How falling incomes lead to a dictatorship of fear in Russia | Russia and Russians: A View from Europe

Failures in the economy are already leading to political changes and regime change in Russia, according to experts gathered at the economic panel of the 11th Forum of Free Russia, which takes place on December 2 and 3 in Vilnius. In their opinion, Russia is undergoing a transition from an authoritarian regime to a dictatorship of fear and repression. Many of the organizers of the forum and its participants are political emigrants from Russia who cannot return to their homeland due to the threat of persecution. DW about the conclusions reached by Sergei Guriev, Evgeny Chichvarkin and Sergei Aleksashenko.

Why the pandemic hit the Russian economy weakly

The leaders of developed countries are calculating the huge losses that their budgets are incurring as a result of the pandemic. Against the background of the losses of Western states, the impact of COVID-19 on the Russian economy was not so strong, the experts of the forum noted.

Cafe in St. Petersburg

Economist Sergei Aleksashenko named three reasons for this phenomenon. “In Russia, the sectors of the economy are underdeveloped, which in other countries have been most affected by the pandemic,” the expert began. “In the United States and the Eurozone, this is the tourism industry, cafes and restaurants, entertainment and entertainment. The GDP is several times less. “

Secondly, the demand for the main types of raw materials, excluding oil, did not fall much. Due to the rise in commodity prices, Russian exports continued to grow. Thirdly, Vladimir Putin chose the tactic not to distribute money to the population in order to maintain demand, as in the West, but to support producers.

“But it backfired,” Aleksashenko continues. “When the economic recovery began, it turned out that there was nothing much to recover. Those very small sectors were recovering slowly, because covid restrictions continue to operate there, and their share in the economy remains small.”

Falling incomes led to regime change in Russia

Patients with coronavirus in a Moscow hospital

A slight decline in the Russian economy is also due to the fact that Russia deliberately chose a different path than developed countries, adds Sergey Guriev, professor of economics at Sciences Po, Paris School of Political Science. “You have to understand why in many countries the GDP fell so much, because they went to a significant restriction of population mobility,” Guriev recalled. “The cost of such a small economic recession in Russia is clear: a million excess deaths by the end of 2021.

At the same time, Guriev reminds that the Russian economy remains ineffective. The country, according to him, has built such political and economic institutions that are not capable of leading to economic growth, and the fall in real incomes of the population may be sustainable. These negative factors have already led to some changes in domestic policy.

“The political changes consist in the fact that the authoritarian regime that we had is becoming tougher and is now turning into a dictatorship based on repression and fear,” Sergei Guriev is sure. “The regimes of early Putin and (ex-President of Venezuela Hugo. – Ed.) Chavez were based on information manipulation. A (the current President of Venezuela Nicholas – Ed.) Maduro established a dictatorship based on repression and fear. Now Russia is going through a transition from one to the other. “

“Fooled – less and less, intimidated – more and more”

Sergey Guriev, photo from the archive

All speakers of the economic panel agreed that, most likely, democratic changes will not take place in Russia in the near future. “In response to his discontent, Putin kills his opponents, imprisons them, kicks them out of the country,” Guriev lists. The end of the current regime, according to the expert, can be brought closer both by natural reasons – the death of Putin, and by the split of the elites and such a massive protest that the police cannot disperse.

Businessman Evgeny Chichvarkin agrees that there will be no changes, especially revolutionary ones, in the near future. “If under Stalin half of the country was in prison, half of the country served, now half of the population is intimidated, and the other half is fooled,” the emigrant believes. In his speech, Chichvarkin appealed to the associates of the imprisoned Alexei Navalny with a proposal “to overshadow their ambitions and bring the country to the moment of free elections.”

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