Putinization: President Putin reforming Russia in his own image

Comrade Putin commandeering the Russian ship of state back to the safe harbor of Soviet times…

The Putinization of Russia continues apace, and Papa Joe Stalin must be very proud indeed. In fact, President Vladimir Putin’s power and influence have become so totalitarian that national polls show Russians have more faith in him than in their Church or any other organ of the state. What should concern the rest of us, though, is that the cult of Putin is becoming manifest in ways eerily reminiscent of of Adolf Hitler.

A little dramatic, perhaps, but consider that only yesterday a zealous battalion of the Putin Youth Movement (think Hitler Youth) vowed to escalate street protests against the Bolshoi Theater because of a performance they consider not only pornographic but also treasonous. Consider further that the threatened escalation involves resurrecting that hallowed fascist tradition of burning books by authors they deem “anti-Russian” – including the book upon which the Bolshoi performance is based.

Indeed, those of us with some knowledge of how the cult of Hitler co-opted the minds of so many Germans can just imagine the Putin Youth leader shouting over the pyre of burning books:

“We must declare the fight against that which impedes us from being what we must be, Hail (????) Comrade Putin!”

[“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the Future!” Adolf Hitler, speech at the Reichsparteitag, 1935]

Nevertheless, in the great scheme of Putinization, the transgressions of the Putin Youth are child’s play. Because the state actions that Putin himself has ordered now loom like a sword of Damocles over any step towards democracy in Russia.

Here are just a few of the things he’s done to rescue his Motherland:

He arrested the owner of Yukos Oil (think ExxonMobil by American standards) and then seized the company’s assets because he deemed it in interest of the Russian state. And, when one of his closest advisers questioned the legal, political and economic wisdom of these totalitarian acts, Putin purged him from government (presumably to exile in Siberia). Now, just imagine how much this one act imposed loyalty among the ranks of his remaining advisers.

Putin’s chastened Deputies: “Better here than Siberia”…

(Incidentally, Yukos owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky remains locked up in the midst of a kafkaesque trial on trumped-up charges of tax evasion. But many believe his only crime was using his billions to organise political opposition to Putin. And, as a former KGB officer, Putin knows first-hand how useful the Russian Gulag can be for disposing of potential political adversaries.)

He has censored the press – which flourished under his predecessor, Boris Yelstin – to such extremes that viewpoints in any way threatening to Putin’s vision for Russia have been eliminated from national media. Indeed, during a recent Bush / Putin press conference, it was laughable to see Bush question a Russian journalist about freedom of the press in Russia – given the well known fact that all members of the Russian press corp are picked by Putin himself.

But even more comical was Putin’s attempt to bond with Bush by referring to similar powers they supposedly exercise over their respective media and citing by way of example how Bush was able to fire Dan Rather for reporting that unflattering story….

He has abolished the election of all Russian governors and decreed that, henceforth, governors will be appointed by him instead. (Not exactly the Night of Long Knives but just as effective.)

He has attempted to reassert Russian influence in former Soviet republics including his well publicized meddling in Georgia and the Ukraine.

And, he has reclaimed the Stalinesque power to dissolve the Russian legislature (the Duma) – at his discretion – if they dare to pass any law that does not meet with his approval.

As a form of mild consolation, it might be helpful to note that many prominent figures in Russia are decidedly against this Putinization of Russia: Most notably among them is, ironically, the last totalitarian leader of Russia, Mikhail Gorbachev, whose glasnost and perestroika reforms in the late 1980s precipitated the demise of the Soviet Union Putin seems to covet; And then, there’s the World champion Chess player, Garry Kasparov, who expressed his concerns as follows:

“The Soviet Union could not and cannot be a part of modern Europe. It could become a part of Europe only with its conquests. We must distinguish between modern Russia that we need and the Soviet past that Putin is trying to retrieve.”

Indeed, Kasparov has become so disillusioned with Putin’s creeping dictatorship that he shocked the chess world last week with the abrupt announcement of his retirement to pursue his real interest in life now which is “toppling Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

Conspicuously absent among Putin’s public critics, however, is his soul mate, President Bush. But, curiously, this is a fact that should actually dispel all notions of Bush as a religious zealot with the diplomatic tact of a bull in a china shop. Because, as Henry Kissinger would affirm, Bush has consistently demonstrated the skill of a political genius when it comes to (the realpolitik of) picking his fights on the international scene. (The same, alas, cannot be said for more reputed statesmen like Jacque Chirac who seems caught in the undertow of Bush’s wave of world democracy.)

Where Putin is concerned, however, Bush has clearly decided that it’s in America’s enlightened strategic interest to play chess, as it were, with Putin. Bush continues to refer to him as friend and soul mate whilst his foreign policy team are diplomatically telegraphing Bush’s wariness about him; for example, by now using the cold war term of “regime” to describe Putin’s government.

Moreover, Bush fully realizes that notwithstanding the Putinization of Russia, his wave of democracy is engulfing all of the former Soviet republics (including the republic of Kyrgyzstan which just today saw its communist government washed away). And, that eventually a democratic Tsunami will hit Russia (and China too) and no amount of authoritarian control will be able to keep that wave at bay.

Yet, no one can deny the growing unease in many European and Asian countries with Putin’s regressive leadership. To be fair, however, Putin might argue (one hopes more persuasively than he did in making that Dan Rather analogy) that he has cause to be wary of Bush’s leadership as well; especially
because of what he sees as Bush’s fomenting of “permanent [democratic] revolutions” around the world. (See in Archives, Russia’s Putin: A Soul Mate Scorned… for more on this topic)

Meanwhile, Putin seems undeterred and unopposed on his march back to the future in Russia. Indeed, many expect him to cajole the Duma to amend Russia’s Constitution to abolish term limits so that he may be declared president (under the cover of legality) in 2008 and, no doubt, well beyond.

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