Russia at the crossroads

MK Bhadrakumar

The Russian presidential elections on March 18 can be seen as the most transparent in the country’s “post-Soviet” history. But genuine political competition was still lacking and the electorate’s choices were limited. The leading candidate, Vladimir Putin, consistently enjoyed a popular rating above 80 per cent among the Russian people in the recent years and will walk away the winner. A December survey by the independent polling firm, Levada Center, estimated that 81 per cent adults approve of Putin as President, including 86 per cent Russians, 18 to 24 years old; meaning that most of the country supports Putin.

What accounts for it? In a nutshell, over successive terms as Prime Minister and President, Putin has overseen an economic boom, military expansion and the country’s emergence as a major power on the world stage. Levels of poverty are significantly lower than before; most Russians enjoy a higher living standard; there is a sense of stability and national pride. During Putin’s first term as President, wages consistently grew 10 per cent annually while in his second term since 2012, although economic growth slowed down (what with the fall in income from oil exports and Western sanctions), disposable income still grew by 11 per cent between 2011 and 2014, and the Putin era has seen Russia’s consumer economy expand considerably. Today, more people own a car and there are more microwaves than households.  

This was how an AFP dispatch from Moscow last week on the Russian elections captioned its story: ‘Putin Is a Villain Abroad, Hero At Home’. Curiously, Putin’s villainous reputation featuring on the cover of Western news magazines — variously as public enemy number one, an octopus, The Terminator, Hitler and Batman’s nemesis, The Joker — may even be a factor adding to his popularity among Russians. As one Russian put it to the AFP, “If they’re scared of you, it means they respect you.” For millions of Russians, Putin is the man who restored Moscow’s standing on the world stage following the humiliating collapse of the former Soviet Union. 

Nonetheless, challenging times lie ahead for the newly elected President. The high support ratings of Putin notwithstanding, ordinary Russians are anything but satisfied with their lives and pro-market economists are demanding radical structural reforms. In the international arena too, there are huge uncertainties facing the Russian diplomacy. Arguably, therefore, Sunday’s elections cannot be regarded as irrelevant to Russia’s trajectory. Like in India, social media has created a “horizontal society” in Russia, cutting across cultural and class lines, and the Internet remains free compared to the rest of the media.

The yearning for change brings to mind the backdrop that provided momentum for Bernie Sanders in the US or Jeremy Corbyn in the UK — except that this is Russia where the channels for expression of social discontent and the political processes that can give it a sense of direction are rudimentary. Another Levada poll found that close to 90 per cent of Russians feel powerless to influence the future trajectory of their country and 60 per cent disavow any responsibility for what is happening around them. Simply put, while Putin remains a towering figure, the Russian political class, on the whole, carries an unsavoury reputation. Fundamentally, is the Russian elite willing or capable of change? There are rumours of internal rivalries, turf wars and trust deficit amongst the elite. These realities contradict the picture of stability, continuity and order that Russia projects even as a transition looms ahead — the Constitution stipulates that this will be Putin’s last six-year term. Suffice to say, the nationalistic rhetoric harping on Russia’s status as a great power may work less and less in the period ahead to subsume Everyman’s discontent with the hybrid system that Putin built on the basis of Russian nationalism, Soviet nostalgia and a striving for international respect.

Russia regards itself as part of Europe in cultural, historical, economic and political terms. But Europe does not regard Russia as part of the liberal world order. An embittered Russia constantly runs down the liberal world order, pointing a finger at the inexorable decline and challenging the leadership role of the US, weakening of the European security system and disarray in European integration, rise of populist political doctrines and so on. Russia’s preference is that the essence of the liberal world order should be a system of international relations rather than about bona fide democracies.

Indeed, the liberal world order tolerates the Indian or Chinese variants of democracy but holds Russia to an exacting, absolute standard. (Russians today enjoy freedoms of speech, assembly, religion, travel, politics, and the Press that the generations before 1989 never knew — and on a scale that is unthinkable in the more repressive single-party Communist state that is China.) China and India are having the cake and eat it too — making developmental leaps through globalisation while also preserving their political autonomy. Thus, within the BRICS grouping, while China and India join Russia to envisage the multipolar world as the bright future, they are perfectly at ease with the prevailing system as well, which gives them scope to get richer and stronger while also maintaining independent foreign policies.

But then, China and India have largely avoided direct disputes with the West and do not strive to undermine the existing world order. Period. On the contrary, the Russian elite has too many hang-ups regarding the country’s great power status, which means that its integration into the liberal world order has to be on its terms. The result is, Russia is pining for the day when following the inevitable collapse of the US as superpower, the world order transforms as a balance of forces of individual countries and alliances, allowing the coexistence of various poles of power. Meanwhile, Russia’s golden moment lies in a serious confrontation breaking out between the West and China — or if the liberal world order excludes China too on account of political differences. The problem here is that hope does not make strategy. China won’t get into a collision course with the West — nor is the West seeking one. China leverages its tools of economic globalisation to moderate political differences with the West.

What could be the directions of Putin’s foreign policy as he embarks on the new term? Basically, it will largely depend on the international environment and can be expected to be risk-evasive than risk-taking; willing to reach compromises but not via unilateral concessions or dilution of national interests; and, it will remain linked to domestic needs in the social, economic and technological spheres.

The writer is a former ambassador