Next Sunday, a presidential election will be held in Russia. Although the active, intellectual part of the country is deeply offended by the “exchange” of the prime minister and the president and the rigging of the parliamentary election, Putin will not have serious problems in the way to becoming the president. It is understandable that the prime minister of the Russian Federation has no serious, powerful rivals and will win the election in the first round. The state apparatus and big businesses will make all efforts to reach that aim. Holding the election in one round is necessary to further strengthen the verticality of power and to establish an atmosphere of self-assurance among the bureaucracy. The sentiments of that layer were best expressed by President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov, “Russia doesn’t need a manager; Russia needs a tsar.” It would me more logical if he said “sultan,” because if he is a mini khan in his republic, the sultan should rule over the whole empire. This is what “strong leader” phrase means – the tsar (sultan) decides who should become richer, who should remain poor, who should enjoy freedom and who should rotten in jail, who among his surroundings should become a vizier, who should be a khan and who should be an emir.
My perceptions of strength and a strong leader, in particular, are completely different. He who smashes his fist down on the table and says to his viziers, “Go and rob, I am responsible,” is not a strong leader. When a leader tries to explain something not only to the bureaucracy, but also to the people, citizens themselves, his strength is his legitimacy. In that sense, Yeltsin was a strong leader who was able to help his country out of the Soviet collapse with minimum losses, regardless of how severely the government propaganda criticizes Russia of 1990s.
However, one needs active citizens to have such a strong leader. Unfortunately, the lack of those is tangible in the newly-independent states. In that regard, I have recalled Perch Proshyan’s words, which he wrote about the peasantry of the mid-19th century, “Generally, peasants don’t like to interfere in social affairs; everyone is concerned with his problems, with his family’s misfortunes, with finding accommodation for his kids.” Few things have changed over the past 150 years.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
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