Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 16 – Kremlin-orchestrated
propaganda about Ukraine and Crimea remains “absolutely effective” for the
moment, Russia’s leading independent pollster says, but it is likely to
backfire on Vladimir Putin as Russians draw parallels between the Kremlin
leader and Viktor Yanukovich, the ousted Ukrainian president.
According to Lev Gudkov, the head of
the Levada Center, trust among Russians in the authorities and in Putin
personally is falling, an indication that Putin is no longer “the Teflon leader”
many have assumed him to be and one that points to further declines in support
in the future (gazeta.ru/politics/2014/03/13_a_5948629.shtml).
Increasingly numbers of Russians, he
suggests, especially in times of economic hardship, no longer view Putin as an
above-the-fray national leader but rather as one of those involved with the
defense of the interests of a particular corrupt clan. And that Gudkov
continues is costing the Kremlin leader support.
Surveys show that Russians currently
believe two contradictory things about Ukraine. On the one hand, they think the
West provoked Ukrainians into the Maidan and are manipulating them against
Russia. But on the other, most of them
understand that Ukrainians have no choice but to turn to the West and at least
until recently opposed Russia getting involved there.
Kremlin propaganda has changed that
but only in part, Gudkov says. “Propaganda
cannot destroy the understanding of the basic deep motives which have forced
Ukrainians to seek integration with the West. But it can discredit those forces
which articulate pro-Western attitudes and is doing so with great success.”
That is why Moscow constantly talks
about the presence of extremist groups in the Maidan. Such groups exist, but
they do not set the weather, and Russians can see this because they undertand
that what has taken place in Ukraine is “an uprising of society against a
corrupt regime.”
This reflects the fact that
propaganda can be very effective on some subjects but completely ineffective on
others. “It is very difficult to
convince people that the authorities consist of competent and law-abiding
people,” Gudkov says. But it is easy to convince them that Americans are
mistreating Russian orphans.
In general, what Kremlin propaganda
is doing is “destroying an alternative understanding” rather than creating a consistent
new one. “People do not have illusions about the authorities” in another
country or their own.
Moreover, Gudkov says, the impact of
propaganda falls over time. Putin thanks
to the Kremlin propaganda machine got a big boost during the August 2008 war
with Georgia, but shortly thereafter, popular support for him declined as
people focused on the problems of the economy. The same thing is or will happen
now.
According to Gudkov, ever more
Russians view Putin not as a leader, master or father of the nation “who is
concerned about everyone” but rather see him as the leader “of one of the clans,”
and thus infected by corruption as well. Such an understanding cannot fail to
send his ratings down even though people fear instability.
The current wave of propaganda about
Crimea has slowed for a time the growth of such attitudes but it cannot prevent
the rise of “a diffuse understanding that besides extremists in the Midan there
were people who were protesting against a corrupt and venal regime,” much like
the one they have at home.
And that is now having the following
effect. While Russians have long had a negative view about the authorities as a
category, they have been supportive of the top leader, in this case Putin. But with economic difficulties mounting and
with a growing sense of corruption at the top, that is beginning to change, and
ever more people have a negative view of Putin.
The Kremlin leader has already lost
the support of the middle class. He is losing the support of entrepreneurs
because of corruption. But he still has
the backing of the provinces who view him as a paternalistic leader who embodies the ideas of success they would like
to but have not achieved.
Because those provinces are
conservative, Putin is promoting conservative values, a process that is
reinforcing rather than unidirectional, Gudkov says. Indeed, such a pattern is
typical of authoritarian regimes, as Juan Linz pointed out more than 40 years
ago.
According to Linz, Gudkov says, “an
authoritarian regime unlike a totalitarian one does not need ideologies.” It
isn’t promoting aparticular future. Instead, it makes “appeals to the past, to
an artificial past, an invented past as a means of security the passivity of
the population.” And it can secure that by witch hunts and a “purely
preservationist policy.”
The Kremlin’s propaganda effort may
slow but not block the decline in support for Putin over time. It can have only short-term successes as now.
But by 2018, the time of the next election, Putin will face more popular
unhappiness and will retain power only by destroying any alternative leader.
That means, Gudkov suggests, at best
that some new leaders with new ideas will emerge and a rotation of elites will
begin or at worst that there could be the growth of social conflicts and
clashes. The one thing he implies will not occur is the recovery by Putin of
the kind of unquestioned support he had a decade ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment