Source: The World Today

The Russia-Georgia conflict has had a grave consequence for Russia- it has ended the Perestroika experiment that was begun by former President Mikhail Gorbachev. While the war had many different roots, one important factor responsible for this event is the position of the Russian ruling class. The conflict is a direct result of this group wanting to return to a traditional state in which it cannot maintain itself without spheres of influence, macho posturing and the search for an enemy. The state, based on highly centralized and personified power with strong elements of coercion, can exist only as a besieged fortress.

While this conflict has achieved this aim of maintaining a status quo and served as a unifying event for Russian citizens, it also faces a current challenge. The problem lies in Russia’s next step. Because the elite is a rentier class feeding off energy sales to the west, they have no interest in further escalation of the confrontation, as this would threaten their personal inclusion in the west and this is the new element in the old matrix. But, at the same time, they cannot abandon the anti-western means of consolidating Russia.

The country is approaching a new moment of truth when the elite discovers that the petro-economy no longer works and maintaining mobilisation at the enemy’s expense has become infinitely more difficult. It is unclear whether it will be able to start to reform the predatory state before it collapses and Russia repeats the end of the Soviet Union.
 

The article first appeared in The World Today magazine.