By Vladimir Shlapentokh

Leader Legitimacy throughout Russian History

For the rulers and leading institutions of any nation, at any time, obtaining and possessing legitimacy in the eyes of others is of the utmost importance. Legitimacy is simultaneously a simple and a complicated concept, reflecting the belief (or disbelief) of people in the right of their bosses to hold certain positions—whether that of tsar, president, CEO or chairman of a department—granting them the right of command over their citizens or subordinates. The history of almost every nation tells of dramatic episodes related to the legitimacy of leaders. The gripping events in current Russian political processes revolve profoundly around Putin’s legitimacy, not only in the eyes of the Russians but those of the international community as well, since much of the world sees winning a truly democratic election as a necessary step towards legitimacy to govern.

Prior to the 19^th century, only two tsars had worries reminiscent of those held by Putin: Boris Godunov and Katherine the Great. If we are to believe Pushkin’s drama (the historical sources are ambivalent on its credibility), Godunov knew that many Russians believed him culpable in the murder of the boy Dmitry, the single legitimate heir of the tsar Ivan the Terrible. After Pushkin, not even Godunov himself could overcome the lack of belief in his legitimacy, with the vision of “bloodied boys” in his eyes, even while on his death bed. Katherine the Great, who participated in the murder of her husband, the legitimate tsar (via birth/family lineage) Peter the Third, was afraid of the people who claimed to have a legal basis to take the Russian throne. One of them—possibly princess Tarakanova—was kidnapped inItaly and remained either in prison or at a convent for the rest of her life.

     These examples are in the minority in the Russian history; the legitimacy of their own rule never became an issue for many Soviet leaders. Indeed, typically, as soon as the Soviet politician established himself at the top of the political hierarchy, he could come to believe, almost as if he was a new monarch, that his power was sacred. A powerful ideology and a strong party whom the leader represented were an effective equivalent to Western democratic procedures, and the legitimacy of the Soviet leader was accepted not only by the Soviet people but also by Western politicians. Churchill and Roosevelt never cast doubt on the legitimacy of Stalin, despite his reputation as a cruel tyrant. The public essentially considered a new party leader elected by the Politburo and confirmed by the Central Committee to be as legitimate as the democratically elected presidents of Western countries.

Nikita Khrushchev’s dismissal from his high-ranking position was a clear deviation from the Soviet principle, which supposed that his position was a life-long appointment. The members of the Politburo were even afraid to raise questions about Brezhnev’s replacement when the General Secretary was on his death bed, having practically lost all his wits, while the country was, in some ways, run by his nurse.

          Contrary to most Soviet leaders, Putin has never, at any time during his 12 years in power, been able to claim full legitimacy as a leader. The progress of democracy across the world, together withRussia’s own experience of giddy democracy in the late 80s and early 90s, made it impossible for Putin to dismiss democratic procedures in the same way as previous Soviet leaders.

Putin’s Absorption with His Legitimacy

Putin was concerned with this lack of concrete legitimacy from the very beginning of his tenure as president. It was evident that his appointment by Yeltsin and the election he won, sans a serious rival, were a flimsy basis for the legitimacy of his power. In September 1999, only two percent of Russians supported Putin as an eventual president. To compensate for his lack of presidential legitimacy, Putin and his supporters created an ideology that praised him as the man who saved the nation from disintegration. The war with Chechen separatists, which he launched as premier minister, also served this purpose well in 1999. In addition, many people inRussiaare convinced that the Kremlin and people in the FSB were behind the series of four apartments buildings that were burned down inMoscowand Volgodonsk in September 1999, with one thousand victims, although official propaganda attributed these fires to the work of Chechen terrorists. Putin used incidents like these to strengthen his assertion that he was/could be the one to rescueRussiafrom separatism and disorder. Besides his laurels as the savior who keptRussiafrom disintegration, the high oil prices that allowed Putin to raise the  standard of living in the country considerably also helped him to countervail the dubious basis of his legitimacy.

However, even in the first years of his presidency, Putin looked to the future, searching for ways to secure his legitimacy when his second term expired. By 2008, he would easily have been able to exploit his absolute power and high popularity in the country to change the Constitution, just as other post-Soviet leaders like Alexander Lukashenko or Islam Karimov had done, to secure his own election to a third term of office. Putin, however, was much too concerned with how the legitimacy of this exploitative move would be seen in the eyes of the Western public, so he opted for a risky maneuver instead: having Dmitry Medvedev, an obscure politician, become the new president for the next term, “holding the throne” until Putin could once again “legitimately” return to power—which will happen in March 2012. Medvedev’s first edict was to expand the term of the president from four to six years, clearly serving Putin’s long-term plan. This move created the framework for Putin to legally serve as president ofRussiafor another 12 years, until 2024.

Putin’s Foreign Policy and his Legitimacy

Putin’s determination to hold the presidential office for as long as possible has had a great impact on his foreign policy. Putin was concerned with one major objective in shaping Russia’s relations with foreign countries: to use Russian foreign policy as an ideological instrument, largely to secure his own legitimacy—both domestically and internationally. A second real goal was to promote foreign trade activity for the major Russian oil and gas companies, like Gasprom. This goal also has a personal dimension, since Putin and his inner circle have direct material interests and links to these companies. This entanglement stands in stark contrast with the socio-politico-economic contexts in which the foreign policy considerations of various previous Soviet leaders—whose foreign policy was never influenced by their own material considerations—were made. 

At the same time, the major foreign policy function of former Soviet leaders—the expansion ofRussia’s geopolitical role on the world stage—only plays a minor role in Putin’s foreign policy. Of course, Putin would be happy to ruleRussia, similar to his Soviet predecessors, as a superpower with a permanent quest for expansion. By relying on oil as his major geopolitical weapon, though, Putin (seemingly since very beginning of his tenure) has assumed that Russian military power, even with all the additional money he has spent on the army, cannot even remotely claim to have the military parity with the United States that had been a source of pride for previous Soviet leaders. Even the war with tinyGeorgiain 2008 was humiliating for the Russian army.

Confrontation with the external world, for show—together with praising stability—became the major stuff of official propaganda. TheUSA, of course, was number one on the list of Russian enemies. Anti-American propaganda has always been Putin’s main tool for sustaining his legitimacy as the defender of Russian interests. Putin has carefully calibrated public opinion’s degree of animosity towardAmerica, raising or diminishing it to his advantage, depending on context. For instance, during the mass protests against his regime in December, 2011, he raised his degree of hostility towardAmericain his public statements.

Indeed, Putin’s administration, for the purpose of xenophobic propaganda meant to legitimize the regime, has even included countries like England, Poland and the former Russian republics like Ukraine, Belorussia, the Baltic republics and, of course, Georgia in its roster of enemies.

Post-Stalin Soviet leaders, preferring to play the card of the defender of the peace for their ideological purposes, rarely used the praise of aggression in public propaganda.Afghanistanis a typical example. The 1980 invasion of this country was hushed in the Soviet media from the very beginning. The same had been true of the military actions inHungaryin 1956 andCzechoslovakiain 1968. In contrast, Putin’s regime tried to exploit their miserable war against littleGeorgiaby framing it as a great success of the Russian military machine.

           It is remarkable that Putin has not focused on using all of his opportunities to consolidate political influence in the world, even in interactions with the former Soviet republics. Instead he has put pure economic calculations (mostly related to oil and gas exports) ahead of political considerations. This tendency is clearly evident in his interactions with theUkraineandBelorussia. When theKirgizgovernment askedMoscowto send troops to restore order in 2010—with no objections from the international community—the Kremlin rejected this opportunity to expand its military presence inCentral Asia.

          From the beginning, the confrontational element in Putin’s foreign policy has depended a lot on the attitudes of foreign governments toward Putin’s regime. If Western foreign leaders do not cast any doubt about the democratic foundation of his regime or his personal power, the Kremlin downgrades its argumentative stance with them. After their meeting inSloveniain 2001, President George Bush’s famous words about Putin as a straightforward and trustworthy man were of immense importance to Putin. Bush, as the leader of the Western world, issued a sort of internationally accepted positive declaration about the Russian leader’s legitimacy. Bush’s statement about Putin was the brightest event in the first few years of Putin’s presidency.

It is not amazing, therefore, that Putin, as the head ofRussia, was clearly inclined to see theUSAas almost a friendly state. At that time, Putin declared that “never the relations withAmericawere so good as now.” Within hours of the attacks onNew YorkandWashingtonin September 2001, Putin was on the phone with George W. Bush. In addition, Putin’s TV address was full of compassion for the American people. He uttered, “in the name ofRussia, I want to say to the American people—we are with you.» During this period, Putin decided to corroborate with theUSAon several important issues, such as support for the American war inAfghanistan. He did not object to the installation of the American air base inKirgizstan, which was an unbelievable act of a friendship for a Russian politician.

Crucial Events in the History of Putin’s Regime: the Orange Revolutions

          In the first five years of his tenure, Putin evidently felt quite comfortable basking in the light of the savior of the country, and believed that his legitimacy as the rightful leader was cemented in the minds of the Russian people and the international community. The Orange revolutions inTbilisiin 2003 andKievin 2004 broke the Kremlin’s feelings of almost absolute omnipotence. After these revolutions, Putin’s regime drastically changed its domestic policies, and started an intensive process of de-democratization.

          Revolutions abroad, whatever their nature—nationalist, socialist or conservative—have always generated fear in the dominant elites of various countries. TheU.S.is no exception. Consider the “Red scare” of the 1920s; it was caused by fear of the impact the October revolution would have on the American people.

Russian history is full of examples that show how a revolution in a given country influenced the course of events in other countries. Katherine the Great was terribly afraid of the French revolution, while Nikolas the First was concerned about the effects of the Hungarian rebellion in 1848, and Brezhnev was scared by the Czech Spring in 1968. In the opposite direction, the Russian revolution of 1917 exerted an immense impact on developments inWestern Europe,Americaand Asia, while Gorbachev’s revolutionary Perestroika was behind the radical changes in East Europe and horrible events such as the Tiananmen Square massacre inChinain 1989.

The revolutions inGeorgiaandUkrainethat pushed these countries toward democratically-elected governments whose legitimacy was irreproachable became a permanent source of irritation to Putin. In these revolutions, he saw a call to the Russian masses to follow their examples. In fact, the existence of a true democratic regime in Georgia, a core Soviet republic (the Baltic republics that became part of the Soviet Union two decades after Georgia do not occupy the same status in the mind of the Kremlin),represented a constant challenge to Putin’s legitimacy. In his TV talk with the Russians on December 14, 2011, Putin spoke about the developments inKievmany years ago with the same emotions and vehemence as he had in the aftermath of the developments on Maydan square inKievin November and December of 2004. On December 24, 2011, the Kremlin organized a special meeting aimed at attacking the concept of the Orange revolution, as if the developments inKievhad only recently occurred.

          Putin bear’s an intense animosity toward Mikhail Saakashvili, the Georgian president who emerged as the elected leader following the Georgian revolution in 2003, and who has successfully run a truly democratic country since then. Putin has an almost physiological aversion to the Georgian president (his hatred of Victor Yushchenko, who became Ukrainian president in 2004, was somewhat less passionate). Only Senator McCain, who was very critical of Putin during the American presidential campaign in 2008 and who promised the fate of Colonel Qaddafi to the Russian leader, shares Saakashvili’s intense hatred of Putin. Putin, in relation to this animosity, promised the Georgian president “to hang him by the balls” and declared that the American senator who “relishes and can’t live without the disgusting, repulsive scenes of the killing of Gaddafi” became a “nut” after spending several years in a pit as a Vietnamese prisoner.

The war againstGeorgiain 2008 was a war of an authoritarian regime against a democratic one—similar to the several wars that reactionaryRussialed against foreign champions of democracy, from the Hungarian revolutionaries in 1848 to the Czech liberals in 1968.

The Orange Revolutions in Kiev and Tbilisi as the Western Rehearsal of Russian Regime Change

TheOrangerevolutions, in and of themselves, looked dangerous to  Putin. However, his hatred of them was multiplied by his conviction that they were all staged by the West, which he believes views these uprisings as rehearsals for doing the same thing inRussia.

Putin’s belief in the West as the power behind allOrangerevolutions, in the past as well as in the future, lies in his firm belief that the masses are unable to defend their own rights and fight for democratic principles by themselves.Moscowaccepted this view almost immediately with respect toGeorgiaandUkraine, as well asKirgizstan’s so-called tulip revolution. Russian officials, including Putin, also explained the recent Arab spring, particularly inEgypt, in the same fashion.

This view is shared by most of the Russian ruling elite, along with many Russian intellectuals. The mass protest actions in Russiado not seem to have changed Putin’s “theory” of the origins of the social movement in the contemporary world. In two talks in December 2011—one at a meeting of his political allies and another on his talk show—Putin denigrated and derogated his compatriots as never before. He likened the participants of the protest actions to foolish and chattering monkeys, bandarlogs from Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. Putin described the protesters as pawns of the opposition leaders, used in attempt to destabilize the country. In order to humiliate protest participants even more, he labeled their white ribbons “condoms.”

Putin declared that theUSAis behind the protest actions inRussia. He directly accused Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of creating the anti-regime manifestations inRussia, asserting that she had sent “a signal” to “some actors in our country.” He insisted that that the participants “were paid for coming” by foreign agents seeking to undermineRussia. Putin said that non-governmental organizations who accept foreign grants were traitors akin to Judas Iscariot. He asserted that student participants “were paid and were herded like cattle by their leaders.” In the same show, he accused unidentified Russians of working for foreign interests: «There are people who have Russian passports but work for the interests of a foreign state, for foreign money.”

Some Changes in Foreign Policy

After 2005, with theOrangerevolutions Putin’s foreign policy became somewhat more confrontational. By all accounts, this course will continue following the December 2011 events inRussia.

 In order to help strengthen Putin’s legitimacy, the Kremlin has chosen an eclectic foreign policy whose individual moves are almost impossible to predict. On one side,Moscowavoided serious confrontation with theUSAafter the Orange revolutions, and did not seriously challenge the fundamental aspects of American foreign policy in any particular sensitive area—not in Central Asia, the Middle East orNorth Africa. The Russian-Georgian war, despite open American support of president Saakashvili, only created some very brief tensions in Russian-American relations. Additionally,MoscowandWashingtonhave no deep contradictions in such areas as the fight against international terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the world.

Still, Putin must maintain some regular confrontations with the USA, as these are necessary for sustaining his legitimacy as a national leader. The Anti-Missile Defense is most often used as a way of irritating theUSA, and as evidence of Putin’s concerns aboutRussia’s defense, even if most independentMoscow military experts derogate the official fear of American missile attacks againstRussia as a pure bluff.

CONCLUSION

          At the end of 2011, the problem of the legitimacy of Putin’s rule was sharply and unexpectedly exacerbated by three events: 1) Putin’s brazen declaration on September 24th of his intention to swap jobs with President Dmitry Medvedev without consulting voters, which upset many Russians, especially the educated and/or residents of Moscow; 2) The parliamentary election on December 4^th, which the liberal community considered fraudulent, and which triggered an unexpected outburst of protests in Moscow, and to a lesser extent in the provinces; 3) the congregation of around fifty thousand people, gathering in defense of democracy, in Bolotnaia square on December 10, 2011, which the country and the whole world viewed as sensational by the standards of Putin’s Russia. This protest gathering revealed that the educated class ofMoscow (Russian analysts uses the term “creative class,” which also is in circulation in theUSA) woke up and decided to defend democratic values and, more specifically, honest election practices.

However, the apex, as of now, of the legitimacy question was reached on December 24^th, when a hundred thousand people met onSakharov Avenue. This mass gathering made the legitimacy of Putin’s presidency a key issue of Russian political life, as never before. While at the first meeting at Bolotnaia square the participants were mostly concentrated on contesting the rigging of the Duma’s election, the leading theme of the second meeting was the illegitimacy of Putin’s presidency. In fact, the target of the protesters onSakharov Avenue was the upcoming presidential election on March 4th, the outcome of which does not seem as certain, in light of recent events. TheSakharov Avenue meeting advanced Alexei Navalny, who has come to be known for his fight against corruption, as the clear leader of the fight for the legitimacy of power.

However, as of today, it seems that Putin will keep power into the next decade, utilizing a mixed strategy of offering some non-essential concessions to liberals, while using various devices to denigrate the leaders of the opposition and pit them against each other. Putin will try to continue to rely on his monopoly on TV broadcasts, which by  barring access to the opposition, suggests that there he has no serious competitor, and that he will be able to sustain the stability and the relatively decent standard of living that currently exists in the country. Putin and the ruling elite hope that the protest movement, with its lack of one charismatic leader and the great amount of antagonism between its different factions, will eventually disintegrate and lose its momentum. The Kremlin is placing even more hope on the big divergence betweenMoscowand the provinces. Even if one were to suppose that the crowd of liberal, educated people in theMoscowsquares reflects the mood in the city, they can, in no way, rely on the support of the provinces, whose hatred of the capital is a well known fact. Indeed, according to the December poll of the Levada Center, only 15 percent of Russians mentioned the protests against vote-rigging in the parliamentary elections as an important event in 2011, which was much less than the number of the Russians who considered the sinking of the tourist ship “Bulgaria” to be a development much more deserving of attention (49), and even the switch to summer time (19), or the birth of the 7 billionth person on Earth (16).]

 Putin will also have the gigantic governmental apparatus, which is able to mobilize a huge army of state employees to cast votes for him, at his disposal. If necessary, this same apparatus can use as suggests Andrei  Illarionov, a former aide to Putin,  tactics, including murder, to repress Putin’s opponents.        The corrupted bureaucracy of the country, which offers benefits to so many, also ensures that many people will be against governmental change for fear of losing the benefits they receive through their entanglement in the mass web of corruption and fear of repercussions for these practices. Even ordinary people who participate in corruption—those who hold modest positions such as that of teacher, doctor or even low-rank clerk—will be reluctant to start a new life without their habitual illegal income. As an ultimate resource, Putin can resort to the use of the army, police and, in extreme situations, the nationalist hordes, which are permanently under the supervision of the Federal Service of Security. He can even call for help from Ramzan  Kadyrov, the Chechen leader, who will send his thugs to Moscow. Taking all of this into consideration, we can predict that Putin, without any real rivals on the ballot, will be reelected as president on March 4^th, even if we suppose that vote-counting will be mostly honest.  

          Yet, despite all of these resources, Putin and his entire regime will never regain the public confidence in his legitimacy that he and his friends enjoyed in the early 2000s. This seriously diminishes the Kremlin’s ability to cope with the growing discontent in the country and avert mass rebellion. Hoping to stay in power for several years ahead, and being afraid of prosecution if he leaves office, Putin will be fully concentrated, in these next years, on fending off all accusations about his illegitimacy as the leader. He will build up his relations with any influential country, if the relationship can fulfill his desire to make his power and his fortune safe. The American government should always take this into account in shaping its policy towardMoscow.

                    Vladimir Shlapentokh

Those who are making gloomy prognoses clearly underestimate the might of the social basis of Putin’s regime. In the 1950-70s, the concept of “people’s capitalism” was quite popular in theUSA. The major idea of “people’s capitalism” lay in the dispersal of stockholding opportunities among the population, which was supposed to change the nature of the American economy and American society in general. This idea had many important defenders in the business community, as well as among American politicians and intellectuals. The idea of “people’s capitalism” practically vanished from American debates on economic order in the 1980s.

 Ironically, it was Putin who implemented the idea of “people’s capitalism,” albeit in a new form . He opened access to an illegal stream of income to a considerable part of the Russian population. To grant everybody shares as promised, he gave the most ambitious people access to a powerful source of corruption. In fact, Putin superimposed the feudal model of government on society, which supposes that holders of power in all spheres of life consider themselves to be feudal officials who possess their own fiefs. (Russians use the term “kormlenie,” or “feeding,” which points to the fact that each position “feeds” its holder with illegal revenues). In exchange for the fief, the holder grants their loyalty to the central administration, guaranteeing, for instance, the desired outcome of an election. 

Two major strata comprise the contingent of those who enjoy Putin’s “all people corruption”. The first, the “feudal” layer, is comprised of the “office holders,” who have lucrative positions in the state apparatus: the top leaders and administrators at all levels—up to the chief of a small village.The size of the first stratum, whose members enjoy some of the benefits of corruption, is about 5-6 million. But if their relatives are added to this number, it grows to tens of millions of people.

Innumerable data show how almost every member of the bureaucracy extends various privileges to their close and remote relatives, including second and third cousins. See, for instance, what happened in the last two years in theOmskregion, where Governor Leonid Polezhaev’s clan was comprised of all his relatives, a typical phenomenon in most Russian regions, including small administrative units such as small cities and villages. In 2011, one of his sons, Konstantin, then a hospital director, was caught buying medical equipment fraudulently; he never suffered any consequences for his actions. In the same year, the governor’s daughter-in-law, Natelle, privatized a hospital and health resorts for herself, violating various laws. Another of the governor’s sons, Alexei, using his father’s connections in the oil and gas business, became a billionaire. Polezhaev also protects his distant relatives, such as his niece and several of his own spouse’s remote relatives.

