來(lái)自2066年的歷史答卷：普京給俄羅斯帶來(lái)災(zāi)難

This essay was written in response to Gideon Rachman’s invitation to readers to sit his ‘2066 history exam’. Of 170 entries, the FT is publishing the best five (see panel for the others). This piece addresses the question: Was Vladimir Putin a good or a bad tsar for Russia?

【編者按】本文是應(yīng)吉迪恩•拉赫曼(Gideon Rachman)邀請(qǐng)讀者參加其“2066年的歷史考試”而作。英國(guó)《金融時(shí)報(bào)》從收到的170篇作品中選擇了最優(yōu)秀的五篇刊發(fā)(FT中文網(wǎng)選擇其中三篇發(fā)表)。本文要回答的問(wèn)題是：普京對(duì)俄羅斯而言是個(gè)好“沙皇”還是壞“沙皇”?本文對(duì)未來(lái)的描述均為虛構(gòu)。

When Russia’s first freely elected (more or less) leader, Boris Yeltsin, resigned in 1999, the country’s progress depended upon his successor being more democratic, less corrupt and less drunk. It got one out of three.

當(dāng)俄羅斯首位大體上通過(guò)自由選舉產(chǎn)生的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人鮑里斯•葉利欽(Boris Yeltsin)于1999年辭職時(shí)，該國(guó)的進(jìn)步取決于他的繼任者比他更加民主，更少腐敗，而且不那么醉醺醺。結(jié)果只有一點(diǎn)成為現(xiàn)實(shí)。

The coldly sober Vladimir Putin created a hybrid regime as a tsar steeped in the oppressive methods of the Soviet era. He formally granted himself the old monarchist title just months before his demise at the paws of an insufficiently doped dancing bear during a tango for the broadcaster RT’s version of Strictly.

清醒得冷冰冰的弗拉基米爾•普京(Vladimir Putin)作為一個(gè)沉迷于蘇聯(lián)時(shí)代種種壓迫手段的沙皇，創(chuàng)建了一個(gè)混合政權(quán)。就在他去世的幾個(gè)月之前，他正式授予自己這一舊時(shí)君主政體頭銜。最后他在“今日俄羅斯”(RT)電視臺(tái)版本的《舞動(dòng)奇跡》(Strictly)節(jié)目中與一頭狗熊跳起探戈，卻不料命喪于這頭麻醉不夠徹底的狗熊爪下。

By falling victim to a failed publicity stunt, Putin did at least avoid the violent overthrow to which many dictators succumb. His iron grip on the security forces and cultivation of cynical apathy among the population ensured that. For much of his rule, he seemed to have restored order to Russia and rebuilt its global influence. But this was largely a Potemkin façade that disguised how deeply he had corroded the country’s institutions and society. His reign left chaos in its wake and was ultimately a disaster for Russia.

淪為一出失敗炒作受害者的普京，至少?zèng)]有像許多獨(dú)裁者那樣被暴力推翻。他對(duì)安全部隊(duì)的鐵腕掌控，以及助長(zhǎng)民眾看破一切的冷漠，確保了他坐穩(wěn)權(quán)位。在他掌權(quán)的大部分時(shí)間里，他貌似恢復(fù)了俄羅斯的秩序，還重建了俄羅斯的全球影響力。但這在很大程度上只是一種“波將金”(Potemkin)假象，掩蓋了他對(duì)國(guó)家機(jī)構(gòu)和社會(huì)的深度腐蝕。他的統(tǒng)治在結(jié)束后留下種種混亂，最終對(duì)俄羅斯是一場(chǎng)災(zāi)難。

Russia’s development was being hampered by corruption when Putin came to power. His early campaign to banish some of the worst-offending oligarchs was justified. Sadly, the methods he used were not. The subordination of the courts to the Kremlin crushed the nascent rule of law. This ended the transition to an open society that had begun even before the fall of communism, under Mikhail Gorbachev. Instead, “might is right” was reaffirmed as the governing principle.

