Heaven help us all if Russian Patriarch Kirill has his way. Just after Vladimir Putin’s inauguration on May 7 as self-elected president, the godly church head expressed the wish that Putin’s rule extend until the “end of the vek”; in this context, “vek” can mean either century or time.
In the best-case scenario, the 148-year old Putin would step down in 2100. In the worst case, he’d be around forever, even outdoing Adolf Hitler’s plans of a thousand-year Reich.
Putin has served as president or prime minister since 1999. That’s 25 years, which brings him just one year short of Joseph Stalin, who ruled from 1927 to 1953. Catherine II (aka the Great) beat both, reigning from 1762 to 1796, a total of 34 years. Peter I (aka the Great) outdid them all, ruling from 1682 to 1725, a whopping 43 years.
Unless Putin kicks (or is made to kick) the bucket this year, he’s sure to beat Uncle Joe. If he finishes this term and the next, he could make it to 2036, thereby beating Catherine. Alas, Peter, who was a giant of a man, will remain out of the diminutive Putin’s reach, both temporally and physically.
In contrast to Joe, Catherine and Peter, who succeeded in “making Russia great again” — while killing millions of non-Russians and Russians in the process — poor Vlad will go down in history as the man who, like a string of Russian czars and Soviet leaders, made Russia impotent again.
Putin will have destroyed his army, lost Ukraine, strengthened NATO, diminished Russia’s security, transformed Russia into an abject vassal of China and turned back the clock on Russia’s economic and political modernization.
Putin will also have stopped time for two generations of Russians, who will know no other presidential face than his. Ministers may come and go, opponents may get killed with clockwork regularity, Russians may die like flies in Ukrainian mud, but Putin will continue to appear on the telly, reminding his adoring folk that there can be no Russia without him.
Paradoxically, he will also have made Russians acutely aware of the ravages of time, as they watch his visage and physique undergo change — from something resembling a tough-guy virility to a weak-chinned pudginess that some Russians will realize is also emblematic of their ruined country. Some may even decide that the clock is ticking and the 11th hour is rapidly approaching for Russia.
Putin’s longevity has done more than affect Russians. It’s also jaded the West. We see the same bloated face mouthing the same tired phrases year after year. The West is degenerate and slated for collapse; the Ukrainians are all neo-Nazis; the future is Russia’s. We’ve heard it all before, from Putin, from his ministers, and from his propagandists. One can only pity the Russians, who, unlike us, can’t turn off their great leader’s televised blather.
But Putin’s face has had one important, positive consequence, at least for us. It reminds us that evil can be — to use Hannah Arendt’s term for the profoundly evil yet ordinary-looking Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann — banal. Just look closely at Putin and what should immediately strike you is the awe-inspiring mediocrity that he exudes. In that sense, Putin is Eichmann’s double.
Unlike Eichmann, however, Putin has shown that evil can become so routinized, so predictable, as to be boring. The “killer in the Kremlin,” to cite the title of journalist John Sweeney’s book, no longer surprises. He’s become a machine that does only what it’s preprogrammed to do. To kill, above all, and to pontificate in the manner of all self-absorbed dictators.
Small wonder that many Western policy makers fear what or who may come after. Putin may be boring, but at least he’s predictable and you know what to expect: another rant, another murder, another genocide, another invasion. Ho hum. But once Putin leaves the world of politics, or perhaps the world itself, Russia will become interesting again. And we all know the Chinese proverb about interesting lives.
Not everyone in the West is jaded. Ukrainians understand all too well that Putin doesn’t just look like Eichmann; he is Eichmann. The Balts and Poles know that he has his sights on them too. A Russian invasion wouldn’t be necessary. A few “terrorist” explosions targeting Russians in Estonia or Latvia, followed by calls for immediate Russian “humanitarian” assistance, would suffice. Or why not drop a tiny tactical nuclear weapon on some corner of Lithuania, blame it on Russian inefficiency, and promise that it’ll never, ever happen again? Would NATO really risk annoying the tyrant that historian Anne Applebaum calls “one of the greatest war criminals of the 21st century” and starting World War III?
We can be thankful for the fact that Putin’s ex-KGB pal, Kirill, will be disappointed. Biology, if not a coup, will see to that. Unfortunately, even one more day of Putin is too much.
Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as “Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.”