I certainly hope not but I’m not about to take the word of people who were strung along and suckered by the west so long and who still so desperately want to rejoin them. People can talk of this “turn to the east” and indeed Russia has but also at every chance they state their desire to get in the better graces of the west and work together. China will need to be careful and lucky and we’ll have to hope the western leadership remains inept.
Much as Moscow might call itself a Euro-Asian country the fact is Moscow, Leningrad, etc are all in the far west of the country, the leadership including top bourgeoisie has long sought integration with the west, they buy their mansions in the UK and the EU and docked their yachts there and went on frequent vacations there and loved going clubbing and boozing and picking up people for sex parties. The west will have a strong pull, a siren’s song on Russia for many years, if not decades down the road that Russia will have to resist. There is a faction aware of this and they are in power, but they could lose power just as easily and be replaced with those who’d sell out every Russian child in an instant for the chance to live the European high life again in subservient integration.
I believe Lavrov is sincere and intelligent on this and other matters. But I also believe he’s old and like Putin could die or be replaced or pushed aside.
As well as that superstructural culture angle, there’s also the structural angle of Russia being a monopoly capitalist state which, when opportunity presents itself, is liable to do imperlialism.
I certainly hope not but I’m not about to take the word of people who were strung along and suckered by the west so long and who still so desperately want to rejoin them. People can talk of this “turn to the east” and indeed Russia has but also at every chance they state their desire to get in the better graces of the west and work together. China will need to be careful and lucky and we’ll have to hope the western leadership remains inept.
Much as Moscow might call itself a Euro-Asian country the fact is Moscow, Leningrad, etc are all in the far west of the country, the leadership including top bourgeoisie has long sought integration with the west, they buy their mansions in the UK and the EU and docked their yachts there and went on frequent vacations there and loved going clubbing and boozing and picking up people for sex parties. The west will have a strong pull, a siren’s song on Russia for many years, if not decades down the road that Russia will have to resist. There is a faction aware of this and they are in power, but they could lose power just as easily and be replaced with those who’d sell out every Russian child in an instant for the chance to live the European high life again in subservient integration.
I believe Lavrov is sincere and intelligent on this and other matters. But I also believe he’s old and like Putin could die or be replaced or pushed aside.
As well as that superstructural culture angle, there’s also the structural angle of Russia being a monopoly capitalist state which, when opportunity presents itself, is liable to do imperlialism.