Dictators stalk the free world again

Almost exactly a century ago, Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy and Joseph Stalin took control of the Soviet Union. These events marked the origins of fascist and communist totalitarianism, which soon gave rise to Adolf Hitler in Germany and lit the fuse for both World War II and the Cold War.

That era seemed to come to an end in 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union started to implode. Popular uprisings toppled tyrants, and liberalizing winds swept the globe.   

But the totalitarian idea is making a comeback today thanks to Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. Like their predecessors, these dictators are dangerous because they have designs on others’ territory, few domestic checks on their power and contempt for the resilience and resolve of free societies.

Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has dragged the world back to yesterday’s East-West conflict. The main battle lines haven’t changed, but the roles are reversed: Now Russia is the understudy and China is top dog.

Today’s Cold War redux wasn’t inevitable. After the death throes of Soviet communism, Russia and China initially seemed open to political and economic change.  

In the 1990s, under Boris Yeltsin, Russia accepted its loss of Soviet captive nations and satellites and normalized relations with the West. Moscow reined in the secret police, ended the Communist Party monopoly on power and embraced “shock therapy” to privatize state-owned companies and jumpstart market competition.

In 2000, however, the ailing Yeltsin made the fatal error of handing off power to his untested prime minister, ex-KGB officer Vladimir Putin. Putin has spent the past 23 years undoing Russia’s brief experiment with liberty and democracy.

He’s banned opposition parties, rigged elections and suppressed civil society. In a return to KGB-style thuggery, state intelligence organs have been implicated in the assassinations of independent journalists and dissidents living abroad. Today, amid hysteria about “treason” stoked by state-run media, police are brutally suppressing anti-war voices in Russia. 

Putin says his goal is to make Russia great again, but he’s shown little interest in improving his country’s lackluster economic performance. Instead, he’s allowed a handful of corrupt oligarchs to dominate the economy, relying on oil and gas revenues to finance his quixotic drive to reassemble the Russia empire.

Russia’s backsliding into despotism and militarism is a tragedy for Ukrainians who want to be free and for Russians denied the opportunity to live in peace and prosperity with their neighbors. It’s also alarmed our European allies, especially countries that used to lie in what Putin calls Russkiy mir — the Russian world.  

China took a different path. The 1989 massacre of student protesters in Tiananmen Square showed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would brook no popular challenge to its rule.

But if political change was out, the CCP went all in on market-driven growth. China moved millions of peasants from the countryside to cities, welcomed foreign investment and trade, and turned itself into the world’s manufacturing colossus.

In economic terms, China’s unique hybrid of autocracy and capitalism has been a spectacular success. Over the last 40 years, it’s lifted over 800 million people out of poverty, according to the World Bank. If it can get back to pre-pandemic growth rates, China could soon overtake America as the world’s largest economy.

Xi Jinping’s ascent to power in 2013, however, marked a sharp departure from his predecessors’ reassurances that China would pursue a “peaceful rise.” Instead, Xi has adopted a hyper-nationalist and confrontational policy, threatening to “bash in the heads” of foreign countries that try to bully or “contain” China.

On his watch, China began constructing and militarizing islands to buttress its widely rejected claims to the South China Sea. It’s launched a rapid military buildup aimed at dissuading U.S. forces from one day coming to Taiwan’s aid. It deploys “wolf warrior” diplomats to intimidate China’s critics around the world by threatening to cut them off from its enormous markets.

In 2017, the government began herding Uyghur and other Muslim ethnic minorities into concentration or “reeducation camps,” sparking a global outcry. Since 2019, it’s been stamping out the last vestiges of Hong Kong’s once vibrant democracy.

Like Putin, Xi aspires to total political control. Last fall a compliant CCP awarded him an unprecedented third five-year term as party leader, inviting comparisons to Mao.

Xi sees Putin as a valuable counterweight to America and its Atlantic and Pacific allies. The two announced a “no limits” partnership just three weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine.

If we are watching a Cold War sequel, let there be no doubt who produced it. Putin wants to reverse his country’s Cold War losses. Xi wants a free hand to absorb Taiwan and project power throughout Asia. Both bridle at a U.S.-led liberal order that presents legal, moral and military obstacles to their expansive ambitions.

Putin and Xi are reminding us that tyranny itself is a prime source of international conflict and war. Totalitarian dictators are inherently dangerous, especially when animated by messianic ideologies or visions of restoring national greatness.

Having deprived their own people of freedom and a voice in government, they’re not likely to respect the rights of people in other countries. Having eliminated domestic opposition, they’re not likely to be constrained by world opinion. 

Fortunately, liberal democracies know how to stand up to totalitarian strongmen. The Cold War toolkit – collective security, containment and deterrence – has not lost its utility.

But it also takes courage and stamina. Putin and Xi are betting that the liberal democracies are short on both. Once again, the free world will have to prove the dictators wrong.

Will Marshall is president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).