Russians prefer a strong leader to democracy

International Herald Tribune ^ | THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 2006

[lizol]

Russians prefer a strong leader to democracy

International Herald Tribune

THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 2006

Two-thirds of Russians see a strong leader, and not democratic government, as best for their country, and an overwhelming majority see a strong economy as more important than a good democracy, according to the results of a survey that were released Thursday by the Pew Research Center.

"These findings can only add to Western concerns that, under the government of President Vladimir Putin, democracy is in retreat in Russia," Pew commented in its report on the data.

The figures, based on the results of a survey conducted in May, show a sharp decline in enthusiasm for democracy among Russians compared with 1991, when the Soviet Union broke apart. At that time 51 percent of respondents felt Russia should rely on a democratic form of government to solve Russia's problems, while 39 percent preferred to rely on a leader with a strong hand.

[lizol]

As always.

[DB]

If people can't govern their own actions, they can't be governed by anything less than a tyrant. Economic success doesn't come from tyrants. You would have thought they would have learned that... Even at communism's peak the people were dirt poor...

[farlander]

Yea but their culture just doesn't like a weak man at the top. Or a weak goverment. If someone gets weak at the top someone else stronger takes over. It's just how the Russians are wired, since the tzarist days.

[frankiep]

no surprise

[x5452]

IF the PEOPLE want a strong leader that is government by the PEOPLE. If foreigners want a different form of government than the PEOPLE, and force it on them that is NOT DEMOCRACY.

[wtc911]

Foreign Affairs quarterly ran with this months ago. It seems that the peasant who admires and trusts the alpha dog mentality is too ingrained in the Russian psyche to be shaken loose by a few years of quasi individual freedoms.

[x5452]

Quasi individual freedoms? How many times have you been to Russia? They're AT LEAST as free.

[PeterPrinciple]

Two-thirds of Russians see a strong leader, and not democratic government, as best for their country,

I want both....................

[ClaireSolt]

False choice. Show me the strong leader who brings a prosperous economy. Not Chavez or Putin.

[x5452]

Russia has been growing EXTREMELY fast.

http://www.gateway2russia.com/st/art_290514.php

[Flavius]

yeah well good luck to them with that one

[ClaireSolt]

I remember Soviet economic plans and claims. By the way, Iraq grew 17% las year. I have studied Russian hsitory and wish them the best, but I am sorry to see what Putin is doing. Have you seen the population stats? Birth rate low and life expectancy 3rd world.

[wtc911]

Quasi individual freedoms? How many times have you been to Russia? They're AT LEAST as free.

=====================================================

You're kidding, aren't you Ivan? What about all the noise over Duma's December ruling that severely erodes the freedom to associate? Or the state's censoring of the media? Or the slowly growing suppression of freedom of religion? Guess they don't count, huh?

Your profile might sat New Jersey but you are pure Moscow. What brought you to the states? Why did you leave? When are you going back?

btw....in the States we say 'The Ukraine'...your repetitive posting of just 'Ukraine' is a dead give away.

[GarySpFc]

We have homes in both Kansas City and Volgograd, Russia. I have argued on these boards until I am blue in the face that RUSSIA IS FREE, but the Russianphobes just will not believe it. I have even been called a traitor by some, and yet I served six years on a Special Forces A-Team during Nam. I am also an ordained minister and theologian, with a goal of doing missionary work in Russia.

There are many other Freepers on here who keep repeating that Russia is free, and they have all been there. Indeed, in some ways there is more freedom in Russia than the US. Can you have Bible study in the schools here? You can in Russia. I say that, because my wife as a child psychologist helped write the programs, which Putin had drafted into a law, it passed the Duma, and he signed it.

I stated that there are several Freepers on here who will tell you Russia is free, and they have all been there. However, of the ones who rail against Russia I can only think of one who has been there within the last 10 years. Yes, there are many Soviet experts who will be out of a job if the truth is known. Mind you, I am not saying everything is perfect there, it isn't. They have a problem with the Mafia comparable to what the US did in the fifties, but they are working on it. Below is a good article from Major Ron Hamilton, Ret. Military Intelligence.

