Tightening the screws

During 2005 and 2006 Russia adopted swaths of legislation designed to prevent events like the 2004 Orange revolution in Ukraine or the 2003 Rose revolution in Georgia. Electoral laws were toughened in ways that strengthened the pro-Kremlin ‘United Russia’ and weakened potential alternatives; thuggish pro-Kremlin youth groups such as Nashi (‘Ours’) were established; new restrictions were introduced, seriously complicating NGO activities and election monitoring; and vaguely defined legislative provisions against ‘extremism’ that could then be used against opposition activists were adopted.

Under Medvedev’s presidency the bulldozer of state repression was used with less enthusiasm. Sometimes it actually receded. Earlier this year it even seemed that the authorities might actually embark on liberalising the political system in response to the street protests. Instead, the protests seemed to have sparked a new round of attempts to tighten the screws and refurbish the repressive apparatus.

It started with the legislative software. As president, Medevedev last autumn decriminalised libel; as head of ‘United Russia’ he has just overseen its re-criminalisation. A humiliating volte-face. On this front, Russia now lags behind even the Central Asian states of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which have both decriminalised libel in the last couple of years.

The authorities also introduced huge fines ranging from €13,000 to €39,000 for unauthorised protests. The law is said to be a copy of the French riot act, but the French law applies to rioters, whereas the Russian law has much wider application and could be used to target peaceful demonstrators.

In mid-July the authorities adopted a new law designed to discredit and undermine NGOs. Under this law all NGOs that receive any funding from abroad and are, no matter how indirectly, involved in politics should declare themselves publicly as ‘foreign agents.’ So anti-corruption and environmental groups, or charities calling for some legislative changes (which presupposes interference with the political process) to address the needs of, say, disabled children or orphans, would all be labeled ‘foreign agents.’ In Russian this is a synonym for ‘spy.’ The law is currently formulated so vaguely that it could apply to any organisation with the slightest trace of foreign funding.

The law claims to mirror the US Foreign Agents Registration Act. But the claim is spurious at best. The US law applies to a very limited number of US-based organisations acting on behalf, and in the direct interests, of some foreign governments, whereas in Russia the law applies to all recipients of foreign funds.

These legislative changes are not something new in the Russian political system. They are just upgrades of the authoritarian software designed earlier in the last decade, and now adapted to Russia’s new circumstances.

DDOS-ing the opposition

In information technology, the most widespread type of attacks on websites takes the form of distributed denial-of-service (DDOS). This involves sending so many fake requests to a website that it cannot process them all and collapses under the weight. The so-called server overload makes it difficult or impossible for a website to provide its normal services.

This is largely what the Russian state is doing to the opposition – keeping it under a DDOS-like siege of bureaucratic harassment. The authorities are trying to overload the protest movement with requests: in the last few months these have come in the form of arrests, criminal investigations, apartment searches, bureaucratic harassment, and other forms of keeping the opposition on its toes dealing with law-enforcement agencies and courts, rather than continuing to strengthen its power base, self-organise and hold the government to account.

Alegedly, a group of 160 persons from the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation is working full time on the political opposition. The aim is to keep any potential political leaders busy dealing with harassment and thus to reduce the time they are able to dedicate to building an opposition.

Forcing them to constantly be on the defensive is designed to make sure they cannot expand their base either in the regions or by institution building.

But, like DDOS attacks, what the authorities are doing is not just harmless harassment. A dozen protesters are already in jail. Three girls from Pussy Riot, the punk-group accused of hooliganism for having performed an anti-Putin song in the main Russian cathedral, might be sentenced to as much as 3 years in jail. A criminal investigation against Alexei Navalny, anti-corruption activist, blogger and probably the most popular opposition leader, has been re-opened and he too might face jail. This is all targeted and not very harsh repression. It is, nonetheless, a signal that the economic and political modernisation, much discussed during the past few years, has turned into a refurbishment of the authoritarian apparatus.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger

The opposition was already facing several dilemmas before the Russian state went all out with its strategy of DDOS-ing the opposition. The key questions were how to transform protests into institutions, street presence into political power and online dissatisfaction into offline action. There are no clear solutions to that. Yet, for all the dilemmas, the opposition activists seem to realise that the only growth strategy is to build institutions, be it parties or networks of activists.

