MOSCOW ― Russian President Vladimir Putin has been compared to many strongmen of the past ― Joseph Stalin, Leonid Brezhnev, and Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, to name a few. But, after nearly 14 years in power, perhaps the best comparison now may be a transgender cross between the former Argentine leader Juan Peron and his legendary wife, Eva (“Evita”).
In the early 1940s, Colonel Peron, as minister of labor and secretary of war, was a “gray cardinal” to Argentina’s rulers. Before communism collapsed in 1989, Colonel Putin, also memorably gray, was a devoted KGB operative, entrusted with spreading disinformation and recruiting Soviet and foreign agents in East Germany.
At the labor ministry, Peron initiated social reforms, including welfare benefits for the poor. Although his motivation, at least in part, may have been a desire for social justice, Peron was, in effect, bribing the beneficiaries to support his own rise to power and wealth. With his beautiful and outspoken wife ― a “woman of the people” ― at his side, Peron was able to persuade voters in 1946 that, as president, he would fundamentally change the country.
He was as good as his word. Peron’s government nationalized banks and railroads, increased the minimum wage and improved living standards, reduced the national debt (for a while at least), and revived the economy. Argentina became less reliant on foreign trade, though the move toward autarky eventually undermined growth, causing the country to lose its position among the world’s richest.
During this period, Peron also undermined freedom of speech, fair elections, and other essential aspects of democracy. He and his emotional wife spoke publicly against bourgeois injustices and luxury, while secretly amassing a private fortune. Finally, Peron was ousted in 1955, three years after the death of Evita, his greatest propagandist.
Like Peron a half-century before, Putin promised in 2000 to tame the unbridled capitalism that had run wild under his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. He pledged to restore a sense of dignity to a country that had just lost its empire and suffered a severe economic contraction during the early years of the post-communist transition.
Putin renationalized, or rather brought under Kremlin control, the oil, gas, and other industries that had been privatized in the 1990s. Buoyed by high world energy prices, he was able to pay the back wages and pensions that Yeltsin’s cash-strapped government still owed to miners, railroad workers, and teachers. As with Peron, citizens were bribed into backing the regime.
But, with oil and gas revenues flowing into state coffers, Putin started to fill his own pockets. His personal wealth ― including palaces, yachts, watches, and cars ― has been estimated at $40-70 billion. Although he insists that his riches consist not of money and assets, but of the trust of his people, few Russians doubt that he is one of the world’s wealthiest men.
As with Peron’s presidency, Putin’s began well. The public adored the new strongman as he flexed Russia’s political muscle abroad, punished the “dishonest” Yeltsin-era oligarchs, restricted the “irresponsible” media, and re-centralized power.
Until recently, Putin’s resemblance to Evita was not so obvious (though his regular Botox treatments have given him the look that she took on after she was embalmed). But the similarities are becoming increasingly evident. Her passionate “messages for the suffering” resonated with Argentina’s poor in the way that Putin’s macho swagger appeals to a majority of Russians, mostly from the country’s hinterland and provincial cities.
Evita and Putin also share a streak of pettiness. Evita ruined the life of anyone who appeared to doubt her image as Argentina’s “godmother.” Putin takes revenge on anyone ― whether the oligarch-cum-political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, members of the rock band Pussy Riot, or ordinary citizens joining anti-Kremlin protests ― who challenges his status as “father of the nation.” Perhaps not coincidentally, capital flight is on the rise, and around 300,000 Russians ― including many of the best educated ― leave the country every year.
Now Ukraine, where President Viktor Yanukovich’s decision not to sign an association agreement with the European Union has mobilized millions of protesters, represents Russia’s moment of truth. While many cheer the “Euromaidan,” many others insist that Ukraine must maintain close ties with Russia. Putin, who played the role of puppeteer in Yanukovich’s decision to keep his country within the Russian orbit, hypocritically blames external forces for Ukraine’s political crisis.
Yet the more the world mocks Putin’s exhibitionism, the more support he gains from Russians yearning for a return to superpower status. Likewise, when Evita was dying of cancer, graffiti appeared all over Buenos Aires, declaring, “Long Live Cancer!” But many continued to idolize her for helping the poor, regardless of how self-serving she had become. The same strange brew of mockery and adoration characterizes Russia’s Putin era as well.
Peron’s final years may offer a worrying parallel. He returned to power in 1973, 18 years after his ouster, bringing back Evita’s embalmed body for Argentines to adore once more. He died the following year, leaving the government in the hands of his third wife, Isabel, whose mismanagement of the economy incited guerrilla violence and a military coup within two years.
Yet today, according to the Latin America scholar Michael Cohen, “most of Argentine society is Peronist. ... Peron delivered a welfare state from which the current middle class benefits.” Similarly, the majority of Russians approve of Putin’s version of state capitalism, and many appreciate his largesse.
I once believed that Putin’s demise might resemble the sudden and bloody fall of Lavrenti Beria, Stalin’s all-powerful security chief, who was finished off by the arbitrary system of justice that he helped to create. What now seems more likely, due to the dependence of a majority of Russians on state handouts, is that when Russia’s leader finally leaves the stage, Putinism, like Peronism, will survive, with a bizarre half-life lasting decades.
By Nina Khrushcheva
Nina Khrushcheva teaches international affairs at The New School in New York and is the author of the forthcoming book “The Lost Khrushchev: A Journey into the Gulag of the Russian Mind.” ― Ed.
(Project Syndicate)