Rebuttal to Natan Sharansky's Washington Post "Bowing To Russia"
By Major Ron Hamilton (Ret),
US Army Intelligence

The writer retired as a Major and Russian linguist from the U.S Army's Military Intelligence Corps on October 31st 2005 to pursue business and academic goals. He has served worldwide in numerous command and staff positions at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. His interests are the applied effects of foreign policy theory and its implementation on the ground - specifically the transitioning Caucasus nations and the roles that the USA and Russia play in their democratic development.

Without taking anything away from the fact that Mr. Sharansky is an honorable man who spent nine years in prison for his beliefs, it is important to dig a little deeper into his basic thesis that the Khodorkovsky case is an example of unacceptable democratic regression (backsliding) by Russia and the Putin government.

What strikes me is what Mr. Sharansky doesn't say in his article. First and foremost is that he completely ignores the fact of Mr. Khodorkovsky's guilt or innocence. The likelihood that he is guilty, and that a jury of his Russian citizen peers has convicted him in a court of law makes the probability of his guilt very high. In fact, he (along with many other oligarchs to whom Mr. Sharansky alludes) is guilty as sin of numerous crimes against the state and the people of Russia. Second is that just because you haven't caught and tried all of them at once doesn't make trying one at a time any less important. So, selective prosecution isn't negative as Mr. Sharansky indicates and is simply a red herring he throws out to attempt to show that others did it and weren't tried so trying only one for crimes is somehow unfair and sinister. Don't fall for this trick. You can't point to the unpunished bad behavior of others as a reason to justify the bad behavior of one. Selective prosecution occurs in every advanced democratic nation on the planet and is based on numerous conditional parameters. Mr. Sharansky knows this. Why is it so much more dangerous to democracy in Russia than in his own country or in mine for that matter? It happens all of the time everywhere.

The next point Mr. Sharansky avoids is the Russian oligarchs-in-exile population. The reason they are in self-imposed exile is to avoid being tried for their crimes in Russia. If they were to return home they too would be arrested, tried, and found innocent or guilty in a court of law by a jury of their peers and Mr. Sharansky's Poor Khodorkovsky probably wouldn't be alone at the labor camp. The reason they are on the run and will not face the charges is because they are very likely guilty as sin too. Mr. Sharansky along with most other Eurasia regional experts knows full well that the oligarchs and organized crime leaders were out of control and breaking just about every rule and law on the books in their unfettered quests to become Russia's version of America's Robber Barons in a lightning fast ten year period. These men went from rags to Billionaires in months and they were killing, maiming and stomping on anyone that got in their way and Mr. Sharansky knows this too.

The ill-gotten gain and influence these extra-legal, above-the-law oligarchs wielded prior to President Putin was far more dangerous and inimical to the rule of law and democratic advancement than any of the so-called democratic back sliding events Mr. Sharansky attempts to place on the current government. Mr. Sharansky knows that the current period in Russian democratic advancement is far more stable, constitutional, rule-of-law oriented, and more fair than the period of the Oligarchy which preceded Putin. Nobody could get anything done during the so-called period of democracy that Mr. Sharansky seems to think existed prior to President Putin without paying obeisance (and large sums of cash) to the oligarchs, crime bosses, and corrupt government officials who were on the mafia's dole.

Objective facts such as assassination of legitimate businessmen, the lack of prosecuting officials accused of bribery and corruption, the amount and frequency of bribes required to do business in Russia, etcetera are all improved dramatically since Vladimir Putin was elected. The reason Western interests and Western investors have dramatically increased capital investments in Russia has nothing to do with their lack of morals as Mr. Sharansky and others seem to be implying, but on the contrary they see advancement in openness (democracy), decreases in corruption, and transparency in government operations on the rise. Most objective people in the world call this progress.not regression.

