Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 4 – With the passing
of time, the euphoria with which Russians greeted the Crimean Anschluss has
weakened, a process that has been intensified by declines in standard of living
and that has left public attitudes about the regime more negative than they
were even before Vladimir Putin seized the Ukrainian peninsula.
Indeed, a study by the Levada Center,
says that “assessments of the activity of the government are today almost 20
points lower than they were at the end of 2014,” a change that helps explain the growth of
various kinds of protests and the increasing fraction of Russians who say rate
personal interests above the state’s (levada.ru/2017/03/27/krym-ne-rabotaet/).
Andrey Polunin of Svobodnaya pressa
asks two Moscow commentators to assess these results. Aleksey Grazhdankin, the deputy director of
the Levada Center, says that the falloff in the Crimean effect does not mean
that “dissatisfaction with the government” is as great as it was in 2013. In that sense, the impact of that event still
matters (svpressa.ru/society/article/169665/).
The sociologist adds that this shows
that “the effect of 2014” was not about Crimea alone but rather “a combined
reaction to the Maidan” and the annexation of the peninsula but even more “a reaction
to the harsh policy of the West toward the Russian Federation which mobilized
Russian society to a greater extent.” That impact “has not exhausted itself.”
“A large part of the population even
now supposes that when they are defending the Russian authorities, they are
defending Russia and the interests of the country,” Grazhdankin suggests. And
that in turn means that that “the further weakening of ‘the Crimea effect’ will
not necessarily lead to protests.”
Sergey Markov, director of the
Moscow Institute for Political Research, agrees. He argues that “the Crimea
effect is one of the most important indicators of the domestic political
situation in the Russian Federation. But one must understand: ‘the post-Crimean
consensus’ is based not only on th positions of citizens concerning the
re-unification of Crimea.”
Instead, Markov says, “the essence
of this consensus is more fundamental. It consists in the fact that in the
opinion of the majority of residents of the Russian Federation, the country is
in a state of hybrid war with a large Western coalition … and that in these
conditions citizens must reduce their demands on the state and increase their
assistance to it.”
As a result, there has taken place “a
deep freezing of domestic political problems,” the longtime Moscow commentator
says. But “now, the clash with the West has begun to weaken and the frozen dissatisfaction
has begun to thaw a little. And this is logical,” Markov argues, because “once
a threat to the country is reduced, why put up with things any longer?”
If Western sanctions were lifted, he
suggests, there would be “new mass protests,” the result of the fact that “in
Russia now there are no effective political channels for diverting protest
attitudes.” Indeed, Markov says, Russia’s existing “sharp opposition deficit”
carries with it “risks” for the regime and the country.
To counter this trend, the
commentator concludes, the Kremlin can “intensify its conflict with the West.”
But at the moment, whether it will do so remains an “open” question. “All the same, enormous segments of the
Russian elite – the so-called hidden
opposition – literally are praying for the lifting of sanctions.”
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