And the authorities are doing everything to help. They seem to be trying to push the genie back into the bottle, instead of dealing with it. This is not only impossible. It is also counter-productive for the authorities themselves. The soft crackdown deepens the rift between the authorities and the middle classes. If repression turns nastier, a witch-hunt among oligarchs might follow, which would chip away at even more of Putin’s supporters.

The attempts to discredit and undermine the NGOs are also a mixed blessing for the authorities. Previous attempts to restrict foreign funding in Russia have been successful. But this had unintended consequences, one of which was the emergence of genuine, home-grown, grassroots, self-financed (through crowd sourcing) civil society organisations, much stronger and more sustainable than the foreign-funded, elitist, top-down and donor-driven NGOs typical of most other post-Soviet states. This is how some of the leaders of the protest movement actually emerged.

The anti-Putin euphoria of the Russian middle-classes earlier this year and the excited European commentary on the topic have now gone. Russia is embarking on a protracted tug-of-war between the authorities and the active parts of its society. Whatever happens in Russia next, it will be a long drawn-out process.

Open Democracy, 16 August 2012

The article looks at three broad themes:

1) How Russian nationalism is evolving from an expansionist, Eurasian, and imperial version into something that is primarily anti-immigrant, defensive and sometimes non-expansionist.

2) How nationalists started to adopt some pro-democracy rhetoric in the belief that a more democratic system based on majority-rule would make state policies closer to their policy prescriptions.

3) How some Russian democrats sometimes entered into ad hoc alliances with nationalist groups on an anti-Putinist platform, but also how a much deeper fusion of democratic and nationalist views starts to be espoused by various political players. This phenomenon is still in its early stages, but could be a sign of things to come.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from the essay:

‘Over the last few years, the traditional expansionist nationalism has been losing ground to a newer breed of isolationist, insular, and defensive nationalism that is primarily xenophobic and hostile to immigrants. This strain of nationalism is focused more on maintaining Russia’s “Russianness” than on territorial expansion. The key source of defensive nationalism is the toxic mix of high immigration into Russia coupled with a demographic crisis among native-born ethnic Russians. Home to more than twelve-million  non-Russians, Russia is the world’s second leading destination for immigrants (after the United States).’

‘Defensive Russian nationalism is at its core the fruit of flagging confidence in Russia’s power to expand and assimilate its periphery, particularly the culturally distant Muslim populations of Central Asia and the Caucasus. Such nationalism is primarily concerned with shielding Russia, not enlarging it. Traditional expansionist nationalists were ready to “die for the Caucasus” rather than see it leave the Russian fold. The new nationalists, by contrast, want to “stop feeding the Caucasus,” and see the region as a burden that Russia should unload.’

The evolution of Russian nationalism today is not unlike that of other European nationalisms that mutated from the expansionist-imperial mission civilisatrice of a century ago into the defensive “fortress Europe” nationalism of recent decades. Perhaps the representative embodiment of this evolution is Jean-Marie Le Pen (b. 1928), former leader of the far-right National Front in France. He began his political career in the late 1950s fighting to keep Algeria in France and ended it in the 2000s campaigning to keep Algerians (and other migrants) out of France.

Here is the FULL TEXT of the essay

1. On the surface three fourths of the government were changed, but the changes were rather (and unsurprisingly) conservative. The composition of the new government suggest neither a strong reformist push, nor a centralising backlash, but rather more of the same. Especially given that several key former ministers just joined Putin in the Presidential Administration as his advisors, but are likely to exercise more influence over specific policies than many of the new ministers.

2. Overall the government looks unexpectedly ‘Medvedievist’ – in the sense of having a good presence of soit-disant ‘liberals’. Igor Shuvalov, first deputy prime minister and one of the vocal proponents of modernisation in recent years, stayed on despite the recent exposure of some questionable financial transactions. Arkady Dvorkovich, ex-advisor to President Medvedev and another modernisation advocate was also appointed deputy prime-minister. Igor Sechin, ex-deputy prime minister in charge of the energy sector and the erstwhile silovik tsar who has the image of the dark cardinal behind the throne, is out. He moved (back) to the Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft. There is also talk that with his departure will mean that the running of the energy-related matters is taken out of the government.

