Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009
From: Vladimir Shlapentokh <shlapent@msu.edu>
Subject: Putin is Much Smarter than the Soviet Leaders: What is Behind his High Rating?
Many politicians, particularly those who support the current regime, have cited the extremely high public opinion ratings of Premier Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev. In May, 76 percent of the Russians, according to the All-Russian Public Opinion Center, endorsed the activities of the first leader, even as the economic crisis was hurting millions of people; 72 percent approved of Medvedev’s performance. The root of Medvedev’s high rating lies in his appointment as president by Putin. The popularity of both leaders has been stable over the last year, impervious to all the events that occurred during this time. The three major agencies that collect data on the popularity of leaders essentially converged on these results. Even if the data were enjoyed by the leaders, it would be wrong to conclude that they have a particular interest in the study of public opinion and other sociological data that describes the life of their subjects. In fact, by all accounts, this is not true.
Of course, unlike Khrushchev or Brezhnev who, at best, tolerated empirical social studies and never even mentioned the term “sociology,” Putin and Medvedev have showed public respect for it and demanded that some sociologists be brought in to design various projects. They congratulated outstanding sociologists on their birthdays and even decorated some of them with medals. They sent greetings to the sociological congresses and the various institutions. On June 5, 2009, Putin, for instance, congratulated the college of sociology of Moscow State University in connection with its 20^th Anniversary. However, with all their homage to sociology (in Russia, polling is part of sociology, unlike in the United States), the current leaders mostly ignore the results of sociological studies to almost the same extent as the general secretaries of the past. The old and new Russian leaders share the same high contempt for the masses who, with their mean and destructive instincts, cannot participate in the governing of the country. This was Putin’s nearly open official motivation for eliminating the governors’ elections in 2004. He suggested many times that there was no chance for spontaneous public discontent in the country, and that any “color revolution” or even a modest protest would be the result of Western money. Given this perception of the people’s psychology, it is not surprising that the views of ordinary Russians are not valued by the Kremlin, which assumes that their aides and experts can provide them with sufficient information.
Russian sociologists, with very few exceptions, avoid making even the slightest critical remark about the Kremlin. The same was true about Soviet sociologists of in the 1960s and 1970s. During the last Congress of Sociologists in Moscow (October 2008), such an important issue as the relationship between sociology and the authorities was completely ignored by the participants. None of them said a critical word about the regime.
In fact, Putin and Medvedev’s behavior does not differ very much from the attitudes of the Soviet leaders toward sociology. In 1960-1970, I served as the director of four big nationwide surveys based on random sampling. I collected, for the first time in Soviet history, nationwide data on the attitudes of the Soviet people toward media. The data reflected, indirectly, the political views of the Russians. However, nobody in the Central Committee, save for the Politburo and the General Secretary, displayed even a modicum of interest in the political attitudes of citizens. Even low-level apparatchiks refused to spend a half hour on discussing the data.
As a matter of fact, the role of sociology in contemporary Russia is another illustration of the same principle that dominates political life: the use of civilized behavior to cover the real rejection of liberal values. This technology was forged by Stalin and accepted by all Soviet leaders until Perestroika. Stalin created a democratic constitution in the midst of the mass terror. In 1937, when the repressions reached a peak, he carried out “the freest election of the parliament in the world,” though only one name was on the ballot. This election became the model for politicians until 1989. Following Stalin’s precepts, Putin was more efficient in constructing his own authoritarian regime. He achieved the same goals with much lower costs for the country and the people. His imitation of democracy was also more sophisticated than that of Stalin.
Even if many people inside the Soviet Union, as well as outside it (including quite a few American Sovietologists) perceived the democratic frills of the Soviet regime at face value, most people in the world mocked the Soviet-type election. The Putin regime tried with some success to be more sophisticated in its restoration of the Soviet-style governing of the country. Putin proved that an authoritarian ruler in fact has much more room for maneuvering in political life than Soviet leaders. Indeed, Putin discovered that relatively mild procedures can guarantee his personal rule (or the rule of his proxy). Putin’s regime can safely afford having elections with several candidates on the ballot and get the same predictable results as the masters of the Kremlin in 1937 or 1980. Only one party was represented in the Soviet parliament (the butt of jokes for the Soviet intelligentsia) and all voting was unanimous. Now there are four parties in the contemporary Russian parliament, the State Duma. However, the legislative body is obedient to the executive power and has never entered a conflict with the government, even on minor issues. A few votes against the government’s proposals only give the Kremlin pleasure.
