Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 4 – That Putin has
intervened in Ukraine at least in part to overcome the political challenges he faced
in 2011-2012 and that he has made Russian more authoritarian in the process is largely
common ground. But a new book gives remarkable details about these links and
these trends and suggests that Putin’s authoritarianism is will only intensify.
This week, Russia’s Liberal Mission
released a 260-page book, “The Main Trends in the Political Development of
Russia in 2011-2013: The Crisis and Transformation of Russian Electoral
Authoritarianism” (in Russian; Moscow, 2014) edited by Kirill Rogov and
prepared by a group of analysts including Dmitry Oreshkin and Vladimir
Pastukhov (liberal.ru/upload/files/Osnovnie%20tendentsii%20politicheskogo%20razvitiya.pdf).
The authors argue that the annexation
of Crimea was “beyond doubt” a turning point in Russian history, the occasion
for Putin to move in a more authoritarian direction. But they suggest that this
event cannot be understood without an appreciating the ways his response to the
protests of 2012-2013 started the shift from “soft authoritarianism” to a much
harsher version
After carefully tracing the rise and
fall of opposition activity in response to the falsification of the
parliamentary and presidential elections and Putin’s increasingly authoritarian
response to that movement, one that he clearly viewed as a threat to his system
and personal rule, the Liberal Mission author offer five conclusions.
First, they suggest that the chief
factors driving an increase in the level of repression in Russia as in any
society are the amount of repression already in place and a rise in public
protests against the regime. Putin’s Russia was already authoritarian; the
protests prompted him to make it even more so.
They argue that “political
repressions are case when quantity does pass into quality” and where the use of
repressive means by the regime against an increasing number of protesters increases
the regime’s propensity to use repression and the population’s sense that
repression is to be expected rather than something rare and marginal.
Second, as Putin’s repressive
actions affected an ever larger circle of the population, officials in the
regime increasingly accepted this pattern as defining the new “rules of the
game,” but political activists found it ever more unacceptable even when they
could not avoid changing their behavior because of the repression.
That led to a growing divide between
the regime and the politically active part of the population and to attempts by
the regime as in the case of it actions in Ukraine to isolate the latter by
appealing to the large part of the population that had not yet been swept up in
the protest movement against that movement.
Third, “the growth in the level of
political repressions,” they conclude, has led to “the development of forms of
protest action in response.” Thus, the
kinds of protests became more varied, their financing came from more sources,
and their use of the Internet more widespread. In response, the Putin regime
continued to ramp up repression.
Fourth, as the siloviki, on the one
hand, and the broader population, on the other, became more accustomed to the
use of repression against activists, that very fact created the preconditions “for
the further broadening of the social base of those being repressed,” with ever
new groups suffering as a result.
And fifth, in the short term, this intensification
of repression has been “quite effective” in quieting society and dissuading
people from an open display of opposition, but over the longer term, the growth
in repression may have serious consequences for the political regime by
reducing its legitimacy and forcing the regime to find new targets to mobilize
those carrying out its repressive approach.
As a result of all these factors,
the authors say, there is every reason to think that “the level of political
repressions will only grow” in terms of both their extent and their intensity
and will increasingly become “an inseparable part” of “the political culture”
of the Putin regime until all this provokes an explosion.
In sum, the Liberal Mission authors
say, the increasing authoritarianism of the Putin regime will display a
tendency to develop according to “its own laws, without a direct connection
with social-political reality” and thus is now set to intensify regardless of
how anyone else acts or responds.
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