Soviet communism, largely overlapping with Russian imperialism, took a deep blow in the wake of the 1989 revolutions, when Soviet satellite states (also known as the ‘Warsaw Pact’) became democracies and adopted the capitalist system. A second blow came just two years later, in 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
It is widely accepted that many in Russia feel nostalgic for Russia’s Soviet past. Many aspects of Soviet life are still considered disputable, even by the younger generations. Furthermore, many of those aspects are being reborn in modern-day Russia: the GULAG (there are filtration camps today), the repressive and overfunded police force, the forced conscription of prisoners in war, and so on. While a second version of a Soviet Union is envisioned as being closer to the idea of Imperial Russia rather than a communist one, the aim always seems to lie in expanding Russia’s borders to their historically greatest extent. Putin’s regrets lie in the inability of the Soviet government to preserve the Soviet borders while not having enough time to transform it into a more modern, capitalist-run state. A state that could compete with its adversaries on par. The collapse of communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union’s borders broke that vision and even its mere possibility.
In 1989, when communism in Eastern Germany collapsed, Vladimir Putin was a 37-year-old KGB lieutenant colonel stationed in Dresden. This period was marked by significant events that had a major impact on Putin’s perception of power and politics. In essence, he was a devotee of the Soviet system and the repressive nature of the KGB in particular. Murders, false flag attacks, and many other dirty tactics that were later implemented in the early years of his presidency were always viable options for the Kremlin.
As the Berlin Wall fell, signalling the end of Soviet control in Europe, Putin witnessed angry crowds storming the Stasi (East German secret police) compound in Dresden in December 1989. The enraged crowds moved on to the KGB headquarters. Putin, finding himself in a precarious situation, called for armed backup to protect the employees and sensitive files inside the building. However, he received a response from Moscow saying, “Moscow is silent,” indicating no help would ever come.
One can imagine the impact those words had on Putin. Moscow would never be silent again, he vowed; if he came to power, he probably thought. When he did grab power in 2000, masqueraded as a moderate liberal, he was still presenting himself as a ‘ruthless fighter against terrorism’, having in mind events in the northern Caucasus. And while his popularity soared, the grudge of 1989-1991 was becoming less easy to contain. Putin’s feeling of being personally humiliated as a result of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1989-1991 and the subsequent ascension to unlimited powers proved to be catastrophic for the entire world. The whole region was impacted, from the second Chechen war to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and everything in between.
Russia made an effort to ‘export’ a very different image of Putin and Russia to the audience abroad, to those who have either chosen to ignore Russia’s existential threat to global peace and world security or those who simply benefited from importing cheap Russian oil. Nevertheless, the severity of Putin’s grudge often shows in the international arena. And while domestically, Putin’s push for a USSR 2.0 is very popular among even younger Russians, the sincerity of such regret and the willingness to undo the collapse of a bigger Russia is often misread as domestic populism by the West and the Global South.
Below are a couple of Putin’s quotes, made over the years, that show the graveness of his grudge and regret.
Collapse as a Geopolitical Catastrophe: Putin described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century and a “major geopolitical disaster”. He elaborated that it was a “genuine drama” for the Russian nation, with tens of millions of Russians finding themselves outside the Russian territory after its collapse.
Demise of ‘Historical Russia’: In a documentary film called “Russia. New History”, Putin lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “disintegration of historical Russia” and a loss of what “had been built over 1,000 years”. He mentioned that 25 million Russian people in newly independent countries were cut off from Russia, calling it “a major humanitarian tragedy”.
Tragedy for the Russian Nation: He also stated that the breakup of the Soviet Union was a “national tragedy on an enormous scale” that benefited “only the elites and nationalists of the republics”.
Despite posing as a moderate candidate during his first term in office (and yet, orchestrating genocide in Chechnya on a cosmic scale) and putting an even more ‘moderate’ temporary replacement – Medvedev, the ‘Moscow is silent’ was not only echoing in his ears, it got even louder. The quotes above are just the tip of the iceberg. And while every country neighbouring Russia has always known the unmasked version of Russia – an imperialist and expansionist threat to its neighbours and the entire region, those further from the immediate epicentre do not feel such urgency to combat the issue. And while many leaders misread Russian expansionism and Soviet nostalgia as domestic populism and Putin’s appeal to Russian nationalists at home, the evidence points to the fact that such regrets over the past indicate a willingness to do whatever it takes to undo those ‘past mistakes’ in the future.
While the aforementioned quotes clearly show how gravely Putin was affected by the events in 1989, there were far more obvious indicators signalling that the vision of a USSR 2.0 was about to dominate the Russian foreign policy doctrine. The events in Moldova, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Donbas, and then Ukraine were the immediate results of this doctrine. These events resembled the domino effect – Russia testing the waters in the regions where they believed they could undo their so-called ‘major geopolitical disaster’ that occurred in 1989 and 1991.
