Russian Colonialism

Christopher Caldwell, a columnist for the Financial Times, published today an interesting piece entitled Putin’s colonial exploitation. This opinion piece reacts to comments made by the President of Russia earlier this week. Caldwell cites Vladimir Putin:

“What they are offering us is obviously a vestige of colonial thinking,” was Russian president Vladimir Putin’s bizarre assessment this week of continuing British calls for the extradition of Andrei Lugovoi. “They must have forgotten Britain is no longer a colonial power, there are no colonies left, and, thank God, Russia has never been a British colony.”

Caldwell analyzes Putin's understanding of colonialism and his reading of Russia in a post-colonial world. He writes:

There is always a grain of truth in such observations. Mr Putin’s treatment of Russia as a post-colonial problem seems to have been vindicated mightily. Russia has fared far better economically under his strong hand than it did under the tutelage of western economists. Its income a head has doubled since the turn of the decade. Mr Putin’s approval rating rests between 70 and 85 per cent.

But Russia’s parallels to newly decolonised nations are not all positive. They include capital flight, rapid atrophying of economic sectors outside its major exports, cronyism, arrests of political opponents, lack of transparency and an intentional blurring of property rights. As for human rights, it is true that the doctrine is sometimes misapplied, but it ought to be possible, whatever your source of values, to distinguish between the case for extraditing Mr Lugovoi (a suspected killer) and the case for extraditing Mr Berezovsky (a regime opponent).

Mr Putin’s view that the west is interested only in Russia’s energy is getting truer all the time. But he deserves part of the blame for that. He has built an economy based on resource extraction, to the exclusion of other things. Even when Mr Putin is not shutting off oil shipments to Lithuania or gas shipments to Ukraine, Russia relates to the world through its natural resources. For now, with oil around $80 a barrel, this means relating to the world from a position of strength. Mr Putin seems like a visionary to his citizenry. He does have a visionary side. Indeed, he has brought to life the spectre against which he sermonises.

However, Caldwell analysis fails in one regard: neither Caldwell's piece nor Putin's statements acknowledge the fact that Russia can be characterized as a colonizing force. Historically, the rise of Russia occurred with the invasion and colonization of neighboring territories. Pushed by the need to acquire resources (first sable furs then oil and gas), Russian colonization pushed North and East as far as Alaska. The colonized lands were integrated into the Russian Empire, then the Soviet Union and finally the Russian Federation, but modern Russia is still a colonial power in that the state exploits peripheral territories for its benefit and the benefit of a small proportion of the population.

Russia's oil does not come from Moscow, yet it is Moscow that benefits most from the wealth generated from the sale of oil and gas. In the Komi Republic, where I spent many years doing research, most villages do not have natural gas and houses are heated using firewood. Survival depends on the potato crop and keeping a few animals to provide mild and meat. This in spite of the fact that the Komi Republic is a major producer of crude oil. The same can be said of numerous other regions in Russia. In effect, the periphery is colonized for the benefit of the elite.