Russia's having it's basically shametastic election today that'll put Dmitry Medvedev is the President's office, at which point Putin is supposed to become Prime Minister and keep running the country. I guess the only real question is whether or not that gambit of Putin's will work or if over time Medvedev will use his office's large de jure powers to endure that he's de facto running the country. It's worth recalling that when Putin first took office, he was seen as a cipher handpicked by Boris Yeltsin to do the Yeltsin clan's bidding.
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Election Day
02 Mar 2008 09:47 am
Comments (16)
Another important difference is that when Putin gained office Russian society and Russian power were in about the most totally horrible state it had been in for decades, and partly for the reason, the status quo was was unbelievably unpopular.
By contrast, Russian society and Russian power were today in a (relatively) wonderful situation, and partly for that reason, Putin is (arguably) the most popular leader of any major country in the world.
Similarly, Reagan's people could argue for a "third term" via Bush #1 while Bush #2's people would have an extraordinarily difficult time persuading the American people to support a "third term" via McCain or anyone else.
This post seemed strangely devoid of Putin apologetics, but I see the commenters are picking up the slack.
"This post seemed strangely devoid of Putin apologetics"
My thought as well.
Russia needs a strong leader. Putin has little that he needs to apologize for. Liberal political and economic structures will never work in a country like Russia which has no tradition of them.
If Russia is to be a great nation again, she needs an at least mildly authoritarian leader, a return of the established religion, more state control of major sectors of the economy, a return of focus towards agriculture, a reconstruction of the economy on a cooperative basis, and a realization that the future of Russia lies not with the West and Europe, but in the Slavic heartland. Russia's destiny is to steer a course between the twin dangers of liberal-capitalism and Islam.
"Russia needs a strong leader. Putin has little that he needs to apologize for. Liberal political and economic structures will never work in a country like Russia which has no tradition of them."
It's interesting. Putin defenders in America come in two flavors: anti-imperialists like Matt and fascists like Hector.
Pat Buchanan gets a two-fer on the topic.
At the risk of pointing out the completely obvious, Medvedev will not attempt to do to Putin what Putin did to Yeltsin for the simple reason that Medvedev wishes to remain alive. I doubt that there is a single person inside of Russia today who has not noticed the diminished lifespan of Putin's rivals and critics, and it's an easy message to take to heart.
(Does it make me a Putin apologist if I think that, so far as he is not outright belligerent or funding belligerents against us, and abides by whatever treaties we sign with him, it's none of our business who rules Russia?)
Petey,
I'm on the political _left_ in case you didn't notice. Fascists are on the _right_. Unless you
are like the Soviets who referred to anyone they disapproved of as a 'fascist'.
Putin messing with the Yeltsin clan is a cliche that does not withstand close scrutiny . . . if you, er, follow the money:
Richest man in Russia?
Oleg Deripaska ($40 billion), married to Polina Yumasheva. She's the daughter of Valentin Yumashev, married to Yeltsin's daughter, Tatanya.
2nd place?
Roman Abramovich ($23 billion), one time protege of Berezovskiy, but turned on him. Roma was known as the Yeltsin family's "wallet."
I doubt that Medvedev has particularly good connections with the army. He hasn't had any posts that were military related as far as I know. That might be part of the reason that he, and not Ivanov, was picked.
The whole thing is pretty strange though. Who is going to take state visits? How does Putin's cult of personality develop when he is shown taking orders from someone else? Or is the prime minister now going to be treated as head of state on Russian television? And why not just amend the constitution so that Putin can win a third term? It is not like they are fooling anyone with this election.
I wonder if part of it is the desire to have a figurehead who might be more popular with the west. But that would probably require giving Medvedev some real authority in order to work - otherwise the situation will just look ridiculous. Maybe Putin is out of touch to such an extent that he doesn't realize this.
Or maybe he figures that this is a good chance to establish his own hand-picked (and younger) successor who will probably be on the political scene for a decade longer than Putin himself. At some point Medvedev would then "retire" to the job of Prime Minister and select a new figurehead to be President. Or maybe Putin comes back in five years and then hands things off to Medvedev for real. It is all very strange.
Just keeping you honest here, Matt, but that third word in this post should be "its," not "it's." You do know the rules on apostrophes, right?
Hector's post is...strange.
"Return of a focus toward agriculture" means what, exactly? Agriculture makes up around 5% of Russia's GDP (which has been doing quite well so far this decade) - how much higher you think that percentage should be, and how should they get there? I'm not really seeing the scenario by which Russia returns to greatness through beets; maybe you could explain.
