Vladimir Putin’s determination to turn Russia into the opposite of America has done Russian citizens no favors. Scholars may debate whether this impulse has been out of self-interest or disdain for the West. Recent events, such as the mutiny of the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and his march on Moscow, show that Russia is more unstable and less free today than in many years.
The opposite of the Bill of Rights
In most countries, globalization has meant choosing the best that other nations have to offer and incorporating it into their culture, society, and economy. However, Vladimir Putin appears determined to prevent the best elements in the United States from taking root in Russia, which the country’s human rights groups say has harmed its citizens.
Natan Sharansky, a prominent dissident jailed during Soviet times, believes that the repression in Russia under Putin is worse than when Sharansky lived in the Soviet Union. “Almost half a century later, with Moscow’s barbaric aggression against Ukraine, Russia has experienced a rapid return to almost Stalinist-era levels of repression,” writes Sharansky, now living in Israel. “The new laws have made it impossible for the free press and human rights organizations to function.”
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to assemble peacefully and petition the government to redress grievances. Other amendments guarantee the right to fair trials and against unreasonable searches and seizures and cruel and unusual punishments.
Today, the Russian media cannot operate independently without fear of the government shutting down their outlets and detaining their journalists. This makes getting accurate information about Prigozhin’s recent actions more difficult for Russians and foreigners.
“In the last year, Russia has indicted 482 people under new wartime censorship laws hastily passed in the days immediately after the invasion began in February 2022,” according to the Financial Times. “He has imprisoned 136 of them. The crackdown has essentially crushed dissent in Russia – defined under the law as anything that deviates from the official Kremlin line – prompting hundreds of activists and independent journalists to flee the country.
Criticizing the war or the government in any meaningful way has become impossible in Russia (with the exception of Prigozhin), as the unusual punishments of Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza demonstrate. In 2020, the Russian government poisoned Navalny, an outspoken critic of Putin and corruption among Putin’s appointees. Upon returning to Russia after life-saving medical treatment, authorities arrested and jailed Navalny on questionable charges that could carry him to life in prison. The Russian government convicted Kara-Murza, a Washington Post Opinions columnist and legal permanent resident of the United States, of treason for making speeches in which he described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Analysts have pointed to the double standards of the Russian government. Professor Brian D. Taylor of Syracuse University said Putin called Yevgeny Prigozhin’s actions “treason,” but the Russian government announced the Wagner group leader would not face criminal charges. “In the meantime, speaking out peacefully for democracy [in Russia] and against war could take you 25 years,” Taylor said.
1984 arrives in Russia
Another way that Vladimir Putin has brought Russia back to the days of the Soviet Union is by encouraging citizens to rat on each other. “Parishioners have denounced Russian priests who advocated peace rather than victory in the war against Ukraine,” the Washington Post reports. “Teachers lost their jobs after their children told them that they were against the war. Neighbors who held some trivial grudge for years have ratted out lifelong enemies. Workers report each other to their bosses or directly to the police or the FSB, the Federal Security Service.
“This is the hostile and paranoid atmosphere of Russians at war with Ukraine and with each other. As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime cracks down on war critics and other political dissidents, citizens keep tabs on each other, echoing the darkest years of Joseph Stalin’s crackdown, triggering investigations, criminal charges, prosecutions and dismissals.
Private conversations in restaurants and train cars are the target of snoopers, who call in the police to arrest “traitors” and “enemies.” Social media posts and messages – even in private chat groups – become incriminating evidence that can lead FSB agents to knock on the door.”
In 2022, the Sydney Morning Herald reported George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 as “the most popular fiction download,” according to Russian online bookstore LitRes.
Although the Russian authorities have accused critics of “Russophobia,” many teachers and others in the West have studied Russia and its language because they like its culture, its history and its people. When they have criticized Putin or the actions of the Russian government, it is because they wanted the best for the Russian people and for those who live in countries close to Russia: freedom, human rights and opportunities.
Russian citizens and the dictatorship
Probably the most significant way that Vladimir Putin has turned Russia into the opposite of the United States is by centralizing so much authority in his hands. Congress, the courts, and the United States Constitution limit the power of an American president. An American president can be removed by vote, limited to two terms, and impeached and removed.
Since Boris Yeltsin handed over the reins of power to Putin in 1999, he has not relinquished them, despite a brief change in office from president to prime minister to president several years ago. Elections in Russia have been staged to ensure Putin’s victories. The government removed viable opposition candidates through disbarment, imprisonment, or other means.
The arrest of Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich in March 2023 is intertwined with two long-term trends in Russia, according to Catholic University professor Michael Kimmage. “The first is the arrival of Mr. Putin to the dictatorship without palliatives,” writes Kimmage. “Today, the Putinist social contract is clear: people in Russia will be left alone by the state only if they do not significantly challenge the government’s good reputation or decision-making, which is what bona fide journalism almost does.” by definition.” The second trend is the establishment of a lawless foreign policy, in which the autocrat can rewrite the rules of international order with impunity.”
Russian pundit Mark Galeotti, author of We Need To Talk About Putin, saw the arrest of Evan Gershkovich as a turning point. He believes that Russia “is tiptoeing closer to a kind of ‘North Koreanization.’” Galeotti writes: “This is not the kind of country most Russians want for themselves, but the more Putinism becomes Juche-with-Russian-characteristics, by invoking the North Korean ideology of isolation and self-reliance, the more the gap between Putin and his people, who will be able to do less and less about it.”
Commenting on the Prigozhin mutiny and Putin’s inability to prevent it or punish Wagner’s leader, Galeotti writes: “It was a devastating indictment against Putin’s system and against Putin himself.”
Vladimir Putin may be weakened, but he continues to wield power. According to Catherine Belton and Robyn Dixon of the Washington Post, Putin “has scrapped any vestiges of the rule of law” in Russia in an effort to achieve his goals in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin may consider it an achievement to turn Russia into the opposite of America. Still, the results for Russian citizens have been an isolated country, unnecessary war, and less freedom.
Stuart Anderson
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