3. Some of the core ministers from the previous government stayed on. This is the case of both foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Anton Siluanov, the Finance Minister. But that was not difficult to predict. Another key minister, who was on much shakier ground, Anatoly Serdyukov, the defence minister, also stayed on. He is a former businessman (manager of a furniture shop) who ruthlessly tries to reform the Defence ministry behemoth and hence is in open conflict with most of the military, and a wide range of vested interests in the military-industrial complex. The signal is that reform will be continued, and many Russian analysts say that the military is almost the only sector in Russia which is truly modernising. It is also indicative that Dmitry Rogozin (whose Moldova portfolio as discussed in this previous post), deputy prime minister in charge of the military industrial complex was rumoured a month or so ago to take over the defence ministry, but in the end this did not happen.

4. There also are some surprises. For better or worse. Vladimir Medinsky – a Putin apologist who spent the last few years denouncing traitors right and left and defending with a lot of fervour the current system – was appointed minister of culture. As if to balance that, 29-years old Nikolai Nikiforov was appointed minister for communications, much to the delight of some prominent Russian bloggers. Previously he worked as minister for communications in the region of Tatarstan where he made a reputation for developing a rather well functioning e-governance system.

The composition of the new government is neither suggesting a Putin 2.0 nor a strong tilt towards greater repression. But its balance is slightly inclined towards what in the Russian political system are called ‘liberals’. However, the truth is that most of the key decisions will not be taken in the government anyway, but in Putin’s ‘presidential administration’. And for all the reading into this or that appointment, the government will primarily be a lightweight structure primarily working under the shadow of the real government in the Kremlin.

The contrast between the transition at the Kremlin and China’s upcoming – and strictly choreographed – power transfer could hardly be starker. This autumn, all nine members of the Politburo Standing Committee, including the country’s president, Hu Jintao, and premier, Wen Jiabao, will step down, and at least 14 members of the 24-member Politburo will retire, making way for a new generation of leaders.

So, although China has the more authoritarian system, it is moving forward. The same cannot be said for Putin’s Russia.

Unlike China, a one-party state, where real power is insulated from direct voting by layers of Communist Party structures, Russia has a multi-party political system, with regular elections at most levels of government. To be sure, not all parties or candidates are allowed to run, and elections can be manipulated. Still, there is more room in Russia than in China for opposition voices to express themselves.

Indeed, Russian civil society and protest movements are more assertive and politicized, while protests in China are crushed without remorse. The Russian media, particularly newspapers and radio, have more freedom as well, and openly disparage Putin, whereas Chinese journalists can take on issues like corruption, but may not criticize the Party. Likewise, the Internet is not censored in Russia as it is in China.

Given that China is significantly more authoritarian than Russia, it seems counter-intuitive that China’s political system manages to produce some rotation of leaders, however imperfect and even tense, whereas Russia does not. In this way, China takes advantage of one of democracy’s key benefits – leadership turnover – without the risk of popular accountability.

Read the continuation of this commentary on Project Syndicate

With Putin’s return, protests in Russia and the US elections all talk is now about the end of the reset. In the last few months anti-American propaganda made forceful comeback in the Russian media. Many thought it was just electioneering in the run-up to the March presidential elections. But that was too optimistic, it seems. In the last few weeks things became even more heated. NTV, a Russian TV channel owned by Gazprom Media, has been following US ambassador Michael McFaul pretty much everywhere, which lead to an outburst of indignation from McFaul, as well as accusations that his phone (and therefore calendar) is hacked, and a formal US State Department protest over the harassment of the US ambassador. McFaul also claimed that upon arrival to Moscow last January he felt like he was back in the Cold War and that ’it has been surprising that there was so much anti-Americanism, because we thought we were building a different kind of relationship, and it makes some people nervous that it could so quickly and reflexively go back to – in terms of rhetoric – an era that we thought was behind us’. Then, on a different occasion, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called McFaul ‘arrogant’. In other words, the dismantlement of what was considered a key achivement of the reset is well advanced.  

For all the controversies around McFaul – the truth is that he was not just the architect of the ‘reset’. He was one of the strongest voices for engagement with Russia in the US and in this sense if not Russia’s best friend, then surely Russia’s best ‘friendly non-adversary’. Back in autumn his designation as ambassador was even delayed for a few months by a hawkish Republican Senator over fears that Obama’s administration might be sharing classified information with Russia. Attacking McFaul only strengthens a much more adversarial approach to Russia in the US, not least by the likes of Mitt Romney who called Russia ‘number one geopolitical foe’.

