Putin and Russian History

From: Arch Getty <getty@ucla.edu>
Subject: Putin and Russian History
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013

Putin and Russian History
By J. Arch Getty
J. Arch Getty is Professor of History at UCLA.  He is the author of several books on Russian history, including Practicing Stalinism: Boyars, Bolsheviks and the Persistence of Tradition, forthcoming from Yale University Press.

An occupational hazard of being a Russian historian is that people often ask “What about Putin?”  “What’s going to happen in Russia?”  Historians are generally allergic to making predictions, and predicting Russia has a very poor track record; almost nobody predicted the sudden fall of the USSR.   But because we are at least somewhat the products of the past, that past may tell us something about the future.  So where does Putin come from?

In the short-term, Putin’s perception of society is easy to trace to KGB culture in the Brezhnev era: disruptive or unorthodox events were seen as misguided, incomprehensible, or even mentally unbalanced challenges to order.  In short, because Soviet society is perfect, protests must originate with foreign enemies, outside agitators or mental illness, so protestors should be ridiculed and punished.  This explains Putin’s ludicrous but characteristic reaction that the 2011-2012 winter Bolotnaia election protestors were dupes responding to Hillary Clinton’s “signal,” his offensive mocking of their white ribbons as condoms, and his reflex to punish demonstration leaders.

But there are historically deeper Russian sources for Putin’s myopic vision and actions.  For example, in 1825, following the defeat of Napoleon, noble Russian army officers returned from Paris with subversive French Revolutionary ideas about human rights, elections, constitutions, and the rule of law.  In December of that year, they staged a demonstration and abortive coup attempt aimed at overthrowing the Russian monarchy.  The “Decembrist Revolt” was quickly put down by royal power deployed by the new tsar, Nicholas I.

From the official side, tsar Nicholas I (like Putin) could not understand what was happening.  Nicholas was so perplexed that while harshly punishing the Decembrists, he (unlike Putin) had jailhouse conversations with several of them in order to understand their motivations.  But like Putin, Nicholas’ world view prevented him from seeing that society was changing.  He responded with the official slogan “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality,” a conservative statement that, by the way, Putin could embrace.  Instead of understanding the changes around them, both rulers quickly deployed punitive state power against the ringleaders.  Since society was basically sound as it was, one could nip change in the bud simply by decapitating it, right?

It seemed that nothing came of the 1825 revolt.  Disappointed observers ridiculed the dilettante noble demonstrators for being unable to transform their opposition into a real revolution:  They had no mass support.  They were poor planners and organizers.  Some of them even overslept or got lost that day and missed the action altogether.  In the long run, however, seeds had been planted.  The poor, marginalized and imprisoned Decembrists of 1825 would inspire later generations of Russian reformers and revolutionaries of all stripes who gradually attracted broader social support and who eventually brought down the monarchy in 1917.  Reformers and revolutionaries would later glorify the memory of the hapless Decembrists as forerunners who planted the seeds of change but could not live to see their flowering.

Today’s protesters are also ridiculed and belittled, especially by leftists both in Russia and the west, for not becoming more.  But in the long view (which we historians are trained to take)  change in Russia has always come very slowly, and one wonders if in a future Russia people will not look back at the Bolotnaia and even Pussy Riot demonstrators as the beginnings of something big, something that took a while to mature.  Even if we scoff at their lost potential, let us also not forget that these recent demonstrations for democracy were unprecedented in their scale.  They dwarf the Soviet dissident movement of the 1970s and 1980s which, as it turned out, planted much smaller seeds.

Both Nicholas I and Putin represent an old Russian tradition whereby the monarchy doggedly refused to understand or compromise with change.  Nicholas’ unbending obsolete vision and  inflexibility would do much to radicalize later Russian reformers.  Like him, his great-grandson Nicholas II would also be inherently unable to understand the forces for social change around him, and he and the monarchy were eventually swept away by the 1917 revolutions.  Nicholas I, Nicholas II, Brezhnev and Putin just didn’t get it.  They were constitutionally unable to understand society and how it changes.

They all had silent majorities behind them at one point.  Today, some 65% of the population supports Putin, compared with 1% for demonstration leader Navalny.   But the long clocks of change were and are ticking, even if few notice at the time.   Today it seems that Putin has an unchallenged upper hand and has never been stronger.  On the other hand, the Bolotnaia protesters, Pussy Riot women, and possibly leaders like Navalny seem to be fading into obscurity, oblivion and prison.  But in the future, the historical results of today’s impotent protests and Putin’s reaction to them could look very different.

It is possible that Russian strongman monarchy is built into Russian political culture.  But it is just as possible that its days are numbered.  Polling support for Putin is inversely proportional to educational levels, which are broadly rising.  These protesters may mark something big, something ultimately decisive.  Putin’s clock is ticking, but he has inherited the deafness of all Russian monarchs.  And even if he could hear the ticks he wouldn’t know what to do about them.

