Putin Wins, Russia Loses
Vladimir Putin's landslide victory in Russia's weekend elections is worrisome whether or not the accusations of fraud and "dirty tricks" prove true, writes Kim Zigfeld. If they were legit, "it means the population of Russia is willingly embracing what can only be called a neo-Soviet dictatorship. If they were fraudulent, "it means we already see before us a fully realized totalitarian state. Either way, it's a dark new age for Russia."
Until this weekend’s parliamentary “elections” in Russia, one of the strangest facts in all the nation’s long history was that when Russian President Boris Yeltsin advised his countrymen to elect his hand-picked successor, Vladimir Putin, the Russian people overwhelmingly followed his advice – even though Yeltsin himself had single-digit approval in public opinion polls when he left office on New Year’s Eve in 1999,
Putin, a proud KGB spy, was elected just a few years after the system created by the KGB for governing Russia had collapsed like a house of marked cards.
Things got even stranger last weekend. On Friday, the only man who could claim an even lower level of popularity in Russia than Yeltsin during the past decade – the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev – endorsed Putin in the International Herald Tribune, writing that “I see nothing wrong in Putin’s desire to influence the course of events in Russia after his second presidential term ends. I think he has shown wisdom and courage. Russia will need his experience in addressing the challenges of modernization and continued democratization.”
This came on the heels of the former Communist Gorbachev doing print ads for Louis Vuitton (complete with secret messages about the Litvinenko murder) and an endorsement of Putin several months ago by former arch anti-Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
The irony was intense. Even as these former lights of the Soviet darkness praised Putin, his number-one fan in the West, U.S. Presdident George Bush, was trashing him. Commenting on Putin’s behavior in the run-up to the elections, Bush said: “I am deeply concerned about the detention of numerous human rights activists and political leaders who participated in peaceful rallies in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, and Nazran. I am particularly troubled by the use of force by law enforcement authorities to stop these peaceful activities and to prevent some journalists and human rights activists from covering them. The freedoms of expression, assembly and press, as well as due process, are fundamental to any democratic society. I am hopeful that the government of Russia will honor its international obligations in these areas, investigate allegations of abuses and free those who remain in detention.” Bush stopped short of saying he might have been wrong with he famously “looked into Putin’s eyes,” saw his soul and found him “trustworthy,” but not far short.
In any type of rational electoral system, Gorbachev’s endorsement should have been the kiss of death for Putin. Once again, though, Russia seemed to prove itself capable of setting aside rationality in favor of an abstract hope for prestige and stability.
And so the apparent irrationality continued. Though Russian law forbids the president, supposedly a non-partisan figure, from taking actions to influence the outcome of parliamentary voting, and though his party, United Russia, was already leading its nearest rival by a factor of six in public opinion polls, Putin still appeared on national television two days in advance of the elections and demanded that the country support him on pain of “disintegration” and “humiliation”
Just after his speech was broadcast Russia’s leading opposition figure, Garry Kasparov, was released from prison after serving a five day stretch for marching with his party without Putin’s permission. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he warned: “For years the governments of the U.S. and Europe have tried to accept Vladimir Putin’s Russia as an equal. Western diplomats now acknowledge that there are differences between Russia and the West, but say these differences are minor, and — in the words of one European Union official — within an ‘acceptable range.’All of the ‘minor differences’ between Mr. Putin’s Russia and the nations of the free world add up to one very large difference: that between democracy and tyranny.” He saw irony too, writing: “Why is Mr. Putin so scared if things are going so well?”
Though Putin had promised a “transparent” election “without systemic flaws” such that no foreign observers would be needed at its polling places, even as he spoke there were already complaints of aggressive efforts to coerce Russian state employees, a vast cadre in Russia, to vote for United Russia or lose their jobs. Serious pressure was also brought to bear on groups that depend heavily on government largesse, like students (virtually all of Russia’s significant universities are state-owned). The BBC quoted one civil servant as follows: “On voting day, all of them have to call me by midday to say that they have voted for United Russia. I was told it was serious. It was like a warning.” It then quoted Vladislav Korolyov, a liberal opposition party leader, complaining that his phone had been bugged, he had been followed and had 2 million of his campaign leaflets confiscated.
