Putin Tries Repressive Tolerance to Mixed Reviews

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 12 – As Herbert Marcuse famously observed, political leaders often use an ostentatious display of tolerance as a form of repression, using such actions as a means of undermining or disordering their opponents or winning the undeserved plaudits of others for their new liberality.

            This week, as he has in the past, Vladimir Putin sought to distract attention from his increasingly repressive regime by making a brief stop by – by one account, 150 seconds long – at the funeral for the grand dame of Russian dissent, Lyudmila Alekseyeva, and a somewhat longer visit to the opening of a monument to the great Russian writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

            Not surprisingly, the Russian media and many outlets in the West played up these two visits, suggesting that Putin was showing a side of himself that he has not often before, even though the Kremlin leader comes from the KGB which was responsible for many of the horrors Solzhenitsyn documented and Alekseyeva fought against.

            Indeed, there was an apparent reluctance of many especially in the West to recognize the way in which Putin was trying to manipulate the situation to get credit for himself and his system that he and it clearly do not deserve lest any criticism lead him and his system to become even worse than they have been.

            But that misses the point: Putin like all too many world leaders today is without scruples or principles: he will use any means he can to confuse and disorder his opponents. And appearing to pay homage to two great Russian rights figures for a few minutes is an incredibly cheap way to do so – and in some quarters remarkably effective.

            Fortunately, however, as has happened so often in the past, what the state-controlled Russian media and the Western media always on the lookout for a breakthrough to progress won’t say, the Russian opposition is quite prepared to highlight and denounce for the shabby actions Putin has taken.

            Their words deserve attention. Otherwise, Putin will once again get credit he doesn’t deserve. (See, for example, ivpavlova.blogspot.com/2018/12/100.html, ej.ru/?a=note&id=33218 and themoscowtimes.com/news/kremlin-critics-accuse-putin-of-hypocrisy-for-attending-veteran-dissidents-wake-63787.)