COMMENTS
Where does Putin’s journey back in time end? To Yeltsin’s economic collapse? To Brezhnev’s geriatric stagnation? Or to Stalin’s terror?
IN MY OWN THOUGHTS ?: Vladimir Putin lays flowers on the grave of the unknown soldier in Moscow the day before he invades Ukraine. Photo: AP / NTB
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Internal comments: This is a comment. The commentary expresses the writer’s attitude.
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The war in Ukraine is, of course, first and foremost a disaster for the Ukrainians. They are now being slaughtered for one man’s idea of rebuilding an empire that long ago went out of date. But also for Russia and for the Russians, President Vladimir Putin’s war is a disaster. The war has made it clear that Putin is emerging, less as a reactionary ideologue, and more as a dictator without restraints, basing his power on wild lies, brutal violence, and widespread paranoia.
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For Putin lever not just in his own capsule, where hardly anyone dares to tell him about the real world. He also lives in a time machine that takes Russia many years back in time. The question is, where does Putin’s time travel end? Does it end with an economic collapse that sends ordinary people into deep poverty, as the shock privatization in Russia in the time of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin did in the 1990s? Does it end with economic and political stagnation, due to fears of reforms, and all the power of the geriatric ward, which characterized Leonid Brezhnev’s time in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and ’80s? Or will not Putin’s time machine stop until we return to the despot Joseph Stalin and the time of terror in the Soviet Union?
Most people have to contribute
The signs of the times are many, after less than three weeks of war. And none of them are good. For with this war, the seeds are sown for both a possible economic collapse, for geriatric stagnation, or for waves of terror that may be reminiscent of the Stalin era.
The Russian ruble has fallen 40 percent since January, when fears of war were already visible on world stock markets. Grocery stores have already begun to ration the sale of certain items, and hoarding is a problem. People hoard both because they are afraid of the food supply, and because they would rather buy now than later, because the price increase is large. Russian economists expect inflation of 30-40 percent this year. People already notice that they are isolated, weekend trips to London and Paris are no longer possible. There is reason to fear the worst economic crisis in Russia since hyperinflation and the meltdown of the economy in the 1990s.
The last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev when he returned to Moscow after the coup against him in August 1991. Photo: AP / NTB
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And even if Russia seems to confiscate the planes they lease from Boeing and Airbus, and use them for domestic traffic, then they no longer get hold of parts for these planes, which make up almost 90 percent of Russia’s civilian aircraft fleet. When Putin indirectly threatened to use nuclear weapons on March 5, he chose a setting where he was surrounded by flight attendants. There may be many vacant flight attendants in the time to come, which Putin must comfort, because they are on the ground.
Youth and vitality was crucial for Putin when he came to power more than 22 years ago. It is now speculated that he is seriously ill, and has everything from dementia to cancer, and is receiving powerful medication for this. Putin is now 69 years old, his loyal foreign minister Sergei Lavrov is 71. And the powerful FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev, who many consider the ideologue behind the aggressive expansionism that led Russia into war, is 70.
FRIENDSHIP RITUAL: Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev (left) demonstrates his superiority over GDR chief Erich Honecker. Photo: AP / NTB
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In five years they will all be around 75, which is slightly below the average age in Leonid Brezhnev’s geriatric political bureau in the 1970s and 80s. Then, as now, Moscow was ridden by a fear of economic reforms, despite the fact that it could save the economy. Then, as now, as much control as possible over the political-administrative apparatus was more important than deregulation and economic efficiency. Many fear that Russia may once again face a period of geriatric rule.
Who can be punished?
The most frightening the drive on the journey in Putin’s time machine is if we are going almost 100 years back in time. We’re talking about the war against the middle class. That war is greatly intensified by the war in Ukraine. It is the middle class in the larger cities that now fills the trains to Helsinki, and the planes to Istanbul, Tbilisi and Cairo. Those who travel are not yet refugees, but they are in reality political emigrants, who travel away to look at the time, and consider whether at some point it makes sense to return. They fear even more political unification and terror after Russia has in reality been put on war. And it is the middle-class children who are beaten up and humiliated by the police when the bravest of them demonstrate against the war.
THE MASSICIDER: Josef Stalin still has his followers. Here from a demonstration in Moscow in 2001. Photo: AP / NTB
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In 1929, Josef Stalin started its five-year plans to shock-industrialize and collectivize the Soviet Union. While Stalin’s attacks on the middle class were calculated and targeted, and were both economically and ideologically motivated, Putin’s attacks on the middle class are unintentional. But it is still them among the Russians this so far first and foremost goes beyond. They are the ones who are no longer allowed to buy Apple or IKEA products, or travel to Europe. It is their children who are deprived of a future, because Russia will be politically and economically isolated for a long time. They are the first to discover that Putin, under the pretext of de-Naziizing Ukraine, is far from re-stalinizing Russia. Putin controls the time machine from hell.
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