A new Era of Stagnation?
I have a different idea of the proper way of ‘doing politics’, and I expressed it in an article published on 21 September 2011 in two largecirculation newspapers, Moskovsky Komsomolets and Novaya Gazeta:
The more I meet people, read, observe the way events are developing and the public mood, the more I sense a growing unease. Recognition that the state is being degraded and society demoralized is becoming widespread.
It is increasingly plain that the way relations between the government and society have evolved in Russia is not providing citizens with personal security, the standard of living they deserve, or genuine (rather than pretended) respect for Russia on the world stage. Some half of Russian respondents believe Russia is ‘heading in the wrong direction’. Awareness of the unpromising nature of the situation is being felt among the political class.
It is difficult to avoid the impression that the Russian state authorities lack the political resolution and willingness to look for a genuine solution. They limit themselves to cosmetic measures or, more often, to a pretence of reform accompanied by ringing declarations. There are evidently powerful personal and corporate interests vested in maintaining the status quo.
Even many of those who recognize the need for change hope reform will come from above and are waiting for it to be delivered by the Kremlin. Are we still in this day and age relying on a reforming tsar rather than on our own strengths? Do we still look down on the people as cattle?
Others call for ‘gradual, evolutionary’ change. I myself am an enemy of ‘clean sweeps’, but there are some changes that simply cannot be gradual. How, for instance, could you introduce the rule of law a step at a time? Would the protection of the law be extended first only to certain categories of the population? If so, to whom precisely? And in the meantime, what about the others: would they be in a grey zone? Or treated as second-class citizens?
And how would you manage an ‘evolutionary’ introduction of the principle of political competition? Who would decide who was eligible and who was not?
Reluctance to initiate reform or a desire to restrict it to half-baked changes are often claimed to stem not from a fear of losing power, but from a desire to avoid a new collapse of Russia. Instead, however, it is the lack of change that is threatening to create instability and jeopardize the country’s future.
The election campaign is under way and, already noisy and scandalous, is shaping up to be one more Potemkin Village with false façades. The regime is not even trying to conceal its determination to shield itself from fair competition and ensure its self-preservation. For the rest of its life?
All this reminds me of the 1980s, but back then we mustered the strength to break through the iron hoop of unfreedom constricting society, and released an unprecedented surge of political enthusiasm. People marched with growing resolution, and their demands effectively came down to one slogan: ‘This is no way to live!’
The leaders of the USSR recognized that the Soviet system was inefficient and blocking progress. We embarked on cardinal reforms, despite all the risks and dangers. We began dismantling the Communist Party’s monopoly on power and organized the first genuine elections in Soviet history.
In short, Perestroika was the answer to the impasse of that time. For the first time in Russian history, people had an opportunity to express their wishes. Contrasting that with the current torpor of the political scene and our sullen public, those days look like an amazing triumph of democracy.
Alas, we, the then government and society as a whole, were unable to see Perestroika through and create a system based on political competition and the guaranteeing of freedom and transparency. Perestroika was halted, and in the 1990s the power of the state fell into the hands of people who, hiding behind a screen of democratic slogans, turned back the clock. Additionally, a new autocracy was bolstered by oligarchic capitalism with a tinge of criminality.
The 2000s, creating an illusion of stability and prosperity, were a period when Russia’s natural resources were squandered.
The regime locked itself in a bunker and erected an impenetrable shield consisting of all manner of trickery, abuse of state administrative resources and hypocritical legislation that makes a change of regime impossible. Russia is being pushed back to the Brezhnev era, forgetful of how that period ended. People trust the regime less and less, are losing hope in the future, and are humiliated by poverty and deepening social divisions, unlike a celebrity set who are rolling in money.
Another five or six years of this and Russia is unlikely ever to be able to escape from this dead-end situation.
How is Russia to get out of it? It would be naive to imagine that economic reform alone will suffice. In any case, that is not going to happen without a root-and-branch transformation: without ridding our electoral system of phoney, unjustifiable restrictions whose sole purpose is to enable the current ‘elite’ to rule in perpetuity; without establishing an independent representative branch, an independent judiciary and independent local government; without freeing the media; without civil society.
In Russia today the executive branch lords it over society, beholden to no one. The president can appoint his successor, extend or renew his authority using rigged elections. With the presidency in that state we have no grounds for optimism that the other branches of government will function normally or that civil rights will be respected. A system of appointment from above has replaced free elections.
Those responsible for the current situation in Russia are incapable of initiating real change for fear they would undermine their own power. There is no precedent in history for a failed system being reformed by those responsible for establishing it.
Russia has a vital need of free and fair elections and political competition. Election to power and timely replacement of those in power is a prerequisite for a modern society to develop normally. They will be possible in Russia only if there is a radical overhaul of the current system and its supporting pillars.
A change of government while retaining the old rules will result only in one clique being replaced by another, and meanwhile the caravan will continue trundling towards the precipice.
Russia will have to be reformed in a difficult domestic and international environment, but there is no other way: every aspect of society needs transformation. We need to lay the foundations for a state and a system that will serve society and not vice versa. It will be the first time this problem has been solved in the history of Russia, and today nobody has a ready blueprint of how to do it. That is why a wide public debate is needed on how to build a new Russia.
Any such discussion was, however, the last thing the authorities of the Russian state wanted.