The present state of Russian fascism (4)

(3d) Historical peculiarities of the state

The realization of democracy in Russia is also hampered by the historical peculiarities of Russia as a state. Its historical peculiarity follows that many regions of Russia are the fruit of invasion and plunder. And that Russian peculiarity turns into a lack of remorse for the invasion and plunder to other countries. Historically, Russia has prioritized eastward expansion in order to counter European imperialism and to prevent the revival of the Mongol Empire. There were no Russians living in those areas originally, and the Russians were settlers and, for that matter, invaders. Its Russian historical necessity has instilled in Russians an old-fashioned sense of imperialist entitlement that glorifies their aggression and justifies looting. However, this old-fashioned sense of entitlement is not unique to Russia. In the old days, aggression and slaughter were carried out all over the world, and the invaders there had to be unrepentant of their own vices. And that unrepentant made colonization and slavery possible. Furthermore, in the invasion of developing countries by developed countries from the Age of Exploration to the present day, the aggressor had to boast of his aggression. The virtue there, is to trample on the rights of the opponent, treating more plunder as a sign of loyalty and patriotism to the Motherland. And this sense of entitlement has justified the ruthless plundering of the indigenous peoples of the areas under its control. In order for them to be treated as inhumane and atrocities, it was necessary to wait for the declaration of human rights issued by the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. Moreover, it was not until the 20th century that this awareness of human rights began to function properly. The sense of entitlement of the old era was on the same level as the competitive consciousness of the number of killings among the warlords, and as an extension of this, global imperialist wars broke out at the beginning of the 20th century. On the other hand, in recent developed countries, the sense of rights of the old era has been replaced by a sense of redemption for indigenous peoples, slaves, and even former colonies. This substitution is the same as the instillation of human rights awareness, and its physical substance is the realization of a non-discriminatory distribution of national assets. In other words, the eradication of extreme poverty among the people has made it possible for awareness of human rights to spread. Furthermore, it was the rapid development of production technology brought about by the Industrial Revolution that made this possible. In the end, this shows that humans need a minimum security of livelihood in order to distinguish themselves from mere animals. Conversely, unless extreme poverty among the people is eradicated, the consciousness of human rights will not permeate, and aggression and plunder will gain virtue and patriotic vanity. To put it simply, the human beings there, are still not human beings, but mere animals. Russia, on the other hand, failed to realize democracy in the revolution of the early 20th century and shifted to a dictatorship at the opposite end of the spectrum. The dictatorship, despite its communist title, also fails in the non-discriminatory distribution of national assets, and revives the old-era sense of entitlement with aggression and plunder as virtues. In that respect, the communist banner was a shackle to the dictatorship of the time. But rather its majesty was what adorned the dictatorship's sense of entitlement. However, the collapse of the communist regime in Russia deprives the Russian ruling class of the majesty of communism. It is a loss of an excuse for Russia to embellish its atrocities of aggression and plunder. Yet the Russian ruling class still believes and does not doubt that they should have the right to invade and plunder other countries. Moreover, strangely enough, this peculiar sense of entitlement is shared by many Russian citizens. For the time being, according to Putin, the sense of entitlement is that there is no distinction between self and others in Russia and Ukraine, and because of the lack of that distinction, Russia makes plundering Ukraine its right. But if there is no distinction between self and others, there is no need for plundering. Therefore, in fact, its sense of entitlement distinguishes between self and others, and according to that distinction, Russia is also plundering from Ukraine. However, if it is one's right to plunder others, then the plundering of oneself by others is also the right of others. In the end, it violates the private rights of individuals in general, including private property. In other words, what this sense of entitlement denies is basic human rights. Because of this contradiction and unreasonableness, the post-World War II empire developed a sense of atonement for the indigenous peoples, slaves, and former colonies with whom it had committed atrocities. On the contrary, this reveals the difficulty of guaranteeing basic human rights in such a country when the old-fashioned sense of rights dominates the population. It expresses the difficulties of democracy in Russia as it is. Moreover, this makes us expect that even after Putin's death, it will be difficult in Russia to achieve a democracy sufficient to end the invasion of Ukraine.

