by Morley Evans
Is Putin the best President Russia has ever had?
by Dima Vorobiev
We didn’t have many presidents in Russia, only Yeltsin and Putin. But even if we expand the comparison all the way back to Varangians, the answer would be: Yes, absolutely.
President Putin is the first since Stalin who knows how to run the country. And in comparison with Stalin, he does the job with immensely less blood and suffering, and to a much better result. In Putin, we have a competent leader who doesn’t kill and torment people at industrial scale.
He’s not a sadist, or power maniac, or a simple thief, or conqueror. With the power he has amassed, he could be Ivan the Terrible, or Caligula, or Lenin, - and he chooses not to. What a welcome, wonderful change.
He has little time for liberal niceties like rule of law, or civil rights, or human dignity. But he is very legalistic. "To my friends, everything; to my enemies, the law." He wants to win elections, not abolish them, tweak and change the law, not ignore it. That’s very fresh, very new, very empowering.
He has a sense of fairness, and he values loyalty. His enemies die or disappear, often in a horrible way, but not before they had declared themselves to be his enemies. He doesn’t betray. As long as he thinks you honestly hold your end of the bargain, he doesn’t lie or cheat. Totally out of character for someone who spent his formative years in the twilight world of Soviet secret services.
He seems not to be tormented by inner demons that act out onto other people, like many in his entourage do. He’s pragmatic, calculating, rational. “Why kill when you can make a deal? Why steal when you can buy? Why make a scene when you can sit down and have a talk?” He’s a rock of reason in the unsettled sea of post-Soviet politics.
He realizes his power mandate comes from people, not from brute force, or God, or ideological sophistry. He’s obsessed with polls figures and popular acclaim. He says what people like to hear, and he knows how to cater to his power base. He shares. He and his friends stole billions from the oil-fueled bonanza, but down here, we got many fat morsels, too. We’ve never been that well off. That’s totally new. The nation has been amazed. Simply amazed.
The girls on the picture below are participants in the countrywide patriotic action Porvú za Pútina (“Will tear’em to pieces for Putin”) a couple years back.
The other day, I met Marina. She is going to university in Rostov on Don. Marina's home is in Lugansk. Marina thinks "Russia is a sweet country." - ed