While the Soviet people of the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s received their news from only one TV channel, today they can browse the news and analytical programs on dozens of channels. However, they will always get the same official propaganda as they did 25 years ago. All three main news channels provide the public with the same assortment of selected information, and with the same interpretations of facts. The printed media are, of course, much more diverse than in Soviet times. The publication of detailed articles on the lives of movie stars and athletes would have been unthinkable until the 1990s in newspapers such as /Pravda /(Truth)/, Izvestia/ (News), /Trud/ (Work), or even in the mostly apolitical /Vecherniaia Moskva/ (Evening Moscow). However, the political line of most newspapers is strongly pro regime. The single oppositional newspaper is /Novaya Gazeta,/ with its limited circulation in Moscow only. It is a rare bird in a bevy of loyalist publications that imitate /Literaturnaia Gazeta/ (Literary Gazette), which, in the 1960s during the “thaw” initiated by Khrushchev, performed almost the same function that the liberal mouthpiece /Novaya Gazeta/ does today. (The Internet and the liberal Moscow radio station /Ekho Moskvy/ serve only a tiny minority of Russians and do not undermine the Kremlin’s monopoly on media). The presidential administration very successfully accomplishes the duties of the Central Committee by regularly gathering the editors of media, electronic and printed, to instruct them on what information to provide the public. It also, as in Soviet times, provides them with a “black list” of people who are not allowed to appear in media, aside from being the targets of denigration. The local governors behave even more unceremoniously than their superiors in Moscow and the provincial media is as obedient as it was in Soviet times. At the same time, Putin’s administration made a great discovery and abandoned the Soviet paranoia about all critical remarks or anecdotes against the regime.
Compare these sober attitudes toward information that is hostile to the regime with the hysterical fear of foreign radio in Soviet times. Back then, the Kremlin spent big money to jam “foreign voices” and forbade the production of portable radios that could receive the broadcasts of the /BBC /and /Voice of America/. However, as I found with my colleagues in our studies of the 1960s, less than 10 percent of people regularly listened to these stations. There was no significant impact on their minds and all the more on their behavior. The Kremlin is even less concerned about the few anti-Putin novels in circulation, such as Vladimir Sorokin’s /Den’ Oprichnika /(2007) or Zakhar Prilepin’s /San’kia/ (2008), which indeed created a disgusting picture of Putin’s Russia, yet are read by only a tiny minority of educated people. What is more, Putin’s innovative authoritarianism went so far as to allow the free travel of citizens abroad. In the Soviet Union, very few people were deemed “travelable,” and each of them was carefully scrutinized by the KGB. Contrary to the fear of the Soviet leaders about Soviet tourists traveling to the capitalist world, Putin is smart enough to understand that not all of those who travel to the West or even live there for several years are his enemies. Some of them have Harvard degrees and still serve him quite well.
Another comparison in Putin’s favor is that the Soviet leaders sent to prison even the members of youth clubs that studied Lenin’s works but did not have the approval of the authorities. The Soviet Kremlin saw each illegal organization, even small ones, as a basis for national insurrection. Contrary to his predecessors, Putin generously permits many private organizations to function and sees the threat to the regime only in organizations that have contacts with foreigners. Brezhnev’s Kremlin certainly did not like to see critiques of the central or local administrations in the Soviet newspapers. However, if a critical article was published in /Pravda /or some other newspaper, officials reacted swiftly and tried to show their sensitivity to the negative assessment of their work. Putin’s regime is absolutely indifferent to muckraking articles in the print media. The government bodies in Moscow and the province simply ignore articles that reveal their inefficiency or corruption.
