Putin’s Relationship with the Russian People One of Mutual Bribery, El Murid Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug.16 – Putin is openly contemptuous of the Russian people and the Russian people are less openly but equally contemptuous of him, an arrangement that is relatively stable because in the absence of any loyalty on either side each bribes the other to do what it wants, according to Anatoly Nesmiyan who blogs under the screen name El Murid.

            “No matter how hard the regime tries to evoke the phantom sense of unity between the government and the people, the anti-people nature of the Putin regime, its sincere and completely unconcealed contempt” and the people respond with “outright hatred” of the regime, he says (t.me/anatoly_nesmiyan/20040 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=66BE4B227D2E6).

            Each seeks to bribe the other because the cash nexus is the only one that matters, El Murid argues, adding that “this is the problem of all African-like unprincipled dictatorships” and one that sets them apart from totalitarianism and ultimately leads to their decay and even complete collapse.

            “The critical difference between a totalitarian dictatorship and an authoritarian one is that in the former the people are required to actively participate in all government activities, including criminal ones. Autocracies, in contrast, distance the people as much as possible from any politics, making it their prerogative and property.”

            Much of the time, El Murid says, autocratic governments can maintain themselves; but periodically such government “need the enthusiasm of the masses even if it is strictly dosed and controlled. But it is impossible to combine totalitarians practices with authoritarian ones,” something that is especially problematic given that Moscow “doesn’t have an ideology.”

            As a result, “this is where commodity-money relations arise between the government and society, relations not based on love or devotion or duty. Instead, “the authorities buy loyalty without hiding it, and the people without concealing it too much, seek to buy off the authorities with bribes or the payment of certain kinds of rent,” El Murid concludes.