Vladimir Shlapentokh
Декабрь 6, 2012
The Privatization of God by Putin
Filed under: Uncategorized — shlapentokh @ 6:26 пп
The Privatization of God by Putin
Vladimir Shlapentokh
Introduction
The number and variety of tricks Putin has used to insure his power and justify his legitimacy as the Russian leader surpasses those of all who ruled Russia before him in both their inventiveness and diversity. This is certainly true about the Soviet leaders; Putin’s trickery even surpasses Stalin’s, with all his tactics for removing his rivals in the late 1920s. Western politicians are, of necessity, forced to participate in a complicated parliamentary struggle, and in a climate of unhinged public opinion. However, their ingenuity pales in comparison with the cunning of Putin’s lieutenants.
Two major events during Putin’s rule determined Russia’s domestic and foreign policies, whose single goal was the maintenance his own personal power: the Orange Revolutions in some post-Soviet republics in 2003-4, and the mass protest movement from December 2011 to May 2012. The Orange Revolutions led to Putin’s decision to dismantle aspects of democracy in society and take a hostile position toward the West—which was, in his opinion, behind these revolutions. The mass protests made him even more aggressive toward the opposition, and highlighted the fact that the regime does not have its own ideology. In the winter of 2011-12, Putin saw, probably more clearly than ever before, that the lack of ideology necessary to legitimize his regime was a major problem, despite the high price of oil and his well-paid special police teams.
Putin’s technology for keeping power
The roster of political maneuvers used by Putin and his people to prevent the success of rivals is indeed very impressive. Besides rigging the election at both the campaign and voting stages, this roster includes the creation and dismantling (when useful) of the various fictitious oppositional political parties that have, supposedly, initiated attacks on the Kremlin and its party, “United Russia.” The fictional oppositional parties emulate critiques from a nationalist position (e.g., “Fatherland” headed by Putin’s acolyte Dmitry Rogozin), from a liberal perspective (e.g., the “Party of the Right Cause” headed by various Kremlin’s myrmidons, the “Civic Force” party headed by the official bureaucrat Mikhail Barzhevsky, and “Business Russia” headed by Boris Titov), and from the left (e.g., the “Just Russia” party headed by Putin’s crony, Sergei Mironov).
Putin’s strategy has also included transforming the Communist party into a pawn in his political games. Putin’s political technologists can boast of the subtle manipulation of Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s party, which was created by the KGB in 1990, pretending to oppose the government but faithfully serving Yeltsin’s and Putin’s regimes. Putin’s operators initiated various supposedly spontaneous movements, including those that targeted the youth, such as the “Nashi” (Ours) movement (founded in 2005). He also aimed at all strata of the population through “The Popular Front.” These technologists, together with big money, can be proud of their success in having recruited many of the most sophisticated intellectuals as Putin’s propagandists. Putin and his masters of political intrigue were able to advance bogus political rivals and seduce even very rich people in Russia like Mikhail Prokhorov, who readily obeys any task from the Kremlin. As fake critics of the regime, Prokhorov was joined by Alexei Kudrin, former deputy premier minister and Putin’s personal friend. Also joining in the ranks of the illusory opposition was Anatolii Chubais, Putin’s Minister. These people comprise a pseudo-liberal team that Putin can use as a last protection—an alternative against real opposition—when he is cornered and thinking only of how to avoid the fate of Mubarak or Gaddafi.
The Orthodox Church’s Ideology –the major reliable ally of the regime
More important than all of the previously discussed political tricks is Putin’s decision to use the Orthodox Church as an instrument in solidifying his power. Indeed, Putin has been haunted since the beginning by the lack of a viable ideology and the solid legitimization of his rule. There has not been an ideology (or a “national idea” in Moscow’s parlance) with which he was able to unite Russians and provide everybody with a directive of how to behave and act in the absence of clear-cut commands from the Kremlin.
Despite its erosion over the course of Soviet history, the Soviet ideology performed this function quite well until its end. Working all 12 years of Putin’s term, his aides have not achieved the goal of offering their master even a draft of a national ideology. This task was not solvable because it was impossible to combine all of Putin’s statements, which are mutually exclusive and contradictory, like the praise of private property and the market on one side, with the justification of state intervention in the economy and the confiscation of private property of undesirable people on the other. It was impossible to reconcile the praise of democracy with the commendation of the Soviet past (Stalin and the regular broadsides against the West) ; the slightly hidden nationalism; and the rude denunciation and persecution of the critics of the regime. The radical shift to an alliance with the Church has solved the problem, as pointed out by noted ethnographer Yurii Semenov, “the authorities’ instruments but Orthodox rhetoric.”
