Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 3 – No one would deny
that Vladimir Putin now has a cult of personality. However, that is not an
explanation but rather something that must be explained, especially given its
evolution from one in which he was backed as a lesser evil than Boris Yeltsin
to one in which he presents himself as a lesser evil than chaos, according to
Kseniya Kirillova.
At each stage, she argues, “the cult
of Putin” has been “a means of compensating for a lack of trust in the
authorities” rather than a form of adulation because it is based “more on fear”
that things have been worse or could become worse (nr2.com.ua/blogs/Ksenija_Kirillova/Kult-lichnosti-Putina-evolyuciya-91354.html).
What
is the most tragic aspect of this, the commentator continues, is that many who
accepted Putin in the past as a lesser evil than Yeltsin, who joked about him,
and who protested against his rule in 2011-2012 have fallen under its spell
even though most of them are aware that they are doing so because they have
accepted the notion they should fear a future without him.
During his
first term, Putin was admired by Russians primarily for not being Yeltsin and
often was a subject of humor, “but in the new artificially created world where
humor in principle has no place, many people have simply shut down their
psychic defense mechanisms” and accepted the idea that they have no choice but
to support Putin or face a new period of chaos.
This shift, one
intensified by the economic crisis and the invasion of Ukraine, has been
further developed by the fact that “the cult of personality of the leader is
useful not only and even not so much for Putin himself as for his elite” which
view it as a cover for their own crimes and as something that may in the future
allow them to escape responsibility for them.
When he became president, Putin looked good
to many Russians especially when compared to his predecessor and the chaos of the
1990s. But “in the first years of his administration, Putin in the eyes of the
majority looked not ideal but simply normal,” something that at that time was
considered almost “a miracle.”
“A distinctive feature
of this period was that it was very difficult to distinguish between the
healthy popularity of this or that leader and what would be a real cult of
personality,” Kirillova says, especially as “humor and parody were the
invariable accompaniment of the popularity of Putin in those years.”
At that time, “Russians
loved put [but] at the same time they laughed about him and laughed at
themselves for this sympathy,” not taking note of the fact that “they were thus
swallowing a poison pill” that would come to harm them later.
Thus the
situation continued until the economic crisis of 2008 and the protests of
2011-2012, Kirillova says. Those things made it clear for the Kremlin’s “political
technologists” that “for the thinking part of Russian society, [this approach]
hadn’t worked” because “they no longer loved Putin but they continued as before
to laugh about him.”
The laughter of
Russians disturbed them the most, Kirillova continues, because it was clear
that they didn’t fear him, especially when many of them would make remarks like
“don’t rock the board, our rat will get sick.”
Consequently,
they decided “to change their tactics,” exploiting one aspect of the support
Putin had enjoyed – that he was a lesser evil than something else – but change
the evil to which he was to be compared from Yeltsin and the past to the threat
of instability and chaos in the future and then insisting that any defeat of
Putin would lead directly to that.
It is worth
noting that at least at first, there was no idealization of Putin or the
government but only the old notion that he and it were “’lesser evils’” than
the alternatives. That is hardly a true cult of personality in the usual sense
of the term. But it set the stage for
Putin’s actions later when it was made clear that the time of jokes “had in
fact ended.”
Moreover, by
flooding the media with conspiracy theories and thus providing “a model” for
patriotism which involves unquestioned support for the national leader, the Kremlin
political technologists set the stage for and saw their efforts reinforced by
the rehabilitation of the Soviet images of the country as “a besieged fortress”
which depends entirely on Putin.
The deep and
widespread conviction among Russians that “’without him things will be worse’”
took shape at the end of 2011 at both the conscious “and what is still more
dangerous even the unconscious level,” and its rootedness mean that most
Russians continue to support him despite clear evidence that he is “leading the
country toward a catastrophe.”
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