The current government’s relentless deprivation of Russian society of the freedoms that people gained as a result of the collapse of the communist regime has long been justified by the fact that the country was «getting back on its feet» after the humiliations of the 1990s. In the 1990s, there was lawlessness and poverty, but under Putin’s rule, prosperity began to grow, the middle class stabilized, and the crime rate declined. Therefore, the threat of a return to the 90s has long been used by the current government to justify its own preservation and the consistent tightening of the screws to prevent any troublemakers or opposition from realizing this threat.
And what do we see in recent days? The exchange rate of the ruble against the dollar and the euro has practically returned to the moment when Putin came to his unchanging power and began his «rise from the ashes» — as it turns out, solely thanks to the increase in world oil prices that occurred during his rule. These «brilliant strategists» of the current government decided to collapse these prices, deliberately violating the OPEC agreement and thereby provoking a price war with its members, primarily Saudi Arabia. This is the same kind of price war that economically destroyed the USSR in the 1980s, and it is very likely that it will have the same consequences for Putin’s Russia.
And how does the government react to this, especially in the form of its leader, who has recently been practically appointed to rule for life and declared that Russia’s main asset is no longer oil and gas? It reacts not by trying to change this reality, but by denying it. How else can we interpret his statement that anyone in Russia who earns a salary of more than 17,000 rubles belongs to the middle class? In other words, a salary that is half the unemployment benefit in the United States is now considered sufficient to be in the middle class. And this from someone who only a month ago agreed that it was impossible to live on a salary of 10,000 rubles. So living on 10,000 rubles is impossible, but living on 7,000 rubles more is suddenly considered enough to be in the middle class?
However, the reasons for such a refusal to acknowledge the sad consequences of their policies are well understood. While preparing for a referendum on constitutional amendments aimed at perpetuating the current government, it planned to once again sell the idea of «prosperity instead of freedom» to the population. This also applied to the constitutional stipulation that from now on the minimum wage cannot be less than the subsistence level, which, according to the author of this statement, is 17,000 rubles, enough to be considered middle class.
However, the problem is that at the time this adventure was conceived, 17,000 rubles was not the same as it is today, taking into account the high dependence of the Russian economy as an oil exporter on world oil prices and the exchange rate of the ruble to the dollar. Therefore, in practice, on April 22, the population will be asked to support a return to the 90s. Only this time, completely deprived of the freedoms that existed then.