Figuratively speaking, Putin put God at his service. He “privatized” God in his personal interests in the same way he privatized the major television channels, as well as the oil and gas companies, as a part of his clandestine domain. As a part of the deal, the Orthodox Church (again without historical precedence) received extensive power to intervene in the ideological and political life of the country. The involvement of the Orthodox Church in Russian politics and ideology helped Putin strengthen his regime, and at the same time encouraged obscurantism in society and the decline of science, contributing to the flight of the best minds from Russia as well as to the country’s isolation by the West.
Of course, it is possible to contend that one ideology exists in Russia, whose major goal is the accumulation of wealth for Russians, from their leaders down to ordinary people. However, such an ideology is essentially deeply individualistic, and is actually destructive in terms of consolidating a society’s public ideology around what a desirable society should do.
Individualistic ideology, with greed as its main value, appeals to the anti-social instincts, encourages the atomization of society and is deeply hostile to state and order. In fact, all secular ideologies prompt the bureaucracy and all of a country’s citizens to act in the interests of the society, even without commands from the ruling elite (although the efficacy of these ideologies is another matter.) None of the secular ideologies—liberal, Communist or radical nationalist—suited Putin, whose behavior is ostensibly aimed only at the maintenance of his personal power and his wealth. Even the relatively mild nationalist ideology, with patriotism as its main value, which Putin has tried to regenerate since his arrival to power, could not gain real support in a deeply fragmented and politically indifferent society. Most Russians today are deeply indifferent to the national interests of their country, because they can see the ruling elite is completely absorbed with the maintenance and expansion of their power and illegally acquired wealth.
The Orthodox religion as an ideology appears more consistent than any other versions of ideologies offered by Putin’s aides, “sovereign democracy” among them. All other secular ideologies are a threat to Putin’s personal power. By accepting, de facto, the Orthodox religion as a national ideology, and demonstrating his personal allegiance to the Church and friendship with the Patriarch, Putin hopes to significantly improve his political standing in the country, and to expand the ideological basis for his relations with the majority of Russians, which has significantly deteriorated in the last several years.
Indeed, the official ideology of the Russian Orthodox Church satisfies Putin in every way. This ideology not only includes the various “pure” religious postulates which if—and only if — implemented can indeed boost morals in society, it also provides political directives that are fully acceptable to Putin’s regime. Of all the possible ideologies, the ideology offered by the Church best helps Putin to solve his most important problem—the legitimization of his regime.
First, it sermonizes about obedience to political power and supports the cult of state, along with an unwavering rejection of a societal focus on the individual and human rights. As patriarch Cyril said, speaking before students at MoscowUniversity: “It is the Orthodox tradition to pray for the tsars and all superiors.” He added that “the State is a sacred institute in the mentality of our people.”[i] The Church not only avoided participation in the pro-democratic movement in 2011-2012, it openly condemned it as a threat to the stability of the country, and openly condemned the participants of the protest movement, using Soviet terminology, “enemies of people.” (On the other hand, the Church never condemned those of their dignitaries who cooperated with the KGB. ) What can be more pleasant to Putin than the Church’s regular assault against democracy? Putin can also only be delighted with the attitudes of the Church toward the West. From the Patriarch to the ordinary priest, the West is described as a satanic power.
Of great merit to Putin is the fact that the clerical ideology avoids critiquing any problems in Russian society. Aside from a few empty phrases, the Church has not denounced corruption and criminalization in the country, or matters relating to the material polarization of Russian society. Indeed, it would be impossible, since Russians consider the church itself to be a deeply corrupted organization. Defending itself and the regime, the Church suggests that the fight against corruption in society and in the Church is equal to a fight against the state and the church as institutions.
Making religion his main ideological instrument, Putin has transformed the Church into an organization that resembles the propaganda department of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist party, and the patriarch Cyril into a sort of Soviet ideological guru like Mikhail Suslov. As theologian and publicist Yakov Krotov said, “the top Church hierarchs perform the same role as Marxists under Bolsheviks”.
Ordinary Russians – a respect for Orthodoxy even with low religious services attendance
