Opinion
Putin’s Russia: Steering back to Soviet Union
Two years back, large number of angry young crowd took to the streets and shouted “Russia bez Putina” (Russia without Putin). It was the first time such a protest was ever seen since the last days of the Soviet Union when around half a million people took to the streets to bring down the sovietskiy soyuz (Soviet Union)
Putin declared his victory and promised to return to Kremlin with a hint of Soviet Union pledging stability and a greater Eurasian Union with former Soviet republics. Many Russians did not welcome his return to power, which turned into a massive protest against United Russia’s authoritarian regime.
Just before the elections, we surveyed a number of Russians about their favourite choice for the next president. Only 20% said Putin is their favourite, however everyone was sure that he is set to return to the power. Despite unpopularity, he was the unchallenged supreme leader who knows how to take Russia forward but in his own way and no other way. After the elections, we again surveyed a number of Russians and same people who did not like Putin, had however voted for him.
Lev Gudkov of the Levada Centre, an independent polling-research organisation, dubbed this behaviour and reaction against monopolistic and authoritarian regime as a part of a Soviet legacy. It is pushed due to lack of alternatives rather than a common vision for a change. He describes Russia as a hybrid state, smaller, more consumerist and less collective than the Soviet Union. Even though Soviet ideology has gone, but the mechanism, which politicians uses to retain in power, is still in use.
Recently Vladimir Putin announced merging of Radio “Voice of Russia” and reputed Russian news agency RIA Novosti into single unit stripping its semi independence making it more pro Kremlin. Not just the media, but courts, security services, police and primary education has been bent to praise Kremlin and his policies.
Soviet Union never encouraged elections and forming political parties was not allowed, Communist Party of Soviet Union remain unchallenged until March 1989, when Liberal Democratic Party of the Soviet Union was formed. Almost with the same mind-set, Russia, though a democratic country, could not become a well-functioning multi-party democracy. Putin silently crushed any possible political rival coming onto his way in the initial stages itself. Only recently, Putin released Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, former Yukos oil tycoon and once aspiring political rival who was held for 10 years in jail as a political prisoner.
Russia might be a democratic country now, but its election system is so opaque that the ruling party can easily play with the things to remain in power democratically. In the last elections, reports claimed nearly 140% people in Rostov voted for Putin. Similarly, in Chechnya, nearly 99.5% people came out to vote and 99% of them voted for Putin. At this, the opposition blogger Alexei Navalny, who called the ruling party, as “The Party of Crooks and Thieves,” was detained near the notorious Lubyanka Square, the headquarters of the FSB security services (previously the KGB).
Steering back to Soviet Union
Putin’s intentions are not to make another Soviet Union, but to remain in power, for which he inherits the tactics from Soviet Union very well as a former KGB man. He said, “One who does not regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart; one who wants to bring it back has no brain.” As soon as he came, he gave his country what the people wanted: High incomes, stability, more consumer goods and freedom to travel.

They say in USSR/Russia always a лысый (bald) premier is replaced by a Волосатый (hairy). However they mock the Putin-Medvedev duo later in the photo.
He might not be the cleanest politician in the country and will not allow anyone to challenge him. It is not known for how long Putin-Medvedev duo will keep ruling world’s largest nation by size. His popularity is on decline and the domestic politics might be messed up. Nevertheless, he is already the super star in the international politics. Not sure about Russians, but the world needs him. He is the man who keeps the guts to challenge American dominance and monopoly one-on-one. It can be seen from the way he took the lead and diplomatically prevented the United States and its allies from attacking Syria, and the way he used his economic muscles and temporarily managed to bargain Ukraine to tilt towards east leaving behind the European Union.
Some call him authoritarian whereas some call him democratic; Putin has bent everything in his favour. One may also look at all this from a different angle. The chaos that followed the collapse of Soviet Union is now stable; Russia is second largest economy in Europe in terms of GDP (PPP) and largest exporter of Gas to the continent.
After 70 years of communist regime, may be Putin’s authoritarian rule was necessary? In one of our previous article, we had shown some survey results from the countries of former soviet republic and the results were surprising. Only 35% Ukrainians and 50% Russians approved the shift to Democracy from Communism and 34% Ukrainians and 42% Russians approved Capitalism.
Probably Russia was not ready for a sudden shift and Putin grasped the public mood. Gradually with the course of time, Russia should see the change and experience the true democratic system, or otherwise we have Putin who will decide the future of politics in Russia.
In the end, I only want to say…

You try to help people, open your soul for them, you do everything for their happiness. But nobody loves you…
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