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The Putin Restoration by Leon Aron

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The Putin Restoration by Leon Aron Spring 2004 The Putin Restoration By Leon Aron The Revolution had, indeed, two distinct phases: one in which the sole aim of the French nation seemed to be to make a clean sweep of the past; and a second, in which attempts were made to salvage fragments from the wreckage of the old order. For many of the laws and administrative methods which were suppressed in 1789 reappeared a few years later, much as some rivers after going underground re-emerge at another point, in new surroundings. —Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Régime and the French Revolution Vladimir Putin’s lopsided victory in Russia’s security affairs in the next four years and very March 14 presidential election has been widely likely beyond. ascribed to the Kremlin’s neo-authoritarian inter- ference in the political process, including its Not So Simple an Explanation. To be sure, Rus- Russian Outlook manipulation of the media and its intimidation sia’s presidential election was marred by tactics of the opposition. that made the contest less than fair. While the Yet a closer examination of the key trends in three national television networks skewed the Russian politics and public opinion reveals a far news to play up the president and to say as little more complicated picture. To attribute Putin’s as possible about the other candidates,1 Putin triumph, or indeed his popularity, solely to semi- refused to participate in the election debates, authoritarian political technology is to mislead dismissing them as a “senseless game,” unneces- the American public and American policymak- sary for a sitting president because “everything ers. Putin’s reelection is part of a broad and he can say he should have already shown by his multifaceted trend affecting Russia today: a post- actions in the past four years.”2 In addition, revolutionary “restoration” that, in one form or “administrative resources” at every level of another, has followed every great revolution. government were employed to increase voter The trend’s key components (sometimes over- turnout. Running against the incumbent in a lapping but distinct and often clashing) are a country where a decade of democracy was pre- reactionary revanchist agenda; a new national ceded by four centuries of brutal authoritarianism consensus; and President Putin’s interpretation is by definition intimidating, and the Kremlin of and mediation between these forces in accor- did nothing to lessen (and a great deal to dance with his own policy predilections. Outlining heighten) the inevitable fears and suspicions the policies advocated by each of these three by, among other things, scaring off wealthy con- institutional actors, highlighting the differences tributors to opposition candidates and parties. between them, and gauging the results of their In addition, following the venerable Russian interaction will help determine the direction tradition of seeking to please the Kremlin with of Russian politics, economy, and foreign and administrative zeal even when the Kremlin does Leon Aron ([email protected]) is a resident scholar and not require it, local officials resorted to petty the director of Russian studies at AEI. harassment, occasional ballot stuffing, and, 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 202.862.5800 www.aei.org - 2 - apparently, striking voters off the lists to increase the incomes increase by an average of 10 percent a year, the turnout rate.3 average monthly salary more than doubles,12 and the Still, in the month preceding the election, the five number of people in poverty shrinks by over one-third.13 other presidential candidates had a total of sixty free Yet perhaps nearly as important as the state of the hours on the three state-owned national television economy is a vast and complex social and political phe- networks4 (and the same amount of time on the three nomenon at the heart of which is a conservative or even state-owned radio stations) for uncensored political reactionary retrenchment and a drift to the core of the advertisements and debates.5 Russian newspapers carried national political and cultural tradition. long interviews with them and published their platforms. Known from the histories of other revolutions as a One of the candidates, Irina Khakamada, took out a full- “restoration,” the trend consists of two elements. First, page ad in one of Russia’s most popular business newspa- formerly dominant pre-revolutionary political and eco- pers, Kommersant-Daily, and Moscow’s largest-circulation nomic elites seek to stage a comeback, to regain their tabloid, Moskovskiy Komsomolets, in which she branded power and possessions. In the Russian case, they are law President Putin a liar and, in effect, a murderer, for his enforcement functionaries, federal bureaucrats, and offi- handling of the October 2002 hostage