A major push was uncovered to issue absentee ballots, easily manipulated, to a legion of state employees, with the number distributed already three times higher than in the last parliamentary ballot. Many polling places were being outfitted with miniature department stores stocked with discounted merchandise, and even makeshift medical clinics, to draw in voters. Although Putin pledged to rid Russia of its much-complained-of “oligarchy” when he first came to power, allegedly a product of Yeltsin’s malfeasance, Newsweek quoted Kremlin-connected analyst Stanislav Belkovsky as saying recent: “Russia is much more of an oligarchy now than under Yeltsin.”
Putin had still more surprises in store. On Friday, the Moscow Times reported that a poll showed 69% of those who watched televised parliamentary debates thought United Russia did a good job in them. The only problem: the party had refused to participate, on Putin’s orders, so the voters had been neatly duped. The paper stated: “United Russia received from 57 percent to 62 percent of all prime-time political news coverage from Oct. 1 to Nov. 22, according to the CJES study. United Russia receiv[ed] twice as many mentions as the Communist Party, its closest competitor. Only 1.5 percent of the television audience watched the debates, which were broadcast at 7 a.m. and after midnight.” There were other marked Soviet overtones. Just as in Soviet times, a barrage of gifts were offered to voters who showed up at the polling place.
Then finally, after an election cycle whose history will read more like pulp fiction than political science, the people of Russia went to the polls and had their say.
Perhaps a 42-year-old woman named Valentina, voting in Moscow and quoted by Reuters, best summed up the proceedings “I voted for Putin. I worship him. I like that he is a young president — and in any case there is no alternative.” The elections had been called a “sham” and an “insult to democracy” and “ludicrous” and “farce.” These words set up a marked contrast between Russia’s internal domestic political enviornment and its membership on the G-8 group, supposedly a “a forum for the world’s major industrialised democracies.” For this reason, Senator John McCain and others have called for Russia’s ejection from the group.
While the results won’t be official certified until the end of the week, they’ve been a foregone conclusion for months now, ever since Putin announced he would assume leadership of United Russia and might seek the prime ministry after the elections. The only open question was just how ruthless Putin was prepared to be in denying any other party as much as a token presence in the Duma. It was thought that the best Putin’s opponenents could hope for was a less than a 60% landslide for his party (especially if combined with turnout of less than 50%). The bare minimum for Putin to claim his “mandate” was “60-60″ — 60% turnout and 60% of that vote going to Putin.
Preliminary results showed Putin had achieved or slightly exceed this minimum goal. His party of choice, United Russia, was seen taking roughy 63% of the seats with exactly 60% voter turnout, while “Just Russia” — a second party slavishly loyal to Putin — was securing about 8% and fourth place out of four parties who will likely qualify for seats.. This gave parties expressly devoted to Putin around 70% of the vote, basically the same share of the ballots carried by Putin himself in his reelection four years ago, with the Communist Party taking about 12% in a distant second place. Ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s “Liberal Democrats” appeared to be in third place, right behind the Communists with about 10%. Zhirinovsky, too, is reliably in Putin’s camp. Since only parties taking 7% or more of the vote will actually receieve seats, the percentages of parties clearing the barrier will end up getting exanded somewhat in the final allcoation of seats, and it seems that the parties loyal to Putin will end up with about 400 of the 450 available Duma seats – close to 90% of the body, with at least three-quarters officially pledged to Putin and perhaps a constitutional majority of two-thirds going to United Russia itself. The only “opposition” to Putin, the proud KGB spy, will be card-carrying communists, with all the pro-West, pro-democracy parties now totally purged from the Duma. United Russia will name its presidential candidate in two weeks, on December 17.
An editorial in the Moscow Times spoke of “paranoia from a Kremlin intent on controlling every aspect of politics” and declared the obvious: “No Western election observer is needed to determine that this vote did not meet the common standards of being free and transparent.” But the issue of fraud seems largely moot. If the results were not fraudulent, it means the population of Russia is willingly embracing what can only be called a neo-Soviet dictatorship (or perhaps paleo-Soviet would be a better term, since this version is not as rich in ideology and purported idealism as its predecessor). If they were significantly fraudulent, it means we already see before us a fully realized totalitarian state. Either way, it’s a dark new age for Russia.
