Putin's Russia: the fear meter

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/12/putin-russia-protest-dissent-editorial

Version 0 of 1.

Vladimir Putin does not like demonstrators and dissidents. He thinks of them as irresponsible and spoiled citizens at best, as tools of western plotters at worst. They do not show respect, they embarrass the Russian leadership in front of foreigners, they do not understand the problems of government, they lack national feeling. They are, in short, a bunch of clowns, idiots and traitors. He showed his views most clearly when he compared them to Kipling's "Bandar-log", the silly and scatterbrained monkey folk in The Jungle Book.

When his critics tried to whip up feeling after the announcement that he and Dmitry Medvedev were going to swap jobs, Putin felt that this took away from the dignity that should have clothed the transfer.

When they sought to mess up his inauguration as president, he felt this was an attempt to put a blot on what ought to have been a day of national rejoicing. It was predicted then that he would not let public protest become a periodic feature of his second presidency, and now he has moved to stamp it out, or at least to make it more difficult, costly, and perhaps even physically dangerous in the future.

Last week the Duma passed a bill increasing the fines for taking part in unauthorised demonstrations to a level close to the average annual Russian salary. This week the security forces showed that even where permission to demonstrate has been obtained, the state will still intimidate and obstruct.

On Monday squads of masked men burst into the homes of prominent opposition figures involved in preparations for a march and rally in Moscow, on the pretext that they were investigating incidents that took place during the inauguration protests in May. Dressing up its police as bank robbers or commandos is a part of the dismal macho style that characterises Putin's Russia. Why it is appropriate attire, for example, when entering the apartment of Ksenia Sobchak, a young female television presenter who has become one of the opposition's stars, has naturally not been explained. On Tuesday morning some of the leaders were called in again for questioning before being released and allowed to take part in the march and rally. The march itself was heavily policed and fenced off, and the coverage of a TV station sympathetic to the protesters was disrupted by a hacking attack.

Putin's problem is that he faces a generation that was not alive under Soviet rule. Unlike their elders, they do not fear the state, nor do they feel the nostalgia for Soviet days that Putin exploits. He clearly wants them to feel a bit more fear and show a bit more respect. Not that much more: the opposition's comparisons with Stalin's roundups in 1937 are inappropriate. But once you start fiddling with the fear meter, who knows where it might end?