Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 30 – The joy many
Russians felt after the Crimean Anschluss and the support they gave Vladimir
Putin as a result, Leonid Gozman says, came “not from its inclusion into Russia”
but rather from “how this was done, boldly and with contempt for procedures.”
Had Putin simply “purchased Crimea
from Ukraine,” the effect of the Anschluss would have been minimal. What was
needed was a victory, above all over the Americans who if not for us would have
instantly seized Crimea, as at one time they would have seized Afghanistan or
Czechoslovakia” (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/189522?fcc).
As the opposition politician points
out, that is exactly how “Hitler ‘sold’ his pre-war successes. The people
needed not Sudetenland or Crimea.” In both cases, “they needed a victory.” This
observation comes at the opening of an essay on how Putin has sought to
legitimate himself as the supreme leader of a country in permanent conflict
with the West.
“A ruler must have a convincing
response to his subjects as to why he occupies the chief office,” Gozman says.
Putn “is not president because he was elected: he has been elected because he
is president. His legitimacy … is based on victory in the Second Chechen War …
economic growth in the 2000s, and Crimea and the return (in the eyes of the population)
or Russia’s status as a great power.”
But these impulses are wearing thin
as there is no growth, the opposition figure continues, and consequently, “the
authorities are seeking moral justification for their actions.” Seen from this perspective,
their “ideological efforts of recent times are a sign of panic,” an effort to
prove what is inside Russia must be, those in charge should be, and this is all
“good.”
Unless the Kremlin succeeds in this,
Gozman says, “its only hope is the Russian Guard” – and experience shows that
relying on that is dangerous. Consequently, it is doubling down in two
directions, arguing that Russia is surrounded by those who want to destroy it
and that only one-man rule can save the situation.
The dangers from abroad not only
justify one-man rule but they explain why Russians are poor and without rights.
And they ensure that many will view as traitors or worse anyone who complains
about these limitations. At least, Gozman says, that is what
the Kremlin very much hopes Russians will conclude.
To
support this ideological edifice, the regime needs to explain why everyone hates
and wants to destroy Russia. For the Kremlin, the answer is clear: Russia’s enemies
“are from the Devil, while we are from God. We will land in paradise and they
will simply burn up. They hate us because we are correct and they are
incorrect. And their error is in liberalism and freedom.”
The
rightness of Russia rests not in its opposition to homosexuality but rather in
one-man rule, the kind of rulership Prince Golitsyn and the Decembrists, the people
of the 60s and the dissidents all struggled against.
One-man
rule is “the right of the boss to do what he wants, and the lack of rights of
everyone else. Joint decisions with the help of special procedures is a phantom
of democracy and doesn’t bring anything good. In this system, you do not
demand, you beg. You can protest, but only in limits the tsar sets. You have no
rights … and there is only hope for mercy.”
“It
is far from clear to what extend the bosses believe this,” Gozman says. It is
likely that such propaganda is intended in the first instance to reassure themselves.
After all, Nicholas II “until the last believed in the muzhik devoted to the
tsar and autocracy.” One can be grateful
to Putin for one thing this year: he has made it clear what traditional value
is most important.
It
is unlimited one-man rule engaged in a never-ending war against the West.
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