The broad ruling group, however, never felt completely secure in power, and it was ruthless in enforcing its grip on public debate. Investigative journalists who highlighted official corruption or challenged the government’s account of the war in Chechnya exposed themselves to personal danger. In October 2006 Anna Politkovskaya was murdered outside her Moscow apartment. She was the most prominent of the critical reporters targeted in this manner, but there were several others. Her newspaper, Novaya gazeta, was subjected to repeated acts of persecution. Vladimir Slivyak exposed the wide-spread negligence in the civil nuclear industry in the Russian far north; he was treated as a traitor and subjected to continual harassment. In London, where Boris Berezovski stepped up his barrage of accusations against the Russian authorities, Alexander Litvinenko – one of his associates – was poisoned in November 2006 with a lethal dose of polonium-210.
Suspicions about the FSB’s involvement quickly surfaced as outspoken rival politicians were intimidated throughout Russia. A gang of unidentified thugs had crushed the fingers of Yabloko leader Grigori Yavlinski’s pianist son in Yeltsin’s time. The dangers of opposition increased under Putin. Garry Kasparov was temporarily thrown into gaol merely for campaigning for justice and civil rights, and the FSB was given licence to act outside the law in defence of the whole state order. Putin himself disclaimed involvement in the specific cases. But he showed little sympathy for the victims and did next to nothing to rectify the general situation. Moreover, he had always reserved control of the security services as a Presidential fief.13 He also let it be known that he had a pleasant conversation with ex-KGB leader and planner of the August 1991 coup Vladimir Kryuchkov – this was a neat way of relaying a ‘dog whistle’ message that he retained his personal faith in the reliability of the security services. Russia sank deeper and deeper into a pit of authoritarian rule backed by criminality.
Putin in his second term moved ever further down the road towards a centralization of power. From December 2004 the leaders of the Russian Federation’s republics, instead of being elected, were to be selected by the president and their names were to be submitted to the legislative bodies of their localities for approval or rejection. Several of the smaller of the non-Russian republics in the Federation, moreover, were abolished. The authority of ‘the centre’ was ceaselessly confirmed.
In April 2005 Putin also took a grip of the country’s thousands of civil associations from charities to recreational groups, making it compulsory for them to acquire official registration and subjecting them to central supervision through a Public Chamber he himself appointed. Foreign agencies were treated with some suspicion and difficulties were placed in the way of the British Council, the BBC Russian Service and other bodies. Religious denominations too were put under pressure. Although the Russian Orthodox Church was granted privileges, in return it was required to show eager loyalty to the secular authorities. Putin, himself a professed Christian, interfered in personnel appointments in other faiths. Berel Lazar, a Hasid, was his first choice as Chief Rabbi in 2000. Universities were vigorously patrolled. Textbooks were vetted; approved authors had to moderate any criticism of Stalin. A youth movement, Nashi (‘Our Ones’), was founded to divert adolescents towards patriotic ideals. Its organizations were employed to harass the British ambassador after a worsening of Russo–UK relations in 2006. Only lip-service was paid to enhancing social freedom. The reality was that the Kremlin distrusted collective endeavours by citizens unless there could be confidence that respect for the government, its leaders and its policies would be maintained.
Putin and his fellow rulers over several years combined electoral abuse, legislative licence, violent repression and media control to sustain an authoritarian regime. His projects on terrorism, on political extremism and public demonstrations were smoothly passed by the Federal Assembly. The loose wording of the laws was designed to make it easier for government and security agencies to curtail open dissent. Putin also succeeded, after years of trying, to scrap the remnants of the communist system of social security and replace it with monetary payments that gave a lesser guarantee of assistance in times of personal emergency.14 Yet he could not permanently ignore the popular grievances recorded in sample surveys. In 2005 he announced four ‘national programmes’ for urgent reform in housing, social welfare, agriculture and health care. The central and local elites had neglected such sectors since the fall of communism since they themselves could easily pay privately for what they needed. Most families, though, experienced dreadful under-provision. They lived in cramped accommodation. They could ill afford the weekly grocery bill. If they fell sick, they had to pay bribes to state-employed doctors for treatment.
