Every once in a while we start a video with a discussion about how I was added to yet another list.
Yesterday it turned out that the Russian state has started a criminal case against me, for spreading “fakes” about the army.
Yesterday i was put on the federal wanted list, but actually i’ve learned about it a few months ago,
when i ordered a certificate of good conduct — it was written right there in the certificate.
I was put on the list for this video about Bucha. It was the most popular video on my channel,
I published it the next day after we learned what happened.
What can i say? Of course when I was doing politics in Russia
and participated in campaigns I was worried about a possible criminal investigation,
but I never thought it would be of such an obviously political nature, that it would be for spreading truth about important
events which would be called lies because the ministry of defense doesn’t like that truth.
On the very first day of the war I decided that I won't remain silent and will keep saying what I believe needs to be said,
and if I must temporarily leave my beloved Moscow for that, a place where I grew up and do politics, then so be it.
We’ll yet see how it will end, whether they will arrest me on the grounds of a politically motivated case,
or I will come back and we will be arresting those who were involved in political prosecution.
We’ll see.
I am safe, everything is fine.
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so we need you to sign up for Patreon or Boosty to help us compensate for it.
You won’t be in danger for doing that. It won’t fully compensate or the loss of ads, but it’s something. Now, to the video.
Traditionally, it has been a common opinion in Russia that we need a “strong hand”, a centralized and authoritarian power.
Like, only this way we can have order, control vast territories and hold them together.
In and of itself, the people cannot govern — it just happened so historically.
Without a strong leader the country would immediately be ruined.
Let's be honest! Russia can't survive without Putin.
It's scary to think what would happen to our country if not for Putin.
I say while he has such public support we must restore monarchy.
Even now, despite the obvious fact that that strong hand has dragged us into a senseless war,
this kind of worldview is still around. There are still those who say: alright, so apparently the government wasn’t strong
enough, it was not authoritarian enough, we need to find more things to prohibit and more screws to tighten.
So today let’s try and figure out where the demand for a strong hand comes from,
how the government successfully supports that demand for twenty years now
and whether it is true that our society just can’t see any other options.
As sad and scary as it sounds, I think that it's not impossible that our country can turn to totalitarianism for some time.
WHERE SUCH DEMANDS COME FROM
The yearning for a centralized strong power in Russia started to manifest itself by the end of the 90th.
The society got tired of economical shocks, inconsistent policies, and uncertainty.
Of the everyday disturbing news from Chechnya.
If only at that moment Russia was a country with established democratic institutions
and successful experience of alternation of power, that tiredness would most likely have converted itself into electing the
president and the parliament with different political programmes.
But in the 90th our country was still going through the first stage of democratic transformation.
After the collapse of the USSR, we tried to build the market economy and fair political institutions literally from scratch.
And unfortunately, Boris Yeltsin has turned power and the country over to his successor earlier
than the society had a chance to see and feel the positive effects of post-soviet reforms.
For this reason, many remember the 90th as a time of lawlessness, wars,
unfair enrichment of oligarchs and delayed salaries, disappointments, distrust and uncertainty.
We won’t be discussing in detail how it happened back then.
There are plenty of videos on the subject on our channel, check them out if you missed them.
There is even a whole book, there it is, "The History of the New Russia", you can buy it.
What’s important for us right now is that no attempts were made to educate people:
no one bothered to explain to the people the importance of reforms and what was the point of them.
As a result, Russians started to blame — and they still do blame them for everything — the democratic government.
And the soviet government — the one that has devalued the ruble, driven the country into depts,
and killed the economy with state planning, gets a free pass.
Another thing that people got tired of was the very aged Boris Yeltsin.
By the end of the 90th, Yeltsin’s image, who used to be an energetic and active reformer, changed beyond recognition.
Now all that Russians saw was the old drunkard with serious health problems.
By the way Yeltsin was younger than Putin is now when he turned power over to him. He was 69.
And then, the demand for a “strong hand” has arisen, for leadership that could quickly and without any hesitation solve all
accumulated problems.
In 1989, the supporters of the strong hand constituted only 25% of the population. 44% were against it.
The reason was obvious: there was perestroyka going on, and the last thing people wanted was for someone to take away
some of their freedoms that they didn’t yet fully win even, but already in 1991 the support for the strong hand grew to 39%,
and after the first years of the “shock therapy”, after the political crisis of 1993, it kept growing throughout the entire 1990th.
The idea of a “strong hand” was especially popular among the least educated and the oldest people of Russia — those who
were hit by the changes the most. It’s a normal human reaction.
When your house is on fire or you’re being robbed in the street, the last thing you want is to gather a consilium and be
discussing the possible way out of the problem.
In a critical situation you want someone to just come and solve the matter. Quickly, quietly, and effectively.
With a clear head and a burning heart so to speak.
And it’s preferable that no one would stand in his way in the process.
That’s why the demand for a strong hand has arisen.
