Post-Election Russia Resembles the Soviet Union

This transcript was not edited prior to publication:

Alexander Gabuev. Welcome, my name is Alexander Gabuev. I'm director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, and you are listening to Carnegie Politika podcast.

Today we're going to discuss the elections or another reconfirmation of Vladimir Putin in charge of Russia for the next six years. The partner to discuss that today is my dear colleague, Alexander Baunov, who is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and Editor-in-Chief of Carnegie Politica, our online platform. Welcome Alexander.

Alexander Baunov. Sasha, thank you for the invitation.

Gabuev. Sasha, you are not only one of the most astute observers of Russian politics, but also an author of the best political book in Russia, like the most popular book, a bestseller that's called “End of the Regime”. I know that last year it was spotted on the desk of senior government official, we won't name the names to not embarrass them, but a lot of people, including inside the system, were reading that, but not only them, obviously, but Ilya Yashin, one of the most famous Russian politicians, who is now in jail in Russia for criticizing the war, talking about Russian atrocities and butcher is also reading your book. So how is the book doing?

Baunov. I don't know. I don't have any feedback from him, but I suppose it will inspire him at least to support him and his terribly uneasy life in a Russian prison.

Gabuev. In your book, you describe the fates of authoritarian regimes in Portugal, Spain, and Greece, and that's Franco, Salazar, and the so-called “Black colonels” regimes, like the word Putin is not mentioned even once, but the parallels are really striking. So we come to that at the very end of our conversation, but let's talk about the elections in Russia that have just happened. What did catch your eye? I think that for the first time, we've seen that Putin's official record is 87%. That's closer to Central Asia, rather than to kind of more normal Russian elections that we've witnessed before. What has changed? Is that important at all?

Baunov. There are two or three points to be mentioned about the so-called elections in Russia. One is, let's say, the resovietization of the election together with the resovietization of the whole Russian life. Sometimes it makes an impression that Vladimir Putin is reconstructing somehow the environment, the time, the impressions of his youth, which is very normal for a person of his age, maybe not for everybody, but some people in their 70s want to return the world, where they or he lived when being young. With pioneer organization, the Komsomol, the Soviet youth organization, and others. Or let's say, what was the main event for the electoral campaign for him, not for the ordinary people, not for the citizens, but for him. It was the festival of the International Global Festival of Youth, exactly made on the model of this youth fest, anti-imperialist youth festivals, festivals of communist youth of the time, when he was young. Same with the election, we are going to the same direction, very high turnout, not Soviet numbers, but ever closer to the Soviet numbers. And a very Soviet result for the winner.

Gabuev. Remind our listeners, what kind of elections did Soviet Union have? Like the leaders were not elected.

Baunov. Soviet Union? Yes, Soviet Union had elections with one candidate only in the ballot, and it was supported by normally 99.98% of the people. The result, that was less than 99%, was interpreted as a scandal and it shouldn't exist. That is the Soviet electoral machine. Another thing which was very similar during this election to the Soviet past was the undisguised, very open implementation of the administrative resource, so-called administrative mobilization. It means that in the Soviet past, we could observe the scenes, when the whole collective of workers of an enterprise, a state-run, of course, enterprise, were voting simultaneously in one poll station, even on their working places, which was sometimes a school placed somewhere close to the enterprise, to the factory. Sometimes the poll station could be even in a factory. But this mobilization of the workers of a factory that vote all together, and of course, in favor of the candidate of the Soviet regime of power, was very typical. We have seen similar pictures in this particular election, this last election. So the result, the type of mobilization, the very high turnout, and the very idea that the niceties the current Russian regime has inherited from its origins in the 90s, in so-called turbulent 90s, and something that is considered by critics of the regime as democratic 90s, or at least 90s related to some hopes for the democratic future.

We shouldn't forget that the current Constitution was changed in 2020, but it was basically the Constitution that was written by the people, who saw Russia's future as a developing but democratic country, a country that's going towards a European and democratic future. That means that there are many institutions in Russian Constitution, Russian legislations alike to the institutions of any Western democracy. But the result is totally different. You know that in large sense of the word, countries who belong to the Western civilization, let's say, countries that have these institutions of Parliament, presidential elections, some idea of independent media, some idea of political competition, some idea of independent judiciary, don't allow themselves to have results like 87% for the winner. This is not a feature of this particular type of political civilization. So even authoritarian countries, even the countries that manipulate these institutions, still there is an idea that 87%, 85%, even 75%, it's too high. Maybe 60%, maybe 50% something, maybe 70% something, but not the 90%. This was the remnants of political institutions that were managed in Russia before Putin received a gradually bigger result. At any elections, you receive 10 to 12% more than in previous ones. Like in 2018, it was more than 70%, in 2012, it was more than 60%, 63%, and his first election in 2000 – 53%. But now it seems that they're just getting rid of these niceties of the past. It's like a declaration - “You know, we have totally sovereign numbers in our totally sovereign political system. Yes, we still have elections, parliament, the idea that the media is something not officially belonging to the state, but we are totally different political civilization”, which coincides, matches very much to the idea that Russia is not a part of Western civilization anymore, that's a country civilization. So ideologically, it's a declaration of not belonging anymore to the big world of Western political systems that is from Latin America to Australia and from Japan to South Africa.

