Russian "resistance"
Russia's elite pays lipservice to an outraged population, but has no intention of seriously opposing NATO aggression. Renfrey Clarke MOSCOW-With a shower of paint bombs, rocks, eggs and bottles, thousands of demonstrators outside the US embassy in Moscow on March 25 expressed their outrage at the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
Next morning it was the turn of the British embassy, with a demonstration by an estimated 5,000 people. The protesters included large numbers of students, and contingents of factory workers organised by the Moscow Federation of Trade Unions.
As the day wore on, the US embassy again became the target of protest. As many as 7,000 people gathered outside the yellow and white building on Moscow's inner ring road, chanting and flinging missiles. Press reports noted the unusual range of people taking part— from skinheads and teenage football fans, to office workers and pensioners. 16 International Viewpoint #311 May 1999
Demonstrations took place accross Russia. "Yesterday Iraq, Today Serbia, Tomorrow Russia," read a placard in St Petersburg. Nationalist organisations signed up military veterans to defend Yugoslavia.
According to survey findings, 93% of Russians oppose NATO's action in bombing Serbia, which has cultural and religious ties to Russia. Russia's state leaders have tuned in to this popular mood—at least rhetorically.
As the first reports of the bombing came in, President Boris Yeltsin hinted that Russia might respond with measures "of a military character". In an interview on March 27, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov accused NATO of committing "genocide" against the Yugoslav people, and suggested that the alliance answer for its actions before the UN war crimes tribunal.
For anyone who remembers the mood of Russian leaders-and of a good part of the population-in the early 1990s, the scenes of the past days and weeks have been full of irony. Seven or eight years ago, as far as Yeltsin and many of his followers were concerned, the Western powers could do no wrong.
But faith in the West has slid steadily ever since. And now, as the bombs rain on Yugoslavia, the last shreds of belief in Western goodwill are being replaced by cynicism.
The mood of hostility to the West is especially marked in the Russian military. "Most Russian military personnel are expressing direct readiness for armed solidarity with the Serbs," the Moscow daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported on March 27. "The US and NATO are now associated exclusively with the image of the enemy."
Russian media pour scorn on the rationalisations offered by Western leaders to explain the bombing campaign. "There is an unquestionable double standard..." the Moscow paper Novye Izvestiya observed on March 26. "If one recalls how harshly Turkey, a NATO member, deals with the Kurds...
Why, Russians ask themselves, has the NATO alliance been preserved, now that the Cold War has ended?
For a decade, liberal ideologues have tried to suppress the instinct of many Russians to view political questions in terms of class, and of exploitation of the poor by the rich. But as the bombs and missiles have pounded Yugoslavia, even Russian liberals have admitted that NATO is essentially a military club of the rich, an armed alliance for enforcing the interests of the "haves" of North America and Europe against the "have-nots"
As citizens of what is now the great "have-not" of Europe, Russians have been quick to understand that the bombing of Yugoslavia also carries a powerful message for them. If Western leaders find something to their advantage, Russian objections will not deter them.
And if the Russian state should dare to pursue its interests in ways not to the West's liking, the message continues, the consequences for Russia could be devastating.
The Russian elite hurls epithets, the masses gather outside the US embassy and hurl beer bottles, even full ones. But after years of implementing Western economic prescriptions, the Russian government has little idea how to block NATO.
When news of the bombing broke, Russian representatives in the United Nations Security Council demanded an immediate halt to the air strikes. The resolution, predictably, was heavil defeated.
Russia has frozen military collaboration with NATO and postponed ratification of the START-Il nuclear arms reduction treaty. The effect of these moves on the NATO governments however, has been undetectable. Lack of will
The failure of Russian leaders to make any impact on NATO is not simply a reflection of Russia's drastically
reduced influence in the world. The will is not really there either. Calls for military aid to Yugoslavia have been quietly pushed aside by the Russian authorities as impractical and dangerous.
Expressions of outrage at the bombing of Yugoslavia have been accompanied by assurances that no big changes in Moscow's orientation to the West are desired or contemplated.
In a dramatic gesture on March 23, Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov called off a trip to the US after being denied guarantees that air strikes would not begin while he was in America. Other members of his delegation, however, made their way to Washington, and while bombs fell on Belgrade, most of the meetings planned for Primakov's trip took place.
A meeting between Primakov and International Monetary Fund chief Michel Camdessus, scheduled to take place in the US, was quickly relocated to Moscow. The Russian government was seeking IMF credits of as much as US$4.8 billion, needed to forestall a default on foreign debt payments. Nothing the NATO powers might do in the Balkans, it became clear, would be allowed to prejudice these negotiations.
Given the popular mood in Russia, Primakov and other members of the Russian elite were obliged to criticise NATO's attacks on Yugoslavia. But if their statements are analysed, it becomes clear that the Russian rulers have dealt with the imperialist bomb-throwers much more kindly than they might have done. Whitewashing Belgrade
A striking feature of the rhetoric issuing from Moscow-both from official spokespeople, and from major newspapers-is its whitewash of the Yugoslav government and its refusal to address the real history and dynamics of the situation in Kosovo. According to Novye Izvestiya on March 26, Yugoslavia has been under attack for "solving strictly internal problems"
According to Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, the Kosovo Liberation Army consists simply of "Albanian terrorists" and "Muslim extremists" . Only a few references to to Serbian atrocities against the Kosovars survive the editing tables of the Russian media.
In reality, the Russian elite is quite happy to underline its various differences with the West by permitting and even encouraging chauvinist fervour. But promoting a serious understanding of national rights and popular selfdetermination-something which would really give NATO problems—is not its line at all. * * The author is the Russia specialist at Green Left Weekly newspaper
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