The annexation of Crimea propelled Putin to new highs. What most of the world saw as an outright violation of international law—countries don’t annex the territory of their neighbors in the twenty-first century—Russians saw as returning the territory to its rightful home. In their version of events, Catherine the Great conquered Crimea in 1783; the idiot Nikita Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine as a gift for three hundred years of Russian-Ukrainian friendship in 1954; when Ukraine became independent in 1991, Kiev didn’t give it back. Vladimir Putin set all of that right. Crimea was once Russian, and it was Russian again.
Putin has played the politics of Russian identity brilliantly. The problem is that Russia has rarely been a defined geographic entity; it is more like a tide that has gone deep into Europe when it is powerful and receded to the outskirts of Moscow when it is weak. Putin has relied on this sense of vulnerability to build a narrative of a West that takes advantage of Russia, does not accord it respect, and encircles it. He has employed raw nationalism to remind the Russian people that they are great and deserving of the respect that, in his narrative, they have been denied. Popular culture, television, and movies have been harnessed to build images of great (mostly blond) Slavs—soldiers, farmers, workers who are the Russian ideal type. And he has clothed them in the garments of religious orthodoxy and conservatism—singling out gay people, ethnic minorities (who are often branded as extremists), and female rock stars whose profane language offends many.
Sergei Ivanov, Putin’s former chief of staff and once a candidate to succeed him as president, was charged with writing a kind of manifesto to guide Russia’s development. The document emphasizes Russia’s uniqueness—neither European nor Asian—and warns that the Russian soul is weakened by Western ideas of tolerance and multiculturalism. It is a dark and insecure take on who the Russians are and what is needed to sustain them. One has to wonder if this is really where Russia is going. If it is, there are tough times ahead for a creative and brilliant people whose political choices have always managed to retard the country’s progress and driven so many of its best and brightest to simply give up and leave.
Does It Really Have to Be This Way?
Russia’s failed experiment with democracy is an undeniably sad story for a people whose culture and intellectual life rivals the world’s great civilizations. It begs the question of whether there might have been an alternative path, or perhaps whether there is still a different road ahead for Russia. Will there be another democratic opening?
Putin’s authoritarianism at home and aggressiveness abroad remind us that a great deal is at stake not just for the Russians but for the entire world in the answer to that question. Theoretically, the talented and creative Russian people, long known for their prowess in mathematics and science, should be leading the knowledge-based revolution. There is no reason that the economy has to be dependent on commodities—oil, gas, and minerals—for more than 70 percent of its exports. Consider this: When was the last time you bought a consumer product made in Russia?
For a brief moment in the interregnum when Putin stepped down as president and Dmitry Medvedev succeeded him, it looked as if Russia might try to take a different course. Medvedev came to power saying bluntly that Russia should not be a nineteenth-century extractive industries economy. He visited the great technology centers of the world in search of ideas to build a Russian Silicon Valley.
In June 2010, he visited the actual Silicon Valley. I received a call from President Obama informing me that Medvedev wanted to come to Stanford. The president asked me to make certain it was a good visit. Medvedev turned up in blue jeans and an Armani jacket and read his speech from an iPad. He completely looked the part of a young, hip entrepreneur.
After several hours in Silicon Valley visiting companies like Google and Facebook, Medvedev and I sat down with a few others to talk. Listening to venture capitalists, engineers, and business leaders clearly had an effect on him. “I get it,” he said. “It is an ecosystem.” One sensed some sadness in the realization that what he had seen in Palo Alto could not easily be transported to Russia. But he tried, supporting the building of Skolkovo, touted as Russia’s high-tech hub.
I visited Skolkovo the next year. Palo Alto it was not. The huge, several-stories-high modern-style campus outside Moscow was a kind of metaphor for Russia’s notions of innovation. It was big, centralized, and already incredibly bureaucratic. The Kremlin told the scientists and engineers that they should innovate but almost immediately started dictating what that would mean. Not surprisingly, Skolkovo has produced little and is now under constant criticism from conservatives who never liked the effort. The question is whether the prosecutors will soon follow.