Many Russians express disappointment with democracy as Russia has become a mere shadow of the mighty USSR, they clearly miss two points, and their recent vote expresses profound contempt for the institution. But this disappointment is without grounding in fact, for two reasons. First, much of the voters’ current misery (less than $3 an hour for an average wage, less than 60 years for an average male lifetime) is obviously attributable to the failures of the USSR itself. Second, they’ve never really experienced democracy. In every “election” since the fall of the USSR the only major opposition party has been the Communists, and the party of power has consisted mostly of those who came of age in the USSR. Not once have there been presidential debates, much less has a party in power surrendered it to a rival.
Russians have, in short, seated themselves in the democratic bathtub but they’ve never turned on the faucet. So it’s ironic that, now, they blame democracy for the fact that they’re not yet clean.
Kim Zigfeld is a New York City-based writer who blogs at the Pajamas Media Network blog Publius Pundit and publishes her own Russia specialty blog, La Russophobe. She also writes for Russia! magazine and is researching a book on the rise of dictatorship in Putin’s Russia.
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23 Comments
1. David W. Lincoln:It makes me wonder: where in the Russian soul do we find the overlap between Pravda and Svoboda?
Under Putin, and the long list of oppressive thugs that have afflicted that land since the Mongol invasion – Pravda and Svoboda are mutually exclusive.
Dec 3, 2007 - 11:24 am 2. Tom:I don’t know why Pajamas Media publicizes the anonymous blogging collective known as Kim Zigfeld.
First of all, the writing is shrill and hysterical, and rather than actually debate anyone or counter them point by point, the style is basic schoolyard name calling and abuse.
Second, there are plenty of other Russia watchers who have sharply been critical of Putin in a less chicken little way, like Sean Guillory, who writes much better stuff (in spite of being a Marxist). But the best PJM can do is Kim Zigfeld?
This is a person who writes that if if certain academics urging a more calm or realistic approach to Russia don’t have pages on Wikipedia, then he or she must be a “loser”. And if you can’t find a Russian educational institution by Googling for it in English, it must also not exist (KZ also once questioned the existence of powdered cane sugar in Russia, something even the darkest corners of the USSR could get from Cuba thirty years ago, and also claimed that other bloggers photos were faked, like the moon landings). And no one even asks if any member of this anonymous blogging collective has ever actually been to Russia even as they heap scorn on other people’s credentials.
KZ repeats silly claims, like that Khodorkovsky was given an additional sentence for not raising his hands above his head in jail, that come straight from his lawyer, Robert Amsterdam. Nobody here asks, as even that notorious Russophile Anne Applebaum did writing for the Washington Post, what Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s money has bought in Washington D.C., or Berezovsky’s in London. Did anyone tell Tom Lantos in 2005 that Khodorkovsky’s chief of security, Oleg Pichugin, was facing capital murder charges for killing a Yukos exec in the same house as his family? Or that he’d also threatened a former secretary of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, the 2nd most powerful politician in Russia? Talk about winning friends and influencing people! Would anyone here at PJM care to guess why McCain has been so anti-Russia? Nothing to do with George Soros funding, and Bush being “soft” on Putin has nothing to do with Houston being in his home state. Wake up folks.
Is it really so incredible to think that Berezovsky, who almost took over the Kremlin in the late Nineties, won his aslyum in Britain by spilling secrets? Although how useful they were, who knows…probably garbage. But with BP-TNK and other deals on the line, and Israel and Britain start making noises about considering Russia’s extradition requests, then boom, suddenly Politkovskaya then Litvinenko die.
And then there are other idiotic things accepted as gospel in D.C. Is Kazahkstan really freer than Russia? If you believe the Freedom House rankings it is, even with a real president for life, and if you believe Reporters Without Borders, there’s as much press freedom in Zimbabwae as Russia. Can anyone who has actually been to Moscow or St. Petersburg and logged on to any website they want to read (like 35 million other Russians, or almost 1/4th of the country) believe this crap? No, but thousands of Pajamas Media readers will.
Was Ukraine entitled to natural gas at half the price Western Europe paid? Apparently some “free marketers” claim it was. Is Belarus a slavish servant of the Kremlin one day and a victim of energy imperialism the next? That’s downright Orwellian, but that was essentially what Bret Stephens said, insulting the intelligence of anyone in his audience for the recent debate covered by the Weekly Standard, “Resolved: Russia Is Becoming Our Enemy Again”.
