Interview | “We are throwing off the Western yoke…”

– Sergei Alexandrovich, the special operation has been going on for more than a year. During this period, in your opinion, there have been any fundamental changes in the world and Russia?

– A huge number of changes have taken place this year, and they are on the rise. The special operation is only a small, albeit very important part of these rapid changes for us. We just stop noticing them, because the kaleidoscope of events does not give us the opportunity to think.

Meanwhile, the world was largely different a year ago. For example, China has turned from a great economic power into a great foreign policy power during this time, having achieved great success in this field. Europe, on the other hand, has stepped even further on the path to its failure.

A lot of things have changed in the country this year. First of all, the western voyage of Russia ended. Now the Russian Federation began to look for itself. Let’s hope that he will find it – without delay. The process of nationalization of the elite has accelerated, and the part of the economic elite that worked for the West has been largely finished. In political science language, it is called comprador language.

– In our last interview in November 2020. You said: “Now Russia and Europe, despite all the differences, have a huge number of economic and cultural ties. But we are moving away along the main lines.” What do we have now? Everything is finally broken, and we have moved away from each other as much as possible, or is our confrontation not as serious and deep as many people think, and can still be played back?

– Our differences are great for foreign policy reasons. The European elites, under which the earth is shaking, decided to try to save their positions by throwing a foreign policy, propaganda, economic and partly even military challenge to Russia, so relations became very bad.

But perhaps the most important thing is that Russia and Europe (of course, not all, Europe is also different) differ in terms of values, and this process is proceeding faster and faster.

We are becoming old Europeans, and they are becoming post-Europeans and are even moving towards post-human values.

When the European Union finally crumbles, agreements with individual countries are likely. But this is not a close prospect.

– Now the voice of Africa has sounded very weighty, which we probably have not heard at all for thirty years, and in mid-May there is a statement by the President of South Africa that Russia and Ukraine have agreed to accept the peacekeeping mission of African countries. And Saudi Arabia went against its traditional friends in the person of the United States. How would you comment on these changes? What’s going on there?

– The trend of recent years is the liberation of the world from the Western yoke. Countries are becoming freer. On the part of the West, there is now a struggle to preserve the remnants of neocolonialism, and on the part of the rest of the world – liberation from it. Both to our pride and to some regret, we are again at the forefront of this struggle and are a kind of icebreaker that finishes off the residual ice of the neocolonial system of Western domination. Accordingly, the icebreaker always takes on an additional load and takes hits.

But the world has already become much freer, more diverse, more multipolar, more colorful. The Saudis openly challenged the Americans and do not particularly regret it, the Arabs of the Persian Gulf feel much more confident. And the fact that Africans are becoming much more active and openly challenging their former European masters is all part of a huge process that is underway. We are in a state of the most powerful and growing world earthquake. It is uncomfortable, but after an earthquake there are new continents, countries, new phenomena, mountains rise, gorges are formed. This is how a new world is created.

– In 2021 in your article, you wrote that a new cold war is unfolding, from which Russia has a chance to emerge victorious. “To do this, it is necessary to make the right choice of domestic policy and foreign policy orientation and, most importantly, not to get involved in a big war, fraught with escalation into a world thermonuclear and cyberspace Armageddon,” you wrote. Now, in 2023, when the hot phase of the conflict in Ukraine is underway, where the entire collective West is fighting against Russia, do you still think that we have a chance to win? And why, in your opinion, did the Cold War actually turn into a hot one?

– The Cold War actually turned into a hot one, because we waited too long. It was necessary to beat in 2018-2019. In 2021, covid already happened, which temporarily replaced the war.

For quite some time it was clear that the West continues to wage a cold war against us. And we were waiting for something. Perhaps they were accumulating strength. Maybe they didn’t fully understand the depth of the differences. Maybe they hoped to come to an agreement. Someone wanted to preserve their capital or position in the West. If we had acted earlier, it is possible that an armed conflict – open and large – could have been avoided. But now what has happened has happened. I believe that this kind of conflict is a failure of my generation, because we could have prevented an open war in Europe, which may be only in its initial phase. It was necessary to act earlier and more decisively.We have been appeased, hoped, believed for too long.