Regression (Backsliding) implies that one was more advanced and has dropped back. This is simply patently false. Russia was not more democratic and rule-of-law oriented prior to President Putin. In fact, a very small group of extremely wealthy and totally selfish men were allied with numerous criminal elements and were working hard to subvert the legitimate will of the people in order to maintain their own powerful perks, privileges, and positions as the unelected ruling elite of the Russian people. They didn't try to use the rule of law to legitimately change things like President Putin has done. They didn't have to because they were using money and the threat of violence to subvert the rule of law and influence things to their own advantage and not to the Russian people's advantage.

Nearly every person I know who follows Eurasian and Russian development in particular knew prior to Putin and knows now that the two main obstacles to Russian democratic advancement were the Oligarchs and the powerful mafia controlled regional governments who had fashioned a loose-confederated government within the Russian Federation. The Oligarchs and the most powerful regional clans controlled Russia and ran it into the ground for personal gain. The Kremlin (Federal Government) was marginalized, infiltrated, and influenced by numerous unelected mega-wealthy persons. President Putin, like America's Teddy Roosevelt, had to exert government control and reign in the Robber Barons and the regional clan controlled governments. Just because he chose to do it in an organized and controlled manner over a period of time rather than coming in with both guns blazing doesn't make it wrong. In fact, the cool, calm, and collected manner that he has set about dismantling the power of the oligarchy and mafia is completely in character for President Putin and any psychologist or observant person would tell you that this is how he thinks, works, and executes his plans. Most of these Russia focused people will also tell you that they thought the problem was so bad back then that they would have bet against President Putin being able to overcome the situation and come out on top.

Mr. Sharansky also fails to give credit where credit is due. To put it into perspective President Putin is attempting to lead a country that covers eleven time zones, has a nuclear arsenal as large as America's, a population of 170 million, a Wahabbi supported radical Islamic guerilla war in Chechnya that is spreading into Dagestan and Ingushetia (every bit as intense as America's struggle in Afghanistan and Iraq) except his is inside of his sovereign borders, a depression that makes the US Great Depression look like a time of plenty, an average life-span for a Russian citizen that looks like something from the Dark Ages, and to top it off he is managing all of this on a budget a little larger than New York City's. Talk about a bridge to far.

There are only two types of people on the planet who would take his job - an unintelligent megalomaniac (Sadam Hussein comes to mind) or a true blue patriot in love with his country. And, Putin is the latter and that is why President Bush said I looked him in the eyes and got a sense of his soul. This is someone I can work with. Both Bush and Putin are plainspoken (often tongue-tied) centrist oriented patriots trying to lead their countries to a better place. A man (a non-politician) like Putin is preferable to a suave, smooth, sophisticated, silver-tongued devil any day.

It is part of the human condition to notice the 5% left undone and ignore the 95% already accomplished. If he had only just held everything together, it would still be an incredible accomplishment, but he has gone into the super human category and actually started pulling out of the nosedive that looked like a sure bet to crash. If President Putin were to simply sit back now and coast, his legacy would still be viewed with great admiration by historians of the next century. One doesn't have to know history very well to be able to find leaders who were faced with many of the same circumstances. Putin like Lincoln has a civil war, like T. Roosevelt he is attempting to exert government control over extremely powerful Robber Barons, and like FDR he is dealing with a very severe depression.

He has three gargantuan problems to deal with all at once and three of the greatest leaders in American history only had to deal with one at a time. Our collective hats should be off to President Putin.

Mr. Sharansky as always has written brilliantly, but he is cherry picking select little morsels of information to make his case that Russia is backsliding on the democracy front and leaving out the underlying reasons for recent events, which in my humble opinion is intellectually dishonest.

Another very influential thinker from the Holy Land once said, "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considereth not the beam that is in thine own eye?" Mr. Sharansky's considerable worldwide influence should be used first in his own adopted land to bring democracy to the Palestinians then maybe he could move back to Russia and run for office and help them advance democratically according to his own particular theoretical formula. I suspect that he would find out very quickly that his theoretical evangelical democracy philosophizing and his casting of stones from afar would run smack head on into the reality of the sheer difficulty of advancing democracy realistically on the ground with real humans and real conditions.