His public image was manicured by his spokesmen, and it elicited a positive response from most Russians. The female pop duo Singing Together had a hit with ‘I Want A Man Like Putin’; his alcohol-free lifestyle commended itself especially to young women. When he appeared on radio for a question-and-answer programme, middle-aged listeners rang him up to express their heartfelt thanks. Male adults appreciated his relish for macho sports. He also posed for a photo holding a tiger cub which an unknown friend had given him on his birthday. TV stations, all owned by his supporters, joined in the praise. The photographers accompanied him on a tour of eastern Siberia in August 2007 when he took Prince Albert II of Monaco out fishing – and pictures appeared of him stripped to the waist in the bright sunlight. Requests came through from the public for the Constitution to be amended so that he could stand again for a presidential third term. For a while he seemed to toy with the idea. The loyal sections of the media gave the impression that Russia, having found its saviour, should not allow him to stand down from the paramount office.
Outside politics, Russians also began to do better on the international stage. Official sport recovered. Yeltsin had always supported tennis and the proliferation of private clubs enabled a sequence of grand slam champions, starting with Marat Safin in 2000 and Maria Sharapova in 2004. Russian football became a serious force in European competitions. At the Beijing Olympics in August 2008 the country came third in the medals table. In December of the same year Xenia Sikhinova won the Miss World contest in South Africa.
The Duma elections in December 2007 produced 315 seats for United Russia. This was a remarkable endorsement of Putin’s period of rule. But the Constitution prevented him from standing for a third successive Presidential term, and he resisted the temptation to alter the rules. As he pondered whom to recommend as his successor, he at first seemed to favour Viktor Zubkov by appointing him as Prime Minister in September 2007. Like Putin, Zubkov hailed from St Petersburg, and the two of them had worked together for years. In the end Putin plumped for Dmitri Medvedev, who was First Deputy Prime Minister and was overseeing the ‘national programmes’ announced by Putin to improve health care, housing, agriculture and education. Putin chose him for his loyalty and competence and preserved his own interests by a secret deal whereby Medvedev, once elected, would nominate Putin himself as the new Prime Minister.
The usual dirty tricks were played in the electoral campaign. Liberal-minded politicians were ruled out of the contest on spurious technical grounds. These included ex-premier Mikhail Kasyanov. Even the former chess world champion Garry Kasparov was banned. Tired veterans Zyuganov and Zhirinovski were allowed to stand but they received little airtime on television. In stark contrast, Medvedev’s every public appearance was filmed and the Kremlin’s mastership of ‘political technology’ secured the desired result in March 2008.
Medvedev was an appropriate selection for Putin to make. A fellow Leningrader, Medvedev had proved his worth as a political client over many years. He was bright in intellect and gentle in appearance. While Putin strutted around like a judo master, Medvedev had the looks of a well-preserved member of a 1990s boy band. The remarkable feature of Medvedev’s early pronouncements was his emphasis on Russia’s need for the rule of law. But his appointment of Putin as Prime Minister made it clear that chan
ges, if they really were going to happen, would occur only in very limited fashion and at a gradual pace.
Russian assertiveness in international relations kept rising. The ‘foreign policy concept’ adopted in July 2008 took pleasure in the recent strengthening of state power and economic well-being in Russia. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that the period of the West’s global dominance was over, and Medvedev’s team were determined to roll back the recent inroads made by NATO. A suitable opportunity cropped up in August 2008 when President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia sent troops into the rebellious republic of South Osetia. Georgia had already announced its intention to apply for NATO membership. Russian presidents since the break-up of the Soviet Union had regarded the ‘near abroad’ as a zone where American influence was not welcome. Saakashvili’s campaign met with a furious reaction as tank units of the Russian Army thrust their way over the mountains down into Georgia, smashing all military resistance and ruining strategic economic infrastructure. Medvedev, while announcing that armed occupation would be only temporary, proceeded to give official recognition to the independence of both South Osetia and Abkhazia.
