It's not an answer to the earlier question of how popular Putin actually is independent of the suppression state
Sure, it's not trivial to disentangle. I've seen notions aired to the point that if only true free speech/press was reestablished for a year and then fair elections held then Putinism would stand no chance, and somebody like Navalny could win. This seems extremely naive and out-of-touch to me, I'm sure that Putin (or a better anti-Western demagogue) would win.
This is primarily Russians abroad, but they do exist as a counter-example of Russians, and Putin is not, shall we say, particularly popular amongst those who are not imbibing on the Russian state-influenced media apparatus.
Of course there are obvious selection effects too. Also, when the invasion began and hundreds of thousands of Russians most willing to flee did so, they found no particularly warm welcome anywhere they tried to go. Most of them have since returned, and even they grudgingly agree that there is something to the Russophobia that state propaganda doesn't shut up about, having personally experienced it.
Putin and his backers actively worked/conspired to undercut all substantial alternatives to them in general and him in particular.
I meant before he consolidated power. The thing is, after the collapse and botched reforms, Western-oriented political forces in Russia have been dead in the water, and the real question was what flavor of dictatorship would take over. The second most likely one was the Communist party back in power.
xpym
5mo ago
It may not have been unavoidable, but I'd say something like it was extremely likely. That period in Russia is commonly referred to as "evil nineties", and Putin bringing an end to it is certainly a major factor to his genuine popularity, re-establishment of tsarism notwithstanding. And it's not like there was much of a substantial alternative to him in particular. His biggest opponent was Primakov, another ex-KGB goon, not exactly someone to expect kindness to dissidents from.
xpym
5mo ago
Well, the point is that Russia hasn't had any other context basically throughout the entire thousand years it existed, so this isn't held against Putin by anybody other than an irrelevant fringe. This doesn't mean that any tsar is automatically popular, he has to maintain decent standards of living and the kayfabe of Russia as a great power. Especially if the reality is that Russia is in fact a gas station with nukes which is fucked in the long tern regardless of what any likely tsar might do, so going out with a bang instead of a whimper is actually preferable to many nationalists who can see through the kayfabe.
xpym
6mo ago
Hmm, maybe I should try doing an effortpost on this, because it seems to me that in the West both the mainstream and contrarian spaces don't really have a good narrative about why Putin can at the same time be genuinely popular, pursue ridiculous policies, and maintain relative stability for decades.
xpym
6mo ago
Russia indisputably has a national strategy, is led with people with very deliberate intent for national-interest maximization
(here from the QC roundup)
Are you sure about that? To me Putin's behavior is much better explained by the medium-term maximization of his own popularity. Obviously this entails pretensions of national interest, but they are so manifestly absurd that I have a hard time imagining that anybody who matters at the top could take them seriously. Even if Ukraine had crumbled in a week, it wouldn't have benefited Russia's long-term interests, either economic or security ones.
I wouldn't call them a failure, exactly, just that our circumstances are getting ever further away from the original specification. And it seems to me that both sides generally agree with this, the difference is in what we're supposed to do about that, the options being RETVRN or re-engineering. And while the latter has proven much more difficult than some early optimists envisioned, the former seems to me to be entirely intractable.
Moving the entire society back to any desired pre-Enlightenment mode could only work if you can coordinate the whole world to play along with you. If they keep the nukes while you revert to crossbows then the outcome of any future conflict is pre-determined. Given that such coordination is miles away from the Overton window anywhere, let alone everywhere, what choices are there other than attempting to adapt or die?
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