The West may not survive a Putin victory
For seven days The Telegraph is running a series of exclusive essays from international commentators imagining the consequences if Russia were successful in its war. The full list of essays so far can be found below.
History is not only written by the victors. It is written by the best storytellers.
Early in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, in 1832, a privileged young revolutionary celebrates Napoleon’s “enlightened” rule compared to his own inglorious time – an age in which, for all its claims of liberty, he’s unable to find a job or a home.
Ideologies may change, but humanity’s thirst for great, transformational figures endures in times of crisis. Mussolini, Hitler, and Lenin, too, rose to power following the failures of young democratic systems to deal with economic and political catastrophes.
The same was true of Putin. The failure of fledgling democracy and capitalism to swiftly lift millions of Russian citizens out of poverty following the collapse of the Soviet Union allowed a Machiavellian ex-KGB officer to dismantle the virginal institutions of freedom over his 25 years in power.
The changes ordinary Russians have experienced under his rule – greater prosperity, higher life expectancy, their country’s dignity “restored” – is a powerful story: a story which, whilst flying in the face of Western assumptions of its own innate ideological superiority, shows that all political systems – even democratic ones – can be suffocated.
It is Western arrogance – epitomised by Fukuyama’s theory in The End of History in 1992 that liberal democracy had definitively “won” the battle of ideas – that we fail to see that the values of freedom will always be imperilled if, or when, our system stalls.
When a system doesn’t fix deep problems – whether due to political obstructionism or ineptitude – people always look to extreme solutions, regardless of how much they may say they love liberty.
One need only consider the enduring fetishisation of Marx among the far-Left to see the appeal of easy answers to complex problems. If one were just to overthrow the system – “the elites” – everything would be solved, argue some.
The existential threat of climate change has given new life to this tired ideology, with many student radicals – like those in Hugo’s novel – believing the only way to save the planet is through extreme methods. Many – maybe even a majority – of 18 to 35 year olds globally believe democracy is not preferable to any other form of government. Last year only 57 per cent thought otherwise.
On the Right, the apparent desecration of traditional values – whether by “woke” ideology, mass migration, or economic imbalance – is leading to a similar disenfranchisement. In America, Donald Trump spoke and speaks to this anger. It is telling how many young people are his most impassioned supporters.
It is noteworthy too that, here in Britain, a large proportion of those few young people who are on the Right openly despise the Conservative Party. They look to more zealous champions for answers.
But what does this have to do with Ukraine, and if Putin wins there?
Fundamentally, if Western democracy is seen to fail, it will become increasingly vulnerable. Vulnerable to more radical ideologies, systems of government, and, ultimately, to dictators outside and in. If Putin is successful in Ukraine, in this new battle of ideas – this “Cold War II” – then the appeal of more collective authoritarian systems, and leaders, will gradually begin to spread not by force, but by imitation.
For too long the West has believed its values proliferated after World War Two because of an inherent goodness, rather than because those values had been tested and “won”. In the Darwinian struggle of political systems and beliefs, that success was all-important. It allowed the United States and its non-Soviet allies to create the United Nations and the many other international bodies which seek to maintain global order on Western, democratic, legal principles.
But if those values begin to “lose”, then that will start to change. While in some ways we Westerners live in a hyper-individualistic age – think TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram – we forget these platforms are, paradoxically, more about promoting idols than enfranchisement. The vast majority of users have only a handful of followers. The celebrities, the politicians, and rabble rousers have millions.
Democratic capitalism may once have been the only philosophy that can expand globally without tyranny, preserving national sovereignty as it expands, cherishing a tradition of liberty. But in recent decades we have forgotten the democratic element, leaving it only to capitalism. Finance is now seen as the West’s central conduit for spreading its values, despite the fact that both Russia and China have been able to embrace capitalism whilst maintaining autocracy.
The creation of a new “multipolar” world – the stated objective of Putin and Xi – would truly begin with defeat for Ukraine. If Russia and China are able to prove themselves successful in war and economics, first by military victories in Ukraine and Taiwan, then by financial expansion into the Global South, this would gradually offer an alternative model for anxious Western democracies to follow.
Successful ideologies, like civilisations, ultimately have confidence in their values and want them to proliferate. Western democracy and capitalism once proved itself to be by far the most successful and adaptive at lifting people from poverty and preserving certain standards of freedom, regardless of nationality.
Unlike during the Cold War, when communist ideology was overtly transnational, China and Russia’s alternative models today, on the surface, are not. They are too tied to their respective national histories whenever their ideologies are extended beyond their borders. They have to rely on violence rather than persuasion – but that could change over time, especially if Putin and Xi destabilise the West through hybrid warfare rooted in disinformation and propaganda, exploiting how the internet divides, rather than unites, our societies.
Their narrative has already explained why so many conservatives appear secretly sympathetic to the ideals of Putin, thanks to his domestic war against liberal “decadence”. Despite the fact that Russia has a higher rate of abortions and drug and alcohol-related deaths than most Western countries.
If we lose our freedoms, in short, it will be because we were careless with them.
The war in Ukraine, therefore, is symbolic: a battleground for Western values, for its principles, and for the emerging economies trying to decide between autocracy and democracy. Defeat for Kyiv, a country which freely chose the latter, could spark a process of civilisational decline over decades.
At the end of the young radical’s speech in Les Misérables, he asks the room what greater thing is there than to belong to a prosperous nation steered by someone who can get things done. Only one voice speaks up: “To be free,” it says.
The values of the 21st century – earned by sacrifice – are now at war with the values of the 19th. If we want to preserve the former, along with our own prosperity and freedoms, we must not romanticise the latter, allowing its ‘might is right’ ideology to succeed.
It has been a bad few years for freedom. Victory for Putin could start a process of snuffing out liberty’s flame for good.
Francis Dearnley is Assistant Comment Editor at The Telegraph and one of the presenters of our daily podcast ‘Ukraine: The Latest’.
Other essays in the ‘What If Putin Wins?’ series:
‘Putin’s plot to destroy Nato is reaching its devastating climax’ by Aliona Hlivco
‘Europe’s fascist future awaits’ by Dr Thomas Clausen
‘If Russia wins, expect the worst genocide since the Holocaust’ by Karolina Hird
‘Putin’s next conquests are already in his sights’ by Ivana Stradner
With Ukraine’s resources, Putin would be unstoppable by Liliane Bivings
China will be the biggest beneficiary of a Russian victory by Matthew Henderson