 The members of the second layer, the “little bribers,” are much more limited in the ways they can abuse their small power, when compared to the members of the “feudal layer,” because they do not have their own offices and are under the strong control of their own bosses. Still, in a lawless society, these “little bribers”—teachers and professors, medical doctors and nurses, clerks who issue various official papers for people , sanitation and fire inspectors can extricate additional income from the ordinary people who depend on them. Of course, the participants of “horizontal corruption,” with their modest illegal income from the bribes they receive are not as loyal to the regime as “office holders.” Still, having adjusted well to the existing order, they are far from being active protesters.

A special large group of participants in the corrupt activities are the hundreds of thousands of employees in private companies who get along with an official salary, and a “gray salary” (a “salary in an envelope”, in Russian terminology), which helps the company significantly reduce the taxes they must pay.      

The strength of Putin’s regime not only stems from the active support of its “office holders,” and the mild support of the “little bribers,” but also in the Russian population’s indifference toward corruption. It is remarkable that while the critics of the regime, liberal or Communist, label corruption as a leading problem of society, the population delegates it to the bottom of the list of problems. Indeed, in a March 2011 survey with open-ended questions about the major problems of Russian society, only 8 percent named corruption, compared with 30 percent who mentioned a low standard of living, and 22 percent who mentioned unemployment.

 Russian sociologists were amazed to find that the majority of Russians “are not upset with corruption,” and that they are indifferent to the movies and other materials that denounce corruption. Paradoxically, the absolute majority of Russians, no less than 70-80 percent, assume that corruption embraces all spheres of social life, yet the same number of people also believe that corruption is “a normal phenomenon;” they see it as being the same as it was under Yeltsin, as well as under Putin, and expect that corruption will only be higher in the future. At the same time, many Russians are sure that corruption helps to solve many problems in everyday life, and that the struggle against corruption is hopeless. It is remarkable that the most famous crusader against corruption inRussiatoday, Alexei Navalnyi, could only garner the support of a few percent of the population.

It is obvious that a great chunk of the population were delighted by Putin’s decision to stay asRussia’s president forever. As one author in aMoscownewspaper noted, “the members of the country’s bureaucratic class, having prospered in the cesspool of corruption created and deepened during Putin’s rule, are more than glad to have their license to steal renewed for another six or more years.”

Many critics of Putin’s regime who predict its collapse and a  Russian version of  “the Arab spring”  underestimate its strong social basis in the millions of Russians deeply involved in corruption .There are different theories as to how corruption has become so endemic within the country. The elite, as well as many intellectuals, prefer to suggest that corruption is engrained within the fabric of the Russian culture. Thus, Gogol’s famous 19^th century play Inspector General is as relevant today as it was during the reign Nikolas the First. Another school of thought, and one that I firmly support, rejects such a simplistic view considering the relatively low level of corruption that took place during Soviet times. Instead of simply ascribing corruption to the “Russian way,” I argue that corruption stems from the elite’s rise to power after the collapse of theUSSR. The lawlessness and corruption that is taking place within Russian society reinforces the ability of the elite to seek personal enrichment.Russia needs a new generation of ascetic politicians that will abandon phony declarations to fight corruption and commit to tackling the root of its cause. They would no doubt get the support of many ordinary Russians.       

                               Vladimir Shlapentokh                                                             

By all accounts, Putin has a very good chance of rulingRussiafor the next 12 years, until 2024, and perhaps after. It may seem strange, but even after a decade of rulingRussia, his personality still arouses a lot of controversy.  While Sovietologists in general failed to comprehend the nature of the Soviet system, they understood the personalities of the Soviet leaders. This stands in contrast with what we see today, in the way politicians and experts swing in their assessments of Putin.

Some are inclined to view Putin as a straightforward and trustworthy man while others see him as a mafia don, a sort of Batman character from the movie Dark Knight, as we learned from WikiLeaks. The analysis of Putin’s political propaganda sheds a lot of light on the personality of one of the most powerful figures of the 21st century. The juxtaposition between Putin and Stalin, as well as other Soviet leaders, allows us to illustrate how much he stands out as the most Machiavellian leader in Russian history.         

Was Stalin less devious than Putin?

As one of the most demonized figures in history, Stalin has been depicted as                              a highly wily politician whose legacy was marked by cruelty and perfidy. It is true that Stalin demonstrated a high level of political craftiness when he used conflict to oust his rivals Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Bukharin, by first pitting them successfully against each other and then eliminating all of them.

However, after becoming the absolute dictator, Stalin only used very primitive procedures to retain power. For example, he extricated confessions from defendants at show trials by employing the most elementary torture techniques. Meanwhile, Arthur Koestler, in his book Darkness at Noon, (1940), ascribed the use of a complicated and convoluted series of devices to Stalin’s myrmidons; these included subtle philosophical tricks used to persuade victims like the old Bolshevik Nikolas Rubashov to recognize their “guilt” for the sake of the Communist cause. But while the former communist romanticized Stalin’s brutal tactics, the poet Osip Mandelstam had no illusions about the master of the Kremlin. He saw him only as an atrocious oriental despot, saying “the execution of his enemies, it’s a raspberry to him.” 

Although there is a tremendous amount of literature on Stalin, there is no indication that he used elaborate political tactics in the last two decades of his life. Besotted with power, Stalin was sure that coercion was the solution to every problem. Indeed, a famous aphorism of his stated that “to eliminate the problem it is necessary to eliminate the individual who creates it.” He arrested the wife of Viacheslav Molotov, who was his close aid, and sent her into exile. He did the same to the children of Anastas Mikoyan, another close aid.  He even sent his Minister, Boris Vannikov, to prison as a spy and then freed him a few months later, subsequently appointing him to the same position.

Of course, Stalin’s heirs do not appear to have been as advanced in the ways of the devil. Granted, like Stalin, they blatantly lied when they praised Soviet political order as the most democratic in the world. They also shrouded their geopolitical goals with slogans of socialist solidarity. Also like Stalin, they solidified power by getting rid of  their comrades , if they were considered a potential political threat. For example, Khrushchev fired the military commander Marshal Zhukov after he helped Khrushchev to demote Stalinists from the Politburo. Brezhnev, in his turn, hypocritically expressed his love of Khrushchev in public by kissing him at the airport, even as he secretly prepared a plot against him.

Nevertheless, all of the general secretaries after Stalin behaved in a fairly predictable, if frightened, manner, as we saw during the Cuban crisis and the invasions ofHungary,Czechoslovakia, andAfghanistan. In addition, neither written nor oral accounts about the leadership style of these leaders convey the notion that they were cunning and treacherous people (e.g. Khrushchev’s memoir, various post Soviet biographies on Soviet leaders, or Henry Kissinger’s description of Brezhnev). Yet, while Stalin hovers over his Soviet successors in his political sophistry, it is Putin who has surpassed him in duplicity.

    Putin’s regime is as undemocratic as Stalin’s was, even if it is, in some respects, milder. It has the same rubber stamp parliament, phony elections, control over major media outlets, obedient court system, xenophobia in official propaganda, and lack of oppositional political parties. Putin has promoted the same sense of a cult of personality, as government offices are adorned with his picture. There are, however, several differences in the ways that Stalin and Putin organized political propaganda in order to suggest that their regimes are democratic.

Stalin and Putin in creating the image of pluralism

While both Stalin and Putin aim(ed) to create the appearance of political pluralism in their country, Stalin did so in a very primitive way. In 1936, he organized open national debates. Even today, some Sovietologists believe these debates—I vividly remember how one of these meetings was organized on my residential block inKiev—were “open,” because they took place in a climate of growing mass terror. According to official Soviet data, 623,334 meetings were held; over 42,000,000 people attended them; and some 169,739 proposals, comments, and prospective amendments were generated. However, Stalin did not use these debates to show the existence of diverse opinions within the country to the world. All of the proposals were absolutely loyal to the regime. 

Putin’s respect for Stalin is well known. However, it is apparent that Putin does not want to be a blind disciple of his icon, since he has surpassed Stalin’s tactical abilities. Putin certainly does not dismiss Stalin’s primitive strategies. Recently, for example, Putin pulled off a public relations stunt by meeting with the workers of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works in July of 2011 and answering their well-prepared questions. The incarceration of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a serious potential rival, demonstrates how Putin is always ready to apply simple Stalinist instruments to stymie political threats. In addition, his recently founded “Popular Front” movement—which is a direct reincarnation of Stalin’s “The Block of Communists and Non-Party Members” movement of the 1930s—shows how he strives to gain legitimacy over his rivals by, supposedly, representing the will of the people.

However, Putin is not satisfied with such archaic propagandistic techniques, especially since he wants to gain the support of both the country’s intelligentsia and the West. The arsenal of ideas used by Putin to mislead public opinion is much richer than that used by Stalin. In fact, Putin’s ability to design a complicated political game makes Stalin look like a mediocre apparatchik in comparison.

 A brilliant PR idea: Create a long political show about the conflict between Putin and Medvedev         

             The objective of Putin’s show is to create the appearance of rigorous political debates in the country, and to deflect the public’s attention away from the growing critiques of opposition candidates. Unlike the bland debates organized by Stalin and his successors, the Kremlin wanted to create drama between these two outstanding politicians, who supposedly oppose one another. Its goal was to drag people into the phony debates, make them try to guess the end of the play, and force them to forget about the last remaining mouthpieces of free political thought in the country: Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov, and Mikhail Kasianov.

The producer and the director

          During his time with the KGB, Putin acquired the first-rate skills he would need to become the author and producer of his own show. Professionalism within the KGB was measured by one’s ability to deceive. This included the ability to trick future KGB recruits, informants, and potential and current prisoners. What is more, KGB agents prepared each one of their operations very carefully, whether it was to recruit agents, steal information, arrest people, or kill targets. Their plans consisted of several stages, requiring the coordination of many people. One need only read former KGB general Pavel Sudoplatov’s autobiography Special Tasks (1997) to understand just how meticulous KGB officers were in planning their sophisticated multi-staged operations.  Thus, Putin’s experience with special tasks has provided him with the invaluable skills necessary to meticulously design and coordinate his complicated show.                                     

        Certainly, as any producer inHollywoodknows, it takes a great director to create a great show. Putin targeted Vladislav Surkov, an indisputably leading ideological guru of the Kremlin. Surkov’s position within Putin’s regime parallels the position held by Mikhail Suslov in the regimes of Khrushchev and Brezhnev. Nonetheless, from a cultural perspective, the difference between Suslov and Surkov is enormous.

The “gray cardinal of the Kremlin”—such was Surkov’s nickname in Moscow during the 1970’s—was the epitome of the archaic and rigid Soviet ideologists, who were absolutely impervious to flexible propagandistic devices. While Suslov ignored 20^th century Western writers, Surkov claims to have read Ulysses; a serious feat for even the most educated people. His office in the Kremlin is full of the most refined books. He has also written lyrics for rock groups and authored journal articles about art. In 2009, under the pseudonym Nathan Dubovetsky, he published the novel Close to Zero. With his thoughtful and educated approach, this work showcased the author’s ability to understand the true state ofRussia in the 2000s.

The target population for the show

A good Hollywoodproducer and his/her director always define the target, in this case, well-educated Russians and an international audience. There are many people in Russiaand the West who, for various reasons, yearn to see Russiaas a democratic society. Indeed, they are ready to ferret out any plausible evidence that supports this wishful thinking. Many Sovietologists have easily swallowed the ludicrous “evidence” of democracy in the Soviet Union. What is more, they have often talked about the dissension inside the Politburo. Many of them went on to describe Soviet leaders, even Stalin, as having been besieged by his (their) enemies there. One Sovietologist went so far as to publish a book titled Stalin embattled (1978).   Now, with a much more sophisticated set of propagandistic material, the chances are even higher that the next generation of Russian experts, a special target audience for the show, will be even more inclined to swallow this false picture of Russian political life than were their predecessors.

The casting             

With the established goal of the show formulated and the target audience identified, producer Putin and director Surkov focused on casting. It was not surprising that Putin chose himself as a cast member, since he was the ideal candidate to fill the role of the strict and sober leader who knew everything that was going on inRussia. In this role, Putin claimed that he had realistic views of the character of the Russian people, democracy, the West, and capitalism. He also embodied characteristics that ideally suited the charisma demanded by the role (e.g. machismo, courage, sports skills and vulgar humor).

 For the role of antagonist, the show needed a guy with obvious liberal credentials; a person who could appeal to the Russian intelligentsia. Unlike Putin, who hung out on the streets with criminal gangs during his childhood, Dmitry Medvedev’s pedigree consisted of growing up in a professorial family that socialized with refinedPetersburgintellectuals. In addition, he has a penchant for using the latest electronic gadgets to communicate with people (e.g. blogs, Twitter, and Facebook). Thus, Medvedev’s mild mannered, ironic, and self-deprecating style was an ideal contrast for Putin’s abrasive and commanding ways.

The offspring of highly educated people would be expected to avoid the locutions used in gang slang in his speech, instead offering citations of famous scholars, including the 17^th century Dutch law authority, Hugo Grotius, and Seymour Lipset, the 20^th century American political scientist. Would it even be possible to see Putin talking with great warmth about a subtle author such as Anton Chekhov? Is it possible to imagine Putin adorning his site with a long proverb, not in Russian but in Latin (“Quid bonum, felix, faustum, fortunatumque sit!” or “Be good, happy, lucky, and fortunate!”)? (It is unlikely that any of the Western leaders, knowing how snobbish it would make them appear, would even dare to publish something like this in their public documents, for fear of looking ridiculous).  Dmitry Medvedev fits this role perfectly. It was indeed an excellent choice.

Together, these two actors are a perfect match for appealing to the realistic sensibilities and sophistication of the target audience (i.e. well-educated Russians and the international media).

           Keeping balance between the two actors

Keeping the audience interested in the confrontation between the two leaders requires them to appear to be of the same political weight, in the same way gripping sporting events are played between equals. Thus, according to the requirements of the script, the major TV channels (basically, the single source of information for the majority of Russians) were obliged to give each leader equal representation. Equal representation pertains to other things as well, such as the portraits hung in the offices of officials, where both men are prominently displayed. The authors of the script were also conscious that the office of the president needed to retain respect, and made sure that all major statements and actions related to foreign policy and the military were made by the president, as required by the constitution.

The denial of differences           

To deepen the intrigue of the show, its architects did something that would rival a John Le Carre spy novel. On the one hand, the script focuses on the fissure between the two leaders, by showing their differences through official declarations, press conferences, meetings with various people, official sites, blogs, and Twitter tweets. On the other hand, the script also includes the leaders declaring that there are no substantial differences between them—even when it is clear that stark contradictions have been made, such as when the two leaders expressed opposite views on Khodorkovsky’s case or on the war inLibya.

The motor of the show: Medvedev’s verbal activity           

     It’s remarkable that the authors of this charade have been able to sustain this drama for over three years. Only shows like the long run of Dallas—and certainly the suspense of “who shot J.R.?”—can claim superiority in holding an audience’s attention. The spellbinding nature of Putin’s show can be credited to Medvedev’s critiques of Putin’s policies; some were openly defiant, but most were thinly veiled. Each one of these statements intensified the drama of the show, since they immediately generated a new wave of debates inRussia and abroad, regarding the size and depth of the growing fissure between the two leaders.

Essentially, Medvedev created an air of being the maverick that would break the country from its old ways. Indeed, he has often professed his love of freedom, democracy, law, and modernization. For example, on February 18, 2008 he declared, to the stupefaction of the whole country, that “freedom is better than non-freedom.”  From then on, Medvedev regularly announced “Urbi et Orbi” as a way of showing his admiration for liberalism. He did it, for instance, in September of 2010, when he solemnly declared atYaroslavl’s forum that “there is no democracy if man personally feels non- freedom and injustice.”

His supposed support of liberal  pragmatic initiatives are aimed at reforming the legislative system, transforming courts into independent bodies, liberalizing elections, and creating conditions to fight corruption.  In addition, he gives directives to various governmental institutions to work well, not steal, be kind to people, cure them in hospitals, support young families, strengthen the defense of the country, battle terrorism effectively, and so on. He has been known, for example, to sternly reprimand officials, demand investigations, and issue recommendations to improve “ government responsiveness” after national disasters (e.g. in the aftermath of the fires during the summer of 2010, the sinking of a pleasure boat on the Volga River in 2011,  and acts of terrorism).  In a speech he made at the economic forum inPetersburgin July of 2011, he was so critical of the government that one journalist sarcastically noted that he would not be surprised if the president fired the premier minister; a good gesture for a “reality show,” though not for this one.      

A particularly useful device for the show is when Medvedev goes into a nearly direct confrontation with Putin.  This often revolves around foreign relations. Within this showdown, Medvedev takes a friendly position toward the West while Putin takes an aggressive, almost xenophobic, position.  Such a confrontation played out recently, as Medvedev supported Western actions against Khadafy, while Putin vehemently did not.

         The supporting actors: Prokhorov and others

Despite the importance of Putin and Medvedev as the main actors and central focus, the show’s authors deemed it necessary to include other actors, in order to add to the show’s intrigue. Indeed, as anyHollywoodfan knows, a consistently good show requires the addition of fresh personalities from time to time. Thus, in May 2011, Mikhail Prokhorov, a famous mogul and Putin’s stooge, was introduced as a new “supporting actor”. Prokhorov presented himself as an independent man who decided to be the leader of the “Right Cause” party, which apparently had to represent liberalism in the State Duma.  Prokhorov started to imitate Medvedev, with his appeals for democracy and liberalism, and the veiled critique of his patron.

The imaginary clans

In order to enhance the veracity of the show, its authors suggest that each leader has his own clan standing behind him, to support him in their fight. The authors of the show make no attempt to cover up the fact thatRussia’s bureaucracy and “Power Ministries”—especially the FSB and the army—stand behind Putin. They have, however, persistently alluded to energetic supporters of Medvedev. For example, Igor Yurgens and Evgenii Gontmakher, the director and leading economist of the Institute of Contemporary Development (INSOR), which is considered to be Medvedev’s think tank, gave talks and published articles that had an aggressive tone against Putin, while praising Medvedev as a prominent Russian reformer who would saveRussiafrom Putin’s morass. The bravery of the people who work for the regime is incomprehensible, unless you suppose that they are simply following the script; providing evidence of “the rift” between the two leaders.

The jewel of the show: Guess who will be the next president?                                         

         The trick the authors pulled off with Prokhorov was good, but the idea of keeping the world in suspense over who the presidential candidate for the 2012 election would be was brilliant. Since the beginning of 2010, there has not been one press conference or public meeting where the leaders have not touched upon this uncertainty; this is despite the flurry of issues that could be addressed regarding the state of the country.  Following the logic of a good detective, the authors of the script suggested that both actors avoid direct answers and, instead, gave cryptic hints and gestures, thus raising curiosity.  Several interpretations and theories would emerge from these highly publicized events. The artificially created frenzy regarding which of these two men would be the future ruler of Russia left practically no room for journalists to ask questions about other opponents, or about how elections are going to be fair and honest, or about the numerous problems of Russian life.

          The success of the show   

In general, Putin’s show has successfully produced the intended results. Indeed, those who yearn for a democratic Russiahave largely bought the idea that their “good” hero will rise up to fight the “bad” dragon. Even some liberal Moscowanalysts have bought into this charade. In the last two years, Radio Moskvy, the most critical outlet inRussia, has devoted the lion’s share of its programs to the interminable guessing game of who will be president. In addition, Russian intellectuals have continued to implore Russian citizens to believe in Medvedev’s mission and support him. Despite the experience of the past three years, they continue—as they did in their “Letter of the intelligentsia,” published in July—to beg Russians not “to permit” Medvedev’s departure from the political scene, as they see him as the savior of democracy.

Most of the Western media, including prestigious newspapers such as The New York Times and Le Monde, have also bought into the show—hook, line, and sinker. Indeed, they regularly publish articles that scrutinize the words and actions of the two leaders, in order to divine who has a better chance of controllingRussia in the coming years.

Of course, there are many people inRussiawho do not believe that Medvedev is an independent crusader. Rather, they are confident that Putin is in firm control of the country. They believe that Medvedev is Putin’s puppet. Thus, the imaginary conflict between the two leaders is merely a ploy to pave the way for Putin’s return to the presidency. Those who do not take the fabricated political drama on official TV channels at face value are mostly ordinary people, alien to the political sophistry of Putin-Surkov. In July, 68 percent of them were confident that Putin is the real master of the country. In contrast, only 19 percent of Russians cherish the view, together with the intellectuals, that Medvedev is an independent politician. 

