Liberation, not collapse

The events of 1989-91 became coded in the world’s imaginary as the ‘collapse’ of communism after the sudden demise of Eastern European and Soviet regimes. Like the Berlin Wall, communism broke down from one day to the next – and seemingly for good. But that’s not the only way to interpret this historic juncture.

‘Liberation’ could have become the dominant concept instead. After all, millions were liberated from communist dictatorships: the disbanding of the Warsaw Pact, the Comecon and the Soviet state suggests that Eastern European satellites and Soviet republics were freed from Russian domination.

Describing what transpired as a ‘collapse’ was ill-fated. It created the misguided impression of irreversibility and an artificially thick line between the past and the present. It overemphasized the end of communism while largely ignoring Russia’s imperial project. The liberation lens would have more accurately captured the arduous, uneven and slow process of extrication both from state socialism and from Russian imperialism, including the dangers of revanche and reversal. 

The choice of how to conceptualize the era may well have come from the Cold War period’s preoccupation with the ideological competition between communism and liberal democracy. The delegitimization and rejection of Marxism-Leninism that brought down the regimes captured and held everyone’s attention, leaving little room for noticing that the elephant of Russian imperialism was still in the room. The common inclination, shared by the George H. W. Bush administration, Western scholars and the general public, was to support the Soviet center and Mikhail Gorbachev personally, and to look at the region through a Moscow-centric lens. The focus in Moscow was on the collapse of the Soviet state, so Westerners focused on that too. This low-level concern and understanding about how the ‘periphery’ saw events extended beyond the end of the Cold War.

Ultimately, the West decisively rejected the idea of describing the Soviet Union and communism’s disintegration as ‘liberation’, because it was afraid of projecting ‘triumphalism’ and humiliating the imperial centre that was shedding colonies. Bush expressed this attitude clearly in multiple recollections. In the 1998 TV documentary series Cold War, he has nothing to say about celebrations in the Soviet Union’s periphery or its satellites when the USSR was finally gone. Rather he speaks about his sadness for his friend Mikhail Gorbachev who had lost his country at Christmas in 1991. Bush also emphasizes that celebrating the fall of the Iron Curtain would have been ‘the stupidest thing I could have done’, because it would have humiliated Russia.

Whatever the roots of the choice of ‘collapse’ over ‘liberation’, it has structured our understanding of the three decades that followed. It has affected the scholarly priorities of social scientists studying the region. It has produced assumptions and tropes that guide journalists reporting from the region for worldwide audiences. It has even seeped into our interpretation of the current moment when trying to decipher the meaning, reasons and goals of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and thinking about how to stop Russian aggression and how to restore a just, sustainable peace in Europe. 

If we had chosen the liberation lens, images of the  might have become as iconic as the fall of the Berlin Wall. By sheer numbers and scope, the protest was more striking than the wall coming down: a staggering 2 million people joined hands in a 670-km-long human chain across three states, a bigger and more complex feat to pull off than the spontaneous gathering of half a million in one city. Yet Google search results for ‘Baltic Way’ are in the thousands while hits for the ‘fall of the Berlin wall’ are in the millions. It seems that we have processed the tangible and literal collapse of the wall as the symbol of the end of communism in Eastern Europe and failed to fully appreciate how a unison of citizens across Baltic states challenged the stereotype of a uniformly atomized Soviet society, and revealed the political and moral illegitimacy of Moscow’s rule over the periphery.

Baltic Way in Latvia between Cēsis and Valmiera, 23 Aug 1989. Image via Wikimedia Commons

If we had chosen the liberation lens, we might have seen the disintegration of the USSR in a different light. As Oxana Shevel and I argue in our recent book Russia and Ukraine: Entangled histories, diverging states, the Belovezha Accords were Boris Yeltsin’s attempt to write new vows for Russia’s, Ukraine’s and Belarus’s ‘continued marriage’ rather than, as Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk famously put it, a ‘civilized divorce’. The collapse lens favoured latching onto the idea that the separation was full, immediate and permanent. Instead, the liberation lens would have allowed us to see that Yeltsin was pursuing deimperialization only strategically and partially, driven by his newly found anti-communist stance and desire to outmaneuver Gorbachev for the top imperial spot. With liberation in mind, we might have looked more critically at the Commonwealth of Independent States as a new vehicle for Russian imperialism rather than taken the name at face value. We might have acknowledged the significance of Yeltsin overshadowing Nursultan Nazarbaev, the first president of Kazakhstan, as the ‘host’ of the Alma-Ata meeting, which launched the CIS.

