FOREİGN AFFAİRS DECEMBER 09, 2023 Putin's War Party How Russia's Election Will Validate Autocracy—and Permanent Conflict With the West ANDREI KOLESNIKOV

 

FOREİGN  AFFAİRS 

DECEMBER 09, 2023 

Putin's War Party

How Russia's Election Will Validate Autocracy—and Permanent Conflict With the West

ANDREI KOLESNIKOV

If there is Putin, there is Russia; if there is no Putin, there is no

Russia,” the current speaker of the State Duma, the aggressive

loyalist Vyacheslav Volodin, pronounced, back in 2014. He was

outlining an ideal autocracy, one in which the country would be

 equated with its ruler and vice versa. At the time Volodin spoke

 those words, the Kremlin was basking in an upsurge of national

 euphoria following the annexation of Crimea. With the so-called

 Putin majority ascendant, the government could hasten its shift

 toward such a regime with broad popular approval.

But Volodin was a bit ahead of his time. It was not until the 2020

constitutional reform, which “reset” Russia’s presidential term limits

 and solidified Putin’s mature dictatorship, that his formula was

 codified in the country’s institutions. And it was in 2022, with the

 beginning of the “special operation” in Ukraine, that the propaganda

 meaning of “Putin equals Russia” became starkly apparent. As the

 Kremlin would have it, Putin’s war is Russia’s war, and by

 extension, a war involving all Russians

—a fanciful notion that not only plays into the hands of regime

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propagandists but which has been readily embraced by many Western

officials, as well. Of course, the real picture is far more complex.

By now, the Putin majority has long since been taken as a given, and

 no one talks about it anymore. Instead, there is the pro-war majority,

 which supports the war partly by ignoring it in everyday life. As for

 the antiPutin  minority, the Kremlin’s long-standing habit of

 treating with contempt any who dare oppose the president has been

 transformed into a policy of active persecution and denunciation.

 Opposition and civil society figures themselves have been

 systematically discredited, exiled, and eliminated.

Nonetheless, Putin still needs elections to give legitimacy to his

 eternal rule—and to his unending war. Thus, in March 2024, he will

 run for president for the fifth time since 2000. And as a result of the

 2020 reform, it may not be the last, either. According to the changed

 constitution, Putin will able to run for office twice more—in 2024

 and 2030—meaning that he could rule until 2036, when he will be

 eighty-three years old. For now, it seems clear that Putin is ready to

 make full use of that opportunity, at least in the coming vote.

But this time, with the war in the background, there are new rules to

 the game, and both Putin and the Russian public know them. In

 exchange for keeping most of them out of the trenches, the passive

 majority of Russians will continue to support the government. And

 the elections—or rather, the mass approval of Putin’s activities—

will show that the people, at least, are playing along. Ballots have

 become currency: Russians think that they can buy their own

 relative tranquility with them, even though there are no guarantees

 that Putin will keep his side of the bargain.

JUST SAY YES

Given the complete lack of alternatives to Putin, some of his

 supporters, such as the Chechen leader and fierce loyalist Ramzan

 Kadyrov, have proposed canceling the 2024 election altogether.

 Wouldn’t it be easier to forgo the vote, on the grounds that the

 country is at war, and that in any case, the Russian political field has

 been comprehensively cleared of

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It is essential for Putin to consolidate his narrative about thewar.

competitors? Or why not elevate Putin to the title of supreme leader,

national leader, or tsar, and then elect a formal president?

But Putin really needs elections, at least in theory. In addition to

refreshing his legitimacy, they serve as a way to show that the opposition

—through the predictable landslide outcome—remains a tiny minority

and cannot go against the overwhelming will of the Russian people.

Moreover, by voting for Putin in 2024, Russians will legitimize his

 war.

Even if the active phase of that war ends someday, it will still need to

continue through permanent confrontation with the West and as a

rationale for unrelenting repression, suppression, and censorship at home.

Rather than elections, then, the March vote should be thought of as a

 kind of acclamation for the leader: they are simply voting yes to the

 only real choice available. Technically, this is a legitimate form of

 democratic expression, asenshrined in the constitution—and,

 apparently, in Russian history. (New textbooks for schools and

 universities discuss such Russian political traditions as the

 Novgorod veche, or popular assembly, in which everything was

 decided by shouting, approval, and acclamation by the crowd.) 