Putin’s show is a new genre in PR

At first glance, Putin’s show can be categorized as a typical reality show, but it is not. Within this so called confrontation between the two leaders, Medvedev can only talk; he cannot even make a modest practical move in accordance with his declarations. Over the past three years, there have been several occasions for him to prove that he was serious about the liberal harangues with which he inundated the country. For example, he could have abolished the Moscow 2009 elections, which were ostensibly falsified. He also could have released Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was sentenced to another term of imprisonment in 2011. Or, he could have punished the official responsible for the murder of Sergei Magnitsky in aMoscowprison in 2009. Not once has Medvedev made a serious move—other than his usual flow of words praising democracy and law—to put his “power” to the test and assert his political authority.  While it is true that Medvedev fired several officials, there was no attempt to send them to the courts to be tried for their corruption. It was obvious to the country that all these administrative actions were initiated by Putin, and assigned to Medvedev, who implemented the premier’s decisions.

The conclusion

     The world has been presented with an extremely sophisticated and cunning politician in Putin. We do not know if he read Machiavelli—Stalin’s library contained The Prince—but one cannot help but recognize the resemblance between his actions and the real behavior of the ideal ruler described by the Florentine. By these standards, the ideal Machiavellian prince did not respect anything, not even powerful religious ideologies.  Only tools that can bring about deception, fear, and rivalry were honored in the struggle for political survival. Historical Machiavellian heroes were those rulers who hid their intentions in order to deceive ordinary citizens, nobles, foreign enemies, the clergy, and especially those who helped bring them to power.

                    The fact that Putin has held no ideology—he has never claimed to be a communist or a nationalist, let alone a democrat—has only made it easier for him to deceive people. In fact, he is not even an admirer of authoritarianism, if by this we mean the consideration of the state as the most efficient instrument for the achievement of the well-being of the nation. Instead, he appears to be a straight-up cynical power-grabber from the times of Borgia. Thus, he is totally absorbed with his narrow personal interests of seeking and protecting his own power and accumulated wealth, as well as protecting the interests of those whom he needs (e.g. the bureaucracy, the secret police, and the army). Of course, like the Machiavellian prince and Soviet leaders, he wants the country that he rules over to prosper so he can strengthen his personal power.          

        Although Putin is Machiavellian in many ways, he deviates from the model of the ideal hero, as he follows the mafia code of loyalty to those who support him. This stands in stark contrast to Machiavelli’s advice of never taking personal relations too seriously, so one can easily betray people if and when necessary.

While the Machiavellian mind is indeed deviousness, the trickery needed for “Medvedev against Putin” would require the courage to take some risks. By all means, this essentially fictional show could, theoretically, be turned into a reality show at any moment. As a matter of fact, liberal Medvedev supporters in Russia and abroad, who were confident from the very beginning that the duel was indeed real, could wake up one day with the breaking news of the firing of the premier by his formal master (the president of the Russian federation). While this could indeed happen, Putin certainly calculated all possible outcomes, including the possibility of being fired, from the very start and was brave enough to believe that he could control the situation.

     Putin, who raised Medvedev from political nonexistence to the presidency of one of the most powerful countries in the world, protected himself by making a pact with Medvedev, as Yeltsin did with the leader he chose as the next Russian president. But aside from the pact, Putin provided himself with insurance: the cult of national leader; a State Duma totally under his control; the position of the head of the governmental party; control over TV; and, of course, retained control over all entities such as the FSB, the army, the whole of the bureaucracy, and loyal oligarchs who would all lose their property and power if Putin were to be ousted from power. Medvedev, in fact, has no other choice but to remain a personage of the semi-fictional show and dream of being endowed with some honorable and lucrative position after the 2012 elections. Of course, he will need to please his master by making sure that he does not depart from the script, or act too arrogant, in order to secure his future.

Ultimately, when an American politician meets with Putin, he or she should not forget the brilliant show he has organized on the eve of his return to the presidency. The West has a formidable adversary in Putin: smart, cunning, and dangerous.

Following the collapse of the Soviet system, Russian society opened up to the world. Undoubtedly, this has transformed the country’s socio-economic landscape forever. While more openness has brought many positive developments, it has also come with unanticipated negative consequences that threaten the country’s liberal future. This report shows how misleading it is to glorify uncritically the “open society” ideal that is exemplified in the views of many Western thinkers from Karl Popper to George Soros.

 One of the most influential aspects of opening up to the rest of the world was the newfound freedom to travel abroad. Prior to the collapse of theSoviet Union, the majority of Russians could not leave the country. This included emigration to other countries, of course, but also encompassed general travel (e.g. as tourists, students, visiting scholars, etc.). Indeed, overseas travel—especially to the West—was a privilege enjoyed by only the select few who enjoyed the trust of the KGB.

With the implementation of Glasnost (openness in Russian), Mikhail Gorbachev started to relax these restrictions in the 1980s. It was Boris Yeltsin, though, who provided a full-scale opening of society after the collapse of theSoviet Union. This madeRussiaas open as any Western society, wherein people could enjoy the unrestricted flow of information as well as the freedom to leave the country, either temporarily or permanently.

Unlike Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin began rolling back many of the reforms, mirroring the Soviet political system. Paradoxically, though, he left the freedom to have contact with foreign countries intact, including the ability to travel. The Russians have shown a remarkable indifference to the dismantling of several liberal freedoms, as long as their ability to travel freely continues. According to a 2011 poll conducted by the Levada-Center, a leading independent firm monitoring public opinion inRussia, 41 percent of Russians consider the freedom to leave the country to be an important value. In contrast, only 13 percent view the possibility of participating in meetings and demonstrations to be significant.

          The opening of the floodgates toward more openness, which had precedents in both Peter the First’s push for modernization, and in Khrushchev’s attempts to ease Stalin’s total closure of the Soviet empire, has made a big impact on modern-dayRussia. Today, even the most remote parts ofRussiahave been deeply influenced by this change.  Four very important developments, together with the new openness, have contributed to the pervasive changes—positive and negative—that have taken place within society; none of these could have been envisioned by the leaders who initiated the process of opening up.

The first of these has been the globalization of the international economy, beginning in the last decades of the 20^th century. This has increased the flow of labor migration, students studying abroad and tourism, as well as the flow of consumer goods and capital across international borders. No less than one-third of the Russian population is involved, in one way or another, in communications with foreign countries; this is a real revolution in Russian life.    

A second major development has been the proliferation of Internet access. This has made it possible for ordinary people to establish connections with people and institutions anywhere around the globe. With it has come the ability to search for jobs, find places to study, and even to connect with potential spouses.

The third development has been economic privatization. This has led to unprecedented levels of corruption, even forRussia. At the same time, there has been a feudalization of society, combined with the central administration’s control over the country weakening, and a regular redistribution of property. These have increased societal uncertainty. All of this has diminished the safety of individuals and their property, thus increasing the desire of those with newly acquired wealth to secure a safe haven abroad, in the event that it becomes necessary to leave the country.

The fourth development is the disappearance of a cohesive public ideology that persuades people to be concerned about the interests of the country and society as a whole. On the one hand, this is a positive trend because openness is inimical to any authoritarian ideology in its various versions. On the other hand, the lack of a strong ideology has encouraged people to either leave the country and/or to be indifferent to public causes.                          

The general benefits of openness

    There is no doubt that the freedom of movement that has accompanied globalization and openness has brought great benefits to the country. Foreign companies investing inRussia now employ several hundred thousand Russians. The presence of a large number of foreign firms collaborating with Russian companies has produced employment with decent salaries, introduced new technology, and enhanced the skills of Russian managers. In addition, access to the international market has provided consumers with diverse options for buying goods and services. Even those with meager incomes benefit because the international market delivers goods and services at a low price.

The Russian education system and scientific community have also benefited from the regular stream of visiting foreign scholars that more openness has provided. This trend resembles the way in which scholarly interactions were practiced prior to the Russian revolution, especially in the first half of the 19^th century. The return of some Russians, after they have earned scholarly degrees in the West, can only be seen as having a positive impact on Russian society. Even one of the president’s aides has a Harvard degree. In addition, the permanent stream of Western movies, actors and musicians have made the cultural life inRussia incomparably brighter than in the past.

Exclusive benefits for the upper middle class        

While having a more open society has benefited the entire country in many ways, it is especially true for people of a higher social status. This includes those who hold a relatively high bureaucratic position, educated people working in the media and arts, middle- and high-level business people, and those who are employed in the financial sector. The upper middle class makes up 10% of the population, and earns a decent income by Russian standards. Indeed, while the average household earns $500 per family member a month, the upper middle class earns more than a $1,000 per family member. 

     According to available data, the members of the upper middle class have been able to significantly enhance their quality of life in post-SovietRussia. In particular, they have gained the ability to buy expensive high-quality foreign consumer goods and services. In fact, 20 percent of them now buy from abroad, rather than relying on domestic sources. They may also take a foreign vacation two or more times a year.

The benefits for elites     

The upper middle class has clearly been better able to tap the benefits of openness and globalization than the lower classes. However, it has been the political and economic elites who have gained the most. They make trips toLondonandParisfor weekend getaways. They celebrate with birthday parties at the most famous and exclusive resorts around the globe. They seek healthcare at the best hospitals the world has to offer. Many members of the elite make sure that their children attend the best high schools and colleges that Europe and theUnited Stateshave to offer; they often seek to secure permanent residency for them so that they can stay after they complete their schooling.   Those who are of child-bearing age even go so far as to try to have their children born abroad so they will receive citizenship in the country of their birth. 

Interestingly enough, the ability to consume superior goods and services from foreign countries does not reflect the most important role the external world plays for the elite. These countries offer safeguards for their personal and financial security. This desire to secure their wealth abroad stems from the uncertainty that comes with living in a politically unstable country. Indeed, almost all of them would face criminal prosecution and have their assets frozen if the regime were to change, because their wealth is tainted with illegal activities. Thus, the elite often stash their wealth in offshore bank accounts, buy stock in foreign and hybrid foreign/Russian companies, and purchase luxury real estate abroad. Nobody in Russiawas amazed when newspapers such as the Moskovskii Komsomolets or Argumenty i Fakty reported on the foreign stock holdings of Tatiana Golikova, the Minister of Health Services. Nor were they shocked when it came out that First Deputy Premier Minister Igor Shuvalov owns real estate inAustria andEngland. In short, investing abroad is like buying an insurance policy.

Almost every high official has a close relative who is actively involved in managing their offshore holdings. Indeed, the fact that the wife of the Omskgovernor, Leonid Polezhaev, has stock in foreign companies—as was recently reported in the newspaper Novay Gazeta—amazed nobody in the country because it is such a typical scenario. The foreign countries serve as insurance for more than high officials, though. The minister of internal affairs, Rashid Nurgaliev, has acknowledged that many middle-ranked police officers have property abroad. Today, Russians own or rent 400,000 houses inBritain, 350,000 inGermany, and 250,000 inFrance.

 Another elite group enjoying the newfound freedoms that have come with more openness has been the Russian mafia. Criminal associations no longer have to risk having their common assets—which were once used to help arrested criminals and their families—confiscated by police. They can now easily hide their personal and “public” assets abroad. The Russian media have made numerous reports about the legions of criminals and corrupt officials who are able to safely hide overseas.

The Russian leaders as beneficiaries of openness

Much like the elite as a whole, the top Russian leaders have an interest in secretly establishing safeguards in the West. Putin and his close friends, like Igor Sechin, have gone as far as merging Russian semi-state companies with foreign corporations that promise them either direct or indirect ownership of legitimate Western stocks. Hardly anyone inRussiais blind to the fact that the top leaders and their advisors have established a “golden parachute” for themselves abroad. Far from being unique, this practice of officials ensuring their interests in other countries parallels the actions of many leaders of contemporary authoritarian regimes in Central Asia orAfrica.

Ironically, the leaders who secure their interests overseas often go into ideological diatribes against the West—particularly theUSA—threatening hostile actions.  These cannot, however, be treated as a serious attempt to strengthenRussia’s geopolitical role in the world. All of Putin’s and Medvedev’s anti-American declarations are aimed only at convincing the public and military that they are Russian patriots, to sustain their flimsy legitimacy. Even their attempts to address the weakness of the Russian army are largely a propaganda smokescreen.

The actions and behaviors exhibited by the current Russian leaders to ensure their future fortunes have very little precedence in Russian history. Neither the last Russian tsar, Nikolas the Second, nor any of the Soviet leaders were as focused on personal gain as Putin and his gang.  Perhaps only Anna Ivanovna, one of the first heirs to Peter the First, can even remotely compare. She governed the country with her German lover, Ernst Biron, and other foreign advisers between 1730 &1740.  Putin’s personal indulgences, such as his love of organizing a variety of expensive international sporting events, parallel her personal whims. Meanwhile, the country suffers from low-quality medical services, an inept system of education, bad housing and many other problems.

Openness and democracy  

The assumption that openness always promotes democracy and guarantees it will function turned out to be wrong, since the extension of openness and the fading away ofRussia’s fledgling democracy have been evolving simultaneously.

Open borders can actually help the regime to stifle democracy. Considering the growing crackdown on any opposition that threatens the current administration, the ability to travel has provided a conduit to encourage those who challenge the government to leave the country. Indeed, the Kremlin routinely suggests that such people should emigrate because they might face harassment, or even imprisonment.  In doing so they have merely modified the practice employed by Brezhnev’s regime in the 1970s, when it discovered that it was possible to use Jewish and German emigration to rid the country of undesirable people in order to save Détente.

Paradoxically, openness has led to a decline of the positive role the West has played in Russian political affairs. Today, Western donors provide only meager financing to Russian liberal organizations. When compared with Putin’s fierce persecution of opposition leaders, this small token of commitment can hardly provide the necessary resources needed to combat the return to authoritarian rule.  This is a serious threat to freedom and democracy, yet the West, for the most part, sits on the sidelines. 

Openness as a blow to Russian patriotism 

Openness has had a major impact on Russian society by diminishing the loyalty and respect Russians have toward their country. The closed society of theSoviet Unionmade it difficult for people to access information about life abroad. This made it impossible to even think about leaving Soviet society for another country. In the 70s, Andrei Sakharov believed that, even if they had the right to choose their place of residence, no more than 10 percent of   the first-rank Soviet scholars would prefer to live in the West. Sociological data show that people tend to ignore the higher standards of living of other people if there is no real chance of achieving the same. This helps to explain why societies can be stable even when there is a high degree of social inequality. Ones’ neighbors tend to be the source of highest envy, while moguls inNew Yorkare not. Hence, since people in theSoviet Uniondid not have even a remote possibility of moving to the West, the higher standard of living there was considered out of reach. Random nationwide surveys that I conducted in the 1970s showed that most Russians obediently followed the logic of the fable about sour grapes. This allowed them to be comfortably convinced that the quality of life in their country was much higher than that in theUnited States. 

Globalization, which carries a heavy Western influence, radically changed the world’s perceptions about attaining upward mobility, as the Western lifestyle suddenly seemed to be within the reach of the masses. Even if most Russians do not have the money to travel abroad, one-third of them now have relatives or close friends who live abroad, and most people know of someone who has traveled to a foreign country. In the past, American movies were limited in their ability to release in theUSSR. There is now a torrent of foreign films, particularly American, on all of the television channels. This has exposed all Russians to the affluence of foreign lifestyles. In short, more openness has changed their views on attainability, even if some of those views are utopian.

During the Soviet times, the high standard of living enjoyed in the West did not spoil the mood of the Russians; it is now one of their sources of deep frustration. According to the Levada-Center, half of the population did not have confidence in their near future at the end of 2010. The collapse of Soviet ideology, combined with the possibility of traveling outside the country, has made emigration and temporary residence abroad both acceptable and attainable for many people. No longer are emigrants condemned as traitors for their actions by an absolute majority. Today, only 14 percent of the population disapproves of emigration. Most of those who disapprove—many of them are old and have a low level of education—are unable to take advantage of the opportunities that can come with more openness. Thus, their condemnation of emigration is often a way to rationalize their disadvantages.

Emigration as a fixture in Russian life

 Emigration is one of the most important elements of Russian contemporary life. According to official data compiled by the Auditing Chamber, 1,250,000 people have leftRussia in the last three years.  As one Russian journalist noted, this number compares to the mass exodus of nearly 2 million people following the October revolution. According to conservative figures produced by VTSIOM, a  pro-governmental public opinion firm, one out of seven Russians want to leave the country for an extended period of time. 36 percent of all Russians, and 52 percent of those with a higher education, know someone who has emigrated. The Levada-Center reports that 53 percent of the middle class want their children to go abroad permanently, while up to 30 percent of business people are considering their own emigration.

The attractiveness of living abroad has motivated those with the ability to emigrate—I refer to these as “active” people—to do so. Assets that help facilitate this group in moving abroad can include having a higher education, a professional career, sports and music skills, and wealth, as well as having connections with powerful people abroad. As one analyst noted, these people “are the best and brightest.” This trend of active people moving abroad is by no means uniquely Russian. Indeed, the same pattern occurs in any country where people have the necessary assets to make seeking better opportunities overseas a viable option. Nor is it a phenomenon that takes place exclusively between countries. Those who have the means to seek better prospects by relocating within a particular country often do so.

For many active people, the attraction of going to a foreign country stems from more than the promise of a higher standard of living; some of them, particularly the elite, already enjoy a high standard of living.Russiais a place where energetic Russians and foreigners can get rich under the right conditions (e.g. the ability to collude with the bureaucracy). Material factors alone are not, therefore, sufficient stimulation for them to leave. For many Russians, it is the possibility of self-actualization through the use of their full skills and talent, combined with the possibility of increasing their standard of living, which provide the major incentive to leave their home country.   

 Another driving force for people seeking emigration is the desire to live in an orderly society. This is true for both the elites and the population as a whole. It is mostly the elites, however, who fear for their own safety and that of their families. Even though they employ guards and live in gated communities, there is always the threat of kidnapping. While this risk cannot be compared with countries likeMexico, the threat is always there. This scenario, along with a lack of security in holding property, has undoubtedly led many Russians to think about emigrating.

Education as the most powerful stimulus for emigration

Studies show that, inRussia, a high level of education, whether or not the person actually holds a degree, increases the desire to emigrate.  In 2008 one-third of those who had pursued a higher education wanted to live abroad in one capacity or another (e.g. as temporary or permanent workers, students, etc.). Only 37 percent of highly educated people declared they were indifferent to going abroad. The motivation to leave is particularly high for scholars. According to official government data, 25,000 first-rate scholars left the country between 1989 and 2004, to reside overseas permanently. In addition, another 30,000 first-rate scholars have taken temporary positions abroad. This trend has also spread the diaspora of Russian scholars, as they are increasingly taking jobs in places where they previously had little contact (e.g. South East Asia and theMiddle East). Two-thirds of the population believes that these scholars will never return; the data support this view.

It is not just sophisticated people with a higher education and scholarly talents who are likely to emigrate. Many Russian musicians are members of the most prominent orchestras, and Russian athletes have joined soccer and hockey teams around the world. This ability to go overseas has had a huge impact on the prospects for women, who make up a large percentage of the active people. Indeed, it is difficult to name one performance at eitherNew York’s Metropolitan opera or the Bastille opera inParisthat does not include Russian women. It is also difficult to find a Western country where women have not emigrated as mail-order brides. This is due in part to the perceived “exotic beauty” of Russian women.  This perception has also led to an increase in sex industry work. Oftentimes these women leaveRussiato seek an exciting “life abroad.”  

The students look abroad  

Emigration is certainly on the mind of the country’s young and talented people, even in the face of great uncertainty and risk. The pursuit of educational and vocational aspirations has fueled this gaze abroad. Unfortunately, Russian students suffer from a lack of teachers, music tutors, and sports coaches at home. This, combined with a lack of adequate training facilities, has led 15 percent of new degree holders to leave the country each year. These talented students display a higher willingness to emigrate than older and more mature scholars. They choose to attend high-quality graduate programs at foreign universities, in order to attain the education that their elders received under the Soviet system. Indeed, you can hardly find a foreign university that does not have Russian graduate students.  Perhaps the most telling indicator that students seek better prospects abroad is the fact that 45 percent of college graduates are considering emigration, while only 18-24 percent firmly desire to stay inRussia. Unlike graduate students from other countries, only a few Russian students choose to return to their country after graduation.

The negative impact of emigration and immigration on the mood of the country

While optimists may have an unwavering faith in the intrinsic abilities of Russians, even they cannot fail to consider the negative psychological effects emigration has on those who stay.  These are people who have the same mentality as the peasants who stayed in the countryside during the 1960’s and 70’s, while young and educated people went to the city to seek better prospects.  In both cases, many of the people who stay behind acquired a feeling of inferiority.

