Putin's Popularity

Knowing her work, I'm pretty sure this isn't how she'd put it, but it seems to me that what Masha Lipman is getting at here is that Vladimir Putin has been so successful in consolidating power in Russia mostly because . . . people like him because their lives have improved a lot under his leadership.

It's easy -- and even accurate -- for us in the West to say that this is mostly just the inevitable upshot of rising oil prices and not actually anything Putin deserves credit for. Nevertheless, when you put the reality of Putin's popularity together with the fact that Russia's western-approved opposition is held in low esteem due to its complicity in robbing the country blind during the 1990s and you'll see western efforts to harangue Putin into liberalizing are unlikely to change anything or strike ordinary Russians as plausibly motivated by sincere concern for their well-being.

Photo by Flickr user Yeowatzup used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

Another important factor: government control of information.

Posted by Danwich | June 4, 2007 4:59 PM

Ah, the Czar Cannon. Nice.

Posted by abb1 | June 4, 2007 5:04 PM

Raise in oil prices? Listen, a lot of money flowed in to Russia in the 90s too, but it all got, you know, stolen. The fact that rises in commodity revenues flow down to benefit the population is a major benefit of less corrupt government.

After what happened to Russia in the 90s, it's astounding that anyone from the U.S. dares to open their mouth to give "advice".

Posted by mq | June 4, 2007 5:07 PM

Danwich is right that massive government control of information is also hugely important. Russian TV (where even a larger percentage of people get all their news than in the US) is all state controled and really does make Fox News look fair and balanced in comparison. But, the improved economic situation due to higher commodities prices is also very important, even though this money is mostly being squandered and not put back in to the larger society in any serious way. And of course people in general, like in most countries, like their leaders to be assertive and act tough even when this is objectively stupid. But the people in charge are also robbing the country blind now, too. It's not as if all this money is really going into the public good. (It helps that those doing the robbing now are not Jews, too, for the most part. That shouldn't be underestimated.)

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | June 4, 2007 5:32 PM

I have to go with Masha on this one -- it's all about the money, honey. Take a trip to Moscow now, and neighborhoods that were dangerous ghettos ten years ago are now boring middle-class suburbs. Where you once heard cheap trashy euro-disco, you now hear pretentious indie rock. Add to the fact that Putin's a very competant domestic and international politician and his willingness to go after some of the more hated oligarchs (particularly the Jewish ones). Control of the media helps too, of course, but it's delusional to think that Putin doesn't have genuine support. And it's definitely not his personality -- it's the economy, stupid.

Posted by Jake | June 4, 2007 5:48 PM

Actually, I think MY considerably *understates* the magnitude of the disaster visited upon ordinary Russians during the 1990s, with the full complicity of the West.

The figures I've seen quoted are that life-expectancy fell more rapidly for Russia than for any developed country ever recorded under non-wartime conditions, with something like 5M surplus deaths during that period, probably of comparable magnitude to the number of Russians killed by the Nazis during Hitler's invasion.

The primary reason for the millions of dead Russians was the growth in poverty. The primary reason for the growth in poverty was that 30%-50% of all the national wealth ended up in the hands of six or seven criminal gangsters, who ended being among the world's richest billionaires.

Let's use a comparable American example. Suppose America suffered some political upheaval during which 5 or 6 Muslim-American gangsters seized 3 trillion dollars of American national wealth while 10 million Americans died of poverty and its consequences. One might suspect that ordinary Americans would not be pleased at this turn of events.

Posted by RKU | June 4, 2007 5:51 PM

Also average Russians see that for the past 15 years in almost every region of the former USSR and Eastern Europe the US has been actively working to undermine Russian influence. Americans think this is fine because we have "benign intentions", but really it shouldn't be that hard to imagine how the US policy of actively supporting anti-Russian political fractions and putting NATO troops in places like Estonia is going to make it very difficult to build good relations with Russia. The big disconnect is that most average Russians don't view the USSR as an "evil empire", and resent being treated as a pariah. US foreign policy makers need to decide whether the short-term benefits of feeling morally superior are worth the probable consequences of pushing Russia into a reactive anti-Western attitude.
Scornfully treating Germany as a loser in 1919 didn't pay off too well in the long run, maybe there's a lesson there.

