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’.
【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。
Of 170 entries, the FT is publishing the best five (see panel for the others).
英國《金融時報》從收到的170篇作品中選擇了最優秀的五篇刊發（FT中文網選擇其中三篇發表）。
This piece addresses the question: Was Vladimir Putin a good or a bad tsar for Russia?
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爲虛構。
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.
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)於1999年辭職時，該國的進步取決於他的繼任者比他更加民主，更少腐敗，而且不那麼醉醺醺。
It got one out of three.
結果只有一點成爲現實。
The coldly sober Vladimir Putin created a hybrid regime as a tsar steeped in the oppressive methods of the Soviet era.
清醒得冷冰冰的弗拉基米爾.普京(Vladimir Putin)作爲一個沉迷於蘇聯時代種種壓迫手段的沙皇，創建了一個混合政權。
He formally granted himself the old monarchist title just months before his demise at the paws of
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。
an insufficiently doped dancing bear during a tango for the broadcaster RT’s version of Strictly.
最後他在今日俄羅斯(RT)電視臺版本的《舞動奇蹟》(Strictly)節目中與一頭狗熊跳起探戈，卻不料命喪於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.
淪爲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。
His iron grip on the security forces and cultivation of cynical apathy among the population ensured that.
他對安全部隊的鐵腕掌控，以及助長民衆看破一切的冷漠，確保了他坐穩權位。
For much of his rule, he seemed to have restored order to Russia and rebuilt its global influence.
在他掌權的大部分時間裏，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。
But this was largely a Potemkin façade that disguised how deeply he had corroded the country’s institutions and society.
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。
His reign left chaos in its wake and was ultimately a disaster for Russia.
他的統治在結束後留下種種混亂，最終對俄羅斯是一場災難。
Russia’s development was being hampered by corruption when Putin came to power.
普京上臺時，俄羅斯的發展被腐敗阻礙。
His early campaign to banish some of the worst-offending oligarchs was justified.
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，
Sadly, the methods he used were not.
可惜他採用的方法並不正當。
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.
迫使法院聽命於克里姆林宮破壞了新生的法治，扼殺了在共產黨統治倒臺之前、在米哈伊爾.戈爾巴喬夫(Mikhail Gorbachev)時代就已起步的向着開放社會努力的轉型。
Instead, might is right was reaffirmed as the governing principle.
相反，強權即公理被再次確立爲指導原則。
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.
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），這令事態更加糟糕。
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.
因爲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定。
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.
但在他去世後，統治精英中再無一人能維護類似威信，對利益的哄搶淪爲幫派戰爭。
The subsequent power struggle led to the disclosure of the full extent of his personal corruption.
隨後的權力鬥爭導致他本人的腐敗被悉數公開。
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.
正如2016年巴拿馬文件(Panama Papers)公佈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)名下持有的鉅額美元被證實屬於這位沙皇。
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.
高加索示威者們在攻佔普京在索契的宮殿後，發現了大量文件，證實他擁有瑞士一家大宗商品貿易公司的多數股權，還在倫敦擁有大量房地產。
While his own finances were healthy, Putin left Russia fragile economically.
儘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。
Some cosmetic improvements had been made to the big cities during his first decade in power.
在他執政的頭十年，俄羅斯各大城市在外觀上有所改善。
But he failed to capitalise on a period when oil prices regularly exceeded $100 a barrel.
但他沒能充分利用油價經常超過每桶100美元的這段時期。
There was no diversification from the dependence on natural resources. Little was invested in the crumbling infrastructure or public services.
俄羅斯沒有擺脫對自然資源的依賴，實現經濟多樣化，也沒有怎麼投資於陳舊的基礎設施或公共服務，
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.
導致俄羅斯在2010年代後期至2020年代的廉價石油時代陷入普遍貧困，而沙皇普京死後的動盪加劇了這種困境。
Putin left Russia in an equally poor political state.
普京還給俄羅斯留下了一個同樣貧乏的政治生態。
He had avoided anointing a successor because he feared creating a rival power centre.
他生前不願指定接班人，唯恐創建一個對立的權力中心。
The Duma became a rubber-stamp parliament.
俄羅斯杜馬成了橡皮圖章議會。
And by eliminating all genuine political parties and civil society organisations, he left few mechanisms through which a credible successor could emerge.
他還剷除了所有真正的政黨和公民社會組織，以至於沒留下什麼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.
普京造成的最嚴重傷害或許是他開創的後真相政治(post-truth politics)，這種風氣在21世紀上半葉害了全世界。
Even before Putin, centuries of autocracy had conditioned Russians to have low expectations of their rulers and deep tolerance of their misdeeds.
即使在普京之前，幾個世紀的專制制度已使俄羅斯人習慣於對統治者預期不高，對其不當行爲也有較高容忍力。
The public’s apathetic cynicism was cultivated by his political technologists, such as Vladislav Surkov and Dmitry Kiselyov.
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)則助長了民衆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.
他們的策略聚焦於說服人們相信：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。
While this approach served Putin well, it was a tragedy for his country.
這種策略雖然達到了普京的目的，卻是俄羅斯的悲劇。
His propagandists erased the concept of objective truth and instead, as they put it, created realities.
他的宣傳者抹去了客觀真理的概念，代之以他們所稱的創造現實，
This left the people ill-equipped to exercise reasoned political choice and easy prey for the succession of even worse despots who followed Putin.
導致人們沒有能力作出合理政治選擇，被普京之後更惡劣的一個又一個獨裁者玩弄於股掌之上。
The tsar’s aggressive foreign policy meant Russia’s collapse attracted little sympathy from the outside world.
沙皇普京咄咄逼人的外交政策意味着，俄羅斯的崩潰吸引不了外界多少同情。
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.
2010年代末的一段時期，通過軍事幹預烏克蘭、敘利亞和波羅的海國家，普京自我陶醉於重振莫斯科的全球影響力。
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.
但是，當人們看清克里姆林宮除了搗亂以吸引美國注意力，並分散國內民衆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。
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.
北約以迅速而堅決的軍事迴應擊退俄羅斯對北約成員國的入侵，西方對普京的同夥施加了更嚴厲的制裁。
At home, anger rose over the unrecognised sacrifice of soldiers fighting in unacknowledged wars.
在俄羅斯國內，軍人們在不被承認的戰爭中付出不被承認的犧牲，這激怒了民衆。
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.
普京重新確立莫斯科全球強國地位企圖的最終失敗時刻，是當美國總統唐納德.特朗普(Donald Trump)讀到一條關於理查德.尼克松(Richard Nixon)的推文時受到啓發，與中國達成了一個舉世震驚的大妥協。
The world’s two largest powers subsequently dominated global governance and Russia was sidelined by its former Chinese ally.
全球兩大強國隨後聯手主導全球治理，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。
The writer is a former diplomat now based in Switzerland
本文作者是一名前外交官，現定居於瑞士
