republics — eight of them — and it
25:24 has been building them since 2003. It announced in January of this year a 310 billion US dollar programme to further militarise to 2020, and only this week it announced that it was building a completely new air base in Belarus, in addition to the air base that it already has. In addition to that, the Russian Federation is building two military bases on the Ukrainian border
25:55 right now, in Belgorod oblast. So the Russian capacity to strike in the neighbourhood of Ukraine is far superior to the NATO one, and it is growing, and I think one needs to take that on board. Looking at the bigger picture, and this longer claim that has been made about NATO expansion into Central Europe — I agree, NATO made an expansion into east-central Europe, but
26:27 that happened. That happened, and we are in a period since the 2008 financial crisis and the Russo-Georgian war when the US is really a reactive force and is not committing in kind to the Russian military buildup. I'll just say finally, on great
26:58 Russian chauvinism: yes, in the 1920s it was mitigated by a very active programme to build Communist Party sections among the non-Russian nations, to undertake a literacy programme to make people literate in the native languages. In the trade unions the non-Russian languages became the language of work, in the trade unions and in the government organs. But that was successively whittled away
27:30 and suppressed — not completely by any stretch; least so in Central Asia, almost completely in Belarus, but less so in Ukraine — under Stalin, and under Khrushchev, and under Brezhnev. Finally, my comments on Russian imperialism you can read in the next issue of *Critique*, where I've got a big article.
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