Posted by vanya | June 4, 2007 5:54 PM

Danwich is right that massive government control of information is also hugely important. Russian TV (where even a larger percentage of people get all their news than in the US) is all state controled and really does make Fox News look fair and balanced in comparison.

It wasn't like when the oligarchs owned them they were bastions of free expression and letting a thousand flower bloom. Their spit polishing of Yeltsin in 1996 was as grotesque as anything any state-ran show could have put together.

Posted by Ed Marshall | June 4, 2007 5:54 PM

Speaking of state-owned news, what's the state of Internet access in Russia? How many people have access? Does the government censor unwelcome news from the outside, a la China?

Posted by Steve | June 4, 2007 5:56 PM

It's not a question of "all this money really going to the public good"; that's a naive way to put it. Far from 100% of all revenues in the United States go to the public good, in case you haven't noticed. It's a question of what percentage of the money goes to the public.

I'm no expert (and neither, I suspect, are you), but the outward signs seem to be that much more of that money is trickling down to the public than it used to. I'm sure there's still robbery going on, but the kind of wholesale expropriation of Russian wealth to Swiss banks and criminal gangs that marked the early/mid 1990s seems to have stopped. From official statistics, the Russian economy apparently shrank in absolute terms during the early / mid 1990s, but since 1998 has been one of the fastest growing in the G-8. Given those numbers, as well as all kinds of other anecdotal and statistical evidence supporting a turnaround, I'd say the burden of proof is on you to show that Putin is as corrupt and incompetent as earlier U.S.-supported leaders.

Posted by mq | June 4, 2007 6:01 PM

My comment was in response to to non-famous Matt at 5:32.

Posted by mq | June 4, 2007 6:02 PM

"Vladimir Putin has been so successful in consolidating power in Russia mostly because . . . people like him because their lives have improved a lot under his leadership."

I sent my Russian history professor an article by Martin Wolf from the Financial Times and asked her about it. I forget exactly what the article discussed, yet it had to be something similar to this, because she responded with a long, interesting description that basically said just that. The only difference between what you stated and what she said MIGHT have been that Putin did something to make sure the gains are distributed more equitably. I'll try to find the e-mail and see if I am right.

Posted by Brian | June 4, 2007 6:08 PM

Re: Suppose America suffered some political upheaval during which 5 or 6 Muslim-American gangsters seized 3 trillion dollars of American national wealth while 10 million Americans died of poverty and its consequences.

That analogy doesn't really work. The folks who ripped off Russia were not foreigners but Russians born and bred, mostly apparachiks of the old Communist Party who were ideally placed to benefit from the greatest liquidation sale in history.

Posted by JonF | June 4, 2007 7:06 PM

JonF:

Gee, I guess there are *no* American citizens of Muslim religion or ethnic origins---they're all furrinners. Congress must have passed some new law when I wasn't watching...

And the half-dozen Oligarchs who stole something approaching half of Russia's national wealth weren't high-ranking appartchiks. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were mostly petty individuals of no importance or even black-marketeers. They bribed the high-ranking appartchiks with a tiny fraction of the money they were stealing.

Posted by RKU | June 4, 2007 7:19 PM

"The folks who ripped off Russia were not foreigners but Russians born and bred"

Sorta.

Posted by Zagnut | June 4, 2007 7:35 PM

Trouble is, 'people's lives' haven't been improved a lot, only 'some people's lives'. The article itself makes that quite clear in the second sentence: one-quarter of the country's 140 million people were "middle class" - add 5 percent upper class and you're still left with 70% whose lives are crap, especially since they can't rely on the soviet social safety net. These unfortunate souls, the majority of russians is not mentioned; guess it's more fun talking about the new middle class and Ambramovic et al.

Posted by novakant | June 4, 2007 7:37 PM

Russia was able to steal its natural resource companies back fairly easily by re-nationalizing them after hitting them with dubious tax charges -- it's not as if the Elders of Zion were able to steal the oil and natural gas out of the Russian ground.

