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Journalism of Courage
The shadowy man, picked up from the KGB archives and put in the Kremlin byBoris Yeltsin. That was Vladimir Putin for the media and the world beyondthe Russian Federation. Putin, for his part, kept himself live’ by bombingthe separatist Islamic fundamentalists of Chechnya. But he remained true tothe media adjective shadowy. Today he is out there in the sun, as thepresident-elect.
As candidate he was as visible as a hologram, but the Putin agenda wasinvisible. What was Putin for? There was only that general line aboutpolitical and social reforms. And there was no party for him, only thepersonality, not of him, certainly, but of Father Boris. Unlike his mainopponents, the communist, the reformer, and the madcap nationalist. Thecommunists have the only functional party in Russia, they have an agendatoo, also a permanent candidate in Gennadi Zyuganov. Reformer Yavlinsky toohas an agenda, actually a desirable agenda, but he is a hit only inMoscow.
The Putin vote is a vote for the Yeltsin legacy. The legacy of Stalinistdemocracy. For, the first popularly elected ruler in Russian history startedoff as a man of change. Unfortunately, in many changed societies ofpost-communism, the chosen man alone didn’t change, Walesa-like. Yeltsin,the streetfighter of democracy, took no time to metamorphose himself into aPresident of Forgetting, driven by decrees, paranoia, cronies, and demonsfrom the same Russian history he was supposed to repudiate. The New Year-evegoodbye was a great gesture, and Putin was his gift to Russia. But theacting president didn’t do anything that would have made him an independentman.
The bloody Chechen operation was his singular achievement. He was cautious,perhaps ambiguous, in his explanation of capitalist rule. One day he wouldsay Russia would join the NATO, the next day he would rage against thespectre of NATO next door. Even his post-election words were notparticularly illuminating. The former boss of FSB (post-Soviet successor toKGB) is still shadowy.
What Russia needs at this moment is clarity in purpose. And Putin has ahistorical responsibility to match popular aspiration with his vision forRussia 2000. He has been chosen to redeem the Yeltsin legacy from its ownexcesses. Yeltsin cannot be his only role model here. Yeltsin, the child ofGorbachevism, took the best part of freedom for himself once he was inpower. Will Putin, the child of Yeltsinism, emulate his mentor? The worldhopes he won’t. Freedom in liberated Russia is still not democratic. (Forinstance, Yeltsin is beyond the reach of law, the media can’t publish theChechen rebels’ view). Apart from the president, only the oligarchs arefully free in Russia, and their state within a state has a frighteningcontrol over the economy, especially oil, and the media. They are Putin’sbiggest challenge. Putin doesn’t require the iron fist of an absolute’president to reform society and administration. He just has to be ademocratic president aware of his popular mandate. Russia for the millennialpresident is a psychologically wounded nation struggling with its ownidentity in the world. Punished by history, let down by revolutionaries,Russia still needs a navigator. Shadowy Putin, you have a chance.