While more openness has led to high levels of emigration, it has also led to a growing number of immigrants from Central Asia and theNorth Caucasus. Most of these new arrivals have a low level of education and seek jobs as unskilled laborers. Several Russian analysts lament the fact that the vacuum being created by Russian intellectuals leaving is being filled by low-educated people who do not have professional skills.           

The decline of professionalism

The openness of the country has also contributed to the dominance of feudal-based, non-meritocratic criteria—especially loyalty and nepotism—for the selection of cadres. Paradoxically, within theUSSR’s closed society, the influence of political considerations in the selection of cadres had less of an impact on a person’s ability to get a job than the influence of personal considerations today for the most important positions in Putin’s open and “free”Russia.

Many young people refuse to devote themselves to professional careers in the sciences, engineering or medicine, as their fathers and grandfathers had previously done during Soviet times, because Russian society does not appreciate work in these key spheres. Lacking faith in the opportunity to develop an honest career at home, many professionals are pursuing options abroad. Hence, the media has covered a variety of stories highlighting the low level of professionalism within the country, from the Kremlin all the way down to police officers, pilots, intelligence officers, teachers, scholars, and doctors. For example, Russians watched in horror as their military, which has become increasingly incompetent, lost theKursksubmarine. They also viewed the botched attempts of the special services to save hostages during several terrorist attacks. Last but not least, they had to endure fires in and aroundMoscowduring 2010, as poorly trained firefighters tried to put them out.  Indeed, the cult of professionalism, which was quite high in the Soviet Union era, has almost disappeared in contemporaryRussia.

 It was remarkable that Medvedev raised the issue of professionalism in Russian society at a major meeting of Russian and foreign scholars on May 22, 2011. It was pointed out at the meeting that, despite a large number of university graduates, it is still difficult to find 20 young professionals who would be skilled enough to work in Skolkovo, the Russian tech hub located outsideMoscow. Medvedev also noted a lawyer who got his law degree from a technical college, while another doctor he knew studied law. It is ironic that the fundamental sciences were in better shape during the Soviet period than they are now, despite the fact that the country was then closed.

 
Openness and the economy

While globalization and more openness have brought some benefits to the Russian economy, the negative consequences of open borders have been enormous. The increased concentration on exporting oil and natural gas has openedRussiato the “Dutch disease” of relying on fuel production to earn most of their revenue. Russian leaders are mostly concerned with facilitating the production and distribution of oil and gas for foreign consumers, by helping Russian and foreign companies extract these resources. The theme of the de-industrialization ofRussiais permanent, according to an analysis of the Russian economy byMoscowauthors. Even the military-industrial complex has suffered from openness, as the army increasingly refuses to buy military equipment made inRussia, preferring arms made in NATO countries—an organization that is still formally considered to be a potential threat!  

Openness and separatism 

Russiafaces another big challenge in its ability to keep the country’s federation cohesive. Putin was able to stifle the most egregious forms of separatism during his tenure. However, he was not able to address the root causes of the separatist tendencies due to the combination of foreign influence and the strong feudal elements within his regime. Today,Moscow’s prestige is lower than it has ever been in Russian history. The capital is treated with contempt by many provincial residents, who seeMoscowas an occupying force whose only interest is in exploiting their territory while providing little in the way of help and assistance. Thus, regions in the Far East have much stronger economic ties with neighboring countries—China,JapanandSouth Korea—than withMoscowand the European part of the country. The same can be said of theKaliningradregion. The republics of North Caucasus, Chechnya, and even Tatarstan—located in the heart of European Russia—have strong relationships with theMiddle Eastas well as the rest of the world.

Conclusion

For both better and worse, globalization has influenced nearly every corner of the world, although to varying degrees.Russia’s ability to check the destructive processes that have accompanied openness depends on strengthening institutions that can mitigate these processes. Feudal relations, corruption, crime, separatist tendencies, and the personal enrichment and power consolidation of the elites and the highest leadership are collectively eroding the institutions and cultural beliefs that make a country united and strong. This has putRussiain a weak position for resisting terrorism, and/or potential attacks from its neighbors. In short,Russiais not in a position to be a major geopolitical force despite its nuclear arsenal, the size of the country, its natural resources and its position within the UN Security Council.

The destructive impact of openness onRussiawould no doubt be even stronger if oil and gas prices were not so high. With the enormous revenues generated by the export of fuel, the Russian leadership is, so far, in a position to mitigate various shocks within society, including those generated by openness. With the potential fall of fuel prices, a scenario that the Russian leadership hopes will not happen in the next decade, the precarious stability within the country might be tested to its limits.

A recent article in Novaya Gazeta by Alexander Ausan, a prominent economist and political scientist, depicted a gloomy scenario if the country’s leaders do not liberalize and modernize Russian society. He predicts that, if the current situation does not change, the majority ofRussia’s wealthiest people will be living inLondon in ten years’ time. The active people who do not leave the country will end up working as the guardians of the properties of moguls living (mostly) abroad, while Tadzhiks will make up the majority of the labor force. Their employment will be supervised by the managers appointed by those living inLondon.  All talented children will immediately be moved abroad.

While the exaggerated dystopian future picture painted by Alexander Ausan is hardly realistic, there is a serious probability thatRussiawill become a very different country if it is unable to make the necessary adjustments.

Vladimir Shlapentokh

It is only natural that, as Russians watch the developments in Egypt, Libya and other countries in the Middle East, they assess the dramatic events from their own domestic perspective. Given that Russian society is deeply polarized, and the major political players have vastly different interests, views throughout the country on the events in the Muslim world are radically diverse. There are four major factors that determine the Russians’ views on these developments: their attitudes toward Putin’s regime; their acceptance or denial of the universal character of democratic values; their assessment of the Islamic fundamentalist’s power throughout the world, and particularly in Russia; and their appraisal of the standard of living in Russia.

The Rulers

Russian leaders are clearly troubled by the turmoil in the Middle East. With their steadfast faith in the power of the authoritarian regime, it is unfathomable for them to reconcile with the thought that such a regime could instantaneously collapse.  Even on the eve of Mubarak’s resignation on February 11, 2011, official Moscow and its journalists were confident that the Egyptian regime would survive.

Until the recent events in the Middle East, Moscow’s current leaders dismissed any internal threats to the frailty of Putin’s vertical power and chalked up any warnings from rival parties to wishful thinking by the opposition.  It is true that the “orange” revolutions in Tbilisi (2003) and Kiev (2004) frightened the ruling elite and prompted the Kremlin to toughen its repressions against the opposition. However, by 2008, any apprehensions the Kremlin had regarding the stability of the regime had subsided, and confidence in the order had rebounded in full. Only with such «incredible conceit,» as Mikhail Gorbachev recently noted, could Putin and Medvedev decide between themselves who would preside as president next year. Their audacity also gave the Russian leaders the unbridled ability to almost openly command the judge to sentence Mikhail Khodorkovskii to a second term in prison—despite public protests both within Russia and abroad. This marked arrogance also explains why the leaders have virtually ignored the ostensible cooperation between criminal organizations and authorities throughout the country, which became evident in the aftermath of the November carnage in Kushchevskaia, a village in the Krasnodar region. To the surprise of the people, none of the high officials, who were evidently found to be in collusion with the criminals, were reprimanded.

Putin’s and Medvedev’s faith in the stability of the regime is based on the nonsensical idea that a spontaneous unrest of massive proportions is impossible without the existence of a strong oppositional political party and persuasive leaders. Since the Russian leaders have not seen any serious political opposition in Egypt, Libya or Tunis, the insurrections in these regions took them by complete surprise. It is, thus, understandable that official Moscow has underscored the idea that the unrest in the Middle East was organized by some “foreign forces.” While in Vladikavkaz in February, President Dmitry Medvedev went so far as to say that there were outside forces at play, and that they were plotting a similar revolution against Russia. In another statement via his twitter account, the Russian President attributed the destructive and fatal events in Libya to Western special services, “which prepared the same scenario for us.” He was even sure that said special services “[would] try to implement it with even more energy.” As a matter of fact, the doctrine of the foreign origin of all “orange revolutions” was created by the Kremlin immediately after the first one began in Georgia in 2003. This same doctrine had been used to explain the terrorist acts in the North Caucasus.

However,  it was  Putin—not Medvedev, who has attempted to hold onto the regime’s ambivalent attitudes toward the West—who expressed the Russian elite’s true feelings about the developments in the Middle East, when he spoke of the crucial role the USA has played in sponsoring the rebellion against the governments in the region.  Putin’s outburst of anti-Americanism was prompted by the airstrikes made by coalition forces in Libya. In these military actions Putin saw one thing, first and foremost: an attempt to eliminate the leadership of a country the USA does not like. In his comments made on March 21 in Votkinsk, a city known for its military complex, Putin not only blasted all of the United States’ major foreign actions of the last decade, but described the goal of the war in Iraq as “the elimination of the Iraq government” and underscored the point that “even children in Saddam Hussein’s family were killed.” And when Putin used the Libyan events as an additional argument for reinforcing Russia’s defense capabilities, it was obvious how much he perceived his personal fate as being tied to the developments in the Middle East.

Of course, when the Russian leadership discussed the developments in the Middle East publicly, they did not even attempt to make a parallel between Middle Eastern society and Russian society, because Russia, as they assert, enjoys the benefits of both democracy and a high standard of living. Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, declared that drawing parallels between Russia and the situation in Egypt was “incompetent,” reacting to an earlier comment made by U.S. Senator John McCain. The first premier minister, Igor Shuvalov, asserted that the country needed changes but warned that the transformation of society ought to be carried out «without mass disturbances or any other social calamities,» such as those in North Africa and the Middle East. In their descriptions of the events in Egypt, Russian leaders have been sure to never mention the word “freedom,” or to bring up their severe disapproval and contempt for the dictatorship. Instead, they focused on the violence, anarchy and destruction happening in the region.  Russian leaders do see a parallel to the events in the Middle East, but only in relation to North Caucasus. They are, indeed, concerned that the mass revolts in Muslim countries could have a negative impact on the Muslim republics in that area, especially now, when the situation in that part of the country has gradually been deteriorating over recent months. Putin’s declaration in Brussels about the possible carryover of events into the North Caucasus region was evidence of the Russian rulers’ concerns.  The current state of affairs, particularly in the republics of Dagestan and Kabardino–Balkariia, where one terrorist attack has followed another in the last months, is indeed terrible; Moscow almost lost control over the region.

Official Media

Reflecting the position of the leaders, the official media has reported on the events in Cairo and Tripoli with barely veiled irritation. During the days of the rebellions, the differences between Russian and American television have been spectacular. Whereas all American channels, from Fox News to MSNBC, have been greeting the rebellious Egyptians with excitement and predictions of a new democratic era in the Arab world, Russian television has shown only very moderate sympathy for the rebels. Official television analysts have tried to downgrade the international and domestic importance of the Middle East developments as much as possible, as have authoritarian regimes across the globe, from China to Venezuela. This is additional evidence that the Russian ruling elite, with all its harangues about democracy, are well aware of the camp to which their regime belongs.

Almost up until Mubarak’s resignation on February 11, the main television channels did not hide their sympathy for him, using kind words about his rule whenever possible. Before Mubarak’s resignation, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, warned the West against supporting the popular uprisings in the Middle East, in what some analysts saw as a sign of the Kremlin’s concern.  Reflecting the disarray in the minds of the ruling elite, Aleksei Chadaev, a leading member of the pro-governmental party United Russia, rebuked Medvedev and his aides for their hostile attitudes toward Qaddafi on March 17 (Moscow did not vote against the resolution of the Security Council regarding the no-fly zone), suggesting to the president that he figure out what he will do in the case of an armed rebellion in Moscow.

It is typical of Russian television that, following the model the leadership set forth, the emphasis of their reports is on the economic deprivations of the Egyptians and Libyans, and on the general chaos in those countries that have rebelled against their dictators.  Whenever possible, the televised media have tried to deflect attention away from the political role of the rebellion and the overwhelming resentment of the people toward the ruling authoritarian regimes, in the hope that the masses will not make a direct connection between the ruling regimes in the Middle East and their own government.  The advocates of Putin’s regime have drawn the attention of the Russian public to a factor that has mostly been ignored in America—the harm the revolutions have done to the economy. They suggested that the damage brought by the rebellion is much larger than the consequences of corruption. As one Moscow author wrote, just three weeks of the Egyptian revolution did as much damage to their economy as one year under Mubarak’s corruptive rule.

Of course, much like the government leaders, the official televised reports have said nothing about the commonalities between the Russian and Egyptian problems.  The major focus of the reports has been on the uncertainty of the outcome and on the economic—not political—roots of the rebellion. The anchor woman on one news program described the damage done to the Egyptian economy and their standard of living with particular gusto. It was an evident anti-revolutionary message to the Russian people, as well as to the intellectuals who have beckoned the masses to take to the streets. With unveiled enthusiasm, the official media developed the Kremlin’s theory that the West was the driving force behind the turmoil in the Middle East.  Even Google is considered, by the deputy premier minister Igor Sechin, to be an agent of the American special services, which can be used as a catalyst for chaos.

The Russian leaders—not unlike Western officials—have generally avoided speaking about the Islamist factor in the developments in the Middle East. Major discussions about this sensitive issue were assigned to the official media outlets and their propagandists.  Most of the official Russian experts, like the president of the Institute of the Middle East, Evgenii Satanovskii, have predicted a strengthening of fundamental Islam. In this respect, the liberal analysts really do not differ from many Russian professional propagandists such as Mikhail Leontiev. They all predict the ultimate victory of Islamic radicalism in the Muslim countries, and then use this threat as a warning to Russian critics of the regime: only the existing leadership can act as a bulwark against national radicalism in Russia.

The Masses

Despite the authorized rationing of news reports from Egypt (several days before Mubarak’s resignation, the main news channel simply ignored Egypt as they reported on news from the Nile region), the events in the Middle East garnered great attention by Russians. According to the survey of the Fund of Public Opinion, 89 percent of Russians knew about the events—an extremely high indicator for a society that has become deeply apolitical and mostly indifferent to events abroad. During February, the public’s interest in the events in Cairo and Libya was only slightly less than its interest in the terrorist attack that took place in a main Moscow airport in January 2011.  Most Russians are in full agreement with the official media, and believe that the cause of the developments in Egypt and other countries in the Middle East were not due to the yearning of the people for freedom and democracy, but due to the low standards of living. Fifty percent of Russians supported the economic explanation of the events, while only 8 percent pointed to political reasons, such as the infinite and indeterminate stay in office by the current leaders; few, however, mentioned a lack of freedom and democracy. How great an effect the events in the Middle East will have over the behavior of the Russians has yet to be seen. The truth is that, while the authorities and the media present the developments in the Middle East as irrelevant to Russia, the masses perceive these events differently. In a February 2011 survey, forty-six percent of Russians disclosed that they felt that an uprising like that in the Middle East could, indeed, occur in Russia. However, there has been no evidence in the last months that the people have changed their usual patterns of behavior.  According to a nationwide opinion poll conducted by the Levada Center in February 2011, sixty-five percent of respondents believe that mass protests against falling standards of living or to protect people’s rights are unlikely in their city or town. Meanwhile, 28 percent of those polled regard an uprising as possible. There was not much of a difference in numbers when compared to a poll taken back in 2008.

Liberals

Unlike the official media and hack intellectuals, most liberals have no illusions about the striking similarities between the political regimes in North Africa and Putin’s. They draw attention to the fact that the leaders in Russia, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries have created a mere façade of democracy. The liberals also claim that in both the Middle East and in Russia, the assertion of an existing multi-party system is simply a false declaration; Moscow, Cairo and Tunis tolerated only a single party as an instrument of the regime. All of these authoritarian regimes created fictional oppositional parties and have refused to permit the registration of any party that could act as true opposition. In all of these regimes, the media has been heavily regulated by the government, and the outcomes of the races have been pre-arranged.  Liberals have paid special attention to the remarkable similarities between Russia and the Middle East in the massive role of corruption in society and the leaders’ involvement in illegal commercial activity.                           Despite being united in their perception of the similarities between Putin’s regime and that of the Middle East, the liberals are divided about the lessons that could be drawn from the developments in this region of the world. The events in the Middle East could only fuel the heated debates about the future of democracy in Russia and the attitudes of ordinary Russians toward universal democratic values.

The majority of liberals does not believe in the universalism of democratic values and are pessimistic about the democratic future of Russia, mostly because they hold strong beliefs that ordinary Russians do not need democracy and are hostile to it. With such views regarding their own people, they do not believe—and here their views converge with the officials in Moscow—that the people in the Middle East want democracy and freedom. The mass revolutions in Egypt and Libya, with their negation of autocracy and their call for freedom, have been entirely unable to shake the convictions of these liberals, who insist that democracy as a political order can only function in the West and has no future in either Egypt or Russia. These liberals agree with the official media’s assessment of the role the Islamic factor has played. They are very much afraid of the growth of Russian nationalism—again, a congruency with the ruling elite—which reared its ugly head during the riot in Moscow’s Manezh Square in December, 2010.

The liberals are sure that it will not be democratic but Islamic values that will ultimately prevail in all of the Muslim countries, in the aftermath of these mass disturbances. Leonid Gozman, leader of the pro-governmental liberal party, “the Union of Right Forces,” is confident that, after a short period of euphoria, Egypt only has two alternatives: a return to an autocratic regime run by the military or an autocratic regime run by the Islamists.  Leonid Radzikhovskii is sure that, even if an election takes place, the results will be the same as in Gaza: a full victory for the radical Islamists. Some liberals even hailed Mubarak as a good leader who saved his country from the Islamists. These liberals predict that in the event of a mass disturbance in Russia, and in the case of a true free election, rabid nationalists would come to power. In their skepticism of democracy as a universal value, Russian liberals are in the opposite camp from the American politicians who, like Elliot Abrams in the Washington Post, William Kristol in the Weekly Standard, or David Brooks in The New York Times, talk about the imminent triumph of democracy in the Muslim world and the failures of the clash civilization theory. Some liberal pessimists connect the imminent victory of Islamists in the Middle East with the offensive launched by Muslims in Europe. With their fear of Islamists, it is only natural that the liberals see the Egyptian army taking full control as a positive situation, even if the military’s presence circumvents the democratic process.

Few Optimists

Only a tiny group of Russian liberal optimists saw the developments in Egypt as a good sign for their country. To be sure, they are strong believers in the universalism of democratic values and in the high probability of a democratic victory in Muslim countries. They deny the fatalistic view of a victory for the Islamists, and assume that Russia will follow the example of Tunis and Egypt in “their move toward democracy.” Mikhail Gorbachev said that he is «ashamed» with the way Russia is run today, and warned the Kremlin that it could face an Egypt-style uprising.  Boris Nemtsov and Garry Kasparov, two oppositional leaders, share the view that “Russia is just like Egypt, Tunisia or Bahrain, where people can take to the streets for freedom,” and «a spring of freedom awaits us, too.” Journalists like Aleksandr Ryklin joined the handful of oppositional voices, praising “the Great Arab Democratic Revolution,” and mocked those who do not believe in the possibility of removing the authoritarian regime in Russia. Writing in a very liberal online journal, Ezhednevnyi  Zhurnal, Vladimir Nadein said that the recent events in the Middle East have «made obvious» the ways in which “personalistic regimes are born, grow and ultimately fall,» and that “these generalities apply to many of the countries in the post-Soviet space.” As blunt as Nadein is, Igor Eidman, in his blog on Ekho Moskvy, is even more so. He argues that, despite what «Russian bureaucrats» say, «an anti-bureaucratic revolution is the most probable end of the current regime in the Russian Federation, just as it has been in Egypt and elsewhere.” In the article, “The Suicide of the Kremlin,” Matvei Ganapolskii is no less confident that “the disorder in Russia is unavoidable,” while Yuliia Latynina exclaimed on March 1, 2011 that “there is the smell of the February Revolution of 1917 in Russian air today.”  Stanislav Belkovskii, a prominent analyst, also feels that “the current Russian regime is similar to the collapsing Arab regime,” and that the new habit at Moscow parties of the high monde, mocking Putin, heralds Perestroika Two.        

Leftists and nationalists

The Communist and Nationalist critics of Putin’s regime, along with the optimistic liberals, were rather elated with the insurrections in the Middle East. Like these liberals, Communists see the rebellion in the Middle East as a warning to the Russian ruling elite.  However, like their leader Gennadii Ziuganov, they do not see the causes of the developments in Middle East in the lack of democracy in the region but in the «extreme poverty, the dissatisfaction of the educated section of the population and a rapid increase in prices.» He also downgraded the role of democratic tendencies in the Middle East.  The nationalists are even more aggressive than the Communists in their readiness to see the turmoil in the Middle East as a bad omen for Putin. A nationalist site referred to Medvedev as «the Kremlin Mubarak,” and predicts the demise of the regime. Remarkably, neither the Communists nor the nationalists can rid themselves of their anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. They assert that the developments in the Middle East were inspired by the United States and the Zionists.

