The Russian Vaccine and The Reprisal of Soviet Era Pride

By: Rachel Riddell

From disputes over global warming to how political parties have defended or argued against the use of fossil fuels, science has undoubtedly been distorted to fit varying ideological perspectives. The act of doing so has been especially heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic –– most notoriously by President Donald Trump, in his advocacy for taking hydroxychloroquine against the virus and consistently claiming that the United States will have a vaccine by the end of the year. The victory in obtaining a vaccine is, however, not an ambition only in the United States.

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, approved a vaccine against the virus earlier in August. His quick endorsement of the vaccination has garnered scrutiny from immunologists and political scientists around the world. With analysis of his decision, it is clear that Putin’s choice is in alignment with his attempt to rehash Russian nationalism, a pride that was lost in the Westernization of the country after the fall of the Soviet Union. As a rushed and frivolous vaccination distributed on a mass level can cause immense harm, this is an example of when nostalgic nationalism can become destructive to a country and possibly the world-at-large.

It is vital to understand why Putin wants to inflate national pride to know how the Russian vaccine is part of this desire. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union finalizing in 1991 –– its fall being especially marked by the destruction of the Berlin Wall –– Russia became a fragmented country with the loss of a Communist identity. Whether Russians were happy about Westernization or upset over the loss of Soviet rule, the nation was confused as a whole. While Russia was now integrating a constitutional republic for governance and capitalism began to dominate, cities still possessed statues of Lenin and Marx and buildings still were etched with the hammer and sickle motif –– iconography from a recent but now foregone past.

Almost a decade after the fall, Putin became President of Russia. Before he held the presidency, Putin was an officer of the KGB, the secret security agency of the Soviet Union. As someone who once worked closely with Soviet officials but planned on mobilizing the absence of this Soviet rule for his political agenda, Putin, too, had a puzzled view of the nation. Putin noted that the Soviet collapse was the “greatest geopolitical tragedy of the twentieth century” but warned that despite nostalgia for a previous nationhood, “only a person without a heart could fail to miss the Soviet Union, only someone with no head would want to restore it, according to journalist Shaun Walker’s book The Long Hangover: Putin’s New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past. Although Russians could wage that the USSR was arguably flawed on ideological and practical levels of governance, the essence of pride and nationhood that the pre-Westernized Russia brought was insurmountable. Russians could take joy in having a country that was separate and unique from its Cold War rival, the United States, and whether loved or despised, images of Lenin and Trotsky still prevailed in the minds of Russians as figures of an enlightened revolution. Even as recent as 2017, a poll showed that 58% of Russians regret the USSR collapse, proving that many still had reminiscent feelings for a past government that some pollers may not have been alive to experience.While Putin has explicitly said that he does not want to replicate the USSR in its entirety, he has shown fondness for the era’s impact on the Russian psyche.

His ambition to increase national pride can be linked to his quick approval of the COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccination has been nicknamed “Sputnik V,” an allusion to the first artificial satellite created in the world by Russia, “Sputnik 1” –– launched by the USSR in 1957. As one of the defining moments of the Cold War was the United States and the Soviet Union’s “Space Race” –– a battle to gage who could initiate the most innovation in their space agencies –– the vaccine’s name elicits sentimental images of this period of Russia’s history. The lack of support from medical experts regarding the actual vaccine and its potential distribution indicates how national pride can become dangerous. According to a website dedicated to the vaccine, Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials for Sputnik V have been completed but very little information regarding their results has been released. Without knowledge of potential adverse effects of the vaccination, the widespread distribution of this vaccine could backfire tremendously.

Russians could take joy in having a country that was separate and unique from its Cold War rival, the United States, and whether loved or despised, images of Lenin and Trotsky still prevailed in the minds of Russians as figures of an enlightened revolution.

The data about the trial, published in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet, has likewise been scrutinized by the science community. Researchers note that the trial results may have produced possible duplications. Biologist Enrico Bucci, who leads a science-integrity group, noted irregularities in measurements of markers of a type of immune cell in the blood in that volunteers had the exact same levels: “The odds of this arising by coincidence are extremely small.” Konstantin Andreev of Northwestern University, who studies respiratory infections, reflected upon this data with a similar hypothesis that it is “not likely” for these patterns to emerge. Although Putin and other Russian officials have suggested that this vaccine is ready to be administered to the masses, a closer inspection of the vaccine and the sparse evidence about it reveals that this may be a premature call. As countries and their medical experts race to devise a COVID-19 vaccination, it must be taken into consideration that the ambition to create the vaccine does not just emerge from the urge to care for the health of their citizens. What may be intermingled in this goal is the desire to increase the national pride and sentiment towards one’s country, which is evident in Russia’s case. By analyzing Putin’s history of attempting to revive Soviet era nostalgia, it is clear that his quickness in approving the coronavirus vaccine is in alignment with this notion. While this may be understandable in the context of Russia’s Westernization after the fall of the Soviet Union, the potential distribution of the vaccine could be destructive for Russians and the world-atlarge. This is an example of when nationalism can become tyrannical and have extreme consequences.