#15 - JRL 9032 - JRL Home
From: "Vladmir Shlapentokh" <shlapent@msu.edu>
Subject: Two mutually exclusive pictures of Putin’s Russia: Both of them wrong
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005

Two mutually exclusive pictures of Putin’s Russia: Both of them wrong
By Vladimir Shlapentokh
Michigan State University

It is well known that various pictures of the current society circulate in the political mainstream in any country. Recently, the whole world compared the opposing images of America offered by the Republicans and the Democrats. Both of these viewpoints, however, recognized and supported the major pillars of American society. This is not the case in Putin’s Russia today.

In fact, Russian analysts who belong to the same political mainstream—close friends and colleagues even—offer the public diametrically opposed images of their country. One viewpoint is very pessimistic. This view is propagated in a few liberal periodicals, such as Novaia Gazeta and Moskovskie Novosti and the radio station Ekho Moskvy. It can also be found in some less ideologically driven newspapers, such as Moskovskii Komsomolets and even the solidly neutral Izvestia.

The opposing view describes the state of affairs in a “realistic” or even positive way and preaches about the stability of Putin’s regime. The “realistic” view of the developments in Russia has been advanced by the country’s main TV channels as well as by several newspapers and weeklies, such as Komsomolskaia Pravda, Argumenty I Fakty and Trud.

In order to give the reader an idea about the highly charged differences between the major viewpoints in Russian society, let us resort to such an impressionistic gimmick: take as a point of reference the ideological distance between The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Moving to the situation in Russia, the ideological distance that separates Novaia Gazeta and Trud or Channel One and Ekho Moskvy is probably 10 to 30 times greater than between these two publications or any two mainstream media outlets in the United States. The closest example on American soil is probably the difference between a Trotskyist pamphlet circulated in Detroit and the Detroit News.

The authors of the first picture, who believe in the universality of democracy and the market economy, assess the Russian developments using democratic standards and by comparing them with life in the West. The authors of the second picture see the country from another, in their opinion “realistic” perspective, which can be approximately described as a version of the Eurasian ideology. This ideology assumes that Russia has a unique role in history, which is determined by its size, geographic identity in Europe and Asia, its ties to the Muslim world, its historical traditions, and even by its climate, an argument that became quite popular in Russia in the last years after Parshin’s book Why Russia is not America.

The “realists” insist that Russia has its own place in history and should have its own specific political and economic order. The Russians, they believe, are not only unable, but also unwilling to pursue the Western mode of life. By all accounts, the realists express the views of Putin and his close circle.

The pessimists

The pessimists have formed an extremely gloomy picture of Russia. Grigorii Yavlinskii, the leader of the liberal party “Yabloko,” regards the processes in the country as geared toward “the destruction of all state institutions,” and believes that the country is facing a new economic crisis. Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, who is now the chairman of “Committee 2008,” a sort of central headquarters for bold Russian liberals, contends that “if events develop at the same speed as they did in the last eight months, in 2005 the political power in Russia will collapse as a result of internal processes, without any effort from outside.” Another liberal leader, Mikhail Khordorkovsky (even pro Putin media recognize him as “a serious political figure”) delivered a New Year’s message from prison in his article, “Prison and the world: Property and freedom,” which depicts a horrendous future for Russia if the current trends persist. “The all-devouring bureaucracy will be confronted by savage crowds that invade the streets and destroy the fabric of society, demanding ‘bread and entertainment.’” Liberal Russian analysts who are not directly engaged in the political struggle repeated the gloomy prognoses of these activists. Yurii Levada, a prominent Russian liberal and the head of a leading polling firm, declared that “the structures created in the last five years are in crisis,” and the authorities are “helpless” and “confused.” His diagnosis was seconded by another leading liberal and the editor of Moskovskie Novosti, Evgenii Kisilev, who suggested that “the system does not work.” “The general political climate among the Russian elites has become immensely depressing in recent times,” according to the prominent Moscow journalist Mikhail Rostovskii. He insists that the authorities, who have “only instincts but no strategies,” are involved in ludicrous endeavors, such as the cancellation of the holiday celebrating the October revolution, meaningless or dangerous undertakings, such as the decision to abandon the election of governors, or even stupid actions, such as the destruction of Yukos. The authors of a report produced by Stanislav Belkovsky’s Council on National Strategy accused the state of “lacking a strategy and goals.” The report focused on the Kremlin’s chaotic economic policy. Even Expert, a pro business weekly, which is usually quite friendly toward the Kremlin, declared on the eve of the new year in an editorial with the obedient title, “We do not rebel against the authorities,” that the current persecution of one company after another (for instance, the mobile telephone firm “Vympelkom” and the bank “Russian Standards”) “puts in doubt the survival of the country.”

Liberal authors vie with each other in their use of dreadful terms to describe Putin’s Russia: “a frozen country,” “the ice period,” “theater of the absurd,” “the civilization decline,” “a country sinking in the swamp,” “a self-destructive political power.”