[x5452]

The birth rate is low because abortion isn't outlawed during a time of population crisis and the west NGOs like Open Society give free cash for abortions and condoms.

I've been to Russia numerous times, my wife is Russian, there's a slew of reasons for low life expetancy none of them are Putin.

[x5452]

For instance.

Up until this year no one was forced by the state into paying for insurance (western companies f*d that up).

Still at the Rossiya hotel, which is dead center of Red Square on the top floor I can open the 12 foot tall windows wide, and get great camera shots of St Basils.

I could never do this in America because of the risk of some nut job jumping out of the window.

I was born in Upstate NY, and my parents ancestry is mostly irish, not a drop of Russian blood in me. Typically I beleive the slur has something to do with potatoes and drinking, nothing about Ivan.

Bigot.

[wtc911]

I was born in Upstate NY, and my parents ancestry is mostly irish, not a drop of Russian blood in me.

==============================================

Yet you only post on russian-themed threads and addressed another freeper with a question in russian.

And you are correct, I am a bigot - I don't like propagandists.

[wtc911]

I have no doubt that Russia is more free today than it was in the past but the facts are that Putin is chipping away at those freedoms through free-press censorship and the new amendments to legislation that impose severe federal restrictions on freedom of association (eg - the Boy Scouts could not get started there without 'official' permission - neither could a health co-op, a neighborhood watch, a credit union, a local environment group, etc).

I've not been to Russia nor do I consider myself an expert on Russia. There is a significant number of Russian-born people in my area and a few of them are friends and associates. There are professional foreign policy/affairs think tanks that publish essays on Russia with regularity. There is this thing we call the internet that lets the intellectually curious find access to all sides of any issue (including statements in the Congressional Record by Republican members on the subject). I base my statement that Russia is not as free as the USA and that Putin is eroding the freedoms that do exist there on info culled all these different sources.

I wish that the Russian people would embrace a truly western style of democracy (and capitalism). I believe the world would be a better place for it. Unfortunately, recent events indicate that this might not happen.

[x5452]

You love propagandists. Folks like yourself post main stream media drivel from the most known sources of propaganda as gospel when they attack Russia.

Further I hardly ONLY post on Russia themed threads I also post on Catholic and Orthodox threads.

I used to post on evolution threads but it is clear that there are no evolutionists on the fence on FR so it is a silly debate, and not worth the effort.

Further you have quite identified yourself by both your name calling and your reactionary responses presuming me to be Russian;you are a bigot.

[ClaireSolt]

Your post bothers me for two reasons. First, you seem willing to equate your own pedestrian experience with the political savy of Sharansky.

Second, your analogy with American history does not work for me. The fact is that TR did not jail any "robber barons" and nationalize their companies. Trust busting was handled in such a way that the corporate giants and their heirs played vital roles in the business and public life of the country and still do. Likewise, he did not close down Wm Randolf Hearst, even though the term "yellow journalism" was coined to describe his style. Here is a very interesting recent economic history of the US that will explain how some of that looks now, in view of the progress in the field of economics in the last 100 years. Amazon.com: How Capitalism Saved America : The Untold History of Our Country, from the Pilgrims to the Present: Books by Thomas Dilorenzo.

We are seeing a wave of populism. The problem with leaders who think that they have to do everything themselves and appear to then be overworked is that they shut down other power centers which they see as rivals. Then the society suffers from an impoverishment of leadership talent.

As you mentioned New York, it is germane to note that it seems very content putting a billionaire to work as mayor rather than calling him a crook and imprisoning him.

I am concerned by what a trio (Putin, Chavez, Ahmenijad)of egotiscal populists with poor judgement could do to the world economy by doing things like cutting off gas supply to Europe, as Putin did last week.

I am sure it is not all bad, but what you call Sharansky's cherry picking might also be regarded as early warning by someone who's been there.