­As the day of Russia’s March 4 presidential poll nears, Prime Minister Putin, seen as a distant frontrunner in the presidential race contributed a front-page article to Komsomolskaya Pravda popular daily – another Premier piece, carried by the leading Russian print media in recent weeks. The Komsomolskaya Pravda article called "Building Equality: A Social Policy for Russia" is already Putin’s fifth publication this year. 

Rethinking Karl Marx Communist manifesto which says that “the proletariat has nothing to lose, but its chains”, Vladimir Putin is drawing a road-map for a welfare state in a capitalist Russia of today. Nearly a hundred years after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 he is arguing that workers and oligarchs can coexist in peace and harmony in a post-industrialist world. To make this social “non-aggression” pact viable Putin comes up with the concept of breeding Russia’s “workers’ aristocracy” which, if implemented, will enable workers to have a bigger say in management and expand their career opportunities. 

In his latest article Putin is also focusing on the problems of Russia’s fast-growing middle class, stating that "the population, and most of all the 'middle class', of educated, well-paid people, are  dissatisfied with the overall quality of social services." 

I believe that reading one premier’s piece after another, the Russian voters can get an overall view of Putin’s vision of Russia after 2012: its standing in the world as well as the way its political and socio-economic system would evolve, provided the election produce no major surprise and Putin is back in Kremlin this May. 

While there are four other presidential hopefuls in the race – veteran communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, maverick Liberal-Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, former Putin’s loyalist, head of the Fair Russia Party Sergei Mironov and billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, each of them already announcing his presidential manifestoes, it was only Putin who hasn’t unveiled any official presidential program as such. 

You may ask, why? Obviously, this is not due the lack of speechwriters. As I see it, these days Putin is desperately trying to stick to the new format of appealing to the Russian public – with much less officialdom and more focus on straight to the point observations, based on hard-boiled facts and figures.

Symbolically, each Putin article is not written for everyone as it has its own target audience. “Vedomosti” and “Kommersant” dailies carried premier pieces addressing Russia’s business and political elites, “Rossiyskaya gazeta” – bureaucrats and government servants, “Nezavisimaya gazeta” – tens of nationalities and ethnic groups, comprising one Russian nation, “Izvestia” – people, with more taste for foreign policy and integration projects within the former post-Soviet space, and finally, “Komsomolskaya Pravda” – Russia’s workers, ordinary folks and the middle class. 

One may not like Putin, but this time no one can blame him for at least one thing – lack of transparency, as it was twelve years ago, when he skyrocketed from political limbo to the helm of Russian politics. Don’t forget that he has already spent more than a decade turning the steering-wheel from left to the right, Russia’s road used to be bumpy and sometimes treacherously slippery, and he probably learned a lot from those self-learnt lessons of extreme driving. 

For its part, Russian society has become more mature, it is no more politically frigid. It requests detailed answers to pressing questions, so, Putin can not afford the luxury of being an enigma. Therefore, delving into his recent articles all strata of Russian society can scrutinize his views on Russia’s past, present and future. 

Meantime, Putin’s role in the contemporary Russian history can be seen not even in the much-spoken concept of “workers’ aristocracy or “Eurasian union”, but in his handling of rather bizarre issue – the problem of Russia switching from summer to winter time. Just to remind the audience: several months ago Russia’s President Medvedev scrapped winter time for 2011, arguing that switching the clock back and forth was bad for people's health.
The change evoked little enthusiasm in the society and there were sound reasons for that. In December all of us in Moscow saw the first sunlight only at around 10 o’clock in the morning. As for me, I was already in the office by then and when I went back home it was already dark. I never saw any daylight and sometimes it made me mentally sick. 

So, Putin addressed this topic together with several other issues which have been causing strong criticism in society. If elected president, he promised to turn back the clock and restore winter time, addressing millions of angered Russian voters who had complained about waking up and going to work in darkness. 

It is interesting, that President Medvedev has already backtracked on the time issue. "I discussed it with Dmitry Anatolyevich. He is not going to stick to it any more. If the majority thinks that it was better before, we can go back to it," said Putin, addressing recent gathering of Russian pop and sports stars.
I think the time story is a powerful metaphor, describing the ongoing debate over Putin’s mission, waged by his ardent supporters and staunch opponents both at home and abroad. Is he stubbornly “turning back the clock of Russian history”, as the opposition says, or is he trying to set the Russian clock in accordance with the day-to-day realities?

The question is still in air. Some, like ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev believe that Putin, while having his mission successfully accomplished, has run out of gas and exhausted his potential. Others disagree, arguing that he is by no means a lame duck, but still an embodiment of a two-headed eagle, high in the Russian skies. 

So, in the coming years we will learn who is right, and what that hotly-debated “Time of Putin” notion really implies. Let us try to tame our emotions and read and watch a changed Putin. As one of our readers, striking philosophical note, rightly hinted, “Everything in this world is a subject to change, except change itself”.

­Sergey Strokan, for RT

­The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.