In March of this year, as part of a regular monthly survey of Levada Center, to respondents, along with a set of ordinary questions about the attitude of the population to the activities of the president, two paired questions were asked about the achievements and failures of Vladimir Putin. What do people consider the main achievement of Putin over the years of his stay in power? Both questions (in the last edition) are as follows:

In what (from the following) regions Vladimir Putin achieved success during his location in power?
In which of these areas were the actions of Vladimir Putin the least successful?

Better in almost all articles

And the recognition of the successes of his reign, and the understanding of the absence of expected results express the relative minority of the respondents (the consensus in both cases does not exceed 40%, but these are not sharply defined groups: both arrays partially intersect and form an unstable zone of coinciding opinions). The general balance of Putin’s achievements and failures as the head of state, the authoritarian leader of the country for more than 20 years, by 2021, looks as follows (Table 1).

Five to six spheres can be distinguished, where the recognition of successes clearly prevails over failures (the exceeding the former over the second is at least 10 percentage points), and three regions of control, which are considered failure (the fight against the “oligarchs”, increasing the level of welfare of the population, the fight against corruption). Public opinion refers to all the following spheres of social life as the president’s competence, which happens only under regimes in which the separation of powers, the autonomy of local self -government and civil society are eliminated, and centralized departments and state corporations dominate the economy.

The questions of this kind in the studies of our center have been asked since 2004, since the results of the results of Putin’s first term in this post, which allows you to trace the dynamics of public opinion regarding the effectiveness of the policy of the head of state (table 2). Obviously, to date, the share of his merits recognizing his merits is increasing in almost all respects of consideration.

War and Chechnya

The main achievement of Putin, which public opinion recognizes, starting in 2014, is the strengthening of the army, the modernization of the armed forces. Two protracted Chechen wars showed weaknesses of the Russian military organization and a decrease in the prestige of military personnel. The reforms in the army, following the Russian-Georgian war, along with effective militaristic propaganda gave the result: the authority of the Armed Forces increased, the army reached the first position in the ranking of institutions that enjoy trust, ahead of the president himself. The share of Russians, who not only noted Putin’s policy, but also evaluated it as the main achievement, increased in 15 years from 8% to 38–41%. The strong army, according to Russians, is the main component of the ideas about the “Great Power”, which pushed into the background all other definitions of the state of this class: the obligation to have a high standard of living of citizens, the developed legal institutions, the successes of national science and culture recognized in the world, etc. The “powerful army” and the “enormousness of the territory” dominates the consciousness of the population when surveys about Russia as a “great power”. People really wanted this: in the late 1990s, public opinion was expected from the president of the following after Yeltsin to fulfill the two tasks that it set before the alleged applicants for this post: “Exit from a deep economic crisis” and the return of Russia “Superpower”, which, in their opinion, possessed the USSR. The demonstration of military power before the world community has fully compensated for the new poverty, which followed the 1998 crisis, disappointments in the results of reforms, which people experienced very painfully.

The second most important Success of Putin is the solution of the Chechen problem . Not everyone is ready to agree with this option of a political compromise after two wars that lasted more than 12 years, but most Russians, as follows from the previous polls of the Levada Center, agree that “better Kadyrov than an endless war”, which gives rise to a chronic threat of transferring terrorism from the Caucasus to the domestic regions of Russia. The share of such opinions about the policy in relation to Chechnya also increased from 8% (2004) to 34% (2021), as well as the consciousness of eliminating the danger of terrorist attacks, which is also attributed to Putin (the share of such answers increased from 3% to 32%). The fact that terrorism is a direct consequence of the Yeltsin and later - Putin’s policy in the Caucasus, most of the Russians do not recognize or do not want to recognize, displace from consciousness, close from this fact.

Less successful actions

With less certainty and confidence, but nevertheless, more than a quarter of the adult population, today recognizes Putin’s achievements as restoring order in the country (growth from 12% to 28%), the fight against crime (from 6% to 25%), strengthening international positions of Russia (from 15% to maximum values in 2017 - 34%, after which a decrease in to 24% in 2021 followed). The latest opinion can also serve as an indicator of the effectiveness of propaganda that can convince people that even the obvious failures of Russia's foreign policy (the country's growing isolation, tightening sanctions from the world community, the general strengthening of negativity to Putin Russia, etc.) can be perceived as the success of the political course of its leadership.

At the same time, the assessments of Putin’s policy became not just more contradictory (it is clear that different social groups evaluate his policy in different ways), but also more negative, especially in relation to things that directly determine the daily life of the most part of the population of Russia. Considering the characteristic reluctance to express negative judgments about the activities of the authorities of those who are in power and the usual tendency to get away from the answer or to hide behind the option “I find it difficult to answer”, already in 2004 the wording of “least successful actions” was adopted (and not more direct definition - “failure”, “failure”, “lack of achievements”), preserved in subsequent surveys (table 3).

Illusory hopes

The failures of Putin’s reign are no longer associated with symbolic achievements (“revival of Russia”, “stability”, “order”), but with more important ones - from the point of view of the everyday problems of the private existence of an ordinary person - the criteria and assessments of his policy: these include issues of the country's welfare, economic development of the country, ensuring social justice, and therefore the struggle with plutocratic, corruption bureaucracy, "equidistance" of court "oligarchs", etc.