The liberals describe each aspect of Russian life in the most abject way and condemn the domestic and foreign policies of the Kremlin. They point to the slackening of economic growth, suggesting that the country has made no move toward modernization and has entered a period of “liberal stagnation,” an allusion to “Brezhnev’s stagnation” in the second half of the 1970s. They point to the miserable state of science, education and culture in the country and talk about Putin’s “alienation from all active people in the country and the elites in general.” Boris Nemtsov, one of the most known Russian liberals, and the prominent political scientist Lilia Shevtsova mocked Putin’s administrative innovations, particularly his centralization policy. They predict the disintegration of Russia as a result of these innovations. In their view, Putin’s famous “vertical of power,” based on the Kremlin’s direct control over the governors and the presidents in the national republics, is rotten and will collapse at the first serious test, such as the one with Leonid Kuchma in Ukraine.

The liberals talk about the Kremlin’s total failure in Chechnia, particularly in connection with the Beslan tragedy, and its general inability to guarantee security in the country. As an exception, they do, however, support Putin’s aggressive stance toward international terrorism.

With a special fervor, the pessimists used the developments in Ukraine and Abkhazia—where Moscow, despite its seemingly total control over the republic, could not get its candidate elected—to prove their thesis that the regime’s fate has already been “written on the wall.” While supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty, which makes them unique in comparison to the great majority of Russians who oppose this position, they derogated the Kremlin’s failure to install its candidates. They were particularly harsh in regard to Putin’s awkward intervention in the election campaign in Ukraine. The critics highlighted Moscow’s primitive approach to the campaign in Kiev, which was based on the patently incorrect assumption that the Ukrainians would be as easily manipulated by money and “administrative resources” as the Russians. For the liberals, “the orange revolution” is a real people’s movement for democracy and against corruption. As claimed by the prominent liberal Deputy Vladimir Ryzkov as well as by Boris Nemtsov, who traveled to Kiev during “the orange revolution” in spite of being called a traitor for doing so by people in the Kremlin, it was evidently foolish to assume that the outcome of the election was foreordained and to destroy the bridge between Moscow and Yushchenko.

The politicians and journalists who have access to liberal newspapers castigate literally everybody in Putin’s government. Levada describes the government on the whole as a collective of “helpless people” who can only “change offices.” Alexander Minkin derogates Putin’s retinue regularly in his rubric, “Letters to the President.” Minister of Defense Sergei Ivanov, the head of the FSB Nikolai Patrushov, the speaker of the State Duma Gryzlov and the Minister of Economy German Gref have been criticized for their total incompetence and for their lack of the necessary professional education. Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov has aroused a great degree of contempt among many journalists and politicians, including Minkin. These journalists do not spare even Putin himself. They talk not only about his KGB past, which influences his behavior today, but also about his interest in controlling money (or, more elegantly, “financial streams”). They have even suggested—as a liberal journalist recently did at a seminar abroad in October 2004—that “the maximization of his control over money” is Putin’s main motivation. Stanislav Belkovsky, an analyst with various ties, including with liberals, suggested, alluding to the Kremlin as a mafia, that “the authorities today are concerned first of all with the accumulation of financial streams in their own accounts.” Alla Latynina, a prominent economic analyst, discussing the mysterious circumstances of the auction of the oil company “Yuganskneftegaz,” a big part of Yukos, in the middle of December, could not help but allude to the president’s participation in this semi-criminal business deal and his use of KGB techniques. Victor Gerashchenko, the most respected banker in the country, who currently works as the chairman of the board at Yukos, made the same allusion. Garry Kasparov was more forthright on this issue. In a Russian newspaper he characterized people in the Kremlin as concerned “only about their personal enrichment and keeping their offices.” In his Wall Street Journal article he ascribes the government’s recent attack on the mobile telephone firm “Vympelkom” to the intrigues of the rival company “Megaphon,” which is “closely connected with Mr. Putin,” or at least, according to Izvestia, to the Minister of Information and Communication Leonid Reiman, who is quite close to the president. The fact that the Kremlin did not resort to the re-nationalization of “Yukos” ­ which had been expected by some observers due to the numerous official attacks against the privatization of the oil industry ­ but simply gave this jewel of the Russian economy to a friendly private company could only underscore in the mind of liberal critics the egotistical (not national) interests of the masters of the Kremlin.

The liberals’ grim analysis of Russian life is countervailed to some degree by a belief that the people’s ire against the regime will soon erupt. Interpreting survey data in a very specific way, Alexander Kolesnichenko began his article, “The despair syndrome,” by suggesting that “the situation in Russia is either tense or on the verge of an explosion.” Levada believes that “the current situation cannot last long since neither the elites nor the mechanism of power can sustain it.” Dmitry Oreshkin wrote that “20-25 percent of the Russians, with their orientations toward Western values, are getting nervous and trying to consolidate their forces.” Some of them predict that Putin’s high rating will soon collapse, asserting that the favorability rating of Nikolas the Second in January 1917, one month before the fall of czarism, was probably no less than 80 percent.

Even relatively sober authors such as Evgenia Albats still believe in “the restiveness” of the Russian people and their potential for revolt, following the example of the Ukrainians. Liberal politicians believe, or pretend to believe, in the efficacy of “Committee 2008” as well as other similar actions that, with the support of the intelligentsia and even the masses, will stop Russia’s slide into totalitarianism. They also believe that the business community, despite its demoralization after Khodorkovsky’s arrest, will join their efforts in the fight against the regime. The developments in Ukraine have inspired Russian liberals. Some of them predict that “a flowers riot” (to use the title of Budberg’s article, which alludes to the “rose revolution” in Georgia and the “orange revolution” in Ukraine) will soon break out on Red Square.

