La Défaite de l’Occident (The Defeat Of The West), by Emmanuel Todd, Gallimard, 2024.

John Martin

A Spotlight On The West ! 

The author of this book predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union and now sees some of the same symptoms in the United States. 

The book was written in 2024 when the defeat of Ukraine and the West seemed inevitable to any objective observer and nothing that has happened since then has invalidated that thesis. Au contraire! 

The defeat of the West in Ukraine is not just a case of a defeat for the Empire in its periphery but is a reflection of weaknesses in the heart of America. 

Russia

But before dwelling on that the author describes Russia’s recovery after its collapse 35 years ago. 

Of course, the idea that Russia has made a spectacular recovery is disputed.  The author cites an article from the so-called paper of reference Le Monde which declares that Russia descended into hell following the accession to power of Vladimir Putin.  But the objective facts belie such nonsense. 

From 2000 to 2017 the suicide rate dropped from 39.1 to 13.8 per 100,000 (a drop of almost two thirds).  Deaths from alcohol show similar drops (25.6 to 8.4).  The homicide figures show a more precipitous drop:  to one-sixth of the 2000 level.  And infant mortality dropped from 19 per 1000 in 2000 to 4.4, which is lower than that of the US (5.4)!

The one statistic that has not shown much improvement is the birth rate:  it is about 1.5, slightly up from 1.3 in 2000 (Ukraine’s birth rate was 1.2 in 2021).  

But the birth rate in Russia—as in other European countries—has been in decline since the 1930s.  The decline in Russia has been halted but hardly reversed. 

At present the population of Russia is about 146 million;  it will decline to 143 million by 2030.  And is projected to drop to 126 million by 2050. 

As well as the decrease, the profile of the population is ageing and as a consequence the cohort of men that can be mobilised to the army is falling at a faster rate than the overall decline in the population.

These demographic facts have dictated Russia’s approach to the War in Ukraine.  It cannot afford to squander military personnel and it has therefore adopted a cautious approach, which minimises its casualties.  The author thinks Russia might occupy Odessa, and might even be capable of annexing the Kharkhiv Oblast, but he considers that the idea that it is capable of occupying the whole of Ukraine— never mind threaten other countries in Europe—is complete nonsense!

It must also be noted that Russia’s demographic decline makes its nuclear deterrent far more important than it was in the Soviet era.

The author doesn’t bother his head about GDP, which he regards as largely fictitious.  But he notes the great strides that Russia has made in agriculture.

Russia is self-sufficient in food.  In the period from 2013 to 2020 agricultural exports trebled, while imports halved.  In 2012 it produced 36 million tonnes of wheat.  This increased to 80 million in 2022.  

In the same period production of this commodity in the United States dropped from 65 million to 47 million tonnes. 

It is unclear why Russia has made such a spectacular recovery.  The author suggests that, amidst all the chaos, the Russians retained their stable family structure.  This is a patriarchal structure in which the father has undisputed authority but the sons are equal.  It is suggested that this structure was suitable for the Soviet system and explains the success of Putin.  The Russians are more willing to accept authority as well as aspiring to greater social homogeneity. 

Also, after the chaos of the Yeltsin era, it was inevitable that there would be a recovery once stability was restored.  Russia was not starting from scratch.  The substantial legacy of the Soviet era had not been erased.

Ukraine

Ukraine has gone through as dramatic a turmoil as Russia since 1990.  It had been a province of the Soviet Union before its independence.  Its political class never had to consider the specifics of running a State.  

The author thinks that in the Soviet era its most talented politicians were orientated towards Moscow and therefore left Ukraine as their careers progressed.  

My own view is that many of the most successful ‘Ukrainian’ politicians were from the East of the country.  Leonid Brezhnev was born in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, while Khrushchev, although born in Kursk, moved with his family to Donetsk when he was fourteen.  Both considered themselves Russian.  The Zaphorizhia region of Eastern Ukraine also produced many distinguished Soviet politicians.

Another feature of Ukraine is that its ethnic make-up is quite diverse.  But the two preponderant groups were Russian speakers East of the Dnieper and Ukrainians West of the river. 

The administrative areas of the Soviet Union often did not correspond to the ethnic groups.  The Communists believed that nationalism was a moribund ideology and would wither away if different ethnic groups were thrown together in one administrative area.  As an example, Nikita Khrushchev gave Crimea as a present to Ukraine in 1954.

This was not a problem when Moscow exerted a centripetal force over its constituent republics.  But, when the centre collapsed and the Ukrainian satellite was left to its own devices, a virulent form of nationalism re-emerged.  (Something similar happened in Yugoslavia and for the same reasons.)

Of course, neither the Yugoslavs nor the Ukrainians were entirely left to their own devices.  In the case of Ukraine the Western Powers engineered a coup against the democratically-elected pro-Russian Prime Minister, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014.  This had a profound effect on the politics of the country.  Up until then the country was finely balanced between the pro-Western west of the country and the pro-Russian east and there was considerable latitude in cultural expression.  But, after the suppression of the election result, the Ukrainian Governments began to suppress the Russian language and pro-Russian political parties, as well as the Orthodox Russian Church. 

