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26.09.07
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Mr. Putin And The Vicious Circle
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Comment by Georgy Bovt
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Is Choosing Popularity over Progress the Right Formula?
Just after the country learned the name of Viktor Zubkov, the unknown character who recently became the second most important person in the state, the media began a blitz of information regarding who this man is, how he lived his life and how he won this new appointment.
I personally found it rather interesting to look at old photographs of the young Zubkov in the 1970s and to the interviews with his former colleagues and subordinates. It seemed like the interviewees had a hard time holding back the tears of affection brought on by the recollections of their kind boss.
Of course, all of these stories about the “most humane” director of the collective farm in the village of Razdolye in the Leningrad Region mainly brought up feelings of nostalgia for the “glorious Soviet past:” the time when the kind boss would join everyone in making hay or weeding turnips; when he could unceremoniously stop by at his subordinates’ wedding and have a drink with them. He would also, when necessary, generously provide the farm’s car for transporting furniture and would even award newlywed milkers or tractor drivers with certificates for new apartments.
And then I read some stories about Zubkov when he was the head of the District Executive Committee of the Soviet of People’s Deputies, in the Priozersky district of the Leningrad Region. Later, it would be precisely in this district, and not without his assistance, that comrades Putin, Patrushev and Chemezov and the other members of the Ozerki Gardening Association, would receive their “gardening” land plots. No one would even think of suspecting some mercenary component here: at that time it was not a popular practice, and land was given not for kickbacks and bribes, but simply based on properly filled out and signed documents and applications. That time, in its own way, was very pure and innocent, at least in our memories.
And I began to wonder what component could be included in a presidential election campaign that would most strongly affect the hearts and minds of the voters in today’s Russia? And have we really come so far from the notorious Yeltsin vs. Zyuganov campaign of 1996? Back then, the voters were offered, in an expressly aggravated and simplified form, to choose between a bright, free (albeit abstract) future and the gray, shortage-filled, complicated Soviet past. This was not that long ago, but the main difference between that election and today’s, of course, is that no one really remembers the long lines to buy bologna and toilet paper. No one remembers the years, or even decades, of waiting to move into a new apartment, to install a phone line, to purchase a car, a color TV or a refrigerator, and how these turns were distributed by the trade union committees. This is something everyone has forgotten; but the nostalgia for the ideal of the kind and sympathetic farm directors still lives.
Now imagine this in the content of the upcoming presidential election campaign. It will still be a choice between the past and the future; between nostalgia for the Soviet past (which will not necessarily be associated with Viktor Zubkov in particular) and the concept of nanotechnologies, overseen by Sergei Ivanov, or the National Projects curated by Dmitry Medvedev, which so far appear disconnected from the lives and problems of ordinary people. Who will be the winner in this confrontation? Will it be the unconvincing search for solutions of current problems in the name of the future that nobody can clearly define or will it be the uncontrollable nostalgia for the calm, absolutely and in all aspects predictable Soviet past, which doesn’t seem as gray and cheerless today as it did in 1996?
Vladimir Putin reached “up his sleeve” and pulled out the previously unknown figure of an industrious and, according to many testimonials, truly honest and uncorrupt functionary who knows how to do his job. By doing so, the president has not only added to the public intrigue about his personal choice for a successor; he has also tempted at least a significant portion of our society with the idea that answers to some very difficult questions of our present and future can be found by nostalgically digging in the past – our Soviet past, to be precise. Whether or not he personally agrees with this idea doesn’t really matter. What matters is that if society gives in to this temptation. If it does, then Putin, as a man who undoubtedly senses and understands the mass mentality of the country, will have to take this mindset into account when choosing his candidate. However, this choice will, again, involve a conflict of interest: the successor will have popularity at the expense of the structural and economic reforms that could lead the country into the future.
Vladimir Putin has already used this formula. If the people are wrong, he prefers to be wrong together with the people. Under current conditions, in which the president is tremendously popular, the inverse formula is also possible: if the president is wrong, then the people prefer to be wrong together with him. I think that Putin’s hesitation in selecting his successor is caused by the fact that he has not yet found a way to escape from the vicious circle of these two formulas.
Georgy Bovt is a Moscow-based political analyst. |
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