Some efforts have fared better, like the state-owned venture fund Rosnano. Founded to invest in nanotechnology and its applications, the fund is headed by Anatoly Chubais, a wily veteran of Soviet and Russian politics and perhaps a little more attuned at how to maintain support. And there are private equity funds (that are mostly private), such as DST and software companies like Yandex, that are well respected internationally for their competence and talent. But it is not clear that this young Russian technology sector can survive the exigencies of the security state and the country’s isolation from the international economy due to Ukraine-related sanctions.
The best hope for a different Russia probably rests with those who are engaged in the tech sector. They would seem to be a natural constituency for a more liberal political direction. And they are not alone. In the two decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians have studied abroad in American and European universities, business schools, and law schools. They have worked in Western firms and still do. These mostly young people should be the vanguard of a movement to give Russia another chance at democracy.
Moreover, they should be able to garner support from a middle class that has become accustomed to travel, imported goods, and personal freedoms unmatched in Russia’s history. These people hold thirty-year mortgages on their apartments, buy their furniture at IKEA, and spoil their children at McDonald’s.
On the other hand, Putin counts on the siloviki and the erosion of democratic institutions to prevent the rise of opposition that might rally these constituencies that are not dependent on him. He probably counted too on the high price of oil to fund the largesse that he doles out so that Russians have a sense of well-being.
In this regard, there is a prevailing myth in the country about the Putin years that bears watching. He undeniably brought stability and order to a people who were hungry for it. But the prosperity that Russians have enjoyed was almost totally the result of the bonanza of oil and commodities prices and a sensible decision to put money away in reserves for turbulent economic weather.
Now, with the price of oil at half of the $103 a barrel needed to sustain the Russian budget, the strategy has fallen on hard times. There are reports of strikes and riots among workers in the rural Russian heartland on which Putin relies for support. Inflation is once again eating away at the salaries and pensions of ordinary Russians. Putin’s claim to have made Russians not just more secure but also more prosperous is beginning to ring hollow.
Yet it is hard to imagine internal opposition to Putin that is significant enough to unseat him. For a brief moment in December 2011 and the winter of 2012, people again took to the streets to protest the creeping authoritarianism in their country. It didn’t last. Putin brutally crushed the dissent, jailed his opponents, and was elected once again to the presidency in a process widely criticized as fraudulent. With the closing of that window for democracy in Russia, Putin cemented his rule. If he fulfills all of the terms available to him, he could be president of Russia until 2024.
Some hope that those around him, the siloviki, will start to see Putin’s policies as antagonistic to their interests. The theory is that in a den of thieves, there is no trust and no friendship, only self-interest. In part, the sanctions against those in his inner circle are aimed at provoking splits among
the hard men of the Kremlin. Perhaps. But if you are going to challenge the king, you had better kill him. It is more likely that the fates of these men are so inextricably woven together that no one will risk breaking ranks.
Recently, Putin has begun replacing some high-profile members of the siloviki. Sergei Ivanov, the man long thought to be closest to him, was fired as chief of staff. Younger men more beholden to the president are being promoted to important security and political posts.
If he cannot be challenged by the siloviki, can Putin himself experience a Gorbachev-like epiphany and reverse course? That is hard to imagine. He is too personally identified with the Russian nationalist, conservative course on which he launched his country. And he believes in it.
One of my last meetings with him at the Kremlin was not long before the invasion of Georgia in the summer of 2008. It was “one on one,” meaning just the two of us and an interpreter. “You know us, Condi,” he began. (Somehow, Putin rather liked me, I think. When I became secretary of state he told me that it was good to have a Russian specialist in that role. “Now the relationship will get the attention it deserves,” he said.)
