HOW DO YOU SLAY A DRAGON?

The situation worsened, because in the absence of any genuine left-leaning ideas in Russia all that remained were fully left-wing or pseudo-left ideas. The ideological and political space was full of actors who played on the older generation’s Soviet nostalgia, and pushed left-wing ideas to have a calming effect on society. Not surprisingly, among the fair-minded critical thinkers who made up civil society there developed a suspicion of the very term “left-wing”. They began to reject everything that was associated with the left, seeing it as simply archaic Soviet thinking. As a result of this, that space was left empty.

As we all know, nature abhors a vacuum, and the ideas of the left were bought by the most unexpected “buyer”: the right-wing regime. If those to whom I addressed my thoughts didn’t listen to me, in the Kremlin they understood only too well the value of left-wing ideas. Of course, I’d suggested that these ideas should be linked to a democratic agenda, but in the Kremlin they seized the programme of the left and instead used it as a means of suffocating democracy and creating post-Soviet authoritarianism. Under the cover of popular slogans about doing battle with the oligarchs, the Kremlin began to spin a false left-wing programme, pretending it was aimed at closing the gap between the rich and the poor, promising to develop wide-ranging social programmes, and advertising their model as that of a welfare state. The height of this populism came in 2007-2008, when they began actively to push the idea of national programmes for healthcare, education, culture and so on.

At first, this undemocratic “turn to the left” began to show very promising political possibilities. Against a background of bountiful profits from the sale of raw materials at very high prices, and with the impression of having stable relations with the West (that made it possible to attract even more credit and investment), they managed to divert significant resources to the social sector, thus raising the standard of living of a reasonable part of the population to near pre-crisis levels, and in some instances even beating Soviet standards. This led to strong support in society for the regime, and led to the well-known pact with the population of “bread in exchange for democracy”, as a result of which the closed authoritarian system began to be formed.

However, Putin’s social paradise didn’t last long. These policies didn’t lead to any kind of new equality. True, compared to the 1990s the incomes and standard of living of the majority of the population rose significantly. But the income of the main beneficiaries of Putin’s policies – the new bureaucrats and the semi-criminal businesses that attached themselves to the Kremlin – rose even more, by almost astronomical amounts. Social stratification not only didn’t go down, but grew noticeably. A new class of oligarchs appeared, Putin’s, made up of his oprichniki , and the incomes of the majority of the old layer of super-rich also grew. What was happening in Moscow at the national level was repeated many times over in the provinces, where the gap between social groups also widened in the same way. An amazing picture appeared. In carrying out verbally a left-wing programme, the regime actually managed to create an even greater division in society, and the growth of inequality in all areas. What’s more, this was done in the most primitive, almost feudal, way.

All the while there wasn’t just a lot of money around but an awful lot  of money, the regime didn’t hear any complaints about their pseudo-left agenda. Surplus profits made it possible to buy off the masses painlessly, hardly affecting the rate at which those around the Kremlin were lining their pockets. But such a “lightness of being” corrupts. Increasingly, socialist ideas became mixed in with nationalist and even militaristic ideas. And as is well known, socialism and nationalism can often be a dangerous mix. Specifically, from the very beginning this turn towards nationalist social programmes was accompanied by the ideas outlined in Putin’s Munich speech of 2007. This beginning then saw the seizure in 2008 of two regions from Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and as “Putin’s socialism” reached the peak of its flowering and the well-being of the post-Soviet people was at its height, in 2014 the war against Ukraine was started. Suddenly things ground to a halt. In conditions of war there was no longer enough money to keep supporting the social illusion.

What happened to Putin’s welfare state when the era of hybrid wars began? In short, it drowned.

First of all, after the financial crisis of 2008 the international situation changed and the price of raw materials started to fall.