Besides their confused belief in mass movements against the regime, liberals also consider other scenarios that will bring an end to Putin’s rule, even if they recognize that Putin will do everything possible to stay in power after 2008. While being assertive in their oral presentations in the West, several authors convey their pessimistic presages in indirect ways in the Russian context. They often include a sort of insincere sympathy for the president. Evgenii Kisilev and Dmitry Oreshkin, in an almost friendly manner, warned Putin about the intentions of the “hawks in the power ministries” who want to replace him with “a harsher leader.”

However, none of the liberals have dared to publicly describe Russia’s imminent future as harshly as many Communists and nationalists who are now allied to some extent with the liberals in their critiques of the Putin regime. They are caught in a conflict of passions. They hate Putin, whom they still regard as a promoter of liberal economic ideas, though they recognize that he is also a promoter (if a passive one) of their imperial views. When characterizing the internal developments, most of them tend to support the pessimistic view. Sergei Kara Murza and Sergei Glaziev, two thoughtful left intellectuals, use the same language as the liberals, whom they ardently dislike and regard as the ultimate perpetrators of all Russian disasters. Kara-Murza said that Putin has placed the country “on the verge of a deep crisis.” Glaziev contends that the Russian president “provokes destructive processes in the country” and supposes that “he looks at himself in the mirror all day instead of gathering broad and objective information about the world.” Several authors on the left use the events in Ukraine to describe Putin as a politician who botched the power takeover in Kiev. Among the leftists, Alexander Prokhanov, a rabid nationalist, is the boldest in describing his hatred of Putin. He blurts out publicly what others would only say in the kitchen after a few glasses of vodka. After a long period of ostracism by the Moscow establishment, Prokhanov is now being regularly invited to discussions in the liberal electronic media and in respected newspapers. In December 2004 he appeared as a guest on the prestigious radio station Ekho Moskvy three times. In one of his editorials in Zavtra, for which he serves as the editor, Prokhanov characterized the situation in Russia as “pre-revolutionary.” He declared that Putin’s head will be “cut off.” As Prokhanov asserts, everyone is “against Putin” in Russia, including the “humiliated governors,” the oligarchs, the liberal intelligentsia, the nationalists, the West, and the Russian people as a whole. He sees in the future various events that could end Putin’s regime, such as “terrorist acts,” or “a hysterical Western campaign against Putin as a politician who cannot control the country” with its “missiles, nuclear stations, aerodromes and bridges.” He promises strikes in the defense industry as well as student riots.”

The picture limned by Russian liberals and their unexpected allies, the nationalists and Communists, was accepted by some Western journalists and politicians at face value. A recent editorial in Business Week was titled “The unraveling of Putin’s power.” Zbigniew Brzezinski concurred in the Wall Street Journal with the declaration that “Putin’s regime is an anachronism.”

The ultimate pessimists: Today is bad, tomorrow will be even worse

Among liberal Russian analysts there is a group of people—labeled here as the “ultimate pessimists”—who believe that the movement of their country away from the Western path and toward “the totalitarian past” is practically unstoppable, and there are no forces inside or outside the country that can change this trend. A famous Russian intellectual, Alexander Gelman, insists that the Kremlin’s strategy will bring “a steady and planned retreat from democracy.” These bitter realists, all Westernizers, think that no developments inside Russia can undermine Putin’s power in the near future. They do not see any hope in the activities of the masses, the business community or the intelligentsia, which usually serves as the vanguard of the resistance to authority. Russia does not have a decent elite opposition that can confront the rulers and take control of the country if necessary. These elites, as Leonid Radzikhovsky wrote, are only “a pale copy of the ruling elite.” The opposition demonstrates the same “incompetence, irresponsibility and state nihilism.” However, few commentators can compete with the level of pessimism offered by Izvestia’s columnist Sergei Leskov, who declared in an article with the symbolic title “Walpurgis night” (an allusion to a Middle Age epic that depicts a time when witches from a nightmarish wilderness ran the world) that the country is losing its common sense and self-control and is moving toward a period of “crazy delirium.”

“Realists” and the Kremlin’s disposition

The politicians and journalists who serve the Kremlin have offered an opposing picture of Russia. These observers can be labeled “aggressive realists.” Without denying the problems facing the country today—which they usually attribute to the Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras—they describe Russia as a great nuclear power and a stable country. They exhibit a deep sense of anti-democratism, nostalgia for the Soviet empire and an open aggressiveness toward the West, particularly the United States. They consider Putin’s policies, both domestic and international, as optimal under the given circumstances.

Justifying the departure from democratic institutions, Alexander Tsipko, one of the most eloquent aggressive realists, has declared in many of his publications that the Western model of democracy totally failed and brought Russia immense losses. As a result, the course toward authoritarian rule is the single hope for the country. The same rejection of democracy was made by Putin himself, who in his December press conference justified “the choice made by Russia to follow its own optimal road of development” by explaining that “it is impossible today to gather in the same place 145 million Russians,” as it was done in the ancient Russian cities Novgorod and Pskov.

