By Andrei Piontkovsky, independent political analyst
contributed this comment to The Moscow Times
Moscow Times, Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2004. Page 10

In 2004, Russia's newest political ideology -- Putinism -- will flourish, reaching new heights of success.

Putinism is the final, highest stage of Russia's brand of criminal, bureaucratic capitalism -- the natural, logical mutation of the Yeltsin model of the 1990s. It is capitalism run by police and pencil pushers with the father of the nation in charge. It's the replacement of Yeltsin-era oligarchs with new "patriotic" ex-security service operatives, and more broadly with that huge collective oligarch -- the bureaucracy -- with its armed detachments, the so-called power agencies.

The ideology of Putinism and the model of governance it has produced are most striking for their aesthetic and intellectual indigence. But that's not the worst thing. The real problem is the utter ineffectiveness of Putinism. Rather than correct the defects of Russian capitalism -- the merger and criminalization of money and power, institutionalized corruption -- it only intensifies them.

This kind of model is incapable of ensuring stable growth. It will not allow Russia to overcome its terrible social stratification or to achieve the breakthrough needed before a postindustrial society can emerge here. This model of peripheral capitalism dooms Russia to economic degradation, marginalization and ultimately to collapse. It cannot drag on for decades like the Stalin or Brezhnev models.

But 2004, as I said, will see the wretched triumph of Putinism. Continued high oil prices will allow the regime to maintain the illusion of relative economic prosperity. And this spring Russia will have a new prime minister, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.

At the casting call for this role, Kudrin demonstrated his personal loyalty more zealously than the rest, as well as the greatest readiness to disown his former patrons. On top of that, his image as a liberal technocrat fits perfectly with the myth that the regime is proceeding with the course of reform.

Under Prime Minister Kudrin, GDP will grow at a reasonable pace (6 to 7 percent). Gold and hard-currency reserves will increase, inflation will remain moderate and the strength of the ruble will continue to grow. The strength of the ruble, coupled with a fall in oil prices, will produce a serious economic crisis -- but in 2005. Vladimir Putin's resounding victory at the polls in March will wrap up the sweep operation of the Russian political landscape launched by his administration, leaving Russia with a single politician. The current hypocritical system of "managed democracy" will give way naturally to an openly authoritarian regime.

In fact, this operation was substantially completed in 2003. The symbol of the new political era and the result of a decade of liberal reform in Russia was the historic standing ovation given to Putin at the 13th congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs -- a gathering that resembled a remake of the 17th Communist Party Congress, known as the Congress of Victors. The RSPP brings together Russia's capitalist shock workers.

These were supposed to be the emancipated titans of industry, the flower of 10 years of reform. Instead, we beheld a room full of slaves quaking in their boots. The post-Soviet liberal revolution produced not free people but a new generation of slaves. Unlike the slaves of communism, these new villeins are bound by the property they have acquired, and are therefore capable of far greater baseness and submission.

This year will see the further political and spiritual consolidation of Russian society. The leading lights of culture, the political spin doctors and practitioners of many other of the oldest professions will hold congresses just like the RSPP, and at each one another Arkady Volsky will throw up his hands with mock surprise and say rapturously, "I can't stop them, Vladimir Vladimirovich."

And indeed, there will be no stopping them. The revival of the traditions of lofty spirituality and sobornost in Russian society will demand that the people not merely love the anointed president but perform greater feats of genuine civic spirit. People will walk barefoot for miles and stand for hours in the freezing cold once more to appear on the president's annual question-and-answer session on national television, and they will once more ask about the health of his favorite dog who had the patriotic good sense to whelp on the eve of the State Duma elections. This must be what Kremlin court spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky means by the "mystical link between Putin and the masses."

Putin's mystical link with the masses in the military will be expressed from time to time in televised speeches by the rank-and-file about the inevitable catastrophe awaiting the Americans in Iraq and their shameful flight from the country. As far as foreign policy is concerned, the year will pass in expectation of that catastrophe as television news shows report on coalition casualties with malicious delight.

This will be a tough year for the Americans in Iraq. They will incur further losses, but they will not leave. The Europeans will disagree with the Bush administration on many issues, but they will increasingly support U.S. policy in Iraq, because they realize what is at stake there. Slowly but surely, the situation in Iraq will improve. It will not be a decisive issue in the next U.S. presidential campaign: Bush will easily win a second term, buoyed by an improving economy.

As Russia's "strategic partnership" in the war on international terrorism collapses, the foreign policy establishment will turn its attention to strengthening Russia's position in the former Soviet republics. United by the fever of neo-imperialism, Russian politicians from Dmitry Rogozin to Anatoly Chubais will make much of building their empires in the sand.

The administration of newly elected Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili will be labeled anti-Russian, and all the traditional measures will be taken to destabilize it. Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko will also be tarred as anti-Russian, and Moscow will pull out all the stops to prevent him from winning the election. All of this loving attention will backfire, however, and Yushchenko will win.

Russian politicians will fail to understand that their neo-imperial impulses can elicit nothing but rejection in the former Soviet republics. Yet all they need to do is to study their experience of "unification" with Belarus, whose leader Alexander Lukashenko has led the entire Russian political elite around by the nose for the last 10 years by exploiting their collective complexes.

By the end of 2004, Russia's relations with the United States and the European Union will be chillier than at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Officially this will be described as defending Russia's national interests as the country rises from its knees. The task of catching up with Portugal within 15 years will be dismissed as contemptible and as a provocation against a great country. The proud Russian Achilles, having given up on trying to outstrip the Portuguese turtoise, will "asymmetrically" throw down the gauntlet.

The man of the year in 2004 will be footballer Vadim Yevseyev. As he leaves Portugal following an unsuccessful performance by the Russian national team at the European Championship this summer, Yevseyev will turn to the Western television cameras and from the depths of his mysterious Russian soul he will hurl his trademark howl -- "Fuck you!"-- just as he did in Wales.

Yevseyev will be invited to the Kremlin, where he will be awarded the Order for Services to the Fatherland, Fourth Degree, as the person who most completely expressed the existential essence of the Orthodox Russian character and the fundamental principles of Russian domestic and foreign policy.