Was Litvinenko killed by “the KGB” or by Boris Berezovsky, the man the late Forbes journalist Paul Klebnikov called the Godather of the Kremlin? Wretchard the Cat of the Belmont Club certainly was willing to consider the possibilities, but try getting KZ to acknowledge that anyone outside of the Kremlin might have wanted Litvinenko dead. Guilty until proven innocent, no?
Are ordinary Georgians helped by $5,000 per attendee conferences put on by American think tanks in Tblisi? No, but that’s what some D.C. think tanks are doing in Georgia. They have no connection with reality and are not doing anything for the Georgian people, but because Saakashvili speaks English and went to Columbia and hires good lobbyists in D.C., they say Georgia is now way ahead of the rest of the CIS in terms of corruption, without the slightest real evidence to support this claim.
Above all, does pouring out hatred and contempt for the Russian people day in and day out on a blog that gets a tiny fraction of the traffic of English Russia (a funny photo site) do a damn thing to advance the cause of freedom and human rights in Russia? Or is it all just glorified intellectual masturbation for the benefit of a bunch of old farts in D.C. who can’t let go of the Cold War and still talk about bringing down the USSR as the high point of their lives?
Geez, even Reagan said that the Cold War was over in 1987 and offered to share SDI with Gorbachev! Maybe he knew someday we might need to ally with the Russians again, the way we did in two World Wars, against Napoleon, and against the Taliban after 9/11? And yet those claiming Reagan’s legacy want to put interceptors right on the Russian border, 2,000 miles away from Iran. What insanity is this? If we want to shoot down Iranian missiles, than put the interceptors closer to the source of the threat, to hit them in their boost phase rather than when they’re coming in at 15,000 miles an hour surrounded by decoys.
How about highlighting the work of American missionaries and businessmen who are actually doing something for the Russian people, rather than all this screeching noise? Because that is all it is. Thomas P.M. Barnett is right. It’s all noise for old men longing for an old familiar world.
Dec 3, 2007 - 9:26 pm 3. chuck:During the 04 election campaign, a Brit Paper, the Guardian maybe, obtained the names and addresses of registered voters in a county that was considered critical to carrying Ohio one way or the other. The paper had the bright idea of having its readers each contact one of the voters to tell them what a bad man Bush was and that they mustn’t reelect him.
The effort completely backfired, achieving nothing except e-mailbags full of irate responses telling the foreigners to keep their snotty noses out of it, to borrow Putin’s expression. Carping over their election results won’t be appreciated by Russians either
It’d be wiser to observe the civilities between sovereign nations, congratulate esteemed President Putin on his victory, and then use the classic tools of diplomacy–carrots and sticks, if we have any—to break up the Russia/China club.
It’s a lot easier to get the world to eat Big Macs than to swallow this democracy juice we’re pushing.
Dec 4, 2007 - 7:25 am 4. Candide:I agree that there was too much ignorant and overblown rhetorics about modern Russia lately. Such rhetorics are especially amazing when uttered by the US conservatives. Apparently they don’t know that the biggest loser of Putin’s political reforms was the Russian Communist Party. Do we really want Communist Party to wield large influence in Russia? They don’t realize that Kasparov is a Russian version of Cindy Sheehan (only with a bigger brain). They don’t know that Kasparov opinions about US politics, for example, come straight from extreme Left textbooks. Do we really want such politicians to gain real influence in Russia? I can understand the Left overlooking all this, but how can conservatives do the same? Thinking people really need to take a step back and take a fresh sober look at the true situation in Russia.
I especially can’t abide the outrageous stupid statements that Tsarist/Communist/Putin Russia is one and the same, i.e. evil. Why did Communist murder the Tsar and his whole family? What was the bloody Civil War all about? Why Communists murdered tens of millions in forced labor extermination camps? Why Communists finally lost power? Because all the Russians are inherently evil?
Communist Russia was an abomination. Ronald Reagan understood that. When Reagan spoke about ‘Evil Empire’ he meant USSR, not Russia! Russia may often be an adversary, but it is not an enemy like USSR used to be. For example, just recently there was a period of unpleasant adverse relations between the US and France. Such periods are practically inevitable in World politics. No need to get excited too much.