In other words, in the absence of any political competition, the

 regime has everything to gain from a fresh acclamation of its rule,

 and little to lose.

Putin’s high numbers are guaranteed. Some will vote for him out of a

sense of falsely understood civic duty, some will be coerced to do so

 at work: such is the general state of paranoia in today’s Russia that

 people sometimes take a smartphone picture of their completed

 ballot and send it to their bosses, after which they get the right to

 return to their private lives. Other votes may be falsified, including,

 perhaps, with the help of electronic voting systems.

Still, deciding what content to fill the campaign with is another

question. Obviously, it is essential for Putin to consolidate his

 narrative about the war. As Putin likes to say, “It was not us”: Russia

 was attacked by the West, and in response began a “national

 liberation struggle” to free Russia and other peoples enslaved by the

 West. And since Russians find themselves in a besieged fortress,

 they must give full support to their commander to repel both the

 enemy at the gates and the traitors and foreign agents within. By

 now, this logic has acquired the status of an axiom. Along with it

 comes a series of arguments—Russia is fighting for a “fairer

 multipolar world,” Russia is a special “state-civilization”—

that justify the war, why it cannot end, and Putin’s rule itself. But

 what newelement can be brought into the current election campaign,

 except, of course, an abstract declaration of peace and victory?

STORIES ABOUT WHEAT

In theory, the Russian public does not attach much significance to

elections. In the minds of most people, there is simply no alternative to Putin, even if they think he is not particularly good. When Russians say “Putin,” they mean the president, and vice versa; like a medieval king, Putin has two bodies—one physical, one symbolic. Putin is the collective “we” of Russians, and voting for him every few years has become a ritual, like raising the flag or singing the national anthem on Mondays in high schools across Russia.

But the war has added a new dimension to this rite. During the “special operation,” an unwritten agreement has been established between the people and their leader. The gist of this special relationship is that as long as the state refrains from dragging (most) people into battle, Russians will not question Putin’s authority. The partial mobilization in the fall of 2022 briefly called into question the state’s promise, but since then the authorities have largely solved the problem. Essentially, they have demobilized Russians psychologically, by maintaining and enforcing a pervasive normality. Thus, Putin himself has focused almost exclusively on domestic issues such as addressing economic problems and supporting artificial intelligence, staging meetings with young scientists and talented children. As a result, during the second year of the war, the general mood of the population has been much better, even despite rumors about another possible military mobilization after the election.

One darker cloud has appeared over the Kremlin, in the form of open

disgruntlement from families of the men who were mobilized in October 2022. These families are not seeking money, but they want to bring their sons and husbands home. They sense injustice, given that real criminals and brutal killers, who were pulled out of prison to fight in the war, have to serve for only six months before they can return as heroes, while their own sons have been given no reprieve. The government does not have a convincing answer to this challenge: Putin has long been used to fighting the intelligentsia and the liberal opposition, but here he is dealing with discontent from his own social base. These soldiers’ families have not yet coalesced into a formal movement or taken an explicit antiwar stance—a step that would be impossible because of the high level of repression. But

every day these families have become more and more politicized.

For the bulk of the population, however, it is enough for the

government to regularly tout the country’s economic health and income growth, and the mere fact that the country is not experiencing economic and social collapse is enough to convey an impression of business as usual.

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The Kremlin also continually highlights its foreign policy  “successes.” In this imaginary world, Russia is supported in its confrontation with the West by the “global majority” in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They are not just allies but countries for whom Russia is a ray of light in the gloom. It is assumed that anti-Western rhetoric and offers of economic assistance—or, as in the case of Africa, grain—will automatically lead the former satellites of the Soviet Union back to Russia.

Meanwhile, official Russian media reports about military operations

tend to emphasize the continual successes of “our guys” at the front. In these sunny accounts, there are no serious losses, only heroic behavior and victories. These briefings have come to resemble Soviet reports on agricultural achievements: the battle for the harvest is going well, and the only possible feeling can be one of satisfaction.

From a Western point of view, these fantasy narratives seem unlikely to convince anyone. Surely, Russians must be sensitive to their growing isolation and economic hardship, and the ever-growing sacrifice of their young men at the front. But the Putin regime is not built upon active support. All it requires is the indifference of the majority, who mostly find it easier to accept the picture of the world that is imposed from above. By embracing the Putin story, they can retain a sense of moral superiority over a West that, they are told, is seeking to dismember their country, just as Napoleon, Hitler, and the “American imperialists” did in past decades.

