On Big Think today, I was reading an article about economics, when I noticed that the site was suggesting I read an article on a "similar" topic. Clicking the link, this article, from May of 2012, popped up:
http://bigthink.com/think-tank/watch-out-putin-spring-is-coming
The author of this article makes a multitude of predictions for the future of Russia. Let's list them, shall we? The author states that:
1) A "Russian Spring," presumably parallel to the Arab Spring of 2011, will occur if Putin does not increase reform.
2) To prevent such a Russian Spring, Putin will need to reform Russia's economy, infrastructure, industry and hardline political system.
3) Putin must consider human rights, democracy and rule of law when reforming the Russian government.
4) The educated middle class of Russia will become opposed to Putin's iron grip on Russia and call for change, which would catalyze a Russian Spring event.
5) Putin must consider the needs of the international community when he is considering reforms for the Russian government.
Now, let's discuss some of the things Putin has actually done since this article was written:
1) Putin has passed legislation preventing Americans from adopting Russian orphans.
2) Putin has passed legislature denying gays and lesbians virtually all rights. In fact, Putin has made it a crime for teachers and parents to tell their children that homosexuals exist.
3) Putin has cracked down on proponents of free speech and other democratic values we take for granted stateside, including bands and other liberal groups.
4) The educated middle class of Russia doesn't give a f**k.
5) To his credit, Putin diffused the Syrian crisis almost single-handedly. (That doesn't have anything to do with the rest of this post, but I feel it's worth mentioning.)
So, the author of this piece was dead wrong. Frankly, I'm not at all surprised. The main thing to remember here when we discuss why she was so wrong is a simple fact: RUSSIA IS NOT AMERICA. Take the author's prediction that the middle class would protest the hardline right-wing government and encourage liberal reform. The last time there was liberal reform in Russia, it was nineteen seventeen, and the middle class was losing their valuables (and in many cases, their lives) to the Bolsheviks. So under what frame of mind would we assume that the Russian upper class would care if laws and policies, that in many ways benefit them, are made by a government that doesn't meet western standards of democratic? Frankly, compared with the Soviet regime, Russia's modern government is too good to be true. Even the poor like it better than Communism; they brought the Soviet Union into this world, and they took it out just as easily. Nobody in Russia really cares that the government is suppressing human rights for the sake of order. Heck, very few people in the US care that our government does the same thing. The NSA's probably reading this post, as well as all my emails and text messages. Frankly, as long as they keep catching terrorists, they can put up a video feed in my room if they feel like it; I just don't care, and almost two-thirds of the nation agrees with me. We must also remember that, at the time of the article, Occupy Wall Street was still a big thing. More likely than not, this author naively assumed that such a movement would catch on around the world, not just here, and force Putin to reform his government. Just like it worked here, right? Because we have a socialist form of government that cares only about equality for all? While the Tea Party would say that we do, that isn't the point. All in all, I'm starting to think that the woman who wrote this article wasn't thinking straight when she sat down at her keyboard that day last May.
Though while much of what you said is correct, to say that the middle class does not care about Putin's oppressive regime isn't entirely true. There are many aspects of the current regime that upset the middle classes, such as the custom of placing blue lights on politician's cars as a signal for other cars to move out of the way, much like an ambulance. There are musicians making songs, twitters, and news reporters, but they don't always get a lot of coverage. The act of protesting Putin is indeed very dangerous and they way he deals with his criticizers is quite similar to the Soviet method (i.e. kidnapping them and sometimes killing them.)
ReplyDeleteI read this article two years ago. Perhaps it does not entirely hold true later, considering how the regime has become even more brutal than it is, but I doubt that the middle classes are conceding now any more than they did then.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/12/19/111219fa_fact_remnick