Despite increasingly heated language the other key achievement of the reset might see better times. In the fog of pre-election anti-Americanism last January, Russia and the US actually agreed on a NATO logistics base (the Russian government prefers to call it a ‘transit centre’) in Ulyanovsk, the birthplace of Vladimir Lenin, which apparently has a convenient 5-km runway at its airport and can receive large aircraft. Of course, a NATO base in Lenin’s birthplace was too much a symbolic blow to Russian communists who staged protests under slogans like ‘while we disarmed, NATO encircled us‘. The base might move somewhere else in the end, but the bigger point is that for all the trading of niceties on the political level, actual cooperation between Russia and the US on some concrete issues continues.

Overall, US-Russia relations seem to be marked for now by increased public jibes on the surface coupled with (still continuing) cooperation on some substantial issues. Such two-level games serve domestic purposes, without seriously endangering Russian foreign policy goals. On the one hand anti-American rhetoric is convenient and useful in stirring-up patriotic sentiment, shoring up support for a gradually weakening Putin, and discrediting the opposition. On the other hand, a Russia has no interest in stirring new disputes with the US, while also benefiting economically and politically from some forms of cooperation on Afghanistan.

The same goes for the US. Some pre-election posturing by Obama’s administration can be helpful, as long as cooperation on concrete issues continues. The danger is that such a situation can be quite unstable, and the experience of the last two decades shows how easily jibes can disrupt cooperation. The reset has not turned into a cold peace yet, but has been clearly upset.

The Moldovans are worried, the EU unimpressed and both irritated. Clearly the appointment of Rogozin shows a much higher Russian political interest in Transnistria. The trouble is that when Russia would rather put up a show instead of cooperating – Rogozin is the right person to (mis)handle dossiers. Given that in the last couple of months there have been some hopes regarding conflict settlement in Transnistria after the long-serving Transnistrian leader Igor Smirnov lost power to the younger Evgeny Shevchuk and Moldova finally elected a president, the appointment of Rogozin is an ever bigger nuisance. Rogozin is likely to be more concerned with self-promotion than pursuing conflict-settlement. He is also likely to tighten Russia’s grip over Transnistria (Shevchuk recently spoke about adopting the Russian rouble as a currency). Rogozin’s double-hatting as co-chair of the intergovernmental commission with Moldova also give him plenty of economic levers (gas-prices negotiations and market access) into his hands that he is certain to apply to Moldova. His bulldozing style is also going to be much more intimidating for the Moldovans than to NATO member states. The EU itself is also going through a small transition as the former EU representative to the 5+2 talks on Transnistria, Miroslav Lajcak is moving from the External Action Service to the post of Foreign Minister of Slovakia.

Irrespective of Rogozin’s personal diplomatic style, it is not him who determines Russia’s foreign policy goals. Even though his appointment to NATO in 2008 was initially perceived as a clear snub, in the end he had to run along and even manage daily the US/NATO-Russian reset under Obama and Medvedev. The main problem the EU and Moldova are facing is not Rogozin, but Putin’s likely foreign policy style and ambitions in his new presidential term. Rogozin is a symptom not a cause of what might come in Russian foreign policy.

But ultimately, his ‘in-your-face’ and often intimidating negotiations style is often self-defeating. As a Brussels observer said about Rogozin’s stint in Brussels: ‘everything anyone told Rogozin immediately ended on Twitter. In the end, people stopped talking to him in confidence. Anyway, Rogozin’s “public diplomacy” actually undermined Russia’s policy on NATO.’ It might be the same on Moldova. Bad diplomats are ultimately Russia’s problem. A sharp-tongue might be good a good asset for domestic politics, but less so for diplomats operating in a competitive environment where Russia’s glory days are over. A Romanian-Moldovan proverb says that ‘a bird dies due to its own singing’ (‘pasarea pre limba ei piere’) and it applies to diplomats more than to most other professions.

The best way to deal with Rogozin is to know what you want. A decade a ago, then a member of the Russian parliament, Dmitry Rogozin was Russia’s chief negotiator with the EU regarding the transit  of Russian citizens to and from Kaliningrad via Lithuania. The Russian position was that the EU (Lithuania) cannot restrict the movement of Russian citizens from (mainland) Russia to (Kaliningrad) Russia. Russian negotiation tactics involved a lot of drum-beating, pressure on Lithuania and then attempts to have a deal with Brussels (and Berlin) over Lithuania’s head. None of it worked. The EU and Lithuania had a joint position that all Russian citizens should receive clearance to transit Lithuania, which was achieved through the so called ‘facilitated transit documents‘.