普京上臺(tái)時(shí)，俄羅斯的發(fā)展被腐敗阻礙。他在早期打擊了一些違法最嚴(yán)重的寡頭，這些行動(dòng)合乎情理，可惜他采用的方法并不正當(dāng)。迫使法院聽(tīng)命于克里姆林宮破壞了新生的法治，扼殺了在共產(chǎn)黨統(tǒng)治倒臺(tái)之前、在米哈伊爾•戈?duì)柊蛦谭?Mikhail Gorbachev)時(shí)代就已起步的向著開(kāi)放社會(huì)努力的轉(zhuǎn)型。相反，“強(qiáng)權(quán)即公理”被再次確立為指導(dǎo)原則。

Rather than returning the deposed oligarchs’ assets to the state or transparent private ownership, Putin made matters worse by redistributing them among his, mostly ex-KGB, cronies. For as long as these modern-day boyars depended on him for access to the trough, he could preserve stability by acting as arbiter between them. But after his death no other member of the ruling elite could assert similar authority, and the squabbling over the spoils descended into gang warfare.

普京沒(méi)有將落馬寡頭的資產(chǎn)歸還國(guó)家或透明的私有產(chǎn)權(quán)，而是重新分配給自己的親信(絕大部分是前克格勃)，這令事態(tài)更加糟糕。因?yàn)橹灰@些當(dāng)代波雅爾(boyars)依靠他撈取好處，他就可通過(guò)扮演他們的仲裁人來(lái)保持穩(wěn)定。但在他去世后，統(tǒng)治精英中再無(wú)一人能維護(hù)類(lèi)似威信，對(duì)利益的哄搶淪為幫派戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)。

The subsequent power struggle led to the disclosure of the full extent of his personal corruption. As was suspected when the Panama Papers were released in 2016, the millions of dollars held in the name of his musician friend Sergei Roldugin were confirmed as belonging to the tsar. Documents found by Caucasian demonstrators who over-ran Putin’s palace in Sochi revealed his majority ownership of a Swiss-based commodity trading firm and extensive London property holdings.

隨后的權(quán)力斗爭(zhēng)導(dǎo)致他本人的腐敗被悉數(shù)公開(kāi)。正如2016年巴拿馬文件(Panama Papers)公布時(shí)人們所懷疑的那樣，他的音樂(lè)家朋友謝爾蓋•羅爾杜金(Sergei Roldugin)名下持有的巨額美元被證實(shí)屬于這位沙皇。高加索示威者們?cè)诠フ计站┰谒髌醯膶m殿后，發(fā)現(xiàn)了大量文件，證實(shí)他擁有瑞士一家大宗商品貿(mào)易公司的多數(shù)股權(quán)，還在倫敦?fù)碛写罅糠康禺a(chǎn)。

While his own finances were healthy, Putin left Russia fragile economically. Some cosmetic improvements had been made to the big cities during his first decade in power. But he failed to capitalise on a period when oil prices regularly exceeded $100 a barrel. There was no diversification from the dependence on natural resources. Little was invested in the crumbling infrastructure or public services. The widespread poverty this led to in the late 2010s and 2020s era of cheap oil was compounded by the turmoil that followed the tsar’s death.

盡管普京本人的財(cái)力十分雄厚，但他給俄羅斯留下了一個(gè)脆弱的經(jīng)濟(jì)。在他執(zhí)政的頭十年，俄羅斯各大城市在外觀上有所改善。但他沒(méi)能充分利用油價(jià)經(jīng)常超過(guò)每桶100美元的這段時(shí)期。俄羅斯沒(méi)有擺脫對(duì)自然資源的依賴(lài)，實(shí)現(xiàn)經(jīng)濟(jì)多樣化，也沒(méi)有怎么投資于陳舊的基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施或公共服務(wù)，導(dǎo)致俄羅斯在2010年代后期至2020年代的廉價(jià)石油時(shí)代陷入普遍貧困，而沙皇普京死后的動(dòng)蕩加劇了這種困境。

Putin left Russia in an equally poor political state. He had avoided anointing a successor because he feared creating a rival power centre. The Duma became a rubber-stamp parliament. And by eliminating all genuine political parties and civil society organisations, he left few mechanisms through which a credible successor could emerge.

普京還給俄羅斯留下了一個(gè)同樣貧乏的政治生態(tài)。他生前不愿指定接班人，唯恐創(chuàng)建一個(gè)對(duì)立的權(quán)力中心。俄羅斯杜馬成了橡皮圖章議會(huì)。他還鏟除了所有真正的政黨和公民社會(huì)組織，以至于沒(méi)留下什么機(jī)制來(lái)產(chǎn)生可信的繼任者。

Perhaps the worst damage was done by his pioneering of the “post-truth” politics that blighted the world in the first half of the 21st century. Even before Putin, centuries of autocracy had conditioned Russians to have low expectations of their rulers and deep tolerance of their misdeeds. The public’s apathetic cynicism was cultivated by his “political technologists”, such as Vladislav Surkov and Dmitry Kiselyov.

