Moscow Increasingly Worried about Rise of Roman Catholicism in Belarus

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 22 – Both the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate are increasingly worried about the rise of Roman Catholicism in Belarus, with the former concerned primarily about the possibility that the church’s rise will threaten Putin ally Alyaksandr Lukashenka and the latter about the danger that it will weaken the Moscow church in Belarus.

            These fears have been growing over the last several years, following the prominent role Catholics played in the protests following the last “elections” in Belarus and the spread of autocephaly movements among Orthodox churches in the post-Soviet states (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/04/moscows-greatest-fear-about-orthodox.html).

            These fears have fed anti-Catholic attitudes both in Moscow and in Minsk (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/01/anti-catholicism-spreading-in-moscow.html) and have now led to direct attacks on the Vatican for what one Russian author says is its direct involvement in the rise of an anti-Russian and anti-Belarusian Catholic movement in Belarus.

            On the Rhythm of Eurasia portal, Moscow religious affairs commentator Artyom Karpovich directly attacks the Vatican and Pope Francis for what he says is Rome’s efforts in Belarus  to overthrow both Russian Orthodox and Russia’s ally Lukashenka (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2024-04-22--vatikan-aktivizirovalsja-v-belorussii-72858).

            He argues that the Roman Catholic Church has always been anti-Russian, although he notes the Pope Francis has promised in public not to interfere in Orthodox affairs. But he says that pledge has been undermined by the increasing activity in Belarus of an apostolic administration set up last year to coordinate Catholic churches in that country. (On that body, see vaticannews.va/ru/church/news/2023-03/belarus-novaya-struktura-dlya-katolikov-vizantijskogo-obryada.html).

            According to Karpovich, the pope has taken this position because he fears retaliation from Moscow and Minsk; but the pope’s subordinates believe that they can proceed and that the Holy Father will eventually change his position and allow the creation of a Roman Catholic exarchate in Belarus.

            To that end, the Catholic apostolic administrator has become increasingly active in meeting with Belarusian officials and in providing financial support and guidance to the growing number of Catholic churches in Belarus (eadaily.com/ru/news/2023/04/07/pochemu-v-belorussii-aktivizirovalis-grekokatoliki).

            The Belarusian Catholic church is closely connected with the Greek Catholics of Ukraine. Many of its priests were trained in western Ukraine, and not surprisingly, they and their flocks have supported Ukraine since Putin launched his expanded invasion of that country in February 2022, yet another reason for Moscow’s opposition to Catholicism in Belarus. (On these interrelationships, see dekoder.org/ru/gnose/greko-katolicheskaya-cerkov-v-belarusi.)

            The Belarusian government and the Russian church in Belarus recognize the dangers that this “fifth column,” to use Karpovich’s expression, poses to both. And the former has adopted new laws that give Minsk far greater powers to interfere in and limit the growth of Roman Catholicism in Belarus (apnews.com/article/belarus-lukashenko-religion-repression-dissent-58428374005dd0da383fbac7ad2c5d57).

            Karpovich would clearly like to see the Belarusian government do even more and the Moscow church there become increasingly active in opposing what he believes is a Catholic threat to both. 

Two Weeks Before Crocus City Attack, Tajikistan’s President Expressed Concern about Tajik Involvement in Terrorist Actions Abroad and at Home

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 21 – Two weeks before terrorists attacked the Crocus City venue in Moscow, Emomali Rakhmon, the president of Tajikistan, publicly expressed concern about the participation of citizens of his country in terrorist acts in 10 foreign countries over the last three years and blamed the intelligence services of other countries for recruiting them.

            Tajik and Russian sources reported his speech at the time (tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/20192699), but it is now being given expanded attention in Moscow media because it both confirms one Kremlin version of the Moscow attack and provides justification for taking a tougher line against Tajik migrant workers (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2024-04-21--tadzhikskie-vlasti-trevozhit-rost-chisla-teraktov-s-uchastiem-ih-grazhdan-72843).

            Islamist extremists have also carried out 6700 terrorist attacks inside Tajikistan over the last decade, but the authorities have not been able to arrest all those involved. The Fergana news agency says that more than 4,000 Tajiks are still wanted for such actions by Tajikistan’s police (fergana.media/news/133185/).

            President Rakhmon places the blame for radicalism in his country on the rise of Salafism there, a trend within Islam that calls for jihad against both unbelievers and other groups in the faith, including the Hanafi and Ismaili trends of Islam which are followed by the majority of Tajiks.

            He argues that Salafism has been introduced in Tajikistan in two ways: by Muslims who have studied abroad and then become imams in the mosques of that country and by the return home of 1640 Tajiks who had fought for ISIS abroad and who were pardoned by the state after promising to break with it (tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/20192699).

 

Russia’s Systemic Opposition Parties Could Play Key Mediating Role in Post-Putin Transition, Bederson Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 20 – Many are now writing off the systemic opposition parties as moribund and irrelevant (ridl.io/parties-in-a-coma/), but Poland’s experience in the 1980s suggests that they could play a key role in the post-Putin transition from authoritarianism to democracy, according to Vsevolod Bederson.

            The Perm political scientist says that in such a transition, mediators are necessary and that the systemic opposition in Poland played that role and its counterparts in Russia now very easily could (moscowtimes.ru/2024/04/19/nenavidet-i-berech-sistemnaya-oppozitsiya-mozhet-stat-posrednikom-pri-perehode-ot-avtoritarizma-k-demokratii-a128509).