The aggressive realists, along with the Kremlin and people in the “power ministries,” have “high contempt for public movements,” as noted by Alexander Budberg. They despise ordinary people and believe that the masses only play a destructive role when they get involved in politics. They have openly declared their contempt for democracy and their belief that elections everywhere are rigged, in America and Western Europe. These were the sentiments of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during his polemics with Colin Powell in Sophia in December 2004. President Putin attacked the American election system when he declared that the quality of the elections in the U.S. were not any better than “in Ukraine and Afghanistan,” and that in America “the intimidation of voters” was the same as in these countries.

Tsipko as well as Mikhail Leontiev, the most impertinent and cynical advocate of the Kremlin, along with several of Putin’s apologists unequivocally supported the centralization of power and the cancellation of the governors’ elections as well as all other measures against democratic institutions. They believe these steps are necessary for the salvation of the country. They also support the growing state intervention in the economy, and of course the operation against “Yukos,” including the arrest of its owner. Some “aggressive realists,” such as Dmitry Rogozin, the leader the Kremlin’s party “Motherland,” demand from the Kremlin even harsher policies toward big business. They condemn big business as anti-national and controlled mostly by non-Russians who send their money to the West and are ready to flee at the first sign of a problem.

A special place in their picture of the country belongs to the foreign threat to Russia. In the opinion of these authors, Russia faces a mortal threat from the West. Returning to Stalin’s concept of Russia as a besieged fortress they tend to assert that “the cold war in fact never ended,” as suggested by Trud. This thesis is supported by almost all aggressive realists. Authors such as Tsipko and Alexei Kiva, both quite popular, describe the dangers posed by the U.S. as more serious than the threat of terrorism. In fact, as their post-Beslan comments illustrated, they even connect this threat to the United States.

The developments in Ukraine, which in their opinion were sponsored and totally controlled by the West, and particularly by the U.S., are the strongest evidence of America’s hostile intentions toward Russia and a powerful reason for supporting Putin’s foreign policy as both realistic and reasonable. These authors, such as leading political analysts Viacheslav Nikonov, Sergei Markov, Alexei Pushkov and Alexander Dugin (a notorious champion of the Eurasian ideology) as well as such politicians as Duma Deputy Konstantin Zatulin vehemently supported Putin’s intervention in Ukrainian politics. Some of them bluntly declared what Putin could not say himself: “Ukraine is our country,” as suggested by the TV journalist Mikhail Leontiev, and we can do anything we want, even send tanks to Kharkov, if necessary. Leontiev’s hatred of the West has expanded also to Poland. He does not restrain himself from using ethnic slurs against the Poles; he refuses to forgive Poland for conquering Russia in the seventeenth century. He describes Poland as a Western stooge in its role as an intermediate in the Ukrainian political crisis, while others talk about how Poland, with its strong lobby in the American congress, has its own anti-Russian game in the works, including the annexation of the Western regions of Ukraine, which the Poles always despised as inferior. Leontiev and many other like-minded people, with their imperial contempt for the former Russian satellites (even Slav ones), did not spare the Ukrainians, their “junior brothers,” from ethnic disparagements. He described Kuchma (and all participants of the “orange revolution”) as someone as sly as the “typical Ukrainian.” A former leading Kremlin official jokingly considered Kiev’s joining NATO as a good thing for Russia because the “Ukrainians will steal everything in the alliance in two weeks.” Of course, all of them savored the data that suggested that the leaders of the Ukrainian opposition are corrupt, saying nothing about the unseemly record of the Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovich or even Kuchma’s clan.

In the worst scenario, the most aggressive of the “realists” suggest that Ukraine is not a viable state formation. In its current shape, they contend, it can exist only as part of the USSR. In order to save ethnic Russians from the inevitable discrimination in Yushchenko’s Ukraine, they propose the annexation of the Eastern and Southern parts of Ukraine, leaving Western Ukraine alone. With great joy, these realists point to the support of almost half of their countrymen who believe that Ukraine is “our country,” while only 18 percent are ready to consider Ukraine as a sovereign foreign state. At the same time, two thirds of the Russians recognize that Ukraine is gravitating toward the West, not toward Russia.

The aggressive realists put even greater focus on the spread of the “orange revolution” from Kiev to Moscow as the major goal of the West. For this group of analysts, with their deep mistrust of the masses, it is self-evident that Yushchenko’s success and the humiliation of Russia has been elaborated and implemented by American special services, a simple repetition of the Serbian revolution against Miloshevich, and the “rose revolution” in Georgia against Shervanadze. With few exceptions, they dismiss even the most evident facts about the enthusiastic support of Yushchenko by the absolute majority of the Ukrainian youth. As claimed in a Russian newspaper article, “Next stop...Russia,” “If we give up Ukraine this year, next year it will be Russia.”

The aggressive realists, along with Putin himself, try to exploit the gloomy heritage of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, assuming the role of “counter revolutionaries” who want to save Russia from a new terrible revolution, this time organized by the United States. In his December press conference, Putin was disdainful of the revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, condemning “permanent revolution” and preaching, as any ruler who is concerned about losing power, about the importance of law. In their counterrevolutionary ardor, Putin and his supporters bear some resemblance to the Russian emperors, such as Katherine the Great and Nicolas the First, who were worried that the revolutionary infection—in one case from France in 1789, and in the other from Hungary in 1848—could spread to Russia. In both cases, their concerns were unfounded.

