A powerful orator with shrewd political instincts who skillfully manipulates media attention, Vladimir Zhirinovsky has emerged as a potent threat to Russia's political and economic reforms. Despite the electoral success of his Liberal Democratic Party, which now commands a strategic position in the Russian parliament, many dismiss Zhirinovsky as a bit player, projected less by his own talents than by the inadequacies of Russian reformers. But a careful reading of his memoirs and LDP literature indicates that he may have more substantive appeal than his critics allow. To dismiss this ultranationalist demagogue as a self-destructive clown is dangerous and ignores the real danger that he poses to Russian democracy.
Jacob W. Kipp is a Senior Analyst with the Foreign Military Study Office at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Kansas. He is also U.S. Editor of European Security. The views expressed are those of the author and should not be interpreted as representing those of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.
A DANGER TO RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY
In the ongoing drama of what Russia is to be, state or empire, democracy or autocracy, Vladimir Zhirinovsky has shouldered his way to center stage with a bellicose, attention-grabbing performance. Some Russian and Western observers have quickly concluded that this ultranationalist is a bit player, thrust forward less by his own devices than by the inadequacies of Russian reformers in the December parliamentary elections. Yet it would be dangerous to dismiss Zhirinovsky, with his rash, outlandish statements to the press, as a self-destructive clown. His writings and the statements by key ideologues of his Liberal Democratic Party, as well as his electioneering skills, make him a potent threat to Russian democracy. Postelection surveys indicate voters support his ideas, and not just as a protest against economic conditions.
Zhirinovsky and his year-old Liberal Democratic Party surfaced in June 1991 when he drew six million votes, almost eight percent of the total election returns, to finish third in the Russian presidential election won by Boris Yeltsin. Two and a half years later, in December’s parliamentary elections, his populist television campaigning garnered the LDP nearly 25 percent of the vote. Russia’s political leaders and intellectuals, along with the West, were aghast to find this demagogue commanding a strategic position in the new 450-seat assembly, along with a fairly large bloc of hard-line, anti-reform communists. Although mutually hostile on a number of key issues, the communists and the LDP are proving capable of selective cooperation. Together they voted to release those who had led both the 1991 coup against former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and the October 1993 insurrection in the parliament. Zhirinovsky instigated the surprise anti-Yeltsin maneuver fully aware that freeing Aleksandr Rutskoi might empower a more centrist rival for the political leadership of nationalist forces.
This is a premium article
You must be a Foreign Affairs subscriber to continue reading. If you are already a print subscriber, click here to activate your online access.
Log In
Buy PDF
Buy a premium PDF reprint of this article.Related
What enthusiasts took for a global rush to democracy may be reversing direction, with backsliding and stalled transitions in the former Soviet Union, Africa, the Middle East. So far, one sees disarray or new strongmen much like the old; no competing ideologies seem to be beckoning. Market reforms have not been the cause in most cases. More affluent countries with Western ties seem to be sticking the course better. However the trend plays out, it should lead the administration to rethink democracy promotion. The truth is that U.S. policy is not significantly responsible for democracy's advance or retreat in the world.
Three books ask what went wrong in Russia but find the wrong scapegoats: the oligarchs and neoliberal reformers. In fact, Russia's woes have much deeper roots.
Russia's era of romantic democracy is over. Boris Yeltsin's victory in the 1996 elections marked the rise of a new class of oligarchs who have profited from post-Cold War chaos. But Westerners who predict a return to authoritarianism and cultural stagnation overlook how far Russia has come since the late 1980s, and how it has opened to the world. It is not the Soviet Union, nor the land of the czars. In the short term, most Russians cannot hope for much, especially from their leaders. But with its political reforms, 98 percent privatized economy, and educated, urban population, Russia has a great deal going for it-maybe more than China.