As for our chance of winning , it is great. Moreover, in my opinion, this military operation has powerfully pushed the internal potential of our society. We are becoming more self-reliant, more decisive and more sovereign. Whether or not we take advantage of this opportunity depends largely on ourselves. But such an opportunity is obvious, and we have every chance to win. Although the struggle is very long. Even when we finish the acute phase of the military conflict in Ukraine, the period of this earthquake and the growing wave of transformations will continue for another decade and a half.

Therefore, it is probably too early to talk about victory, but there is every chance that we can win at the operational-tactical level. However, the main thing is to break the will of the West to confrontation. This is a higher-level task. And it will not be solved if you do not start sharply raising the stakes and do not prepare for the transfer of the confrontation to a higher level.

– If we compare, what is the position of Russia at the beginning of the NWO and at the moment? Agree, there is no unconditional support for our country anywhere. Who are our allies? Why, like the West – Ukraine, no one openly supports us? For example, the same China.

– As I said, we act as an icebreaker of the new world, and many countries take advantage of the fact that we are chopping the five-century-old ice of Western domination and domination. We are fighting against a very strong, but weakening and receding civilization. This is a huge and complex process.

As for the fact that we have no allies, we are supported, if not in the UN, then in fact by the majority of humanity. The world majority . And this is quite obvious. Another thing is that a significant part of our elite, still focusing on the West and on some of their interests in the West, does not want to understand that this is over for the foreseeable future, and thank God! From the West and from Europe, we took everything we could, and now we could only get from there additional problems or contagions in the form of these new ideological currents.

We also suffered losses. In particular, economic – they are obvious, although they can be used for their own benefit. And foreign policy, because we have sharply narrowed the field for maneuver. When we had at least some kind of relationship with the West, of course, we had a stronger position, for example, in relations with China. Now, of course, Beijing looks much stronger in our pair than three years ago, when we were still stronger in terms of aggregate power. But we must understand that Russia will never become dependent on China, as it almost became dependent on the West, for one simple reason – we have different cultural codes. In addition, in the genetic code of our people there is an absolute readiness to fight for their sovereignty.And our Chinese friends know and respect this.

– Don’t you think that Beijing is now solving its problems at our expense?

– We also solve our problems at the Chinese expense. By the way, we are also hiding behind his most powerful economic back. Can you imagine what would have happened if we had gotten involved in a confrontation, which was almost inevitable, if China hadn’t been behind us? As well as China would be qualitatively weaker if Russia did not stand behind it.

As for who, how and whom uses, it is a matter of practical politics and diplomacy. As long as we use each other. Another thing is that in our pair, I think, I repeat, three years ago, Russia had a stronger position than China, because the PRC had already got involved in a tough confrontation with the United States, and Russia acted as its shield. Now we ourselves have climbed into confrontation, so, naturally, we are more dependent on China, pulling on the military-political resources of the West. China uses this to replenish forces for a decisive battle.

– In October 2022. You wrote : “We live in a dangerous period, on the brink of a full-fledged third world war, which could end the existence of mankind. But if Russia wins, which is more than likely, and the conflict does not escalate to the level of a full-fledged nuclear war , we should not look at the coming decades as a time of dangerous chaos (as most in the West say). us? and nuclear war?

– “It still threatens us , and it will be a very long period, because, as I said, there is a large-scale earthquake, a huge continent of Western civilization is going down. This is a shock unprecedented in speed, and this civilization is one of the foundations of the current world order.

This is a very dangerous period. The main source of danger is, of course, not so much the West itself, I do not want to echo those who constantly accuse it of everything, but the situation in the West. There is a multifaceted, deep, moral, economic and political crisis.

The elites are losing power. This is a rather terrible situation in which the elites have relied on the aggravation of relations and even on war – in a desperate attempt to stop history.

Therefore, the Rubicon is far from being crossed. If things go like this, then I do not rule out that after some time some negotiations and a truce are possible, but all the same, things are likely to reach higher levels of confrontation. The main task is to force the West to retreat and take a more modest place in the world system.

– You said about a truth. There are more and more people who want to participate in the peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian conflict. Do you think Russia and Ukraine will be forced to peace? Under what conditions is this possible?

– There is a war going on, which is called a special military operation. I think that its outcome is ultimately a foregone conclusion. This is a victory for Russia. But the price of such an outcome can be extremely high, and the period is very long.

