Putin Stumbles
Kagarlitsky, Boris
Putin Stumbles By Boris Kagarlitsky Illustration by MK Perker The state-run television channels were in hysterics. Every political show included condemnation of American expansionism and calls to...
...This will hardly convince many people at home...
...Along with Yanukovich, he became the main victim of the Ukraine crisis...
...So long as the signals come one at a time, the dog's conditioned reflexes respond properly: It salivates at the sound of the bell...
...The United States dictated Russia's political agenda, while Germany gradually became its most important business partner and source of foreign investment...
...But when the scientist gives it two contradictory signals, the poor beast goes into a panic, spinning around in its cage...
...But the theory that a pro-American opposition was battling with a pro-Moscow political elite was simplistic...
...Interestingly, unlike much of "New Europe," the new rulers in Kiev seem determined to go along with Berlin rather than Washington in case of any diplomatic confrontation between the two powers...
...Till the very last moment, the official line was unclear, and the propaganda machine was stalled...
...And, ironically, when Yushchenko was finally elected as Ukrainian president on December 26, he announced that bringing troops home from Iraq would be his first priority in office...
...He is the author of several works, including "Restoration in Russia: Why Capitalism Failed," "The Mirage of Modernization," and, most recently, "Russia Under Yeltsin and Putin...
...To please the Big Brother in Washington even more, Putin decided to close down Russia's last important military installations overseas, and so he liquidated the bases in Cuba and Vietnam...
...This didn't affect relations with Washington, however...
...But the events in Ukraine propelled Russian protesters to feel that their own government isn't invincible...
...Putin's subservience continued, as he publicly announced his support for Bush's reelection...
...George Bush, having no other option but to back pro-Western Yushchenko and his Orange Revolution," may have to swallow political and economic decisions in Kiev that are not going to be to his liking...
...Putin underestimated France's veto threat, as well as the opposition of other Security Council members...
...Western journalists love to speak about a new Cold War because this is an easy and politically comfortable way to explain a complex reality they don't even try to understand...
...That's one reason, in fact, that Putin wants to cast a Cold War pall over the entire scene so as to rally support against the old foreign enemy and thereby hang on to power...
...However, when U.S...
...During the first week of the U.S...
...George W. Bush entered the White House a few months after Putin's inauguration, and Kremlin officials viewed the new Administration in Washington in a highly favorable light...
...Bewildered viewers discovered that next door in Ukraine, a coup was under way, allegedly planned by foreign intelligence agents...
...invasion of Iraq, Russian government-controlled television resembled that of Soviet times, with the media using every opportunity to criticize American aggression...
...The people running the show in Moscow are desperately concerned about an Orange Revolution at home...
...The goal of these enemies, the TV reported, was to bring a pro-Western president, Viktor Yushchenko, to power instead of pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovich...
...Moscow behaved like one of Ivan Pavlov's dogs...
...But the real Cold War was a confrontation of two economic and political systems...
...While the latter is a strange left-right amalgamation, which is becoming increasingly close to the Russian liberal establishment, the involvement of the Youth Left Front and trade unionists and community groups represents the emergence of a grassroots politics, and with it, a genuine radicalization of Russian society...
...On the issue of Iraq's $8 billion debt to Russia, Moscow also took a very soft stand, with Putin agreeing to write off 80 percent...
...But so was President Leonid Kuchma and his prime minister, Yanukovich...
...The Russian delegation to the U.N...
...As was immediately obvious, however, their actions were driven not by firm principles or by concern for the national interest, but by sheer opportunism...
...Much of the diplomatic struggle boiled down to a contest between Washington and Berlin for Russia's vote in the U.N...
...The standoff now is between the dollar and the Euro blocs...
...There is no longer a standoff between NATO and the long-defunct Eastern Bloc...
...troops used its former military installations in the new Central Asian republics...
...Nor will it frighten the White House...
...International terrorists, according to Putin, wanted to prevent Bush from getting a second term...
...He is losing the last remnants of his political authority, blundering from one crisis to another, appearing impotent both at home and abroad...
...To be sure, Putin shocked everyone with his crude tactics and open meddling...
...Russia's role in the diplomatic struggle around Iraq further tarnished Putin's reputation...
...After September 11, 2001, Moscow gave Americans another nice present...
...The cuts affected more than thirty-two million people, and were almost universally seen as a betrayal...
