Putin's "Anti-Colonial" Imperialism Lines Up With Authoritarian History
"Russia cannot afford to lose, so we need a kind of a victory." This April 2 statement on Russia's invasion of Ukraine by Kremlin insider Sergey Karaganov comes to mind when considering Vladimir Putin's annexation of the Ukrainian territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.
The "accession treaties" just signed are his strongman's way of convincing his people that his war is a success (Russia "gains" 40,000 square miles of land)—even though Ukrainian troops are already liberating newly annexed territory in Donetsk. "This is the will of millions of people," Putin claimed, citing the sham referenda in which many Ukrainians had to participate at gunpoint.
Putin's speech before the annexation "ceremony" was a masterpiece of authoritarian doublespeak. As he asserted that the seized Ukrainian territories will forever be part of Russia, he also accused the West of wanting to make Russia a "colony" and turn its people into a "crowd of voiceless slaves"—a project that perfectly describes his own ambitions as an autocrat.
"This is effectively an official declaration of hostilities against the West." tweeted Max Seddon, Moscow bureau chief of the Financial Times, of Putin's positioning of Russia as leader of an "anti-colonial movement" that will liberate the world from Western tyranny.
The paradox of declaring yourself anti-imperialist while taking imperialist actions is not unusual in the history of dictatorships. Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini depicted Italy as leading an anti-imperialist crusade against the West at the same time he committed genocide in Italy’s Libyan colony in 1930-31. And anti-imperialism was the glue of Communist dictatorships (including in Russia and East Germany, where Putin’s worldview was formed) that murdered tens of millions while purporting to defend peoples around the world oppressed by capitalism.
Putin's annexations have been denounced by both democratic leaders and autocrats like Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Yet this new anti-colonial posturing could further rally the anti-Western dictatorships that have directly or indirectly supported his war on Ukraine all along, such Belarus, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, North Korea, and Iran.
With his back against the wall, and his supposedly mighty military machine exposed as a failure, Putin is now at his most dangerous. Strongmen in this situation never retreat, but instead double down. Since they despise their own people, they don't care about any repercussions that their actions will have for their country. They only care about restoring their prestige and achieving a semblance of victory.
As authoritarian history shows, this never ends well.