Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 10 – Having already
torn up the social contract between the regime and the population, Putin is now
about to destroy the contract between the Kremlin and big business that has
existed since 2001, according to Kirill Martynov, the political editor of
Moscow’s “Novaya gazeta.”
As a result, the commentator
suggests, “loyalty alone is already insufficient: the most important
businessmen will now be expected to share with the country as a whole the
hardships of the crisis,” a shift that has the potential to solve three of
Putin’s most important political problems (novayagazeta.ru/columns/72606.html).
First, such moves have the potential
to “save the budget” by providing the government with a new source of funds.
Second, Martynov continues, it gives the Kremlin an ideological boost with the population
unhappy with the gross displays of wealth. And third, it blocks the KPRF from
offering “an alternative political agenda under conditions of economic
instability.”
The political advantages of such a
strategy, the commentator suggests, are obvious. Russia will not only be “a
world capital of sport, a protector of ‘the Russian world,’ and the defender of
the planet against global terrorism.” It
will become “the world capital of social justice.”
Putin played with this idea earlier before
he was elected to a third term, Martynov says. But now, the Kremlin leader
seems even more committed to it, especially since a revision of privatization
has the potential to address the country’s budgetary difficulties and to win
political points.
Of course, Martynov says, there is
going to be a major fight over the details; but Putin clearly has decided to
make a change – and the old rules governing the relationships between big
business and the Kremlin are changing, something most ordinary Russians will
celebrate even if many Russian businessmen do not.
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