Imagining a Russia without Putin
Had Boris Nemstov succeeded Yeltsin, Russia’s political trajectory could have been different
Vladimir Putin’s victory in the recent “election” has triggered a debate about Russians and their political preferences once again. Is Putin’s leadership shaping Russian society or is Putin and his polices a reflection of Russian society? This debate gets particularly passionate when discussing who is responsible for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Is it Putin’s war or is it Russia’s war?
Of course, the truth lies somewhere in between extreme positions. Regarding Putin’s popularity, I believe that most Russians support or at least do not actively oppose him. I have to say “believe” because we have no credible data to support this hypothesis. What happened this month in Russia was not a free and fair election. Putin did not allow any competition. When Boris Nadezhdin, the anti-war candidate, started to gain some traction, Russia’s Central Election Commission allegedly found some irregularities in his list of supporters’ signatures and did not allow Nadezhdin on the ballot. None of the other candidates even tried to run alternative campaigns. They were not allowed access to resources – airtime, media, and money – to do so. There were no campaign launchers, discussions, or debates. And of course, Putin’s strongest election competitor — Alexey Navalny — was first poisoned, then jailed, and then killed.
Putin’s alleged final tally – 88% of the vote! – underscored the farcical nature of the whole event. In the old days, Putin tried to make his election victories look competitive. Last week, he didn’t even try.
Public opinion polls in totalitarian dictatorships also reveal little knowledge about actual societal preferences. In a heavily surveilled country where you can go to jail for even uttering the word “war,” there is only one rational response to a call from an unknown poll worker from Moscow asking you if you support Putin and his policies. Yes. We know from previous breakdowns of autocracies that real preferences about dictators are revealed only when it is safe to do. (Read Timur Kuran’s excellent article on this subject here).
Yet, even with all these caveats, I still believe that most Russians – actively and passively – support Putin today. After a quarter century of both covert and overt Putin’s carefully crafted propaganda, encompassing all mainstream media, the education system, pop stars, athletes, etc., active suppression of alternative media, political parties, and leaders – especially after the arrest and murder of Alexei Navalny – and three wars that always produce a rally-around-the-flag effect in societies, we should not be surprised by this support for Putin. Those Russians who support Putin too bear responsibility for the barbaric invasion of Ukraine. It is not just Putin’s war. It’s Russia’s war. Of course, not all Russians are responsible for this war, but not all Russians are free of responsibility for the war. For more of my thinking on this very complicated matter, see my old Substack post, “Are All Russians Guilty for Russia's War in Ukraine?”
But has it always been this way? Do Russians have a genetic predisposition toward dictatorship at home and imperialism abroad? Is Putin’s presidency the natural and inevitable expression of Russian culture? I don’t think so. First, Russians did practice democracy in the late 1980 and 1990s and at times elected leaders who were pro-democratic and anti-imperial. Second, Putin’s coming to power was an accident. He was not destined to lead Russia. There was not a groundswell of popular support for him when he first came to power. A different path for Russia was possible and, in fact, almost happened.
These what-ifs in history are called counterfactuals. The most persuasive ones only change history just a little bit. In the case of Russia’s history, we have such a tight counterfactual. Imagine if Boris Nemtsov had been elected president in 2000. Russia’s political system would have liberalized and democratized, or at least it would not have become so autocratic. Nemtsov celebrated Ukraine’s democratic breakthroughs in 2004 and 2014 so Nemtsov’s Russia would not have tried to undermine Ukraine’s democracy – not in 2004, not in 2014, and not in 2022.
This counterfactual is not far-fetched. It almost happened. First appointed by Boris Yeltsin as governor of Nizhny Novgorod in 1991, Nemtsov subsequently won the election with 58.7 percent of the vote. Soon after, Yeltsin started grooming Nemtsov as his heir. As a member of parliament elected several times, elected governor, and then as a deputy prime minister of the Russian government, Nemtsov had already demonstrated his electability, appeal, and ability to govern. At the time, he was a much more famous and charismatic political leader than bureaucrat Putin. In 1997, Yeltsin named Nemtsov the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian government – a move that everyone interpreted as a steppingstone for his presidential run in 2000. ??? The 1998 financial crash – an economic meltdown triggered by events in East Asia, not Russia – interrupted the plan. The 1998 financial crash made the economic situation in Russia especially dire, with the nation already suffering from the enormous costs of transforming the command economy into a market system after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. In response, Yeltsin fired his pro-market government, including Nemtsov, and felt compelled to name the communist-backed, hardliner Yevgeny Primakov to become the new First Deputy Prime Minister. Primakov was one of the few candidates the parliament would approve at the time. But the search in the Kremlin then started immediately for a new candidate to challenge Primakov and his allies first in parliamentary elections in 1999 and then in the presidential election in 2000. Eventually, Yeltsin and his inner circle settled on the little-known (but presumably pliant) Secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Vladimir Putin to become the new Prime Minister. When Yeltsin abruptly resigned from the presidency on December 31, 1999, Prime Minister Putin automatically succeeded as acting president, allowing him to run in the March 2000 presidential elections with the advantage of incumbency. Putin was appointed by Yeltsin as president first. Then, Russians ratified Yeltsin’s choice, not the other way around.
Had the 1998 global financial crisis not forced Nemtsov’s government to resign, he would have emerged as Yeltsin’s heir apparent in 2000, won that election easily with the backing of Kremlin resources (just as the virtually unknown Putin did instead), and would have pushed Russia’s regime trajectory and foreign policy in a very different direction. And remember, Russia’s economy finally started to grow again in 1999 and then took off in the 2000s. Had that happened on Nemtsov’s watch, he and his ideas would have become even more popular, just as it happened to Putin and his ideas.
Of course, Russian autocratic, nationalist, and imperialist forces would have tried to check Nemtsov’s policy impulses, just as they tried to do so with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian President Boris Yeltsin. But to assume that they would have won is a speculation, not a fact.
Tragically, it will take years or even decades to unwind the damage done to Russian society after nearly 25 years of Putin’s rule. Maybe it won’t happen at all. But two facts suggest that Russia without Putin can have a different, more democratic, and less imperial future. First, it happened before, which means that it can happen again. Second, pro-democratic, anti-imperial Russians exist. Many if not most of them now live in exile. Those still inside Russia are keeping quiet to avoid prison. They are not the majority. (For a deeper dive on this subject read my “Are Russians Imperialists?” in Demokratizatsiya.) But they exist. They read news from independent media outlets, again with most operating from outside of Russia. They have their leaders, including most prominently, Yulia Navalnaya, but also Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin now in prison, and many others living in exile. And inside Russia, even during Putin’s sham election, they show up in numbers on election day at the “Noon Against Putin” protest, spoiling ballots. As I wrote over the weekend here, Yulia Navalnaya was the real winner of Russia’s 2024 election.
Today, Putin is firmly entrenched in power. Over the last 24 years, he has constructed a very effective autocratic regime, operating on fear and terror. But the day Putin dies or is no longer in power, political competition will begin again in Russia. The forces of Russian dictatorship and imperialism will still be strong then, but their hold on power forever is not preordained. Russian history tells us there is an alternative path. And brave Russians fighting for that different path today should give all of us hope.
For what it's worth I read another article that said that when Putin leaves (probably due to old age) his replacement will probably come from his inner circle who will be of a similar mind to Putin and about his age. That figure will probably be a transitional one and not long lasting. The real opportunity will be when the next leader comes from someone now in their 50s who will be old enough to remember Russia having good relations with the West. It wouldn't surprise me if they made the judgement that the West was a better group to be dependend on than China.
I’m likewise curious about the succession plan.