WHICH MISSES THE BIGGER PICTURE...:

A Threat to Putin’s Big Plans (CLIFFORD J. LEVY, 2/01/09, NY Times)

Over the last eight years, as Vladimir V. Putin has amassed ever more power, Russians have often responded with a collective shrug, as if to say: Go ahead, control everything — as long as we can have our new cars and amply stocked supermarkets, our sturdy ruble and cheap vacations in the Turkish sun.

But now the worldwide financial crisis is abruptly ending an oil-driven economic boom here, and the unspoken contract between Mr. Putin and his people is being thrown into doubt. In newspaper articles, among political analysts, even in corners of the Kremlin, questions can be heard. Will Russians admire Mr. Putin as much when oil is at $40 a barrel as they did when it was at $140 a barrel? And if Russia’s economy seriously falters, will his system of hard, personal power prove to be a trap for him? Can it relieve public anger, and can he escape the blame?

“We talk about a lack of democracy in Russia, but I like my own formula for the country, which is authoritarianism with the consent of the governed,” said Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. “And it can be taken away.”

“The present rulers know that they will not be toppled by Kasparov,” Mr. Trenin said, referring to Garry K. Kasparov, the former chess champion whose political challenges to Mr. Putin can seem quixotic. “But if the working people of Russia decide that they have had enough, that will be the end of it. It happened to Gorbachev, and it almost happened to Yeltsin.”

...what people? Modern Russian leadership is no more than a matter of managing the decline into oblivion.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 1, 2009 10:36 AM