The key lesson is that for all of Rogozin’s skill and style he is no match to a united, determined negotiator who knows what it wants. Virtually everyone remembers Rogozin as the Russian negotiator on Kaliningrad, and no one the EU negotiators, but name recognition is not necessarily a recognition of success. This is the way to proceed for the EU. The best way to deal with Rogozin will be the deepening of EU-Moldova integration through faster moves towards deep and comprehensive free trade and a visa-free regime, as well as getting a foothold in Transnistria through assistance and engagement. If achieved in the next two-three years, this will also help conflict-settlement with or without Rogozin handling the dossier a few years down the road.

The result of the Russian presidential election brought two months of euphoria to a shuddering halt. The expectation that Putin would return with a weaker mandate was crushed by his unexpectedly high 63% of support. And even allowing for massive fraud – a lot of it well documented – Putin emerged from this election stronger than many predicted. Most of even his staunchest critics concede that he probably obtained more than 50% of the vote even without the rigging. But while Putin is jubilant, the Russian opposition is more demoralised and disorientated than at any time since December. Between euphoria and depression, it is important to understand where Russia – its government and society – stands after this election.

The weakness of the strong 

Putin is both weaker and stronger. He is stronger because he ran a successful election campaign, managing to mobilise his voters through a combination of bribing specific social groups and playing on their fears of instability and animosity towards better off Muscovites. He also (out)played the opposition at its own game by organising even bigger rallies and speechifying at meetings.

The institutions built up by Putin over the last 12 years may not be strong enough to fight corruption, improve the business climate, modernise Russia or fight forest fires, but they have proved capable of delivering vote rigging on an industrial scale, getting people into the street, and disorientating  and discouraging his opponents. This machine has also learned to adopt the opposition’s weapons, such as mass rallies, and reproduce them on a similar or grander scale. Certainly, some public and private institutions forced or bribed many people to attend pro-Putin rallies. This might not have made them Putin fans, but it does not mean many of them did not genuinely fear post-Putin instability or the dangers of an Orange Revolution.

What Putin stood for?

Over the years Putin became associated with a set of ideas he stood for and campaigned on. These ideas were convincing and appealing to most of the Russian public. When he came to power in 1999-2000 Putin’s key selling point was the promise of wiping out terrorism and fending off threats to Russian territorial integrity. With a new war in Chechnya raging and bombings of apartments blocks in several Russian cities including Moscow this was both urgent and salient.

In the 2003-2004 election cycle Putin launched and then rode a wave of anti-oligarchic sentiment with promises to fight corruption, clean up the economic system and squeeze the super-rich. As part of that campaign Khodorkosvky was put in prison. The 2007-2008 campaign season was all centred on Russia’s newly found geopolitical greatness and ‘standing up from its knees’, as the phenomenon was advertised by pro-Kremlin loyalists. It was all expressed through intense anti-Western hysteria invoking the dangers of US-sponsored a colour revolution and geopolitical encirclement. This is how over the years Putin chipped into the ideological profile of what could conventionally be termed as Putinism.

Reality Checks

But Putin has nearly run out of ideational appeal. He has preciously few new ideas to oil his frailing political system. His old promises are smashed by Russia’s reality and he lacks new ones. This is one of the reasons why Putin faces the biggest ever challenge to his power.

The promise of restoring territorial integrity is now hitting Putin back as a boomerang. Whereas Putin came to power on a wave of patriotic upheaval and readiness to ‘die for the Caucasus’, now a majority of 62% of citizens now support the slogan of ‘stop feeding the Caucasus’. Putin’s Potemkin war with the oligarchs is also exposed as almost all the super-rich of the 90s remained so, but their numbers swelled through many of Putin’s personal friends. Moscow tops the global lists of homes of billionaires with 79 of them, compared to 59 for New York and 19 for Beijing. And even though the Russian economy is four times smaller than the Chinese economy, it has 101 billionaires, compared to China’s 115. For some in Russia this is something of a badge of honour, but for most it is just another sign of how skewed, corrupt and unfair the Russian economic system is.

