The View from Russia's Dissidents

Conservatives have been voicing their displeasure of late at President Obama's reluctance to denounce the internal governance of other countries. During his speech to the New Economic School, President Obama did key in on some of those themes:

By no means is America perfect. But it is our commitment to certain universal values which allows us to correct our imperfections, to improve constantly, and to grow stronger over time. Freedom of speech and assembly has allowed women, and minorities, and workers to protest for full and equal rights at a time when they were denied. The rule of law and equal administration of justice has busted monopolies, shut down political machines that were corrupt, ended abuses of power. Independent media have exposed corruption at all levels of business and government. Competitive elections allow us to change course and hold our leaders accountable. If our democracy did not advance those rights, then I, as a person of African ancestry, wouldn't be able to address you as an American citizen, much less a President. Because at the time of our founding, I had no rights -- people who looked like me. But it is because of that process that I can now stand before you as President of the United States.

So around the world, America supports these values because they are moral, but also because they work. The arc of history shows that governments which serve their own people survive and thrive; governments which serve only their own power do not.

How was this received in Russia? Russian dissident Gary Kasparov had this to say:

Ideally he would have named names. He made some strong statements about democracy being the solution and the failure of totalitarianism, far stronger than anything we heard from the last two administrations. But he avoided directly criticizing Putin and Medvedev, the core of our dictatorial system. Nor did Obama mention Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose jailing by Putin and continued imprisonment by Medvedev symbolizes everything Obama was criticizing about authoritarian states.

But he was strong and gave a consistent message. He repeatedly emphasized that the important relationship between America and Russia is about the people, not their regimes. That got a very positive reception here. Obama opened direct lines of communication instead of dealing only with official Kremlin channels.

Joshua Keating has some reaction from Boris Nemtsov which is similarly positive.

However it's not all good:

The main question regarding Obama’s visit to Russia is whether the new liberal U.S. president will succeed in reaching out to the Russian people, as well as the government. But the Levada Center’s study found that public opinion is split almost evenly between those who believe that the U.S.-Russian relationship will improve after the meeting of the countries’ presidents (42 percent) and those who think that the meeting will not change anything (39 percent). Meanwhile, 71.2 percent of respondents to a poll on the Echo of Moscow radio station’s website said that the meeting would not improve relations between the two countries. These figures show the depth of ambivalence amongst the Russian public about the “reset.”

Much of that uncertainty may be a reflection of the contradictory portrayal of the United States in the Russian media. The media has recently moved away from traditional anti-American rhetoric to showing a Russia that is interested in building a relationship with the newly elected U.S. president. That in turn mimicked the Kremlin’s own rhetoric - prior to Obama’s visit Medvedev said that he was “cautiously optimistic” about the meeting in an interview to the Italian Raitalia TV channel and Corriere della Sera newspaper. But although the talks between the two heads of state on Monday were reciprocally friendly, it is unclear to what extent the Russian people will be affected by them.