When the leader of a state begins to talk more about the past, it is a sign that he usually has nothing to say about the future.
Boris Yeltsin’s farewell and the emergence of Vladimir Putin
On the last day of 1999, the New Year’s Eve for Russians turned out to be unlike usual. During what seemed to be a traditional address of the Russian President Boris Yeltsin to the people, it turned out to be essentially his farewell as the head of the Russian Federation. Instead, after him, viewers saw a new leader of the country — for the time being only in the capacity of the acting President — Vladimir Putin.
Until now, political analysts have been puzzled — why, out of almost two dozen possible contenders, did Boris Nikolayevich stop his choice on this former KGB officer (a “mid-level” officer) and later, a close associate of the “Petersburg democrat” Anatoly Sobchak (at least, that’s how he seemed at the time), whom he entrusted to lead the FSB in 1998, and from August 1999, the Russian government?
Most obviously, for at least two reasons — pressure from the security agencies on Yeltsin and simultaneous assurances from the state security agencies that they would preserve the guarantees of “immunity” (including business and financial) for the first Russian president and his “Family” — a concept that extended beyond Boris Nikolayevich’s immediate family circle.
The new Russian leader responded to the societal demands of the then-Russian society. Instead of Yeltsin, who seemed already aged (even though he was younger at that time than the current “eternally young” Russian president) and frail with alcohol abuse, Russians got the youngest state leader in the history of Russia in the twentieth century — a leader who was also of athletic build and had determined plans to lead Russia into the twenty-first century, not only as a stable but also as a strong state.
This last factor particularly impressed those Russians who perceived the 1990s with the so-called “democratization” of the country (so-called because after Yeltsin’s October 1993 “assault” on the parliament and the increased influence of the newly-minted oligarchs in Russia, its illusory nature became evident) as a weakening of Russian statehood, a significant loss of Russia’s geopolitical influence in the world, and the total impoverishment of the majority of the average population, culminating in the 1998 default.
Public perception and media manipulation in Putin’s favor
The new, young face brought hope for a new and better life in the new decade (which, after 2001, was both a new century and a new millennium). Moreover, this positive image was reinforced by one of the central Russian television channels, Public Russian Television, controlled by Boris Berezovsky — a typical product of the 1990s, who managed to transform himself from a former Soviet mathematician-scientist into a prominent big businessman and media magnate during that decade.
In April 1999, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office declared a businessman wanted and authorized his arrest on charges of illegal entrepreneurship and money laundering in the case of the airline Aeroflot. Hoping for favorable treatment from the new Russian leader (and consequently, an end to the criminal prosecution), Berezovsky did everything possible to present Putin, even when he was the Prime Minister, as a true fighter against terrorism amidst a series of apartment bombings in Russia in September 1999 (it was during this time that an explosion in Ryazan was averted due to timely intervention by individuals, most likely from the FSB, who discovered bags of explosives in the basement… oops, it turned out to be just sugar). Later on, Berezovsky portrayed Putin as a state leader who restored the territorial integrity of Russia by subduing the “rebellious” Ichkeria, completely destroying its capital Grozny, and transforming it into a subject of Russia in the form of the Chechen Republic led by the Kadyrov clan.
Berezovsky’s move worked, primarily thanks to television; the ratings of the relatively unknown Putin skyrocketed rapidly. In the presidential elections in March 2000, he won in the first round, obtaining over 53% of the vote, surpassing his closest competitor, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, by almost 24%.
However, this turned out to be an ironic twist for the oligarch himself. During Vladimir Vladimirovich’s presidency, in November 2000, the prosecutor’s office announced its intention to continue the case against Berezovsky, and a year later, he was declared a federal fugitive. He no longer lived in Russia and died under mysterious circumstances: on March 23, 2013, he was found hanged in his own house in Berkshire, England.
As for Public Russian Television channel, it transformed from a public broadcaster to a federal one (meaning it came under government control) over the next two years, even changing its name to Pervyi (meaning “First”).
In addition to Berezovsky, another businessman-oligarch, Vladimir Gusinsky, also escaped from criminal persecution in Russia. He was also a media magnate and the owner of the holding company Media-Most, which included television channels NTV, TNT, the newspaper Segodnya, the radio station Echo of Moscow, and others. Afterwardі, control over this media empire was taken over by Gazprom. As a result, viewers critical of the Kremlin lost satirical “Puppets,” opposition journalists, and talk shows, and instead, received another media platform that now only portrayed the Russian government positively.
However, the majority of ordinary Russians perceived these processes positively. The “equal distancing” of the oligarchs from influencing state governance, which was practiced during the second half of the 1990s under Yeltsin’s presidency, and the opening of cases against them were seen as a triumph of justice, as if to say, finally, those who looted us during the wild privatization will get what they deserve. Therefore, when in 2003 the co-owners of the private oil company Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, were arrested, most of Russian society viewed these events positively (“another group of newly-minted oligarchs was being punished”). Later, few were interested in the fact that in the following years, the business of the arrested individuals, which experts assessed as the fourth largest in the world in the oil industry, was forcibly bankrupted by the Russian government, and the assets of Yukos were absorbed by the state-owned Russian company Rosneft.
