PUTTIN' ON A SHOW:

Russia's Democratic Despot (SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE, March 14, 2004, NY Times)

Vladimir Putin, who will be handily re-elected president of Russia today, is never going to become a Western-style, liberal-democratic politician, no matter how much we wish it. He is a quintessentially Russian leader, with very traditional aspirations and interests, and until the West gets used to it, he will continue to be a tantalizing source of frustration and disappointment.

When Mr. Putin diverges from the democratic path — as when he abruptly dismissed his prime minister and entire cabinet last month — Western observers tend to either criticize his authoritarianism or simply declare him "an enigma" (the traditional cop-out for pundits when they do not understand Russian leaders). And we pose the familiar questions: is Mr. Putin a reformer or a hard-liner? Is he his own man or is he controlled by the dreaded siloviki, the former security officials who have become the powers in the Kremlin? Was it the president or the siloviki who arrested the oil mogul Mikhail Khodorkovsky, seized control of the news media from private owners, purged and re-purged the benighted dystopia of Chechnya?

A reforming liberal leader in Russia is the Holy Grail of Kremlinology, but the search for one is as misguided and hopeless as that for the relic of the Last Supper. Believe it or not, some Western analysts in the 1930's insisted that Stalin was a "moderate," controlled by extremists like the secret police chief Nikolai Yezhov. Khrushchev became the next great hope after he denounced Stalin and ended the Terror in the 50's, but his real interests were personal power, state consolidation and Marxist-Leninism. Mikhail Gorbachev was a reformer, but not a liberal — his real wish was to reform, not end, Marxism-Leninism.

But the secret to the success of liberal authoritarianism is that, because the leaders generally tilt towards the West, they create an environment in which democracy is considered the norm, which they are temporarily deviating from for extraordinary reasons. Thus, even where the very existence of the nation is threatened--as in South Africa and Israel--democracy becomes inevitable.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 14, 2004 8:59 AM