If we had chosen the liberation lens, we might have understood that Russia’s attempts to suppress the liberation process were behind many of the ‘separatist’ and ‘interethnic’ conflicts in the former Soviet space, from Moldova to Chechnya. Although momentum in the early 1990s in Russia created a window of opportunity for the self-determination of national movements elsewhere, it was short-lived. Russia’s military and diplomatic aid for centrifugal forces undermined state-building and created ‘frozen’ conflicts in the newly independent states. Russia exerted a restraining hold on the central governments of its neighbours and continued to do so for decades. Chechnya’s attempt to follow the liberation path and gain independence after centuries of Russian domination, for example, was brutally suppressed by the imperial centre – an act that was largely condoned by the West in the 1990s and 2000s. Moscow even managed to install a puppet Chechen regime. Devoid of the liberation lens, the Chechen wars for independence were mainly interpreted as separatism and Islamic terrorism. 

If we had chosen the liberation lens, we might not have construed the economic and demographic crises of the 1990s predominantly as a post-apocalyptic wasteland inhabited by incompetent neoliberal reformers, rapacious oligarchs and victimized masses. We might have emphasized more that the reform processes were the gradual and difficult extrication from both the lasting economic wounds of the communist regimes’ dysfunction and a weakened imperial centre that sought to preserve some of its leverage over the periphery. We could have appreciated better that the policy choices of 1990s decision-makers were constrained by ‘path contingency’ and the old communist and imperial elites’ enduring grip on power – and that the latter carried the lion’s share of responsibility for the hardship.

If we had chosen the liberation lens, we would have better appreciated the exhilarating, new-found liberty of the post-authoritarian 1990s – the freedom of movement, speech, conscience, assembly and cultural exchange. Rather than overfocusing on the hardships of the transition, we would have rightly celebrated the gains in human dignity and individual liberty that came from, for example, being able to read whatever books you wanted without censorship or listening to whatever music you liked without guidance from the local party committee. Post-communist citizens embraced the change – in 1991, the Monsters of Rock concert headlined by AC/DC and Metallica attracted 1.6 million Muscovites and entered the top-10 of the biggest concerts in history. Had we focused more on liberation, we might have noted earlier that these winds of change vanished alarmingly quickly in Russia, gradually under Yeltsin and then suddenly under Vladimir Putin. Instead of falling for Putin’s self-serving narrative of the ‘wild 1990s’ as a decade without any redeeming qualities, lost to poverty, crime and external humiliation, we would have noted that Russians had never been freer before and, unfortunately, since.

If we had chosen the liberation lens, it would have been obvious to everyone that Eastern European countries turned to NATO and the EU immediately because they finally had an opportunity to select their own alliances as sovereign states. They clamoured for inclusion and jumped through conditionality hoops to accede to the EU – a club of democracies and a vast common market – to rejoin Europe and to rebuild their economies ravished by the command economy’s dysfunction. They hurried to join NATO’s defensive alliance to make sure a resurgent Russia could not make a grab for their sovereignty again. Through the liberation looking glass, no one would have wondered why the Bulgarian foreign minister cried as he watched his country’s flag raised at NATO headquarters.

Most importantly, we desperately need the liberation lens now, because millions in Ukraine have already lost their liberty to Russian occupation. Millions more, even beyond Ukraine, may yet fall under Russian domination either through military conquest or at the hands of Russian puppet governments in ostensibly independent states. Europe’s citizens writ large may lose democratic liberties as Russian interference accelerates democratic backsliding.

Today, some draw parallels to 1938 when Europe chose to appease rather than confront Hitler’s expansionist dictatorship, decrying that now, like then, there appears to be no urgency to put together a coalition to defeat Russian aggression. Indeed, since February 2022, we’ve seen a slow and moderate Western effort to help Ukraine withstand Russia’s attack but not win. Others reject analogies to stopping Nazi Germany because Russia doesn’t seem to have the capacity to march through Europe, both because Ukraine’s fierce resistance has degraded Russian military power and because NATO still exists and deters. 

There are merits to both sides of this debate, but they overlook another pertinent historical analogy: if we choose the liberation lens now, we could note parallels to 1944-46. In the last year of World War II, the US and Western Europe let the Soviet Union take Eastern Europe’s sovereignty. Through the Percentages Agreement and later the Yalta Conference, without the presence or the consent of Eastern Europeans, the ‘great powers’ decided that these states needed governments ‘friendly’ to the USSR. And we know how things turned out after Yalta. Through occupation, show trials and executions, deportations, gulags, manipulated elections, the crushing of the opposition and the empowerment of local proxies, the USSR gradually pushed these ‘friendly’ governments. Even those countries where, according to the 1944 Percentages Agreement, Western powers and the USSR were supposed to share spheres of influence became completely cut off from the West. Through the Warsaw Pact, the Comecon and two invasions – Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 – Soviet domination of Eastern Europe lasted the next 45 years. 

Today, Russia is again expansionist and ideologically hostile to democracy. It again seeks the US’s complicity to restore the violently enforced loyalty of the Warsaw Pact years. Belarus has effectively lost its sovereignty. Russia demands that the US and Europe stop helping Ukraine defend itself. It sabotages Moldova and Georgia’s EU aspirations and undermines both countries’ sovereignty through election interference, oligarchic influence and the continued occupation of parts of their internationally recognized territory. Russia has even repeatedly called for NATO to withdraw from Eastern Europe. This demand reveals Russia’s ambition to re-establish dominance over the states it used to control. 