From month to month, Russian sociologists report broadly the same

findings. Attention to events in Ukraine has stagnated; less than half of respondents say they follow the war closely, according to surveys by the independent Levada Center. On average, their support for the military remains high: about 75 percent of respondents say that they support the actions of the armed forces, including 45 percent who express “strong support.” On the other hand, surveys consistently show that slightly more than a half of respondents favor starting peace negotiations than continuing the war. But since the country has made large sacrifices in the fighting, most of those supporting a settlement would like to get something in return: Russia should keep the “new” territories it has conquered or “restored” to Moscow.

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BACK IN THE USSR

Having reframed the “special operation” in Ukraine into a

multidimensional war against the West, Putin has no particular urgency to

talk about an endgame. In this sense, Putin’s goals for the war are no

longer limited to returning Ukraine to Russia but now encompass what

has become an existential rematch with the West, in which the Ukraine

war is a part of a long, historically significant clash of civilizations. Putin

sees himself as completing the mission begun by his historic predecessors,

who were always forced to fight Western encroachment. In Putin’s new

interpretation, even the Tatar-Mongol yoke—the two centuries of Russian

subjugation that followed the invasion of Batu Khan, the grandson of

Genghis Khan, in 1237—was not as harmful as Western influence and

Western attacks. And since this is now an open-ended confrontation, the

timeline for “victory” will necessarily extend far beyond the next decade.

Ordinary Russians are receptive to ideas about the country’s historical

greatness. As polling data have shown for many years, the main source of

popular pride in the state today is the country’s glorious past. Russians

have a special regard for their imperial history, especially the history of the

Soviet Union, and an idealized image of the Soviet Union as a kingdom of

justice has begun to emerge. At the same time, helped by acts of erasure

by the Putin regime itself, Stalin’s repressions have receded from view or

are sometimes considered as something inevitable and even positive.

Among the Soviet achievements most remembered by Russians today, the

greatest of all is the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War, as Russians

refer to World War II.

Accordingly, Putin has continually compared the “special operation”

against Ukraine with the war against Nazi Germany. Thus, the celebrated

soldiers and generals of the Great Patriotic War are the direct predecessors

of today’s military, and by fighting in Putin’s war, Russians can again find

redemption in heroic sacrifice. For example, in a speech before this year’s

May 9 Victory Day parade, Putin suggested that the West was trying to

reverse Russia’s historic victory. “Their goal,” he said, “is to achieve the

collapse and destruction of our country, erase the results of the Second World War.”

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Spending more on death means there is less to spend on life.

PEAK PUTIN?

To make his worldview stick, however, Putin needs a viable economic

model to sustain the mythmaking. In recent years, and especially since the

start of the war, he has complemented his carefully cultivated distrust of

the outside world by rejecting what he calls economic and technological

“dependence” on the West. In practice, the Kremlin has been eliminating everything Western not through import substitution—which is impossible in a modern economy—but through a new dependence on China.

Meanwhile, technology is becoming both more primitive and more

expensive, which naturally puts the burden on the end consumer.

Russia’s oil and gas resources—essential for sustaining the country’s

extraordinary military expenditures—remain as important as ever. In a

way, ideology is being used to make up for the shortfall in energy

revenues, and to compensate for the gradual decline in the quality of life.

Of course, the regime going to great lengths to maintain the impression

that life goes on as normal, and to a degree, this is true: formally, in 2023,

the country’s GDP and real incomes of the population are growing. But

this is in large measure because of state injections into sectors serving the

war and social payments to its participants. That growth is coming at the

expense of the state, and it is unclear how long its resources will last. Risks

of fiscal imbalance remain.

A larger problem is the lack of an economic vision for the future. As the historian 

Alexander Etkind notes, “A resource-dependent state is always afraid of the raw 

materials running out, but the biggest threat of all comes from new technology that 

makes those materials unnecessary.” Putin has never believed in the energy transition 

or green economy, but by insisting on preserving Russia’s existing technological 

structure and petrostate model, his regime has impeded modernization in both 

a technological and political sense. As aresult, the oil and gas economy is not being 

replaced by a more sustainable model. Notably, some of the countries in the east that 

are now consuming Russian raw materials may be shifting their energy mix in the future: 

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in time, for example, China may have less demand for Russian energy. But

Putin’s autocracy does not care about future generations, much less the environment.