The Kremlin radically changed its attitudes toward the Orthodox Church. However, it still receives the same level of obedience as the Soviet leaders did. Indeed, the Soviet leaders deemed it necessary, in order to control the church, to make almost all priests (from the patriarchy to an ordinary parish) agents of the KGB. The Kremlin restricted severely the wealth of the church, being afraid that rich priests would feel more independent. Putin removed practically all of the direct controls over church business and allowed the church to become one of the wealthiest institutions in the country. He abandoned the meticulous regulations on church activities and allowed its dignitaries to enrich themselves. The church reciprocated and became a strong supporter of the existing political order. The patriarchs (the previous Alexii Two and current Cyrill) and the whole army of priests across the country became ardent propagandists of the regime and troubadours of Putin as the “national leader.”
Putin’s ideological policy, which is dutifully implemented by media, explains, in part, why Putin and his protégé enjoy such a high rating. This policy appeals to the autocratic traditions of Russian political culture, which was highly appreciated by Stalin, given his respect for Russian tyrants such as Ivan the Terrible and Nicolas the First. Putin has strengthened autocratic traditions using Stalin himself, whom his ideologues hail as an “effective manager.” In various movies sponsored by the Kremlin, Stalin is depicted as a wise leader who, unfortunately, was surrounded by incompetent and sloppy aides. In a new TV movie, “Who is guilty for beginning the war?” (June 2009), the creators shifted all the responsibility to Stalin’s military commanders.
While the maintaining the ideological underpinning of the regime is one of the Kremlin’s most important tasks, Putin simplified his ideology to a very primitive level. Gone are the subtleties of the Soviet ideology with its attempt to combine, in plausible ways, the refined theoretical dogmas of Marxism with the geopolitical interests of Russia and Russian nationalism. Putin’s ideology has been reduced to a few dogmas, such as “Russia’s special road,” which probably does not even suppose the necessity of real democracy (such was the suggestion of the pro-Putin Institute of Social Design in June 2009). Putin, however, found that a primitive ideology works quite well. He definitely does not need ideological virtuosi, such as the Soviet ideologue Mikhail Suslov. He is fully satisfied with Vladislav Surkov as his main ideologue, along with his ludicrous innovations such as “sovereign democracy.”
However, even more important than the simplification of the official ideology is the fact that Putin’s regime spends much less time and money on propaganda than the Soviet system did. The Communist regime mobilized in the early 1980s no less than 20 million people (about one fifth of the adult population) to maintain the ideological loyalty of Soviet citizens. Relying almost completely on TV, Putin’s regime abandoned this practice, unchained the educated Russians from the boring role of propagandists, and achieved practically the same resultthe allegiance of the majority of the population to the existing political order.
All Soviet leaders after Stalin were sure that state anti-Semitism was necessary to maintain support from the masses. They were also certain that effective anti-American propaganda would be impossible without denouncing Zionism. Even such a liberal as Gorbachev, from the beginning of Glasnost to the end of his rule, was almost never critical of his predecessors’ state policy toward Jews. Yet, Putin was flexible enough to abandon the Soviet-style anti-Semitism. He removed it from propaganda and his cadre policy and found many occasions to show his loyalty to Russian Jews. At the same time, he showed that it is possible to maintain anti-American propaganda without including anti-Semitic elements in it.
Besides its almost total monopoly on media, the Kremlin has another powerful resource that guarantees the leaders a high rating: the country’s universal contempt for all institutions. Ironically, the lower the reputation of the institutions under the control of the leaders, the higher is their personal prestige. Indeed, the same survey by VCIOM that had reported skyrocketing ratings for the tandem leaders in May also showed that the activities of the government were endorsed by only 56 percent of the Russians (against 76 percent who endorsed the chairman of the government); 33 percent approved of the State Duma, and only 29 percent were content with the judiciary. Putin and his appointee are seen as the single hope for maintaining order in the country. In the role of the nation’s savior, Putin descended in June on a small industrial city, Pikalevo, whose residents had not received their salaries for many months and ultimately lost their jobs in December 2008. The residents blocked the railroad with the hope of attracting the attention of Putin personally. Almost with one gesture, Putin forced the owners of the enterprises to solve all the problems. The whole country watched how Putin in his rude brusque way handled the crisis.
The myth of Putin as a good leader, as most other myths, relies on some objective facts. Putin’s reign began during a period of fast-growing oil prices and increasing prosperity for the Russian people, following the tumultuous 1990s. Under the impact of media, the Russians gave him credit for the real material progress in the country and the improvements in political stability. In contrast to Boris Yeltsin, an old man and a drunkard who was openly corrupt, most Russians see Putin as a young, sober and efficient manager. At the same time, the media did not link Putin to several dangerous trends in society, such as the deindustrialization of the economy and the expansion of corruption, if to name only a few.
