Flight From Freedom: What Russians Think and Want

Richard Pipes

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004

Summary:  Critics decry Vladimir Putin for turning Russia into a one-party state. But polls suggest that Russians actually approve of his actions by sizable majorities, caring little for core Western principles such as democratic liberties and civil rights.

Richard Pipes is Professor of History, Emeritus, at Harvard University. He was Director of Eastern European and Soviet Affairs at the National Security Council in 1981-82.

PEOPLE'S MAN

In aggregate, the conclusions from surveys of Russian opinion are far from encouraging. Western commentators watch with dismay as Putin slowly and deliberately transforms Russia into a one-party state. But they fail to recognize, even more ominously, that Russians by sizable majorities actually approve of his actions. Putin's victory in the 2004 presidential elections is certainly due in part to his stifling of the opposition. But he is popular precisely because he has re-instated Russia's traditional model of government: an autocratic state in which citizens are relieved of responsibility for politics and in which imaginary foreign enemies are invoked to forge an artificial unity. The only desire that Putin has not yet satisfied is restoring Russia's status as a great military power. But if his response to other public demands offers a model, then this wish, too, is likely to be provided in good time.

ENDNOTES

1 Numbers in parentheses refer to the following sources (for books and journals, the page number follows the slash): (1) "Chelovek i vlast'" (Moscow, 1999); (2) Ibid., Appendix; (3) Validata, "Nations as Brands" (Moscow, 2003); (4) Vestnik Moskovskoi Shkoly Politicheskikh Issledovanii, no. 10 (1998); (5) Ibid., no. 13 (1999); (6) "Financial Times," Dec. 30, 2003; (7) "Izvestiia," Nov. 21, 2000; (8) "Izvestiia," April 10, 2003; (9) "Izvestiia," July 29, 2003; (10) "Izvestiia," Aug. 21, 2003; (11) "Izvestiia," Nov. 8, 2003; (12) "Izvestiia," Nov. 12, 2003; (13) "Izvestiia," Nov. 14, 2003; (14) "Izvestiia," Dec. 22, 2003; (15) "Izvestiia," Jan. 14, 2004; (16) "Izvestiia," Jan. 22, 2004.