We believe that David Ignatius's article in the Washington Post is very well worth reading today, as he discusses some of the dominant themes that came up during a recent conference sponsored by the Russian Institute entitled "What Does Russia Think?" (oddly, I unknowingly gave yesterday's video interview a similar title). The result is a presentation of a bouquet of modern myths about Russia - such as Putin's authoritarianism being mistaken with economic success (instead of coincidence with high oil prices), the strongman legend, the distrust and antagonism toward the outside world, and the other "heaps of memes" (as Michael Idov would describe them) that contribute to our common understanding of Russian politics. Ignatius is aware of these shortcuts of logic and rationalism, so the argument he presents over the Grand Inquisitor paradox takes the longitudinal view that the problems Russia is experiencing are the same from 100 years ago. Interesting stuff."Putin is the leader. There is no disagreement about that. Putin came to power and life improved," argued a member of the Russian Duma. He described Putin's political intuition in the way that 19th-century Russians spoke about the czar: "Putin knows what the society needs better than the society does."
Putin is the tough guy who put a wounded country back together after the fall of communism. "Russia emerged from the chaos of 1991 with disproportionately large political and socio-psychological scars," explained Alexey Chesnakov, a former Putin adviser who is director of the Center for Current Policy. When Putin became president in 1999, he brought "authoritarianism by consensus," said the head of another Russian think tank.
Modern Russia is still anxious, even though it's more orderly. Russians worry about the jumble of nationalities within their borders and assertive neighbors such as Georgia and Ukraine. It's an "overheated, overloaded society," said a prominent anthropologist who, like some of his colleagues, was speaking on background. Nervous Russians are "running away from their freedom," offered a leading sociologist. With the loss of its empire, Russia is "like an amputated body," ventured Vyacheslav Glazychev, an urban planning professor who heads several institutes. It has a "horror vacui, a fear of empty spaces," he added.
"We want equality. We want our interests recognized -- to have them considered as significant," said one Russian panelist. But when Americans attending the meeting asked for specifics, another Russian who is a prominent politician suggested: "The real problem is that we don't understand what we want."
Even though I agree there are many (sometimes dangerous) myths about Russia around (and frankly also about the US), some of which are mentioned in this article, I think I have to disagree with the idea that "Putin's authoritarianism [is] mistaken with economic success (instead of coincidence with high oil prices)". There is truth in that, but then again to imagine that it all boils down to a mere coincidence of high oil prices is, I think, an oversimplification.
I am not an economist, so I'll let those who know more than I do correct me. But my impression was that, in the Yeltsin period, a number of 'extra-capitalist+' reforms were quickly carried out without too much understanding of what capitalism really was and how it worked (which wouldn't be the first time in the history of Russia that a Western idea or concept is misapplied). Some, perhaps a lot, of the resulting chaos was a consequence of that, i.e. that those who were carrying out the reforms didn't fully understand what they were doing.
I imagine that the situation would have been less bad if oil prices had gone way up very quickly and stabilized at their peak. Still: the part of the crisis that was the result of Yeltsin's people's lack of experience would still have been there.
It seems to me Putin and his group were more efficient managers in their own way than Yeltsin's group was. It's my impression that they were more conservative, more sensible and more restrained with the money that the oil roulette threw into their hands. (I'm not saying they were a Swiss-like model of financial competence; no, the oligarchs are there to show that this isn't the case. I'm simply saying they were better than Yeltsin -- who also had oligarchs and mafiosi of his own.)
In sum: to say that Putin's success is simply a consequence of high oil prices is, despite containing a lot of truth, still an oversimplification. Yeltsin would, I think, not have been as efficient with a similar oil-driven prosperity. There's some difference between the two governments that shouldn't be forgotten due to oil price fluctuations.
By the way, in case you people are interested, there was an interesting discussion (in Russian) about "the hand of the Kremlin: a threat?" (рука Кремля: угроза?) in the Russian-language talk show "Суд присяжных" of the Estonian TV channel ETV. Here is a link to it:
http://novosti.err.ee/index.php?2&popup=video&id=22670