converted. what are you going to do? well, overnight they restricted monarchs to consumers. overnight, in january 1942, you could not buy tires for your car. if your tires had been getting a little aged and you thought next week i will go down to sears roebuck or whatever and get new set of tires, you were out of luck. and the only way you could get another set of tires was to go before the government's tighter board and prove that you had an essential reason for getting a new set of tires. likewise, radios, bicycles clocks, the common american can no longer purchase them in the spring of 1942. all of those mechanisms were used in the war effort. you can watch this and other programs at booktv.org. >> allen lynch talks about the rise and fall of vladimir putin.

it was recorded on the university of virginia in charlottesville, north carolina. >> joining us here at the university of virginia is the author of this book, "vladimir putin and russian statecraft". allen lynch, would you describe russia as a democracy? >> guest: it is certainly not a political democracy. at the same time, president clinton is very popular. in fact, it has increased since he was reelected on march 4, and i will talk about 60%. that is according to an independent russian polling agency. there are very interesting paradoxes here. chancery has obtained documentation to legitimacy. but he certainly avoided the first elements in russian

society. he has constructed a very interesting lyrical machine that has combined the forms of democracy without the substance. >> host: why is vladimir putin, why did he get reelected and markets the popular? >> guest: let me go back four years. in 2007-2008, he was reaching the end of his second term it as president. that was me and the end according to the constitution, to terms in a row. most russians, both elite and society, that putin might obey the term of the constitution and step down. they saw no credible leader at that point. in fact, putin as we know, arranged for his own succession by placing his protége, dmitri, and then putin became prime minister. but putin remained at the center of the political system to the great relief of most russians. you may remember that shortly thereafter we had the world

economic crisis. and the price of oil on which the russian government and economy is dependent, it is saudi arabia, a price of oil collapsed to about a hundred dollars of our barrels to $30 a barrel. putin had been able to squirrel away enough of that money to be sure that he had a shop absorber of money, finances, reserve funds to be able to weather the storm and the russian economy did not collapse and implode. compare this to two times before, under boris yeltsin, which the ruble is integrated overnight. the collapse of oil under

gorbachev come in the 1980s, admitted he had no shop absorber. he had to weather the storm of his own economic reform. putin come under contrast, most adult russians know that. very well, they know this. chaos and collapse very well. they credit putin to a very large extent. they credit him and they credit him with presiding over russia with relative prosperity. if you putin by comparison with the situation inherited in 1999, when russia was a failed state. the economy had just suffered depression, twice as deep of that of which the united states suffered in the 1930s. a new stage in world succession had threatened the territorial structure of russia. this is why putin was appointed prime minister, to deal with that. nato expansion was proceeding on

all fronts with no limits on space and time. russia was virtually a failed state. putin was able to restore an element of order out of chaos and an element out of prosperity out of misery, and it meant international respect and humiliation. this is not the whole picture, to be sure. he presides over a totalitarian political machine. it is more dependent on resources than it was before. citibank, for instance, thinks that the price of oil has to be about $150 per barrel, it is at about $115 now. for the russian government to balance. depending how much they depend on oil revenues. political secession still remains a matter of her politics and not institutionalize rules and procedures. however, most russians look past the procedural element and they see where they came from in the

1990s from the yeltsin. come and they have a very different take on putin. when we compare him to come as we tend to do, to the ideals of elementary democracy, for sure, by those standards, putin falls short. unless we begin to take into account the predominant frame by which most russians view it, we won't understand how he certainly did get a maturity majority in elections. about 64% reported, certainly a little bit over 50%. the independent ratings are at 60% of putin. >> host: professor alan, have the political institutions in developed enough that they can survive let 'er rip not being in office? >> guest: no, they certainly have not. this is a product of the site is looking at the system, it also has to be a view of putin. if you remember it the tragic plane crash which wiped out the

80 liters of highest level government, and yet pulling continue to function. they institutionalize real democracy, alternation of power, russia is the only country in europe where executive power has not yet changed hands by electoral means by truly free and fair elections. it is always a matter of structured elections and the executive structuring it after his term in office. were putin to disappear tomorrow, it is likely that the system could implode in a set of elites against another set of elites. the industrial mineral base, it makes russia the largest mineral base in the world. most russians notice. the elite level, and that the social level, to some extent, the absence of alternatives to putin is a consequence of his own authoritarian politics.

he has a lot of opposition to build. his system, which is temporarily stable, and remain so with the high price of oil, it's not due to some lights. it is a one-man system up our. >> host: did you have a chance to interview the let 'er rip in when you were writing your book? >> guest: no, i didn't have a chance to interview putin. i did talk to several russians were very close to putin. we did have confidential conversations and they reviewed the text of the book. one of them is credited anonymously because of the issues come as you just heard. i tried to put putin in the context which most russians can see him. i also said a number of critical things about his tenure in office, and you do have to be careful about changing those close to putin with excessively critical comments. so i had to keep that anonymous.

but i did manage to show to several people close to his circle and i was grateful for their comments. both positive and critical before publication. >> host: would you be able to after writing this book, and getting this published best could be published in russia? >> guest: yes, i think it could be published in russia. >> host: will it be? >> guest: we have heard that there are offers of interest in poland and russia. the book will be published in chinese. it is still a communist country, politically, but a country that has a strong abiding interest in russian affairs. i think it could be published. most of the majority of the books i used were published in russia. there is actually a fair and wide range of opinion of russia, outside of televised political news. that is is a virtual monopoly of the government. the government controls all sides, television stations, which reached 90% of russian audiences.