Putin’s leadership style: firm hand and establishment of Putinocracy
Overall, the accumulation of gas and oil resources in the hands of the state (and in the case of Russia, under the Kremlin’s control), the transformation of the media sphere into state propaganda, and the subjugation of major political opponents among the communists and Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (turning them into “pocket opposition” in a country of “managed democracy”), along with the centralization of the governing apparatus by creating institutions of presidential envoys in federal districts (replacing regional representatives) and abolishing the election of governors, all contributed to the establishment of Vladimir Putin’s reputation as a leader with a “firm hand” during his first presidential term. He saw himself as a statesman with the task of lifting a weakened Russia “off its knees” and began to outline the system, the foundations of which were laid precisely during 2000-2004, as “Putinocracy.”
See also: Russia is destroying the world order: the West faces a dilemma
Interestingly, Putin did not associate himself with any specific ideology at that time — even the pro-presidential political force in the State Duma, Unity (future United Russia), was characterized by ideological vagueness, which, in the end, also allowed for maneuvering in the future (as it eventually happened).
Meanwhile, the increase in energy prices worldwide in the 2000s contributed to the improvement of the Russian economy (and with it, the well-being of the average Russian, especially in Moscow or St. Petersburg). Cooperation with the West, particularly with the USA, was even closer at that time, as both sides faced the common threat of “terrorism,” especially after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, from the American side, and the Nord-Ost and Beslan hostage crises from the Russian side. Relations with European partners were also being strengthened, particularly in the sphere of gas and oil.
By the mid-2000s, the “Putin-the-statesman,” who seemed to have achieved everything he planned within Russia, began to boldly assert his claims externally. The catalyst for this was the events of the Iraq War, but mainly the revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, which the Kremlin perceived as attempts to weaken Russian influence in the post-Soviet space (which Moscow regarded as its own geopolitical domain even during the time of “democrat” Yeltsin after 1991).
Geopolitical ambitions: asserting Russia’s influence abroad
Ukraine was one of the first to experience the attempts of Putin’s foreign policy revisionism, initially in the form of the first “gas war” at the beginning of 2006. In 2007, the world heard Putin’s ominous “Munich” speech, criticizing the “unipolar world” led by the USA and Russia’s unwillingness as a “state with a thousand-year history” (quoting Putin) to accept such a state of affairs. The Bucharest NATO Summit was then essentially a triumph for the Kremlin leader. At the summit, neither Georgia nor Ukraine received a Membership Action Plan for joining the Alliance. During a closed meeting with his American counterpart, George W. Bush, Putin even openly stated, perhaps for the first time, that Ukraine was an artificially created state.
Then, during Dmitry Medvedev’s formal presidency (you understand who was really in control of the processes), the invasion of Georgia occurred. The West responded with French President Sarkozy acting as a mediator. However, he failed to convince Russia to refrain from extreme actions and recognize the self-proclaimed Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Moscow justified its actions by stating that the West was the first to recognize Kosovo’s independence, and Russia was merely responding in kind. Nonetheless, these events did not significantly impact the economic relations between Russia and European countries. On the contrary, discussions on the South Stream gas pipeline began, and the construction of the Nord Stream pipeline started. Russian oligarchs continued to transform London into “Londongrad” (ironically), built villas on the French Riviera, and had residences in Miami Beach.
Meanwhile, alongside the sphere of political-military activity, Russian soft power strategy was actively at work. The Russkiy Mir Foundation, the Rossotrudnichestvo network, and the activities of the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church worldwide were all instrumental channels through which the necessary narratives for Russian authorities were conveyed to both the Russian population and those beyond its borders. Through cultural diplomacy, they enabled discussions on topics that traditional diplomacy had not yet dared to broach — the need to unite everyone who identifies with Russia as a whole. Not just and not so much those who reside within the borders of the Russian Federation, but specifically those who found themselves outside its borders after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.
Putin began to adopt the role of “unifier-leader” towards the end of his second presidential term, but fully embraced it when he returned to this position for the third time in 2012. Even the anti-government protests in 2011-2012 did not hinder him, as they rather demonstrated the opposition’s inability (which included various groups, from extreme right to extreme left, along with liberals) to organize effective resistance methods or formulate their own demands, posing no real threat to the Russian authorities.
On the other hand, the mere fact of their emergence served as a signal to the Russian leadership that society needed new arguments to maintain a high level of support, as the old ones were no longer sufficient. Thus, attempts to implement various economic (in Russia’s case, also political) integration projects continued, such as the Eurasian Economic Space or the Eurasian Economic Union, which were meant to lay the foundations for the Eurasian Union as an alternative to the European Union. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) was intended to be an alternative to NATO, although the idea seemed doomed to failure from the very beginning.