The Hope of Liberals: The Internet

Under the impact of the developments in the Middle East, some critics of the regime—both liberals and leftists—place their hopes in the idea that the internet, particularly twitter, can play the same revolutionary role in Russia as it has across the Middle East. They point to the popularity of some blogs that are very aggressive toward Putin’s regime, like the new anti-corruption blog by Aleksei Navalny, which now heads a crusade against corruption. As Dmitrii Gudkov, chairman of the opposition youth organization Young Socialists of Russia, contends, 18-20 million people are following blogs like Navalny’s. However, several Moscow observers have doubts about the possibility of the Internet and social networks stimulating a Russian revolution. They refer to Russian born author Evgenii Morozov, who, in his now famous book, contends that the authorities can easily stop the use of Internet technology against the regime, and even manipulate it for their own benefit.
Pessimist liberals were called upon to not exaggerate the danger of social networks to the authoritarian regime, not only in Russia but also in countries. Twitter addicts are not necessarily nice revolutionaries, and users can ransack public buildings, as happened in Kishinev last year, or be extremely violent, intolerant and prone to Islamic radicalism.

Conclusion

First and foremost, the reaction to the developments in the Middle East exhibit, once again, how deeply insecure the Russian leaders and the ruling elite feel about themselves.  Indeed, in most of their public presentations, Medvedev—and Putin in particular—boast about the progress of the Russian economy and its democracy; about its growing role and presence in the world; and about their successes in fighting corruption and crime. Both leaders are publicly confident that, in any scenario, one of them will be the next Russian president, even as the government leaders and official media have tried to persuade the Russians that there are no similarities between the societies in the Middle East and Russia, and, thus, there is no way that the rebellions against these other authoritarian regimes can be seen as a threat to Putin’s regime. However, the ways in which the developments in Egypt and Libya were shown on Russian television, together with statements made by both leaders, tell a different story. The fact that Moscow, which now mostly refrains from anti-American propaganda, officially declared that the United States sponsored the turmoil in the Middle East, and plans to do the same in Russia, reveals how deeply these events have impressed the leadership and how much it is afraid of sudden riots in its own country. At the same time, most liberals, with their pessimistic outlook for Russia’s future, believe that a mass insurrection in Russia—as well as in the Middle East—can only bring the deeply anti-Western and anti-democratic forces to power.

Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question  and the thriving   anti-Semitism in contemporary England

                   By Vladimir Shlapentokh

Among the countless authors who have reviewed Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard, there were a number who took the play’s billing of a comedy and farce at face value. As a result of this blatant misinterpretation, these ingenuous critics used their literary skills to erroneously portray landowner Madame Ranevsky as funny and amusing in her stubbornness. Ranevsky’s refusals to accept the truths of her past, as well as her unwillingness to sell her cherry orchard against common sense, indeed became sources of humor rather than declarations of her tragic faults. These critics were also inclined to ignore the social drama that evolved in Russian society on the eve of the Russian revolution. Likewise, a majority of the reviewers of Howard Jacobson’s novel, The Finkler Question—and those from British publications (i.e., The Times, Guardian, Scottish Herald, or The Scottman) in particular—have proven themselves comparable to the remiss admirers of Chekhov’s play.  Even James Wood, who hails from the supposedly sophisticated magazine The New Yorker, categorically affirms that “Howard Jacobon’s ‘The Finkler Question’ is an English Comic Novel,” as did a reviewer of the novel from the Los Angeles Times.

The title of the book—The Finkler Question—conveys an unmistakable message; at its core, it is a novel about the life of Jews in England. Yet, several reviewers saw the main point of the novel very differently. For them, the novel is about the love life of Julian Treslove and his complicated relationship with his friend, Sam Finkler. Unbelievably, of the four excerpts from the book that were published in The New York Times on October 12, 2010, none of the selections even mentioned “the Finkler question,” i.e., anything related to Jewish issues and anti-Semitism in England, which are, in fact, the main themes of the novel. Of course, in no way did the organizer of this rubric have the same intentions as the Soviet editors in the 1940s-1980s, who expunged the words “Jew” or “anti- Semitism” from the media and from novels. (The only exception to this unspoken law was Anatoly Rybakov’s Yellow Sand, which became a sensation in the USSR precisely because of the references to Jewish people and anti -Semitism.) Indeed, The Finkler Question should be read primarily as a drama about the lives of British Jews during the first decade of the 21st century, who lived in perpetual fear of random brutal attacks, as well as in a state of permanent humiliation brought upon them by the British public and media. From start to finish, cases of physical and verbal assaults against Jews were interspersed throughout the entire novel. The play, “Sons of Abraham,” which our heroes saw in a London theatre, is fairly ignominious, as it was narrated by Jacobson from the notorious Goebbels’s movie “The Ewige Juden” (The Wandering Jew). It is sufficient to say that the play’s authors equated Auschwitz with Gaza. In his novels Counterlife (1986) and Deception (1990), Phillip Roth also talked at length about British anti-Semitism in the 1980s, however he wrote very little about the public harassment of Jews in England.

Some may say that Jacobson created a distorted image of modern-day England as a country where Jews had to be concerned about their safety and dignity. They may even characterize Jacobson’s depiction of England as a country hostile toward Jews as a gross exaggeration; perhaps even “hysterical.” (The term “hysterical” was used by Jews—the protagonists of the novel—to describe the spurious character of Jewish fears in England.) A considerable portion of the book is devoted to the creation of the museum of Anglo-Jewish Culture in London. In the novel, the museum acts as a besieged place. The museum’s director, a Jewish woman named Hephzibah—along with her non-Jewish lover, Julian Treslove—is in perpetual anticipation of acts of vandalism or physical assault.  Those reviewers who disagree with Jacobson’s pessimistic diagnosis about the life of Jews in England simply have no right to ignore the harassment of Jews as an essential element of the novel. As Jacobson illustrates in the novel, Britain has used other excuses to justify its anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist stance in the past, but is now using the Israeli-Arab conflict to rationalize its true feelings, and as a new way to justify its profound anti- Semitism. Again, it is necessary to remember that the Soviet Union used the words “Zionism” and “Israel”widely, as code names for trivial anti-Semitism. 

Meanwhile, most reviews of the book, like those published in the London Times, Scottish Herald or The Guardian, do not even mention British anti-Semitism. Even the Jewish press was reluctant to talk about British anti-Semitism. Dovid Efune, the director of Algemeiner, avoided the subject, suggesting that the Jews stop seeing themselves as victims. David Sax from Public Radio did not completely ignore the issue, but he was hesitant to mention that “the specter of anti-Semitism makes many British Jews wary of drawing attention to themselves,” placing the emphasis on Jews imagining anti-Semitism, rather than on “real British anti-Semitism.” Kyle Smith from The New York Post not only neglected to mention anti-Semitism in England, he found the novel to be a product of philo-Semitism. Only Ron Charles from The Washington Post makes an exception in this group of deniers of British anti-Semitism.  He understood the tragic essence of this “comic book.” He even cites one character as saying that, «After a period of exceptional quiet, anti-Semitism was becoming again what it had always been—an escalator that never stopped, and which anyone could hop on at will.» All those who deny the existence of British anti-Semitism should become acquainted with Anthony Julius’s Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England, which came out in 2010 simultaneously with Jacobson’s novel. Julius’s historical account almost completely shares Jacobson’s vision of the plight of Jews in England.  

The book’s main character and popular philosopher, Sam Finkler, gives the appearance of a typical assimilated British Jew. His name is used as of metaphor for Jews—and, here, the title of the novel—“the Jewish question.” However, he is not a satirical figure (as Madame Ranevsky is for the primitive Chekhov’s critics) but a tragic personality. Just like many other Jewish intellectuals in Russia and America, in order to avoid discrimination and feel comfortable among Gentiles, Finkler has tried to expunge as much of his Jewish heritage from his memory as possible

He demonstrated his allegiance to the non-Jewish establishment by joining other like-minded Jews in a movement against the Jewish state, “the ASHamed Jews,” which is satirically portrayed by Jacobson. However, by the end of the novel, after watching the hypocrisy of his Jewish partners in the denigration of Israel, and the anti-Semitic behavior of his own son, who was inspired by the ideology of “ASHamed Jews,”   he turned from a glib pet of TV programs into a deeply depressed person who could not find the way for the adjustment to a British society full of prejudices about Jews.

There are two personalities for whom the sympathy of the author is obvious, yet who are opposed to Finkler: his friend Julian Treslove, and his deceased wife,Tyler.  With the first, Jacobson made a brilliant literary move. He used Treslove, a freelance intellectual, to describe the life of British Jewry through an outsider’s point of view.  Julian is an evident failure who is not deprived of the envy of his successful friend. Yet, envy, one of the most important sources of anti-Semitism, was not used in this way here. Rather, it pushed Julian to a genuine desire to understand the ways of the Jewish people. Jacobson is such a sophisticated novelist and thinker that he even allowed his hero to partake of some of the stereotypical views on Jews–Julian believes in the seemingly special obsession Jews have with sex—even if those same views are exploited by anti-Semites.  Julian is eager to understand specific elements of the Finklers’ life, particularly those having to do with Jewish rituals and traditions. Ironically, while Sam Finkler shunned the Jewish rituals, Julian enjoyed and appreciated them to such a degree that he, in effect, accepted Judaism into his life and moved to become a full-fledged member of the Jewish community, though he ultimately failed to do so.  Still, Julian stays in our mind as a genuine friend of the Jewish people, with all their merits and flaws.  What is more, he believes that the “non-authentic  Jews” he deals with prefer to not see the truth; he believes that they will not awaken to the true plight of the Jews until another Holocaust. He can see this “because he was outside it [the Jewish community].”    

                Finkler’s wife garners our sympathy, probably even more than Treslove.  Again, as an outsider who is not the victim of rationalization, she understands the real plight of the Jews and the threat of growing anti-Semitism better than her husband. She is implacable about the despicable behavior by Shmuel  (it is she who uses his real Jewish name, and not “Sam”) and his colleagues in ”the Shande Jews.” Debunking the sophistry of anti-Semitism, in her posthumus letter to her husband, she demands he consider why he should “judge Jews by a more exacting standard” than others? 

Another antagonist in the novel is Finkler’s friend and mentor, Libor Sevcik, an old Czech Jew in his 80s. He arouses very mixed sympathies. He illustrates, perhaps better than Finkler, the demoralization of British Jews, and perhaps of all European Jews who “are aroused by the odor of fear.” He had a brilliant career as a movie journalist, and seemed to hold a radically different position from Sam’s in the first half of the novel. Libor appeared to be an admirer of Israel and, indeed, he often argued with Sam and his anti-Semitic Jewish friends about this issue. However, by the end of the novel, Libor becomes deeply depressed. This is primarily due to the death of his dearly beloved wife Malkie (to be sure, portraying the romantic relationship between two elderly people can be regarded as a type of masterpiece in prose). While profoundly upsetting, though, personal matters were not the only cause of Libor’s depression. He had come to the tragic conclusion that anti-Semitism was eternal; that everybody—Jews and non-Jews—are “fatigued” about “the Finkler question.” “There has to be a statute of limitations,” declared Libor, as he proposed to stop fighting anti-Semitism.   He is now sure that fighting against anti- Semitism is meaningless. What is more, he openly—and, to some degree, unexpectedly—turned out to be genuinely supportive of anti-Semitism in its most vulgar form. His major argument is the ugly character of his wife’s parents. He goes so far as to say, as stated by his old friend Emmy, “we get what we deserve.”  In her opinion, her old friend, like many other Jews, is the true anti-Semite because “few people see [the] archetypal Jew every time they see him,” unlike Libor, who looks at Jews through the lens of an anti-Semite. In a final act of capitulation, Libor refused to help Emmy, who asked for his help in protesting an assault on her blind grandson.

 The level of the demoralization of the British Jewry is impressive. In its depiction, the author exploits his great satirical talent on a grand scale and does so in such a subtle way that the reviewers (mostly British), did not catch the message. Jacobson is indeed merciless toward the so- called “non-authentic Jews;” those who try to hide their ethnic origins (the term was introduced by Sartre in his brilliant essay The Reflections on the Jewish Question, 1944). Besides the ASHamed Jews, we meet Tamara Krausz, a hysterical anti-Israel activist for whom the Zionist ideal was criminal from its inception. We read about Elvin Poliakov, a representative of “the tribe” who specializes in the derogation of the Jewish tradition of circumcision. He spends most of his free time trying to reverse his own circumcision and in spreading word of his experiences through a blog, complete with photos. And there are other Jews who have found special satisfaction in praying while wearing P.L.O scarves.

It is an act of brilliance on Jacobson’s part to have two Gentiles and eventual Jewish converts—Julian Treslove, and Finkler’s wife Tyler—be the primary sources of support for the Jews in the fight against anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. These two  acknowledged that mistakes were made by Israel; still, they asked their opponents why Israel was singled out as the culprit when so many other states have committed much more serious crimes than the Jewish state.  On what grounds, they asked, being joined by Emmy,  are Israel and the Jews held by higher standards than others?  Without knowing it, Jacobson’s noble Gentiles repeat the famous phrase of Zev Zhabotinsky, a prominent Zionist: “allow us Jews, as ordinary people, to have our own scoundrels and not to be blamed as a whole Jewish nation for them.”

Here is an amusing observation, which is strongly supported by my personal experience from Soviet life. In the novel, women are bolder and more intellectually honest than men in dealing with “the Finkler question.” Tyler, Hephzibah, and Emmy are much more outspoken about the actual status of “the Jewish question” in England. They call a spade a spade. They do not avert their eyes from the violence directed against Jews, as the men do—even a man as wise man as Libor. They do not humiliate themselves by espousing various rationalizations, which aid the men in asserting that everything is just fine—as Sam Finkler does. Even between the two Gentiles who became the defenders of the Jews, Julian and Tyler, it was the woman who was most consistent in her views.

 When I was leaving the USSR in 1979, I observed the behavior of people around me who, after truthfully filling out the application for an emigration visa, were considered to be enemies of the state. While collecting data from about 300 people in an informal and secret survey, I came to an unexpected conclusion: the bravest and most honest were Russian women (comparable to the non-Jewish Tyler in the novel), and the most pusillanimous were the Jewish men (analogous to Samuel Finkler). How misguided was the reviewer from The New Yorker who very assertively wrote, “This is a decisively male and modern version of Jewishness.”  On the contrary, it is a novel where women defended their “Jewishness” in a hostile environment much better than the men.
                The novel, and particularly the reaction to it, prompted a very sad conclusion. With great sorrow, I watched how many Russian Jews tried to hide, or at least to diminish, their connections to “the tribe” during my Soviet life. For a Jewish man, marrying a Russian woman was one of the most popular ways to achieve this task. The more “advanced” Jews went so far as to simply deny the existence of Soviet anti-Semitism.  I knew those who did this, even during the mass discharge of Jews during the anti-Cosmopolitan campaign of 1949-1953. With the dream of countries without anti-Semitism—a dream that was stronger than my historical and sociological education—I believed that the United States was definitely such a country. My reading of the Gentlemen’s Agreement in the late 1970s was a terrible blow to this dream. But even this first glimpse into American reality could not prevent me from the disheartening shock and amazement I felt when I met a number of nice Jewish professors in my department, who, against all evidence, behaved as if they had nothing in common with Jews. Still, I found a climate in the USA in which I could say to my students that I am Jewish. The sudden outburst of anti-Semitism in Europe under the cover of the critique of Israel, which was all too familiar to me, pushed me almost to depression. Jacobson boldly approached the issue and deserves our greatest respect. But even more, he dissected the British Jewish community and showed it in a very unflattering way. The reaction to his novel, particularly in Britain, was additional evidence of how correct his analysis was.                                                                                                    

                Let us try to reconstruct, with some risk, of course, Jacobson’s attitudes toward  “the Finkler question.” The author is, no doubt, a committed Zionist and supporter of the Jewish state. He found, by all accounts, his direct mouthpiece in Sam Finkler who, by end of the novel, returned to his deep-rooted allegiance toward the Jewish people and Israel. In his passionate tirade about the Gentiles’s being haters of Israel, he mentally united with his late wife, who would definitely have been proud of his reconversion. “How dare you, non-Jew, even think you can tell Jews what sort of country they may live in, when you, a European Gentile, made a separate country for Jews a necessity?

       Jacobson, however, recognizes the fact that many Jews continue to live in the diaspora; in England, among other countries, choosing various lifestyles, with different levels of devotion to Jewish religious and cultural traditions.  He evidently likes his heroine, Hephzibah, who, while a great defender of Israel, is not “a land-centered Jew” and who wants to enjoy her life in England. It seems to me that Jacobson is an advocate of soft multiculturalism. He likes those of his personalities who are fully loyal to the Jewish people and are implacable toward anti-Semites, particularly among Jews. He wants the preservation of Jewish heritage in the life of Jews, even if he is sometimes ironic about some of the old Jewish rituals. At the same time, he is against the “harsh” multiculturalism that was recently condemned by David Cameron, the British Prime Minister.  The author of The Finkel Question has little sympathy for the separation of British Jews—or Muslims or several other ethnic groups—from British society in general. Jacobson does not use his satirical ammunition to mock the idea of the museum of Anglo-Jewish Culture, and both of his positive heroes are strongly involved in its creation. He did not condemn Finkler for his activity on British TV, but he is disgusted by the yearning of the popular TV philosopher to forget his origins. No doubt, the recipe for the British Jew on how to balance between the ideology of “harsh” multiculturalism, and the betrayal of the Jewish people and state of Israel is not simple. It is not an easy task for American Jews either, as I know from my own observations.                                 

And here is a sociological conclusion: With all my antipathy toward post-structuralists, I have to agree with one of their theses, which puts forth that there is no canonical interpretation of this book. Indeed, the survey of reviews implies that the reviewers read different books. Again, we find proof of a good Marxist maxim—that ideology unceremoniously dominates over facts.  Tell me what your attitudes toward anti-Semitism and Israel are, and I would tell what you will see in The Finkler Question. Of course, Derrida could only celebrate his triumph with such a sophisticated, subtle, deeply intelligent, wise book as this one.   

PROPOSAL  FOR THE BOOK

WHAT AMERICANS CAN’T DO IN THEIR PRIVATE AND PUBLIC LIFE: THE EXPANSION OF RESTRICTIONS IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

Vladimir Shlapentokh

This book has the ambitious goal of persuasively suggesting that the trend toward ever-increasing freedoms, which has been a distinct characteristic of the Western world since the late Middle Ages, has always been combined with an antithetical movement:  the curtailment of freedoms.  This second less-publicized trend has gathered considerable momentum in the last few decades and serves to make society even more complex than it was in the past.  We use the American experience of the last twenty to thirty years to prove this thesis.

          For many readers, particularly those whom are the most patriotic and smitten with their country, the title of this book, “What Americans Can’t Do In Their Public and Private Life,” will seem paradoxical or even downright weird.  After all, this is the land of the free.  Indeed, there is no country in the world with such a cult-like fascination with freedom as the United States has.  This intense focus on freedom has been there since the beginning, as it was a major rallying cry of the American Revolution.  In fact, throughout history no other revolutionaries keyed in on the concept of freedom as much as the Yankees did.  But it is not just Americans that see the United States as a beacon of freedom.

          Despite the rabid anti-Americanism across the globe, most of the world’s people continue to see America as the ultimate symbol of freedom, which is one of the reasons why the desire to emigrate to the U.S. from almost anywhere in the world has not waned for over a century.  However, to see American society as one in which people enjoy –or should enjoy as suggest the libertarians –unadulterated freedom in all spheres of life is very unrealistic and simplistic.

          The authors of this book accept a pragmatic definition of freedom:  the ability of people to choose one of many alternatives available to him or her in a certain sphere of life.  In fact, the expansion of alternatives available to people in their everyday life was one of the magisterial developments in American history.  Consider many of the most heralded constitutional amendments such as the 1^st Amendment, which promised the freedom of religion, press, and expression, the 2^nd Amendment, which gave Americans the right to bear arms, the 13^th Amendment, which gave former slaves the right to be citizens, and the 19^th Amendment which allowed women to vote.  All of the above expanded the availability of alternatives.  These amendments gave more freedom to the people.  Some other amendments used a slightly different means to reach the same end as they focused on restricting the government’s legal authority to interfere with the freedoms of private citizens.  For instance, the 4^th amendment made it necessary for governmental entities to obtain a warrant prior to performing many searches, and the 5^th amendment protected the property of citizens from arbitrary seizures.