The Russian Army carried out a crude operation that attracted opprobium in the rest of the world. It was reported – and never convincingly denied – that Putin told French President Nicolas Sarkozy that he intended to follow the example of what the Americans had done to Saddam Hussein and to ‘hang up Saakashvili by the balls’. Sarkozy allegedly asked: ‘Yes, but do you want to end up like Bush?’ Putin admitted: ‘Ah, you’ve got a point there.’15 Russia’s people in any case felt positive about the Russian campaign. The rulers and the ruled sensed that proof had finally been given that the country would need to be taken seriously even by the Americans. First Putin and then Medvedev demanded that the US should stop using NATO as a means to pursue a unilateralist foreign and security policy around the globe. Medvedev claimed that the difficult stage of rebuilding the Russian state and economy was over. Russia was again a great power. It demanded respect for international law in relations among states. It required to be treated on an equal basis by the countries of NATO. It depicted itself as having its own distinct civilization, and the values and power of the West were declared as being on the decline.
The bludgeoning of Georgia removed lingering official reluctance in Poland and the Czech Republic about accepting the American proposal to establish installations against long-range ballistic missiles on their territory. Russia caused fear without gaining friends or admirers. It also worried potential investors. Despite its petrochemical riches, it needed help in modernizing its drilling and refining facilities – and the Russian government’s bullying of foreign companies was scarcely going to hasten this process. The harassment of Berezovski, Gusinski and Khodorkovski had the effect of inducing other rich businessmen to decant some of their fortunes to London. There was a westward exodus of talent that the country could ill afford. The departure of Berezovski and other ‘oligarchs’ was regretted by few citizens but the atmosphere of Russian big business was not improved. The Kremlin and the petrochemical industrial sector were locked in an intimate embrace. Occasional information trickled out about the wealth of ministers. Public office became a ticket to vast wealth. Liberal political opposition to the Kremlin became demoralized. Yavlinski stepped down from the Yabloko leadership in June 2008. The Union of Right Forces gave up independent activity in November, amalgamating itself with other such parties into the new Right Cause party and campaigning for democracy, the rule of law and free markets; but the fact that Medvedev endorsed its foundation indicated how little a challenge to him it represented.16
Moscow’s meddling in the post-1991 territorial settlement in the former USSR was on the increase. Medvedev pointed out that this was no different in principle from what the Americans had done with Kosovo (which formally declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008). Russia strengthened its ties with Venezuela and Cuba as if searching to help the enemies of successive American presidents in the New World. A dispute with Ukraine about payment for Russian gas led to a suspension of supplies to several other European countries in January 2009 until the Ukrainian government agreed to terms. In November 2008, furthermore, Medvedev had announced the intention to install missile-launching facilities in the west of the Russian Federation in reaction to President Bush’s initiative in Poland and the Czech Republic. By January 2009, after Barack Obama’s inauguration as US President, things were calming down, and Medvedev suggested the need to resume negotiations. Russians aimed to bargain from a position of pride and strength. Tacitly they regarded most of the former Soviet Union as falling inside their sphere of legitimate influence and aimed to secure agreement from the Americans to keep their noses out of the region.
