Unlike Stalin, Putin isn’t Compensating for Repression with Victories, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 20 – Many observers are suggesting that Russians will accept Putin repressions for a long time to come because they accepted Stalin’s a century ago, but those who do are missing an essential point, Abbas Gallyamov says; and it is this: Unlike Stalin, Putin isn’t compensating for his repressions with victories.

            According to the former Putin speechwriter turned Putin critic, “repressions against one’s own population, carried out by the authorities when they are defeating an external enemy, have far more legitimacy than do repressions when the authorities are unable to defeat such an enemy” (echofm.online/opinions/stalin-kompensiroval-repressii-pobedami).

            “Therefore,” Gallyamov says, “it makes no sense in the current situation to point to the fact that Russians supposedly accept the Stalin-era repressions with equanimity. Stalin offset repressions with victories; in recent years, Putin has brought the country nothing but defeats alongside his repressions.”

            And what that means in turn is that Putin must have an outcome in Ukraine that he can present to Russians as a victory or he will likely be confronted with a population that will be far less willing to accept his repressive policies because he hasn’t given them the victory that he has been promising.

            That is a major reason why Putin can’t agree to anything other than what he can describe as a victory, however much pressure anyone puts on him because for him victory in Ukraine is not a geopolitical issue but an existential one of his survival in power and perhaps even more than that. 

Even Before Drone Attacks, Many Russians who had Supported Putin’s War Earlier had Turned against It, Public Sociology Laboratory Interviews Show

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 30 – Russia’s independent Public Sociology Laboratory earlier this year re-interviewed Russians with whom it had spoken two years ago and who then supported Putin’s war in Ukraine. Now, the Laboratory says, many of them have become critics of the war.

            Most of their criticism, one of the Laboratory’s sociologists says, is still “at the non-political level,” that is it isn’t directed at Putin as such, but the critiques Russians are now offering of the war are often very specific and detailed (cherta.media/interview/kak-menyaetsya-otnoshenie-rossiyan-k-vojne/).

            Significantly, these in-depth interviews took place before Ukraine expanded its drone attacks on Russia this summer, an action that many suggest has brought the war home to Russia and shaken their support for Kremlin policies. That suggests the opposition to the war the Laboratory reports may have continued to increase in recent weeks.

Emigration and Silence Far From Only Options for Russians who Recognize Putin’s Russian Federation as Their ‘Main Enemy,’ Savvin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 19 – Many Russians when thinking about how those who object to Putinism and its actions should act offer only two extreme options, emigration so as not to live under its control or silent obedience to the Kremlin lest they get into trouble, despite their feelings, Dimitry Savvin says.

            But in fact, the editor of the Riga-based conservative Russian portal Harbin says, the situation is far more complicated than that and that there are other options although it must be admitted to begin with that “each has its own price” which those choosing it must be willing to pay (harbin.lv/chto-delat-chestnomu-cheloveku-v-rossii).

            In making one’s choice, each Russian must decide what “the so-called Russian Federation” is to him or her. “There are only two basic answers: either it is “my state and my country” or alternatively it is now “the main enemy of the Russian people and the other peoples of Russia.’

            “If you still honor the Russian Federation by Russia itself, and not with a cancerous tumor, on the body of Russia that has grown up,” Savvin says, there is nothing more to be discussed. But “if you realize that the chief and most terrible enemy of the Russian person is the state of the Russian Federation,” then a lot more needs to be considered.

            If a Russian is in the latter category, then he or she must recognize that in Putin’s Russia maintaining “clean hands and an honest name have their price.” There are many in fact, but in “at least a few, you will have to make sacrifices” and in many cases these will not be small but may be very large indeed, the Russian nationalist editor says.

            “The main thing is not to lie to yourself. There has been no opposition in Russia for a long time.” And that means, Savvin argues, that those who want to do something to oppose the Putin regime must either engage in active resistance, a serious step given the likelihood of retribution, or adopt other forms of dissent, which also have costs but lesser ones.

