Sadly for Russophiles, Nick Paton Walsh’s tenure as The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent has come to an end. As a swansong he has written an essay [link], explaining why, despite the autocracy of his rule, he remains a fan of President Putin.
I must admit I agree (as I outlined in this essay). After the corruptible and exploitive politics of the 1990’s, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, has at least stabilised and started reforming what had become a proto-criminal state. When every branch of government has become institutionally corrupt, it is necessary to consolidate and centralise power. As Putin recently made clear to Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair, western politicians have little credibility to justify their pompous lectures on democracy. Putin is no Post-Soviet sycophant, kowtowing to Washington handouts; he has grabbed back Russia’s natural resources from Yeltsin’s mobsters and began restoring its international prestige.
Oil and gas give you power in this globalised world, and before Putin, opportunistic oligarchs who had flashed Yeltsin a bit of green, were happily plundering Russia’s riches; Russians struggled to survive while they lived like Tsars. Russia’s population however, were dealing with rampant inflation, rabid criminality, and a collapsing Rouble. Now the meritocracy that nourishes any functioning market-economy is emerging. As people create tax-paying and responsible businesses they will help bring order to society.
The neo-liberal economics, like those championed by western advisors (mainly of the World Bank and IMF) in the 1990’s, brought nothing but crime, corruption, and poverty to Russia. While Communist Russia was institutionally corrupt, it had nothing on the violent, chaotic capitalist model that superseded it. If you create a market economy with no regulation or adequate institutional infrastructure (i.e. police, adequate property rights etc.), you create an economy where the most innovative and ruthless businesses thrive. No business model is as ruthless and innovative as that of organised crime. The Mafia and petty mobsters made their fortunes, and Russians saw their crumbling society almost disintegrate.
Putin is not perfect. He has implemented authoritarian laws, seized the media, and has replaced elected officials with the Kremlin’s cronies. Under Putin, Russians have prostituted some of their nascent freedoms for order and structure, however as Putin enjoys the kind of popularity that Mr. Blair and Bush can only dream of, one can safely assume the majority are happy with the terms of this contract.
What could be more ‘democratic’ than that?
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What nobody can do is try to impart lessons to a household that is not their own. Every nationality has its traits, its problems, and it is up to their administrations to administer in accordance with those traits and problems. I cannot see that Russia tries to meddle in western democracies. The West, however, commanded by Bush, has tried in the case of Russia.
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