crisis, in which cers of the Federal Security Service (FSB), whose middle at least 129 hostages died, as well as forty-one Chechen and upper ranks are filled with ex-KGB apparatchiks— Islamic terrorists. the groups that effectively owned Soviet Russia’s poli- As a prominent Russian political weekly noted, tics and economy. Known as siloviki (from “silovoy,” or Kharitonov, Khakamada, and Glaziev seemed to have a “power-based”), among the most frequently mentioned “tacit agreement” in their nationally-broadcast debates leaders of the revanchists are Prosecutor General not to attack each other but “to focus their criticism” on Vladimir Ustinov, FSB director Nikolai Patrushev, and Putin.6 With no one to rebut the opposition candidates’ the two deputy chiefs of staff of the presidential adminis- attacks on the president, the debates, in effect, amounted tration, Igor Sechin and Viktor Ivanov. to television viewers being told “three times a week that The other element of the “restoration” is an intense Putin is leading the nation in the wrong direction.”7 and widespread longing for predictability, security, and Election posters and leaflets of all the candidates were continuity after a decade of political and economic revo- mounted and handed out in house-to-house canvassing lutions, the relentless and dizzying onslaught of the new, across Russia. Most importantly, the names of Putin’s and the taxing choices and responsibilities of freedom. rivals were on the ballot; people were free to vote for As in all previous post-revolutionary restorations, there them, and almost 15 million did.8 Asked if they had is a shift in popular sentiment from a near-total negation the opportunity to express their position freely in the of the old regime to a desire for a partial recovery of election, 87 percent of those polled answered in the traditional policies, institutions, and symbols. Unlike the affirmative.9 radical liberal intelligentsia, a plurality of Russians over As for Putin, he received almost precisely the number forty-years-old is not ready to dismiss the entire Soviet of votes that innumerable polls from some of the most past. Among other cherished memories, they are proud reliable Russian and international public opinion firms of the Soviet Union’s victory over the Nazis in World predicted he would long before the campaign began. War II, its nuclear parity with the United States, and its Based on the same polls, it is not unreasonable to assume pioneering achievements in space exploration. that Putin would have won with only a slightly narrower lead if the election had been free of some of the tactics Putin’s Remarkable “Fit.” It is because of his remark- mentioned above, which ought to be deplored as setbacks able “fit” into this national consensus that Vladimir for Russian democracy. Putin has accrued much of his extraordinary popularity. Instinctively or by design (or, likely, both), he has “Restoration” and a New Consensus. The margins come to embody and symbolize to millions of Russians of Putin’s victory10 make clear that we are dealing with a still very precarious balance between freedom and a phenomenon that extends well beyond campaign order, and between the old and the new. shenanigans. First, it does not seem too risky to suppose Asked in a March 2004 nationwide survey what that the chief executive in a capitalist democracy is very “democracy” meant to them, a strong plurality of Rus- likely to be reelected when, during his term in office, the sians (44 percent) singled out the freedoms of speech, country’s economy grows by at least 30 percent,11 real press, and religion.14 Yet the next three most popular - 3 - items on the ten-point list were “prosperity” (31 per- The New Consensus cent), “order and stability” (29 percent), and “strict rule of law”—strogaya zakonnost—(24 percent).15 A Strong State. Yet perhaps above all, Vladimir Putin is From his first day in office, while mentioning the associated with the key feature of the new consensus: the importance of “strengthening democracy” in virtually desire for a stronger state21 and more effective central every major speech, Vladimir Putin has unambiguously government to enforce the laws, secure public order, and declared tangible improvements in the latter three areas protect the weak and the poor—even at the expense of to be the core of his agenda. As far as public perception is some (but by no means all) newly gained liberties. This concerned, he has succeeded. As a result, in the four years is not a new choice. As Ronald Syme noted in his classic since Putin was elected, three-quarters of the population study of Rome, after the “transference of power and prop- continue to believe that he will “bring order to the coun- erty . the consolidation of the revolutionary process” try” or raise the standard of living.16 forced the Romans to choose between “liberty or stable government.”22 (They chose the latter and with it the Personal Appeal.
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