          Although a solid case can be made that freedom expansion has been occurring since the inception of the United States, a new spurt of freedom growth occurred after the 1960s in tune with the civil right movement.  What started when Rosa Parks defiantly refused to observe the restriction which did not allow her to take any free seat on the bus ultimately resulted in the removal of various restrictions that were previously imposed on women and other minorities.     

While gradually expanding freedoms, American society has also been concerned with introducing various restrictions not only on its government, as previously stated, but also on its people.  As a matter of fact, most rules of society are restrictive society, while very few serve as guarantors of freedom.  This society, with all of its Lockean respect for human beings, rejected the romantic idea that people could just rely on the inherent rationality or learned virtues of one another in achieving a prosperous and kind society.  Instead, at least to a degree, Americans recognized the need for restricting the actions of people.

          Indeed, further evidence of the process towards the curtailment of freedoms can be seen by looking at a related trend –we name it “civilizing” –which has played a very important role in American society since the very beginning.  This trend was brilliantly described in Norman Elias’s book The Civilizing Process (1939).  Elias posits that the process towards civility began in the late Middle Ages when the people started to obey restrictions which did not permit people to throw garbage out their windows or to eat meet without a fork and knife.

            The acceleration of the civilizing trend in American has been inspired by a variety of things.   Firstly, due to the growing concerns about accommodating “others,” numerous restrictions have been adopted during the last few decades.  For instance, language that derides or offends any one of many particular groups has been banned.  Secondly, restrictions have been placed on the educational system, many in hopes of overcoming the rich racist heritage of the country.  Thirdly, society has become more involved with protecting human beings against dangerous habits like smoking, unhealthy fat consumption, imbibing of alcohol, and recreational drug use.  Fourthly, with concerns about the integrity of the physical environment permeating the public consciousness, many restrictions have been levied on citizen behavior in hopes of protecting the Earth’s vast ecology.  Lastly, due to the increasing salience of terrorist threats and in hopes of stymieing potential attacks in their tracks, freedoms, such as those related to privacy, have also been limited.

          Something that has both contributed to the expansion and restriction of freedoms is technological innovation.  Often, the implementation of new technology triggers hot debates about how much freedom a person should be granted in using it. Take, for instance, cell phone usage. While this miraculous new technology expanded the ways in which people could communicate enormously, society quickly and vehemently begun the discussion regarding which restrictions should be put on cell phone usage.  Many of these restrictions are so ubiquitous that most of us blindly comply, apathetically failing to consider neither rhyme nor reason for the restrictions.  Consider that before the departure of each flight the flight attendant asks passengers to turn off their cell phones. The same request is often addressed to spectators in a movie theatre, the audience in a concert hall, or the student in the classroom.  These restrictions limit the alternatives available to the people.

          The authors of this book describe and analyze the role of restrictions in the major spheres of everyday life of Americans (the restrictions which limit the behavior of individuals as actors in their professional spheres in which they earn their income will be the subject of another book). We discuss the impact of restrictions on the life of Americans as consumers of education, health service, entertainment, and sex.  In addition, we will also elucidate the ways in which Americans are limited in what they are allowed to do at the beach or theatre.  We show that even from the insides of their own homes, the behaviors of Americans are severely limited by restriction.   As citizens, people are regularly confronted with the push and pull of freedom and the limits imposed on it.  The election process, a person’s communication with “others,” and almost all other actions that occur in our public and private worlds are shaped by the options, or lack thereof, available to us.

           For the purposes of this book, we will exclusively be looking at the freedoms available to a person as a consumer, as a member of various personal relationships with others, and as a citizen.  Essentially, the portion of an individual’s life which can be lumped together under the rubric “every-day life” will be the domain in which we elucidate and critically analyze the presence of freedom restrictions.   How a person is limited in his or her work life will, for the most part, be the subject matter of a future book.

          Along with identifying the various limitations of freedom, another important goal of this book is to illuminate the controversial nature of each restriction and sketch the major arguments of the political discourse surrounding these incendiary issues.  To be sure, the restrictions mentioned in this book form the basis of many hot political debates.  For instance, particularly fervent discussions persist around whether or not people should be allowed to have guns, abortions, or be forced to submit to intense screening prior to boarding a commercial jetliner. 

                   This book and its bold agenda should attract much attention both within the U.S. and abroad.  In fact, in the last two decades no one book has been published that could be treated as a rival to this one.  Two contemporary books are related to our subject: How To Do Things With Rules by British authors William Twining and David Miers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) and Practical Rules by American author Alan Goldman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).  These are useful texts for studying the legal and moral issues related to the behavior of the individual; however, both books avoid sociological analysis of the issue and the role of society and its agents in defining rules and, in particular, restrictions. The authors of both books do not even use the concept of restrictions (or of constraints or prohibitions) and do not separate, at the theoretical level, the freedom of choice and the manifestation of restrictions. The first book discusses rules in a narrow, almost exclusively legal way, mainly focusing on the interpretation of rules.  Indeed, the book by Twining and Miers, which is clearly addressed to law school students, does not analyze the broader social issues related to the debates surrounding the role of restrictions in society.  While Goldman’s book takes a different substantive bend, it still does not enter the zone of sociological analysis, as it is mostly focuses on the moral issues involved with rules.

          There are also books that discuss restrictions in some particular area of life, for instance, in regards to the conservation of nature, in the use of private property, or in what American’s are allowed to eat.  However, all of these texts have very narrow perspectives.  At the same time, dozens of books, mostly of the libertarian persuasion, promote the idolatry of freedom of choice and a simplistic vision of American society, both as it is and as it should be.  Even those books which denounce the violation of civil rights by the government approach the issue largely ignoring its complexity.

          Our book provides a broader, more inclusive, and more nuanced sociological analysis of various restrictions built into the fabric of the society in which we currently live than do the aforementioned texts.  Also, our book accurately characterizes the sharp debates in America and abroad about the role of freedom of choice and government in contemporary society.  However, we do not wish to join an ideological camp in relation to these issues, and thus hope the contents of our book will provide readers a fresh non-partisan look at American society.  Furthermore, due to our intent to remain value-neutral throughout the pages of our book, we hope that our text can provide readers an impartial background that can be useful in helping them define their own position on these important issues.

Vladimir Shlapentokh

Russia’s future evolution will depend greatly on the status of the Russian intellectual community, particularly that of the cultural elite who are considered the cream of the intelligentsia. This intellectual community is comprised of people whose careers require creative abilities, such as scholars, writers, film directors, actors, journalists, and others who are engaged in non-traditional activities. (There are, of course, many false intellectuals claiming creative abilities without actually showing any; the hack writers or journalists who only serve the political regime come to mind.)

In fact, the intellectual community, with all of its diversity, is the single greatest catalyst for change in authoritarian or semi-authoritarian (hybrid) societies. Aside from their day jobs, this community performs three public functions: first, is the creation of a realistic public image of society that opposes the official, and usually more optimistic, depiction of society; second, is their active participation in oppositional activities against the authorities (such as protest letters and declarations, and participation in meetings and demonstrations);  third, they are responsible for the advancement of the new ideas necessary to bring great change to society. In 2010, the famous Russian actor, Sergei Yurskii, contended that the Russian intellectual community is the single fermenting element keeping society alive, rather than allowing it to ossify. Indeed, particularly in Russia, history has shown that as a rule, the business class is much less likely to resist authoritarian power than intellectuals. Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s case is a good illustration of this thesis. Almost

none of the Russian “oligarchs” came to his defense, either during his two trials or after his imprisonment (most of the oligarchs even hailed the Kremlin’s decisions); only the intellectuals showed their anger over Khodorkovsky’s arrest and two trials.

Now, under Putin’s rule, Russia is going through a rare period in its history when the Russian cultural elite is not playing an active role as an oppositional political actor, and is not able to offer ideas for change in society. Paradoxically, the ability of the intellectuals to perform its three public functions depends greatly on the ruling elite’s attitude toward them. In a very repressive regime that perceives its intellectuals as a potentially hostile force and that takes no interest in their creative activities, the politically active intellectuals end up serving as propagandists for the regime while the rest remain in “internal exile.” At such times, intellectuals are not able to provide society with a realistic image of itself. They cannot help society by becoming an oppositional force, nor can they offer new ideas for change that will attract the masses.

The intellectual community has faced this situation twice before in Russian history when the leaders were indifferent to the intellectual activities in the country: during the period of Tsar Alexander III, and during the three decades following the revolution. In three other periods – those of Katherine the Great, Nikolas I, and Stalin after 1946 – the rulers held mixed attitudes towards intellectuals, so their repressions were combined with concerns over the role of the educated class in society.

Tsar Alexander III: A Target of Admiration in Putin’s Court

The first display of profound hatred toward intellectuals was during Alexander III’s monarchy (1881-1894). This tsar, with his sheer anti-intellectualism, was unique in Russian history before the revolution. He was the first Russian tsar to declare an open enmity for education and culture, along with an unconcealed hostility towards democracy. He solidified the latter with his proclamation of the most militant slogan of the Russian nationalists: “Russia for Russians.” He abolished the autonomy of Moscow University (in 2009, Putin did the same with all the leading universities), and strongly constrained admissions to schools for children from the “low states of society.” The tsar was the first to endorse laws imposing restrictions on the media and in libraries. During Alexander III’s time of great repression, the lives of Russian intellectuals were mostly “frozen,” a term often used from those times.

Alexander III, who was the epitome of obscurantism for many generations of the Russian intelligentsia, became a muse for the filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov, a friend of Putin’s and creator of “The Siberian Barber” (1998), in which he placed himself in the role of his beloved tsar. With great enthusiasm, Mikhalkov takes advantage of every opportunity to cite the deeply anti-democratic statements of Konstantin Pobedonostsev, who was the head of the Russian church and one of Alexander III’s main advisers. In his writings and talks, Mikhalkov refers to a number of conservative figures in prerevolutionary Russia, such as Pobedonostsev. Mikhalkov cites Pobedonostsev ’s “The Great Lie of Our Times,” in which Mikhalkov’s pet politician wrote, at the end of the 19^th century, «it is terrible to think of our condition if destiny had sent us the fatal gift—the all-Russian Parliament.”

Lenin’s Disdain of Intellectuals

The second time intellectuals became the target of hatred and persecution happened in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution. When the Bolsheviks, who were ironically a highly educated people, came to power using the maxim regarding the female cook’s ability to run a society, they exerted a great deal of effort in denigrating the intelligentsia, who had enjoyed great prestige in pre-revolutionary Russia. Lenin correctly saw the intelligentsia as the enemy of the new regime. In 1922, the Kremlin expelled nearly 500 highly educated people, the crème of this intelligentsia, to the West. Maxim Gorky, a famous and, at that time, independent writer, undertook the exceptionally difficult task of saving as many writers and scholars as possible from starvation and persecution. He regularly appealed to Lenin, his friend, to save some of them from Cheka, and was actually successful in some cases. A number of famous philosophers were among the ranks of the deported intelligentsia.  In September 2010, Russian intellectuals discussed the departure of two “philosophical ships,” (the name for the ships that deported intellectuals from Russia) from Petrograd (currently known as Petersburg), and the consequences of the anti-intellectual policy of the government at that time. They tried to use this event as a warning to the current rulers of Russia about the consequences of the anti-intellectual policy Putin’s regime has been pursuing.

Mixed Attitudes toward Intellectuals during Soviet Times

For all of their repression, Stalin’s regime radically changed the status of the intelligentsia in the late 1930s, turning it into a greatly respected stratum of the population. In addition to that respect, after 1946, the creative intelligentsia also began to reap the rewards of material wealth.

Never in Russian history has the ruling elite treated intellectuals as well as during the post-Stalin era. The totalitarian system continued after Stalin, of course, harassing those intellectuals who directly challenged it. There was only a brief period, following the Prague spring, when the Kremlin launched a fleeting anti-intellectual campaign. This ended up being very superficial and had no impact on the life of the intellectual community.

Stalin’s heirs regularly invited scholars to the Kremlin, which had created a network of research institutes to serve as the bases for expertise on various issues. Even Nikita Khrushchev, with his reputation as an emotional leader with a propensity for making impulsive decisions, regularly asked the scholars for advice, and created the Council of Science in the Kremlin. In the post-Stalin period, Soviet society accorded enormous prestige to intellectuals. In fact, Soviet youth propelled scientists to the top of the prestige ladder.

The Intellectuals as Providers of an Objective Picture

Perceiving a heightened sense of importance within the regime, the Soviet intelligentsia claimed to be the nation’s brain. It praised members who defied the authorities with a sober analysis of the state of the country and suggestions about what society should be doing. It is clear from the post-mortem analysis that, in reality, only a handful of intellectuals such as scholars, writers, film directors, and journalists, were closest to understanding the nature of the “hard reality” of the Soviet system. The desire to tell society “what indeed is going on” was the inspiration of those who created the new science, empirical sociology. The liberal journal “The New World” (Novyi Mir) saw publishing literary works and essays about the genuine life in the country as its major goal.

The Protest Activity

The Soviet intellectuals were indeed the vanguard of the country’s oppositional activity. They were the only ones to write non-conformist articles in the official media, and people treated those who spread their texts in Samizdat and took part in various protest actions like heroes (actually, intellectuals have always played similar roles in any authoritarian society that ever existed including China and Latin America, among others.) As I discovered through my national surveys in the 1960s and 1970s, scholars like Sakharov, Arzimovich, and Leontovich, as well as writers like Okudzhava, Vysotsky, Galich, Paustovsky, and Evtushenko were the models for civic behavior people most often mentioned. The absolute majority of the Soviet dissidents of 1960-1980s were intellectuals; people from other categories of the population were the exception.

It was only natural that as soon as Perestroika began, the intelligentsia was the energy that transformed society. In fact, the first slogan “Glasnost or Openness” was primarily addressed to the population’s educated class. No other group of the population supported Mikhail Gorbachev as much as the intelligentsia. Gorbachev always surrounded himself with scholars as his advisers. The intellectuals celebrated Perestroika as the moment they finally became the recognized leaders of the country.  As part of my personal life experiences, it is both amusing and heartbreaking to remember how conformists during the Soviet times, unwilling to recognize their own cravenness and materialistic motives, derogated brave and honest intellectuals like Vladimir Bukovsky and General Grigorenko as crazy people. In today’s Russia, we see similarities in the derogation of a few intellectuals, such as Boris Nemtsov and Garry Kasparov, who fight the regime.

Sakharov’s Case

Andrei Sakharov and his fate symbolize the critical role of intellectuals in Soviet society and their task in understanding the nature of Soviet society. It also explains why the Soviet totalitarian system tolerated such intellectuals. Sakharov was a physicist. His creative mind demanded highly developed critical faculties, which made it possible for him to draw a realistic picture of the “hard Soviet reality.” Yet, Sakharov was able to take part in political debates in the Soviet Union only because he held the high prestige of a very important scholar for the authorities.

Sakharov’s case confirms the idea that only critical intellectuals, and not the conformists, can make a sober analysis of the social realities in an authoritarian society. While commemorating the anniversary of Andrei Sakharov’s death, Dmitry Bykov (one of several brilliant intellectuals in post-Soviet Russia) mused about what might have happened with the Soviet Union, had the Soviet leadership paid serious attention to Sakharov’s political writings and his vision of the facts. Bykov postulated that if the Soviet leadership had taken Sakharov’s beliefs seriously, if they had seen them as a “fresh” perception of facts (and not as an attempt to undermine their power), the Soviet Union would have survived as a state. Sakharov’s work, The Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom, appeared in 1968. It was, in many respects, a “foreword” to the ideological program of Mikhail Gorbachev, who made his proposal less than 20 years later.

Projects for the Future

The intellectual community in the post-Stalin era was brimming with projects for the future. The critical intellectuals were most definitely not a homogeneous group. Though almost unanimous in their rejection of the official picture of Soviet life, they differed amongst themselves in their vision of the future for Russia. Some of them insisted on a special historical path for Russia, pushing for a nationalistic state that was even more despotic than the Soviet one. However, the greater part of the intellectual community dreamt of a democratic evolution in Russia. My survey of the political views of the Russian intelligentsia in the late 1960s found, unequivocally, that the majority of both the creative and the general intelligentsia were in favor of a liberal society. The surveys done in the midst of Perestroika in the middle 1980s confirmed the dominance of liberal views among the intelligentsia.

The Radical Change in the Status of the Intelligentsia during Putin’s Era

During Putin’s regime, the public role of Russian intellectuals declined to one of its lowest levels in Russian history, particularly in the last 8 decades.

From the very beginning, Putin’s regime revealed its hostility, at best described as indifference, to the intellectual community. With the self-confidence of the KGB agents who “[knew] life much better than anybody else,” the new elite did not feel it was necessary to consult with the intellectuals about politics. During his talk show on December 16, Putin spoke about “the liberal intelligentsia” with great contempt, using his typical gang slang. In fact, the ultimate cause of the ruling elite’s indifference towards the intellectual community can be found in their decision to transform Russia into an authoritarian state, which was a necessary condition for perpetuating their political power indefinitely, as well as for securing the property that they had acquired (mostly illegally) following the collapse of the Soviet system. As they were choosing an ideological rationalization for this political course, the slogans about the partial restoration of the Soviet empire and the restoration of Russia’s geopolitical place in the world, which were used mostly for domestic propaganda, only had a modest impact on the actual actions of the Russian leaders in foreign policy matters.

The high price of oil and gas made it possible for Russia to abandon its plans to go forward with the modernization of the economy, and for the government and the intelligentsia to cooperate—both of which were necessary in order to preserve the elements of democracy from the 1990s. Remarkably, the Russian church shares the Kremlin’s contemptuous and hostile attitude toward the intellectual community. This is largely due to the intelligentsia’s resistance to the idea of transforming Orthodoxy into the state religion and its expansion into all spheres of public life. The Russian patriarch, Kirill, expressed those negative attitudes toward the intelligentsia when he accused it of participating in the persecution of the church during Soviet times.

Low Role in the System

There are many indicators of the intellectual community’s decline in status in Putin’s Russia. The first indicator is the amount of financial resources dedicated to Russian science. In October 2010, the vice president of the Academy of Science, Gennadii Mesiatzev, noted that the “the size of the budget of the Russian fundamental science is equal to the budget of an American provincial university.” To be sure, scholars are practically nonexistent in the presidential administration and the government in general. Unlike in the past, the Kremlin rarely keeps scholars on staff as experts. Society has perceived the Kremlin’s decision to eliminate the formal autonomy of leading universities like Moscow’s and Petersburg’s as a sign of its contempt for scientists.

However, the Kremlin’s attitude toward the Russian Academy of Science was an even greater indicator of Russian leadership’s views on the status of science. Never in Russian history have the leaders of the country treated a major scientific institution such as the Academy of Science as badly as they currently do. Considered the essential center of science and the provider of scientific expertise to all major institutions in the country, the Academy of Science has historically been a highly respected institution, first under the tsars and then during the Soviet times. The Kremlin’s actions to promote science under its own terms with such creations as a scientific town in Skolkovo, and the meetings Меdvedev and Putin held with some members of the intelligentsia, were more like propagandistic tricks and public relations strategies that embody the imitative activity typical of Putin’s regime. Moreover, the falsely extended hand to the scientific community was, as Russian journalists asserted, mostly done to cover up the embezzlement of oil and gas revenues, as well as for laundering money, and thus could not affect the standing of the intelligentsia, which continued to be humiliated in society. Even Putin’s decision to provide a small increase in financing for some of the provincial universities in the country, and increasing the monthly financial aid to college students (which is currently at about $35, with a $2 increase planned for 2011-2013), in addition to the creation of a special program to finance projects with the participation of foreign scholars could not alter the intellectual community’s opinions towards the Putin administration and its position on science.

The spread of obscurantism reveals the most about the anti-intellectual atmosphere in the country. This atmosphere allows crooks to claim to be great inventors as long as those who hold positions of power support him. Victor Petrik’s story is quite typical. Petrik claimed to have invented a filter that could supposedly turn radioactive waste into safe drinking water. In the end, this proved itself a total lie. Petrik has the biography of a typical adventurist and felon. He spent much of the 1980s in prison for smuggling antique furniture, and he learned self-hypnosis from an uncle. Yet, Petrik has received endorsements and contracts from top Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin (before he became prime minister), as well as from major Russian companies. United Russia, the ruling party, regularly gives Petrik prominent roles in events on innovation, while officials, including Russia parliament speaker Boris Gryzlov, have publicly endorsed his products. Despite the negative verdicts by the most prominent scholars in the country, Petrik’s projects are active. Indeed, this man has become so confident in his unconditional support from above, that he even sued members of the Russian Academy for “defamation,” demanding a gigantic sum of money as compensation for damage to his reputation.