普京造成的最嚴(yán)重傷害或許是他開(kāi)創(chuàng)的“后真相政治”(post-truth politics)，這種風(fēng)氣在21世紀(jì)上半葉害了全世界。即使在普京之前，幾個(gè)世紀(jì)的專(zhuān)制制度已使俄羅斯人習(xí)慣于對(duì)統(tǒng)治者預(yù)期不高，對(duì)其不當(dāng)行為也有較高容忍力。普京的“政治技術(shù)專(zhuān)家”蘇爾科夫•弗拉季斯拉夫(Vladislav Surkov)和德米特里•基謝廖夫(Dmitry Kiselyov)則助長(zhǎng)了民眾的這種看破一切的冷漠。

Their strategy focused on convincing people that all politicians were equally dishonest but that the tsar would at least look after Russia’s interests as well as his own. While this approach served Putin well, it was a tragedy for his country. His propagandists erased the concept of objective truth and instead, as they put it, “created realities”. This left the people ill-equipped to exercise reasoned political choice and easy prey for the succession of even worse despots who followed Putin.

他們的策略聚焦于說(shuō)服人們相信：政客都一樣不誠(chéng)實(shí)，但沙皇普京至少會(huì)像照料自己一樣顧及俄羅斯的利益。這種策略雖然達(dá)到了普京的目的，卻是俄羅斯的悲劇。他的宣傳者抹去了客觀真理的概念，代之以他們所稱(chēng)的“創(chuàng)造現(xiàn)實(shí)”，導(dǎo)致人們沒(méi)有能力作出合理政治選擇，被普京之后更惡劣的一個(gè)又一個(gè)獨(dú)裁者玩弄于股掌之上。

The tsar’s aggressive foreign policy meant Russia’s collapse attracted little sympathy from the outside world. For a time in the late 2010s, he gloried in his revival of Moscow’s global influence through military interventions in Ukraine, Syria and the Baltic states. But the tactic failed when it became clear that the Kremlin had no plan beyond mischief-making to attract US attention and distract the domestic audience from their troubles. Nato’s rapid, forceful military response reversed Russia’s incursions to the alliance’s member states and the west imposed tighter sanctions on Putin’s associates. At home, anger rose over the unrecognised sacrifice of soldiers fighting in unacknowledged wars.

沙皇普京咄咄逼人的外交政策意味著，俄羅斯的崩潰吸引不了外界多少同情。2010年代末的一段時(shí)期，通過(guò)軍事干預(yù)烏克蘭、敘利亞和波羅的海國(guó)家，普京自我陶醉于重振莫斯科的全球影響力。但是，當(dāng)人們看清克里姆林宮除了搗亂以吸引美國(guó)注意力，并分散國(guó)內(nèi)民眾對(duì)生活困難的關(guān)注外，沒(méi)有任何計(jì)劃可言時(shí)，這一招也隨之失敗。北約以迅速而堅(jiān)決的軍事回應(yīng)擊退俄羅斯對(duì)北約成員國(guó)的入侵，西方對(duì)普京的同伙施加了更嚴(yán)厲的制裁。在俄羅斯國(guó)內(nèi)，軍人們?cè)诓槐怀姓J(rèn)的戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)中付出不被承認(rèn)的犧牲，這激怒了民眾。

The final collapse of Putin’s attempt to reassert Moscow’s global power came when US President Donald Trump was inspired by a tweet he read about Richard Nixon and struck a surprise grand bargain with China. The world’s two largest powers subsequently dominated global governance and Russia was sidelined by its former Chinese ally.

普京重新確立莫斯科全球強(qiáng)國(guó)地位企圖的最終失敗時(shí)刻，是當(dāng)美國(guó)總統(tǒng)唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)讀到一條關(guān)于理查德•尼克松(Richard Nixon)的推文時(shí)受到啟發(fā)，與中國(guó)達(dá)成了一個(gè)舉世震驚的大妥協(xié)。全球兩大強(qiáng)國(guó)隨后聯(lián)手主導(dǎo)全球治理，俄羅斯被前盟友中國(guó)冷落。

History has exposed Putin as a bad tsar who did significant long-term damage to his country’s economy, society and international standing.

歷史證明普京是個(gè)壞沙皇，對(duì)自己國(guó)家的經(jīng)濟(jì)、社會(huì)和國(guó)際地位帶來(lái)重大長(zhǎng)期損害。