He is creating a class of wealthy bureaucrats, who are the war’s biggest supporters.
WAR AND sanctions notwithstanding, in early November, the renovated Soviet-era “Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy” re-opened in Moscow. The original, inaugurated in 1939 just weeks before Germany and Russia invaded Poland, papered over the famine and terror of the preceding years. Instead, displays extolled the wonders of Soviet science and the virtues of collectivisation; a special ice-cream hall doled out treats to the masses and a 25-metre statue of Stalin gazed down munificently. Millions died in the dictator’s “great break” with the past, and Russia’s economy and society were completely reshaped, but it was all depicted as unadulterated progress.
It is a similar story with today’s refurbishment, where a futuristic screen-lined tunnel regales visitors with the glories of the past 20 years, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin. A pavilion celebrating Russia’s regions features Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhia, four provinces the Russian army is currently attempting to seize from Ukraine. The only hint of the continuing bloodshed is a flower composed of bits of shrapnel. The initiation of the biggest war in Europe since 1945, the re-imposition of a police state within Russia and the categorical reversal of the reforming and Westernising trends of the early post-Soviet period are nowhere to be seen.
It is an especially far cry from the shock and confusion of the early days of the war, when the rouble plunged, hundreds of thousands fled the country and protests rocked Russia’s cities. Mr Putin has since succeeded in stabilising the economy, thanks to the high price of oil, and in squelching dissent, thanks to fierce repression. That has allowed him to retain the allegiance of the elite, who in turn are helping the country adapt. The new equilibrium is unstable, however, with the economy and military recruitment, in particular, threatening further upheaval.
Unsheepish sheep
On the face of things, most Russians have meekly accepted the war in Ukraine, which will soon be two years old. Two-thirds tell Russian Field, a pollster, that the country is moving in the right direction and over half say the war in Ukraine is going well. “I knew that society is totally conformist, but I still didn’t expect that incredible measure of psychological adaptation. People have just shut themselves off and tried to live their usual old lives,” Nalalya Zubarevich, an academic, said in a recent interview.
Open protest is rare, for obvious reasons. On November 16th Alexandra Skochilenko, an artist and activist, was jailed for seven years for replacing price tags in a St Petersburg supermarket with anti-war messages. (“My great-grandfather did not fight in WW2 so that Russia could become a fascist state and attack Ukraine,” read one.) It is not just peaceniks who are persecuted: at least one ultra-nationalist dissenter, Igor Girkin, a retired soldier and blogger, has been jailed for complaining that Mr Putin is not fighting forcefully enough.
image: The Economist
But just because the majority of Russians have accepted the war does not mean that they are enthusiastic about it. A hastily concocted propaganda film about dastardly Ukrainian “fascists”, which cost $2m to make, was a spectacular flop, collecting just $150,000 at the box office. Despite their professed support for the war, the respondents to Russian Field’s polls are firmly against a further round of mobilisation, even if Mr Putin himself calls for it. In October, for the first time during the war, a majority of respondents expressed support for peace talks over continued fighting (see chart 1). Fully 74% say they would be happy for Mr Putin to sign a peace deal right away.
image: The Economist
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the younger people are, and the more they get their news from social media rather than state-run television, the more sceptical about the war they are. More strikingly, however, the richer and more educated people are, the more supportive they are (see chart 2). As an anonymous Russian academic explains in a recent article in Meduza, an online publication, there is a big class of bureaucrats and businessmen who have attained their status through patronage and who will uphold the regime to protect it. “They number millions and they have fitted into the moral economy of military aggression,” the academic writes.
In part, such people are kept in line by fear, like everyone else. In the first months of the war a spate of mysterious deaths of businessmen and managers at state-owned firms helped to instil fealty. The chairman of the board of Lukoil, Russia’s biggest private oil firm, fell to his death from a hospital window in Moscow a few months after the board issued a statement calling for a ceasefire. Western sanctions against oligarchs have helped keep the monied class on board, too.
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This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "For the fatherland"
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