Echoes of Serbia Resound in Moscow

It’s hardly surprising that Western media keep missing important--and troubling--political trends in Moscow; it just reflects our total preoccupation with Russia’s financial meltdown.

Such predominance of economics might have been excused in the heady years of President Boris N. Yeltsin’s power. The trouble is that not just Yeltsin but an entire era is fading from the picture. A new and dangerous one looms on the horizon while we refuse to see its omens. One can’t help but recall the Western press of the early 1930s, still engrossed in the Weimar Republic’s financial agony, on the verge of the Nazi takeover of Germany.

Some of the omens ignored by our media include, for instance, the extraordinary visit to Russia of Vojislav Seselj, the vice premier of Serbia, as well as his sensational appeal for a Slavic Union of Russia, Yugoslavia and Belarus. Of course, Seselj is habitually called the “mad dog” of Serbian nationalism, an “irreconcilable” next to whom even Slobodan Milosevic looks like a peace-loving moderate. What’s really important, though, is that in the Russian city of Yaroslavl, Seselj’s appeal was met with a standing ovation. Missed as well was Belarus President Alexander G. Lukashenko’s depiction of Ukraine as a betrayer of the common Slavic cause.

The main thing missed, however, was that Seselj and Lukashenko are politicians, not amateur travelers. Unlike our media, they must have smelled change in Moscow’s political air. Why otherwise would they bother suddenly forging an alliance with Russia’s own “irreconcilables,” the anti-Western nationalists who worked hard for the last seven years trying to provoke a confrontation with the West? It’s a fact that, for all their ravings about the Zionist conspiracy deliberately ruining Russia, these gentlemen were until now of limited value to their Serb and Belarus brethren. With Yeltsin in the Kremlin and lacking a credible and popular leader, they had no chance to radically change Russia’s foreign policy. Not any more, though, not when they are rallying behind a formidable presidential contender: Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow.

If so, their political program would seem to deserve some media scrutiny. Especially the points that are of such concern to Seselj and Lukashenko:

* The immediate Anschluss of Belarus (which for Russia would be the same as Austria’s consolidation with Germany in 1938).

* The return to Russia of the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol (compare it to Hitler’s demand for the return of the city of Danzig on the eve of World War II).

* The creation of a Slavic Union of Russia-Belarus, Yugoslavia and the Ukraine, which Lukashenko intends to lead. If the “treasonous” Ukrainian leadership refuses to join the ranks, Seselj and Lukashenko will threaten a civil war--10 million Russians, after all, live in Ukraine.

So what happens if Luzhkov indeed wins the presidential elections? Given that he is one of the most fervent champions of incorporating Belarus as well as of the return of Sevastopol, some kind of Russian-Ukrainian confrontation would certainly be in the cards. It’s hard to imagine, if that occurs, the U.S. not intervening on behalf of Ukraine. And here we see clearly what Seselj and Lukashenko are up to--American intervention is all that the “irreconcilables” need to turn Russia into a Serbia-in-the-making.

There is no doubt in this case that Russia would be hopelessly ruined economically, just as Serbia is. Yet, again like Serbia, Russia would be fueled by an all-consuming “patriotic” fervor of imperial restoration. It’s easy to envisage what the emergence of such a nuclear mega-Serbia would mean for us. Just imagine the mayhem that Iraq in the Middle East or Serbia in the Balkans might create if allowed to operate with impunity behind a Russian nuclear shield.

To be sure, this is the worst case scenario. The Russian “irreconcilables” may not in the end come to terms with Luzhkov--although it’s hard to see why they wouldn’t. And Luzhkov himself may be defeated in the elections (although it’s hard to guess by whom). Still, it’s hardly wise to give him a helping hand by sticking to the course designed by the International Monetary Fund, which generates only misery in Russia and nationalist outrage and hostility toward the West.

It’s not too late to realize that what the West has been doing to Russia in the last seven years is a carbon copy of what it did to Weimar Germany in the 1920s. Should we be surprised, then, if identical policies produce identical results?

The whole thing looks even more bizarre when we recall that a remarkable generation of Americans after World War II had already rejected those failed Weimar policies of financial manipulation in favor of a solid strategy of reconstruction of former enemies--a strategy crowned with success in both Japan and in Germany. We didn’t give them money then that could be stolen just as it has been in Russia. We modernized their industries instead.

Why not follow in the footsteps of George Marshall and Dean Acheson, fashioners of the Marshall Plan? Why refuse to face the fact that radical reform is needed, not just by Russia’s economy but in our own policies as well?

First things first, however. Right now our main preoccupation in Moscow must be to assure that in the next five years there is no Russian Milosevic in the Kremlin--if only because there must still be a Russia after 2000 willing to accept a reformed Western policy.