A version of the two pictures: Putin as a good leader, but with some problems

Along with “aggressive realists,” a prominent role in the Russian political discourse belongs to their allies: “critical, or liberal realists” whose views in some cases are similar to those of “pure liberals.” While strongly disagreeing with liberals, whom they despise as political failures, and rejecting their gloomy scenarios, prominent sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaia and two well-known Moscow journalists Yulia Kalinina and Alexander Budberg share the view that democracy has no future in Russia, but they support this thesis bitterly. It is unfortunate, as they contend, that Russia is unable to break free from its vicious historical circle and join “the normal countries” in the world, such as the United States, where, as one of these authors said, “democracy for any administration is a supreme value.” They are even sympathetic toward the “orange revolution” and praise “the unbelievable civic maturity” of the Ukrainian people, though they remain skeptical about the positive consequences of the developments in Ukraine, particularly with respect to Russia. But they recognize the Russian reality and support Putin’s regime as the best political alternative. They do not ignore the country’s problems with corruption and other difficulties, but they, unlike the liberals, who demand from Putin what he cannot deliver, see the problems as impossible to solve in the short-term.

They are as nostalgic about the past as “the majority of the citizens.” Alexander Budberg is convinced that the West is at best an alien to Russia and at worst an enemy. Most of them, like Budberg, are sure that the American policy in Ukraine “is directed at least partially against Russia” and that “Russia has full right to intervene in the Ukrainian affairs no less than America and Europe.” But they rebuke Putin for his mild policy toward the United States and for hesitating on his policy toward the restoration of a mini-Soviet Union. Essentially, they support the idea of Russia’s special rights over Ukraine, but they point to the terrible mistakes (one of their articles on this subject carries the title “The Ukrainian schizophrenia”) that the Kremlin made in pursuing its legitimate national goals. Similar to the liberals, they mock Putin’s two trips to Ukraine during the election campaign, his attendance at the parade of the Ukrainian army in Kiev on the eve of voting, his two congratulatory comments to the failed Russian candidate Victor Yanukovich, and his endorsement of this candidate, in spite the fact that he has been jailed two times in the past. Critical realists attribute these terrible blunders to Putin’s willingness “to rule Russia alone” without the help of any serious politicians. In the opinion of realists, Putin’s servile and incompetent advisers botch all the tasks assigned to them. Without grounds, they persuaded Putin that he was immensely popular in Ukraine and to become personally involved in the election, which led to his humiliation after the failure of his protégé.

Putin’s regime and the degradation of Russia will both persist

Both pictures of Russia, the pessimist and realist perspectives, are right and wrong. Liberals are absolutely right in their description of Russian society as suffering from various economic, social and political problems. They are also right that “the prestige of Russia in the world declined with the rate of the ruble in the beginning of the 1990s.” The realists are indeed deceiving themselves, the public and President Putin when they try to offer a decent image of Russian society. However, the liberals are mistaken when they predict the demise of Putin’s regime in the near future, and the realists have grounds for being confident in the survival of the regime in the next years.

First, those who predict a rapid demise of the regime manifest a deep misunderstanding of the role of legitimacy for any political system, democratic or not. Yeltsin won his ultimate political battle with Gorbachev because his legitimacy as the leader was stronger than that of his rival. Yeltsin was elected in 1990 by a free popular vote as the president of the Russian Federation, while Gorbachev did not wish to test his political career and refused to conduct the election of the president of the USSR in 1989-1990. He preferred to be elected by the Soviet parliament, which was mostly under his sway. Yeltsin could also challenge the Russian parliament as a legitimate body. He even shelled the parliament in October 1993, because he was perceived as a legitimate, popularly elected leader. Yeltsin’s legitimacy led to a miracle in 1999 when the country accepted his heir, an obscure politician. The population regarded the continuity of the Kremlin’s power, even if it despised Yeltsin himself, as an antidote against possible anarchy. It is also remarkable that during the stormy days of the “orange revolution” in Ukraine, the legitimacy of Leonid Kuchma, the current president, was accepted even by his most ardent opponents, and Kuchma played an important role in solving the political crisis.

As a two-time elected president like Yeltsin, Putin is a legitimate leader and the symbol of order, even if he has not created a perfect society. By the end of 2004, as well as in 2001, Putin was trusted by almost 70 percent of the Russians. The liberals have dismissed this popularity without grounds. It is almost impossible to imagine an overthrow of Putin’s regime by any anti-constitutional means, whatever the discontent with him in the army and the FSB, which has been hinted at by liberals. Among the community of corrupt military officials there is no possibility for a group of non-corrupt and brave generals to emerge and advance a state coup. These officials would not be willing to expose themselves to the dangers of losing their wealth, or being spied on by FSB agents; nor would they be ready to put great trust in their comrades. Moreover, the potential plotters would not have at their disposal an authoritative body, such as the Politburo or the Central Committee, which had allowed Brezhnev’s group to oust Khrushchev. Even this group was very nervous about the operation in the next years and did not publicly criticize Khrushchev. Today there is no such body in the country that could legitimate a potential adversary to take control of Russia. Even if the State Duma voted against Putin, the president still has greater legitimacy in the eyes of the Russian people than the Duma, which most people despise. At the same time, it is evident to everybody that to oust Putin or his designated heir in 2006 is a meaningless dream.

