#5
Moscow Times
November 27, 2001
Putin's Shrinking Appeal
By Boris Kagarlitsky

The friendship between Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush has developed against a background of war in Central Asia, a world economic crisis and deteriorating relations between Russia and other oil producers. In all these Russia has come across as a bastion of the Western world, taking a stand against Islamic terrorism, supporting liberal economic principles and getting into a spat with the oil-producing countries of the Third World.

In their turn, Western politicians are willing to forget not only about the Russian president's career in the KGB but also about human rights violations in Chechnya. All the more so as human rights issues are receiving far less prominence in the West due to the current war on terrorism.

While Putin has received the highest plaudits in the West, at home trouble lies in store for him. The new president has enjoyed the support of those who were hoping the former KGB officer would restore Russia's independence by moving away from the West, strengthening the country's military might and putting the oligarchs in their place.

Now these people feel that they have been deceived, although it is unfair to blame Putin for this. He did not deceive anybody because he never promised anything at all. He never published a proper manifesto and only ever made vague hints about possibly drawing up his positions in the future.

Those who tied their hopes for national revival to Putin were simply deceiving themselves. They sought hidden meaning in the empty words and slogans, explaining the vagueness by reference to the secretiveness of the president. The idea that vacuousness concealed nothing more than vacuousness turned out to be too complicated for people used to idolizing the authorities for being the authorities.

Putin has been lucky. His political honeymoon lasted not 100 days, as is normally the case, but one and a half years. Throughout this period he didn't have to make any crucial decisions, occupying himself exclusively with court intrigues and reshuffles, intimidating waverers, punishing his personal enemies and promoting old friends.

In the country and the world, economic growth continued by inertia. It could be said that the Putin administration was able to coast along on the back of the work done by Yevgeny Primakov's government and OPEC.

The former brought Russian industry round and the latter pushed oil prices up. But for these two circumstances, there would be no "Russian miracle."

Primakov's reward was to be cast out into the political wilderness, while when OPEC recently asked the Russian government to slash production, Moscow offered such insignificant cuts that it looked as though they were intentionally mocking the organization.

Russian officials would have done better to keep their mouths shut.

Alas, even the sympathy of George W. Bush cannot stave off an economic crisis. An upset OPEC has declared a price war on Russia. The minute the oil price fell below $18 per barrel, the ruble started to look shaky and the government started to panic.

Unfortunately, in a country where oil companies are divvied up among oligarchs, it is much easier to make a declaration than to implement it.

In fact, it would be harder for the oligarchs to agree among themselves on how much each should cut production than it would be for Bush to reconcile with Osama bin Laden.

And the government is in no position to force them, as the oligarchs are the state. The only thing left is to place one's hopes in the oil magnates' instinct for self-preservation.

Until now the most serious crises Putin has had to weather were related to the Kursk submarine and burning of the television tower.

For all their symbolic importance these are not issues that affected the fate of the country. In the fall of 2001, Putin was for the first time faced with having to take some serious decisions.

For those who placed their trust in the new president, his choices were a major blow. And those who previously treated Putin with suspicion are hardly likely to suddenly become enamored of him. In other words, the regime's social base is narrowing.

The Kremlin can console itself with the fact that the West has declared its love. However, the experience of Putin's two predecessors shows that such love rarely guarantees the sympathy of the Russian people.

Boris Kagarlitsky is a Moscow-based sociologist.