Russia: Putting up with Putin

How to live with a Russia that is not a liberal democracy

WHAT is Russia becoming? The question has bothered foreigners for centuries, but never more than in the past 13 years. Russia-watchers looked on in elation as communism crumbled and the Soviet Union fell. Under President Boris Yeltsin, Russia struck out on a journey that many hoped would leave its long authoritarian tradition behind forever.

Instead it went through a period of rip-off privatisations, rigged elections and endless, impenetrable politics. The economy experienced collapse, stagnation, boom, bust and now, at last, seemingly more solid growth. And Russians today overwhelmingly support President Vladimir Putin, who seems determined to get the country back on its feet but has little tolerance for criticism, whether at home or abroad.

During this time, western leaders have gone from arguing that Russia was becoming a democracy, to pretending that it already was one, to getting upset over mounting evidence that it was not. Mr Putin's penchant for suppressing rogue television channels, imprisoning enemies, manipulating elections and generally increasing the Kremlin's grip has fuelled dire warnings about a relapse into autocracy.

It is time to take a final step: to accept that the hopes of the 1990s were misplaced, and that Russia will take many years to become a liberal democracy. As our survey in this issue argues, Mr Putin's rule has become a hybrid of economic liberalism and political illiberalism. That Mr Putin governs as he does, and is popular for doing it, does not mean that he is a power-mad dictator or that Russians are mindless slaves. It is, to a large extent, a consequence of what came before.

This is not to say that Russia does not need liberal democracy. On the contrary: the lack of checks and balances is directly damaging the economic success that Mr Putin craves. But Russians know that the democracy they were seemingly given in 1991 was an empty shell. They will get the real thing only by building it, slowly and painfully, as they realise from bitter experience that they need social activism and a political voice to protect their growing prosperity. The right question now is not whether or when Russia will become democratic. Rather, it is how rich Russia's present system can make it. Westerners like the idea that prosperity and democracy go hand in hand, but they forget that many countries spent a long time developing the first before getting to work on the second; some, particularly in Asia, quite successfully.

Sadly, Russia is not such an orderly place as Singapore or even South Korea; and its respect for the rule of law and for property rights is inconsistent, to say the least. Prosperity and freedom tend to go together in large measure because democracies have strong guarantees for these things. Economically successful authoritarian states have generally provided similar guarantees not through democracy, but through well-run legal systems, an efficient bureaucracy and clear legislation. Russia has a corrupt legal system, a monstrous bureaucracy and laws like thick mud. Mr Putin's plan to wean the economy off its excessive dependence on natural resources depends on fixing these failings, but it is not yet clear that he has either the will or the ability to deliver.

How can the West help?

By changing attitudes, without changing demands. Lecturing Russia for breaches of human rights in Chechnya or for suppressing free speech goes down badly. But western concerns about lack of freedom can be expressed as worries that a quixotic application of the law could be a big obstacle to Russia's own development. At summit talks, this is often said. What is lacking is more regular contact at lower levels of government that could influence the innate conservatism of Russian officialdom that tends to reinforce Kremlin control. Such contacts could also nurture the sprouting of liberalism from the grass-roots level.

Co-operation can grow in many areas, from Russian internal problems that spill over its borders (drugs and human trafficking, infectious diseases) to world economic issues (Russia and the European Union are on the verge of a breakthrough that may lead to Russia's accession to the World Trade Organisation). Expansion of the European Union and NATO have led to new tensions over Russia's neighbours and further emphasised Russia's differences with the West. But such differences should not become an excuse for isolation. Russia needs to learn to see the West less as a threat and more as a possible source of help. It may take a while to convince officials that such things as western-backed pro-democracy programmes and civic groups, which Russia has fiercely discouraged, are meant to strengthen the country, not subvert it. But if mutual suspicions could be overcome, prosperity and democracy would come to Russia that much sooner.

Editorial feature. How to live with a Russia that is not a liberal democracy.