There are no serious signs of active hostility toward Putin at the top of power. Yurii Luzhkov (whose position as Moscow’s mayor is in evident jeopardy) is probably the only official who has cast aspersions against the government; he did so during the December 2004 meeting of the governors of the Central Federal District in Moscow. He does not, however, criticize the president personally, and only a few days before the meeting he had groveled before the president, calling him an “absolutely irreplaceable leader.” But lets suppose that a plot against Putin was successful. The junta could only survive if it resorted to mass repressions and incarcerated thousands of people. It would have to inspire mortal fear of the new regime among the people and elites—something that the failed plotters against Gorbachev and against Yeltsin in August 1991 could not do, even if they could rely on the Soviet KGB and the army. Without extensive violence, the day after a coup in Russia the country would cease to exist. All the major regions and non-Russian republics would proclaim their independence and autonomy. The perpetrators of the coup would have to face gigantic economic problems, including the new regime’s relations with the West, private businesses and the immediate threat of hunger, as all the available foodstuffs and other goods would disappear from the shelves.

Second, while even legitimate authorities could be removed from power if the society possessed opposition leaders who could inspire a mass movement, there are no such candidates in Russia. During his five years in power, Putin systematically eliminated all potential leaders as well as the institutions that could act as a site of a revolt. His last action (the elimination of the governors’ elections) was also aimed at destroying even the remote possibility for a governor to confront Putin as a popularly elected politician. The same motivation was behind Khodorkovsky’s incarceration. Putin’s purge of potential political rivals was no less successful than Stalin’s purge, even if the Russian president avoided Stalin’s overkill. Putin learned from the consequences of Gorbachev’s tolerance of Yeltsin’s rise to prominence and the emergence of the second center of power. In Putin’s mind, had the General Secretary sent the rebellious member of the Politburo to an African country as an ambassador or made him the secretary of the party in a remote district in Siberia, history would have taken a different track.

The Ukrainian developments would not have occurred if Kuchma had been able to eliminate Yushchenko, who became a famous charismatic leader. No Russian opposition politician (including Grigorii Yavlinsky or Boris Nemtsov, without speaking of such figures as Irina Khakamada, a formal candidate at the Russian presidential election who received 4 percent of the votes) even remotely compares to Yushchenko’s status before the beginning of the election campaign in Ukraine.

In any case, the current Russian opposition, as Alexander Minkin explained in his brilliant analysis, is not a threat to Putin. Almost all the prominent members of the liberal or non-liberal opposition, including such figures as Kisilev, Nemtsov, Satarov, Vladimir Ryzhkov and Glaziev, who represent the vanguard’s critique of the regime, soiled their reputations in the past by supporting the corrupt actions of the government or oligarchs. As a result, they have no moral authority in society. To boot, all of them, as Minkin notes, are far from being ascetic in their current lifestyles. They pass the time at the numberless Moscow receptions and presentations, drinking champagne and eating caviar. Minkin said “no” to his own question: Is it possible in Russia today to displace the ruling power without risking one’s life or well-being? The journalist also quite reasonably noted that Russia’s “false opposition” ultimately serves the interests of the Kremlin, “keeping the field of the opposition out of the hands of real fighters.”

Third, the liberals are correct about the growing disenchantment with Putin’s rule among all strata of the population. Indeed, in 2004, as Levada’s data showed, the number of Russians who agreed with the statement, “Russia is moving in the correct direction,” declined from 50 percent in January to 38 percent in November. The number of those who found that “the political situation in the country” is “good” and “calm” also declined from 35 percent to 20 percent. According to another poll, the number of Russians who said that this year was better than the previous one declined from 35 percent in December 2003 to 22 percent in December 2004.

The mass protests of retired people against the social benefit reforms in January 2005 revealed the depth of discontent in the country. This was an unprecedented development in the post-Soviet period, and will have a serious impact on the future processes in the country. The refusal of the authorities to use force in order to dispel the protest may encourage other categories of the population to go to the streets. However, between 1905 (and the babushkas protests are very far from the bloody first Russian Revolution) and February 1917 many years passed and if it was not for the unsuccessful war the tsarist regime could have persisted for many years in the future. So far, the humble protests by the elderly have confirmed the strength of the regime more than its vulnerability. Ultimately the protest showed, as suggested by Leonid Radzikhovsky on radio station Ekho Moskvy on January 15, 2005, that the margin of the regime’s security is very wide. There was no national organization directing the anger of the retired people against the Kremlin. Even the Communist party did not try to exploit the people’s ire against the regime on a national scale. More importantly, the children and grandchildren of the elderly protesters did not join them in the streets in even one city. The Babushkas were left to fend for themselves everywhere. Within a few days after the start of the protest, even liberal media lost some of their initial interest in these developments. The intensity of the media’s coverage dissipated after the central and local authorities made some cosmetic concessions.

