Russia Profile’s Weekly Experts’ Panel: The Advent of a Liberal-Patriotic Agenda? (www.russiaprofile.org) by Peter Lavelle
Peter Lavelle: Russia’s liberal intelligentsia has surrendered the critical idea of nationalism to the state, leaving the country’s rising middle-class with an interesting opportunity to create Russia’s own form of patriotic liberalism.
Commentaries on Russian politics almost always focus on the Kremlin’s ruling elite and its big business allies. These kinds of commentaries are not really about politics; they are about power. The Kremlin’s power is essentially devoid of ideological rigidity. It has skillfully captured most of the ideological spectrum for its own purposes and has mostly avoided popular dissent. Politics as ideology, as practiced during the Yeltsin years, remains decidedly out of fashion.
This lack of ideological rigidity has had some interesting, and – for the West – disappointing, side effects. Political opposition to the Kremlin and its popular pedestal party, United Russia, has forced opposition parties to demonstrate ideological rigidity in order to define themselves.
Russia’s nationalist parties have benefited most of all from the Kremlin’s politics-as-power approach. Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), and Dmitry Rogozin’s Rodina have successfully captured the nationalist-patriotic platform.
Russia’s liberal opposition has fared far worse. Representing what could be called the traditional liberalism of the intelligentsia, they too speak in terms of power. Their demand to be elected on the basis of their increasingly rigid ideological stance over human rights and social issues is simply untenable under the current conditions. The vast majority of the electorate remains indifferent to their message.
What limits the widespread appeal of Russia’s nationalists and liberals is their self-identification. Each group focuses too much on their own exclusive ideology while the Kremlin’s United Russia party accepts everything in between.
By intent or otherwise, Putin’s style of politics has initiated the creation of what rightly could be called “politics of representation” reflecting social interests. Russia’s economic boon has given life to what will eventually result in a political agenda uniting Russia’s nationalist-patriotic and liberal elements. This new agenda will have little interest in known liberal firebrands.
Russia’s developing patriotic-liberal agenda will probably be replete with rough edges not accepted by traditional liberals or today’s popular nationalists, but it won’t take another revolution for it to become politically hegemonic. This new agenda won’t be overly concerned with property rights regarding former Soviet assets; it won’t be anti-Western, or interested in Western charity to support its cause, although it can be expected to be very much pro-individuality and entrepreneurship. It will be a very pragmatic agenda, and open to compromise.
Is the above prognosis in the cards? Isn’t the decline of the ideological parties and ideological politics a natural result of Putin’s agenda?
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