While ideological pressure plays a critical role in shaping the Russians’ views of their leaders, the fear factor should not be discounted. Again, Putin made a great discovery. He found that Stalin was indeed engaged in “over killing,” because the “great leader” could have achieved the same goals with much milder repressions. Stalin resorted to brutal repressions, which included mass summary executions and the imprisonment of millions of people for decades in the Gulag. Putin understood that measures of such scope are not at all necessary. In order to bring his apparatchiks and intellectuals, as well as ordinary people, into the fold, it was enough to give them enrichment and promotion. The fear of losing one’s position in the high echelons of power or even at the low levels of bureaucracy, given all its perks (illegal property and income), convinced them to be loyal to the Kremlin and participate in any machination, particularly elections, to maintain the regime.
The intellectual establishment, particularly journalists, political scientists, sociologists, writers, film and theatre directors could also be manipulated by high salaries and high honorariums, as well as by giving them access to state funds and media. These methods were no less efficient than the fear of the Gulag. It is remarkable how much effort the Soviet system spent on censorship. Without the endorsement of the notorious /Glavlit/ (the directorate of censorship) and its branches across the country, no written materials, including wedding invitations, could be printed in the country. For this reason, all Xerox machines in the USSR were controlled by the KGB. Putin found that the self-censorship of journalists and writers, who are afraid of losing financial support from the government, is enough to guarantee the loyalty of the absolute majority of publications.
Of course, focusing on the carrot, the regime has not forgotten about the stick, even if it uses coercive methods in a more moderate way than Stalin or other Soviet leaders. The imprisonment of a few nonconformists, such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, with the help of the obedient courts, scares most of the active Russians, including businesspeople and the political and intellectual establishments. The beating and killing of a few defiant people, such as the journalist Anna Politkovskaia, by hired criminals (their sponsors will never be found by law enforcement agencies) also helped to increase the respect or even love of “the national leader,” as Putin’s loyalists refer to him.
However, ordinary people are probably not worried about the killing of journalists, politicians and businesspeople (the fate of these people may be seen as irrelevant to them). The people are more concerned about the regime’s massive demonstrations of power, which can hurt anybody, including small businesspeople, teachers in elementary schools or even factory workers. Stalin and his successors always tried to hide the technology of power and the high standard of living of the nomenclature. It was high treason in the Soviet Union to reveal the real mechanisms behind cadre selections or to disclose the existence of closed stores or hospitals. Putin’s regime behaves in the opposite way. Official media freely discuss how Putin selects people to govern the country from the pool of his friends and former colleagues. The Kremlin does not hide the fact that it uses “administrative resources” (the Russian name for the state apparatus) to produce desirable results in elections at the national and local levels. The media reports on the immunity of Putin’s high officials in the face of accusations of corruption, as well as the luxurious weddings organized by Putin’s friends in the public and private sectors. The country watches how the regime is absolutely unfettered in its cynical ruling of the country and how ready it is to punish anyone who resists. These developments that Russian citizens watch each day persuade them that the best strategy is to love “Big Brother.” This feeling of imposed “love” (or simply fear) affects people when they talk to pollsters, which partially explains Putin’s high rating, and also when they go to the election booth. Since Soviet times, as I found in my surveys, many people did not believe in the anonymity of sociological surveys or when they rescinded a party candidate from the ballot.
While the Soviet leaders tried to strengthen their regime by mobilizing their subjects in public activities and restraining their private lives, Putin’s regime looks for strength in allowing people to become totally absorbed in their private lives so long as they restrain themselves from political activity. Until now, the Russians have observed this social contract, which is quite different from their relations with the activist Soviet authorities. They are content with being absorbed in their private lives so long as the high price of oil allows for it.