As for Russia’s greatness, it is much more difficult to boast of it in times of economic crises, as it is difficult to blame everything on the Americans when Obama is far from the convenient bogeyman that Bush was. And anyway the dysfunctionality of Putin’s system based on high levels of corruption, insecure business environment, and numerous abuses of the state apparatus is more salient than Western geopolitical scheming.

Putin’s other promises have also been smashed by realities. The ‘vertical of power’ turned into a sham. The ‘dictatorship of law’ turned into increased corruption with Russia falling from the 90th place in the world to the 143rd Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index between 2004 and 2011.

PR-stunts and macho posing replaced whatever ideas Putin tried to project. In the last couple of years his public profile was reduced to a stream of photographs and youtube-able videos with Putin posing bare-chested on a hunt, discovering underwater Byzantine amphorae during dives, or singing ‘Blueberry Hills’. This was all ‘cool’ in form but devoid of content. And whereas in his early career Putin’s posing in fighter jets and tanks served the purpose of showing his vigour and energy that contrasted with that of the old and ailing Eltsin, now Putin’s posing just make him look like someone who is bored or life and in continuous search of fun things to do.

How Medvedev undermined Putin

This has been obvious for some time, but tolerable as long as Dmitry Medvedev pretended to be a real and president and covered the ideational ground by thundering about the need to fight corruption and modernise the economy and political system. With Medvedev pushed aside, Putin’s ideational emptiness is more obvious than ever. Worse still (for Putin), Medvedev’s presidency itself played a role in the de-legitimisation of Putin by raising the bar of expectations vis-à-vis the government regarding the need to modernise the country and fight corruption.

Even if Putin is weaker than he used to be, he is not weak. His current election campaign was rather successful. He managed to disorient the opposition by playing it rather well at its own game- convening massive public rallies. His campaign was designed to instil fear of return of the instability of 90s, spiced up with some anti-Americanism and fears of ‘coloured revolutions’, promises of more social spending, the rhetorical question of ‘If not Putin then who else?’ and infusions of short-term steroidal public endorsements from public personalities like the Russian Patriarch Kirill or Chulpan Khamatova, a famous Russian actress who played in ‘Goodbye Lenin’.

None of these elements of campaign amount to a narrative of what Putin stands for, but it seems to have worked in the short term. It managed to galvanize his electoral core, while putting the opposition on the defensive. Yet, steroids boost short term performance, but damage long term health. Without a bigger narrative, it will be much more difficult for him to hide that Putinism is about little else than Putin’s personal power.

This presents different challenges for everyone. The Russian government fears that a nationalist-democratic consolidation on an anti-Putinist platform would make a much more formidable adversary than the ‘official’ opposition allowed in parliament. Russian democrats also have their own dilemmas as their flirtation with nationalism is on the verge of evolving into a marriage of convenience, a combination that could produce either their elixir of life or a toxic poison.

From imperialist to defensive nationalism

Nationalism is like software that can run on different platforms – from Windows to Android. As nationalism normally has little to say about economic or social policies, it can easily merge easier with other left- or right-wing ideologies, increasing exponentially the number of mutations to which it can be subject.

In post-Soviet Russia virtually all political forces – from Putin to the Communists – have flirted with nationalism. Despite various ideological platforms, the unifying feature of Russian nationalists for most of the 20th century, in its right-wing imperial and left-wing communist forms, was a drive for expansion and a ‘bigger Russia’. As Russia grew bigger, other ethnic groups were welcome, but they were also expected to acquiesce to the ‘elder brother’ in the short term, and assimilate in the long-term.

One of Vladimir Putin’s recent pre-election articles dedicated to the ‘national question’ largely subscribes to this view, even though he laments the ‘inadequate, aggressive, defiant and disrespectful’ behaviour of some migrants. But such imperialist nationalism was based on a strong confidence in Russia’s state capacity, power of territorial expansion and cultural attraction. However, the growing realisation of Russia’s structural problems – from demographic crisis to bad governance under Putin, topped by the economic crisis – has led to some structural shifts in Russian nationalism.

An increasingly obvious trend in the last few years is for the ‘old’ expansionist nationalism to rapidly lose ground to a new breed of isolationist, introvert and defensive nationalism that is primarily anti-immigrant and often anti-imperial. Such nationalism is more concerned with maintaining Russia’s ‘Russianness’ than with territorial expansion. The key source of this defensive nationalism is the toxic mix of high immigration into Russia coupled with a demographic crisis. With over 12 million migrants, Russia is the second biggest recipient of inward migration in the world after the US, though as a share of migrants per total population Russia only ranks 55th in the world.