Posted by Harry | June 4, 2007 8:12 PM

Harry,

Who owns Chelsea F.C. again, and where did he get his money? I keep forgetting.

Posted by Zagnut | June 4, 2007 9:02 PM

Re: Gee, I guess there are *no* American citizens of Muslim religion or ethnic origins---they're all furrinners.

My point was that the major Russian oligarchs were pretty much all ethnic Russians. The Russians couldn't blame their economic straits on either foreigners or local minorities. (They could and did blame their cultural corruption on foreign influence though, from the phalanx of American evangelical carpetbaggers who came swaggering in, Gospel in hand, as if Russia had never known Christianity before, to the more lurid and noxious extremes of Euro-porn, both gay and straight, that oozed out of the shadows.)

Re: And the half-dozen Oligarchs who stole something approaching half of Russia's national wealth weren't high-ranking appartchiks.

I didn't say "high ranking". Some of them could have been piddly paper-pushers in Pskov who were in the right place at the right time. You might amend your American analogy by positing that a bunch of bureaucrats from Wyoming and Texas ended up ripping off America. But oops, we've already got that ilk trying that trick!

Posted by JonF | June 4, 2007 9:12 PM

"My point was that the major Russian oligarchs were pretty much all ethnic Russians."

Oy vey, so false.

Spend 5 minutes on wikipedia and tell me what one non-Russian ethnic group is massively, massively overrepresented. Start with Berezovsky, Abramovich, Vekselberg, Deripaska, Fridman, Aven, and just keep scrolling.

Posted by Zagnut | June 4, 2007 10:01 PM

JonF:

I'll just have to assume that your statements derive from utter and complete ignorance rather than dishonesty. I suppose that's hardly astonishing given the total silence of America's media on any of these important issues.

I'm too lazy to locate the names, but of the six or seven individuals generally described as the top Russian Oligarchs, all but one were Jewish. During this same period, Jews composed around 2% of the USSR's population.

The simultaneous---and utterly mysterious---rise of Russian anti-Semitism did receive some coverage in the American media, and the poverty-induced deaths of 5M Russians got a few paragraphs on page A23.

Considering that something like 80% of the American troops in Iraq reportedly believe that Saddam attacked us on 9/11, I suppose that no degree of ignorance, no matter how enormous, should ever surprise me.

Posted by RKU | June 4, 2007 10:19 PM

Ed Marshall,

I'm not sure if you mean to object to me or not, but of course nothing that I said implied that the media situation was great under Yeltsin. It was, of course, quite bad, though in a different way, one that I think is less worrisome than the situation now since at least then there were multiple power-bases, but it was obviously quite bad. Noting that, of course, doesn't change the fact that it's very, very bad now and that this quite obviously plays a big role in Putin being as popular as he is.

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | June 4, 2007 11:47 PM

I'm too lazy to locate the names, but of the six or seven individuals generally described as the top Russian Oligarchs, all but one were Jewish. During this same period, Jews composed around 2% of the USSR's population.

First of all, they were ethnically Russian. It's actually pretty obnoxious for you to claim that they were not Russian. They were as Russian as Yeltsin. In any case, however to a degree, this Yeltsin did play a role in favoring Jewish oligarchs as to who would control a lot of the state assets in order to ensure that the oligarchs would never have the popular support to push him out. That was a pretty Machiavellian method of taking advantage of his country's own anti-Semitism.

doesn't change the fact that it's very, very bad now and that this quite obviously plays a big role in Putin being as popular as he is.

Actually, Putin is as popular as he is because he cracked down on the oligarchs who held, among other things, the media apparatus. It just so happens that the oligarchs used the media apparatus to prop up Yeltsin before.

The United States thought they were doing well by propping up Yeltsin and the kleptocrats that he supported and supported him. The problem is that the people themselves hated Yeltsin and the oligarchs, and perceived US support for them looked a lot to Russians like the US was purposely trying to keep the Russians down by supporting a group which was clearly so damaging for the country.

