Two Simplified Pictures of Putin's Russia, Both Wrong

Vladimir Shlapentokh is a professor of sociology at Michigan State University. Two Simplified Pictures of Putin’s Russia, Both Wrong Vladimir Shlapentokh As we all know, stereotypical images tend probably the chasm between a Trotskyist universally to dominate mainstream politi- pamphlet circulated in Detroit and the cal discourse. The world recently glimpsed Detroit News. opposing images of America conjured by Russian writers of the pessimistic per- Republicans and Democrats. Both view- suasion assume the universality of democ- points, however, converged in supporting racy and the market economy, and assess the major tenets of American democracy. Russian developments using democratic This is not the case today in President standards. Russian writers in the second, Vladimir Putin’s Russia. “realist” camp see their country from a per- Indeed, analysts who belong to the same spective that may be described as a version Russian mainstream—even close friends and of the Eurasian ideology. This ideology as- colleagues—offer diametrically opposed im- sumes Russia has a unique role in history, ages of their country. One viewpoint is pes- determined by its size, its geographic iden- simistic, as propagated in a few liberal peri- tity spanning Europe and Asia, its ties to odicals such as Novaia Gazeta and Moskovskie the Muslim world, its historical traditions, Novosti and the radio station Ekho Moskvy. and even by its climate, an argument that It can also be found in some less ideological- became popular in Russia after the publica- ly driven newspapers, such as Moskovskii tion in 2000 of the popular Russian author Komsomolets, and even the solidly neutral Dmitry Parshin’s book, Why Russia Is Not Izvestia. The opposing viewpoint is “realis- America.1 “Realists” insist Russia has a tic,” even positive, and it emphasizes the unique place in history and should have its stability of Putin’s regime. The “realistic” own specific political and economic order. view of the developments in Russia has been They believe Russians are not only unable advanced by the country’s main television but unwilling to adopt the Western mode of channels, as well as by such newspapers and life. By all accounts, the “realists” express weeklies as Komsomolskaia Pravda, Argumenty the views of President Putin and his inner I Fakty, and Trud. circle. To convey the highly charged differences between these major viewpoints, let us re- The Pessimists sort to an impressionistic comparison: take The pessimists paint an extremely gloomy as a point of reference the ideological dis- picture. Grigorii Yavlinskii, the leader of tance between the New York Times and the the liberal party Yabloko, regards his coun- Wall Street Journal. In the Russian context, try as geared toward “the destruction of all the ideological distance that separates Nova- state institutions,” and believes Russia ia Gazeta and Trud, or Channel One and is facing a new economic crisis. Gary Kas- Ekho Moskvy is probably 10 to 30 times parov, the world chess champion, who greater than between these two publica- is now the chairman of “Committee 2008,” tions. The closest American analogue is a sort of central headquarters for bold Two Simplified Pictures of Putin’s Russia, Both Wrong 61 Russian liberals, said in December that “if the new year in an editorial with the sarcas- events develop at the same speed as they did tic title, “We Do Not Rebel against the Au- in the last eight months, in 2005 the politi- thorities,” that the current persecution of cal power in Russia will collapse as a result one company after another (for instance, the of internal processes, without any effort mobile telephone firm Vympelkom and the from outside.”2 Another liberal leader, the bank Russian Standards) “puts in doubt the former head of the oil giant Yukos, Mikhail survival of the country.”9 Khodorkovsky (even pro Putin media recog- Liberal authors vie with each other in nize him as “a serious political figure”3) de- their use of grim terms to describe Putin’s livered a New Year’s message from prison in Russia: “a frozen country,” “the ice period,” his article, “Prison and the World: Property “theater of the absurd,” “the civilization de- and Freedom,” which foresees a horrendous cline,” “a country sinking in the swamp,” “a future for Russia if current trends persist. self-destructive political power.”10 “The all-devouring bureaucracy will be con- The liberals deplore almost every aspect fronted by savage crowds that invade the of Russian life and condemn the domestic streets and destroy the fabric of society, de- and foreign policies of the Kremlin. They manding ‘bread and entertainment.’”4 Liber- point to the slackening of economic growth, al Russian analysts who are not directly en- suggesting that the country has made no gaged in the