Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 28 – The Putin
regime is offering the people of the Russian Federation a third social compact to replace the two
earlier ones that have failed, Valery Solovey says; and unlike them, this one
is based on the notion that Russians must support the current regime or things
will get even worse for the country or for them individually.
In a brief comment on the
Kasparov.ru portal, the MGIMO professor says that between 2003 and 2014, the
relationship between the powers that be and the population was based on the
following “economic” contract: the people would agree to give up freedom and
democracy in exchange for material improvements in their lives (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=57EAAE834958C).
When the collapse
of oil prices made it impossible for the state to meet its half of the bargain
and thus raised the possibility of widespread dissension, Solovey says, Putin
offered a second deal, one based on “patriotic” feelings in which the
population would be willing to put up with hardship in exchange for “the
annexation of Crimea and the restoration of former glory.”
Now, that patriotic deal is
collapsing, and so the powers that be are offering a new one: “Support us or
things will be much worse!” by which they mean there will be a Maidan or “a
return to the cursed 1990s” or “the intervention of the West” or “civil war in
Russia,” all alternatives designed to frighten people into supporting the
current regime.
And in support of this argument, the
powers that be have introduced a plethora of “punitive sanctions – legal,
administrative, political-ideological, cultural and moral” – to ensure that no
one is tempted to go beyond the limits of what the Kremlin is prepared to
tolerate, the professor and frequent commentator says.
In some ways, Solovey suggests, this
recalls the rules of convoys in the GULAG: “’a step to the left or to the right
will be considered an attempt to flee, and jumping in place will be considered
a provocation.’”
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