            Bederson points out that in communist Poland, the regime controlled the top echelons of the systemic opposition parties but that below that level there were many members of those groups who were far more opposed to the regime than their party bosses and thus ready to mediate between the old regime and the forces of a new democracy.

            For these systemic parties to play that role, he says, they must maintain contacts with the real opposition, have some but not large political weight, have structures and people in the regions, and not aspire to take control themselves. The KPRF and some of the other systemic parties have at least some of these features.

            And thus it is possible that they could play the role the Catholic parties did in Poland and that Muslim radical groups in the Middle East did. Writing them off in advance is thus a mistake, although looking to them provides no guarantee that they or those who seek to use them will be successful, Bederson concludes.

Kremlin Testing Limits on Rehabilitating Fascism, El Murid Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 20 – For the last three weeks, a controversy has been swirling in Moscow between Aleksandr Dugin and the Russian State Humanities University, on the one hand, and Russian students and their supporters, on the other, over whether to name a new policy center there for émigré Russian Ivan Ilin, a leading articulator of what many call Russian fascism.

            (For details on this back and forth and references to both supporters and opponents of creating such an institution with the odious Putin ally Dugin as its head, see groza.media/posts/students-rsuh-against-dugin and topwar.ru/240721-delo-ivana-ilina-protiv-chego-protestujut-studenty-rggu.html.).

            The Kremlin and government media are treating this back and forth as a private matter and distancing themselves from it; but Anatoly Nesmiyan, who blogs as El Murid, says that it the latest effort by the Kremlin to see how far it can go in rehabilitating fascism and thus bringing its ideological stance into line with its actions (t.me/anatoly_nesmiyan/17950).

            What makes what is going on a bellwether about Russia’s future under Putin, the blogger says; and it  highlights the way in which the Kremlin operates when it wants to see how far it can go in saying openly what it is in fact already doing, in this case, talking positively about fascist ideas that in fact it is already implementing but calling them something else.

            If plans for an Ilin center under Dugin fail as a result of public opposition, the Eurasian leader and his Kremlin backers won’t suffer. He has nowhere to go, and the Kremlin can act as if nothing has happened, El Murid says. But if the center opens, he continues, then Putin will be able to move further in the direction of being openly fascist.

Russians in Central Asia Because of Putin’s War in Ukraine Often ‘Missionaries’ of His Russian World Could Become Its Foot Soldiers, Kkhan Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 20 – Russian citizens who fled to Central Asian countries in order to avoid being compelled to fight in Putin’s war in Ukraine nonetheless bring with them imperialist attitudes and behaviors which make them into “missionaries” of the Kremlin leader’s “Russian world,” Artyom Khan says.

            The Turkey-based journalist who specializes on developments in Central Asia says that even those who condemn the war in Ukraine bring imperialist attitudes to their new places of residence, look down on local people and complain that the latter don’t speak Russian (trtrussian.com/mnenie/imperstvo-na-eksport-relokanty-missionery-russkogo-mira-17858338).

            Such attitudes offend Central Asians, of course, Khan says; but they pose an even greater threat. Not only are they generating inflation with their money that is driving up housing prices to levels where the local people can no longer buy, but they are dominating the banking sector and thus making it and these countries more dependent on Moscow than they were.

            In the future, the observer says, these people may even line up with Moscow if it moves militarily against a Central Asian country like Kazakhstan which some in the Russian capital have already threatened to do; and thus paradoxically, Putin’s opponents over the war in Ukraine could become his allies in a military action against Central Asian states.

Movie Theaters Closing in Russia Even Faster than in Other Countries, El Murid Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 20 – Online streaming services, the Covid pandemic, and fears of violence in public places, including shopping malls where movie theaters are often located have led to the closure of these longtime staples of popular culture in many countries, Anatoly Nesmiyan who blogs under the screen name El Murid says.

            But these pressures are even greater in Russia than elsewhere and they are joined by fears of terrorism and sanctions against the showing of Western movies. As a result, he points out, movie theaters are closing in Russia at an even more rapid rate than in other places (rosbalt.ru/news/2024-04-19/anatoliy-nesmiyan-vmeste-s-privychnymi-tehnologiyami-ischezaet-tselaya-kultura-5061250).

            Of course, El Murid continues, some theaters will remain; but they will be extraordinarily expensive and only for the elites. And as a result, “going to the movies,” which had been one of the most popular forms of mass culture in the Russian Federation, will disappear, further weakening social interaction and cohesion.

2011 Arab Spring More than Election Fraud Protests Behind Kremlin’s Turn to Repression a Decade Ago, Yakovlev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 20 – The Arab Sprin in 2011 had “much greater influence” on the thinking of Vladimir Putin and his regime than did the protests in Russia that took place at about the same time a decade ago in leading the Kremlin to adopt a more repressive and aggressive set of policies, according to Andrey Yakovlev.

            Russia’s elites did not expect the protests, the Rusisan scholar who studied popular attitudes in Moscow then and who is now at Harvard’s Davis Center says; but they experienced real fear about their personal survival because of what was happening in the Middle East (istories.media/opinions/2024/04/18/kak-rossiiskii-biznes-prolozhil-sebe-dorogu-k-rabstvu/).

            Putin experienced such fears, but he was able to move so quickly toward repression and then aggression precisely because so many others in Russian elites, including the top bureaucracy, the siloviki, and the most important business leaders, felt them too and were prepared to support the Kremlin leader’s policies because they did.