So, Russia, with this result, is declaring, that “don't consider us being a part of this big Western political world anymore. We are something new”. And indeed, this result shows us that it’s very similar, is very alike to the results of the Central Asian autocracies, which usually have more than 80% or sometimes more than 90% of the support of the leader in election.

Gabuev. Okay, so this is a very different result, and indeed, a different optics and kind of a symbolic break with the path of normalcy, that was still projected before the change of the Constitution. And it's partly driven by Putin's personal preferences and his aging and imitating the glorious past and partly driven by the war. What do you expect his big project, like, may that have an impact on how the next six years will be different from anything we've seen before? Of course, there is war on his hands and war is contingent. We don't know how it's going to end, when it's going to end. But in terms of his state building project, like he is a guy, who will be around constitutionally for another 12 years, if he runs again in 2030. But definitely he is not entirely young, although younger than two major contenders for the US presidential post. So he is in this phase, where he's building legacy after being in charge of Russia for nearly quarter of a century. So how what might be his major project internally for the next six years?

Baunov. It's a little bit wrong, even though this symbolic break with the westernized past has taken place, it would be mistaken to expect some revolutionary move inside the country right now. From my point of view, it's an unprecedented result. From another point of view, for them, it's a sort of electoral routine because, yes, they wanted to demonstrate, to show a very, very high support, unprecedentedly high support, because it's the first elections during the war.

So, the idea was to show that the citizens, the population is supporting maybe the most irresponsible, most risky and most immoral decision of its leader during all his rule. And this was the task. But from the other point of view, it's somehow a routine because this result partially the outcome of competition of the governors between each other and even scared governors, you know, because the governors are scared to show the results, which is considerably lower than the result in the region nearby. Then there is an administration of the president, the most important, well, maybe after the FSB or after Special Services, the most important and formal institution of the Russian regime that is very keen to show that we are capable to show an unprecedented support, the unprecedented number of supporters in an unprecedented situation, that is the war. I'm not even sure that this particular result was achieved very consciously for something. I mean, as a base, as a foundation for a particular future action. It was a result that was a combination of this idea of resovietization of the regime, of its break from the Western political patterns, of the competition of scared governors, as I said before, and the very idea of strong popular mandate to the government. But it's not a mandate for something particular. It would be very untrue to interpret this result, as a massive support of the war by the Russian population. Support of the regime, maybe yes, and of course, we have no trust in this now. Anyway, it's technically, almost technically impossible, even with the mobilization. But OK. But it's not the support of the war, it's the support of any future action of Russia's leader, including the action of, I don't know, negotiated peace, unnegotiated peace, stalemate, or the continuation of the war. Maybe not indefinite, but at least for the foreseeable, like, maybe one year, two years. The society is still ready to support the war until some sort of victory will be achieved. It's a combination of political routine and extraordinary circumstances that gave this result. There is no state building project behind it.

But if you are talking in general, yes, the constitutional amendments, even before the war, the amendments to the Constitution, the changes of the Constitution, were designed to show that the long period of time in Russian history, that started with Gorbachev and extended deep into Putin's time, has come to an end. And the new period, which is like “new Russia”, “Putin's Russia”, “non-Western Russia”, has begun. Of course, this period, retrospectively, will include, if you imagine the ideal for Putin book about Russian history, this period will include all his rule. But it will exclude, for instance, Yeltsin's or Gorbachev's time.

 And this state building project, in practical, would be similar in something so-called “people's democracy” of the Eastern Europe. The difference is that the Soviet Union was strictly one party, without any remnants of private economy, and the “people's democracies”, so-called “people's democracies” of Eastern Europe, have preserved something of their democratic past. I mean, the countries like Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and so on, have other candidates, even China after 1948, had these remnants of different political parties that pre-existed the communist dictatorship, and had candidates belonging to these other parties in their Parliaments. Of course, it was not a political competition, no sign of it, but still the idea of multi-party system remained. Same with, at least in some of Eastern European countries, the remnants of market economy. Market economy will be preserved, at least on the level of everyday consumption, maybe not the strategic enterprises, we don't know yet any plans of nationalizing or large nationalization of the strategic enterprises by Putin and by the current Russian regime, but market economy as the economic foundation of the regime will remain.