From: Arch Getty <getty@ucla.edu>
Subject: Putin and Russian History
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013

Putin and Russian History
By J. Arch Getty
J. Arch Getty is Professor of History at UCLA.  He is the author of several books on

Russian history, including Practicing Stalinism: Boyars, Bolsheviks and the

Persistence of Tradition, forthcoming from Yale University Press.

An occupational hazard of being a Russian historian is that people often ask “What

about Putin?”  “What’s going to happen in Russia?”  Historians are generally allergic

to making predictions, and predicting Russia has a very poor track record; almost

nobody predicted the sudden fall of the USSR.   But because we are at least somewhat

the products of the past, that past may tell us something about the future.  So where

does Putin come from?

In the short-term, Putin’s perception of society is easy to trace to KGB culture in

the Brezhnev era: disruptive or unorthodox events were seen as misguided,

incomprehensible, or even mentally unbalanced challenges to order.  In short, because

Soviet society is perfect, protests must originate with foreign enemies, outside

agitators or mental illness, so protestors should be ridiculed and punished.  This

explains Putin’s ludicrous but characteristic reaction that the 2011-2012 winter

Bolotnaia election protestors were dupes responding to Hillary Clinton’s “signal,”

his offensive mocking of their white ribbons as condoms, and his reflex to punish

demonstration leaders.

But there are historically deeper Russian sources for Putin’s myopic vision and

actions.  For example, in 1825, following the defeat of Napoleon, noble Russian army

officers returned from Paris with subversive French Revolutionary ideas about human

rights, elections, constitutions, and the rule of law.  In December of that year,

they staged a demonstration and abortive coup attempt aimed at overthrowing the

Russian monarchy.  The “Decembrist Revolt” was quickly put down by royal power

deployed by the new tsar, Nicholas I.

From the official side, tsar Nicholas I (like Putin) could not understand what was

happening.  Nicholas was so perplexed that while harshly punishing the Decembrists,

he (unlike Putin) had jailhouse conversations with several of them in order to

understand their motivations.  But like Putin, Nicholas’ world view prevented him

from seeing that society was changing.  He responded with the official slogan

“Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality,” a conservative statement that, by the way,

Putin could embrace.  Instead of understanding the changes around them, both rulers

quickly deployed punitive state power against the ringleaders.  Since society was

basically sound as it was, one could nip change in the bud simply by decapitating it,

right?

It seemed that nothing came of the 1825 revolt.  Disappointed observers ridiculed the

dilettante noble demonstrators for being unable to transform their opposition into a

real revolution:  They had no mass support.  They were poor planners and organizers.

Some of them even overslept or got lost that day and missed the action altogether.

In the long run, however, seeds had been planted.  The poor, marginalized and

imprisoned Decembrists of 1825 would inspire later generations of Russian reformers

and revolutionaries of all stripes who gradually attracted broader social support and

who eventually brought down the monarchy in 1917.  Reformers and revolutionaries

would later glorify the memory of the hapless Decembrists as forerunners who planted

the seeds of change but could not live to see their flowering.

Today’s protesters are also ridiculed and belittled, especially by leftists both in

Russia and the west, for not becoming more.  But in the long view (which we

historians are trained to take)  change in Russia has always come very slowly, and

one wonders if in a future Russia people will not look back at the Bolotnaia and even

Pussy Riot demonstrators as the beginnings of something big, something that took a

while to mature.  Even if we scoff at their lost potential, let us also not forget

that these recent demonstrations for democracy were unprecedented in their scale.

They dwarf the Soviet dissident movement of the 1970s and 1980s which, as it turned

out, planted much smaller seeds.

Both Nicholas I and Putin represent an old Russian tradition whereby the monarchy

doggedly refused to understand or compromise with change.  Nicholas’ unbending

obsolete vision and  inflexibility would do much to radicalize later Russian

reformers.  Like him, his great-grandson Nicholas II would also be inherently unable

to understand the forces for social change around him, and he and the monarchy were

eventually swept away by the 1917 revolutions.  Nicholas I, Nicholas II, Brezhnev and

Putin just didn’t get it.  They were constitutionally unable to understand society

and how it changes.

They all had silent majorities behind them at one point.  Today, some 65% of the

population supports Putin, compared with 1% for demonstration leader Navalny.   But

the long clocks of change were and are ticking, even if few notice at the time.

Today it seems that Putin has an unchallenged upper hand and has never been stronger.

On the other hand, the Bolotnaia protesters, Pussy Riot women, and possibly leaders

like Navalny seem to be fading into obscurity, oblivion and prison.  But in the

future, the historical results of today’s impotent protests and Putin’s reaction to

them could look very different.

It is possible that Russian strongman monarchy is built into Russian political

culture.  But it is just as possible that its days are numbered.  Polling support for

Putin is inversely proportional to educational levels, which are broadly rising.

These protesters may mark something big, something ultimately decisive.  Putin’s

clock is ticking, but he has inherited the deafness of all Russian monarchs.  And

even if he could hear the ticks he wouldn’t know what to do about them.