Russia Profile
www.russiaprofile.org
October 23, 2007
Turbulence Ahead
No Matter Putin's Future Role, Russia's Stability is at Risk
Comment by Alexander Arkhangelsky
It was both scary and fun to walk around Moscow last Wednesday night. Crowds of slightly intoxicated young men strolled around the city center and joked around with the police. The police readily replied. Cars drove around the boulevard ring, Russian flags hanging out the windows. An unbelievable, unexpected victory! We did it. We beat the English.
At that moment, Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov and First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov were hugging in the governmental box at the stadium. The head of state himself was not present in the bleachers, and that was the right decision from the political point of view. The chances for a victory were uncertain; it would be wrong to count on a miracle and unacceptable to be associated with a loss. The victory would in any case be shared by everyone.
In the governmental system that has been created in our country, the personal popularity of the leader constitutes the main political capital. It can't be risked by raising the stakes for fear of decreasing in value or becoming worthless. As it is, this capital had to be hastily invested in the board of trustees. As it turned out, the party of power is slowly losing its electoral positions, and we still have to face an inevitable increase of prices for bread, sunflower oil, dairy products and, possibly, sugar. Only the personal, unconditional and broad authority of the president could compensate for the losses. He had nothing left to do but to take on the role of the party locomotive.
The decision carried some obvious advantages - the immediate increase in the party's popularity, the almost guaranteed victory and almost guaranteed constitutional majority in the legislature and the full support of the financial markets, for which the smooth succession of power means further growth and expansion. But the choice also came with some disadvantages. They are not obvious yet, however, but they promise serious risks in the future.
What are these risks? If there are failures, mishaps and malfunctions in the future (and they always happen in daily political life), it will be hard to separate the leader's charisma from a train of negative public emotions - the way it was brilliantly done after the Kursk tragedy, after Beslan and after the monetization of benefits. Meanwhile, this charisma has until now served as the main equalizer, the source of overall balance.
Secondly, as a result of the recent reshuffle, the elites will be tempted to see the Dec. 2 election as a referendum. If United Russia is really able to win a constitutional majority, it will mean that the question of "hacking" into the Constitution has been settled - if not de jure, then certainly de facto, and it doesn't matter what particular method is chosen. It will happen, even though this will immediately endanger another reliable trump card of the current president - his absolute legitimacy in the eyes of the world community. Actually, these are the two components of his high standing: the incontestable reputation with his own people and the proven legitimacy for the Western leaders.
There is a third risk, the most important one. There were no conditions under which Putin would just leave the world of big-time politics in March 2008 for good. However, there was a range of possibilities. One was to attempt to create the Russian version of Deng Xiaoping; to try to play the part of a moral leader who reigns, but does not govern or control, who is endowed with informal powers more important than official ones. The other was to repeat the fate of the majority of our post-Soviet neighbors - that is, to keep hold of the administrative instruments, to retain power as such, no matter what legal form it takes. You can call it a third term, a term-less reign, despotism or desacralized monarchy; you can find any smart words or scientific definitions, but it will not change the essence. They all mean a regime based on personal power, maintained for as long as the hands are capable of holding on to the steering wheel.
But what is actually risky about this? First, it is obvious that world history has accelerated. If you act within its limits, long-term models will not work. Russia cannot step aside, and a regime of personal power presupposes a certain lack of mobility of the political system. While personal popularity exceeds all possible limits, it can be used to glue together all internal rifts, to keep them from growing. Popularity, however, is a dangerous article of trade: today it sells with bonuses, but tomorrow nobody will want to buy it even at a discount. And what happens then? The experience of the post-Soviet republics shows that you have to use a gentle force, and then a force not so gentle and then a hard force. Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev can be an example, if only so to avoid making one of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Secondly, personal long-term leadership calls for a goal, and a goal has to be fed by big ideas. The goal of a temporary "manager" is doubling the GDP by the end of his last term; that's good enough. But in order to play the role of the sole father of the nation, you have to offer an ideology that is able to unify the country. Is there such an ideology that could unite all of Russia today? The only exception is nationalism, which the regime reasonably and rightly refrains from.
Thirdly, the power vertical is obviously malfunctioning already; after six years of steady success, with billionaires sprouting like mushrooms, we are not capable of solving a simple market problem of regulating food prices. And again, with Zubkov's encouragement, we talk nonsense about the manufacturers' Masonic conspiracy that has to be punished with all the available legal severity.
A conspiracy does exist, without a doubt; how can it not if all the conditions for a conspiracy are created? They are created not by the manufacturers, but by a non-functioning governmental model in which only one person can forestall crises by giving out divine orders and everyone else just waits for the commands to come.
Fourthly, the law enforcement component of the regime is already trying to suggest the idea of the monopoly of violence, with all the ensuing consequences. Putin stubbornly retains all constraints and counterweights that compensate for the lack of public control over the siloviki; meanwhile, the corporation is falling to pieces and sees the only way out in renovating Stalin's model of punitive power.
What will happen after the new model, in which everything is connected to and depends on one person only, finally takes shape? Some people (the ones who love him) assure us that this person will not let us down. Others (who don't) keep scaring us. But the problem is not just one individual. The problem lies in the system.
It's possible that Russia will get through it. But the country's stability is once again entering a zone of turbulence. Fasten your seatbelts, please.