Paul Goble
Staunton, Aug. 29 – Putin’s cult of personality which has been promoted for years and now is “an inalienable part of the power vertical is however not simply an instrument of propaganda,” Vladimir Pastukhov says. It is about elevating him above the standards others would be judged by and thus making him immune to most criticism.
The London-based Russian analyst says that because the cult of personality he has promoted about himself, the Kremlin leader is no longer subject to the same standards others are. Indeed, “he can do anything because he is not a man” but a semi-divine being (t.me/b_pastukhov/232 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=66D1643D87380).
If such a cult is to be effective, Pastukhov continues, it “must separate the leader from the ordinary word. He may or may not know details, appoint officials who then will have to be removed, or commit actions that would cost anyone else dearly. He can do all this because he is not a human punishable for mistakes.” As “a god man,” he is beyond such evaluations.
As the object of such a cult, therefore, “Putin the god-man is not afraid not to go the front or to ignore other problems. Indeed, it is far more terrible for such a god-man to react sharply to pressing problems and thereby show that he is also a man subject to the agenda dictated by the world around him.”
Consequently, Pastukhov points out, “the desire to show to the population Putin’s sins, be they his palaces or his mistakes and their impact, is doomed to inevitable failure.” The only way to combat this situation is to fight for those in the elites who aren’t charmed by Putin or wait for time to turn him back into a mere human being who can’t escape either aging or death.
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