Posted by Tyro | June 5, 2007 12:17 AM

People, people, people. What on earth makes you think that living in Russia, speaking Russian, participating in the (various incarnations of) the Russian state, serving in the Russian armed forces, and generally being physically and genetically indistinguishable from "native Russians" for generations upon generations is enough to qualify one for the label "Russian"?

(I hope I don't have to point out the sarcasm here.)

Posted by Doctor Memory | June 5, 2007 12:41 AM

As a jew born in ukraine I have to point out that Jewish identity was largly an ethnicity back there.

Posted by rtaycher1987 | June 5, 2007 3:08 AM

Of course these guys are essentially Russians, no question about that - but perception matters. Yasha Levine and Mark Ames at exile.ru report.

Posted by abb1 | June 5, 2007 3:45 AM

Good God, people, we're talking about JEWS in RUSSIA here. Do you honestly believe that anyone is ever going to forget they are Jewish or let THEM forget it? Tyro is hilariously naive here. The German Jews in 1934 were MUCH more assimilated than Russian Jews in 1994.

Posted by tequila | June 5, 2007 3:56 AM

Russian jews may in some cases be indistinguishable from Russians, but are seen by other Russians as not ethnically Russian. Not are they, for the most part as as ethnically X in most X Eastern European states. Some forms of ID in the Soviet Union listed ones ethnicity (Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian...) and among those listed was "Jew".

Posted by Scyon | June 5, 2007 4:03 AM

"First of all, they were ethnically Russian. It's actually pretty obnoxious for you to claim that they were not Russian. They were as Russian as Yeltsin."

Yeltsin could have qualified for Israeli citizenship under Law of Return?

Posted by Zagnut | June 5, 2007 5:51 AM

God, Americans can be amazingly stupid about the outside world sometimes. You are ethnically Russian if, and only if, it says you are ethnically Russian in your internal ID. It doesn't matter how many centuries your ancestors lived in Russia, or if you are a famous athlete or a world renown Russian poet. If your documents say you are a Jew, a Tatar, an Armenian, a Chukcha, a Ukrainian, a Kalmyk, a German, a Korean, an Ossetian, etc. then that is what you are. And yes, "Jew" is an ethnic group in Russia, not a religion. You can't "convert" in Russia and stop being Jewish. The degree to which people in Russia are aware of, and care about, what ethnic groups individuals belong to would probably shock most Americans, who like to believe such identities no longer matter, or at worst divide people in crude racial categories. Unfortunately in most of the world things like ethnic identity are still seen as essentially life-or-death issues.

Posted by vanya | June 5, 2007 6:09 AM

Zagnut is an anti-semite - it's that simple.

Posted by novakant | June 5, 2007 6:29 AM

Good God. Dubya just gave one of his "Vladimir (I call him Vladimir) has to understand that missile defense is not a threat" hand-shoves to the /President of Russia/. I am gobsmacked - as if Bush hadn't already done enough damage to the US' relationship with Russia.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | June 5, 2007 8:04 AM

Declining living standards started under Brezhnev. There was a spike of improvement under Gorbachev after he clamped down on illegal alcohol and public drunkenness, but the trends had been downhill for a long time. You can argue exactly whether they accelerated or not in 1987 or later in the 90s, but late Soviet Russia was no picnic. That's part of the reason the USSR didn't last; people could obviously see it wasn't working. It's comforting to people to blame it all on the transition and Western meddling, but the Russians were doing a good job of screwing themselves before the USSR fell anyway.

Of course, since things are improving in Russia now (at least somewhat), of course Putin is popular. He has also clamped down on the media to control the flow of information and reasserted state control over the economy. In some cases this is a good thing - at least taxes are being collected now, but it will eventually dissolve into corruption. Russia is on track to become a more technologically advanced Mexico - we'll see who Putin lays the finger on to succeed him.

