Europe | The uses of fear

Vladimir Putin turns to attacking the elite

It’s an ancient tactic

Abyzov, the latest victim

EVERY TIME a high-powered Russian official, oligarch or governor gets arrested, the same questions surface: why him, why now, who’s next? In recent months these questions have become more frequent as former and current ministers, governors, high officials and an American investor have ended up in Moscow’s high-security Lefortovo jail.

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So when Mikhail Abyzov, a former minister in the government of Dmitry Medvedev, was arrested on March 26th, the conspiracy theories mushroomed: it was a swipe at Mr Medvedev, Russia’s prime minister, by the security services; it was a plot by the Alfa Group, a well-connected business that wanted to recover an overdue loan; it was the result of a conflict with Viktor Vekselberg, an oligarch.

The allegation levelled against him—that Mr Abyzov had set up a criminal group and embezzled 4bn roubles ($61m) by selling an energy firm for an inflated price—seemed almost incidental. Few people believe he is innocent or feel much sympathy for a former minister who enjoyed life in a vast Italian villa among acres of vineyards, as first exposed by Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption blogger and opposition leader. But equally, few people believe that this is part of a genuine crackdown on corruption rather than an intra-regime redistribution of assets.

The nature of Mr Putin’s rule fuels this suspicion. The regime is both obsessed with the letter of the law and totally disrespectful of its spirit. Corruption holds the system together. Courts rubber-stamp decisions made by the Kremlin or its security services. An investigation almost always results in a charge, and the percentage of jury acquittals is less than 2%. All this creates the conditions for the use of repression as an instrument of government.

In the early 2000s arrests among the nomenklatura were rare, and almost never touched top officials. Outside the elite they tended to involve relatively insignificant groups, such as left-wing radicals and ultra-nationalists. The Kremlin preferred to co-opt the powerful by allowing them access to rents, and to placate any public discontent with cash and foreign conquests, most notably the annexation of Crimea in 2014. But as Kirill Rogov, a political analyst in Moscow, writes: “soft authoritarian regimes that rely on economic growth start looking for new sources of legitimacy and broaden repressive practices when economic conditions worsen.”

A year ago Mr Putin secured an election victory with 77% of the vote, confirming his position as a populist authoritarian leader able to appeal to the people over the heads of the various Russian elites. Since then, however, his rating has fallen to 64% and discontent is mounting. The economy is showing no sign of improvement, real incomes have been falling for five years, foreign adventures cause irritation rather than pride and the effect of television propaganda is wearing thin.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Mr Putin’s regime is increasingly reliant on fear and coercion, morphing into what Mr Rogov calls “repressive populism”. So far, the aim of the current wave of repression is not to put down protest, since it does not yet threaten the system, but to forestall its growth by boosting the waning legitimacy of the regime. This is why repression against the opposition, though it has been gradually increasing since 2012, remains fairly mild. Instead it is the use of attacks against insiders that is expanding. These are meant to please the crowds, but also to keep the elite in a state of fear, discouraging dissent from its members.

Between 2001 and 2005 only three senior officials were prosecuted. The number of cases against senior members of the government and the Duma reached 35 in 2018 alone. The actions have targeted high-profile figures across many walks of life. An economics minister, a famous theatre director, a police general, a prominent investor, a rich and powerful senator, not to mention mayors and governors—all are either in jail or under house arrest. Most of them were detained in spectacular, made-for-TV busts, which were then hyped on social media. Rauf Arashukov, a senator from the Caucasus region, was nabbed during a parliamentary session.

Given Russia’s tragic history, any such repression inevitably triggers memories of Stalin’s purges and show trials. But unlike those great terrors of the 1930s, which liquidated entire social classes and most of the old Bolshevik party, the current moves are limited in scale. Another difference, says Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist based in Moscow, is that today’s campaign, unlike Stalin’s, is neither underpinned by an ideology nor accompanied by overt propaganda.

Most of the current cases against the elite are based on money and involve redistribution of assets from one group to another. But whether or not the arrests are centrally co-ordinated, they are part of a broader political process. As Ivan Tkachev, a senior general of the FSB, Russia’s internal security service, told a regional boss, Alexander Shestun, shortly before putting him in jail last year: “I see who will get steamrollered in one month, who in two, who in three, who will get replaced, who is scared. It is a big one [campaign].”

This strategy for appealing to the people while keeping the elite fearful is hardly new. Throwing a boyar (an aristocratic official) off the porch to a restive crowd was a standard means of placating discontent until Peter the Great’s time. Yet so far, although fear is spreading, popularity is not returning. Recent research conducted by Sergei Belanovsky, a sociologist who predicted the protests of 2011, paints a striking picture: the appetite for a “strong hand” is waning, and more people want democratic rule and an open parliament. The sight of another body being thrown off the porch is unlikely to satisfy them.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "The uses of fear"

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