JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE MISTAKEN NOTION THAT PUTIN HAS BEEN MADE “PRESIDENT FOR LIFE” IN RUSSIAN CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES – THE IMMENSE IMPORTANCE OF PUTIN FOR RUSSIANS IS NOT APPRECIATED BY OUTSIDERS – THE POST-SOVIET DEPRESSION HE PULLED THEM OUT OF – PUTIN’S IMPORTANCE FOR RUSSIANS RESEMBLES THAT OF FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT FOR AMERICANS IN THE !930s – HIS ROLE IN RUSSIAN INFRASTRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT AND GIVING RUSSIANS NEW PRIDE

John Chuckman


EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS


Response to a comment below, saying, “The Russians need to think about "President for Life" thing”

I’ve read that notion repeated by others.

But it is simply incorrect.

He does not become President for Life.

He is allowed to run in the next several elections, something he would otherwise not have been able to do.

Russians think of Putin the way Americans thought about FDR in the 1930s and 1940s, whom they elected an unprecedented four times. FDR was a remarkable leader who came along at a time of great national need, and just so Putin.

Putin pulled Russia out of a terrible depression after the Soviet Union’s collapse, a depression few people in North America know anything about.

He’s given Russians new pride, too, emphasizing Russia’s heroic efforts to defeat Hitler. 27 million Soviets died doing that, and the overwhelming majority of all Germans killed in the war were killed by Soviets, about 75%.

And new pride with some truly magnificent churches built. The Soviets had banned religion, but Russians are religious people.

Also pride about successes with remarkable new weapons like the world’s finest anti-aircraft and anti-missile missiles, new-concept hypersonic attack missiles, the “black hole,” almost undetectable, submarines, and advanced new radars and electronic countermeasures. Yet Russia spends about one-tenth of what the US spends and one-twentieth of what NATO in total spends. It focuses expenditures on what is necessary to defend Russia, not on trying to compete with America’s sprawling global presence.

And pride in agriculture. Russia now exports huge volumes of grain. The Soviets used to import. And Putin has smartly emphasized GM-free grains giving Russia a large, specialized market.

He’s also built important new infrastructure, from great bridges and rail lines to airports and spaceports and highways. And he has made the application of artificial intelligence a major national project.

Adroit efforts in foreign affairs have restored at least some of the sense of international importance Russia once enjoyed. The success can only be appreciated fully by understanding that the United States works hard to create barriers and difficulties at every turn, Russia remaining a focus of its resentments despite having left communism far behind. The American-financed coup in Ukraine, intended as a major disturbance on Russia’s border, is just one example of meddling – with its many terrible consequences from civil war and secession to the shooting-down of an airliner and many Ukrainians fleeing for jobs elsewhere and a new prominence for neo-Nazi parties in the struggling country.

And Russia has taken big new initiatives in Asia and in its own Northern development, initiatives with great promise for the future.