            Emigration for those who oppose Putin remains an option, although it is likely only for a short period more, the Russian conservative says. Putin almost certainly will work to close off that possibility just as Stalin did and do it sooner rather than later. Those who feel they can’t take the risks other actions would lead to should get out while they can.

            There are steps for those who can’t or won’t emigrate but want to act against the Putin regime, possibly in ways that will not entail the most serious consequences for themselves like militant activism but will make clear to others that they are not collaborating with the Kremlin and want to retain or recover their moral purity.

            The first step such people need to take is to “not participate” in anything the regime is organizing that is obviously fraudulent like elections. The second is to break with those who do and make clear why such a step is needed. And the third is to stop listening to the regime and reading its newspapers and instead build up an alternative library.

            “Finally,” Savvin says, “it is impossible not to turn to those who are already within the state system but who have realized that this system is the main enemy of the Russian people and a mortal danger to all free people” and having done so to take steps to try to bring them out and join the opposition.

There won’t be a large number of such people at first; but as their numbers grow, the Russian conservative suggests, the opponents of the regime will strengthen while the regime itself will grow ever weaker. The time is long past when it is enough to sit in one’s kitchen and complain about how bad things are.

Even War in Ukraine for Putin is a Means to the End of His Not Being Succeeded by Someone who will Pursue ‘De-Putinization,’ Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 19 – Vladimir Putin’s “super task” is to be succeeded by someone who will continue to rule in his name as Stalin did after the death of Lenin rather than by someone who will turn away from his system and move in new directions as Khrushchev did after the death of Stalin, Gallyamov says.

            The former Putin speechwriter who is now a prominent Putin critic insists that even the current Kremlin leader’s expanded war in Ukraine is a means to that end rather than having the independent and all-important quality for him that is often suggested (t.me/abbasgallyamovpolitics/10989 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/glavnaya-czel-putina-putin-posle-putina).

            This reflects the fact, Gallyamov says, that “Putin is a president of the status quo, not of revisionism. He has no ideals for which he would be willing to take serious risks. Of course, he does not want to appear a cynical egoist, so he likes to throw dust in people's eyes by feigning high aspirations and values … but this is nothing more than a show.”

            The current Kremlin leader “is a revisionist,” he continues, “precisely because he is a guardian of the status quo on the inside. He may redraw borders, dismantled the international order and start wars; but his ultimate political aim is conservative: ensuring that power remains exactly where it now lies.”

            Indeed, “even posthumous greatness is something Putin needs primarily as an insurance policy. In his view, a good successor is not someone who will build an even greater Russia, but someone whose own political survival depends on preserving the Putin pantheon, the Putin elite, and the Putin version of history.”

Russian Banks Require Those Applying for Home Mortgages to Have Insurance against Drone Attacks

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 19 – Putin may think that drone attacks aren’t causing all that serious damage on Russia, but Russian banks don’t share that view and are requiring those seeking mortgages for housing in so-called “vulnerable” regions have insurance covering the damage Ukrainian drones have been inflicting.

            According to Kommersant, major banks are now checking to see that the insurance borrowers have or plan to take out includes coverage of damages from drones and their parts (kommersant.ru/doc/8847161 reposted at echofm.online/news/rossijskie-banki-stali-trebovat-strahovat-ipotechnoe-zhilyo-ot-atak-bpla).

            Policies including such coverage cost from ten to 20 percent more than those which don’t, the paper says; but if borrowers don’t have this kind of coverage, the banks are increasing the interest rate on loans they extend by between  0.5 and 2.0 percent or even “refusing” to agree to offer a mortgage at all.

            Such actions by banks are likely a better indication of just how much Ukrainian drone attacks have brought the war home to Russia and how long those with money on the table think how long these attacks will extend into the future than are any upbeat comments by the Kremlin leader to the contrary. 

Putin has Failed to Learn What Jaruzelski Did: Repression Can Win a Battle but It Can’t Win a War, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 18 – In 1989, Polish leader Wojciech Jaruzelski warned Hungary against introducing martial law because of his own experience in doing so. “Yes, we did it and won the battle by crushing Solidarity but as a result we lost the war” to main the legitimacy of the government.