See also: The scam of the millennium. How Muscovites became Russians
Historical revisionism and Putin’s obsession with the past
However, Putin decided to play with society in the field of history as well (a nod to right-wing circles). From 2012, historical revisionism in historical research intensified in Russia. The Russian Historical Society emerged in Russia with the aim of “countering falsifications of Russian history” (which, in reality, meant censoring historical works). It was led by the then-speaker of the State Duma of Russia, Sergey Naryshkin (who still heads it, now in the capacity of the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service).
And since then, researchers of the “dark” pages of Russian history, especially the tragic twentieth century (such as Stalinist repressions, the Holodomor in Ukraine, Soviet cooperation with Nazi Germany in the 1930s and the early stages of World War II, the Gulag), both in Soviet times and now, have come under close state control. However, those scholars (or are they really scholars?) who were willing to tailor their analysis to fit “state interests” (emphasizing the “glorious” moments of Russian statehood) received generous financial support from the government for their activities, assistance for international internships, and even an audience with the top leadership of Russia (and, of course, state awards for their “conscientious work”).
Moreover, as time went on, the Russian president himself increasingly (and, after the start of the war against Ukraine in 2014, even more frequently) began to play with historical themes in his public addresses, often interpreting them too freely and chaotically. It is not even worth mentioning the grandiose Victory Day parades held annually on Red Square or the introduction of the practice of using St. George ribbons during these May celebrations. We are talking here about the public instrumentalization of history.
It is about how the Russian leader, while assessing contemporary geopolitical processes, has increasingly actively sought answers in the past (somewhere in the distant past, and somewhere closer in time), almost dividing the entire political world into “state” (with a long history of statehood) and “non-state” (lacking such history) countries and defining Russia’s place between them.
Hence the explanations for the occupation of Crimea and Donbas and the existence of “Novorossiya” on “Russian historical lands.” Hence the interpretation of Ukraine purely as a creation of Vladimir Lenin (oh, what an adventurer!), who united agrarian “Malorossiya” with industrial “Novorossiya,” later expanded by Stalin to the west, and “under the influence” by Khrushchev, who added the Crimean Peninsula as well.
And, of course, the current confrontation with the West, according to Putin, is not a consequence of Moscow’s military aggression against a neighboring sovereign state protected by the UN status (yes, such protection exists, regardless of the “history” in the mind of the Russian president). It is merely the West’s desire to weaken, if not destroy, Russia, as it supposedly always did — whether in the form of the Teutonic Order, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (hence the mention of the threat of a new Time of Troubles during the Prigozhin conspiracy), or the Central Powers, who, by bribing Lenin (again, this adventurer), “stole victory” in Russia during World War I.
And it is understandable that the West contributed to the emergence of Hitler in world politics (of course, the Kremlin does not mention German factories in the territory of the USSR during the interwar period). The West initiated the “Great Patriotic War” against the Soviet Union (“Lend-Lease from Great Britain or the USA? — We would have won without it, just like without the Ukrainian people, by the way”). The West, not wishing to strengthen the USSR, declared the Cold War against it.
And Russians wanted peace. Not wanting further escalation, they went, represented by Gorbachev, “for peace.” But “we were deceived.” They weakened even more. They contributed to the collapse of the USSR (about the internal economic and political prerequisites — silence again), and against the backdrop of a weakened Russia, they expanded NATO to the east (oh, those “ungrateful” Central European countries — yesterday’s members of the Eastern bloc). And when Russia supposedly began to claim to become one of the poles of world geopolitics again, they try to destroy it again, either through “color revolutions” or economic sanctions, by creating “anti-Russia” from countries like the Baltic states, especially Ukraine, and so on down the list.
Not only a history professor but even a good first-year history student would perhaps just laugh at such visions. However, it seems that the Russian leadership itself believed in its own lies. Or maybe from the beginning, they mistakenly perceived it as the truth.
In any case, it seems that Putin, the “historian,” too engrossed in history, did not pay attention to the main point — his beloved Russian predecessor Peter the Great aimed to “open a window to Europe,” meaning he was focused on the future. The Bolsheviks (again those “adventurists”) carried out a revolution with the idea of a future world revolution, and when it didn’t materialize, they settled for the task of building communism in the USSR (again, about the future, although few believed in it later).
At the beginning of the 2000s, Putin also spoke about the future. The question is how well he managed to realize it. Judging by the fact that in the 24 years of his rule in Russia, a country with truly vast natural resources and potential for innovative development, the Kremlin’s leader prefers to talk more about events from 80 or 200 years ago — it’s not good.
Moreover, when a leader talks more about the past, he usually has nothing to say about the present, let alone the future. The question is only how much of that future remains for the Kremlin’s master himself?
Originally posted by Pavlo Artymyshyn on Zaxid.net. Translated and edited by the UaPosition – Ukrainian news and analytics website
See also: The foundation is crumbling. Is Russia ready to remove Putin?
