Translated material
Come and Volodya
Galina Kovalskaya
Our fellow citizens want a president who is not like either Yeltsin or themselves
Our fellow citizens want a president who is not like either Yeltsin or themselves
People of all ages and professions, rich and poor, are going to vote for Putin, including those who supported the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the Duma elections and supporters of the Union of Right Forces. In a word, Putin’s electorate is modern Russia (Photo : AP )
I can’t believe that a little more than six months have passed since the day when Boris Yeltsin pulled the small, unprepossessing director of the FSB out of his well-worn personnel deck and proclaimed him his successor. It seems like a century has passed. Then the appointment of Putin as both prime minister and successor was treated as another presidential “squiggle” - B.N. is being weird! So that someone like this, faded, unmemorable, completely devoid not only of charisma, but of the slightest hint of charm, could “recapture” voters from the rapidly growing Luzhkov-Primakov duo? At that moment it was thought that the Yeltsin team was betting on Putin simply out of desperation.
Today we can almost certainly predict Putin’s victory in the first round. The number of people who want to see him as president fluctuates, according to various polls, from 47 to 56%. This is an unprecedented figure; only Yeltsin had about the same number on the eve of the first presidential elections. But then Yeltsin is a strong, extraordinary personality with his fame of opposing the leadership of the CPSU and Gorbachev - but what’s wrong with that?
The most observant Russian citizens could remember the only episode about the former FSB director when he entered the political scene when Boris Berezovsky accused the FSB of preparing an assassination attempt on him. Putin then denied everything, recommended that Berezovsky mind his own business and not interfere in the affairs of the special services, but somehow sluggishly. It seemed as if Putin was afraid of Berezovsky. Everything changed when, after being appointed prime minister-successor, Putin started a war in Chechnya and promised to “kill the damned terrorists in the toilet.”
Without us
Putin's star rose with the war - this is a commonplace. Nationalist hysteria in society often gives rise to uncontested “national leaders” like Gamsakhurdia or Ardzinba. But Putin is clearly not Gamsakhurdia - his temperament is not the same. Moreover, in today's Russia, despite the fact that the new Chechen war was met with almost universal approval, there is no national hysteria or war psychosis. Russian boys do not run away from home to war, as Armenian boys once fled to Karabakh or Georgian boys to Abkhazia. In Russian families, with the exception of those where sons or husbands are at war, they do not greedily catch, frozen in front of the television screen, any messages “from there”, do not burst out with stormy “hurray!” upon news of the capture of another hundred militants - and more and more often, as military footage flashes, they switch the TV to another channel. When listing their main concerns and anxieties at the request of sociologists, Russian citizens remember Chechnya only eighth and ninth. The attitude of our compatriots to the war and their wishes for the future president is best characterized by the November poll by VTsIOM. 61% of respondents urgently demanded that the offensive be continued (the share of “militant” Russians has remained at approximately the same level since then), and only slightly more than 20% were inclined to believe that negotiations would be desirable. However, to the question: “Would you like to personally participate in hostilities, would you agree for your husband, son or brother to fight in Chechnya,” only 19% answered affirmatively, the rest do not want to hear about any personal participation. At the same time, more than half of those surveyed, if the decision on negotiations is made by the president or prime minister, are ready to agree with him. The numbers do not speak about the mystery of the Russian soul. It’s just that voters are making it absolutely clear: “We want the Chechen issue to be finally resolved. But we really don’t want all this to be done with our own hands - figure it out somehow without us.” The secret of Putin’s success is not that he called for “wetting”, but that he promised: “We will do it!” And he began to do everything himself, without requiring any effort from most citizens. Something is happening there in the Caucasus, but what exactly is not interesting.
Right, left where is the side
Chechnya is the only serious issue on which Putin's position is clear to everyone. But this question itself, as surveys show, is not a priority for Russian citizens. What is important for them is stable work and a decent salary, so that prices do not rise faster than wages, so that they do not kill or rob on the streets. But precisely when it comes to the economy and the fight against crime, Putin gets off with the same general words as all other former and current contenders. And - such a rating! The work of the media and political strategists? Yes, definitely. But there must be some kind of initial basis, texture, which is enhanced by the makeup of the technologists? Why did Vladimir Putin so captivate his fellow citizens?