Today, we are at an inflection point: will we avoid or repeat the mistakes of the 1940s?

Since Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, the US has become sympathetic to Russia’s imperialist demands in Europe. From its position as an ally supporting Ukraine’s defence and guaranteeing Europe’s security, the US has dramatically pivoted towards an alliance with Putin’s Russia. In early February, the US launched talks with Russia. The Riyadh talks could hardly be called a negotiation because the US did not ask Russia for a compromise but instead publicly hinted at concessions that would recognize Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory and freeze Ukraine’s NATO aspirations – without the Ukrainian leadership’s involvement. The administration touted the common ‘geopolitical interests’ and ‘economic opportunities’ of a new Russia-US partnership. One such opportunity is a contract that would compel Ukraine to allow the US to extract its rare minerals reserves as repayment for the military aid Ukraine already received. With the deal still unsigned, the US voted against a UN resolution identifying Russia as the aggressor in the war, joining Russia, Belarus, North Korea and a few other rogue dictatorships.

In the wake of this US pivot, Ukraine’s remaining allies need to choose the liberation lens and reject Russia’s demands for ‘friendly’ governments in the region. ‘Putin wants a “friendly” Ukraine. What’s so bad about that?’ one might ask. Ukrainians understand all too well that for Russia, a ‘friendly’ Ukraine means a subjugated one, where the Ukrainian language, national identity and democratic institutions are eradicated. These processes are already unfolding at warp speed in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia. Ukrainian language instruction has been banned, Ukrainian books have been removed from libraries and destroyed, and Ukrainian national monuments have been replaced by Lenin and Stalin statues. Ukrainian citizens have been forced to take Russian citizenship. The properties and assets of displaced or dead Ukrainians have been taken over by newly arrived Russians repopulating seized locations. 

The liberation lens helps us see that partitioning Ukraine and imposing ‘neutrality’ on it in the name of compromise is not a solution. Feeding Ukraine’s territory and people to Russia piece by piece is not peacemaking but letting Russia creep to victory. Each day that Ukraine is not part of NATO and the EU is another day where Russia’s hope of conquering Ukraine stays alive. Only NATO/EU membership – the sovereign choice of an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians – can protect Ukraine from repeated Russian aggression. If NATO membership remains blocked by the US and a ceasefire is reached, Ukraine’s other allies need to step up to provide enough troops to deter renewed Russian aggression. President Zelenskyy has suggested that more than 100,000 troops would be needed, and conversations between the UK, France, Sweden, Poland and other allies have already started.

We should not allow the emerging US-Russia partnership to manipulate world opinion through the euphemism of Russia’s supposed ‘security concerns’ over NATO expansion. Neither should we allow imperialist domination to make a come back through the euphemism of ‘spheres of influence’. Russia is not guarding its security but attempting to take away others’ security and freedom. What Russia aims for isn’t a sphere of influence through soft power but heavy-handed interference and violently enforced loyalty. If we choose the liberation lens now, we would understand that if Russia manages to win through force, nuclear blackmail, and the Trump administration’s help, liberty and democracy all over the world could be in danger. Other dictators and wannabe strongmen with expansionist ambitions will use the same strategy to redraw borders by force or conquer their neighbours.

If with the US’s help, Russia succeeds like its Soviet predecessor in subjugating parts of Europe, a new generation of Western scholars might write books to normalize and explain the outcome as inevitable or even desirable for world peace and stability. If NATO collapses under Russia’s threat of nuclear attack or through discord caused by Russian interference in NATO members’ domestic politics, some will argue that the development was NATO’s own fault for attempting to overextend its reach. Others will explain how whoever Russia manages to subjugate in fact welcomed Russia, for historical, linguistic, cultural or economic reasons. International relations scholars will stress how Russia has a sphere of influence like any other great power and will label any attempt to treat it as unusually aggressive as unscholarly moralizing. And when this new Russian empire nears its next potential collapse, new Western policymakers will echo Bush’s infamous 1991 ‘Chicken Kiev’ speech and again forewarn subjugated nations about the dangers of ‘suicidal nationalism’. 

Thirty-five years after 1989, the region has completely eliminated its dysfunctional communist regimes, but the process of liberation from Russian imperialism is ongoing. In fact, the liberty and sovereignty gains of the last three decades might be lost within the next three months to revanchist Russia aided by a crumbling American democracy. The 1989-1991 concept of a ‘collapse’, which created a sense of irreversibility, obscures the current danger of a Russian revanche looming over Europe. We face the possibility of another betrayal of Eastern Europe, and another division of the continent into free, sovereign states protected by geographical distance and their own nuclear shields and Russian-occupied or dominated vassals. It is only Ukraine’s heroic and effective resistance that is keeping Russian imperialism at bay and protecting Europe.