Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 22 – Many see the
growing environmental protests in Moscow and other parts of the Russian
Federation as representing a hopeful beginning of social activism in Russia
must as they were in the 1960s in the Soviet Union where they predated historical
preservation movements and then national ones.
But such optimism
is likely misplaced not only because of the attitudes of those engaged in this
protest but also because of Vladimir Putin’s approach that is likely to allow
him to contain or even hijack the movement and open the way for potentially
massive purges of mid-level officials.
On the one hand, the Russian people
today, in part as the result of national traditions and in part from the
propaganda the Kremlin has employed, are far more likely than their Soviet
predecessors to accept the “good tsar, bad boyar” argument that implies because
lower-ranking officials are often so vile, they can and must place their faith
in the top man.
In the final decades of Soviet power,
most activists, first environmentalists, then historical preservationists and
finally nationalist and democratic were inclined to blame the system as a
whole, viewing officials at all levels as implicated and not expecting
intervention from on high, even if some of them retained a certain worshipful
attitude toward the leader.
But now thanks to Putin’s promotion
of the idea that he and he alone can sweep in and solve the most local
problems, an idea spread by his actions and his public meetings, many in the
activist community are prepared to blame or even attack as in the present case local
and regional officials and look to Putin for salvation.
That is something a few Russian
analysts are beginning to point among the anti-trash demonstrators; and at
least one, Ivan Lapin, has suggested that the anger Russians feel about the way
in which local and regional officials have dealt with trash dumps is something Putin
is in a position to turn to his advantage (publizist.ru/blogs/4796/24056/).
The Kremlin leader
can allow such conflicts to fester and then intervene like a deus ex machina, thus solving two
political problems at one and the same time: providing him with the occasion to
demonstrate his power by removing various officials in an apparent response to
public complaint and reinforcing his image as the only person who can hold
everything together.
And on the other, unlike Soviet
leaders who generally preferred not to have the media cover popular activism of
any kind lest it encourage others but who as a result contributed to the
widespread assumption that they were hiding things and that the movements were
stronger than in fact they were, Putin media are carefully dosing out coverage of
such events.
A survey of how the central Russian
media have been treating the current protests shows how this works. While the
media have not provided as much detail as their Western counterparts would have
in a similar situation, they are not allowing alternative sources of news the
unfettered ability to define the situation (meduza.io/feature/2018/03/22/telekanaly-skryli-ot-rossiyan-massovoe-otravlenie-detey-i-protesty-iz-za-musornoy-svalki-v-volokolamske).
Such repressive
tolerance, to use Herbert Marcuse’s term, serves Putin’s interests far better
than any outright ban. But it is likely to sponsor some new version of the old
Soviet joke about Hitler returning from the dead to watch a Soviet military
parade in Red Square on May Day.
After watching the soldiers, the
tanks, the missiles and the planes go by, Hitler, the story goes, is approached
by a Soviet citizen, who says “I bet you
are thinking that if you had had all these weapons, you would never have
lost.” “No,” the Nazi leader responds; “I’m thinking that if I had a newspaper
like your Pravda, no one would ever
have found out that I did.”
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