In this struggle between Russia and the West – in Ukraine and not only there – negotiations will take place, they will pretend that they are underway, and aggravations are very likely. I fear that things will be brought to a higher level of confrontation. But the only possible solution to the problem that we face, it seems to me, should be the elimination of Ukraine as an anti-Russian entity and a change in the West’s will to confrontation. This is a very complex process.

Negotiations are possible, and, of course, I would like Ukraine to throw out the white flag and become a peace-loving, friendly state to Russia. Although I strongly doubt this, simply considering that this is already a failed state formation, which is in a situation of the most acute and deepest crisis. This is the Weimar Republic, which is also waging a war. The Weimar Republic, which, as we know, gave birth to Hitlerism.

– And what should Russia do if the settlement plan is common, developed in a coalition of the United States and China? In general, how do you assess the chances of such a situation?

– In general, like any normal person, I do not want war, realizing that war, even just and inevitable, as in our case, brings grief, destruction and death. This is the first thing. second. If it is possible to agree on something, let’s try to do it, to reduce the level of confrontation, especially the level of human suffering. But, I repeat, the problem between Russia and the West can be solved only in two ways: to eliminate Ukraine as anti-Russia (Ukraine or part of it can remain as a Russia-friendly entity);and, secondly, to break the will of the West to desperate resistance, which it has been demonstrating in recent years and now, realizing that it is losing the position of five-hundred-year-old hegemony in the world, which opened up the the possibility of cultural, political domination and, perhaps most importantly, allowed it to pump the world gross national product in its favor. This period is over, and this end is happening right before our eyes. Of course, inequality is still very high and strong, but the flows of world wealth have begun to move away from the West. And it infuriates his ruling class.

– Why do you think Russia did not agree with China on its settlement plan after Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow in February 2023? Did Russia not like the plan proposed by China?

– We need to read this plan. It’s positive, but it wasn’t anything concrete. He is for all the good against all the bad. I don’t know what Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping agreed on during their private talks, but I believe that they agreed on something, and now there is a long game, including a diplomatic one, in which I am not privy, but in which , I think there will be many interesting twists. Of course, the visit of China’s special representative, our wonderful friend, Ambassador Li Hui, to Kiev or Moscow attracts attention, but we need to look at much deeper political, diplomatic, intellectual and economic processes.

– In general, what is your forecast for the development of the Ukrainian conflict? The Americans say that by the end of autumn everything should finally become clear and somehow resolved. Henry Kissinger joined in with his predictions. We, in turn, are not advancing, it seems like we are waiting for the Ukrainian, as they say , counteroffensive . In general, everyone is waiting. What will be the result of all these expectations? Will the conflict be frozen and Ukraine will be divided according to the Korean version? Or do we fight to win? And what, then, should be a victory, what will it look like?

– I have great reverence for Henry Kissinger, I consider him the first in our profession, but I am very upset that he is trying to fuss. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And I don’t know what’s going to really happen. I know that if we show the will to win and to fight, what I said will happen. Ukraine will cease to exist as an anti-Russian state, and the West will retreat.

And on the way there will be a very long and difficult struggle. The struggle for our country to become different, much stronger and fairer, much more self-respecting and respected in the world. And, finally, a country that is much more in control of its own wealth. Of course, a country with a renewed elite, with updated technologies, a country whose economic, political, intellectual center will shift to the Urals and Siberia. We must move to the East. Mentally, economically, politically, because we are stuck in the West, and this is one of our fundamental weaknesses and the causes of our troubles of the last forty or fifty years. We need to move to new frontiers, to go to the world majority, breaking away from the West that is pulling us back .

The Ukrainian conflict, from my point of view, is dangerous to a large extent because we will get bogged down in a senseless Western direction, trying to negotiate where there is no one to negotiate with.

And I think that, at least in the next decade, there will be nothing to agree on, although we can pretend to agree. Everything is crumbling there. And we, as a counterpart to the West, now look much more stable and stronger than we did two or three years ago.

– You say that we have a long and difficult struggle ahead. Will we have enough strength for it, primarily economic? Both the president and business say that there are already not enough workers everywhere. There are not enough young people. There are a lot of relocators.

– This is a problem for every business and every institution. You need to look for and train strong and new. It is necessary to retrain people, to untie their hands. Now the process of creation is underway. And the fact that people complain, well, it’s hard to live in an era of change.

