Paul
Goble
Staunton, June 8 – The most
important result of Vladimir Putin’s latest “Direct Line” program is not what
he said about this or that issue, Aleksey Shaburov says; but rather that the
new format deprived many of the chance to complain to the president about
officials. But “now people see that there is no difference between Putin and
the bureaucrats.”
The changes in format this time, the
Yekaterinburg commentator says, were that there were no viewers in the studio
and “Putin via video links spoke with governors and ministers, turning over the
questions he received to them” (politsovet.ru/59224-zhalovatsya-bolshe-nekomu-glavnyy-itog-pryamoy-linii-putina.html).
These innovations, which were
announced in advance, had given rise to “heightened expectations,” Shaburov
continues. Russians hoped that Putin would use the occasion to put the officials
in their place and give them direct orders to make changes – or even send them
into retirement for their failings.
Had that happened, it would have
been “the final incarnation of the principle of direct rule and would please
the people which has believed in the formula about ‘the good tsar and bad
boyars.’” But Putin and those who put
this show on clearly decided that they didn’t want this year’s “direct line” to
be a litany of complaints.
Instead, “the current ’line’ really
became something else. Residents of the country appealed to Putin all with the same
serious questions and problems, but the character of the answers was different,”
Shaburov says. In the past, Putin gave orders; but this time around, he simply
turned to governors and ministers directly.”
“And Putin’s tone in speaking with
his subordinates was not the one ordinary citizens expected him to adopt. The
President was friendly, well-intentioned, and polite and did not allow himself
to show any doubts about what they were telling him.” There was no harsh
criticism at all.
And that sent a message to the
Russian people. At present, “there is no principled different between ‘the tsar’
and ‘the boyars.’”
The responses of the ministers and governors were
also instructive. They admitted to particular shortcomings, “but on the whole
they drew a happy picture. Judging by their words, there are no systemic problems,
only particular shortcomings which can be solved in a normal working regime.”
“And Putin publicly agreed with these assertions.
In essence,” Shaburov says, “everything has returned to the Soviet practice
when all questions were about individual cases and there was no willingness to
recognize the existence of any general problems. As a result, it was possible
to respond to any question by saying that on the whole, everything is fine.”
In such a system, the officials are united in their
views, and “the people in this combination looks somehow extraneous and its
complaints at times inappropriate,” the Yekaterinburg commentator says. And that means this: “Russians now do not
have anyone they can complain to.”
That can hardly work any better for Putin than it
worked for Brezhnev.
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