...Unlike the protests in Ukraine, those in Russia were openly defying neoliberal economic policies...
...German economic interests are all too important there...
...It's not working...
...Russia's policy toward Western investment grew increasingly compliant, which was more important to Bush than press freedom or civilian casualties in Chechnya...
...The Ukrainian crisis has detonated Russia, which has a lot of explosive material of its own lying around...
...When disagreements between the United States and Germany came to the surface, however, the Russian leadership was at a loss...
...It was Moscow last December...
...Locked in a domestic political crisis, Putin now has to talk tough when referring to Washington...
...And defeating Bush "would give an additional impulse to international terrorists and to their activities, and could lead to the spread of terrorism to other parts of the world...
...Now Russia and the West share the same system: capitalism...
...And in Russia, this is a very dangerous thing indeed...
...The crisis that came to a head over the weekend of February 15-16, 2003, was totally unexpected in the Kremlin...
...But now, because of Putin's Ukraine blunder, relations with Washington are on the blink...
...Yes, Yushchenko is without a doubt pro-American...
...troops succeeded in taking Baghdad, the Russian elite started panicking again...
...What's more, Yushchenko is opposing some privatization efforts that are so cherished in Washington these days...
...They expected Bush not to be especially concerned with human rights, and they were right...
...The sight of Russian leaders mouthing words dictated in Berlin while never taking their eyes off of Washington was nothing short of embarrassing...
...It joined the anti-terrorist coalition and did not raise a stink when U.S...
...Activists of the Youth Left Front, as well as those of the National Bolshevik Party, were also involved...
...Fortunately, Russian policymakers drew the right conclusion in the end...
...These were not just old people, as some of the press reports made it seem...
...Bush barely squawked when Putin eliminated independent TV and intensified repression in Chechnya...
...gradually softened its opposition to Bush's war, finally dropping any criticism of Washington whatsoever...
...The tone of propaganda changed, and reconciliation with Washington was seen as an absolute necessity...
...In mid-January, Putin faced unprecedented nationwide protests against a new law that gutted benefits for veterans, retirees, and people with disabilities...
...Kuchma's government, after all, sent troops to Iraq...
...By placating Bush, Putin demonstrated his weakness to his own people and to the military brass, who will never forgive him for letting Americans into Central Asia and surrendering those last overseas bases...
...Relations are getting spoiled, and it is the Kremlin, not the White House, that will pay the price...
...This system worked quite well so long as Germany kept a low profile in international affairs and at least made a show of solidarity with the United States...
...Every political show included condemnation of American expansionism and calls to protect the country against an enemy that was threatening the very existence of our state...
...Yushchenko has already declared that improving relations with Berlin is a key priority...
...For ten years, Kremlin ideologues have led the public to believe that Russia must support the United States or risk isolation from the "entire civilized world...
...News shows mentioned mass anti-war demonstrations without much comment, at the same time informing the public on President Putin's consultations with both proWashington leaders like Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi, as well as with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who opposed the war...
...And just as he is floundering in foreign policy, so, too, in domestic policy...
...The police showed a visible reluctance to disperse the crowds, and when people got arrested, police officers would refuse the orders of their superiors to fill in the forms necessary to make the arrests legal...
...In more than a dozen cities across the country, Russians poured into the streets, with some people demanding Putin's resignation...
...Speaking at the Central Asian Cooperation Organization summit in Tajikistan in October 2004, Putin said, "Any unbiased observer understands that attacks of international terrorist organizations in Iraq, especially nowadays, are targeted not only and not so much against the international coalition as against President Bush...
...They were aware of the link between free market reforms and the authoritarian approach of Putin...
...Boris Kagarlitsky is a sociologist who lives in Moscow...
...It was not the Soviet Union in the 1950s, Cuba in 1961, or Iraq in early 2003...
...When Putin came to power, first as prime minister and then as caretaker president in 1999, the rhetoric changed somewhat, and he made more references to Russia's great-power status...
...If they succeed in doing that, they will celebrate a victory over America and over the entire anti-terror coalition...
...Over the past decade, Russia has been politically dependent on the United States and economically dependent on Germany...
...And the Kremlin can't seem to make up its mind which side to take in this rivalry, dodging back and forth between Brussels and Washington and dooming itself to a whole string of unilateral concessions to both competing sides...
Vol. 69 • March 2005 • No. 3