Alongside its dependence on nonrenewable fossil fuels, the Kremlin

tends to treat human capital as another expendable commodity. But that

does not make the human supply chain any cheaper. On the contrary, it is becoming more expensive: professional soldiers, mercenaries, volunteers,

family members of the dead and wounded, and the workers who man

Russia’s military-industrial complex (and of which there is currently a grave shortage) must all be paid. Hence, the government has had to

reconcile itself to an inexorable growth of wages and social benefits.

People’s incomes are growing not because of economic development or

advances in the quality of the labor force but simply so the government

can sustain hostilities and fuel the continued production of lethal

weapons.

For now, the state budget is still balanced, but budget discipline is in a

permanent danger because of the state’s chosen priorities. By paying more

for defense and security, Russia has fewer resources for people and their

health and development. In the Putin economic model, more spending on

death means that there is less to spend on life.

SWAN LAKE

So what will Putin’s election campaign look like? Given the current

situation, Putin can only offer the public the same model of survival that

has become standard since the “special operation” began: to live against

the backdrop of war without paying attention to it and wait for “victory”

in whatever form the president someday chooses. Again, it is unlikely that

that choice will be clearly defined during the election season. The war

itself has become a mode of existence for Putin’s system, and there is little

reason to expect that it will end any time soon, since that could undercut

the urgency of supporting him.

In any case, during periods of peace, Putin’s ratings have often

stagnated, whereas they have soared during moments of military

“patriotic” hysteria such as the Georgian war of 2008 and the Crimea

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During periods of peace, Putin's ratings have stagnated.

annexation. The “special operation” has been no exception. Moreover, for

now, war fatigue has not yet translated into serious discontent or a

decrease in support for the regime. According to the Levada Center,

popular support for Putin, as well as for the war and the military, has

remained broadly stable, with Putin maintaining around an 80 percent

approval rating. In theory, then, the indifference of the pro-war majority

suggests that Putin can continue the war for the indefinite future.

The Kremlin’s other option would be to ramp up hostilities, including a

new mobilization, whether partial or general, combined with further

distancing from the West and more repression at home. But such changes

could rock the Kremlin, which at some point risks colliding with an

iceberg of extreme public anxiety and a deteriorating economy. Russia’s

underlying problems are not going anywhere, and have been slowed down

only by the relatively rational actions of the government’s economic

managers. Accordingly, maintaining the status quo seems the most likely

path forward.

When Russians go to the polls in March, Putin can count on high voter turnout 

and continued passive support for the war. Most of them have very low expectations:

they have long lived according to the mantra “The main thing is that itshouldn’t get 

even worse.” But the fresh acclamation of the regime that the election will

doubtless bring will not necessarily provide a mandate for truly drastic

moves such as the full closure of Russia’s borders or the use of nuclear

weapons. Indeed, as the Kremlin must understand, the outcome will be

less a mandate for radical new changes than a signal that it can continue

much as before.

How long can a country exist in this state of passive and unproductive

inertia? Theoretically, Putin could reap advantages by continuing the war

but at the same time keeping the population calm, thereby outlasting the

West with its supposedly flagging interest. But there are several reasons to

question this assumption: first, it is not only Ukraine and the West but

also Russia whose resources are being dramatically depleted. Second,

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surprises are possible, such as the growing wave of discontent among the

Russian mobilized soldiers’ families. Even if it does not result in a broader

political backlash, the phenomenon has already shown that black swans of

different sizes can come from unexpected places at unexpected times.

But where are the redlines that show just how far resources can be

depleted and the patience of various sections of the population be tested

without triggering a larger collapse? Do these limits even exist in Russia?

So far, with a few minor exceptions, everything points to the fact that they

do not. Moreover, no matter how much the regime has tightened its grip,

change of leadership is not a priority for the Russian public: on the

contrary, polls and focus groups show that many people fear a change at

the top.

Still, Russians are not ready to die for Putin. In 2018 and 2020, Putin’s

ratings fell because of an unpopular decision to increase the retirement

age, and then because of the effects of the pandemic; it is possible that his

base of support will take other hits in the coming months. Indeed, in the

mood of both the public and the elites, there is an invisible yet discernible

expectation of such events. For most, however, the yearning is more basic.

They desire to end “all this”—meaning get rid of war—as quickly as

possible and begin to live better, more safely, and more peacefully. But it is

unlikely that this will happen without regime change.