Fighting Words

Even in this digital age, words still count. Leon Trotsky, himself no mean orator, argued that true leaders always possessed the “living word,” the electric rhetoric that could move the masses. Vladimir Lenin had it, Trotsky said, but Josef Stalin didn’t.

Adolf Hitler, of course, had it in spades. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt weren’t far behind. In our time, U.S. President Barack Obama has demonstrated that he can rouse millions from their customary lethargy.

In today’s Russia, no one has it. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, like Stalin, can craft a catchy phrase, but that won’t move the millions. Though he has come up with some intelligent and useful ideas of late, President Dmitry Medvedev’s speeches lack the force and formulation that makes for greatness — and results.

And no one in the opposition has the gift either. That was made very clear in an online anti-Putin manifesto under the slogan “Putin Must Go!” It was also designed to inspire Russians to take to the streets in large numbers on March 20, the so-called “Day of Wrath.”

Legend has it that when Cicero spoke, people would say: “How beautiful!” And when Demosthenses spoke, they’d say: “Let’s march!” The anti-Putin manifesto elicited no aesthetic admiration, and the turnout on the streets on March 20 was sparse.

Propaganda is never subtle, and Russia could never have been the birthplace of understatement. But the manifesto is simply over the top, its language overblown, its fixation on Putin approaching the monomaniacal. Perhaps after decades of Marxism stressing the great impersonal forces of history, it may be a pleasure for Russians to personalize history. Here the result is a sort of negative personality cult: “We declare that the socio-political construction imposed on our citizens and which is killing Russia has one architect, one custodian, one guardian. His name is Vladimir Putin.” Near unlimited power is attributed to Putin: “No essential reforms can be carried out in Russia today as long as Putin controls real power in the country.” Of course that power is entirely negative and destructive: “Anything that could be ruined has been ruined” — health care, education, the judicial system and the army.

Putin is indirectly compared to Ivan the Terrible and Hitler, the Putin youth groups are referred to as “Putinjugend.” Having shown that he is willing to “destroy his political opponents by any means possible,” Putin will cling to power forever out of fear of being prosecuted for all his murders. Mass repression is therefore a real possibility. Rising to boozy heights, the manifesto concludes: “We are warning law enforcement and security agency officers not to stand against their nation, not to carry out criminal orders from corrupt officials when they send you out to kill us for Putin, [Deputy Prime Minister Igor] Sechin, [oligarch Oleg] Deripaska.”

Polls taken on the eve of the March 20 protests indicated that 30 percent of Russians were ready to participate in mass protests. The figure is probably too high, but even still that leaves many millions. Only 20,000 showed up at the 50 rallies from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok on the Day of Wrath. Why so few? Apart from fear and bad weather, the overkill on ad hominem attacks against a politician whose ratings are probably the highest in the world cannot be counted as a brilliant tactical move.

Post-Soviet Russia is still up for grabs. Neither the authorities nor the opposition have found the vision and vocabulary to win hearts and minds. Whoever finds it first wins.

Richard Lourie is author of “The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin” and “Sakharov: A Biography.”