2017年11月29日

皇帝が生まれる。 世界が10月革命の100周年を記念するときに、ロシアは再び、皇帝の治世になる。

A tsar is born
As the world marks the centenary of the October Revolution, Russia is once again under the rule of the tsar
Oct 26th 2017

皇帝が生まれる。
世界が10月革命の100周年を記念するときに、ロシアは再び、皇帝の治世になる。

centenary:100周年記念(祭)


SEVENTEEN years after Vladimir Putin first became president, his grip on Russia is stronger than ever. The West, which still sees Russia in post-Soviet terms, sometimes ranks him as his country’s most powerful leader since Stalin. Russians are increasingly looking to an earlier period of history. Both liberal reformers and conservative traditionalists in Moscow are talking about Mr Putin as a 21st-century tsar. 

Mr Putin has earned that title by lifting his country out of what many Russians see as the chaos in the 1990s and by making it count again in the world. Yet as the centenary of the October revolution draws near, the uncomfortable thought has surfaced that Mr Putin shares the tsars’ weaknesses, too. 

make it count:〔しっかり取り組んで〕(それを)有意義なものにする

Although Mr Putin worries about the “colour” revolutions that swept through the former Soviet Union, the greater threat is not of a mass uprising, still less of a Bolshevik revival. It is that, from spring 2018 when Mr Putin starts what is constitutionally his last six-year term in office after an election that he will surely win, speculation will begin about what comes next. And the fear will grow that, as with other Russian rulers, Tsar Vladimir will leave turbulence and upheaval in his wake. 

“colour” revolutions:2000年ごろから、中・東欧や中央アジアの旧共産圏諸国で起こった一連の政権交代を総体的に指す。色の革命では、腐敗が蔓延しあるいは独裁的である政権に立ち向かった際、または民主主義や民族自決を求めた際に、そのほとんどで非暴力的活動が行われ、これらの動きにおいてはその象徴として色や花が当てはめられた。非暴力抵抗を実行するという点において非政府組織 (NGO) や、とくに学生運動が重要な役割を果たしたことが特筆される。これらの動きとして挙げられるのは、ユーゴスラヴィア、とくに2000年のセルビアにおけるブルドーザー革命や、2003年グルジアのバラ革命、2004年ウクライナのオレンジ革命、そして暴力が多く用いられたが、2005年キルギスのチューリップ革命がある。いずれも問題とされていた選挙の結果を受けて大群衆が街頭で抗議行動を実施し、反体制派から独裁者とされていたそれぞれの国の指導者の辞任や打倒につながった。
turbulence:(社会的)動乱, 騒乱.
upheaval:(社会・政治などの)大変動, 激変, 激動.
 in A's [one's] wake:Aの通った後に; Aにならって, 続いて; A〈出来事など〉の結果として[によって]

Firm rule
Mr Putin is hardly the world’s only autocrat. Personalised authoritarian rule has spread across the world over the past 15 years—often, as with Mr Putin, built on the fragile base of a manipulated, winner-takes-all democracy. It is a rebuke to the liberal triumphalism which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Leaders such as Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, the late Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and even Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, have behaved as if they enjoy a special authority derived directly from the popular will. In China Xi Jinping this week formalised his absolute command of the Communist Party. 

autocrat:独裁者
rebuke:〈人〉を強く非難[𠮟責]する
triumphalism:〈軽蔑的〉勝ち誇った態度 勝利主義◆特定の宗教的・政治的な教義や信条を絶対視すること。
derived:derive great pleasure from working 働くことで大きな喜びを得る.
command:(集団の)指揮(権), 統率; (状況などの)掌握, 支配

Mr Putin’s brand of authoritarianism blazed the trail. It evokes Russia’s imperial history (see Briefing), offering a vivid picture of how power works and how it might go wrong. Like a tsar, Mr Putin surmounts a pyramid of patronage. Since he moved against the oligarchs in 2001, taking control first of the media and then of the oil and gas giants, all access to power and money has been through him. These days the boyars serve at his pleasure, just as those beneath them serve at their pleasure and so on all the way down. He wraps his power in legal procedure, but everyone knows that the prosecutors and courts answer to him. He enjoys an approval rating of over 80% partly because he has persuaded Russians that, as an aide says, “If there is no Putin, there is no Russia.” 

blaze the trail:新しい[画期的な]ことをする、新境地を開拓する
evokes:The letter evoked memories of his youth. その手紙は彼の心に若かりしころの記憶を呼びさました.
surmounts:の上にそびえる.
patronage:(組織・事業・芸術などの)後援, (財政)支援.
boyars:a member of the old aristocracy in Russia, next in rank to a prince.
all the way down:端から端まで
prosecutors:検事

Like a tsar, too, he has faced the question that has plagued Russia’s rulers since Peter the Great—and which acutely confronted Alexander III and Nicholas II in the run-up to the revolution. Should Russia modernise by following the Western path towards civil rights and representative government, or should it try to lock in stability by holding fast against them? Mr Putin’s answer has been to entrust the economy to liberal-minded technocrats and politics to former KGB officers. 

plagued:【しつこい質問・要求などで】〈人〉を困らせる
acutely:強く, 激しく, ひどく, 非常に
In Japan, there is a traditional abhorrence of openly confronting sensitive issues. : 日本には伝統的に、デリケートな問題に正面からぶつかることを嫌う気風がある。
run-up:〔直前の〕準備期間[段階]
fast:hold fast on 〜を固守する
entrust:entrust one's car to a friend≒entrust a friend with one's car 友人に車を預ける.