Having said that, I still disagree with ‘chuck’ statement about ‘democracy juice’. Russians need that ‘democracy juice’ like political water. They may be heading the right way but they haven’t broke the fresh ground yet. Russians know how to recognize a strong hand and submit to it. What they still need to learn is how to control that strong hand and wield it for the most benefit. The only way to do that is to develop strong and legitimate political opposition, that will put restraints on the party in power. Otherwise Russia will lapse into another period of oppression and stagnation.
Dec 4, 2007 - 11:56 am 5. Josh:To take Ms. Zigfeld’s “bathtub” analogy further, Russians have pretty much taken the knife of authoritarianism and slit their wrists of democracy, and all of the freedom-blood is draining away… But really should we be surprised? Putin came to power in shame elections, he shut down the opposition media first thing, and he’s been attacking democratic and pro-Western institutions ever since. We’ve woken up too late to change Russia peaceably and through civil society. We don’t have any “soft” influence anymore. And we can’t ignore the inimical skimpy midget Putin, because he arms Hezbollah, Chavez, and he plays gas politics with his neighbors to bring them to their knees. That leaves only two options: either the Neville Chamberlain option, or the Winston Churchill option. Time for some more blood sweat and tears to protect our way of life, people.
Dec 4, 2007 - 2:36 pm 6. chuck,:candide,
What they still need to learn is how to control that strong hand and wield it for the most benefit. The only way to do that is to develop strong and legitimate political opposition, that will put restraints on the party in power
No argument there, but the Russians themselves must find their way there. We can’t do it for them, and shouldn’t try to. Meanwhile, this world is careening on its miserable and bloody way, and it would better for us and Russia if we buried the hatchet.
To rewrite the headline to this piece:
Putin Wins, America Carps. China smirks.
Dec 4, 2007 - 2:37 pm 7. Josh:If I may quote myself:
What Russia really needs is a democracy life-coach. We in the West are willing to help. Russians must stop acting like petulant evil children, and start accepting the fact that they need to learn from us in the West FOR YOUR OWN GOOD and not because we’re trying to control you. We want to make your country beter, when are you going to stop “rebelling” and start listening to us? I use the child analogy loosely because in this case, the child has his hand on the nuclear button, and as we all know, sometimes to protect other people’s freedoms, if a child behaves too inimically and poses too much of a threat to his neighbors, then he can be tried as an adult. And punished as a adult. Even if that means the ultimate punishment. Ponimaesh?
Dec 4, 2007 - 2:59 pm 8. Ray:I wouldn’t take Kim too seriously, she certainly doesn’t. Earlier this year she attacked Russia! magazine as a Kremlin propaganda organ: http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2007/03/sunday-magazine-russia.html
Now on her blog she brags that Russia! published her article, and sells Kim Zigfeld coffee mugs to boot. Yes, even Kim Zigfeld is for sale. And her price isn’t all that high, not if her deal with the Kremlin is “I’ll boost your magazine’s credibility if you let me sell my coffee mugs on your site.” Pathetic.
Dec 4, 2007 - 3:54 pm 9. Tom:“plays gas politics with his neighbors to bring them to their knees”.
Boy, those uppity Ukrainians sure have been brought to their knees – didn’t their economy grow 6% in 2006 after the gas price hike, and weren’t they still paying about half of what the Germans pay? As for those AKs to Chavez…well you can’t stuff ballot boxes with AKs, can you? And arming Hezbollah? It would be more correct to say someone in Rosboronexport got a huge kickback on an arms sale to Syria and then the Syrians resell the stuff to Hezbollah for a tidy profit.
I may be tired of the hysteria about Russia, but even I know that writing about Chechens and/or arms deals can get you killed. But people can and do write mostly whatever they want about Putin, and when I was in Moscow this year, I read it – in the Moscow Times, Echo Moskvky, Oborona, Kasparov’s website, pro-Chechen independence websites, you name it, it’s all there, uncensored, available to at least a quarter if not one third of the Russian population. And considering apathy in most countries, how many of those would actually be paying attention anyway?