(3e) Failure of the democratization of authoritarian states

In practice, even if 3a) and 3b) are overcome among the above inhibition situations, it is difficult to overcome 3c) and 3d). This is shown by the experience of failed democratization in dictatorships. Moreover, the experience of failure is added as an impediment to the democratization of the dictatorship. Not only in Russia, but also in the world, there are still many dictatorships, and outrageous violence is rampant within them. The civil war against the dictatorship gave rise to many refugees, and in recent years, these refugees have begun to flow into developed countries in large numbers. In response, the West condemns the inhumanity of dictatorships and sometimes uses military measures such as air strikes. As far as Iraq and Afghanistan concerned, the West intervened militarily to topple its dictatorships. Subsequently, the international community tried to modernize Afghanistan by disseminating factual reporting necessary for democratization, enhancing democratic education among the people, and establishing the infrastructure of a democratic state, such as holding free elections. Its efforts to modernize Afghanistan lasted 20 years. However, the democratization experiment in Afghanistan failed after investing a great deal of effort and money. Much of the failure of the democratization was due to the new Afghan ruling class's embezzlement of Western support, which hindered the autonomous development of the economy. On the other hand, the discontent of the middle ruling class of the old Islamic order, which had fallen due to democratization, called for the revival of the Taliban. The revival of the dictatorship led to the exodus of many people as refugees, who had learned of freedom by the international support in a temporary democratization. Twenty years of Afghanistan's modernization have been reduced to ashes, and once again the blockade of fact-telling and the violent exclusion of critical citizens have returned to everyday life in Afghanistan. Here again, the obstacle to Afghanistan's modernization is the difficulty of democratization in authoritarian states. However, since this problem could not be solved by 20 years of efforts, the path to achieving democratization in the same way as before is already blocked, unless there are suitable conditions. Therefore, its failure is powerful enough to make attempts at post-dictatorship democratization in other country despair. This despair makes us anticipate a future in which the number of refugees in conflict areas will continue to increase and they will flow into developed countries. The first dilemma that emerges is that while the collapse of the dictatorship is necessary to prevent the emergence of refugees, the human resources necessary for the collapse of the dictatorship become refugees. And that dilemma is fused with other dilemmas. There, attempts to overthrow the dictatorship lead to social unrest, and that social unrest strengthens the dictatorship. At the root of this dilemma is the poverty of the people, and poverty is linked to the need for a violent order. On the other hand, there is no hope that the awakening of conscience in dictatorships will be realized by the enrichment of dictatorships. The enrichment of the dictatorship in North Korea merely enriched the ruling class and strengthened the dictatorship, and did not improve the welfare of the people and did not advance democratization. And even if the welfare of the people improves in dictatorships, it is likely that the enrichment will only result in modernization that pledges allegiance to the ruling class, as is the case with democratization in the oil-producing countries of the Middle East. In the end, it will only empower dictatorships and further increase the anxiety that other countries have about dictatorships. And this refugee situation also applies to Russian refugees born under Putin's dictatorship. In the current situation full of dilemmas, the only measures that foreign countries can take for the time being are limited to two things: the repeated transition to a better dictatorship and the weakening of the dictatorship. However, repeated transitions to better dictatorships have failed in the examples of Afghanistan and North Korea. And the revival of Putin's dictatorship in Russia is included in this same failure. Therefore, the only thing that can be done by foreign countries in the current situation is to weaken the dictatorship. But this measure will only deprive the people under the dictatorship of the capacity for rebellion, and will not have the effect to end the dictatorship.

(3f) Sustainability of a weakened dictatorship

When a dictatorship achieves a predetermined path of economic development, the dictatorship realizes the most advanced production process in the shortest possible way, without needy detours and coordination of departments. Therefore, communism in Eastern Europe achieved economic growth that surprised other countries during the reconstruction period after World War II. A similar situation can be seen in the economic growth of Vietnam and China through reform and opening up. However, the development of science and technology requires discussion and factual information, both of which are directly linked to democracy. And that democracy is at odds with dictatorship. To put it simply, science and technology do not develop under a dictatorship. Therefore, the economic growth of the dictatorship stalls after miraculous development and goes straight into a period of stagnation. Of course, authoritarian regimes also allow limited discussion and factual information for the development of science and technology. However, as long as there is a limitation, it will still be a hindrance to the development of science and technology. It slows down the development of the science and technology of the dictatorship in the technological competition with other democracies. In addition, more than the development of science and technology, the bureaucracy of dictatorships in economic management hinders the economic development of dictatorships. Naturally, the first prescription for this economic downturn is the realization of democracy. But dictatorships do not tolerate it. The biggest obstacle to its modernization is the dictatorship itself. The ruling class is a traitor who screams patriotism, and in the opposite direction to the beautiful words that come out of his mouth, he makes the nation obsolete and senile. This shows that if other countries distance themselves from dictatorships, dictatorships will weaken without escaping from economic stagnation. If the danger of a dictatorship lies in its invasion of another country, the weakening of the dictatorship reduces the risk of that aggression. As a result, the Cold War after World War II was a battle of patience between such democracies and dictatorships. However, it was only a battle of patience in the end, and at the beginning of the Cold War, it was still uncertain which side would eventually become a dictatorship. But the communist camp, which was already in dictatorship, did not thoroughly end Khrushchev's thaw. And that incompleteness made Russia a loser in the Cold War. In retrospect, Gorbachev's decision could only be valid during the Khrushchev era, before the Hungarian-Polish uprising of Nagy and Gomulka. No matter which Russian leader subsequently invokes perestroika, the Russian communist regime will probably collapse. But Russia is a resource-rich and self-sufficient nation, and it took half a century for its weakening to take effect. Naturally, weakening Putin's Russia will take a similar amount of time. However, Putin's life expectancy is not that long. Therefore, the West's weakening of Russia can only be seen for a short period of time before Putin's death. On the other hand, Putin's dictatorship has the background of the impediment to democratization mentioned above. This is enough to show that Russian fascism may persist regardless of Putin's death. As a result, the end of Russian fascism can only be realized gradually, by repeating the end of the Cold War in the progress of democratization and the resumption of the Cold War in the progress of dictatorship. Even so, as already mentioned, nationalist fascism begins as populism in a democracy. It may restore fascists to a more powerful and dangerous level in economically resurgent former dictatorships, ultimately destroying democracy. Lenin once described the Russian parliament as a fig leaf to color the bourgeois dictatorship. And he took the place of the Russian Soviets in opposition to the Russian parliament. However, the parliament at the time of the Russian Revolution was sufficiently democratic, unlike the previous imperial parliament, and Lenin's assessment of the parliament was false. In other words, the congressional assessment expressed the flaws of Lenin's disregard for democracy. In the end, the Russian Soviets are more like fig leaves adorning the democracy of lies. On the other hand, the violent elimination of critics by current Russian fascism has turned the Russian parliament into a real fig leaf. In light of this situation, the West's response to the Cold War, which brought Russia to the collapse of the Soviet Union, has only taken a detour and ushered in a new fascism. The consensus of the Russian people aspires to fascism, and fascism embodies the will of the Russian people. Democratization to deter fascism is still in a dilemma, even in the weakening of dictatorships.

(2024/01/14)
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Original Japanese(2)⇒ロシアン・ファシズムの現在（２）

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