Letter From the Editors
Where were you on September 11, 2001, at about 10 a.m. New York time? If you’re over the age of 30, you were almost certainly watching a live TV feed as nearly 3,000 people were killed in front of you.
“A new page of human history was opened with the destruction of the Twin Towers,” Gennady Petrov writes, “It seemed the fault line from the attacks in New York now ran with guileless simplicity between civilization and savagery,” the former being “the ‘free world’ (under the informal leadership of the US) – of which Russia was part, of course.” This alignment in the “struggle by all humanity against the cosmic evil of terrorism” extended beyond rhetoric, Petrov recalls, including “the opening of a NATO staging ground in Ulyanovsk to support US troops in Afghanistan, who were leading the fight against global terrorism.”
Petrov reflects that, looking back at contemporary news reports, “It’s like you’ve landed in another universe,” and that Russians who as children might have left notes of support at the US Embassy would now respond to the opening question of this editorial, “September 11? Who cares about September 11? Russia now has a different date to count from: Feb. 24, 2022.”
Indeed, a specific interpretation of what began on Feb. 24 has increasingly become the organizing principle of Russian society – namely, that it and all its consequences are inevitable. Hardship on the home front should be accepted with resignation as the authorities sort matters out in the combat zone. Mikhail Shevchuk describes the mentality: “There is no gasoline because refineries aren’t working. Refineries aren’t working because of Ukrainian attacks. Ukrainians target Russian refineries because Russia is conducting a special military operation in Ukraine. Russia is conducting a special military operation because such is life.”
Since the public’s biggest concerns – fuel shortages, high interest rates, sanctions – are all tied to the war, this does not leave much room for discussion in the current election campaign. Noviye Lyudi and A Just Russia, near losing their seats in the Duma entirely, are arranging last-minute forums for undecided voters who are “not protest-minded so much as sometimes unsatisfied with certain moves by the authorities,” as NG puts it. Expert Konstantin Kalachov believes the more secure RFCP and LDPR might simply “coast through the rest of the campaign without a dash to the finish line.” Rounding out the pack, NG writes that “There are also United Russia and Yabloko, for whom such pushes are probably off limits. The ruling party is better off not tiring out the voters, while the pacifist party would be risking its very existence.” There seems to be a shortage of alternatives.
There does appear to be an “alternative for Germany,” where the party of that name won a large plurality in state parliamentary elections for Saxony-Anhalt. NG tries to keep the win in perspective, saying it had caused “a totally unjustified surge of optimism in Russia – the flip side of the equally unjustified pessimism that has seized some European liberals.” While AfD occasionally sounds friendly to Russia, this is mainly contrariness toward unpopular mainstream politicians, while “for voters who elect right-wing populists, the importance of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is pretty low,” the paper continues. Europe’s recent rightward shift offers many examples of leaders accepting more Russia-hawkish positions in exchange for coalition partners’ support on higher priorities – Senator Konstantin Kosachov notes Italy’s Meloni and Hungary’s Magyar, with Bardella in the wings in France. Right-wingers tend to prioritize defense spending, after all, but passing it requires a common enemy – Russia.
“The world that became unusually simple on September 11, 2001, went the way it probably had to go: It got more complicated,” Petrov writes. The thing about history is that new pages are written every day. Someday, the page on the “special military operation” consensus will close, just like it did on the “War on Terror” consensus. The question is: Who will write the next one?