An end to Putin-mania?
By David Stromberg

Taking a deep look into Vladimir Putin's eyes, seven years ago, and seeing "his soul," U.S. President George W. Bush noted that his
Russian counterpart was "deeply committed to his country." Indeed, right after he took office, Putin began a major reorganization of post-Soviet
Russia, retaking control for the state of thriving industries that had been privatized under Boris Yeltsin.
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In 2001, the state gas giant Gazprom took over NVT, Russia's only independent television channel. In 2003, Yukos oil firm CEO Mikhail
Khodorkovsky was arrested, with his company's shares eventually sold "at auction" − mostly to Gazprom. In 2004, Putin abolished local elections and introduced Kremlin-appointed governors in provincial regions from the Baltic Sea to Siberia.

Though such centralization has repercussions for everyone, initially only those who those responsible for this trend or openly opposed to it seemed directly affected by these changes. The murdered investigative journalists Paul Khlebnikov and Anna Politkovskaya, the poisoned former KGB agent-turned Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko − these were targeted individuals with international prominence. Their deaths had little to do with "ordinary" Russians, and besides, they were never conclusively traced back to the government.

Then, in March 2007, a journalist little-known abroad, Ivan Safronov, was found dead after "falling" from the fifth floor of his Moscow apartment building. He was known to be working on a muckraking article about Russian arms sales to Iran and Syria. Nothing new, perhaps, but it was a story with the potential to thwart a lucrative deal. After his death, the Moscow prosecutor's office opened an investigation into what it called "forced suicide" − which in most other countries is called murder.

And this January saw the reintroduction of KGB tactics into "ordinary" people's lives. Against the backdrop of the diplomatic row over the
Litvinenko affair, ?the Kremlin ordered the closure of the British Council's offices in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. When the offices remained open, 10 full-time council employees, Russian nationals, were visited at home by representatives of the "tax authorities." The same day, 20 council staff were interviewed by the Federal Security Forces ?(FSB?), and the director of the St. Petersburg office was stopped by traffic police for suspected drunk driving. The office was closed the next day, never to reopen, and by the end of that month 18 Russian-national employees of the cultural-relationsorganization found themselves unemployed.

The first mass protests against Putin came in 2004 and 2005, when the government cut social security benefits dramatically as part of a process of so-called monetization. The dissent was social rather than political in nature, and most demonstrators were pensioners and army veterans. Since then, most attempts at protest have been met by riot police and resulted in arrests and detainment. The kinds of demonstrations that are authorized include those of the pro-Kremlin YoungRussia group, which demonstrated near theSerbian Embassy against Kosovo's independence. That was a few days before Russia's NATO envoy, Dmitry Rogozin, warned that if the EU and NATO came into conflict with the UN over Kosovo, Russia would "proceed from the view that in order to be respected, we must use brute force."

Despite all this, novelist Victor Erofeyev recently claimed in The New York Times that thanks to Putin, "private life [in Russia] remains remarkably free." As evidence, he noted the presence of "packed restaurants, game parlors, casinos, discotheques, cars, and books about everything from Buddhism to homosexuality." We see that this "freedom" extends almost exclusively to commercial consumption, and excludes even arts and academia, which are largely "sponsored" by business concerns that don't tend to fund projects critical of the regime.

Putin is adored by the masses partly because he has increased the country's wealth while asking for little in return. But if Rogozin was serious when he said Russia is prepared to use "armed force" against what it considers a threat, one has to wonder whether this readiness relates only to foreign conflicts or also to internal nuisances. Putin's own attention has certainly turned inward, his recent reform rhetoric having started with a possibly metaphorical threat to "cut off the hand[s]" of civil service bribe-takers. The question is whether he'll sustain his popularity when he starts expecting more loyalty and better behavior from his own subjects − and punishing them if he doesn't get it − especially if this happens under souring economic circumstances.

As it is, the improvement in people's economic situations has been limited and is mostly felt in large cities like St. Petersburg and Moscow − currently the world's most expensive city. And inflation can barely be contained: In October 2007, the major food producers and supermarkets signed, "on their own initiative," an agreement with the Kremlin to freeze prices on bread, milk, eggs, and sunflower oil until January, when they extended it to May. The first freeze was meant to avoid instability before December's parliamentary elections, and the second to maintain that "stability" through the handover of the presidency.

And so on May 7, presidential successorDmitry Medvedev will begin dealing with domestic, foreign and military policy, while Putin will "be appointed" prime minister and focus his energies on governing through the Russian parliament. But while these and other Russian leaders act as if their economy is poised to continually enjoy its unprecedented stellar growth, costs are rising everywhere and the financial world is in turmoil. With its European customers developing new energy technologies and consciously diversifying their sources, it's unclear how long Russia will remain Europe's main gas supplier. The effects of a drop in oil revenues together with a global economic slowdown could be disastrous for the country, leaving the Russian people short on cash − their single
remaining ticket to freedom.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/S...ID=0&listSrc=Y

David Stromberg is assistant editor at Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture.

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Jesus beat the devil with two sticks. Colossian 2:13,15

Proud American!

Communism/Socialism is similar to legalizing burglary and murder!

Yes, Russia is SO unstable... like never before!



LOL.