PUTIN’S “STATE OF THE UNION”: TOUTING PATRIOTISM
In Russia the mixture of racist street hooliganism, the presence of fascist parties in the Duma, and the spread of fascist and ultranationalist ideas by a multitude of groups, websites, and blogs, have led to a generalized climate in which ultranationalist chauvinism has become acceptable. During Putin’s first presidential term the political elite still tried to distance itself from this overzealous ultranationalist fervor. Responsible for ruling the country, United Russia and the leadership presented themselves as democratic, pragmatic, and middle of the road: not left, not right, trying to keep a safe distance from the LDPR and the CPRF, as well as from radical right wing groups. This neutral, pragmatic, technocratic attitude was, first of all, displayed by Putin himself. Marlène Laruelle, for instance, characterized Putin in this period as follows: “[T]he new president cast himself as a-ideological. He claimed to be working solely in accordance with technocratic objectives, necessary to promoting Russia’s stabilization and then revival.”[16] The same assessment was made by two other analysts, who wrote: “On the whole, however, Putin—as a staff employee of state security who had spent his whole adult life working for the KGB under the ideological control of the Communist Party—had no ideology or political program of his own. He confined himself to general populist phrases. Back in 1999, at the beginning of his tenure as prime minister, he had given the following response to a question about his potential platform in the presidential race: ‘My main objective is to improve people’s lives. We will work out a political platform later.’”[17]
However, was Putin really this a-ideological pragmatist he pretended to be? Another author wrote: “It seemed entirely natural when, asked at a town meeting ‘What do you love most?’ Putin instantly replied: ‘Russia.’”[18] Russia? It might seem strange for a man saying he loved Russia more than his wife and daughters. On another occasion Putin declared that “Patriotism must become the unifying ideology of Russia,” adding that “patriotism will be vital, when we, citizens of Russia, can be proud of our country today.”[19] Meeting with representatives of the youth movement Nashi, Putin said: “We need our civil society, but one that is permeated by patriotism, a concern for our country.”[20] Are statements like these, that Russia needs a civil society “permeated with patriotism,” compatible with the image of the pragmatic technocrat that Putin so carefully cultivates? It is time to have a closer look at Putin’s deeper self.
A very interesting document in this context is Putin’s programmatic declaration, published on the website of the Council of Ministers on December 29, 1999. At that time Putin still was Yeltsin’s prime minister. The timing was important: two days later Yeltsin would appoint him to be his successor as acting president of the Russian Federation. At the time of publication the declaration had the status of a prime ministerial document presenting the government’s program for the coming year. As such it would have been no more than a swan song. Yeltsin’s prime ministers were, as a rule, short-lived. Even if Putin could have stayed on to the end, his career as prime minister would have ended anyway a few months later when the presidential election took place. Putin’s appointment as acting president on December 31, 1999, changed everything fundamentally. The program he had presented was no longer the program of an ephemeral government shortly before being dismissed. Suddenly it became the State of the Union of the young, new president of the Russian Federation. Maybe it was even more: the solemn declaration with which a new tsar accepts the throne of the empire. A comparison that is not as far-fetched as it might seem at first glance, because—as in the case of a royal heir—the throne was literally offered to Putin.
The title of Putin’s programmatic declaration, “Russia on the Verge of the Millennium” (Rossiya na rubezhe tysyacheletii), was up to the challenge.[21] This text must be considered as one of the most elaborated pieces of the Putin ideology. Although Putin might wish to be seen as a cool, analytical pragmatist, for whom “ideology” smacked of old-fashioned prejudice, his declaration deserves a closer look. After having described Russia’s economic woes, Putin wrote, under the heading “Lessons for Russia,” “the problem is not only economic. This problem is also political and, I am not afraid of this word, in a certain sense, ideological. To be more precise: ideal, spiritual, moral.”[22] He then went on to develop, what he called, his “Russian Idea.” The core of this “Russian Idea” was consensus. “The fruitful creative work that our Fatherland [tellingly, Putin wrote fatherland with a capital F] needs so much, is not possible in a society that is permanently divided and internally isolated.”[23] Putin denied that he wanted to return to the period after the October Revolution when consensus was created by “strong-arm methods.” He emphasized that “any consensus in our society can only be voluntary.” This consensus was vital, “because one of the main reasons behind our reforms proceeding so slowly and with difficulty, consists namely of the lack of civil consensus.”[24] However, he continued, “I am against the reintroduction in Russia of an official state ideology in any form.”[25]
PUTIN’S “RUSSIAN IDEA”: STATE, STATE, AND MORE STATE
So, what should be done? Putin came up with three ingredients for the “Russian Idea” that were expected to promote this consensus: patriotism, “great power” status (derzhavnost), and a strong state (gosudarstvennichestvo). Regarding patriotism, he went on to explain,
16
Marlène Laruelle, “Inside and Around the Kremlin’s Black Box: The New Nationalist Think Tanks in Russia,” Stockholm Paper (Stockholm: Institute for Security & Development Policy, 2009), 19.
17
Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Pribylovsky,
20
“Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin: Nam nuzhno grazhdanskoe obshchestvo, pronizannoe patriotizmom.” http://www.lawmix.ru/content.php?id=182.
21
Putin, Vladimir. “Rossiya na rubezhe tysyacheletii,”