Late Putinism Could Be Succeeded by Early Putinism after Its Author Exits, Ikhlov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 27 – Many fear that after Putin, there will be either a continuation of his system or its destruction by a revolutionary dictatorship that will take the country back to what it was before 1991, Yevgeny Ikhlov says; but there is a third category of possibilities arising out of the nature of Putinism itself which has evolved over the last two decades.

            There have been many Putinisms, the Moscow commentator says; and the one on offer now is not at all like the one Vladimir Putin sought to implement at the state of his reign.  It is certainly true, Ikhlov continues, that “the current system is impossible” without Putin in place (vestnikcivitas.ru/pbls/4207).

            None of those in the current political firmament have his “revolutionary (counter-revolutionary) charisma” to do that or to dismantle the entire system. But that doesn’t mean that Putinism of the kind on display in the earlier years of his presidency may not be exactly the half-way house that many will want, authoritarianism in the service of positive changes.

            The appearance of a younger and more energetic authoritarian leader cannot be excluded especially if he or she seeks to “reanimate Putinism in its initial form,” including strategic partnership with the US, a genuine fight against corruption, and moves to expand federalism and local control.

            Putin as many have forgotten including perhaps the man himself began that way, and if a new leader returned to that approach and even called it the continuation of Putinism, Ikhlov suggests, it could garner a great deal of support from the currently angry and disaffected population who would also be pleased by the apparent call for continuity.

            This is possible, the Moscow commentator says, because “Putinism is by its nature a regime of the Bonapartist type, which presupposes some Napoleon if not the First then at least the Third.”   

            Making this transition would not be easy, of course, and it might not happen. But it would be both more consistent with Russian political folkways than any other and certainly less costly to both the regime and the people. 

Declining Incomes among Russians Put Future of Country’s Middle Class at Risk, Chepurenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 27 – The declining incomes of Russians over the last few years are not only leaving all but the very wealthiest residents of that country poorer than they were but putting at risk the formation and survival of the politically critical middle class in the country, according to Aleksandr Chepurenko of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics.

            The sociologist says “the societal function of the middle class is to support social  stability: the middle class fears losing that which it has earned by work and therefore it is responsible in its political behavior” (znak.com/2019-02-27/v_rossii_ischezaet_sredniy_klass_byudzhetniki_intelligenciya_zagadochnaya_russkaya_dusha).

Such a class began to appear in Russia in the 1990s when the state was weak,” and consequently “we can speak about the middle class in Russia as being in its first generation,” a collection of people who having lost everything at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s nonetheless were able by their own efforts to claw their way back to relative well-being.

                The emergence of such people gave hope for the future, but in the last two decades with the creation of the power vertical, they have been eclipsed by “a quasi-middle class,” people with roughly the same incomes but whose money comes not from their own efforts but as a result of rents offered by the state in exchange for loyalty, Chepurenko continues. 

            “These people did not risk anything: they simply accepted decisions” from above and therefore played and play a very different social-political role.  Among the most prominent of these are the siloviki, “’the holy cow’ for our powers that be.”  As long as the pie was growing, all of them could continue to get more without difficulty.

            But when the pie ceased to grow but in fact became smaller, a problem arose and is only intensifying, forcing them not to fight for the creation of new wealth but for the division of existing wealth among them.  As a result, the sociologist says, there have now emerged “a large number of conflicts of some siloviki structures with others.”

            Big businessmen, who are not part of the middle class either, “are interested in stability but not in a free, competitive market system characteristic of a democratic society.” They thus are not like the middle classes in the US and other Western countries in either their behavior or their role.

            The real middle classes, whenever it is possible, “vote in favor of the market and a competitive economy.” In Russia, they are deprived of the possibility of voting in that way because of the destruction of parties who favor such outcomes.  And that has led to some dangerous trends, including withdrawal from normal political life.

            All of this is hidden by the fact that Russians tend to evaluate middle class only by income which means that many government or quasi-government employees are included in it even though they have different values and different behaviors, Chepurenko says. Many in fact hold values directly antithetical to the genuine middle class.

            The situation is not good for either the real middle class or these people, but the reasons are different: Earnings from entrepreneurship are down by half over the last decade or so, but possibilities for the lower levels of the bureaucracy are down as well.

            The differences between these two and even the decline of both have been hidden not only by the propensity of Russian scholars to measure the middle class solely by income but also by the explosion of consumer credit as people in both categories try to maintain their lifestyles by borrowing. That isn’t sustainable for very much longer, he suggests.