After the January developments, Putin’s prestige declined significantly. If at the beginning of 2004, 65 percent of the Russians said that they would have elected him as president, by January 15, 2005, the same decision would have been made by only 43 percent. However, these data are not terribly important to the president. In 2000-2003, his election potential was near the same level: below 50 percent. As a potential candidate in a new presidential election, Putin would surpass the nationalist candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky by 9 times, the Communist candidate Gennadii Ziuganov by 14 times, and the most popular democratic candidate Grigorii Yavlinsky by 43 times. Another indicator of Putin’s status in the public mind ­ the people’s “trust” in him ­ has also declined. In January 2005, 27 percent had “trust in him,” a sharp decline from 41 percent in the beginning of 2004. However, the number of people who said that they “distrust the president” practically did not change and stood at no more than 3 percent.

In spite of the decline, Putin is “trusted” much more than any other politician in the country. Besides, the number of people who described by the end of 2004 their mood as “perfect” or “good” almost did not change in comparison with 2003: 61 percent and 57 percent. The number of people who assessed the material standing of their family as “good” or “decent” was also flat over the same two periods: 63 percent and 61 percent.

The Russian liberals’ predictions about “Putin’s Waterloo,” to use the reflections of Evgenii Kisilev, who estimated the remainder of Putin’s political career at two years at best, and nine months at worst, are likely incorrect. However, their gloomy diagnoses of many of the developments in the country are sound. They are right to assert that Putin has practically eliminated the country’s major democratic institutions. The Russian economy, with its focus on the export of raw materials and showing no signs of serious modernization, has no major prospects for the future, even if slow economic growth and a modest rise in the standard of living persist in the next years. In his December 2004 press conference, Putin avoided the major problems facing the country, including the fight against crime and corruption, the war in Chechnia and the major terrorist acts in the last year, such as the tragedy in Beslan. He focused instead on his attacks against the West in general and the United States and Poland in particular. Putin’s press conference—in which he nonchalantly distorted evident facts, attacked foreign political figures and dismissed all critiques of his regime—showed that the president is quite sure of his control over Russia. His dealing in January with the acute problems with the social benefit reforms was superficial and in his public analysis of the protests he simply shifted the responsibility to the regions, which have no resources to satisfy the basis needs of the retired people and others who were dependent on the social benefits.

Though he is safe from possible challenges, Putin’s regime remains, as reasonably argued by its critics, extremely inefficient and unable to cope with major problems, including the concerns over security and the economy. Only a few months after the obvious showing of the state’s incompetence during the Beslan crisis, another demonstration of its inefficiency began after January 1 when the government tried to implement the social benefits reform. Again, the country perceived the Kremlin as unable to see the consequences of its actions or coordinate the center and regions. Even if the accusations of some liberals about Putin’s concern for his personal enrichment are only partially plausible, it is necessary to include in an analysis of Russia today a phenomenon that was well known during the early Middle Ages in Russia and France and in many developing countries in the contemporary world. In the times of the first Russian princes in Moscow in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the rulers did not distinguish between their private fortunes and the state’s coffers. In more recent times many political leaders have sacrificed the national interests of the country in order to perpetuate their power. This was true for all the Soviet leaders. In the post-Soviet period, Yeltsin exploited his position as president to gain financial enrichment for his family, a circumstance that greatly affected Russian society in the 1990s. If Putin has perpetuated, even in a mild form, Yeltsin’s tradition of privatizing power, it is not likely that he will enhance the efficiency of the state, nor adopt an aggressive foreign policy.

With a weak state machine and army, Putin’s regime will not present a serious threat to the West, or to its neighbors, including the former Soviet republics. As the Ukrainian events again confirmed, Putin, despite his rhetoric, always ultimately retreats from any serious action that could jeopardize his relations with the West, and particularly with the United States. In spite of his belligerent response to his Western critics, he found the opportunity to praise Russia’s relationship with the United States, asserting that “our relations are not those of partners, but of allies.” Moreover, he praises President Bush as “a very decent and consistent man.”

The major problems with Russia for the West stem not so much from the internal political evolution in Russia, which the West cannot influence, but from the need for the country’s collaboration in the fight against international terrorism, the safety of nuclear and chemical weapons on the Russian territory, and the nonproliferation of these weapons.

In the next years, Russia will be regard by many observers as a peculiar society that combines totalitarianism with some individual freedoms, feudalism with its inability to enforce its own laws, and economic liberalism with some competition inside the country. All of these elements will remain enmeshed in corruption and criminality. Russia is an extremely heterogeneous society, not only socially but also territorially, as was aptly noted by the participants of the debates about Russia’s future in Literaturnaia Gazeta. It has a “globalistic” zone that includes Moscow and Petersburg, the Russian province and the non-Russian North Caucasus. Each of these territories belongs to a different historical epoch: the first, to the twenty-first century (a post-industrial Russia); the second, to the nineteenth and twentieth century (an industrial Russia); and the third, to the times of the patriarchal, pre-industrial society. It is difficult to predict how long this strange social organism will persist. In any case, only the emergence of a new group of opposition elites could bring radical changes, either in the direction of a Nazi-like state, or a return to the road of democratic evolution. Of course, it is impossible to fully exclude the possibility of a plot against the president inside the army and FSB, which uses nationalist slogans. Such a plot would be a disaster for the country and would bring many troubles for the world.

Acknowledgment: The author wishes to thank Joshua Woods for his editorial contribution to this article.