The Russian rulers vigorously pursued the national economic interest in international relations. They – or Gazprom and Rosneft – sold their energy resources to Europe. The existing pipelines favoured the maintaining of this commercial connection. The Chinese were known as slow payers; the Europeans had a record of prompt settling of charges. Medvedev, moreover, was just as aware as Putin that Russia stood in need of foreign capital and technology. The boom in state revenues from gas and oil was disrupted in mid-2008 when world prices dipped; and the forecasts of Russian extraction of its energy resources anyway suggested that output was going to fall. Manufacturing, agriculture and transport remained in an outdated condition. Moscow and a few great cities flourished while the rest of the country awaited ‘modernization’. Public education stood in great need of adequate financing and rapid reform. The decline in the birth rate among ethnic Russians continued. What is more, eastern Siberia underwent depopulation as the state withdrew its subsidy for residence there. Although the incidence of poverty across the country declined during Putin’s presidential terms it still affected one in seven households in mid-2008.17 Russia took 131st place in a world ranking of countries according to how ‘peaceful’ they were. Quite apart from the violence in the north Caucasus, Russian crime, political repression and military expenditure were high and getting higher.18 Drug abuse, moreover, went on rising. Concern grew about Russia’s demography as measured in rates of mortality, births and ill-health.
The Kremlin élite was aware of its responsibilities to the nation and spoke often about them. But Putin and Medvedev settled for a mixture of politics and economics which appeared to have worked elsewhere. Vigorous control over elections and policy-making was imposed. Big business was made to understand that its freedom to make money could and would be revoked if ever its leaders fell out of line with the government’s wishes. At the same time the Kremlin held back from censoring the Internet or closing down bookstores. Private dissent was tolerated so long as it stayed inside the apartments of the dissenters or was limited to a few eccentrics selling poorly produced pamphlets on street corners – this was more than what was allowed in China, Singapore or Indonesia.
Nevertheless Russian rulers ceased to claim Western political systems as their models for aspiration. Vladislav Surkov, deputy chief of the Presidential administration, invented the term ‘sovereign democracy’ to highlight the idea that Russia should pursue the goal of independence from foreign influences as it restored state power and national confidence. ‘Managed democracy’ was an alternative designation.19 The aim was to stress that Putin and his associates did not intend to pursue any comprehensive vision of democracy. They saw the world around them as a hostile encirclement. They felt they could not drop their guard for fear of enabling foreign powers to take advantage. They were determined to use the might of the central state institutions to secure what they saw as the national interest.
The Russian economy after 1991 was acutely sensitive to shockwaves emitted by the global economy. When the global ‘credit crunch’ occurred in summer 2008 the Russian stock exchange had to suspend its operations several times through the rest of the year. The decrease in oil and gas revenues in the same months aggravated problems. The budget had b
een written on the assumption that Russian energy products would continue to command high prices on foreign markets. There was a return to the difficulties of the 1990s with salary and pension arrears, job uncertainty and inflation. The Russian boom had failed to last a full decade. Closures of businesses became an epidemic. Even the mightiest Russian company Gazprom, experienced an eighty per cent collapse in its share prices in the second half of the year. Many of the most successful entrepreneurs had accumulated their wealth by raising huge loans from foreign banks, and as the value of commodities fell on world markets they faced difficulty in servicing their debts. The solution for them was to sell off assets to the state. Once-mighty oligarchs felt the bruises of a deep recession and started to lose their grip on the country’s natural resources. The loans-for-shares débâcle of 1996 was repeated in reverse: this time it was the business elite going cap in hand to the government. The fragility of Russia’s decade-long economic upsurge was made manifest.
29
And Russia? (From 2009)
President Medvedev spoke openly of his fear that the economic recession might lead to social unrest, and he warned the political opposition against trying to exploit the situation. The security forces were kept primed for action. Although they could maintain order in Moscow, intelligence reports predicted more demonstrations in other cities. In January 2009 anti-governmental rallies duly took place in Vladivostok on the Pacific periphery of the Russian Federation. The slogans included ‘Down with capitalist slavery!’ and ‘Bring back the right to work!’ Though communist party organizers were to the fore, they were not the only militants. Prime Minister Putin’s rating in the opinion polls dipped for the first time since the Kursk disaster in 2000. Suddenly the political order appeared less than completely stable. As the standard of living dipped during the global economic recession, the patience of millions of Russians wore thin. The authorities worried that what happened in Vladivostok could be repeated elsewhere.
The Penguin History of Modern Russia Page 65