There is a Yuri Andropov Prospekt in Moscow, named after a jazz-loving KGB chief. Strange and rather chilling to tell a taxi-driver–”turn right at Andropov”. In front of the old KGB headquarters on the Lubyanka, Andropov’s former office, there used to be a statue of Feliks Dzherzinski and now there are plans to put him back again, the sinister revolutionary with blood on his hands. And of course Lenin is everywhere; the bulging forehead, the narrow eyes of the Bolshevik saint.

 

So it really is only a matter of time before the Russian capital has its Gerhard Schroeder Street, or a pigeon-splattered statue perhaps near the Ministry of Energy. He has become a hero here–I write “here” because this My Berlin is being written in Moscow–just as Salvador Allende and Patrice Lumumba were hailed by the Soviet Union, their names attached to kindergartens, crumbling housing estates and naval warships. They were honoured not so much because of their revolutionary credentials but because they had successfully angered America. That was enough to be covered in glory in Moscow.

 

In the same way, Gerhard Schroeder is earning himself iconic status within the Russian establishment. Not just because he opposed the war in Iraq–this could have been done quietly since German troops would never have been required to attend the war in the desert–but because he did so in cohorts with Putin and drew the full fury of the US administration. The Bush team behaved like children gripped by a tantrum–remember how US ministers refused to shake hands, their cheap comments–and exposed their own lack of dignity. From that moment on Schroeder really did become a Genosse for the Russians.

 

Since then, of course, it has emerged that Schroeder and his protege Frank Walter Steinmeier authorised two BND agents in Bagdad to supply military intelligence to the Pentagon. But no matter, Schroeder’s popularity in Moscow has remained consistently high. For the past six years, from Putin’s birthday treat of a cossack choir for dear Gerd to his starring appearance recently at the Russian ambassador’s extravagant ball on Unter den Linden, it has become clear that the Niedersachse is on his way to picking up the Order of Lenin. One of the odd aspects of that ambassadorial ball was the way Schroeder was being treated by the German guests, all top businessmen with interests in the Russian petro-economy, as a fully fledged member of the Russian elite, as one of the hosts. Schroeder’s decision to join forces with Gazprom could I suppose be justified as a sophisticated act of patriotism. The Baltic pipeline may well damage the interests of the central europeans but it does contribute ultimately to the energy security of Germany. What is more embarrassing is his readiness to act as a Kremlin spokesman at every possible occasion. In a Spiegel interview in August he blamed the Georgians for the war, criticised the presence of US military advisors, stressed that Ossetia and Abkhazia could now never return to Goeorgia and said(only days after Russian tanks had taken up position),”no-one in the Moscow leadership has an interest in military conflicts.”

 

Izvestia could not have phrased it better.

 

Enough, you say, the man is a pensioner, a free man with the right to his own opinion; let him say what he wants. In the end, everybody wants to please his boss.

 

But there is a problem of roles that has not been properly addressed in Germany. Schroeder’s Gazprom salary was politically meaningless –until the moment that the SPD decided to spearhead its election campaign with Steinmeier and Franz Muentefering. When they staged their non-coup against Kurt Beck, the terms changed. The SPD has started to believe in miracles again. Beck gone, the CSU behaving like a pale, sick aunt, Angela Merkel increasingly vulnerable as she makes eyes with Guido Westerwelle. Time, it seems, to re-integrate Schroeder in the election planning. In the American Wild West so-called Medicine Men would tour the townships and sell snake-oil and other placebos from the back of a waggon. Sure, the stuff did not work but the residents would come back and buy more next time: it was a matter of combatting weakness with faith. So Gerhard Schroeder–in the eyes of his protege Steinmeier and his friend Muente–is the Medicine Man of the party, he will bring back the voters.He always does.

 

Together the Gazprom team of Gerd, Steini and Muente is no doubt praying for a John McCain victory in November. An unpredictable Cold Warrior in Washington? Perfect.

 

My reservations about this SPD dependence on Schroeder is not the fact that he is on the Gazprom payroll. He could, after all, take a year’s leave of absence if he wants to enter the political fray again(and he does). And I have given up moaning about the fact that the SPD failed to de-Schroederise the party after 2005. We all know that the party should have brought up a new generation quickly to find new strategic ways of dealing with Oskar Lafontaine. It didn’t happen and we just have to deal with the present realities.

 

The absolutely fundamental problem is that Russia is an Obrigkeitsstaat. It demands and on the whole receives the loyalty of its citizens. Reading the Russian press used to be a pleasure; now commentators seem to search for as many ways as possible to support the Kremlin. Putin’s declared mission was to create a strong centralised state. He is doing so at the expense of civil society. I took a trip through the Norther Caucasus last week, Ossetia, Ingushetiya, Chechnya, Dagestan and again and again heard criticism of how Putin”s Moscow is failing them. It has put weak leaders and managers into place purely because they profess loyalty and owe favours to the Kremlin. The result: corrupt government, no hope of democratic change and a slow unravelling of empire.

 

Well, that’s Russia’s dilemma. Germany’s dilemma is that it needs to develop and consistently maintain a differentiated strategy towards the European power that probably has most influence over its future. But one of the great German parties that is seeking office in the coming election year is being advised, inspired, perhaps even discreetly steered by a man who cannot deliver such a strategy. You cannot be a Kremlin ambassador and simultaneously be a power-broker in German politics. At the very least Steinmeier and Muentefering should be openly distancing themselves from their friend, guru and former boss.