Stop drinking the Zigfeld koolaid. Everyone’s sick to death of hearing the Chamberlain/Churchill thing abused. Except for getting all the $$$ it can for its natural resources, Russia is a status quo power with a shrinking population than needs our help long term to avoid becoming Northwest Greater China. And Iran is closer to an Islamic microcosm of Brezhnev’s USSR than it is to Nazi Germany, even if it does sponsor terrorist thugs in Iraq and Lebanon…well the USSR in its death throes could still cause big problems, and so could Iran. But make no mistake about the trend – we don’t need to go to all-out war or drop bombs to beat the mullahs, we just need to keep weakening them any way we can.
I’m glad to see not all of PJM’s readership are buying the Russia (not just Putin) hating drivel, and that there is some actual diversity of viewpoints.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12042007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/democracy_pains_675722.htm
Ralph Peters has it exactly right today – even if United Russia padded its total, Putin would have won a huge majority anyway, and it isn’t entirely Putin’s fault that Russia lacks a real viable opposition other than the Communists.
Spreading democracy is not evil or wrong, and “neocons” certainly aren’t to blame for all the world’s ills. But it cannot be spread at the pace of our present American attention span, either. The irony is that Kim Zigfeld probably thinks empowering the Sunni tribes to crush Al-Qaeda is great – even if they aren’t exactly liberal democrats when it comes to women’s rights or pluralism – but having Putin destroy the Chechen insurgency using similar tactics (turning the Chechens against the terrorists in their midsts) is horrible. If Russia had the same resources that we do and was not in a state of collapse in the Nineties, maybe they could have done that before levelling Grozny and losing 10,000 soldiers. But that’s how it goes – to quote a Rumsfeld remark that many people have unfairly derided as callous, we go to war with the army we have, and we go into the 21st century with the nations that we have.
Poor Kim Zigfeld. Not only in his/her/their book are Pat Buchanan, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Solzhenitsyn senile or traitors to democracy, but so are Ralph Peters, Thomas P.M. Barnett, George W. Bush, and practically anyone else who wants to work with what we have over in Russia rather than just sit here and fantasize about a Soros-funded repeat of the Orange Revolution in Moscow.
Dec 4, 2007 - 4:33 pm 10. Candide:Ray,
Not taking one’s own self too seriously attests to individual’s sanity and maturity.
Dec 4, 2007 - 6:34 pm 11. Ray:Candide,
Dec 5, 2007 - 5:39 am 12. chuck,:I agree. But Kim takes herself VERY seriously as a moral crusader, or at least she’s paid to play that role. She viciously attacks people who have any association with pro-Putin or Kremlin-funded media. And now she works for them and sells coffee mugs from them? I said that people shouldn’t take her seriously because she’s obviously a fake. It would be nice if Kim learned some humility herself, stopped pretending to be a moral crusader with credibility, and admits she’s in it for the money. or, alternatively, even nicer if she took a REAL moral stand against the Putin regime, which deserves our criticism, rather than speaking out of one side of her mouth, and taking money from Putin while she speaks.
To put Kim aside for a moment, if you guys aren’t doing so already, drop in on the London Telegraph’s site now and then. It’s relevant here.
The paper itself, which I think is Tory leaning, is pretty firmly anti Putin and Russia’s doings lately, but it’s the comment section that’s interesting. The readership by and large aren’t buying the message.
The largest group say that that if there’s a dangerous country that must be stopped, it’s Bush’s America, not Putin’s Russia. Grossly unfair, but that’s another subject.
You can also hear from a fairly numerous contingent of Russians, who may be genuine private citizens or may be cyber-cheerleaders on the Kremlin payroll. Either way, writing in more or less functioning English they overwhelmingly love Putin.
The third group is to me the most interesting. These Brits compare Putin with their own pc-driven, spineless politicans, and say they prefer Putin because he is an unabashed patriot who puts his country first. This group is the smallest of the three, so far.
So while we warble on about the delights of democracy, those who have it may increasingly be wishing for something else.
Interesting times.
Dec 5, 2007 - 8:20 am 13. Josh:Clearly those people on Telegraph are Kremlin stooges, or just comatose freaks. I feel sorry for people who don’t understand the threat that Putin poses, but if you read history, then you know that democracy’s weakness is also its greatness, giving rights to the fifth column of appeasers and stooges who would impose a liberal fascist state if they took power. The commenters on this page who discredit Ms. Zigfeld are just pathetic weasels who are probably too stupid to be paid by the Kremlin, they just do Putin’s bidding for him, being the comatsoe freaks that they are.