Inevitably, politics has dominated economics and Russia is paying the price. However well administered during sanctions and a rouble devaluation, the economy still depends too heavily on natural resources. It can manage annual GDP growth of only around 2%, a far cry from 2000-08, which achieved an oil-fired 5-10%. In the long run, this will cramp Russia’s ambitions. 

Inevitably:Inevitably, elderly people are more prone to illness than young people. 当然, 高齢者は若年者よりも病気にかかりやすい
pay the price of discipline:試練という犠牲を払う
far cry:far cry from what someone expected(人)の期待とは懸け離れている
oil-fired plant:石油火力発電所
cramp:〈発達・成長・機会など〉を妨げる.

And like a tsar, Mr Putin has buttressed his power through repression and military conflict. At home, in the name of stability, tradition and the Orthodox religion, he has suppressed political opposition and social liberals, including feminists, NGOs and gays. Abroad, his annexation of Crimea and the campaigns in Syria and Ukraine have been burnished for the evening news by a captive, triumphalist media. However justified, the West’s outrage at his actions underlined to Russians how Mr Putin was once again asserting their country’s strength after the humiliations of the 1990s. 

buttressed:〈主張など〉を強化[支持]する; (経済的に)〈人・制度など〉を支える
repression:(暴動などの)鎮圧.
armed [military] conflict:武力[軍事]衝突
the feminist movement:女性解放運動.
burnished:〈イメージなど〉をよくする.
captive:選択の自由のない〈消費者など〉.
triumphalist:in a triumphalist mood 勝ち誇った気分で
justified:正当な理由[根拠]があって
outrage: 激怒, 憤激
humiliations:屈辱, 恥をかく[かかせる]こと.

What does this post-modern tsar mean for the world? One lesson is about the Russian threat. Since the interference in Ukraine, the West has worried about Russian revanchism elsewhere, especially in the Baltic states. But Mr Putin cannot afford large numbers of casualties without also losing legitimacy, as happened to Nicholas II in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05 and in the first world war. 

revanchism:(外交上の)失地奪回政策[主義], 報復(主義).

Because today’s tsar knows history, he is likely to be opportunistic abroad, shadowboxing rather than risking a genuine confrontation. The situation at home is different. In his time in power Mr Putin has shown little appetite for harsh repression. But Russia’s record of terrible suffering suggests that, whereas dithering undermines the ruler’s legitimacy, mass repression can strengthen it—at least for a time. The Russian people still have something to fear. 

dithering :動揺, うろたえ

Mother Russia’s offspring
The other lesson is about succession. The October revolution is just the most extreme recent case of power in Russia passing from ruler to ruler through a time of troubles. Mr Putin cannot arrange his succession using his bloodline or the Communist Party apparatus. Perhaps he will anoint a successor. But he would need someone weak enough for him to control and strong enough to see off rivals—an unlikely combination. Perhaps he will try to cling to power, as Deng Xiaoping did behind the scenes as head of the China Bridge Association, and Mr Xi may intend to overtly, having conspicuously avoided naming a successor after this week’s party congress. 

offspring:King Hussein's offspring フセイン王の子供たち
apparatus:a state security apparatus 国家安全保障機関.
anoint:指名する
see off:やっつける
overtly:はっきり, 公然と.

Yet, even if Mr Putin became the eminence grise of the Russian Judo Federation, it would only delay the fatal moment. Without the mechanism of a real democracy to legitimise someone new, the next ruler is likely to emerge from a power struggle that could start to tear Russia apart. In a state with nuclear weapons, that is alarming. 

eminence grise:黒幕
alarming:This is very alarming. これはただごとではないぞ。/風雲急を告げる。

The stronger Mr Putin is today, the harder he will find it to manage his succession. As the world tries to live with that paradox, it should remember that nothing is set in stone. A century ago the Bolshevik revolution was seen as an endorsement of Marx’s determinism. In the event, it proved that nothing is certain and that history has its own tragic irony. 

paradox:矛盾(した状態[行為, 言葉])
set in stone:不変である
endorsement:支持, 承認
determinism:決定論
in the event:結局〔〜という予想とは異なる結果になった〕
tragic irony:悲劇的アイロニー〘登場人物の悲劇的運命を観客が知っていることによって生じる演劇的効果〙.

プーチンが皇帝だということで、たしかに、100年ぶりの大物が現れたということですね。後継者も指定していないところは習近平と一緒です。ロシアはまだGDPが大したことはないのですが、やはり、彼は逸材です。ウクライナ、クリミア、シリアとクリーンヒットを打っています。国内も反対勢力はあるのですが、弾圧はしていない。そのうちするかもしれないが。

水曜日。今日は海野塾がある。ではまた明日。


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海野 恵一
1948年1月14日生

学歴:東京大学経済学部卒業

スウィングバイ株式会社
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アクセンチュア株式会社代表取締役(2001-2002)
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