But now is a much more promising era even for businesses, because huge new opportunities are emerging, especially for medium and small businesses. If I were a young man, I would certainly go into business now. I had to do this in the 1990s in order to save my institutions, which I created and headed. I haven’t done this for a long time, but I see that there are a huge number of opportunities in this field now. New niches, new horizons are opening up. I envy the young people who will go into business now.

– There is a lot of talk about deglobalization, building a new world. What do you think it will be? Will it turn out to be bipolar (the US and China) or multipolar? If the latter, then who will become the new poles of power? Does Russia have the potential (other than military) for this?

– Forty, fifty and even twenty years ago, most people believed that the world was moving towards something single-global. In the West, many in our country dreamed of a world government, of a global system of power based on transnational corporations and international non-governmental organizations. Until now, something is muttered about this in the Davos area. But it’s all more like a comic opera.

The world is moving towards a new sovereignization. It will be a world of a large number of states.

The world is very mobile. The world is much freer than it is now, and much more colorful, with many more possibilities. There will be no bipolar world. It can be called multipolar, but I would call it multicolor and multidimensional.

In general, I like the peace that we will come to if we avoid a world thermonuclear conflict, which, unfortunately, still seems very possible. Probably, unfortunately, I will not live to see this world, but I really like the picture. I envy people who are young now, who are just being born. They will live in a very interesting world. But there are many dangers to endure. One of them is the loss of human values, which we are now massively seeing in the West. The main thing is that we remain human. By the way, there is also a struggle for this, including in Ukraine. For people to remain human, and not become non-humans.

– This is where the question of justice appears to be very important, fundamental. The West says that Russia has violated all norms of not only international law by committing aggression against a UN member state, which it itself recognized, but also all the moral principles of justice and human coexistence. It destroys cities and brings suffering to people. Therefore, Russia is the embodiment of injustice. And we say: “No, guys, it was you who raised a misanthropic, fascist regime in Ukraine with its unfair and ugly division of people into right and wrong, where the latter are subject to destruction and all kinds of discrimination.” That is, both sides use the same word in their interpretation.Do you think the new world will be fairer and what is meant by the word “justice”?

– Justice should be understood, first of all, as freedom of choice for peoples, freedom of cultural, economic and political choice. Of course, justice is a much more equal distribution of the world’s wealth. Today’s capitalism is ugly, including ours. Although I hope that as a result of this conflict, it will become less ugly. There is a redistribution of wealth within the country towards people who are more worthy of it – scientists, the military, engineers, families with children, and this process will continue.

As for this conflict, we are throwing off the Western yoke. The West suppressed the whole world, robbed, killed, destroyed. We can talk for hours about the horrors that have marked the last five hundred years of Western domination. Finally, two world wars came from there. Let me remind you that Nazism, a completely misanthropic ideology, was born in the West and is now being fed there again. Communism was born there. I do not equate it with Nazism, because it is outwardly a much more humane ideology. In addition, communism was preached by the Soviet Union, which won, and Nazism lost.

Liberalism is something similar to these two “-isms”, and it, I hope, will also now go into the deep shadow of history. Now the countries that preach it or bow to it are quickly moving towards totalitarianism, fascism, and abolishing culture.

Russophobia is better than anti-Semitism only in that Russia has something to defend itself, and the Jews did not have such an opportunity.

– If some kind of peace is signed now, will it not be similar to the Versailles Peace, which did not give people the long-awaited peace and stable development, but only led to a new big war?

– Therefore, I say that this peace must ultimately be achieved precisely on the conditions that I mentioned, that is, this is the breakdown of the will of the West to expansion and confrontation. This is the first thing. The second is a completely demilitarized and denazified Ukraine, that is, a completely different country than the one it is now. Not anti-Russia. Then the world will be fair enough. We have been proposing such a world for many years. But our requests, proposals, demands were rejected. Unfortunately, this policy has led to an open clash that is just unfolding.

Both you and the majority of us are still in the Western ideological shadow. I also read oriental newspapers, India, China, and so there the picture of the world is completely different. We focus on a shrinking and collapsing, but still very powerful civilization, and new ones are rising and flourishing around. Let’s look there.

– Will it not turn out in the end that the United States will come to an agreement with China and divide the world between the two poles, which will dictate terms to everyone else? At the same time, US hegemony will decrease, but the influence of the eastern partner will expand. In this case, who are we with – with the West or with the East? Will we be satisfied with such an alignment – to be the periphery of one of the centers of power again?

