來自2066年的歷史答卷：普京給俄羅斯帶來災難

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】本文是應吉迪恩•拉赫曼(Gideon Rachman)邀請讀者參加其“2066年的歷史考試”而作。英國《金融時報》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)。本文要回答的問題是：普京對俄羅斯而言是個好“沙皇”還是壞“沙皇”?本文對未來的描述均為虛構。

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.

當俄羅斯首位大體上通過自由選舉產生的領導人鮑里斯•葉利欽(Boris Yeltsin)于1999年辭職時，該國的進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。結果只有一點成為現(xiàn)實。

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)作為一個沉迷于蘇聯(lián)時代種種壓迫手段的沙皇，創(chuàng)建了一個混合政權。就在他去世的幾個月之前，他正式授予自己這一舊時君主政體頭銜。最后他在“今日俄羅斯”(RT)電視臺版本的《舞動奇跡》(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，至少沒有像許多獨裁者那樣被暴力推翻。他對安全部隊的鐵腕掌控，以及助長民眾看破一切的冷漠，確保了他坐穩(wěn)權位。在他掌權的大部分時間里，他貌似恢復了俄羅斯的秩序，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，掩蓋了他對國家機構和社會的深度腐蝕。他的統(tǒng)治在結束后留下種種混亂，最終對俄羅斯是一場災難。

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.

普京上臺時，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重的寡頭，這些行動合乎情理，可惜他采用的方法并不正當。迫使法院聽命于克里姆林宮破壞了新生的法治，扼殺了在共產黨統(tǒng)治倒臺之前、在米哈伊爾•戈爾巴喬夫(Mikhail Gorbachev)時代就已起步的向著開放社會努力的轉型。相反，“強權即公理”被再次確立為指導原則。

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.

普京沒有將落馬寡頭的資產歸還國家或透明的私有產權，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。因為只要這些當代波雅爾(boyars)依靠他撈取好處，他就可通過扮演他們的仲裁人來保持穩(wěn)定。但在他去世后，統(tǒng)治精英中再無一人能維護類似威信，對利益的哄搶淪為幫派戰(zhàn)爭。

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.

隨后的權力斗爭導致他本人的腐敗被悉數(shù)公開。正如2016年巴拿馬文件(Panama Papers)公布時人們所懷疑的那樣，他的音樂家朋友謝爾蓋•羅爾杜金(Sergei Roldugin)名下持有的巨額美元被證實屬于這位沙皇。高加索示威者們在攻占普京在索契的宮殿后，發(fā)現(xiàn)了大量文件，證實他擁有瑞士一家大宗商品貿易公司的多數(shù)股權，還在倫敦擁有大量房地產。

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.

盡管普京本人的財力十分雄厚，但他給俄羅斯留下了一個脆弱的經濟。在他執(zhí)政的頭十年，俄羅斯各大城市在外觀上有所改善。但他沒能充分利用油價經常超過每桶100美元的這段時期。俄羅斯沒有擺脫對自然資源的依賴，實現(xiàn)經濟多樣化，也沒有怎么投資于陳舊的基礎設施或公共服務，導致俄羅斯在2010年代后期至2020年代的廉價石油時代陷入普遍貧困，而沙皇普京死后的動蕩加劇了這種困境。

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)建一個對立的權力中心。俄羅斯杜馬成了橡皮圖章議會。他還鏟除了所有真正的政黨和公民社會組織，以至于沒留下什么機制來產生可信的繼任者。

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.

普京造成的最嚴重傷害或許是他開創(chuàng)的“后真相政治”(post-truth politics)，這種風氣在21世紀上半葉害了全世界。即使在普京之前，幾個世紀的專制制度已使俄羅斯人習慣于對統(tǒng)治者預期不高，對其不當行為也有較高容忍力。普京的“政治技術專家”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服人們相信：政客都一樣不誠實，但沙皇普京至少會像照料自己一樣顧及俄羅斯的利益。這種策略雖然達到了普京的目的，卻是俄羅斯的悲劇。他的宣傳者抹去了客觀真理的概念，代之以他們所稱的“創(chuàng)造現(xiàn)實”，導致人們沒有能力作出合理政治選擇，被普京之后更惡劣的一個又一個獨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年代末的一段時期，通過軍事干預烏克蘭、敘利亞和波羅的海國家，普京自我陶醉于重振莫斯科的全球影響力。但是，當人們看清克里姆林宮除了搗亂以吸引美國注意力，并分散國內民眾對生活困難的關注外，沒有任何計劃可言時，這一招也隨之失敗。北約以迅速而堅決的軍事回應擊退俄羅斯對北約成員國的入侵，西方對普京的同伙施加了更嚴厲的制裁。在俄羅斯國內，軍人們在不被承認的戰(zhàn)爭中付出不被承認的犧牲，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國地位企圖的最終失敗時刻，是當美國總統(tǒng)唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)讀到一條關于理查德•尼克松(Richard Nixon)的推文時受到啟發(fā)，與中國達成了一個舉世震驚的大妥協(xié)。全球兩大強國隨后聯(lián)手主導全球治理，俄羅斯被前盟友中國冷落。

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

歷史證明普京是個壞沙皇，對自己國家的經濟、社會和國際地位帶來重大長期損害。