            To change this situation, Chepurenko continues, the government would have to do what it did in the early 1990s, reducing its role in the economy, eliminating many “’economic crimes,’” reducing pressure on businesses and so on. But it is far from clear that it will take these steps, although some economic developments already on view in the West may appear.

            Thee include the rise of what some call “the precariate,” the group of people at the bottom of the middle class who work as adjuncts in universities or hold multiple jobs in order to try to maintain a middle-class way of life. There is some evidence that Russia is going in this direction as well.

            “But we could go in a different direction than the West and continue to surprise the entire world by our weapons, our ballet and our sports, and then, in the absence of necessary economic, political, and social conditions, our middle class will not disappear because it simply has not appeared.” Today, that seems the more likely prospect.

Moscow-Imposed Divisions of Circassians Threaten Survival of Each Part, Khakuasheva Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 27 – Moscow’s division of the Circassian nation into subgroups not only represents a typical divide-and-rule imperial strategy but also puts the language and identity of the subgroups at risk, Marina Khakuasheva says, a fact that other non-Russian nations that the center is seeking to subdivide must recognize as a threat to themselves as well.

            All non-Russians must thus view efforts to divide them in this way as a threat to their continued existence, the Kabardin scholar says, something Moscow has inadvertently signalled by its continuing efforts to block any recognition of subgroups within the ethnic Russian nation (zapravakbr.com/index.php/analitik/1190-khakuasheva-madina-k-probleme-cherkesskikh-etnonimov-2019-god-ob-yavlen-oon-mezhdunarodnym-godom-yazykov-korennykh-narodov).

            Most analysts of the North Caucasus have long accepted the idea that the central Russian government divided up the Circassians first by expelling or killing 90 percent of them and then splitting the nation up by rejecting any recognition of a single Circassian nation in order to make it easier for Moscow to control the North Caucasus.

            But Khakuasheva takes the next step and argues that this artificial division is intended to weaken the languages and thus identities of these groups and put their continuing survival at risk, an argument that suggests that maintaining these divisions represents a kidn of slow-motion genocide that continues the genocide of the Circassians begun by Russian forces in 1864.

            The Kabardin writer’s discussion of ethnonyms like the calls of many Circassians to declare that as their common identity in the 2020 Russian census may strike many as a marginal issue, of concern only to those who want to redraw the borders in the North Caucasus (https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/02/circassians-long-divided-by-moscow.html).

            But Khakuasheva shows why, even if the restoration of Circassia is the ultimate goal of Circassians, opposition to the continuing division of that nation into subgroups is a necessary defense against the Putin regime’s campaign against the non-Russian languages and thus the non-Russian nations.

            Just as it is easier to dissolve something that has been crushed into small bits in a glass of water, so too it is easier to dissolve non-Russian nations with the Russian-speaking non-ethnic Russian nation if the former are first divided up into smaller groups, whose languages, cultures, and identities are at far greater risk.

            And that means something else: Moscow’s claim that its recognition of these smaller groups shows its solicitude for the non-Russians is a smokescreen decided to hide its assimilatory and even genocidal policies, not only against the Circassians but against all non-Russian nations Moscow is using this approach.

            With each passing year, the Kabardin writer says, “we recognize ever more clearly the destructive impact of the currently existing Circassian ethnonyms” that Moscow has imposed, ethonyms that are creating confusion in the minds of scholars, analysts and some of the Circassians Moscow has imposed them on.

            “Despite the significant interval of time which separates us from the Soviet era,” she continues, “it is perfectly obvioius today that we all the same remain its hostages. The absence of an idea about the Circassians as a single whole is having a destructive influence on all spheres of their life.”

            More to the point, Khakuasheva says, “such a division of a single people was yet another act of a common imperial policy. The Russian regime destroyed and dispersed 95 percent of the Circassians throughout the wrld, leaving in the motherland only five percent. The USSR redraw the map, imposing these dividing ehtnonyms which have begun to be used by all, including the Circassians themselves.”

            “It is difficult to find a contemporary situation analogous to that of the Circassian people 90 perecent live beyond the borders of their historical motherland in all countries of the world … and 10 percent living in their historical motherland are divided into the territories of four or five subjects.”

            That Moscow’s intentions now are to assimilate these peoples and not just divide them up is indirectly confirmed by the fact that the central government is using similar policies against other non-Russian groups but rejecting them out of hand for subgroups within the ethnic Russian nation.

            All this means, Khakuasheva concludes that “we stand before the necessity of changing the former anti-scientific system of Soviet ethnonyms which blocks the adequate self-identificaiton, cultural integration, and scholarly and general development of the Circassian people.”