            That is a lesson Vladimir Putin should be learning but does not yet appear to have done so according to Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin speechwriter who is now a critic of the Kremlin leader, and the results for his regime are likely to be disastrous as a result (pointmedia.io/story/6a84340f75d0d3346a25cb77).

            According to Gallyamov, Jaruzelski discovered that by imposing martial law he was able to shut down the Solidarity movement, but only at the cost of “destroying a significant part of the legitimacy of the communist authorities. Before the Polish general imposed martial law, Solidarity might have been integrated into “some kind of reformed socialism” but not after.

            Once he had crushed Solidarity, the Polish general eventually recognized, he faced a country in which “millions of Poles viewed power as something kept in place exclusively by force.” Even more he learned that while “the absence of protest” first looked like “a lack of discontent,” it soon became obvious that “it was not the same thing.”

            “Using mass repression,” Gallyamov continues, “Putin managed to solve the same problem that Jaruzelsky once faced: to defeat the structures of the opposition and remove the protest from the streets. He won the battle. But the question now is whether the Kremlin leader is losing a similar war as a result.”

            What everyone must understand, the commentator says, is that “repression  destroys not so much discontent as the opportunity to demonstrate it.” And as a result, “the need to continually resort to coercion undermines previous formulas of legitimacy: it is increasingly difficult to assert that the government rules because society voluntarily supports it.”

            That is what is happening to Putin. He started by claiming that he represented the people by means of democracy but then he proposed another basis for the population to support him: patriotism. “Even if we aren’t democrats,” the Putinists claimed, “we are defending Russia” and “protecting the motherland.”

            But now that Ukrainian drones are hitting Russian cities, Gallyamov says, it is ever more difficult for the Kremlin “to explain what exactly the ability to ensure the security of the country gives the current regime the right to demand unconditional subordination” among the population of the Russian Federation.

            That has left Putin in “a very unpleasant situation.” He destroyed his claim to democratic legitimacy by repression, and his efforts to invoke patriotism as an alternative basis are failing given the inability of his regime “to ensure the very security the population was offered in order to get it to sacrifice its political freedoms.”

            As a result, Gallyamov concludes, now, “Russia has absolutely no need for Putin from any perspective whatsoever, whether democratic or even ‘patriotic,’” a lesson Jaruzelski learned albeit too late to save himself and his regime.  Whether Putin will have better luck very much remains to be seen.

Moscow Warns Regions Any Use of Ethnic or Religious Issues in Elections is ‘Impermissible’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 19 – Moscow’s Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs (FADN) has sent a memo to all federal subjects reminding them that any use of ethnicity or religion in election campaigns is “not permissible” and that they can use a variety of provisions in Russian law against any individual, group or party that violates that principle.

            According to the Nazaccent portal, the document specifies that it is impermissible “to call for voting for or against a candidate solely on the basis of nationality or make public statements about the inadmissibility of the participation of certain candidates on the basis of their ethnicity or religious affiliation (nazaccent.ru/content/45843-v-fadn-rf-napomnili-o-nedopustimosti/).

            For such actions, which the memorandum that has been distributed in the form of a brochure says are a form of illegal “incitement of hatred” on these grounds, Russian law establishes administrative and criminal liability up to fines of 600,000 rubles, forced labor for up to five years, and imprisonment for as long as six years.

            Russian commentators have frequently suggested that one of the aspects of elections that Kremlin officials are most concerned about is the possibility that candidates or parties will use them to exacerbate tensions between members of Russia’s various religious and ethnic communities.

            But the Moscow authorities have always been careful about how they talk about this possibility given that any such commentaries may have the effect of leading some groups not to avoid using ethnic or religious appeals but rather making it more likely that they will do so by suggesting a strategy such political activists may not have considered.

            This time around, in advance of the September 26 Duma elections, Moscow has limited its declarations on this point to this single FADN memorandum, an indication that the Russian leadership is worried about both the possibility that ethnic and religious issues will be raised and the certainty that any discussion of that possibility could further exacerbate the situation.