The Russians are coming!

"Vladimir Putin och rysskräcken" is something as strange as a pro-Russian book written by a Swedish foreign correspondent, Vladislav Savic. He comes from a mixed Serbian-Polish family. The book was published in 2010, that is after the Russian invasion of Georgia but before Euromaidan and the Crimean crisis in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin had been president for 10 years.

While I'm not particularly "pro-Russian" (I serve neither Czar nor Commisar), Savic does make a number of salient points. I assume Swedish foreign correspondents are a secure bastion of globo-liberalism, so many of the author's points were probably seen as profoundly shocking when the book was published. It's no better today (hint: Orange Man Bad). Thus, Savic points out that "democracy" doesn't always work, that "nation-building" probably doesn't work either, that people couldn't care less about liberal talking points if there's no food on the table, and that everyone in the post-Communist nations is a rabid nationalist. Is there even a "good side" at all?

Savic describes, in some detail, the chaotic situation in Russia after the fall of Communism. The economy collapsed when the ideologically driven Yegor Gaidar was allowed to introduce free market capitalism overnight (ironically proving that ideological "experiments" are indeed to be avoided - regardless of political coloring). The party bureaucracy was replaced by powerful oligarchs and their criminal gangs, who soon controlled both the politics and the economy, while fighting each other. Meanwhile, ordinary Russians hardly got their wages or salaries in time, millions being reduced to poverty. Russia's democratic president Boris Yeltsin went from anti-Communist hero to corrupted alcoholic within just a few years, and he wasn't particularly "democratic" anyway. 

By contrast, Vladimir Putin (ironically enough promoted by Yeltsin to the Russian government) got the economy in order, restored the middle class and curbed the worst excesses of the oligarchs. He also made Russia great again on the international arena by aggressively pursuing Russian interests in the "near abroad".

In contrast to Swedish media in general, Savic has little sympathy for Chechens and Georgians. Dzhokhar Dudayev's Chechnya was a dumpster fire of corruption, crime and Islamism. Aslan Maskhadov's regime was unable to control the radicals, who threatened to destabilize the entire North Caucasus. I almost get the feeling that Savic (who visited Chechnya) somehow regards the Russian invasions as justified. His portrayal of Georgia isn't very flattering either. Savic met Georgian dissident Zviad Gamsakhurdia before he became president, and quickly realized that he was really a Georgian nationalist, not the liberal democrat he claimed to be. (His portrait of the Lithuanian leader Vytautas Landsbergis is similarly unflattering.)

Somewhere here, the book goes astray and begins to sound like *Russian* nationalist propaganda. It seems the Russians are constantly besieged and attacked by unruly Muslims, swarms of Chinese, Baltic and Ukrainian fascists, and above all unreliable Poles who take the first opportunity to grab as much non-Polish territory as possible at poor Russia's expense. In the heat of the moment, Savic seems to forget that Ukraine and Belarus aren't ethnically Russian! The fact that 20 million Soviet citizens died during World War II is frequently repeated, but all of them weren't Russians either. And what about, you know, the Holodomor and the Hitler-Stalin pact? The author even comes close to justifying the Katyn massacre. Apparently, the Russians hated the Polish nobility and officer corps! No fuck?

Nor is it clear what the author wants the West or Sweden to actually *do* about all of the above, except to somehow improve relations with "the Russian". Well, I'm not for a new world war either, and I agree that it would be bad for international and regional stability if Russia would disintegrate into 57 warring regions run by petty oligarchs. However, Russia is the traditional oppressor nation in the region ever since Czar Peter the Great, so it's hardly surprising that its former victims took advantage of the fall of Communism to stage a great escape...

That being said, "Vladimir Putin och rysskräcken" is well-written and well worth reading (at least if you are a Nemets with Swedish as your first language), especially if you are the naive liberal type.

Prepare to be mugged by reality. The Russians are coming!