"Future of Russia lies in not with the West and Europe, but in the Slavic heartland" - what kind of future, and what Slavic heartland are you referring to? Assuming you mean Belarus and Ukraine, those two countries have a combined GDP of $170 billion (according to the 2007 CIA factbook). By way of comparison, Poland alone is at $413 billion, and the EU is over $16 trillion. Aside from having a combined economy that's about 1% the size of the EU's, those countries share the rare distinction of a population decline rate comparable to Russia's.
Bearing all that in mind, why should Russia, or anyone else, care a great deal about the "Slavic heartland?"
All of Hector's opinions, based on his previous posts here, would appear to be ideologically based and thus any facts would be irrelevant.
Agriculture is never going to be a major economic determinant in most large countries compared to technology.
Russia has a significant technology base - its scientists and mathematicians are first rate, it has industrial capacity, etc. It has lousy Internet bandwidth, unfortunately, as anyone can testify who has tried accessing Russian Web sites. It has loose intellectual property laws, which are a bane to the West due to the spammers and hackers operating there, but would be a boon to the Russian economy in all other respects.
And of course, Russia has oil and gas - for a while anyway. And they have good relations with countries that have oil and gas, such as Iran.
Also, Doctor Memory is correct. It's really not in the US' place to be commenting on Russian politics when our own is so screwed up. I mean, when the wife of a former President is running for President here, and the notion of McCain picking Dick Cheney as VP running mate is seriously considered by some people, to have Matt complaining about Putin shuffling a reliable associate into the Russian Presidency is a bit disingenuous.
However, I don't think Putin has assassinated as many people as some people think - I think he's been framed by Russian oligarchs who are engaged in various criminal enterprises for most of them. Also, I think it would be fairly obvious if Medvedev started opposing Putin and then dropped dead of toxic metal poisoning, and I don't think Putin would be that obvious or that stupid.
All of which is speculative anyway, if the commentators here - and Matt - don't have specific knowledge of the relationships involved.
Messrs. March and Hack,
You are operating under the deplorably common presumption that wealth and prosperity are the ultimate goods that a person and a nation should pursue. Not so. Virtue and excellence is more important. Russia's virtue and essential nature lies partly in being the protector and elder brother of the Eastern Christian nations (Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Armenia and Georgia, possibly also Lebanon.) To become a subservient partner of the West for the sake of prosperity would be to betray her essential nature.
You are further operating on the assumption that economic growth and reliance on a technology intensive economy will continue in the advanced countries. Not so again. In the coming few decades, I believe that increasing shortages of energy and natural resources will cause modern economies to come to a crashing halt and for much of the technology and prosperity that they enjoy to vanish forever. The future will belong to those nations that can employ large numbers of people producing large quantities of food, fiber and fuel without which no nation can survive. Particularly if Russia can find a way to produce fuel out of sugar beets, this is the direction in which her future lies. The future also belongs to the nations who can best endure suffering and hardship, which Russia can and the United States probably cannot. Just my two cents, of course.
Furthermore, the peasant cooperatives were the locus of a great degree of equality, collective effort, sharing and the downgrading of greed and individual self interest. These are the virtues which our modern age sorely needs, and the traditonal Russian peasant cooperative has much to teach us. It was tragedy of Russia that her Revolution was won by the hyper-modernist (and brutal) Bolsheviks as opposed to the agrarian SR party.
The future of Russia lies in being a Christian nation of egalitarian peasant cooperatives, protector of the nations in her orbit, under a strong leader, opposed to both the West and Islam.
Hector, thank you for proving me correct that all your opinions are based on your ideology and not a single one on anything resembling facts.
"Or maybe he figures that this is a good chance to establish his own hand-picked (and younger) successor who will probably be on the political scene for a decade longer than Putin himself. At some point Medvedev would then "retire" to the job of Prime Minister and select a new figurehead to be President. Or maybe Putin comes back in five years and then hands things off to Medvedev for real. It is all very strange."
It's like the Tetrarchy in the later Roman Empire--Putin is the Augustus, while Medvedev is the Caesar, his handpicked successor and junior partner.
Comments closed March 16, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
I think it's pretty clear that Yeltsin and Berezovsky thought that they could manipulate Putin (and chose him for that reason) and that the then out-smarted them and was able to grab power for himself. It's of course conceivable that Medvedev will try to do the same. But, what make this, to my mind, much less likely this time is that Putin had an established power-base that he could draw on in the FSB, a large and powerful group that resented the changes of the last 10 years and who wanted back into power and so supported Putin. It's not at all clear that Medvedev has any independent power-base at all to draw on (though of course he may have secretly been establishing one- if he's smart it's with the army since that's the only group that might be able to challenge the FSB. It could very well be a disaster if that sort of thing comes to a head.) I suspect he was picked to become president largely because he has no independent power-base to draw from. If this is right it would be extremely hard for him to try to out-manouver Putin and the FSB even if he wants to. (We, of course, have no indication he wants to, either.)
Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | March 2, 2008 10:12 AM