Emmanuel Todd shows that, after the 2014 coup, there was a very significant increase in the abstention rate of voters in the East of the country.  This reflected not only disenchantment with political developments, but also emigration to Russia. 

The author says that many of the Russian speaking middle class decided to go to universities in Russia.  They regarded their language as the language of culture and science, and its suppression in favour of a provincial language, as a bitter affront. 

Indeed, Todd thinks that there was resentment among working class Russian speakers—who felt they had been abandoned by the middle class.  In some cases that resentment extended to Russia itself.

But, for all the complications, the author thinks that the Donbass and other parts of East and South Ukraine are Russian.  He asks why the Ukrainian nationalists will not allow the Donbass to remain with Russia—even though it is obvious the nationalists hate these people!

This is a question that this reviewer has also asked himself!  

Even more bizarrely, why does the Kiev Government demand the return of Crimea 10 years after it was annexed by Russia!  And why did Ukraine continue to bomb the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to Russia long after it had any strategic significance?

The obvious answer is that the Kiev Government is a puppet of the West, whose overriding interest is to destroy Russia rather than act in the interests of the Ukrainian people.  The author also thinks that, despite appearances, Ukrainian nationalists do not have the mental strength to make the psychological break from Russia.  A third element is a nihilistic desire to destroy rather than create. 

Eastern Europe

Ukraine and Russia have not been the only places that experienced dramatic change.  When the history of Europe in the last 35 years is considered, the two most important elements are the collapse of the Soviet Union and the expansion westwards of the EU and NATO. 

The eastwards expansion of the EU seems almost a natural development, but the author points out that the history of Eastern Europe was completely different to that of the West.  Eastern Europe retained feudal social structures long after they had been destroyed in the west. 

One of the characteristics of a feudal system is a low level of education and a weak middle class.  The author shows that, in such societies, Jews tend to be over-represented among the urban middle class.  The reason is that Jewish religion places a premium on education—which is not the case with the general population. 

After the Second World War, the Soviet Union took possession of mostly pre-capitalist societies with low levels of literacy whose middle class had been destroyed in the Holocaust. 

The Soviet Union made enormous strides in raising the general levels of literacy in Eastern Europe.  The consequence of this was that it created a new middle class.  The author thinks that one of the reasons for the antipathy of such countries to Russia is a reluctance of this class to acknowledge its debt to the foreign occupier! 

He also hints rather darkly that a reason why there was no such hostility to the German occupation is that, at some unconscious level, there is a recognition among the Eastern European middle class that the Germans solved their “Jewish problem”!

One of the exceptions to the rule is Hungary.  The author thinks that the reason for its more moderate view of Russia is that it had the most substantial uprising (in 1956) against the Soviet Union, and thereafter was allowed greater freedom from Soviet tutelage. 

The relationship between the Soviets and the Poles seems to have been more fraught.  The author recounts a story which French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told him about a meeting (in 2003 or 2004) between President Putin, Chancellor Schroeder, and President Chirac at which the Russian President said that the one good thing about the collapse of the Soviet Union was that they didn’t have to deal with the Poles anymore!

The Decline Of The West

Having dealt with the preliminaries, the author proceeds to the main theme.  He defines the West as the United States, Western Europe and Japan.  (However he also suggests that a case could be made that the West consists of just the United States, Britain and France where the revolutions of 1776, 1688, and 1789 took place).

The most tangible evidence of its decline is the defeat of the West in Ukraine.  The setbacks on the battlefield are a reflection of its industrial weakness.  Unlike Russia and its allies, the Western Powers have not the capacity to produce the number of artillery shells necessary to sustain the war. 

This shouldn’t be happening!  The Gross Democratic Product of the Western Powers dwarfs that of Russia!  The author concludes that GDP is almost a meaningless measure of economic well being.  GDP, as a measure of financial strength, includes the salaries of personnel with limited use value:  such as financial advisors, consultants of various types, lawyers, ideologists etc. 

Non-economic statistics—such as life expectancy and infant mortality—are a better guide to social strength. 

He also notes that in Russia 23.4% of higher education students study engineering, whereas the corresponding figure in the United States is 7.2%.

Just as with the Soviet Union, the West’s decline is a reflection of an ideological crisis.  He starts from the reasonable assumption that the basis of Western civilisation is Christianity.  Following the German sociologist Max Weber, he thinks Protestantism determined the rapid economic development of the West.  The Catholic countries which also experienced such economic development, such as France and Austria, were contiguous to the Protestant countries. 

As well as the famed work ethic of Protestantism, he thinks that the requirement that Church members be able to read the sacred scriptures created an impetus for universal literacy, which in turn facilitated economic development.  (The Jewish religion is similar to the Protestant religion in this respect.)

Todd points out that Protestantism is not an egalitarian religion.  There are only certain people who are eligible for salvation.  This is in contrast to the Catholic religion, which holds that all human beings have a soul and therefore can be saved.  He doesn’t think it is an accident that the Eugenics movement was most popular in Protestant countries such as Britain, the United States and Sweden. 

When the United States declared that all men were created equal, it was really only talking about the White Anglo Saxon Protestants!