Those who wanted it didn’t really expect that the return to autocratic government would mean abandoning of civic and
political freedoms, sociologists didn’t ask them that question formulated as:
”How do you think, does Russia need a strong ruler in exchange for your political rights?”.
No.
The main political problem of the 90th, according to the polls, was not the corruption — while it certainly was high in the list —
but the weakness of the government.
And here is a list of main problems that needed solving: rising prices and unemployment,
delays of salaries, and the economic crisis.
In may of 1999, VCIOM and ROMIR, by request of “Kommersant-Vlast” magazine, conducted a poll in which they
asked Russians to choose their desired president among famous movie characters.
Contrary to the famous myth, Schtirlitz didn’t win the poll — he just was on the cover.
According to ROMIR, Schtirlitz won 2nd place, and by VCIOM, it was 4th.
The winners were Marshall Zhukov from The Liberation and Peter I from the eponymous 1930th movie.
Gleb Zheglov from the iconic “The Meeting Place Cannot be Changed” was high in the list, too.
You can see the basic idea: powerful, aggressive strongman, who is willing to protect his ideas of good
and justice by any means.
“Victory at all cost” — that’s how the Commersant formulated the election slogan
of a candidate that the Russians wanted back then.
And when the demand is established, the right candidate can be created:
it was these properties of the president and facts of his biography that were being highlighted by Putin’s
PR team even before the election.
Young, active, special services officer, doesn’t drink alcohol, he lectures officials and fights terrorists and oligarchs —
that is how TV viewers saw the “successor”.
Plus, falsifications during the presidential elections ensured that there wouldn’t be a second tour —
and voila, you have the much desired “strong leader” in his well deserved position.
It was not important that he was no army officer, but came from the KGB that made the entire country suffer in the past.
It was not important that his responsibilities in East Germany were a little more than none.
It was not important that he used to work for the same democrats that the society got so tired of.
It was not important that during his job in Petersburg’s mayor’s office,
Putin did a lot of murky stuff instead of developing the city.
These details were omitted. Putin was elected and he satisfied the demand for a "strong hand"
You once said: “We all think that if we put things in order with a firm, strong hand, then we will all live better, more comfortable
and safer lives, but in fact, such comfort will pass very quickly, because this strong hand will very soon start to choke us”
already?
Did I say that?
Yes, you said that in 1996.
I don't feel the choking.
WHAT THE STRONG HAND RESULTED IN
So guess the Russians got what they wanted?
A strongman who has the authority to solve all the problems?
First let’s see what Russians themselves think.
Were their main problems solved? Nope. 22 years passed, and Russia’s problems that the Russians point out in polls
are still the same. Rising prices and unemployment, poverty, economic crises and poor access to health care.
Yes, the weak government is not in the list anymore.
But as for corruption, Russians still see a lot of it. That’s after 22 years of fighting it!
Those were the 2021 results, before the new sanctions, closed enterprises,
before million of work-capable citizens fled, along with all investors.
The strong government had all the starting conditions to solve at least poverty, inflation, and low life standards.
Starting from the end of 1999, the economy had been growing on its own.
All they had to do is not stand in the way, as the effects of the early 90th' Gaydar's reforms finally gave fruit.
There was an influx of investors, and by the end of Putin’s first term, money from oil.
New businesses were opening, the unemployment was going down, salaries were rising and were paid on time.
The people started to really get richer, they started to buy house appliances and electronics, cars, and real estate.
A success, isn’t it? But oil prices and investments weren’t the authoritarian power’s accomplishments.
The economy had been growing despite all the risks that come with an authoritarian regime.
It’s just that the benefits outweighed the risks for investors.
As soon as risks skyrocketed and profits plummeted, investors lost all interest.
And what did the Russian leadership do with all that wealth?
They’ve been spending it on questionable national projects to profit off kickbacks, on palaces, yachts,
and rooms full of cash for all federal officials. Some of that money was being saved for a rainy day.
But since the Russian leadership created the rainy day with their own hands
by starting the war against Ukraine, most of the reserves were rightfully blocked by the West.
Ok some may say that little economic growth is still better than how it was in the 1990th.
But first the decade of stagnation, and then war and sanctions completely destroyed all of Russia’s cumulative growth
of the last 15 years, that’s the assessment for the end of 2022. And mind you sanctions aren’t going anywhere.
European buyers of oil and gas, even if they’ll keep buying that stuff from Russia, won’t be buying as much as they used to.
The state governmental institutions see the same degradation. In the end of the 90th they were still being established,
but today they were brutally murdered.
Instead of a young democracy we’ve got an aging autocracy, though right now it would probably
be more correct to say “military dictatorship”.
Local governance, federalism, electoral system, independent media, political diversity — all of that is now destroyed.
All for the benefit of the strong hand and the vertical of power.
Whenever there was a choice between possible liberalization and strengthening autocracy,
the choice was always in favor of autocracy. Even at the expense of the economy.
But did our system of governance truly become stronger?