Posted by Hektor Bim | June 5, 2007 9:26 AM

Yes, Jews in Russia and much of Europe are seen as an ethnic group, and I'm not being purely naive about this here, but insofar as the oligarchs are themselves Russians, this was not a case of the country being "looted from the outside." It was done to Russians by Russians, with Yeltsin's help. Insofar as it was to Yeltsin's advantage to have lots of Jewish oligarchs to ensure that they could never challenge him directly, yes, that played a role, but Zagnut is dancing a little to close for the "jewish conspiracy to screw russia" sort of wackiness for me to take him seriously.

vanya is for the most part correct, but the point stands the the rise of the oligarchs was an internal theft of Russian assets, not an external one, regardless of the religio-ethnic background of the oligarchs themselves.

Posted by Tyro | June 5, 2007 9:28 AM

Russia's going the way of China -- a repudiation for sorts to Fukiyama's end of history theory -- authoritarianism with markets just free enough to keep the rabble satisfied.

Posted by Bragan | June 5, 2007 10:58 AM

Russia's going the way of China -- a repudiation of sorts to Fukiyama's end of history theory -- authoritarianism with markets just free enough to keep the rabble satisfied.

That's not to say that they're the same. Russia is clearly dependent on its natural resource wealth, and can't begin to emulate China's consumer products industry.

Posted by Bragan | June 5, 2007 11:01 AM

If your documents say you are a Jew, a Tatar, an Armenian, a Chukcha, a Ukrainian, a Kalmyk, a German, a Korean, an Ossetian, etc. then that is what you are.

Why exaggerate, it's not what you are. It's just one of your characteristics, your identities - extremely important one for some, totally meaningless for others. Certainly in Russia people typically care more about your ethnicity than, say, in the US, but there's nothing unique about it, Israel is even worse in this respect.

Posted by abb1 | June 5, 2007 11:03 AM

OK, to remove any consideration of "outside vs. inside" let's specify that the hypothetical American oligarchs who stole 3 trillion while 10 million broke Americans died of disease and drug abuse were Black Muslims. You don't get much more American than that; their ancestors have been here almost 300 years on average. Don't you think that there would be an upsurge in racist and anti-Islamic sentiments? Don't you think that a strongman who had nationalized their property and chased them (the oligarchs only, not other Black Muslims) from the coutry would be wildly popular? And how would Americans then react to human rights hectoring from, say, a Europe (hypothetically) strongly allied to African and Muslim states?

Posted by Curt Adams | June 5, 2007 12:44 PM

Re: I'm too lazy to locate the names, but of the six or seven individuals generally described as the top Russian Oligarchs, all but one were Jewish.

Um, last I checked being Jewish is not incompatible with being Russian, perhaps with Russian roots going deeper into the past than many modern-day Russians more than a few of whom are the descendants of Polish and German immigrants).

Re: The simultaneous---and utterly mysterious---rise of Russian anti-Semitism did receive some coverage in the American media

"Rise" of Russian anti-Semitism? Russian culture has been steeped in anti-Semitism since at least the 18th century when a great deal of secular anti-Semitism (as opposed to old fashioned religious anti-Judaism) was imported from Germany along with quite a few German immigrants.

Re: Considering that something like 80% of the American troops in Iraq reportedly believe that Saddam attacked us on 9/11,

Please document this. It sounds like bogus.

Re: OK, to remove any consideration of "outside vs. inside" let's specify that the hypothetical American oligarchs who stole 3 trillion while 10 million broke Americans died of disease and drug abuse were Black Muslims.

This still doesn't work. First off, you should leave religion out of it (many Russian Jews secular or even outright atheistic). Secondly you need an ethnic group that has been on the top of the economic heap (or perceived to be so) for a long time, but is also seen as outsiders. And actually, the only group that works for in America would also be Jewish people.

Posted by JonF | June 5, 2007 1:20 PM

Tyro:

"It was done to Russians by Russians, with Yeltsin's help. Insofar as it was to Yeltsin's advantage to have lots of Jewish oligarchs to ensure that they could never challenge him directly, yes, that played a role,"

Folks like Steve Sailer would emphasize that the Jewish professors brought in from Harvard as consultants in Russia's industrial privatizations were Jewish, and so this was a Jewish scheme to loot Russia. My guess is that it was more the case of naive economists not realizing that free market policies are problematic to implement without there first being a rule of law.

Posted by Fred | June 5, 2007 2:59 PM