From the nationalists’ perspective Russia’s demographic crisis is two-fold. One aspect is the decline of Russia’s population, with the treat of further decline due to the higher numbers of old than young. But from the nationalists’ perspective, graver still is the fact that the fall in numbers of ethnic Russians due to emigration, high mortality and low birth rates is faster than the overall demographic decline, the pace of which has indeed slowed, partly due to immigration (primarily from  Central Asia and the south Caucasus) and higher population growth among some Russian minorities, particularly in the north Caucasus. So the fear is not only about Russia’s decreasing population, but even more so about the fact that Russia is becoming less ethnically Russian.

The instinctive response to fears of relative demographic decline of ethnic Russians is a growing ‘fortress Russia’ syndrome. At its core, Russia’s defensive nationalism rests on a much-diminished belief in Russia’s power to expand and assimilate its periphery, particularly the culturally distant Muslim populations of Central Asia and the Caucasus. The nationalist schism is clearly visible at nationalist marches parts of the crowd shout ‘there is no Russia without Caucasus’ whereas other parts shout ‘Stop feeding the Caucasus’ and ‘Migrants today, Occupiers tomorrow’.

The democratic-nationalist mix

Now Russian nationalism seems to give birth to a new permutation – a merger of the defensive type of nationalism with elements of democratic and liberal thought. Some in Russia hope that this kind of mix will appeal to many young, urban, middle-class Russians who often see themselves as liberals, hold democratic views, despise Putin’s regime, and are western-leaning (though not uncritically so) while on the other hand being increasingly anti-immigration.

The new liberal-nationalist fusion gradually trickles down into the political process, as some democrats start to move towards the adoption of nationalist views, while at the same time some nationalists seem to have moved towards the centre ground. Vladimir Milov, a prominent Russian liberal, decided to take the bull by the horns by initiating a liberal-nationalist fusion that aims to reclaim nationalism from Russia’s extremist groups.

The liberal-nationalist mix has not yet crystallised in a series of coherent views and leaders, let alone organisations. But it is starting to take some shape. A good example is Alexei Navalny, the emerging star of the Russian opposition. He is a hugely popular anti-corruption campaigner, the most popular blogger in Russia and widely seen as the anti-Putinists’ best hope. His success is built on three pillars: anti-corruption campaigning, pro-democracy activism, and a pinch of moderate nationalism. He goes about these activities by a very savvy mix of internet activism (blogging, crowd-sourcing, etc.) and offline actions (minority shareholders activism, court actions, monitoring of public tenders, writing formal complaints to public institutions forcing them to respond, etc.). Now Moscow is buzzing with talk of Navalny as Russia’s future president.

Navalny himself is a democrat. He also has a strong record of taking part in democratic groups and movements in the last decade. He is also in favour of the separation of powers, transparency and other worthy causes. His declared belief is that ‘the purpose of the state is to ensure comfortable and dignified conditions for its citizens, and defend their individual and collective rights. A nation-state means that Russia should follow the European path, ie build our own nice, cosy, but strong and solid, little European house.’ Yet he also attends the ‘Russian March’, a notorious annual gathering of nationalists. Asked whether he supports the nationalist slogan ‘Russia for Russians’, he responded that he supports the slogan ‘Russia for Russian citizens’ – a slightly more inclusive slogan, demonstrating a tolerance of Russia’s ethnic minorities who are citizens, yet one which is still distinctly nationalist.

It is still unclear whether Navalny is a strong believer in a nationalist agenda or whether his professed nationalism is primarily a calculated strategy. Either way, the combination of democratic rhetoric with an anti-corruption agenda and nationalist undertones gives him a strong base from which to bridge a range of societal groups in Russia beyond most other potential leaders in Russia today.

Refreshing or toxic?

It is too early to tell whether the nationalist-democratic cocktail will prove a toxic liquid or the ticket to the future for the so far marginalised Russian democrats. Either way, the nationalist-liberal rapprochement sparks tensions within both camps. Some expansionist nationalists are fuming that the liberals are trying to turn the nationalists into ‘cannon fodder for a liberal revanche’. Whereas the liberals, as Andreas Umland points out, fear that nationalists could subvert pro-democracy movements.