At the request of Itogi, the sociological firm Valideyta conducted a study: it collected four focus groups consisting exclusively of those who are definitely going to vote for Putin on March 26. Putin's electorate is so large that it naturally accommodates people of different political orientations. According to VTsIOM, Putin is preferred by almost all those who voted for Unity and the NDR in the Duma elections, a significant majority of SPS and OVR voters, a significant part of Yabloko members and about 20% of communists. Sociologists from Valideyta and I hoped that by bringing together groups radically different in social status and political orientation, we would also see contrasts within Putin’s electorate. Hence the composition - two groups in Vladimir: one from those who voted for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the last elections, the other - the non-communist electorate (supporters of the Union of Right Forces, Unity, OVR and Yabloko), and two in Moscow: one - successful wealthy young people (under forty ), defending the values of the market and individual freedom, the second are poor, intelligent pensioners who consider themselves to have suffered from the reforms.
The idea failed. People with different life experiences, rich and poor, pro- and anti-communist, said more or less the same things about Putin, expressed the same hopes and fears. In general, this study left the impression that in modern Russia the difference in the views of a retired “defense worker” who votes for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and a successful thirty-five-year-old manager who cast his vote for the Union of Right Forces is not so great. Sometimes it is simply impossible to understand how a person’s views and his electoral preferences are connected. The questionnaire that the group participants filled out had three ideological items. For each, it was proposed to choose one of two opposing judgments: 1.1 “The less the state interferes in economic life, the better” or 1.2. “The state must strictly regulate the economy”; 2.1 “Russia must be a full-fledged member of the European community” or 2.2 “Russia has a special path, it should not look back at other states”; 3.1 “Personal freedoms of citizens should be a priority in Russian society” or 3.2 “Russia needs a firm hand, even at the expense of some restrictions on the personal freedoms of citizens.” Almost all of our communist interlocutors chose the first position when answering the second and third questions, and some when answering the first. But the young Vladimir businessman Valery, who voted for the Union of Right Forces, emphasized the second position everywhere. His peer Vasily, also a voter of the “right forces”, like Valery, advocated “strict regulation”, but the policeman Andrei, who voted for the LDPR, is a real liberal in all respects, and the “Yabloko” member Irina is committed to economic freedom, but is convinced that “ Russia has a special path." There are countless examples like this.
People who consistently hold certain views and even know which political force expresses these views are a tiny minority. The rest “want what’s good” and vote, as a rule, guided by non-political considerations: “The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is a big strong party, and the rest are small things, fly-by-nights. That’s why I’m for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, but not for Zyuganov. I don’t want to go back to the past at all.” “My dad was such a convinced communist, but in a good way. Because of him, I always vote for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.” - “I voted for the Union of Right Forces because they seemed to support Putin.” The head of Valideyta, focus group leader Maria Volkenshtein, kept asking our interlocutors what they expected from the future president. They answered with vague formulas: “so that people can live better,” “so that the prestige of the country rises,” “so that wages grow faster.” We couldn't find anything more specific. People were even offended by the presenter’s insistence: “How can we know what he will do? How do we know what specific steps? Let him lead a normal life.” But in all groups they agreed that Putin was doing the right thing, not announcing any program until the time (that is, before his election): “He said correctly: they will attack right away. And he needs to get power - why should he quarrel with someone now? "
Varangian
“Cautious,” they say in all groups when asked what kind of person Vladimir Putin is. For the first time in my memory, Russian people pronounce the word “cautious” with approval. In general, the epithets that fans and voters bestow on the future Russian president are significant in their own way: “Neat, businesslike, smart, reserved, secretive, smart, tough, smart, cunning, on his own mind...” About appearance: “Inconspicuous, faded , with a cold gaze..." But have such people ever been loved in Russia? Recently, the same Valideyta conducted a large study of ideas about the Russian national character. Interview participants, residents of large and small cities, people of different ages and occupations, readily told the hosts that in Russia the people are open, open-hearted, generous and daring, risk-taking. This is exactly how Russian people are used to seeing and loving themselves. Putin is entirely composed of properties that are directly opposite to this ideal. Perhaps the only quality from the ideal bouquet that he is invariably awarded with is modesty. But, speaking about the Russian character, the interlocutors of sociologists from Valideyta had a very specific modesty in mind: “In the sense that they will ask you, can you do this? And you say: I don’t know. But you yourself can do better everyone." Russian residents consider modesty, which is categorically contraindicated in a competitive society, to be an attribute of national character and value it very much in themselves. In relation to Putin, we are talking about a different modesty: “Modest, doesn’t show off. Doesn’t take his wife everywhere.”