The dynamics of mass assessments in this regard was as follows: a disappointing understanding of failure in raising the standard of living, recognized in the mid-2000s every fifth Russian, gradually replaced, the share of such answers by 2009 was almost doubled (from 21%to 13%), but after the crisis of 2015 began to grow quickly, reaching the maximum by March 2021 (39%).

It turned out to be stable that the “fight against corruption” (primarily - officials, state apparatus) is actually declarative (the indicator of Putin’s “lack of success” in this area is on average 32%over all years; he reached the peak of anti -Putin protests in 2012, as well as in 2021 - 38%).

The hopes of ensuring social justice, the equality of all before the law, on the fact that Putin would “curb the oligarchs”, as he promised him in the spirit of a radical populism, during the Yukodovsky departure from Khodorkovsky, turned out to be equally illusory. The opinions of Russians on this subject became more common: from 2004–2005, when the named trial was underway, the share of such answers increased from 14-16% to 34% in 2021.

Disappointment with the lack of results in the economy (which became many understanding after more than 10 years of stagnation and a decrease in real incomes of the population) significantly intensified, the level of such negative answers in the most “best year” from the point of view of the growth of the population’s income (8%), but by 2017–2021. The share of such answers increased to 26–28%.

The general optimism, characteristic of the first years of Putin’s reign, is clearly weakened and faded.

Normalization of relations with Western countries, which seems to be an important political goal for more than half of Russians, is becoming increasingly ghostly in the context of strengthening the presidential confrontation course.

Putin’s successes are more likely and higher by elderly people, educated and wealthy categories of the population (among them, officials, employees, people of the old hardshop who retain the inertia of the Soviet mentality stand out; it was they who received the greatest bonuses from authoritarian rule). For them, military power, “reassurance” (at all costs) of Chechnya, “order in the country”, economic development, strengthening the international positions of Russia are symbolically significant things, indicators of the restoration of the management order that existed in Soviet times, the time of their youth and socialization imprinting. In the minimum degree, positive assessments of the current president are shared, on the one hand, young people, on the other hand, residents of the depressive province (small cities, villages or social bottoms of large cities), respondents with low income, far from current policy and sovereign greatness.

Where does the information come from

But the matter is not only about the social conditioning of assessments, but also in the type of information received, or rather, in the nature of information channels, through which information about state policy is received. Since the federal media holdings, the pro -Kremlin media, first of all - TV, radio, press with large circulations, have long turned into part of the powerful propaganda industry, it is clear that their users receive only carefully controlled, “socially approved” and extremely positive information about the activities of Vladimir Putin. This kind of information goes beyond political advertising, the personal praise of the “national leader”, they are part of the carefully thought out technology for mobilizing the support of the authorities and exposing its opponents. On these channels, only filtered “content” is supplied, excluding information about failures, the negative consequences of Putin’s policy, the public price of certain actions of higher leadership in relation to the national welfare or security of citizens.

On the contrary, the information entering the Internet, social networks has an incomparably great variety, reflecting (unlike officialdom) various interests and positions of its manufacturers, authors, commentators and users. The Internet and social networks (at least to date) are characterized by relative independence from official instances, and are less subordinated to censorship (self -censorship). Therefore, in general, users of Internet portals, social networks and, in particular, telegram channels much more often and sometimes very critically evaluate the actions of Vladimir Putin and the results of his policy. On many significant issues and aspects of the events of Putin’s assessment among viewers and subscribers of telegram channels, they are not just diverging, but directly opposite. I will give only some examples of such differences (table 4).

For example, viewers evaluate the nature of economic development under Putin rather as its success, while users of telegram channels are more likely as failure (-45%, table 4), only 4% of viewers and 15-17% of users of telegram channels, social networks, and the Internet consider Putin’s protection and democracy.

“Improving the standard of living of citizens” attributes to the successes of the current president an average of 21%, 39%to “failures”, but among those who trust the most, the first are the first more (29%); “Unsuccessful,” on the contrary, only 33% of viewers consider his policy in this regard; But among users of social networks, telegram channels of its actions in this area are negatively estimated by 47% and 44% on social networks and the Internet, in the audiences of telegram channels-54% (!).

The current state of healthcare in the country as a “great achievement” of Putin is ready to consider only 17% of respondents (on average); failure - 29%. However, among viewers, the proportion of approving it in this regard rises to 24%, and on the Internet is reduced to 13%, among those who prefer telegram channels of such only 9%. And, on the contrary, as a failure of its policy in this area is regarded by 21% of viewers and 35%-on social networks, 39% of users of Internet portals, 48%-prefer information in telegram channels.

The survey was conducted on March 25–31, 2021, according to the representative All -Russian sample of urban and rural population in the amount of 1623 people aged 18 years and older in 137 settlements, 50 constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The study is carried out at the house with the respondent by a personal interview. The distribution of answers is given as a percentage of the total number of respondents together with the data of previous polls.

The statistical error in the sample of 1600 people (with a probability of 0.95) does not exceed:

3.4% for indicators close to 50%,
2.9%for indicators close to 25%/75%,
2.0%for indicators close to 10%/90%,
1.5%for indicators close to 5%/95%.

The author’s opinion may not coincide with the position of the VTIMES.

Balance of achievements and failures of Vladimir Putin