#6
The Russia Journal
November 23-29, 2001
Editorial
Caution on Putin
One can sense a growing sense of friendliness toward President Vladimir Putin in the West. Once again, leaders are embracing the current Kremlin inhabitant with the same exuberance – irrational or otherwise – they lavished on former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former President Boris Yeltsin. While we are happy to see the West portray Russia in a positive light for a change, the level of enthusiasm is a little troubling.
A genuine acceptance of Russia and Russians as friends in a new era of cooperation is welcome and long overdue. The popular Western image of Russians as people whose national pastimes are vodka and corruption has been unfair. Western perceptions of Putin himself – which until recently had been formed by media reports portraying him as some sort of second-generation Yury Andropov – have also been exaggeratedly negative. Caricature, sadly, is what many in the media are best at. So it comes as no surprise that they are so suddenly raining praise on the Russian president.
Putin has yet to prove definitively who he is and what he stands for. He’s for a liberal economy, sure. He’s in favor of strengthening the state, right. But it is still not known to what extent Putin intends these as goals and what he has in mind when he thinks of them. The world should be cautious. His political reform has strengthened little more than his presidency and grip on power. The "market reform" has been targeted almost solely at the collection of greater revenues for the state. There has been no trimming of the Russian bureaucracy – which is larger than it was during the Soviet Union – or clipping of its corrupt wings. Judicial reform is a joke, and racist tendencies are rising unchecked.
The Russia Journal has been at the forefront of talking about all that has been done right in Russia under Putin. But to dismiss the unaddressed, underlying systemic problems and to accept Putin as a democrat because he drops Andrei Sakharov’s name in New York would be folly. Putin must prove, every day of his presidency, that he is a democrat – through actions and not words. And his reward should be gradual acceptance on the international stage.
In the meantime, Russians deserve credit for having shown their resolve to remain a democratic nation, having voted three times against red-brown forces. The world should throw in its lot with the Russian people and encourage the growth of democratic institutions. That requires a critical stance, not blind adulation.
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