Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 26 – Competition
at the top of the Putin regime is shifting from one between the siloviki, on
the one hand, and the liberal economists, on the other, to another among the siloviki
with the liberal economists largely marginalized even though their continuing
activity in the media has obscured this shift, Dmitry Oreshkin says.
And it is the intra-siloviki
conflicts to which Vladimir Putin is now devoting much of his time as he moves
Russia in the direction of “an Asiatic despotism,” a direction he feels
compelled to go because he has concluded no one can effectively govern Russia
in any way other than the Stalnist, the Moscow political analyst continues (znak.com/2019-12-26/politolog_dmitriy_oreshkin_strana_dvizhetsya_k_aziatskoy_despotii).
Under
Putin, Oreshkin points out, “the number of siloviki has increased; they all
need resources, and they compete among themselves.” Putin keeps them in line by
creating a situation in which he has compromising information on all of them
that he can use as necessary. That exists because in his system as in Stalin’s,
few can do their jobs without violating the law.
This
has another consequence which also makes the system more like Stalin’s,
Oreshkin says. “Competition in the elites ever more depends on Putin’s personal
priorities and ever less on the performance … [Stalin] personally decided whom
he trusted and whom he didn’t.” Now Putin is doing much the same.
In
other comments, the Moscow analyst says the recent press conference showed that
“Putin is tired and has lost a little his connection with reality.” The Kremlin leader wants to show that he can
act independently of the script, but his ability to do so is increasingly limited
by the situation.
The
one place where he can go out on his own is in discussions of the past, and
that helps to explain why he has chosen to do that, Oreshkin says. In many
ways, this is “approximately the same” path Stalin chose at the end of his life
when he began speaking and writing about linguistics.
That
Putin would promote a positive image of Stalin is no surprise. It provides a justification
for what he wants to happen: more spending on defense and unquestioning loyalty
to himself given that there are enemies all around. But there is a risk in this which the Kremlin
leader appears to have underrated.
Many
Russians are certain that Stalin would never have carried out the pension
reform Putin did. They are right even though in Stalin’s times, the state paid
miserly pensions or none at all, but the regime’s ideology meant that it could
not simply but pensions in the way that Putin has. And thus Stalin appears to
them not as a reason to support Putin but rather to oppose him.
“The
power vertical of the Soviet model discredited socialism, but the power
vertical of the post-Soviet kind has discredited capitalism. Now, pretenses
against the current powers that be come mainly from the left: people want more
social justice. In Stalin, they see an alternative to the current system, the
embodiment of which is Putin,” Oreshkin says.
The
next two years are going to be hard for both the powers that be and the people,
he continues. The authorities want only two things: that the 2021 elections
will yield the correct results and that there won’t be “loud protests.” What is
worrisome is that “it isn’t important” to them “how this will be achieved.”
As
far as the population is concerned, “life will not become better. There is simply
no basis for that: the population is aging, there are no investments, people
are tired and angry. The enthusiasm about Crimea is gone, and Olympic achievements
have been reduced to nothing with Russia excluded” from international competitions.om
the Olympics.
No
one is going to lift the sanctions, and so the regime and the people are left
with only one hope: perhaps a war will begin and oil prices will rise, Oreshkin
says. “There aren’t any other variants.”
No comments:
Post a Comment