To find out ideas about the character of the future president, they asked a question in the genre of a “projective game”: “If all our famous politicians live in a common communal apartment, what is Putin doing in it?” After some doubt, the answer is found: “He watches and studies everyone.” Another group suggested: “He sits in his room, closed, and cleans his shoes until they shine.” “Everything is scheduled for him: when is breakfast, when is he going to the bathroom.” What if everyone works at the factory? Some presented Putin as a chief engineer, others as a foreman. The Moscow “prosperous” group unanimously agreed: “A typical head of the first department.” How long ago did the heads of the first departments become our idols?
At the same time, his voters like Putin exactly this way: un-Russian, restrained and closed. Although some “warming” of this image is also accepted: tears at Sobchak’s funeral added more supporters to Putin. "Would you like to have such a person as a close friend?" Many group members, especially women, readily agree: “Yes, we would like to. He is reliable. He did not betray Sobchak.” (Putin’s loyalty to Sobchak is strongly approved by all of his voters, including those who are not delighted with Sobchak himself.) Boris, a thirty-year-old bank employee, doubted: “No, there’s probably no need to be friends. But to be a boss is the most times. Only not the immediate one, but the boss’s boss.” Zoya Vasilievna, a pensioner who introduces herself as an “active social activist,” seemed to express the general mood: “So what if we don’t like many of Putin’s traits in people? The president is a completely different matter.” Rimma Borisovna from the “communist” Vladimir group, as if hearing it, picks up the thought: “Our people are careless, drinking. Let the president be different from us.” Slava, Moscow manager: “We already had someone like us: what’s in the mind is in the tongue. Even play the drum, even conduct the orchestra. That’s enough.”
“You make Putin look like a German,” the presenter notes. “It’s true!” they joyfully respond to her. “Something looks like a German. He worked in Germany, probably picked up his habits there.” It’s an amazing thing: in all groups, Putin’s work in Germany is viewed in only one way: he lived in the West and learned a lot. Nobody really thinks about what exactly the future Russian president did in the GDR. “I got there as a young man, managed to perceive and understand the life there” - this is Muscovite Vasily Sergeevich, a former military translator. “He has studied the West. This does not mean that he will blindly copy, but he can transfer all the good things here” - this is Vasily, an installer from Vladimir. In the “non-communist” Vladimir group, the presenter did not even have time to ask about the similarity of Putin’s character with the German one.
Businessman Valera, describing Putin, said: “The character is Aryan, calm.” (Exactly so, although he probably had in his head the “calm, Nordic character” from “Seventeen Moments of Spring.”) It seems that in Russian historical memory the image of a German manager suddenly surfaced, the same one about whom it was believed that he did not drink and steals, the one for whom death is what is healthy for the Russian. This is the most repeatedly ridiculed and reviled German, to whom people go to extremes with a bow: “Yes, come and reign over us.”
Why would our voters suddenly need a “German”? They explained: in contrast to Yeltsin. That was the Russian character. Voters recognized themselves in him: drink like that, drink like that, walk like that, fight like that. For this, at first they loved it, then they hated it. They said about Yeltsin “unpredictable,” but he was understandable. Putin is closed and incomprehensible. “We don’t really know him”, “He doesn’t open up to us”, “He’s a real intelligence officer, all undercover” - such remarks sound like a constant refrain. Well, it’s great that he’s incomprehensible. We don’t expect the authorities to let us in on all their hidden plans and intentions. We, on the contrary, want it to be done for us without us, but we don’t want to delve into the technology of how exactly this will be done. This applies to Chechnya and, by and large, to everything else.