Dec 5, 2007 - 10:14 am 14. Candide:chuck,
Last winter I stopped at London on the way to Moscow. I was amazed at the anti-US sentiments everywhere in London. So when I was in Russia and Russians would start complaining how unfairly they are portrayed abroad, I would just laugh and say, “You have no idea how unfairly America is portrayed in the world! Get used to it, in the free world everybody trashes everybody all the time.” Generally, Russians were surprised by this. Their thinking is still parochial, based on Russian proverb that friends “Don’t take trash out of the House”, meaning don’t denounce each other before strangers.
That was just another example how Russians are not quite ready for Democracy yet. They simply can’t withstand the pitch of political passions we are used to. The slightest hint of political in-fighting sends them over the edge. May be that’s why they join ranks around Putin. Russians still can’t fathom the level of political hatred and slander that Presidents Clinton and Bush had to go through, for example. They have a lot to learn.
Dec 5, 2007 - 11:33 am 15. Candide:Josh,
Do you realize how authoritarian you sound?
C’mon, cut Putin a little slack. Just compare him with Chavez, for starters.
Chavez can’t open his mouth without trashing the US. Putin never trashes the US outright and sometimes offers praise.
Chavez is trying to rewrite the Venezualan Constitution in his favor and Putin is abiding by Russian Constitution.
Aren’t those positive signs?
Dec 5, 2007 - 11:54 am 16. Natalia:My English is not perfect, but people understand me. And I am reading and learning very quickly.
Dec 5, 2007 - 3:07 pm 17. Tom:I have some words to you:
Arrogance
Ignorance
Parody
Paranoia
Do you like them? It’s English.
I don’t know if Russia! magazine can be considered pro-Putin or Kremlin funded media…and I don’t blame KZ for wanting to make a living. I always wondered how one single person could actually find the time to do this if they weren’t getting paid, and it looks like they weren’t getting paid much…what can we say, NYC is an expensive place.
As for “Josh”, this may be Kim Zigfeld in another guise – to join the ranks of “Lenard”, “Oliver Bronson” and numerous other sock puppets used at other Russia forums and blogs.
What I do blame KZ for is making a name for her (or more likely, himself) through vicious attacks on honest people who are NOT being paid by the Kremlin to say that, democracy or no democracy, we should maybe try to get along better with Russia. After all, there’s only one country (China) that has the potential to become a genuine military competitor with the U.S., and it’s the same one that is also the most likely to covet Russian territory. And did I mention that Russia has had a real jihad problem of its own, and more natural resources than any other country in the world? Three very good reasons not to write it off just because Russia isn’t ready for liberal democracy yet, anymore than we should cut off our Iraqi allies at the knees just because they cannot institute a liberal democracy, though Kurdistan is probably the closest thing to it outside of Israel in the Middle East…
At the end of the day, what angers me the most is that there’s no substance, no real compassion on La Russophobe’s part for the Russian people. Just damn em’ all and curse the majority that supports Putin, that can’t see any better alternative out there, and declare that Russians are getting what they deserve. She even savagely attacks the Russian Orthodox Church, as if you can blame the doctor for the disease. Very Phariseeical, in my view.
Dec 5, 2007 - 5:29 pm 18. Josh:Candide: “Can’t we cut Putin a little slack?”
Sure, good idea. Let’s look the other way while he crushes democracy, murders opponents, and hobnobs with world dictators. If we ignore him, the problem will just go away, right?
Tom: Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not “Kim Zigfeld” and don’t really care who she “really” is. I am a fan of her articles on Russia and Venezuela and Iran, but I have to say I’m disappointed that she will not take a position vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia. I tried to engage her about the mysogyofascism regime that whips women for the crime of being gang-raped, and she ignored me over and over, and finally responded by posting a photo of Putin, the inimical skimpy midget, shaking hands with the Saudi sheik, the greatest misogynist on earth. Ms Zigfeld’s point implicit was “we have to support the misogyofascist Saudis because otherwise they’ll become Putin’s friends.” While this may be true, it undermines the moral purity of our democratic mission. I truly hope that this is not her real view on matters. We must all be driven by the knowledge that If one person is not free, then none of us are free.
Dec 6, 2007 - 4:12 am 19. Candide:Josh,
I only suggested to cut Putin ‘a little slack’ and you interpreted it as ‘looking the other way’.