Putin apologists seize on this. Some of them attack the popular Navalny by drawing parallels between him and Kerensky, the Russian burgeois revolutionary leader who came to power after overthrowing the Tsar in February 1917, only to be forced out by a ruthless communist coup led by Vladimir Lenin eight months later. The parallel is supposed to suggest that nastier forces will steal whatever democratic advances Russia might make once Putin is out.

But it is also possible that Russian democrats could expand their influence and ultimately help co-opt the potentially strong force of Russian nationalism, channeling it into a more democratic and pluralist direction. Either way, Russian liberals are now engaged not only in a contest with Putin’s system, but also in a tense, but irresistible tango with Russian nationalism.

Open Democracy, 3 February 2012

By the standards of Western democracies, falling just short of the 50% mark after three years of global economic crisis and 12 years in power would be a stellar victory. But in Putin’s Russia this is a serious setback for two main reasons. First of all, the elections were neither free, nor fair. Evidence of ballot stuffing is already swirling around the internet, and the election campaign was heavily biased in favour of United Russia. Federal TV channels and local authorities worked hard to persuade and pressurise people to vote for United Russia. Under normal campaign circumstances and with no ballot stuffing Putin’s party would perhaps have got somewhere closer to 30-35% of the vote. The authorities know that. This is hardly a rock-solid foundation for the supposedly Teflon President Putin who wants to be a fatherly leader of the nation for a life-time. His lifetime.

Secondly, all authoritarian regimes thrive on the political apathy of the governed. Ruling a politically apathetic population is cheaper, as elites need fewer resources for either coercion or co-optation, while having more time to enjoy on the benefits of power. Throughout the last decade, from the average voters’ perspective the question was why bother voting when life standards were rising, Putin was cool and the election results were always going to be another Olympic-size victory for United Russia.

But instead of apathy, in the run up to these elections the Russian intelligentsia was at boiling point. Political activism (mainly online) among the young and urban middle classes was at its highest. Among the glamorous ‘crème de la crème’ of Russian society – pop singers, ballerinas and TV stars – supporting Putin (and especially United Russia) became markedly uncool. In the absence of access to TV or wider platforms for discussion, Russia’s oversized blogosphere hotly debated whether to boycott the elections (the argument of the ‘Nah-Nah’ campaigners – one could translate this as ‘fuc-fuc’, a short form of ‘f..k off’), or go out and vote for any party except United Russia. True, this was a bit of a storm in a teacup. But nonetheless the spilt water also leaves traces outside the cup, consolidating the trend of rising anti-government feeling among the growing middle-class (even including the half of it that is employed by the state). This trend is not so much fuelled by a hope of change, but by the desire to punch United Russia in the nose. That too suggests a change in attitudes.

A parallel side-story is how the elections affect President Medvedev, who led United Russia’s electoral list. For friends, Medvedev is now the president who lost the presidency. For his intra-Kremlin adversaries, he is the president who lost the elections. After Putin announced his return to the presidency in September, Medvedev lost most of the small band of hopeful followers who believed in his talk of modernisation. Now his adversaries will frame the results as due to a failure of Medvedev’s leadership, rather than a vote against Putin’s system and the fear of ‘Brezhnevisation’.

Medvedev could try to re-establish himself as a stronger player by once again sacking some powerful people. This was virtually the only daring thing he did as a president, when he sacked a powerful finance minister, several long-serving governors of Russian regions and the mayor of Moscow. This response may signal that he is not a spent political force, but it could also fuel further splits among the ruling elites, accelerating the erosion of Putin’s system.

However, beyond the headlines about possible decline there is room for a note of caution. Putin thrives on crises. His presidency was forged in the 1999 crisis: a time of terrorist attacks in Russia, war in Chechnya and struggles with rival oligarchs. Even if United Russia has fewer MPs, the other 3 parliamentary parties are willing collaborators, provided they get a slightly higher share of rent-seeking opportunities. Such an arrangement would not be novel. In United Russia’s first term in the Duma, from 1999 to 2003, it even had fewer members of parliament than now. Yet this did not prevent Putin from making some of his sharpest ever political manoeuvres – centralising power by kicking regional governors out from the upper chamber of the Parliament, asserting full control of the media that matters, throwing Khodorkovsky in jail and two other formerly powerful oligarchs Berezovsky and Gusinsky out of the country. In other words, even if Putin’s beginning of the end has started, it is not around the corner yet.