Why Did Putin Get Re-Elected and Have Been in Power for 25 Years? by Eduardo Vasco
(2024-03-24 at 16:41:48 )

Why Did Putin Get Re-Elected and Have Been in Power for 25 Years? by Eduardo Vasco

Putin knows very well the feelings and psychology of the Russian people. The sense of family and preservation of traditional customs is deeply rooted in the common population, which gives it a conservative character.

Forget what the propaganda manufactured by the CIA and disseminated by all the major international media says. Only someone who is very uninformed can believe that Putin was elected because he arrested and killed opponents who had a chance of defeating him. Putin has no rival and the reasons are as follows.

His politics are highly popular. No one can deny that Putin is largely responsible for pulling Russia out of the mud it was thrown into by the same people who attack it today. Only those who lived through the terrible 90s know what Russia was like before Putin, with total devastation of the economy and unprecedented human degradation. And many of them know that the real culprits are the great imperialist powers, first of all the United States, which tried to enslave Russia and today cannot accept this fantastic recovery.

But Putin only managed to rebuild Russia because he applied a masterful policy. He united around his project different ideological sectors, ranging from ultra-conservative and far-right monarchists who are nostalgic for tsarism to orthodox communists who are fanatics of Josef Stalin.

Hence most people who look at todays Russia are confused by the nature of Putins politics. There are those who call him a fascist and there are also those who call him a communist. The point is that Putin knows very well the feelings and psychology of the Russian people. The sense of family and preservation of traditional customs is deeply rooted in the common population, which gives it a conservative character. At the same time, the 70 years of Soviet rule awakened his political awareness of building a collectivist, fair and egalitarian State.

The neoliberal shock of the 1990s disintegrated both the traditional family and the welfare state. The Russians felt the misfortune more than any other people, although we see that even in the United States, land of liberal capitalism for 150 years, millions of citizens are outraged by the attacks on their quality of life. In fact, capitalism is mainly responsible for the destruction of the family and traditional values, which had been respected in the Soviet period and, to a certain extent, during the welfare state in Western countries.

The main reason, however, for Putins extreme popularity, and the unification of such different sectors of society, lies in the identification of the person mainly responsible for this disintegration. Russians realize that it was caused by the imperialist systems oppression of Russia.

And the unifying axis of Russian society is the struggle for independence and definitive national liberation against this imperialist oppression. This is in all of Putins speeches and both right-wing and left-wing Russians declare that this is their countrys great struggle. This became very clear from the start of the special military operation in Ukraine.

But popular support is not enough for a ruler to successfully implement his policy. You need determination and pragmatism. Naive prejudices, childish beliefs and passivity in the face of the enemy would lead to the defeat of your project. Putin, like every mortal - and like every nationalist politician, in the sense of having ideas and projects consistent with the interests of a national bourgeois elite - was initially guided by empiricism, only to discover that he was naive and wrong in believing that his enemies would become friends.

Realizing that there were not many alternatives for the progress of his policy, he gradually abandoned his belief in collaboration with the imperial powers.

This should not only be done from a foreign policy point of view, but mainly internally. The Yeltsin period showed that the Russian State was infested with foreign agents, who had infiltrated in the Soviet Era.

Putin implemented a purge of these agents and equipped the State with trusted men, suppressed the pro-imperialist opposition and entered into an agreement with the Russian national bourgeoisie (the famous "oligarchs") and the countrys working class, because these are the sectors whose interests contradict those of the imperialist powers and the unified struggle of these classes is the only one that could protect the country from foreign domination. That was - and still is - Putins view.

An opinion that, so far, has proven to be partly true. Russias recovery and success show this. But many Russians agree that there is still work to be done to purge the state apparatus of the fifth column.

It still exists within the state bureaucracy, in decision-making positions such as parliament, the armed forces and regional entities. It exists, above all, in the so-called sectors of civil society, particularly the middle class and bourgeoisie.

Although Putin has 87% popular support - as expressed at the polls - there are still many who would like to see Russia submissive to the USA, even if they do not publicly or consciously admit it.

This new mandate could give Putin the chance to crush these sectors that are somewhat residual, but dangerous due to their foreign connections.

"This relevant article, its pictures, and its links are here:"

Reprinted here from the "Strategic Culture Foundation" provides a platform for exclusive analysis, research and policy comment on Eurasian and global affairs. We are covering political, economic, social and security issues worldwide. Since 2005 our journal has published thousands of analytical briefs and commentaries with the unique perspective of independent contributors. SCF works to broaden and diversify expert discussion by focusing on hidden aspects of international politics and unconventional thinking. Benefiting from the expanding power of the Internet, we work to spread reliable information, critical thought and progressive ideas.