There is a big difference.
Dec 6, 2007 - 7:37 am 20. chuck,:This is a totally moot what-if question, but it interests me so I’ll ask it.
When Stalin died there was a power struggle within his entourage. Beria, the head of his secret police and almost as murderous as Stalin himself, lost. The other comrades invited him to a meeting and gunned him down– I think that’s how it went.
Now from the point of view of Beria’s colleagues whom he certainly would have liquidated, his death was a good thing, probably too for the Russian people, who didn’t need another mass murderer in charge.
But monster that Beria was, he favored (so I’ve read anyway) reaching a live and let live accommodation with the West. So we might have avoided 50 years of the Cold War. I’d have been tempted to shake hands on that deal.
You guys?
Dec 6, 2007 - 8:49 am 21. Tom:Josh:
Excuse me, I realize you indeed are not the real KZ, who is probably (we hope) looking for a real live day job.
And Josh, are you really sure Berezovsky didn’t kill Litvinenko? – because I’m not. Britain is the leading source of foreign investment capital in Russia, and just when they start making noises about entertaining Russian prosecutors that want Berezosvky (and the Israelis the same with Nevzlin) extradited, suddenly people start dying. The same people who praise Kklebnikov call Putin a murderer, but Klebnikov said Berezovsky was perfectly capable of that sort of thing, and besides, Klebnikov’s last article was titled, “Millionaire Mullahs”. Iranians outsourcing a hit to Chechen mafia? Not so extreme.
Dec 6, 2007 - 7:26 pm 22. Russian Bear:I was glad to read some reasonable and unbiased comments on Kim’s Zigfeld writings on this website, like Tom’s and Candide’s.
KZ is running her(?) own blog La Russophobe and is active on the Publius Pundit blog website, where she posts the same articles signed La Russophobe.
She is graphomaniacly proud to be published on PM too, and always gives links to her articles here.
She thinks she is an expert on Russia. Well, than I, a 54 y.o. man, am Maya Plisetskaya, the balerina.
Her writings are 500% of bias and unobjectivity, absolutly ignorant, and a foul play. Digging the Internet russophobic garbage places and adding her own wild fantasies and stretched conclusions-this is the way how she cooks her articles.
It is a little bit mysterious what keeps her running the blogs and how she got her graphomaniac russophobic obcession. Looks like a team is working, that has managed to get a grant from some russophobic NGO or so. But in such a case KZ has been overly zealous and thus not beneficial for the task. Everything she writes is predictable and reading the headlight is quite enough to know what follows next.
One can juge about her qualification as “an expert” by the facts that she likens Venesuela president Hugo Chavez to bloody Chechen terrorist Shamil Bassayev; air defence missiles TOR-4 (with range 4 mi) that Russia sold to Iran, to the ABM system the USA are going to deploy in Poland and the Czheck Republic. She writes a lot about todays Russian patriotic antifascist youth movement NASHI (means OURS, the ones who are with us). [The movement is open to all ethnic groups and individuals in Russia sharing patriotic vews; is strongly antinazist, promotes interethnic friendship and cultural ties in the Russian Federation. It has branches in many of the regions in Russia including non-slavic, like Tartarstan, Dagestan, ets.]
Dec 6, 2007 - 8:37 pm 23. Ray:But KZ shows the movement as the fascist, Hitlerugend type, and stubbornly keeps translating it as us, SLAVIC Russians
The masterpiece of her writings is her special column on the La Russophobe blog dedicated to Russian tennis player Mariya Sharapova-all the publications are kind of gossips about what “a slut” Mariya is.
When asked why so, KZ explains: Sharapova is Russian.
Today “Kim” posted an angry piece on her Russophobe and Publiuspundit blogs about how a Kremlin-backed company, SUP, bought out LiveJournal so that Putin can shut down “the last remaining vestige of real information in Russia.”
Turns out that SUP’s head, Andrew Paulson, is also the head of Russia! magazine, where “Kim Zigfeld” now writes and peddles her personalized coffee mugs. Yes, Kim Zigfeld works for the same Kremlin firm that she says is shutting down Russia’s internet.
Talk about corruption and hypocrisy. Sad, really.
Not sure if this post will make it up. I posted this once and somehow it didn’t go up.
Dec 7, 2007 - 9:46 am