Putin’s inauguration on Tuesday for a fifth term will not only mark his 25-year-long grip on power but also showcase Russia’s shift into what pro-Kremlin commentators call a “revolutionary power,” set on upending the global order, making its own rules, and demanding that totalitarian autocracy be respected as a legitimate alternative to democracy in a world redivided by big powers into spheres of influence.
“In Russian families, many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven or eight children, and even more. Let’s preserve and revive these wonderful traditions,” Putin said in a November speech dedicated to “a thousand-year, eternal Russia.”
The emphasis is on a special and powerful state dominated by Putin, on centuries-old Russian self-reliance and stoicism, and the sacrifice of individual rights to the regime. Men give their lives in war or work. Women should give their bodies by birthing children.
Russia’s elite, meanwhile, has hardened against the West, according to one billionaire living outside Russia.
“Everyone is very anti-West; that’s all you hear,” the billionaire said. “Anti-West, anti-West, anti-West. And it will increase, the longer this war goes on — and it could go on for 10 years or more.”
Many liberals, including Kagarlitsky and Gallyamov, doubt that Putin and his hard-liners can succeed. “Societies never get de-modernized,” Kagarlitsky said.
Gallyamov said that many Russians are “really afraid” and will eventually repudiate Putin’s rule, just as Germany rejected the Nazis.
“The general Russian population is tired of his militarism, of the war, of this patriotic, anti-Western hysteria,” Gallyamov said. “They drastically want just normalization.”
Perhaps the fatigue is murmured too softly for the Kremlin to hear. On the overnight train, the woman was careful to steer clear of politics, a subject she dreads. And yet her despair spilled out.
“I just wish there was an end to these troubled times,” she said, in a low, bitter voice.
There’s a dystopian edge to the new Russia. Peace activists, young and old, are behind bars, while convicted murderers, rapists and other violent criminals have been set free — pardoned by Putin to fight in Ukraine. Some are returning from war and committing horrific crimes.
“The country is turning into an absolutely totalitarian state. There is complete lawlessness,” Alibekov said. “There is no democracy. There are rich people and slaves, that’s all.” On Feb. 20, police dragged him off a train, and he was detained, awaiting trial for allegedly assaulting police.
“Moscow must become a mecca of morons,” he said. “That’s the plan.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2024/putin-values-russian-society-conservatism/These excerpts are from a much longer article.