Genèse de la popularité de Vladimir Poutine

Abstract

Genesis of Vladimir Putin’s popularity. Starting with Crimea annexation by Russia, one witnesses a soaring support of the Russian population for President Putin. In order to explain this massive and enthusiastic allegiance to Vladimir Putin, one must explore what happened during Perestroika and Boris Yeltsin’s presidency. The author shows that both Perestroika and Yeltsin's rule were two different “ revolutions from above ” : the first one, that of Mikhail Gorbachev, was a democratic revolution supported by the progressive part of intelligentsia and (for quite different reasons) by a part of young Party and Komsomol functionaries ; the second one, that of Boris Yeltsin, was a liberal revolution imposed by new business elites and actively supported by Western liberals. Both revolutions had no long­lasting support by general population, which remained unreformed and deeply “ sovietˮ. One should always keep in mind that during Yeltsin’s presidency State Duma was continuously dominated by communists . In fact , it was very smart Putin's tactics, to get support from the majority of unreformed population rather than from elites. Skilfully, Putin used a mix of nationalist and communist rhetoric (Soviet nostalgia plus imperialist values which remained intact since the end of Soviet era ) but without real nationalists or communists. During Boris Yeltsin’s reelection campaign in 1996, communists have been vilified, and could never recover from this denigration campaign, paving thus the way to Putin’s triumph.