political struggle repeated the move toward modernization and has entered gloomy prognoses of these activists. Yurii a period of “liberal stagnation,” an allusion Levada, a prominent Russian liberal and the to “Brezhnev’s stagnation” in the second half head of a leading polling firm, declared that of the 1970s.11 They point to the miserable “the structures created in the last five years state of science, education, and culture and are in crisis,” and the authorities are “help- talk about Putin’s “alienation from all active less” and “confused.”5 His diagnosis was sec- people in the country and the elites in gen- onded by another leading liberal, the editor eral.”12 Boris Nemtsov, a well-known Rus- of Moskovskie Novosti Evgenii Kisilev, who sian liberal, and the prominent political sci- says, “The system does not work.”6 entist Lilia Shevtsova mocked Putin’s ad- “The general political climate among ministrative innovations, particularly his the Russian elites has become immensely centralization policy. They predict the disin- depressing in recent times,” according to tegration of Russia as a result of these inno- the prominent Moscow journalist Mikhail vations. In their view, Putin’s system of Rostovskii. He insists that the authorities, “vertical power,” based on the Kremlin’s di- who have “only instincts but no strategies,” rect control over the governors and the pres- are involved in ludicrous endeavors, such as idents in the national republics, is rotten the cancellation of the holiday celebrating and will collapse at the first serious test, as the October (Bolshevik) Revolution, mean- was the case with former president Leonid ingless or dangerous undertakings, such as Kuchma in Ukraine.13 the decision to abandon the election of The liberals speak of the Kremlin’s total provincial governors, or even stupid actions, failure in Chechnya, particularly in connec- such as the destruction of Yukos.7 The au- tion with the tragic terrorist siege of a thors of a report produced by Stanislav school in Beslan, and its general inability to Belkovsky’s Council on National Strategy guarantee security. (They do, however, sup- accuses the state of “lacking a strategy and port Putin’s aggressive stance toward inter- goals.” The report focuses on the Kremlin’s national terrorism.) chaotic economic policy.8 Even Expert, a pro- With a special fervor, the pessimists business weekly, which is usually friendly used the developments in Ukraine and the toward the Kremlin, declared on the eve of breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia— 62 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • SPRING 2005 where Moscow, despite its seemingly total luded to the Kremlin as a mafia, in which control, could not get its candidate elected “the authorities today are concerned first —to prove their thesis that the regime’s fate of all with the accumulation of financial is already “written on the wall.” While sup- streams in their own accounts.”20 Yulia porting Ukraine’s sovereignty, which sets Latynina, a prominent economic analyst, them apart from a great majority of Rus- discussing the recent and suspicious auc- sians, they mock the Kremlin’s failure to in- tioning of the oil company Yugaskneftegaz, stall its political candidates. They were par- a subsidiary of Yukos, could not help but al- ticularly harsh in regard to Putin’s awkward lude darkly to the president’s participation intervention in the recent presidential elec- and his use of KGB techniques. Victor tion in Ukraine.14 Critics faulted Moscow’s Gerashchenko, a highly respected banker overt intervention in the campaign, seem- and current chairman of the board at Yukos, ingly based on the incorrect assumption that echoed the same thought.21 Gary Kasparov Ukrainians could be as easily manipulated was even blunter. In a Russian newspaper, by money and “administrative resources” he characterized people in the Kremlin as as Russians. For the liberals, “the orange concerned “only about their personal enrich- revolution” is a real people’s movement for ment and keeping their offices.”22 In a Wall democracy, directed against corruption. Street Journal article, he ascribed the govern- To the prominent liberal deputy Vladimir ment’s recent attack on the mobile tele- Ryzkov,15 Moscow was evidently foolish to phone firm Vympelkom to the intrigues of assume the Kremlin’s candidate would win the rival company Megaphon, which is and thus jeopardize relations with the oppo- “closely connected with Mr. Putin,”23 or at sition victor.16 least, (according to Izvestia), to Minister of Politicians and journalists with access Information and Communication Leonid to liberal newspapers castigate everybody Reiman, who is close to the president.24 The in Putin’s government. The pollster Yurii fact that the Kremlin did

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