Yet whenever he began, “You know us, Condi,” I could sense that something was coming that would be difficult to swallow. This particular time, I was right. “Russians have always been at their best when they have been ruled by great men. Peter the Great, Alexander II. Russia needs a strong hand,” he said. I resisted the temptation to ask if Vladimir the Great was in that succession. But I suspect that is exactly what he had in mind.
And now he is acting it out. He presents himself as a strong, conservative ruler who has the backing of the Orthodox Church. He has the support of the salt-of-the-earth people—soldiers, workers, and farmers. Intellectuals do not love him but they are fearful of crossing him. He has a security apparatus that enforces his arbitrary application of the law. And the motherland (or Rodina, as Russians call it) is once again secure.
There thus isn’t much room for the controlled chaos that is democracy in this version of Great Russia. But authoritarian systems are brittle, and the good news for Russia is that there is an educated and sophisticated population in waiting should an opportunity for democracy come.
Russians are different than they were before Gorbachev. They are accustomed to travel, study abroad, and enjoy the better things in life. Surely a return to the fearful and isolated lives of their parents and grandparents holds no allure for them.
The problem is that the interests of these elements of the Russian population have found no institutionalized way to express their views, mobilize around particular reforms, and seek political change. Even before Putin’s assault on civil society, the sector was small—aimed at a few social issues, but lacking political direction. Political parties have failed to excite the passions of the citizenry and to penetrate their political consciousness or command their active participation. Russia is a classic case of new political institutions being created but divorced entirely from the life of the people and the society. The Russian people never came to own their institutions, trust them, use them, or give them legitimacy. And their leaders gave them little reason to do so. The rule of law, an independent judiciary, and political parties that connect to the people have all been ephemeral in post-Soviet Russia.
Nor is there certainty that a challenge to Putin’s rule would come from these “enlightened” forces. There is an undercurrent of nativism and conservatism in the Russian population that can be tapped by the right leader. The Orthodox Church remains a bulwark of reactionary views and political influence.
If Russia gets another chance to move toward democracy, it will need institutions that can connect the population to politics and channel the violent energy of radical change. The failure to do that until now is the essence of the story of Russia’s failed democratic experiment.
Chapter 3
MARTIAL LAW AND THE ORIGINS OF POLISH DEMOCRACY
I admit to having always had a soft spot in my heart for Poland. Most students of Eastern Europe of my generation do. Throughout the Cold War, the Poles more than any other nation maintained their fiery nationalism and hatred of communism. Moscow was never able to crush their spirit.
They were rewarded for their steadfastness in 1989 when Solidarity led them to freedom. Now, standing in the courtyard of the Presidential Palace in 2001, I felt a tremendous surge of emotion as I witnessed what Poland had become.
We were in Warsaw for President Bush’s state visit. During the arrival ceremony we listened, as was customary, to the playing of the American and Polish national anthems. Then the flags were raised—the Stars and Stripes and the red and white horizontal bars of Poland. The NATO banner stood alongside them. I was overwhelmed and tears flowed freely down my face. Poland was now an American ally in a Europe that was finally whole, free, and at peace.
A few minutes later, we watched as Polish troops paraded in front of the president to honor him. They were goose-stepping in the tradition of the armies of the Warsaw Pact. As each row passed, heads tilted to the side—also a feature of Soviet bloc armies—the president saluted the troops of the NATO alliance, who looked more at home in their past than in the present. I chuckled to myself and pointed it out to a couple of others standing nearby. No one else seemed to get the irony. And, of course, it didn’t matter. Poland was now a reliable ally and a stable democracy, even if some of its military traditions needed reform.
The Long Road to a Free Poland
Poland, perhaps more than any other country, exemplified the tragedy of Europe’s division after World War II. It had always been the most restive member of the Soviet bloc. Passionate nationalism, deep Catholicism, and fierce if sometimes passive resistance to Moscow’s dominance always made the Poles, well, difficult.