– “We’ll be with us. Fortunately, now this question that you pose is no longer worth it. Earlier, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was an option that we would go with the West. He rejected such a possibility and radically undermined his future. Now this window of opportunity is closed. Russia will never become a satellite of any country. This is basically impossible. This is the first thing. Second. All the people who say such things don’t see where the world is going. New continents, civilizations, centers are rising. How can China dominate this emerging world if it has great India, great Russia, great Persia, great Turkey, and finally strong Arabs by its side? Such a situation is impossible! Maybe some pieces of Europe will rally around the United States of America, although I am sure that in ten years parts of the crumbling Europe will also go to the East. This is already evident in the example of Hungary, in the example of many political and economic currents in Europe. This is just the beginning.Therefore, it is possible that the United States will remain with a group of its satellites and the rest of the vast world in which there will be no hegemon. China can never be a hegemon in this world.

– You say that you read their press and they see the current world and its future in a completely different way. And how do they see it?

– I don’t want to ascribe to myself their ideas, and they – theirs, but the Indians, although there are both pro-Western and anti-Chinese Indians, are nevertheless very realistic and extremely interesting look at the modern world. In Russia, our intelligentsia still suffers from one physiological defect – we look at the world with Western eyes , although we ourselves are going to a completely different world. This deficiency of ours becomes a sign of intellectual squalor.

– If you conceptually outline their vision in a nutshell, what is it? What do they see in the future?

– Many centers of power, a much freer choice of peoples, the throwing off the Western yoke, which dominated them for five centuries, an independent path of development.

Although in these countries there are also different elites. There are comprador elites, and there is a struggle going on. But in these countries, in the Arab, in Turkey, India, the views are radically different from those that, at least until recently, were expressed by the majority of the Russian intelligentsia. I repeat, this habit of looking at the world with Western eyes seems to me a sign of intellectual squalor.

– You say that we will never become someone’s satellite, controlled by some center of power. And what can we offer the world? What is our special path?

– “First of all, we have to think about what we can offer ourselves, and then about whatwe offerto the rest of the world. I believe that for Russia this is the path of sovereignty, the path of national freedom, the path to justice. The world of Russia is a world of normal people who love their country, their family, their history and the people around them. Believers in God or not believers, but believe in the high destiny of man. Russia has a rich culture and powerful armed forces. Russia is a warrior country that has been knocked out from under the West the foundations of its dominance in politics, economics, military affairs, and culture. We will continue to support this freedom of choice for countries and peoples.

We are a country that brings people, countries and peoples liberation.

– What is our ideology? By the way, is it necessary to prescribe it, as even the head of the Ministry of Justice has been suggesting lately? And what could be in it? Will traditional values be drawn to this position?

– I have described to you approximately a new ideology. She is absolutely obvious. Ideology is needed. Those people who resist it are either fools or hiding something. Another thing is that we do not need a single ideology. Ideology should be born in disputes and in struggle, but the ideology of patriotism and national greatness, multiculturalism and cultural openness is Russia’s greatest achievement. We obviously need this ideology, and, in principle, it exists. It can be read in the President’s speeches and in the writings of many intellectuals. So far, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, they are not ready to formulate it in detail and promote it. Although many of its elements have already appeared. For example, in the foreign policy doctrine of Russia. I don’t like that at the middle level we are run by political technologists or vulgar materialists, for whom “loot wins over evil.” We need people of spirit and action, looking to the future.

– Do you think it is now possible and possible to launch a discussion about this new ideology with the subjects of the federation, with the same Tatarstan, the Caucasus, the Urals, with Muscovites? What unites us, what values, what future – all this should be written on the basis of some kind of common opinion.

– Naturally, this must be done. I am annoyed that a significant part of our leadership denies this and opposes it. The basic postulates of such an ideology are quite obvious. These are the freedom of peoples, cultural openness, respect for sovereignty, for their history, for their ancestors, a fair international world order, reliance on fair force and, of course, love for the Motherland and one’s neighbor. This is the basis of Orthodoxy and other religions. This is the basis of man.

– That is, something needs to be done for consensus in society, so that people agree on something and on something in their thoughts and spiritually.

– This needs to be constantly dealt with, but for this, in the conditions of our political system, a systemic signal from above is needed. Unfortunately, he hasn’t arrived yet.

Sergey Karaganov is a Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Academic Supervisor of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy