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Jewish World Review Feb 8, 2012/ 15 Shevat, 5772 Russia's Potemkin democracy By Anne Applebaum http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or to cry when I heard that the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, had found a solution to the Syrian crisis. Speaking in Damascus on Tuesday, Lavrov declared that everything was fine: President Bashar al-Assad was “completely committed to the task of stopping violence regardless of where it may come from.” Russia’s foreign ministry backed up this statement by calling for “the swiftest stabilization of the situation in Syria on the basis of the swiftest implementation of democratic reforms whose time has come.” Actually, the time for “democratic reforms” has long passed in Syria, where Assad’s army shows no sign of “stopping violence regardless of where it may come from.” If anything, the brutality increased during the hours that Lavrov spent in Damascus. But even if Syria were an Arab Switzerland, fully prepared to hold a “constitutional referendum,” as Lavrov suggests, it would be hard to listen to the Russian foreign minister’s comments with a straight face. At the moment, it isn’t easy to say how, exactly, Russia selects its political leaders, but that process doesn’t involve the voting public, at least not very much. “Swift implementation of democratic reforms” is definitely an idea whose time has come — in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as Damascus and Aleppo. RECEIVE LIBERTY LOVING COLUMNISTS IN YOUR INBOX … FOR FREE! Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". HUNDREDS of columnists and cartoonists regularly appear. Sign up for the daily update. It's free. Just click here. Nevertheless, it is notable, and remarkable, that even the Russians now feel obligated to use this kind of language. I have to presume that Lavrov doesn’t care one way or the other about democracy in Syria: He went there because Syria buys a lot of weapons from Russia, because Russia was spooked by the fall of Moammar Gaddafi and because unrest in Syria might be bad for other Russian interests in the region. Once upon a time, a Soviet envoy visiting the beleaguered head of a client state in a similar situation would have used words like “comradely solidarity” instead of “democracy,” and he would have brought along some very visible military advisers for good measure. Nowadays, that sort of thing just isn’t acceptable. It is not good for one’s international prestige to be seen as the leader of a nasty dictatorship. Slowly, it is also becoming more difficult to move one’s money around the world or to educate one’s children in Swiss boarding schools. More to the point, even authoritarian regimes worry about how their warm relationships with other authoritarians look to those at home. Lavrov represents a regime that, although not endangered at the moment, certainly fears popular discontent, anti-corruption rhetoric and, of course, political demonstrations of the sort that created the Orange Revolution in Ukraine or the Arab Spring across North Africa. And thus Russia feels the need to maintain a semblance of legitimacy. During the last Russian presidential elections, President Dmitry Medvedev did not travel around the country and did not meet with supporters. The Russian media covered the story, with Medvedev receiving almost all of the television coverage while his opponents got little or none. Nevertheless, people were encouraged to vote, and all of the fluffy trappings of democracy were present, even though there was no doubt about who would win. The same is true in Russian diplomacy. Lavrov, and his bosses, clearly don’t want Russians back home to think they support a regime that is firing on demonstrators — although they do — particularly in a week when demonstrators have thronged the streets of Moscow, carrying banners calling for “honest elections.” It makes them look, well, undemocratic. So the Russian foreign ministry has to pretend to be fighting for Syrian democracy, even as the Syrian army is simultaneously waging a full-scale war against its people. I’m of two minds about this “pretend democracy promotion,” the natural offshoot of Russia’s pretend democracy. On the one hand, it cheapens the language. If “we support Syrian democracy” really means “we support Syrian dictatorship,” then we’re in an Orwellian world where nothing means anything anymore at all. On the other hand, people are not stupid: Syrians and Russians both know the difference between “democracy,” “constitutions” and “referendums” on the one hand, and naked violence on the other. The more the Russians use those words, the more obvious it will be, to Syrians and to Russians, that in this context they are meaningless. Perhaps some of them will eventually decide they want the real thing instead. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. APPLEBAUM'S LATEST Gulag: A History   Nearly 30 million prisoners passed through the Soviet Union's labor camps in their more than 60 years of operation. This remarkable volume, the first fully documented history of the gulag, describes how, largely under Stalin's watch, a regulated, centralized system of prison labor-unprecedented in scope-gradually arose out of the chaos of the Russian Revolution. Fueled by waves of capricious arrests, this prison labor came to underpin the Soviet economy. JWR's Applebaum, a former Warsaw correspondent for the Economist and a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, draws on newly accessible Soviet archives as well as scores of camp memoirs and interviews with survivors to trace the gulag's origins and expansion Sales help fund JWR. Comment on JWR contributor Anne Applebaum's column by clicking here. Previously: 10/28/11: What Libya has inherited from Moammar Gaddafi 10/19/11: The global protests may actually undermine democracy rather than strengthen it 08/24/11: Let Libya take charge of its revolution 08/11/11: Conclusions we can't draw about London's riots 06/07/11: What to do about Libya's stalemate? 04/13/11: Will the Libya intervention bring the end of NATO? 04/05/11: Why has the State Department run into a firewall on Internet freedom? 03/29/11: Are we bombing Tripoli to keep Nicolas Sarkozy in power? 03/22/11: The Key to Success in Libya Is Setting Low Expectations 02/22/11: In the Arab world, it's 1848 - not 1989 02/08/11: U.S. deeds don't follow U.S. words on Egypt 01/01/11: When oil prices rise, Russia has freedom over a barrel 12/28/10: Jeopardizing democracy in Hungary 12/21/10: In Belarus, a slide toward Eastern aggression 12/14/10: In Britain, outrage without a thoughtful outlet 12/07/10: How WikiLeaks' new release will increase secrecy and damage democratic governments 11/30/10: In seeking ‘free speech,’ Wikileaks strikes a blow against honest speech 11/23/10: A NATO for the 21st century 11/16/10: A model for scrimping --- in Europe? 11/09/10: As Alaska Goes . . . 10/26/10: Jon Stewart's march is no laughing matter 10/12/10: The rise of the ‘ordinary’ elite 10/05/10: The Government That Cried Wolf 09/28/10: China's quiet power grab 09/14/10: Mind the austerity gap : What the U.S. could learn from Britain's cuts 09/07/10: In Europe, it's no longer East vs. West 08/10/10: Take your medicine, Tom Sawyer 07/29/10: Wikileaks busts myth about the irrelevance of mainstream media 07/07/10: Democracy in trouble 06/22/10: Buzz off? : What to do about the vuvuzela 06/08/10: Germany's dangerous code of silence 06/02/10: Can the Brits play nice? 05/11/10: Greece's stubborn surrender 05/04/10: Another human-rights irony at the U.N. 04/27/10: Britain's spot of Tea Party 04/13/10: Out of tragedy, a detente of sorts between Russia, Poland 03/25/10: From Britain's Tories, lessons for the GOP 03/16/10: Britain and America both have center-left leaders, but the two nations are further apart than ever 03/09/10: Germany Is Tired of Paying Europe's Bills 03/02/10: Chile will survive the earthquake because its democracy works 02/23/10: Prepare for war with Iran — in case Israel strikes 02/17/10: America's Greek tragedy? 02/09/10: The Big Problem With Big Solutions 01/26/10: India's model of reflective patriotism 01/12/10: Haiti's man-made disasters 01/12/10: We need a smarter way to fight the jihadi elite 01/05/10: How every year we waste millions on wasteful homeland-security projects 12/30/09: The next decade will be bad for authoritarian regimes except one 12/15/09: The Apocalypse Is Not Upon Us 11/24/09: Superpower without a partner 11/17/09: Why has the global response to swine flu been so politicized? 11/10/09: After the wall fell 11/03/09: Angela Merkel's Quiet Revolution 10/20/09: Will the President of Europe Be a Gifted Pol or a Compromising Bureaucrat? 09/29/09:What Is Iran Afraid Of? 09/22/09: Letting Europe Drift 09/17/09: Greed and fear are proving stronger than companies' commitment to free speech 09/08/09: Will Obama Fight For Afghanistan? 09/01/09: The Polish Prologue 08/20/09: Why Afghans Need a Vote 07/29/09: No Burqa For Clinton 07/14/09: The Summit of Green Futility 07/09/09: Obama Puts Medvedev Ahead of Putin 06/30/09: In Morocco, an alternative to Iran 06/23/09: An overlooked force in Iran 06/16/09: Some good in a bad election 06/09/09: Why Is the Right Doing So Well in Europe? 06/02/09: Is China Pulling Strings in North Korea? 05/26/09: What a Member of Parliament Deserves 04/22/09: The Twitter Revolution That Wasn't 04/14/09: Do we really need interactive exhibits to bring Jefferson to life? 04/07/09: No Nukes? No Thanks: Obama's odd obsession with universal nuclear disarmament 03/31/09: What's Loud, Unnecessary, and Costs $75 Million? 03/23/09: Ctrl-Alt-Diplomacy 03/03/09: European Disunion 02/24/09: Who cares what Hillary Clinton says to China's leaders about human rights? 02/17/09: Witless protection 02/10/09: Our Ticket Out of Afghanistan 01/27/09:Why some foreigners can't believe Obama won the presidency fair and square 01/20/09: A Flight Test for All of Us 01/14/09: Europe's New Cold War 01/07/09: Pointless Peace Proposals 12/30/08: The magnificent rhetorical legacy of the Founding Fathers 12/23/08: Do riots in Athens portend demonstrations in Paris and Cincinnati? 12/16/08: Breach of Trust: Bernard Madoff's massive fraud will cripple American capitalism 12/09/08: In praise of charismatic politicians 12/03/08: Moscow's Empire of Dust 11/20/08: Getting Past Mythmaking In Georgia 11/12/08: In Praise of Political Rock Stars 10/03/08: Election Day myths you must resist 09/30/08: Not just a metaphor: Lehman Brothers was economic's 9/11 09/04/08: Class of '64 08/28/08: Did Hillary really help the Barack cause? 08/27/08: ‘Show of Power,’ Indeed 08/19/08: What Is Russia Afraid Of? 08/13/08: When China Starved 08/11/08: Two of the world's rising powers are strutting their stuff 08/05/08: How Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago changed the world 07/29/08:‘The Hour of Europe’ Tolls Again … But are European politicians up to the task? 07/15/08: Why Does Obama Want To Campaign in Berlin? 07/01/08: Citizen Athletes: How did a guy who can't speak Polish end up scoring Poland's only goal of Euro 2008? 06/24/08: Why do we expect presidential candidates to be kind? 06/17/08: Pity the Poor Eurocrats 06/12/08: Is the World Ready for a Black American President? 05/28/08: The Busiest Generation: America seems to value its children's status and achievements over their happiness 05/20/08: Leave Hitler Out of It: The craze for injecting the Nazis into political debate must end 05/13/08: A Drastic Remedy: The case for intervention in Burma 05/07/08: A Warning Shot From Moscow? 04/23/08: Radio to stay tuned to 04/17/08: China learns the price of a few weeks of global attention 04/01/08: Head scarves are potent political symbols 03/26/08: The Olympics are the perfect place for a protest 03/19/08: Could Tibet bring down modern China? 03/12/08: Have political autobiographies made us more susceptible to fake memoirs? 03/05/08: Why does Russia bother to hold elections? 02/20/08: Kosovo is a textbook example of the law of unintended consequences 02/06/08: A Craven Canterbury Tale 02/06/08: French prez' whirlwind romance reminds voters of his political recklessness © 2009, Anne Applebaum. By permission of the author

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