Like maybe, if you are talking about the current Russian leader, maybe the Eastern German system, if you are talking about politics, may seem intuitively ideal for him. Strong role of Special Services like Stasi, remnants of political competition, or at least multi-party system and elections, and of course, strong state control over the economy. The only difference is that Russia is waging a war.

Gabuev. Very last question is, the Russian opposition tried to react, the most prominent critic of the regime, Alexei Navalny, died in prison right before the election. His widow and other oppositional politicians called the Russians to come on the last day of the three-day voting process at noon to the polling stations. We saw very long lines in most of the Western capitals and capitals that are concentration of Russian diaspora, that moved out of the country after the start of the war. But by and large, we don't see any evidence that this was very widespread inside Russia proper. Now there is a call to not acknowledge Putin as a legitimate president, not to acknowledge the result and say that Putin is illegitimate. What's your take on that? How efficient is that strategy and what will be the results if the West decides to pursue this path?

Baunov. There is a discussion about recognition or non-recognition of Putin as Russia's legitimate leader. This discussion makes some sense, although it's a bit belated if you are seeing it from the point of view of the regime's critics. It would be or could be very effective after 2012 or maybe after the Crimea annexation. Now Russia became too detached from the West to be shocked by the fact that some Western leaders wouldn't recognize Putin as its legitimate leader. So in this particular respect, this could be belated, still symbolically significant.

But generally, there is no clear international practice about the recognition or not recognition of authoritarian leaders. First, we have a lot of governments in the world and a lot of political regimes in the world, which are recognized without any election, starting from China or some monarchy of the Gulf, or the mentioned electoral autocracies of Central Asia. Those leaders are recognized after having won uncompetitive and totally controlled elections with the result that is exceeding even the Putin's results. Still, people are dealing with Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan or even Turkmenistan. So, there is no clear logic about this recognition, non-recognition instrument. Again, there are no international rules about this. That means that Putin will be able to interpret this non-recognition exactly as he wants and to offer his interpretation to the citizens. And many citizens will buy this interpretation. It's another proof of Western double standards. Again, take China or Central Asia or Azerbaijan or other non-democratic regimes around the world that are recognized.

I mentioned, for instance, in my book, an example of Franco-Spain. The leadership of Franco-Spain, Franco himself, was recognized as illegitimate but de-facto leader of the country. Franco was never invited in any European capital and in Washington, so in the United States, even though the United States were a military ally of Franco's. No European leader in the long 40 years rule of Franco in Spain has visited Madrid or has put their foot on Spain's soil. Two US presidents made visits, mostly justified by military reasons. Negotiating and approving military bases that were on Spain’s territory. The other ministers of Spanish government were accepted and were invited occasionally to some international events or bilaterally.

What is important for any autocracy in the world? Any autocracy is diplomatic. Why I'm talking about non-recognition, despite the fact that there are no strict rules about this? Why is it an important instrument? Exactly because any autocracy has this shortage of legitimacy, because any autocracy and the citizens of any autocracy may understand that and may feel this deficit or shortage of legitimacy acquired during the uncompetitive elections. This shortage is compensated by the diplomatic recognition, by the diplomatic relations, by the fact that the leader of the country is invited, is called by the other leaders on the phone and is a partner in negotiations. So diplomatic recognition of a leader of an autocracy is a very important goal of any autocratic regime. Autocracy wants to be recognized internationally, de-facto, as a part of the system of international relations. For Putin it's an important goal too. So despite the fact there are no rules about recognition or non-recognition, it may make sense to think about how to use this instrument, how to use the sensitivities of autocracies about the fact they are internationally recognized or non-recognized and being invited or non-invited on being part of a system of international relations. So remembering that Russia is not as isolated, remembering that there are many countries, who already recognized Vladimir Putin as a legitimate elected leader of Russia.

Still, it's an instrument that can help in some cases. It's a very subtle instrument. And don't forget, of course, Russian opposition. For them, the non-recognition of Putin as a legitimate elected incumbent Russian leader is an important gesture also.

Gabuev. Thank you so much, Alexander Baunov. It was great to have you.

Baunov. Thank you, Sasha.