100 Years Founding of the Soviet Union: Putin’s Dream of Ancient Greatness

Status: 12/30/2022 10:33 a.m

The Soviet Union was founded 100 years ago. Russian President Putin has regretted their collapse more than once. Although he excludes a new edition, he still has Union plans.

By Christina Nagel, ARD Studio Moscow

It was a historic moment when, on December 30, 1922, representatives of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republics and the Transcaucasian Federation signed the Treaty establishing the Soviet Union in Moscow. On the big stage: in the Bolshoi Theater.

“The unstable international situation and the threat of new attacks make it essential to create a unified front of Soviet republics in the face of the capitalist environment,” says the text of the declaration laying the foundations for the USSR . The – as the anthem later said – “the unbreakable union of free republics that united great Rus’ for eternity”.

The fact that it broke up in the end was and is “the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

For him, the current situation, the war in Ukraine, is the continuation of a never-ending culture war between West and East: “Over the course of decades, the idea of ​​the collapse of the Soviet Union, of historical Russia and of Russia itself has always been cultivated in Western countries .”

Repressive laws, revived traditions

The Kremlin feels called upon to preserve not just Russia, but the entire Russian world. With the help of repressive laws against dissidents and everything that could have supposedly corrosive foreign influence. With sermons and propaganda on traditional family values ​​and patriotism.

And with a revival of Soviet traditions and achievements that were believed to have been overcome. Starting with a new all-Russian children’s and youth movement, which is now called “Movement of the First” instead of “Pioneers”, to the former Soviet cult car Moskvich, which rolls off the assembly line in former Renault workshops.

The Kremlin sees itself in an all-or-nothing hybrid war waged by the “collective West” — and one that also justifies military force.

“Today we are fighting to ensure that nobody ever thinks that Russia, our people, our language, our culture can be erased from history” – even if the anthem now has a different text: Putin is about the “eternal Great Rus’, which includes Ukraine and Belarus – regardless of their own history and development.

dream of former greatness

In the Kremlin, people never tire of emphasizing that this is not about a new version of the Soviet Union, which finally left the big stage in December 1991. But the dream of former greatness is still not over.

The goal remains to tie as many of the former Soviet republics as possible closely to itself. As if to emphasize this, Putin presented gold rings to the heads of state and government of the Commonwealth of Independent States formed after the collapse of the USSR at the recent informal meeting in St. Petersburg. What made some think of a bond for life, others of Tolkien’s fantasy trilogy “Lord of the Rings”, in which the ring bearers are powerful but become mindless servants.

Back in the USSR: 100 years of the Soviet Union

Christina Nagel, ARD Moscow, 30.12.2022 09:15 a.m

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