In the 1990th there was that idea that the weakness of the state was the main problem.
For 20 years now the propaganda has been telling us how the publicly elected president was building
a strong system on the ruins of the Soviet Union.
It was in his interests, to do that, they’ve been spending vast resources and humiliating Russia’s law.
During the entire Putin's reign, they’ve been building the Kremlin's centralized power.
But it was truly centralized only when it was necessary to falsify the results of elections
or flood the streets and squares with thousands of OMON fighters.
Mechanisms that work well when you need to distribute the flow of federal finances to the center aren’t good enough
when it comes to governing a country.
Because they always work in the same way. You build, build, and get… nothing.
An illusion that is incapable of dealing with any challenges.
Whenever a problem, any problem, arises, the state works like this.
The president makes an unpopular, untimely, and outright harmful decision. And immediately distances from it.
Regions are tasked with carrying it out, the same regions that he himself denied authority and finances.
And then Governors, the building blocks of the famous Putin’s vertical of power, carry out the task however they feel like.
Usually they miss deadlines, as they maneuver between the angry populace and the superiors
who demand to see anything that passes for success.
This is how it was during the covid pandemic, and this is how it happens now with the mobilization.
The system is great at eye-washing, making reports look nice, turning responsibility over to lower levels, waiting,
and hoping that all problems will eventually be resolved on their own. But it’s not great at solving important tasks on time.
After twenty years of negative selection the vertical degraded so much that it consists of people who’s incompetence
threatens to destroy the country, so after wasting twenty years, after having buried both the economy and democracy,
Russia is left with a weak and dysfunctional system of governance.
With a leader who lost contact with reality and started a criminal war.
WHAT RUSSIA NEEDS
There is really nothing terribly wrong with people wanting strong leadership.
Here, look at the chart: in 2009, people in the USA wanted a strong leader as much as Russians wanted it in 1991.
It’s worth noticing that in the US, the President is given a lot of power.
It is comparable in scale to power that Putin inherited from Yeltsin.
So sometimes Americans too want a strong leader who’d be solving accumulated problems without interference.
But why then didn't they get a dictatorship? The worst they had was Trump,
but their political system survived him and moved over.
The answer is that the Americans have established democratic institutions.
It’s not important whether or not it’s imperfect, whether or not their electoral system is just: it works.
Just as their system of checks and balances.
And if voters see that the power is held not by an adequate leader but by a populist and wannabe autocrat,
he won’t be elected in the next election, in Russia, such a system didn’t have the time to give roots and live through at
least two electoral cycles, because it was destroyed by the very first wannabe dictator.
People compare their memories of the vile nineties, memories that are often strengthened by propaganda, with successes,
real or illusory, that the TV attributes to the president.
Given such comparisons, a strong hand is sure to be winning polls.
But when you take a poll and add an option that describes a working democratic model with division of power,
the support for the “strong hand” immediately falls almost to the level of support of a pro-democratic candidate.
There is no big secret in what instruments can be used to solve all the main problems of Russians of the last thirty years:
poverty, unemployment, and social insecurity.
Especially in Russia, as it had enough money during all these years — if only the money was not sucked from the regions,
thrown into a black hole of military spending, and stolen.
We need not be inventing instruments that allow for a fair formation of the parliament — that wheel was invented, tested,
and fine-tuned long before us. Just take it and use it.
When someone tells us that Russians are for some reasons not ready for a parliamentary republic,
or for the return of power to governors, or for the return of public elections of mayors,
or anything like that — this is all nothing but propaganda.
Starting from at least 2010, Russians prove that without the help of the government
they can solve tasks that the regime wasn’t even planning to solve.
People organize volunteer fire brigades, search squads, animal shelters,
services that help old people and persons with disabilities, labor unions, legal aid services.
They even organize themselves to go to rallies when all protest leaders are either jailed or forced to leave the country.
Yes, Russia certainly needs leaders of strong will, who are capable of taking responsibility and making difficult decisions —
and we have plenty of candidates, so in some way, the demand for strong people in power will remain.
But the most important thing is to not be trying to find a perfect person, but to build a balanced system.
One that makes people involved. One that is accountable before them. One that protects itself from excesses and usurpers.
One that truly represents the interests of the country as a whole.
In 2019, the poll that we talked about earlier was conducted again. And this time, it wasn’t strongmen that won it.
The only strongman that made it to the top of the list was Schtirlitz.
But look at who became leaders this time — like professor Preobrazhensky, an intellectual and independent person of high
moral standards, and Katerina from “Moscow doesn’t trust in tears” — a self-made woman, independent and goal-oriented.
And it was in 2019, when things weren’t that bad. We’ll be the ones who will have to be building the institutions.
It’s not gonna be easy, but it’s not impossible. There are many examples of working parliamentary democracies in the world.
It’s just that in Russia, the first attempt to build a state based on the rule of law was never finished.
Well we will have to give it another shot. Quite soon too, by the looks of it.
See you tomorrow.