Debunking the myth that Putin brought prosperity

DZERZHINSK, Russia -- In one of the most polluted cities in Russia, where taps gush bright orange water, factory worker Alexander Popov explains why he loves President Vladimir Putin.Since 2000, when Putin took office, Popov's salary has grown tenfold. Along the way, he has collected a stainless-steel fridge, new kitchen cabinets, a flat-screen television, DVD player and a computer for his 15-year-old son.Unlike a decade ago, Popov knows for certain he will be paid next week."During the 1990s, I didn't get paid for six months," Popov, 41, said. "My wife's parents supported us. We had to grow our own food in the summer to survive the winter."After 20 years as a mechanic in a plastics factory, Popov and his seamstress wife say they are finally living a middle-class life.On Sunday, they intend to vote for the party they believe delivered them their relative prosperity: Russia's mighty United Russia party, led by Putin's handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, who is expected to win in a landslide.Medvedev will cruise to victory not just because Putin told Russians to support him, but because of the real-life "prosperity" stories of voters such as the Popovs.But those stories form part of a powerful myth, expertly stoked for nearly a decade by the Kremlin and Putin. According to this narrative, Putin's steady-but-firm rule -- including a crackdown on opposition parties, nongovernmental organizations and broadcast media, as well as a ban on gubernatorial elections -- helped rescue Russia from the brink of economic collapse and restore its reputation as a player in the international arena.Part of the story is true. Many average Russians now live better than at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and people such as the Popovs of Dzerzhinsk are among its shining examples.But critics say that Putin's ironfisted reign had little to do with Russia's economic recovery and might even doom its chances for long-term prosperity."The notion that autocrats are better at stability, in the long course of history, it's just not true," said Michael McFaul, a political scientist at Stanford University. "They collapse, they have problems. They don't deal well with crisis. Autocracies just don't last as long as democracies."McFaul argues that Russia's democratic backsliding has actually hindered its economic recovery.While Russia can claim that wages have risen, its economy is expanding and poverty rates have been cut, there have been real setbacks in health care, public safety and corruption.The state has undergone a massive expansion under Putin, with the number of state employees doubling to 1.5 million, McFaul said. The murder rate has increased and alcoholism and mortality rates remain high. Public health spending, meanwhile, has not increased in the past decade.He also argued that Russia was well on the road to economic recovery as early as 1998, after the crashing ruble forced federal officials to control government spending and reduce the state's role in the economy.But since then, its growth rate has stalled; in 2000, Russia's economy was the second-fastest-growing among former Soviet countries. Today, it is 13th, McFaul noted in an article he co-authored in Foreign Affairs, an international relations journal.While there is no way to know how Russia's economy would have performed had Putin's rule been less restrictive, McFaul argued that open societies as a rule provide healthier business climates in the long term."What's the best way to fight corruption? Independent media, opposition parties, elections," he said in a telephone interview. "Who is the most motivated person to expose corruption in the status-quo government? It's the person who wants to be elected in that person's place, right? Those are the ones most likely to talk about corrupt policy."Critics also argue that Russia's retreat from democratic practices has had the effect of depoliticizing and placating the electorate, leaving them less inclined to rail against social and economic inequities.Today, the majority of Russians believe the Putin story line that he rescued the country from economic chaos, said pollster Boris Dubin, a message daily delivered on state-owned television."It was done on purpose, so that people won't demand change," said Dubin, director of the Levada Center, an independent polling company.In this climate, many Russians believe they are better off because the government has told them they are. And many Russians will choose Medvedev as their next president simply because Putin told them to.They will vote for him, Dubin said, even though they know deep down that Russia is not the rosy place depicted in United Russia campaign ads.Yet, they are not prepared to press for change."The Russian psyche is still in the Soviet past," Dubin said."They don't want big reforms and changes. They are not success-oriented. They don't mind if economic growth is slower."(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)