The Way to Control the Intellectuals: Fear and Corruption

The indifference of the government towards the activities of the intellectuals has greatly undermined the resilience of the group itself. The significance of the intellectuals, which were among their greatest assets, enabling them to play a critical role in Soviet society, have been all but completely diminished. The ruling elite have resorted to two dependable tactics in order to kill the inclination toward rebellion: fear and corruption.

The mass repressions of Stalin’s times and the more moderate ones in post-Stalin Russia are certainly absent in the political system built up by Putin. Putin realized that the politics of terrorizing people in Soviet times was often accompanied by “over killing.” The same results could be achieved through much smaller repressive actions. The murder of a few journalists and politicians combined with an evident unwillingness to discover the true perpetrators was enough to sow the seeds of fear among many prominent intellectuals. During a radio program on October 31, 2010, journalist Radzikhovsky refused to openly discuss the politics of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader and Putin’s vassal, explicitly saying that he could lose his life if he chose to discuss the matter. Providing the loyal intellectuals with access to the most lucrative positions on television, in the movie industry, and within the state apparatus turned out to be sufficient for taming their desires for self-actualization, or for being not respected by the public and one’s peers. Lilia Shevtsova, a prominent political scientist, perfectly described how the fear of losing their comfortable lives turned intellectuals into obedient myrmidons of the regime, and what the various theories are that they use to rationalize their behavior.

The Docility of the Russian Intelligentsia

The tactics of fear and corruption, combined with an indifference to its activities, created a very docile intellectual community. Its members have been recruited by the authorities to serve in various pseudo-democratic institutions like the Public Chamber, or on the presidential Council on Human Rights, which helped the regime keep a façade of decency before the international public.

No less significant is the way in which outstanding intellectuals openly, and without shame, have groveled before Russian leaders. In a recent meeting with Putin and other prominent figures, not a single person supported the critical comments of musician Yurii Shevchuk, who was treated rudely by the host. In another meeting, this time with Medvedev, famous rock musicians were primarily concerned with flattering the president, which provoked contempt in the media. One journalist directly named the participants of the meeting as servants of the boss. During their meetings with leaders, the most typical action of intellectuals is soliciting financial support for their various endeavors. Despite the miserable state of science in the country, Russian scholars do not dare to defend their professional interests. At the meeting organized by the trade union of the Academy of Science, which met on October 20, 2010, only 300 people were present. None of the people from within the ranks of the Academy joined the participants. The demands addressed to the government in those meetings were related only to the financing of science, and were totally devoid of any political issues.

The group of intellectuals who challenge Putin’s regime today (though mostly in very timid ways) is very small. In her January 2011 article, Lilia Shevtsov could identify no more than a dozen names. While the movement “Strategy 31”  was formed in order to uphold the right to a peaceful assembly, a right guaranteed by Article 31 of the Russian Constitution, and is indeed an important political event, only a few prominent intellectuals have thus far joined the protesters in Triumfalnaya Square in Moscow on the 31st of every month that has 31 days . Very few intellectuals came to the defense of Khodorkovsky, or of Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the liberal opposition, who was brutally arrested on the New Year’s Eve for participating in a protest action of Strategy 31.

It is only logical that during the ten years of Putin’s regime, the intelligentsia has been unable to advance any figure that possessed moral authority, like Sakharov or Solzhenitsyn. In the 2005 survey of the Fund of Public Opinion, most Russians declared that the number of moral authorities in the country had declined drastically. In 2010, Russians were asked to name people who were role models for them and not a single scholar or writer was among the 25 people named. In another survey, which asked people to name the most respected cultural figures, those the Russians named were indeed innovators in their fields, but had almost zero influence in the political arena. Those named included film director Aleksei German, theater director Lev Dodin, pop singer Zemfira, and poet Timur Kibirov, to name a few. Only one of them, Yurii Shevchuk, could be considered a moral authority for Russians, particularly after his public confrontation with Putin in 2010.

Self-Deprecation of the Intelligentsia

It should be noted that the intelligentsia is more than aware of its own miserable status in Putin’s society. Some of them even go so far in their self-criticism as to declare that “the Russian intelligentsia” is dead, “it exhausted its social role,” and that “the masses lost their confidence in the intelligentsia as the bearer of knowledge, as the intellectual leader of the nation.”

While it is impossible to unearth even one voice that will praise the role of the “brain of the nation” in contemporary Russian society, the explanation for this is very complex. Many recognize that money and the yearning for a comfortable or glamorous life has been the main cause of the demise of the intelligentsia. Alexander Yakovlev, one of the leaders of Perestroika, wrote with sadness in the mid-2000s, “the creative intelligentsia enjoys wealth, the support of the authorities and essentially is bought by the Kremlin.” And the famous journalist, Vitalii Tretiakov, suggested that the Russian intelligentsia dreams only of a permanently luxurious life.                                           Indeed, Russian intellectuals yearn for lavish apartments, vacations to Western resorts, extravagant parties, Western schools for their children and, of course, the pleasure of being in close proximity to power. While the lifestyle of the intellectual community’s supposed activities such as attending literary discussions at the Club of Soviet writers, attending classical music concerts, protecting unknown poets and painters, and listening to the tapes of Soviet bards, was imitated by party apparatchiks and their managers in the Soviet times, it is now the Russian intellectual community, together with members of the political elite, who are trying to imitate the exotic lifestyles of Russian moguls.

In their self-rendering critiques, some intellectuals have gone so far as to cast doubt on their own abilities to play the role of the intellectual hub of the nation. The famous television figure, Andrei Maksimov, asserted that the intelligentsia is “naïve” if it believes that “all Russians share the ideals of the Russian classical literature,” and does not understand that most Russians are devoted followers of “glamour ideology,” with its cult of money and luxurious living. He also said that the intelligentsia has lost touch with the masses and its struggle for the soul of the Russian people.

Those among the intellectuals who share in the self-loathing try to rewrite history and attack the role of the intelligentsia in the past. They declare that this stratum was always far removed from real life, and that its atheism and eternal dissatisfaction with the authorities has never been constructive. According to this view, the intellectuals even bear direct responsibility for the victory of the Bolsheviks. Those who attack the claim that the Russian intelligentsia is the vanguard of progress invoke Alexander Solzhenitsyn, known for his denunciation of the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia and its alienation from the ordinary people, as their ally. Even more remarkable is the current interest in the famous collection of the articles in Vekhi (Milestones), with the renowned Nikolai Berdiaev as one of the authors. The book was published in 1909, following the defeat of the First Russian Revolution. He accused the intelligentsia of the irresponsible solicitation of Russians to fight the monarchic regime, the pillar of societal stability. Participants at a special conference in 2009, held in connection with the centennial anniversary of the book’s publication, vividly discussed this particular collection of articles, many of which were in sympathy with the main thesis of the book. They proclaimed that the government saves not only its society, but also the intelligentsia.

The Attitudes toward the Existing Political Order in Russia: A Measure of Conformity

Regardless of their outward behavior, most Russian intellectuals dislike the existing state of their society enormously. Among other things, they refuse to recognize the official position regarding the existence of democracy in Russia, and are inclined to see Putin’s political regime as authoritarian and deeply corrupt. With Putin’s Russia clearly returning to the authoritarian model, the clash between the two paradigms claiming to explain the present state of affairs in any society—the structural paradigm with its focus on the existing political and economic order, and the cultural one with its focus on the crucial role of cultural traditions and the people’s mentality—has been revitalized (in the United States, the conflict between these two paradigms has become particularly strong in recent years, particularly during discussions over the causes of social and racial inequality). A reasonable approach supposes the use of both of the paradigms in an analysis of social life, and recognizes the relative role of each of them in the explanation of social facts. Often, and nearly everywhere — the USA, China, Latin America, and Russia — analysts tend to simplify and exaggerate the role of one paradigm or the other.

In the 1990s, Russian intellectuals (along with many Western experts) were definitely “structuralists,” believing in the crucial role of agents such as the liberal government, which could radically change everything in Russia and make it a contemporary society in a short period of time. Under Putin, the intellectuals have radically altered their views. Now, the majority of them gravitate towards the view that the mentality of the Russian people is a major variable in explaining the emergence and perpetuation of Putin’s authoritarian regime. It is remarkable that the cultural paradigm is just as preferable for the arrant conformists as it is to the defenders of the existing regime and the staunch opponents of it who prefer political passivity. For the first two groups, “the Russian mentality” serves as a justification for their collaboration with the authorities and their acceptance of the non-democratic character of Russian society. For the last group, it serves as a substantiation of their deep pessimism and their passivity in the political life.

The Sociological Support of the Cultural Paradigm

It was the Russian sociologists who provided the data that could be used by both camps in the intellectual community – the conformists and non-conformists. Vladimir Yadov, a premier sociologist in Russia, headed the sociological march in favor of the cultural paradigm that has doomed the Russian people to an authoritarian and corrupt society, perhaps forever. In his leading article, published in 2009, the patriarch of Russian sociology contended that what happened in the 2000s demonstrated the futility of fighting against corruption and tyranny by the officials, because “it always was.”

In support of this view, Yadov cites a number of his sociologist colleagues who provided data in his favor. Among others, Yadov refers to the data of Magoonand Rydven, which showed that “the Russians are characterized by a higher need for protection by the state,” and they “expressed less need for freedom and independence, inclination to risk” than in the populations of Western European countries.

Another champion of the cultural paradigm, which shifts the responsibility for political and economic retardation in Russia back onto the Russians, is Lev Gudkov and his colleagues in the Levada Center. Gudkov argues that the ultimate reason for the “aborted modernization” lies “in [the] full immoralist character of the Russian society.” Strikingly, Russian sociologists also place the blame for its citizens and “national character” onto social passivity; the fact that “an absolute majority, i.e. 90% of the citizens, believe that they are unable to affect any matters that go beyond the nearest circle.”

The Conformist Intellectuals: The Quest for Justification of the Regime’s Support

Prominent journalist Leonid Radzikovsky is a classic example of the conformist intellectual who pretends to be an independent thinker but chooses as his trademark the standard lamentation of the insurmountable Russian mentality. His dirge about the flaws of the Russian character greatly satisfies the Kremlin, even if from time to time, Radzikovsky drops some critical remarks about the regime (though without pointing to specific rulers). In almost all of his radio talks on Ekho Moskvy, he repeats that the prospects for democratization are hopeless because of the authoritarian mentality of the Russian people. He mocked the participation of liberals like Garry Kasparov and Mikhail Kasianov in the Moscow protest march on April 15, 2007. Many other publicists have taken a position similar to Radzikhovsky’s.

The Critics of the Regime

It is almost amusing that non-conformist intellectuals, the critics of Putin’s regime, share the same view about the impossibility of Western democracy in Russia. For the opponents of the regime,owevdr the Russian mentality and Russian traditions, as they perceive them, are the basis for deep pessimism. Valeria Novodvorskaia has impeccable credentials as an oppositional politician. In her venomous attacks against the Russian people, she often refers to them as a “mob.” No less critical of the Russian mentality is the famous fighter against corruption, Georgii Satarov, who portrays the Russians as “archaic people”.

It was Andrei Konchalovsky, a prominent Russian film-maker and publicist, as well as his brother Nikita Mikhalkov (who subscribed to another ideological camp), who came up with the elaborated theory about the fatal role of the cultural traditions in Russian history. He labeled Russian culture as “peasant,” and contended that the same culture, with all its flaws (i.e. the neglect of law, the arbitrariness of the political elite, the inability of people to cooperate, the lack of a civic conscience, and its narrow egotism), is the dominant one in Latin America. He paid special attention to the pernicious role of the Russian Orthodox religion, and suggested that the translation of the Bible into the Slavic language made the study of Latin and Greek irrelevant for Russian priests and all educated people, which in turn removed Russians from the treasures of the ancient world, with its cultural traditions and encouragement for intellectual pluralism.

The most prominent contemporary Russian writers who are critical of the modern Russian reality describe the masses in a similar way to Konchalovsky—as either indifferent to democratic institutions or hostile to them. In the last decades, the novels of such prominent authors as Vladimir Pelevin and Vladimir Sorokin have portrayed a Russian society that is doomed to wallow in violence, obscurantism, despotism, and even absurdity. Their pictures of Russia’s private property and the market economy have become instruments that have only increased the arbitrariness of the cruel political elite and the total passivity of ordinary people. The new literary star, Evgenii Grishkovets, avoids any direct critical or satirical descriptions of Russian society, yet his novels, published in the last five years, show Russian people of all walks of life as deeply apolitical and absolutely indifferent to the political developments in their society, and to the corruption and crimes within it. Only a tiny minority of Russian intellectuals deviate from the majority, challenging the views of “the mental inferiority” of the Russians. Among these “dissidents” are those who are mostly consistent liberals, like Boris Nemtsov or Vladimir Milov. Another minority rejects the idea of accusing the Russian nation of an anti-democratic mentality, shifting the responsibility for the emergence of an autocratic society to the liberal elite of the early 1990s, which betrayed its own democratic principles and created chaos in society.

The Total Support of the “Russian Mentality” Theory by the Kremlin

The paradoxical element of the Russian ideological situation is that the views of most of the intellectuals, in regards to the masses being unprepared for democracy and the fight against corruption, are fully shared by the Russian political elite. In underscoring a rather strange commonality in the views of people who vehemently oppose one another on the nature of the Russian mentality, it is necessary to make a distinction between the public declarations of the Russian leaders and their genuine views, which are indirectly revealed. The difference between the public open ideology, and the elitist closed ideology was typical of the Soviet times.

The Public View: The Regime is Democratic

Both Russian leaders have insisted, in their numerous statements in 2007-2010, that the Russian political system is as democratic as a Western one. In his Munich speech in 2007, Putin simply contended that the West, instead of “teaching us,” “has to learn itself what the genuine democracy is.” Medvedev is not as contemptuous of reality as his mentor. To his credit, even when he was still Putin’s subordinate, he rejected the ridiculous description of the Russian political system as a “sovereign democracy.” However, with mild reservations, he insisted, in his speech at the 2010 Yaroslavl forum, that “Russia, without any doubt is a democracy.”

In order to entangle the issue and make sober comparisons of the Russian political order with the Western systems more difficult, he used certain characteristics of a democracy, such as “the sustenance of the high rate of technological progress,” or “the defense of citizens against criminals,” which are, of course, not directly relevant to the definition of a democracy. A host of Russian intellectuals were in a hurry to support Medvedev’s view about the democratic character of the existing political regime, using various convoluted arguments. For example, prominent sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaia, told the audience at the forum how complex the concept of democracy is, and how many indicators are used in its description (“Freedom of House” uses 7 characteristics of democracy; UNESCO uses 10 indicators), which makes any substantial comparisons with the West almost impossible, and, moreover, allows Russia to assert that the existing political regime is indeed democratic.

The Kremlin’s Disdain of the Masses

In their contempt for ordinary Russians, the Kremlin and its ideologues follow the Soviet leaders who, from Lenin to Andropov, have all held the ordinary Russian people in great disrespect, seeing in each Russian a potential or actual drunkard, thief, deserter or spy. There is little doubt that bureaucrats of all levels—from the governor to the clerk in the village office—share the same contempt, and even hatred, of ordinary people. What is more, the necessity for justifying the authoritarian regime pushes Russian leaders and their myrmidons to describe a Russian life as deeply corrupted and criminalized, plagued with alcoholism, moral nihilism and a very low standard of living, all incompatible with a democratic institution.

The contempt for the ordinary people, the belief that the masses possess a “political immaturity,” and the notion that Russian society is absolutely not prepared for democracy are themes that have, from time to time, crept into the text of the leaders, particularly Putin, with his prolific use of obscene words to describe the masses, especially the opposition. This negative perception of the Russian people has escaped from texts in which Medvedev paints unflattering pictures of Russian life, such as at the Yaroslavl forum, when he absurdly demanded that “Russian citizens should believe that they lived in a democratic state” as a precondition for the transformation of Russia to a democracy. (In fact, no more than one-third of Russians accept the official statement about the democratic nature of the Russian state.) Dropping names of famous Western scholars like Seymour Lipset and Carl Popper, Medvedev made an almost direct hint that poverty in Russia is a major obstacle to democracy.

The novel by Natan Dubovetsky, Near Zero (an allusion to the year 2000) provided even greater insights into the minds of the Russian political elite. It is a consensus in Moscow that the name is a pseudonym for Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s leading ideologue, and the author of the absurd theory of “sovereign democracy.” With exhausting detail, the novel creates an abominable picture of Russia and Russians who, with their criminal propensities, are simply unable to live in a civilized society. The pro-Kremlin writer and journalist, Sergei Minaev, derogates both the opposition and the attempts to build democracy in Russia—which remains a political order deeply alien to the Russian nation—in his novels.

While the authors who blame the Russian people for the actual state of the society are mostly regarded as Putin’s devotees, another group of people close to Medvedev have espoused the same profound mistrust of the Russians’ ability to perpetrate a liberal transformation of the country. In the aftermath of the Yaroslavl forum, Igor Yurgens, the director of the Institute of Contemporary Development, the official presidential think-tank, declared, “Russians are very much archaic,” that “in the Russian mentality the communal values are higher than the individual values,” and that, perhaps by the year 2025, the “Russian people will be mentally comparable in their perception of democracy with the Europeans.” However, Yurgens also “observes [the] de-professionalization, degradation and, lumpenization of Russian society.”

The Superiority of the Russian Mind

Another theory about the Russian mentality, which is also used by the Kremlin to justify its regime, asserts that this type of mentality is superior over the Western mind, and in any case recognizes the advantages of the authoritarian system over a democratic one, thus praising the uniqueness of the Russian path throughout history. However, the disclosures made by those who are close to the leaders, and who have obviously served them, provide deeper insights into the minds of the leaders and the bureaucracy. With his Manifesto (October, 2010), film director Nikita Mikhalkov, Putin’s personal friend and monarchist, became one of the most eloquent heralds of this view by praising “the conservatism” of the Russian culture and the Russian mind, which unites “ecclesiastic, monarchist, Soviet, and liberal ideologies.” Mikhalkov underscores “the special respect of the Russians for authority, for state power and for order.” He justifies the regime as useful for the country, openly mocking democracy as contrary to Russian traditions and incompatible with the large size of the country. Mikhalkov’s position has primarily been endorsed by Russian nationalists like Alexander Prokhanov, as well as by leading Communists like Gennadii Ziuganov.

Conclusion

It would be an exaggeration to say, as do some critics of Putin’s regime, that “the writing is on the wall,” foretelling its demise. With the flow of oil dollars and high fuel prices, the Russian economy will continue to slowly develop. The army will get more weapons, with a large increase in weaponry from foreign suppliers, and the standard of living will be maintained, mostly through the import of foreign goods. There will be no threat to the integrity of the country from within or abroad. Russia will be able to integrate the results of global technological progress in some areas, like communications, computers, or new medical equipment. The Kremlin will continue to boast, and not without reason, of the new public buildings in Moscow and other big cities, as well as about their international endeavors, like hosting the Olympic Games in 2012 or the Soccer World Cup in 2018. However, with the indomitable corruption, whose metastases have penetrated each cell of society, beginning with the presidential administration and the government, the inefficiency efficacy of the state has already reached a very dangerous level for Russia to survive as it is now. From the developments in the Krasnodar region, as well in other areas, Russians learned with horror in November that the alliance of corrupted officials, police and criminal gangs control large territories of the country with impunity. The anticorruption and nationalistic riot in Moscow in December, only one mile from the Kremlin walls, showed how precarious the political power in Moscow is, as the crowd of thousands could have easily have taken control of the capital.

The miserable status of the Russian intellectual community is one of the strongest factors accountable for the decline of the Russian state and economy. With such a low status in science and other spheres of intellectual activities, the process of gradual decline in education and science will continue to lower the technological level of the Russian economy. Russia, as the online newspaper Gazeta.ru contends, was able to “create not one new technology” in the last decade, and concentrates all its efforts on the sustenance of the oil and gas industry. The professional level of the cadres in most industries will continue to decline.

A contemporary Russian author recently wrote quite sadly of the situation in Russian society. He explained why the attitudes of the Kremlin toward the intellectuals are so important for the prediction of future: “The authorities in Russia have already a long time ago estranged themselves from the society. To invite scholars for strategic management would imply the yielding of some part of absolute power to others and allow the dangerous virus of reflections, doubts, and alternative ways of thinking to penetrate in its bureaucratic cocoon. The problems lie not in “excessive” expenditures on science, but in the potential possibility for the change of the whole society, at the risk of turning to another model of social developments. Therefore it is true that the attitudes of the state toward academic science are the most precise description of the genuine views of the authorities on society.”

The main reasons for the current problems Russia faces in its weak prospects for the modernization of society lie in the nature of the country’s political elite, not in the mentality of the majority of Russians who, like many other people, are very susceptible to the ideology coming from the top. The profound mistake of those who try to explain the current situation within the country is that they look mainly at the mentality of Russians and Russian traditions.