In fact, all Russian leaders believed that, with good propaganda supported by sanctions against nonconformists, they could persuade the people to think “correctly” and almost “sincerely” about domestic and international developments. Putin’s regime brought another piece of evidence that suggested that the Soviet leaders were essentially right. The Kremlin easily persuaded the Russians that they are now encircled by enemies, including Slav Ukraine and Orthodox Georgia (countries that had for many centuries close cultural and personal ties with Russia). Another example is the easiness with which Yeltsin and Putin brought up from total political oblivion their heirs, and persuaded the Russians, with minimal effort, to accept them as Russian presidents. These examples can only fortify the Kremlin’s contempt for the masses and its belief that sociological data only produce the results of their own propaganda.
Imagine the outcome of the presidential election in the United States in November 2008 if Fox or CBS held a monopoly on cable news, or if NPR or Limbaugh had total control of the radio waves. Also consider the fact that one’s superior, if he or she learned that you voted against his or her candidate, would use any opportunity to fire you. What should we expect from the Russians who see only Putin and Medvedev on TV? There are no oppositional politicians, not even moderate ones. Most Russians only get information about how their leaders are great, skillful, young, caring, honest, noble, and, of course, patriotic and ready to defend the motherland from the USA, Georgia and Ukraine.
During the presidential campaign in 2008, Medvedev declined to meet on TV for debates even with docile candidates who would not have asked him difficult questions, such as on the topic of corruption at the highest echelons of power. Yeltsin’s low rating in the 1990s, which Putin’s loyalist ascribed to his bad performance, was, in fact, a result of the free media, which Yeltsin never tried to curb in spite of his “tsarist” tendencies. The first post-Communist leader of Russia tolerated the cruelest attacks against him and his family. He allowed his detractors to appear on TV and be included on the ballot during the presidential election.
Of course, there are still people inside the political and intellectual establishments who publicly challenge the regime, but their numbers have dwindled in the last years. An article written by four prominent Russian intellectuals (political scientists Lilia Shevtsova, Igor Kliamkin and Georgii Satarov, along with sociologist Lev Gudkov) and published in /The Washington Post /(June 9, 2009) argued against the United States reconciling with Putin’s regime. This article represented a rare event in Putin’s Russia. The Russian author Valerii Paniushkin (2009) published a book about 12 people who had once been admirers of Putin, but were now disappointed with his policies. However, only one of them, Andrei Illarionov, was a prominent official (he was an economic adviser to Putin). Illarionov resigned as an act of protest and joined the opposition. The number of such brave deeds in Brezhnev’s Russia was much higher.
At the same time, the number of prominent liberal politicians and intellectuals who now, in one way or another, show their loyalty to Putin is growing. Nikita Belykh, a leader of the oppositional liberal party, /The Union of Right Force,/ was a harsh critic of the Kremlin. In March 2008, he participated in the “march of dissenters,” which was brutally suppressed by the riot police. However, in December 2008, he accepted Putin’s offer to join his administration and take the position of regional governor. Other former leaders of the same party, such as Leonid Gozman and Georgii Bovt, dismantled their organization in order to create the new supposedly liberal party /Right Cause, /but this time under the direction of the Kremlin. If to judge from their public appearances, they are now quite comfortable with the change of their roles, from critics of the regime to its myrmidons. In June 2009, Medvedev invited Gozman, along with representatives from the two other “non parliamentary parties,” to the Kremlinanother demonstration of Medvedev’s so-called liberalism. As the leader of a party that strongly supports business, Gozman did not dare, during his three-hour meeting, to even mention the name Khodorkovsky.
