After four presidential terms and one term as Prime Minister (2008-2012), Vladimir Putin will secure his fifth presidential term this Sunday and will remain on the Kremlin throne at least until 2030. Given that he will be 78 years old by then – and if his health serves him as well as it does for Slovenia’s first son-in-law Trump – it’s not out of the question that he might wish to extend his rule for another six years. If, by then, “elections” will still be held in Russia.
This is by no means a given. If we look at the history of Russian presidential elections in this millennium, we see that there is little to nothing left of real, somewhat free, and fair elections. In 2000, besides Putin, there were ten other candidates, including several prominent politicians. And Putin’s victory at that time, despite already strong media support, was not a foregone conclusion. He won in the first round with 53% support, with the communist Zyuganov receiving almost a third of the votes. Yeltsin, the then Russian oligarchy, and the West collectively breathed a sigh of relief; our man had won, and the path back to the USSR was definitively closed. How wrong they were.
Today, things are entirely different: real opposition politicians have long been liquidated (including Alexei Navalny), imprisoned, or exiled. On the ballot, besides Putin, there will be three other names, but this is only a formality that carries no meaning. Putin’s victory in the current circumstances is guaranteed in advance, with the right (sufficiently high) percentage ensured by the administrative collective machinery, similar to how it has been managed for decades in neighboring Belarus. With virtually no civil oversight of the voting process and counting (which will be conducted electronically for the first time), these are no longer elections but more of a party mandate confirmation.
In the party, at least in the Soviet one after Stalin’s death, there were internal frictions, different currents, and internal opposition. This is what led to Nikita Khrushchev’s downfall in 1964. But today in Russia, it’s not 1964; it’s closer to Orwell’s 1984. Therefore, reporting on Putin’s new term as an “electoral victory” is at least cynical, if not indecent. Putin still needs such “elections” for the legitimacy of his dictatorship, primarily in the international context; domestically, generations are voting who have never heard anything other than “Putin is Russia!” But the question is, how long will Putin need such “elections”? Perhaps until the next term in 2030, when he will surpass Stalin in length of rule. Following in Stalin’s footsteps, Putin is diligently working, not only in terms of the period of governance…
Putin has transformed Russia into a completely different country than it was at the beginning of the 21st century. For the sake of political and economic stability, he has entirely consolidated power and turned it into a dictatorship, something many in the West, interestingly, still do not want to see. Especially in the context of American hegemony and all the brutal wrongdoings the Americans have committed around the world after World War II, they see Putin primarily as someone who decided to stand firmly against this. And in doing so, they conveniently and (un)intentionally overlook how Putin is doing exactly the same thing in Ukraine. He is executing a brutal imperialist policy of the so-called great Russia, where there is no room for numerous (mostly East Slavic) nations that have fought for their independence over the last century.
In Russia, things cannot be better: state censorship and propaganda are almost all-encompassing, repression against civil society is at Soviet-era levels after Stalin, democratic institutions exist on paper for now, but for a long time have served the master in the Kremlin instead of their intended purpose. Social apathy is great, as is fear. Therefore, it is not surprising that when an average Russian from an urban environment answers a public opinion question “Do you support (this or that) government policy or direction of the country?” they are primarily answering whether there is an alternative to Putin or not. And given that the regime has managed to convince the people that there is no alternative, it is then most logical and safe to answer affirmatively. The authority knows what is best for the people, so there is no need to question it… welcome to modern-day subjugation.
But who really is Vladimir Putin? In recent years (especially intensively since February 2022), many “Kremlinologists” around the world have been shouting: “We tried to tell you, but you didn’t listen.” They highlight that it was clear from the beginning what kind of man came to the Kremlin in 2000. The fate of Russia (and possibly Europe) was sealed back then. A KGB man will remain a KGB man. But such assessments are at least subjectively biased if not consciously selective in memory. The same Putin was, in the early years of his term, a star in world politics, man of the year according to Time magazine, a true liberal at least in terms of economic policy. He also gathered around him numerous liberal economists and ministers, not only saying the things expected of him abroad (continuation of the liberal reforms of the 90s) but also implementing them. In 2001, after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, Russia supported the American intervention in Afghanistan and allowed NATO military overflights over its airspace. Unimaginable from today’s reality perspective.
So what happened to the liberal Putin? Did he ever exist – or was it just an illusion? A strategically planned game? Because during the same period, when world politics was inviting Putin to every major table, the second Chechen war (1999-2000) was already ongoing, and numerous domestic political events deviated significantly from democratic practices: the silencing of the Kursk submarine tragedy (2000), numerous civilian casualties in the attempt to free hostages in the Dubrovka theater terrorist attack (2002), the high-profile political trials of oligarchs, including Khodorkovsky’s arrest in 2003, etc. So, several years before increased repression and politically motivated murders of Politkovskaya and Nemtsov. The cult of Putin’s personality did not start forming in the last decade but already in the early years of his rule (the Russian girl group Singing Together released the hit “A Man Like Putin” in 2002). Maybe the authoritarian face was always visible and present, but most people in Russia and the West simply overlooked it? In Russia because he brought apparent order and social stability after the economic collapse of the 90s, and in the West because he spoke nicely, supported the American fight against terrorism in Afghanistan, and consistently implemented liberal economic policies?
An interesting insight was offered by Russian-British journalist Masha Slonim in a podcast, who interviewed Putin for the BBC in 2002. She admits that after the interview she was in a state of “enchantment,” even though she was not a Putin supporter. And she told her editor over the phone that she was convinced Putin was “our man,” who understood the broader picture – and even if he did not share the same view, he understood his interlocutor… Today, she laughs at this. It was classic recruitment (the so-called verbovka), which is of course one of the key parts of training in intelligence services, with the KGB being no exception. Putin knows how to convince a person that he is on their side, that he understands them, that they can trust and help him. That is why he initially appeared to everyone as completely harmless, even more so, as “our man.” Did Putin really manage to blindfold the domestic and foreign public in this way, and did he never share democratic and liberal views, but only expressed them to gain international and domestic support?
And finally, Putin is not just one man; there are many. And by this, I don’t mean his numerous doubles, who the Kremlin sends to events across Russia almost simultaneously. Besides Vladimir Putin, there is the so-called collective Putin, a million-strong multitude (organized or not) of individuals and groups who, based on interest groups and their own motives (material, security, prestige, fear, etc.), not only blindly follow Putin’s policy but actively co-create it daily. The collective Putin is also the one who daily fuels the regime’s operations, implements Kremlin policy, and with every move tries to please the master. In such a system, Putin does not need to pull the strings or make every small decision daily, as it sometimes appears outwardly. The collective multitude does this for him. The collective multitude, which has no expiration date, unlike every mortal. Even if he is the president of the largest country in the world.