Goodbye love!
Putin's electorate is Yeltsin's former voters. Sociological surveys show this, and our interlocutors confirm this. "Which politician did you love?" - "Yeltsin!" For a long time afterwards they bathe in memories: “How he left the party congress!”, “How he stood on a tank!”, “How we believed in him!” And with some kind of masochistic pleasure they discuss their disappointment: “We thought he was real, but it turned out he was an ordinary populist.” Almost all participants in our focus groups admit: Yeltsin was loved with his heart, truly loved. Not in 1996, of course, then there could be no talk of any “voting with the heart”; then people voted, fearing the communists. But in ’91, and even earlier, from ’87, they loved it. And then? Many people say that they liked Primakov. “But we didn’t have time to love him like Yeltsin.” Muscovites liked Luzhkov, some liked Kiriyenko, now Putin... “No, you can’t talk about love. Love is such a feeling... But we just hope for Putin, we want to believe in something.” “If there were another candidate, we would consider him,” Putin’s voters both in Moscow and Vladimir openly admit, “but so we choose between him and Zyuganov. Well, he’s not nasty, he doesn’t do anything stupid.” - “When did you decide to vote for Putin?” “But when I realized that there was no chance for Primakov,” the sweetest Muscovite pensioner Kamilla Borisovna immediately answers. Is this love?
However, our compatriots, it seems, do not want to fall in love with their president anymore. Judging by the bitterness with which they talk about their past feelings for Yeltsin, one can assume that they really don’t want to get burned again. So a woman, mortally tired of passionate love for her alcoholic husband, is looking for a new life partner: let him be not so handsome and courageous, but calm and not drinking. “Maybe we’ll still be biting ourselves that we voted for Putin,” says twenty-seven-year-old Slava, who works as a manager at British Petroleum, thoughtfully. Most of our interlocutors fully admit that later, later, they may stop liking Putin. Everyone is convinced of Putin’s strong connection with the “Family,” and this worries many: “Maybe, of course, he just doesn’t want to quarrel with Berezovsky for now, and then he’ll remove him. But what if he doesn’t?” In case of possible disappointment, it is better not to fall in love.
The common stereotype - that the people crave a “firm hand”, a dictatorship - is generally not confirmed. Even in the “communist” group, the words “we missed Stalin” were pronounced with a distance - it was some abstract “people” who missed him, but we didn’t. In this group, however, there was one lady who agreed: “some traits” of Stalin would be appropriate in the current president. But she was immediately corrected: “It’s better to talk not about Stalin, but about Pinochet.” (A Russian voter can easily love the communists and Pinochet at the same time. Moreover, Pinochet for them is not a symbol of tyranny, but rather a state tablecloth, self-assembled, ensuring the economic prosperity of the country without effort and even without the participation of its subjects.) In Putin, none of our interlocutors showed the traits of a potential dictator saw. Is it worth electing a president for seven years instead of four? Here opinions differ radically. Oddly enough, among the group of successful Muscovites the idea of a seven-year term received much more approval than among the Vladimir “communists” - they unanimously decided: “We need to change people in power more often.” But everyone liked Putin’s words that only the people can make such a decision: “But he didn’t grab it right away.”
Sociologist Alexey Levinson described the current state of Russian society in a conversation with an Itogi columnist: “Our compatriots have assimilated and accepted a number of democratic values. For example, the election of government, freedom of speech, the right to strike, etc. But other indispensable attributes of democracy: rights minorities, personal rights and freedoms are not just not assimilated, but not accepted, rejected." Among these rejected values, undoubtedly, is the right to control the actions of the already elected government. Society is ready to give the future president carte blanche. But not because our compatriots want to be tied into a ram's horn. They just want all the painful issues to be resolved without them. Somehow.
In preparing the material, we used the results of a sociological study commissioned by Itogi by the Valideyta company.