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#16

Moscow Times

January 24, 2005

Building Cooperation, Preventing Proliferation

By Vladimir Sotnikov

Vladimir Sotnikov is a research associate at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, and an independent expert on nuclear nonproliferation in South Asia and the Middle East. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times

In a recent confidential report that was leaked to the press, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that while Iran was guilty of breaching certain international safeguards, almost two years of inspections had uncovered no proof of any illicit weapons programs. Then, on Jan. 18, a day after U.S. President George W. Bush refused to rule out military action against Iran if it continued to attempt to build nuclear weapons, a number of Iranian officials declared that they would not be intimidated by U.S. threats.

These two events are two sides of the same coin. Russia is intimately involved in this important issue due to its agreement to share civilian nuclear technology with Tehran signed in August 1992, an agreement which has long profited both countries.

So what's wrong with an Iranian nuclear program? Why is the international community, especially the United States, so concerned? Why is the Iranian nuclear program so important to Russia, considering how intense U.S. pressure on Moscow remained in the 1990s and how strongly the United States demanded Russia end its nuclear cooperation with Iran? Will Iran ignore international nuclear safeguards and agreements and become the first Islamic nuclear power since Pakistan tested the bomb in May 1998? Will the international community succeed in persuading Tehran to abandon its presumed nuclear weapons drive and focus solely on civilian atomic energy?

Even top Iranian diplomats cannot give a definite answer to these questions. Last November, a senior Iranian diplomat, Ali Saltahni, spoke at the Carnegie Moscow Center and addressed why Iran needs a closed nuclear fuel cycle and uranium enrichment facilities. He pointed to Iran's demand for cheap energy and emphasized its right to construct nuclear power stations and manufacture its own fuel. In the heated discussion that ensued, Saltahni tried to calm his audience and stated that "very soon" Iran would sign a special agreement with Russia to return spent nuclear fuel from Bushehr's nuclear reactors, thus confirming his country's commitment to civilian nuclear energy.

Yet one small but very important problem with Tehran's nuclear program remains. The United States is convinced that Iran has an advanced nuclear military program and that Tehran has decided to build nuclear weapons. A Nov. 24 article in The New York Times referred to a CIA report that stated that the international network of nuclear black market dealers headed by the so-called father of the Pakistani bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, provided "significant assistance" to Iran, including "advanced" and "efficient" nuclear warhead designs. Thus, Washington believes that it is more important to stop Tehran than to negotiate.

There is some logic behind the United States' conclusion that Iran's nuclear program has hidden military goals. Iran says that it is building expensive nuclear energy facilities and developing a closed nuclear fuel cycle to satisfy its future demands for electricity. But uranium reserves in the country, as many in the West have pointed out, are scarce and less than 1 percent of its huge oil and gas reserves. Iran is home to the second-largest reserves of natural gas in the world. During oil production, Iran burns enough of the associated gas to produce what Western experts claim is the equivalent of four nuclear power plants the size of Bushehr. In this light, Tehran's nuclear energy program seems to be a cover for developing the bomb.

Thus, even with the long history of Russian-Iranian nuclear dialogue, there are some troubling questions to be asked of Russia's strategic energy partner. For the last several years, Iran has misinformed Moscow about the true size of its own nuclear program on several occasions. Moscow, as Iran's only partner, longs for more openness and frank information from Tehran. The question remains how Russian-Iranian relations in the nuclear sphere should proceed, as the United States and other Western partners regard Russian nuclear cooperation with Iran as a direct contribution to the development of weapons of mass destruction. Russia does not believe this to be true and does not see any grounds for stopping construction at Bushehr. Moreover, nuclear cooperation with Iran is very profitable for Moscow, in that it helps keep Russia's atomic power industry alive and brings in millions of dollars. Thus, Russia needs to separate the issue of possible nuclear weapons development from the question of the Bushehr nuclear power plant and communicate the crucial difference between the two to the world community.

Officials believe that Russia has every right to help Iran develop civilian nuclear energy and to encourage fruitful cooperation with its strategic energy partner. But Moscow should avoid the mistakes of the 1990s in its nuclear relations with Iran. And it should be strict and to the point with Iran in order to prevent a rift between Moscow and Washington over the Iranian nuclear program.

But while attempting to keep a reserved and careful attitude toward nuclear cooperation with Iran, we should not go to the other extreme, either. Today, the IAEA has all the necessary tools that will allow it to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the Iranian nuclear program, as well as engage in further monitoring. Russia should cooperate with the IAEA but should not push this specialized United Nations agency to make political statements that do not coincide with the conclusions of its nuclear inspectors. Moreover, now may not be the best time for the agency's report to be handed over to the Security Council.

In addition to working with international nuclear inspectors, Russia should actively cooperate with France, Germany, Britain and other European countries with longstanding traditions of dialogue with Iran. Finally, we must avoid putting extra pressure on Iran and be very careful not to disclose Israel's nuclear arsenal. Tehran might then rapidly abandon international treaties. This would undermine stability in the region and perhaps the rest of the world as well. This is a critical time for Iran to be held within the community of non-nuclear states to avoid a military solution to the Iranian nuclear problem. It is in Russia's interest to preempt a strike by either the United States or Israel, as well as to prevent the formation of an Islamic Nuclear Belt on its southern flank.