A confluence of different circumstances (including some traditions) has led to the fact that the country is led by the political elite, who are deeply hostile towards any serious changes in the country, as this would pose a direct threat to their power and property. This view is shared by several people deeply devoted to Western values, such as politicians Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov, and intellectuals like Igor Nikolaev. In fact, the ruling elite, as seen throughout the course of history in Russia and other countries—including the USA—can significantly change the system of values in a society in a short period of time. It happened in Russia during the aftermath of the revolution with the installation of a totalitarian society by Stalin, again during Perestroika, and once again after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The future of Russia depends almost completely on the composition of the political elite in the next decade. The first sign of change inside the political elite will be in their attitudes toward the intellectual community and a dramatic rise in the presence of its members in the Kremlin, as what happened during Perestroika. A great deal also depends on the courage of the Russian intellectuals, their readiness to challenge the Kremlin and to restore the brave tradition of the Russian intelligentsia as the major critical force of the authoritarian regime. However—and here is the main point of this piece—this community will only be able to perform its role as the catalyst of liberal changes if it can overcome its defeatist ideology: their belief in the retarded mentality of the Russian people.

If the Kremlin is able to maintain its deeply anti-intellectual course and move away from the democratization of society, Russia will have no choice but to continue its technological and intellectual degradation. The West should not be afraid of Russia’s foreign aggressiveness—by all accounts the Kremlin has refused to confront the USA and Europe—but rather they should fear the dangerous consequences of Russia’s regression, which includes an upsurge of rabid nationalism and the seizure of power by Russian Nazis, as well as the government losing control over the country.

Mathematicians and social scientists are both the participants in  the same glass bead game  

A mathematician sent me the article “Good-looking men and women have higher IQs: Beauty and brains DO go together!” It was published in the British newspaper Daily Mail as a scholarly article based on empirical data.  My mathematician friend cited this article as more evidence of the laughable character of social science and seemingly expressed her disdain of social science on behalf of the entire mathematical community.  However, it is clear, a priori, that this piece is an example of pseudo science. However, mathematicians should use caution in looking down at social science and its practitioners.

 The article clearly entertained several thousands of readers and even triggered this discussion. But what about the value of most theoretical mathematical works?  They do not increase, with their arcane subject manner, social utility, because a layman –and even professionals from other fields of mathematics –cannot understand nor be entertained by the theoretical mathematical works. The results of mathematical reasoning can claim to be useful to society only indirectly by helping fields like physics and computer science which directly help society.   
Each year, the mathematicians in the world produce hundreds or perhaps thousands of articles (let us suppose that most of them are more or less correct). As once told to me by the prominent mathematician and Nobel prize winner Leonid Kantorovich and by Spartac Beliaev, an outstanding physicist and full member of the old Soviet Academy of Science, 95 percent of mathematical works are meaningless, because nobody will use them in the future.  One outstanding physicist told me in connection with this discussion that the situation is the same in theoretical physics, while another great expert assured me that 95 percent of the articles in engineering simply never meet even one reader.  The cemetery of mathematical works in total oblivion is enormous, even if  most of these redundant works were a basis for promotion within the mathematical hierarchy.  Most likely, there are also tombs for the theorems of the prolific Gauss (why not, even Mozart authored several absolutely insipid pieces).  How many mathematical articles will solve problems and be cited and how many of them will prompt other mathematicians to generate new problems and solutions?

Dear mathematical friends, are you not mostly engaged in the glass bead games with your own rules, which are so perfectly described by Hermann Hesse?  Are you not to some degree delusional about your importance as the priests of «real science»? Of course, without useless works mathematics would not have been able to create the fundamental discoveries which indeed changed the world.  Of course, as Vladimir Zakharov, an outstanding mathematician and physicist, said, even useless scholarly works help to sustain and develop the culture and education of the next generations. But can not the same be said about social scientists? Are not the articles like the one which we discussed in the beginning also helpful in promoting intellectual activity and in creating the climate for the advancement of social ideas and programs, which ultimately change the world? Do not tell me about the nefarious consequences of many of these ideas. Are not the chances that the progress in natural science and mathematics will continue to move the world toward its annihilation? Today, with the proliferation of nuclear weapons, this perspective which looked lost steam at the end of the cold war has reemerged and done so quite seriously. 
    Dear mathematicians, you do not have grounds to look down at us,social scientists, only because the rules of your glass bead game are a little different from the rules of ours.

The vulnerability of Putin’s feudal regime:

The massacre in the Krasnodar region and the riot in Moscow

Vladimir Shlapentokh

The international media has paid a great deal of attention to the Russian political regime in recent weeks, in part due to the recent publishing of WikiLeaks materials.  Although most of the observations made by American and foreign analysts are, in sum, quite reasonable, they do not present a well-balanced view of contemporary Russian society.  Most of the reports about Russia focus on three things: the non-democratic character of the existing political order, corruption, and Putin’s supremacy.  But, in recognizing Russian society as authoritarian, corrupt, and even criminalized, the analysts reporting on contemporary Russia have not paid sufficient attention to the deep weakness of the regime, nor to its inability to control the state apparatus, particularly in the provinces.

 In fact, Russia looks like a classic feudal society. In such a society, the leader protects his power against any rival.  There is no serious opposition to the current political administration in Russia, as there was in the first half of the 1990s. Putin, who is actually the paramount leader of Russia, has even created his own cult, which hardly yields in its pompous glorification of the General Secretary as if he were a Russian monarch.

            Yet, even with all attributes of power, Putin and his administration—like a king and his court from the Middle Ages—are extremely passive in supervising the bureaucracy. Putin, like feudal kings, prefers to concentrate most of his limited resources on protecting his personal power; only interfering in the life of the provinces, or even the capital, during such high emergencies that the regime is in jeopardy. Indeed, in exchange for the support of his regime, Putin has provided almost every official—from governors to municipal office clerks—with the right to exploit their office with impunity. This brings them a variety of illegal benefits, from control of private companies to procuring regular bribes from the population.

Indeed, Putin’s networks are not as powerful as those of earlier Soviet leaders; they had a party committee and the KGB in every settlement and in each factory, shopping mall or college. The party apparatchiks and KGB officers were totally loyal to the regime and its ideology, since their well being and careers depended entirely on their obeisance to orders from the Kremlin.  Today’s governmental party, “Russia’s unity”—with its almost complete lack of discipline and ideology—is a parody of the Communist party of the Soviet Union.  Officials at all levels of the bureaucracy, including almost all of the members of Putin’s party, ignore the national interests of the country, and will only execute directives from Moscow if they do not damage their own interests.  Recently, most of these officials or their relatives have become either owners or stockholders of private companies, which have made them materially invulnerable. Even if they lose their lucrative offices, they will continue to prosper.

            Since Putin and his circle wish to reduce the possibility of losing power, they are reluctant to start a public investigation of corruption in Moscow, or in any other part of the country. There is always a risk that Russian leaders would be implicated as culprits—during any of several stages in the investigation.         

The existing contract between the Russian leaders and its bureaucracy reflects the realities of Russian life, its difference from the Soviet realities, and its similarities to the relations between seigniors and their networks of vassals, as described in the feudal model.            

            The developments in the Krasnodar region in November, and Moscow in December 2010, showed the country how far the feudalization of their society has progressed; how inept the current Russian leadership is at maintaining elementary order in the country; and how dangerous the current situation is to the survival of the Russian Federation.

            On November 4, 2010, twelve people—including four children—were brutally murdered in the large village of Kushchevskaia (about 35,000 residents, about the size of a typical small Russian city), located in the Krasnodar region, North Caucasus.For the last 15 years, Kushchevskaia has been under almost complete control of a criminal structure. While bandits forced all of the farmers to pay a levy, the gang that had taken over the area intertwined itself with various businesses, which is a typical phenomenon in contemporary Russia. In fact, the gang started redistributing property acquired in the 1990s, yet another typical phenomenon for Putin’s Russia.  Similar to feudal times, the gangs in Kushchevskaia also collected money from students, passengers on buses that crossed their “territory,” and even from the officers of an army regiment located in that territory. The plight of women in Kushchevskaya is also of great significance. These women have been raped regularly; many of the victims are school-aged girls. 

It is clear that this gang was able to carry out its violence with the cooperation of the local police and local administration, as well as with obvious support from administrations in Krasnodar.What is more, the central administration was aware of these developments.                   

The most important development in Krasnodar was the role of the governor, Alexander Tkachev—who is a highly visible politician on the national scene—and the attitudes of the Russian leaders towards him. Yet, as if in strict accordance with the feudal pact between Moscow and the local barons, Medvedev invited Tkachev to the Kremlin and assigned him to head the investigation.  As a Russian analyst wrote in the aftermath of the incident, which left carnage of children and their parents in Kushchevskaia, “there are in Russia many dozens the Middle Ages enclaves like Kushchevskaia.” These events show that the level of lawlessness in the country has not diminished, as it did in the 1990s (note that a major item in Putin’s propaganda was that violence was diminishing in the country), but has increased substantially. More important than the judgments of analysts were the conclusions made by Valery Zorkin, the chairman of Russia’s Constitutional Court, who has a reputation for being loyal to Putin. In the Russian Government newspaper, Rossiiskaia Gazeta, he wrote that Russian Mafia organized crime is a sickening plague on the health of civil society in Russia. He also noted that it was ‘obvious’ that, in some parts of the country, it is becoming impossible to distinguish between local governments and Mafia operations. He bluntly declared, “Our citizens will become divided between predators, free in the criminal jungle, and subhumans, conscious that they are only prey.”

Despite the intense horror surrounding the developments in the Krasnodar region, the public’s attention shifted in December, to the riots in Moscow, which looked even more ghastly and dangerous for the Russian people and their country.

The murder of a Russian soccer fan by a group of non-Russians from the Caucasus region triggered the riots on December 5^th.  After arresting the participants of the murder, Moscow police released them, only re-arresting one after the protests begun.  Most people in Moscow believe that ethnic criminal clans have the police on their payroll, and this course of events only confirmed this belief.  Animated by their hatred for the police and loathing of Muslim residents, the protest actions—whose initial participants were mostly soccer fans—turned into riots, in which people displayed aggressive nationalist slogans like “Russia for Russians” and “Moscow for Muscovites.”  Not since the revolution had Moscow seen what happened in this square on December 11, 2010. Young nationalists pelted the police with smoke bombs, bottles, pieces of ice, burning flares, and metal fence posts. After the rally, hundreds of protesters entered the Moscow metro, where they continued their rampage, beating people passing through from Central Asia and the Caucasus.Ethnic clashes occurred in many other areas in the aftermath of Moscow’s riot: St. Petersburg, Tolyatti, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don and Novosibirsk. They also happened in the Belgorod and Samara regions, and in the Udmurtiia republic.

It is obvious that this outburst of aggressive and violent Russian nationalism in Moscow and other cities have taken the central administration aback, despite the fact that the Kremlin has flirted with these xenophobic organizations for a long time. Only a month ago, they were allowed to carry out a march in Moscow with thousands of participants.  

 The violence and corruption that enables total lawlessness in the country makes projects focused on societal modernization a laughable issue for the great majority of Russians.  Much more important, the perseverance and expansion of the alliances among the four major actors in Russia, as mentioned above, undermines the fabric of Russian society.

 The current high price of oil may permit the Russian leadership to deter the dangerous consequences of a nefarious alliance between the major actors against the normal order in society. Putin’s regime and the corrupt-criminal society will continue as it is now for some time to come.  In this case, as many Russian analysts suggest, Russia will continue to decay, moving slowly, as the prominent journalist Yulia Latynina suggests, to the status of “failing state.”  However, the current social and political climate in Russia provides fertile ground in which two negative scenarios could prosper, especially if oil prices were to drop.  On the one hand, there could be a push towards totalitarianism, under the auspices of restoring order and fighting corruption. Rabid Russian nationalism and calls for the deportation of “dark-skinned people” (the derogatory label for the people from the Caucasian and Central Asian republics) might be adopted as the ideological basis for the restoration of a totalitarian regime. On the other hand, another scenario supposes that the perpetuation of Putin’s regime, with its corruption and ineptitude, will embolden separatism in the provinces—a normal development in a feudal society—which could even lead to the disintegration of the country.

The West, especially the United States, must always keep the precarious nature of the Russian political order, which is so similar to a feudal society, in mind and not be deluded by Putin’s and Medvedev’s public airs of self-confidence. It is a fact that they are unable to maintain even a modicum of order and security for their citizens; not in Moscow, and, most especially, not in the provinces. The implications of this fundamental fact could be exceedingly disastrous for the future survival of Russia as we know it today. 

The vulnerability of Putin’s feudal regime:

The massacre in the Krasnodar region and the riot in Moscow

Vladimir Shlapentokh

The international media has paid a great deal of attention to the Russian political regime in recent weeks, in part due to the recent publishing of WikiLeaks materials.  Although most of the observations made by American and foreign analysts are, in sum, quite reasonable, they do not present a well-balanced view of contemporary Russian society.  Most of the reports about Russia focus on three things: the non-democratic character of the existing political order, corruption, and Putin’s supremacy.  But, in recognizing Russian society as authoritarian, corrupt, and even criminalized, the analysts reporting on contemporary Russia have not paid sufficient attention to the deep weakness of the regime, nor to its inability to control the state apparatus, particularly in the provinces.

 In fact, Russia looks like a classic feudal society. In such a society, the leader protects his power against any rival.  There is no serious opposition to the current political administration in Russia, as there was in the first half of the 1990s. Putin, who is actually the paramount leader of Russia, has even created his own cult, which hardly yields in its pompous glorification of the General Secretary as if he were a Russian monarch.

            Yet, even with all attributes of power, Putin and his administration—like a king and his court from the Middle Ages—are extremely passive in supervising the bureaucracy. Putin, like feudal kings, prefers to concentrate most of his limited resources on protecting his personal power; only interfering in the life of the provinces, or even the capital, during such high emergencies that the regime is in jeopardy. Indeed, in exchange for the support of his regime, Putin has provided almost every official—from governors to municipal office clerks—with the right to exploit their office with impunity. This brings them a variety of illegal benefits, from control of private companies to procuring regular bribes from the population.

Indeed, Putin’s networks are not as powerful as those of earlier Soviet leaders; they had a party committee and the KGB in every settlement and in each factory, shopping mall or college. The party apparatchiks and KGB officers were totally loyal to the regime and its ideology, since their well being and careers depended entirely on their obeisance to orders from the Kremlin.  Today’s governmental party, “Russia’s unity”—with its almost complete lack of discipline and ideology—is a parody of the Communist party of the Soviet Union.  Officials at all levels of the bureaucracy, including almost all of the members of Putin’s party, ignore the national interests of the country, and will only execute directives from Moscow if they do not damage their own interests.  Recently, most of these officials or their relatives have become either owners or stockholders of private companies, which have made them materially invulnerable. Even if they lose their lucrative offices, they will continue to prosper.

            Since Putin and his circle wish to reduce the possibility of losing power, they are reluctant to start a public investigation of corruption in Moscow, or in any other part of the country. There is always a risk that Russian leaders would be implicated as culprits—during any of several stages in the investigation.         

The existing contract between the Russian leaders and its bureaucracy reflects the realities of Russian life, its difference from the Soviet realities, and its similarities to the relations between seigniors and their networks of vassals, as described in the feudal model.            

            The developments in the Krasnodar region in November, and Moscow in December 2010, showed the country how far the feudalization of their society has progressed; how inept the current Russian leadership is at maintaining elementary order in the country; and how dangerous the current situation is to the survival of the Russian Federation.

            On November 4, 2010, twelve people—including four children—were brutally murdered in the large village of Kushchevskaia (about 35,000 residents, about the size of a typical small Russian city), located in the Krasnodar region, North Caucasus.For the last 15 years, Kushchevskaia has been under almost complete control of a criminal structure. While bandits forced all of the farmers to pay a levy, the gang that had taken over the area intertwined itself with various businesses, which is a typical phenomenon in contemporary Russia. In fact, the gang started redistributing property acquired in the 1990s, yet another typical phenomenon for Putin’s Russia.  Similar to feudal times, the gangs in Kushchevskaia also collected money from students, passengers on buses that crossed their “territory,” and even from the officers of an army regiment located in that territory. The plight of women in Kushchevskaya is also of great significance. These women have been raped regularly; many of the victims are school-aged girls. 

It is clear that this gang was able to carry out its violence with the cooperation of the local police and local administration, as well as with obvious support from administrations in Krasnodar.What is more, the central administration was aware of these developments.                   

The most important development in Krasnodar was the role of the governor, Alexander Tkachev—who is a highly visible politician on the national scene—and the attitudes of the Russian leaders towards him. Yet, as if in strict accordance with the feudal pact between Moscow and the local barons, Medvedev invited Tkachev to the Kremlin and assigned him to head the investigation.  As a Russian analyst wrote in the aftermath of the incident, which left carnage of children and their parents in Kushchevskaia, “there are in Russia many dozens the Middle Ages enclaves like Kushchevskaia.” These events show that the level of lawlessness in the country has not diminished, as it did in the 1990s (note that a major item in Putin’s propaganda was that violence was diminishing in the country), but has increased substantially. More important than the judgments of analysts were the conclusions made by Valery Zorkin, the chairman of Russia’s Constitutional Court, who has a reputation for being loyal to Putin. In the Russian Government newspaper, Rossiiskaia Gazeta, he wrote that Russian Mafia organized crime is a sickening plague on the health of civil society in Russia. He also noted that it was ‘obvious’ that, in some parts of the country, it is becoming impossible to distinguish between local governments and Mafia operations. He bluntly declared, “Our citizens will become divided between predators, free in the criminal jungle, and subhumans, conscious that they are only prey.”

Despite the intense horror surrounding the developments in the Krasnodar region, the public’s attention shifted in December, to the riots in Moscow, which looked even more ghastly and dangerous for the Russian people and their country.

The murder of a Russian soccer fan by a group of non-Russians from the Caucasus region triggered the riots on December 5^th.  After arresting the participants of the murder, Moscow police released them, only re-arresting one after the protests begun.  Most people in Moscow believe that ethnic criminal clans have the police on their payroll, and this course of events only confirmed this belief.  Animated by their hatred for the police and loathing of Muslim residents, the protest actions—whose initial participants were mostly soccer fans—turned into riots, in which people displayed aggressive nationalist slogans like “Russia for Russians” and “Moscow for Muscovites.”  Not since the revolution had Moscow seen what happened in this square on December 11, 2010. Young nationalists pelted the police with smoke bombs, bottles, pieces of ice, burning flares, and metal fence posts. After the rally, hundreds of protesters entered the Moscow metro, where they continued their rampage, beating people passing through from Central Asia and the Caucasus.Ethnic clashes occurred in many other areas in the aftermath of Moscow’s riot: St. Petersburg, Tolyatti, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don and Novosibirsk. They also happened in the Belgorod and Samara regions, and in the Udmurtiia republic.

It is obvious that this outburst of aggressive and violent Russian nationalism in Moscow and other cities have taken the central administration aback, despite the fact that the Kremlin has flirted with these xenophobic organizations for a long time. Only a month ago, they were allowed to carry out a march in Moscow with thousands of participants.  

 The violence and corruption that enables total lawlessness in the country makes projects focused on societal modernization a laughable issue for the great majority of Russians.  Much more important, the perseverance and expansion of the alliances among the four major actors in Russia, as mentioned above, undermines the fabric of Russian society.

 The current high price of oil may permit the Russian leadership to deter the dangerous consequences of a nefarious alliance between the major actors against the normal order in society. Putin’s regime and the corrupt-criminal society will continue as it is now for some time to come.  In this case, as many Russian analysts suggest, Russia will continue to decay, moving slowly, as the prominent journalist Yulia Latynina suggests, to the status of “failing state.”  However, the current social and political climate in Russia provides fertile ground in which two negative scenarios could prosper, especially if oil prices were to drop.  On the one hand, there could be a push towards totalitarianism, under the auspices of restoring order and fighting corruption. Rabid Russian nationalism and calls for the deportation of “dark-skinned people” (the derogatory label for the people from the Caucasian and Central Asian republics) might be adopted as the ideological basis for the restoration of a totalitarian regime. On the other hand, another scenario supposes that the perpetuation of Putin’s regime, with its corruption and ineptitude, will embolden separatism in the provinces—a normal development in a feudal society—which could even lead to the disintegration of the country.

The West, especially the United States, must always keep the precarious nature of the Russian political order, which is so similar to a feudal society, in mind and not be deluded by Putin’s and Medvedev’s public airs of self-confidence. It is a fact that they are unable to maintain even a modicum of order and security for their citizens; not in Moscow, and, most especially, not in the provinces. The implications of this fundamental fact could be exceedingly disastrous for the future survival of Russia as we know it today.