One of the bravest oppositional activists, a participant of the “march of dissenters” who served as an anchorwoman at the liberal radio station /Ekho Moskvy, /now decided to take a position in Putin’s bureaucracy at the regional level. In May 2009, a prominent sociologist, who had once been known as an indomitable critic of the regime , solemnly received a party card from /Russia’s Unity/a party that even its members equate with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. A publicist who was known for his uncompromising views and often cynical analysis of Russian society published an article in May 2009 as an act of loyalty to the Kremlin. He recommended that people see the Putin-Medvedev relationship as an important move toward democracy, because it represents a basis for “political dialog” between two independent actors. An historian with liberal credentials agreed in May to join the Kremlin’s ludicrous and heinous “Commission to fight attempts to falsify history,” which has to censor historians. Galina Volchek, a known liberal and the director of the famous Moscow theatre /Contemporary,/ probably surpassed other intellectuals in terms of groveling before the leader. In March 2009, Putin attended the performance of Alexander Griboyedov’s play /Woe from Wit/. Putin disliked the interpretation of the piece, even though that particular interpretation had dominated the Russian theater since the early nineteenth century. He demanded in a very unceremonious way that the theatre follow his own understanding of the play. To the stupefaction of the Moscow public, Volchek immediately agreed with the directive and promised to reread the piece according his wishes. Putin’s visit to the studio of the famous artist Ilya Glazunov in June 2009 was no less spectacular. Looking at a painting that was completed 36 years ago, Putin noticed that a sword depicted in the picture was “too short.” The artist immediately promised to correct the mistake. In his arrogance in judging cultural events, Putin, though with a much lower level of repressions, can clearly vie with Stalin or Khrushchev’s laurels. In some ways he outshines them. None of them dared to be as critical of foreign composers as Putin, who recently told Andrew Lloyd Webber, the author of /Jesus Christ Superstar <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_Superstar>/ and /The Phantom of the Opera <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_of_the_Opera_%281986_musical%29>/, that he stole his melodies from Sergei Prokofiev.
With its almost absolute control over the bureaucracy, media and the intellectual community, the master of the Kremlin should not be very concerned about sociology or the attitudes of the masses toward their leaders. The combination of ideological brainwashing and the fear of sanctions guaranteed Putin and his appointee not only loyalty in behavior, but even the love of Big Brother. Putin and Medvedev are not agitated when their aides bring them the current reports about their ratings. In fact, if Stalin and even Brezhnev had been more flexible (the first question about attitudes toward leaders was not allowed until 1989) and if they had permitted sociologists to ask the Soviet people about their attitudes, they would have received equally high endorsements as the current leaders.
A man who is not afraid of imitating Stalin and who claims to be an expert on theater, painting and music clearly has no intention of abandoning the position of supreme leader in the next years. In June 2009, Dmitry Oreshkin, a shrewd and honest Moscow analyst, said on /Ekho Moskvy/ that it is difficult to climb to the apex of power in Russia, but it is extremely dangerous to slide down. A long list of accusations awaits the Russian leader when he reaches the bottom of the pyramid that he himself built.
Putin’s high rating and his entire regime could, of course, collapse quite quickly, not unlike the Tsarist regime in February 1917 and the Soviet regime in August 1991. However, such a development would depend on three events, none of which are likely to occur in the near future. One would be a massive show of public discontent brought on by a big economic calamity (perhaps a permanent decline in the price of oil). Another would be a split inside the political establishment as a result of a confrontation between Putin and Medvedev. The third would be the emergence of a charismatic oppositional leader who was able to mobilize, with the help of the internet (Facebook and Twitter), a great number of young Russians in order to challenge the regime.
Putin seems ready to deal with any form of public discontent. He recently appointed General Vladimir Shamanov, who became prominent as the merciless subjugator of the Chechen rebellion, as the commander of the airborne troops. This appointment was perceived by Moscow analysts as a sign of Putin’s determination to use brutal force when necessary for stifling any resistance to the regime.
Putin is also ready, as can be seen from his remarks, to meet any challenge from his own heir, President Medvedev. If necessary, as Oreshkin suggested on /Ekho Moskvy,/ Putin can ask Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen president and his personal friend, to bring the battalions of his thugs to Moscow and swiftly finish any enemy. By all accounts, Putin learned an important lesson from the circumstances that brought the collapse of the Soviet regime and will probably be smarter than Mikhail Gorbachev. As a matter of fact, if Gorbachev had not permitted Boris Yeltsin to create a parallel center of power and exploit Russian nationalism in his favor (the creation of a “sovereign” Russian republic independent of the USSR), he could have held on to his power for a long period of time. I belong to the school of thought that believes that Putin can retain his supremacy in Russia in the next years, even if there is some truth to the rumors about the bad blood between him and his “ungrateful” heir. As for the third possibility of regime change, there are no prospects for the emergence of a new oppositional leader, given the fact that Putin has purged all the potential oppositional figures from active political life. Besides, the Russian youth are politically passive, and even if they use the internet intensively, there are no signs that they will use these new technical means for staging protests against the Kremlin. The West will have to deal with Putin as the supreme leader for several years ahead.