However, at a certain point, the societies in the West ceased to believe in the values of Christianity, but continued to practise them.  The author calls this “zombie religion”.  The zombie religion phase in the United States began with the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt.  In that era it was decided that it was necessary to absorb other religious and ethnic groups into the Establishment.  So, the Jews, the Catholics, and eventually the African-Americans, were allowed a share of power.  

Part of the reason for this development was the Cold War.  It was felt that, in order to compete with the Soviet Union, American society would have to be organised along meritocratic lines. 

It could be said that the era of Zombie religion was a positive development for American society.  But it did involve the abandonment of a core American value:  White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant supremacy.  However, Todd thinks the abandonment of racism was replaced by hatred of the proletariat. 

Around the 1960s, there developed ideas of individual freedom. The freedom that is talked about is freedom from society.  Todd thinks that the idea that this was empowerment was an illusion. The individual needs to be part of something greater to be able to develop.

Coincident to these developments was the increase in the level of participation in higher level education.  This created a large class of people who were educated along ruling class lines, and was therefore less likely to accept its authority.  But it is interesting to note that, since the 1960s, the quality of education in America has deteriorated dramatically.  This is not just an opinion of the author based on anecdotal evidence, but is backed up by detailed scientific tests such as IQ and Scholastic Assessment Tests (SAT) over decades. 

In Todd’s opinion, the era of “Zombie Religion” is over in the United States and European societies.  A society cannot continue indefinitely to give lip service to values which it no longer believes in.  As an anthropologist, he gives great significance to the structure of the family.  The key indicator of a society that has transitioned from “Zombie religion” to what he calls “zero religion” is the idea that marriage is for all.  The passing of legislation allowing same-sex marriages is the death knell for Christian societies.

What has replaced Christian culture is an individualistic society which is nihilistic.  He describes Nihilism as an instinct to destroy, as well as being an avoidance of reality.  He thinks the ideas of the transgender movement is an example of this avoidance of reality;  in particular on the basic question of what is a man and a woman! 

He thinks American foreign policy is currently run by individuals who, unlike the WASP Establishment, have no historical perspective or understanding of the complexity of the world.  Far from being run by the “Deep State”, American foreign policy is run by the “Shallow State”!

The trends in America have been mirrored in Europe—or maybe it would be more accurate to say the trends in America determined what has happened in Europe.  The subordination of Europe to American interests is a quite remarkable phenomenon;  the most egregious example of which was the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. 

Todd thinks the subordination of Europe to the US is greater than that of Latin American countries because at least in the latter the Left tends to oppose American Imperialism.  There is no such opposition among the mainstream Left in Europe. 

The Irish Political Review has explained this subordination by the failure of Britain and France to defeat Germany and its East European allies in the Second World War, requiring a huge Soviet military defensive effort.  America held off the battle, remaining neutral until it was clear that any postponement would lead to the Sovietisation of Europe.   The eventual American intervention averted this outcome, with the consequence that Western Europe remained dependent on America as a bulwark against the Soviet Union. 

But Todd offers a further, complementary, explanation—one that is intriguing!   He thinks the fact that Europe does not have the internet platforms that the United States, China and Russia have makes it vulnerable to American supervision! 

Another, related, element is that the Americans have managed to break the tradition of confidentiality, which the Swiss banks used to be able to guarantee for wealthy Europeans.  This, of course, was welcomed by all “right thinking” people as a victory for openness and transparency!  But the practical effect has been that wealthy Europeans transferred their money to various American and British-controlled tax havens!   So much for transparency!

More to the point:  the recent confiscation of Russian assets shows what happens to residents of countries which don’t play ball with the Americans.

Todd is not impressed with Brexit.  He does not think it represents a return of the nation but its decomposition:  the elderly express their nostalgia;  the Popular class their anomie [meaning their amoral view];  and the Oligarchs their preference for America.

The author is interesting on the extent to which the Scandinavian countries are pawns of America.  Norway assisted in the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines.  Denmark facilitates NSA spying on Europe by the US.  Former Prime Ministers of Denmark and Norway become heads of NATO as a matter of routine.  Indeed, the author suggests that one of the reasons why Sweden recently abandoned its neutrality was to compete with its neighbours for these jobs. 

One of the themes of the Irish Political Review through the years has been that the Irish Political Establishment joined Europe to escape its nationality.  It is interesting that the author thinks that this applies to other European countries as well!

All of this begs the question as to what is to be the future of Europe?  In this reviewer’s opinion its leaders backed the Americans on the assumption that Russia would be defeated.  It seems incredible that, unlike the Americans, Europe does not seem capable of accepting the reality of defeat.  Rather than attempting to negotiate an orderly retreat, it wants to persist with the War.

It is difficult to see any way out of the impasse, other than a complete change in the existing political class—with the unpredictable consequences that would result. 

This book provides an excellent antidote to the ‘spin’, wishful thinking, and delusion that pervades political commentary in this country and elsewhere.  The author calls it as he sees it, without worrying about violating the canons of political correctness.  

In the current volatile political situation the book is an essential means of giving some perspective to current events. 

It is warmly recommended.