The hostility between the Russian and the Polish peoples was long-standing, driven by wars and political settlements that continually altered the borders between them over centuries. Poland sometimes had the upper hand, even installing a Polish prince as tsar during times of Russian weakness in the early 1600s. When Russia eventually emerged stronger under the Romanov dynasty, it retaliated by taking Polish territory and forcibly integrating large chunks of it into the Russian Empire. Back and forth it went, sealing a historical narrative of distrust and animosity.
The modern version of this instability grew out of the events leading to the start of World War II. In 1932, Poland signed a nonaggression pact with Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union, and two years later did the same with Nazi Germany. But the pacts were not honored, and in 1939, Poland was invaded from the west by Germany and from the east by the Soviet Union. Years of brutality against the population ensued, mostly at the hands of the Germans. But the Soviet Union did its part. In one of the most infamous incidents, twenty-two thousand Polish army officers and civil servants were massacred near the Katyn Forest region in Russia. The Soviets attributed the crime to the Nazis. But every Pole knew what Mikhail Gorbachev would finally admit in 1990, that the Katyn massacre had been perpetrated by the Soviet secret police.
Despite the brutality and the long odds, the Polish resistance fought gamely against the Nazis, even taking control of Warsaw in August 1944. The Nazis retook the capital in October and burned the city to the ground, rounding up and executing ordinary citizens and resistance fighters alike. Soviet forces were marching rapidly westward at the time but did not reach the city in time to prevent the German massacre. Or, many believe, the Red Army chose to wait, condemning the population to Nazi atrocities and making easier the pacification of the population upon “liberation.” The Soviets took Warsaw in January 1945 and the rest of Poland by March.
When the final peace settlement was sealed at Potsdam between the victorious Allies a few months later, the facts on the ground in Poland favored Stalin. The Western Allies tried to insist on free elections, but the fate of Poland was sealed. In 1947, Soviet-sponsored “elections” were won by Bolesław Bierut, who quickly declared that Poland had become the C
ommunist People’s Republic of Poland. In 1955, Poland became a founding member of the Soviet military alliance, the Warsaw Pact. Its integration into the Soviet bloc was now complete.
Yet, for the next three decades, Poland remained a thorn in the Kremlin’s side, constantly producing crises between the Polish people and the communist rulers. The only tool that the party could use was to bring relative prosperity to the population. It did so, but largely by borrowing money from Western Europe and the United States. By 1970, that strategy began to unravel as loans came due and the real economy began to shrink. Strikes and food riots broke out in Gdańsk in December, leading to many deaths when the authorities used force to restore order.
Fearing for stability, the West continued to ply Poland with loans, forgiving some, rescheduling others, and allowing the country to continue to build up debt. But by 1980 the country owed more than $18 billion, almost as much as its entire GDP. Foreign sources of funding were slowly drying up and the largesse that had kept wages high was unsustainable. Depressed wages and soaring prices for basic goods—up 60 percent or more on certain items—fueled protests across the country. Now the party was out of money and face-to-face with a restive and angry population.
Throughout the summer of 1980, strikes and work stoppages multiplied. The government reacted with wage increases that it could not afford, but even that did not contain the “rolling” labor actions that were paralyzing the country. When eighty thousand workers joined a strike in Lublin, the army had to be called in to maintain basic services.
Then the regime made a fatal mistake in Gdańsk, long the hotbed of worker activism at the ironically named Lenin Shipyard. Anna Walentynowicz, a popular crane operator, was fired five months before her retirement. Led by Bogdan Borusewicz and an electrician named Lech Wałęsa, the Gdańsk shipyard workers began striking. Within days, two hundred factories had joined the strike committee, setting out demands and insisting on the right to have independent trade unions and to strike. As the labor actions spread, the government tried intimidation first, arresting leaders of the dissident organizations and declaring that the strikes were political, not just economic. But the chaos continued, and on August 24 the communist government agreed to negotiate.
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