MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti, political commentator Peter Lavelle). The meaning of Poland's Solidarity movement (Solidarnosc in Polish), established 25 years ago this week in Gdansk, has not been learned by Russia's liberal opposition.
The political breakthrough Solidarity achieved against Poland's communist regime was due to a definition of politics that was not about power, but about representation. Once Russia's liberals absorb this lesson, the country's political environment will begin to change for the better.
Twenty-five years ago Polish shipyard workers, with the help of the country's dissident intelligentsia, started a social movement that would eventually bring about the end of communist rule in Poland. Over the years, it has been debated what triggered the collapse of communist regimes across Eastern Europe. Was it because Mikhail Gorbachev's "new thinking," Ronald Reagan's determination to win the Cold War against the "evil empire," or Pope John Paul II's message of "allowing people to live in dignity?" Clearly all of these elements were in play, but there is little doubt Poland's Solidarity provided a powerful example for its communist neighbors and the Soviet Union of how social mobilization can successfully recast the political landscape.
The secret behind Solidarity's success was in the way it defined politics - this is something Russia's liberals should draw on.
Russia's liberal opposition is in a cul-de-sac of its own making. It advances a concept of politics that is all about power, not representation - the direct opposite of Solidarity's approach. This concept of politics assumes that that the articulation of specific interests by a particular social group automatically implies a claim for control of the state.
Additionally, Russia's opposition actually continues to assume that there is no distinction between state and society - Solidarity only claimed to represent civil society. This distinction is the salient feature of liberal democracies, in which politics is seen as the discourse of the necessary interplay between the interests and ideologies articulated in civil society and their representation-making process, which is allocated to the state.
Worse still, Russia's liberal opposition continues equate politics with possession of state power - Solidarity renounced any interest in attaining political power. This condition, of course, will only abolish politics as activity and replace it with politics as apparatus. The Kremlin has essentially done this, albeit out of necessity and not through intent. Russia's (lack of meaningful) opposition has forced the Kremlin's hand for reasons of state.
What also ails Russia's politics (and its democratic development) is the absence of meaningful social-democratic and (non-state controlled) liberal-patriotic political discourse. Solidarity protected and developed both under one tent until the communist regime surrendered power in 1989. Yabloko and SPS are perfectly respectable liberal-conservative parties. Leaders of both parties probably could win elections in Western Europe and North America, but can't in Russia. Why? Russia's liberal-conservatives have paid too little attention to the "patriotic" part of their agendas.
Russian liberalism is identified with ideas that aren't Russian (enough) and, as such, are deemed very foreign. Russian liberals have yet to invent a truly Russian variant with unquestioned Russia-specific credentials. Because this has not been done, Putin's Kremlin has been able to claim that it is representative of Russian liberalism, because there is always some kind of patriotic element added on. Today this is an established fact, but it must eventually change.
Putin is the most liberal, even democratic, leader in Russia's history. One can have doubts whether these are his core instincts, but recent history has ensured that he cannot reject these ideas if Russia is to survive as a viable nation-state in a very hostile world. He is the "accidental liberal and (Russian) democrat" because individuals, political parties, and even the best-intentioned foreign advisors have failed Russia in the post-communist era. This failure has the state determining liberal ideology and policies that should come from civil society. This is the greatest oddity of Russian politics and something Solidarity overcame a quarter of a century ago.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board.
