Russians can be unhappy, yet still loyal. Putin is to a large extent being rated not as a man, not even as a politician, but as an icon of Russia. To vote for him is not to endorse a programme, but to express patriotism. By ascending into the heavens as a symbol of the country, the blessed son of the Motherland, has Putin become more or less powerful? A bit of both. On the one hand, it grants him a special, almost mystical status, which separates him from any rival. But at the same time, it means that we should not assume that those approval ratings, whether they are in the sixties or the eighties, mean anything like that much support for his regime, his policies or even Putin-the-man.
The Russian people are as much Putin’s first victims as his devoted supporters. His election in 2000 was won as a result of not just massive state pressure and the absence of a viable alternative, but also of real public relief. Whatever their affection for Boris Yeltsin, his increasingly erratic antics, as pills and alcohol turned him into a caricature and a punchline, were plain for all to see. Besides which, war was brewing in the North Caucasus and a series of mysterious terrorist bombings – which many believe were arranged by Putin’s supporters to terrify the public into backing a ‘security first’ candidate – left people looking for a credible (and sober) defender of the nation. When, in 2002, a girl band sang that they wanted ‘A Man Like Putin’ (‘I want a man like Putin, who’s full of strength. I want a man like Putin, who doesn’t drink’) it was not only a little tongue-in-cheek, it could just as easily have been titled ‘I Want Someone Nothing Like Yeltsin’.
Putin is not a natural campaigner: he is often uncomfortable in public and, if anything, has withdrawn more and more from his own people. Aside from the carefully constructed action-man photo opportunities, he is intensely private. For a long time, there was not even confirmation of the identities of his two children, Katerina and Mariya, and his alleged relationship with Olympic gold medal-winning rhythmic gymnast Alina Kabaeva is still very much off-limits.
However, Putin was tremendously lucky in his first two terms. With the West distracted by the ‘Global War on Terror’ and oil and gas prices high, he had free rein at home. He had enough money to ensure that ordinary Russians could enjoy a better quality of life than ever before, as well as to pour into the military and buy off the elite by turning a blind eye to their own self-enrichment. Life got better, the streets became safer and the fear of collapse and fragmentation receded. Of course, at the same time he set up his sock-puppet opposition parties, reasserted state control of television and suppressed any viable alternatives, but the irony is that he could probably have held free and fair elections and still won.
Won rather than triumphed, though, and he clearly wanted overwhelming statements of support to silence any doubting voices, a coronation more than a mere victory, so from the first Putin’s democracy was so-called ‘managed democracy’. Besides, you can only campaign on not being Boris Yeltsin and this not being the terrible 1990s for so long. Worse yet, over time, international hydrocarbon prices would wobble and the corruption at the heart of the system ensured that it was the masses rather than the masters who paid the price. Despite the temporary patriotic boost provided by the annexation of Crimea, Putin has increasingly had to rely on propaganda and coercion to retain his grip.
Many Russians still revere Putin for making them feel that their country matters in the world again. A diminishing number of others still feel grateful to him for the good times of the 2000s. The feelings of many others, though, seem to represent a country-wide case of Stockholm syndrome, the perverse sympathy that kidnap victims can feel for their captors. This does not mean they will always back him, especially if they come to believe that he cannot offer them and their children the kind of lives they expect. Consider what happened in Britain in 1945. Winston Churchill was widely regarded with colossal respect and enthusiasm by the British people, as the architect of survival and victory through the harrowing years of the Second World War. Yet they still voted him out of office, being able to balance respect for Churchill as a person with a sense that he and above all his Conservative Party did not offer the future they wanted. While the prospect of Putin leaving office because he loses an election is so minuscule as to be near-invisible, we must still remember that the Russian people are no less capable of political nuance.
