#5 - JRL 8381 - JRL Home
Mosnews.com/Gazeta.ru
www.MosNews.com
September 24, 2004
Party of Stem Cells
The pro-Kremlin United Russia party resembles most of all a “party of prosperity”, set up to suit a president of some Latin American state in the 1940s-1950s.
Construction of a universal bureaucratic center called the United Russia party amounts to an attempt to set up a unique set of ’stem cells’, to be used for producing in any quantity and in the shortest time possible elements of the political or administrative system of modern Russia that may be required at any given moment.
The quality and the content of what has already been built, of course, leave much to be desired.
But all that, nonetheless, provides a clear insight into the Kremlin administration’s idea of what the political system of the country, reared in a lab, should look like.
All elements that get into a system from the outside and, for some reason, take root there must be recorded at least formally as something inherent to that particular habitat.
One problem, however, remains. Even with such a universal mechanism for nation- and party-building in place, one simple question still cannot be ignored, and the question is: What exactly is it that we are building? And, apparently, the Kremlin lab has no answer.
Very soon each minister will be allowed to join the party ranks and obtain a membership card last month United Russia drafted a bill allowing senior government officials to hold posts in political parties.
The Duma committee for constitutional legislation strongly recommended the lower house to pass the proposed amendments to the law “On the government”. The whole affair will not take long. Considering that “the draft has been thoroughly worked through, rouses no censure, and given the inexpediency of further amendments”, the house has been recommended to approve it in all three readings in one day.
There’s really little point in adding amendments to a bill that lets ministers join a political party. Just as it is hardly any secret as to which party they will join.
Their membership cards will bear the logo of a bear United Russia’s symbol. Of course, it cannot be altogether ruled out that some minister will have a card signed by Vladimir Zhirinovsky. After all, the LDPR leader was one of those who initiated the amendments and it is unlikely that in doing so he was not pursuing his own ends.
With ministers joining the ranks of the party, United Russia’s transformation into the modern CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) will be complete. However, the resemblance of those two structures to each other is superficial, and any comparisons would not favor the modern ’party of power’.
To begin with, the CPSU was in itself strong, while United Russia borrows influence from the president. For four years now the presidential administration has been providing UR with resources. Allowing government officials to join is just one technical move aimed at building and reinforcing a party of a new type.
It is to the Kremlin and the president that United Russia owes most of its success. If all of a sudden the presidential administration embarks on some other party-building project or Vladimir Putin’s rating drops, United Russia will be in for some difficult times. The Nash Dom Rossia (Our House is Russia) bloc disintegrated soon after its founder Viktor Chernomyrdin was dismissed from the prime minister’s post.
But even assuming that the enormous investment in United Russia was not in vain and the party is viable, it still has a long way to go to become a new CPSU. Taking control over all public organizations, each and every household, the entire national economy is something United Russia is still not capable of.
So far it remains just a party of bureaucrats. Most importantly, United Russia’s leadership plays no part in taking the most significant decisions.
Hence, it will take a long time before the party-building process is complete. The main question is why bother building it in the first place.
Does Vladimir Putin really need such a party? If he needs it to keep the Duma under control and to unit all the bureaucrats, the project is clearly not worth the effort. Instead of helping him United Russia spoils his image, as well as the image of the entire nation.
Governments in civilized states which Russia is, according to Putin do not usually have de facto single-party parliaments, operated directly by the staff of the head of the state.
Referring to Japan doesn’t count because the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan abides by the law and fulfils functions that are in stark contrast to United Russia in Russia. To begin with, Japan’s Liberal Democrats really are a ruling party and the election of party leaders is held in full accordance with democratic principles. Can anyone imagine factions inside United Russia?
Perhaps, everything that is happening to United Russia is done with the best intentions. If parties do not grow from the grassroots, then why not build them from the top? Who knows, maybe, after the party is built it will be possible to form factions within it, which will grow into full-fledged political organizations.
But somehow, such a scenario seems incredible. United Russia most of all resembles a ’party of prosperity’, set up to suit some Latin American president of the 1940-1950s…
The task of such a party is to imitate public support for the head of the state, approving all his initiatives and aiding him in fighting his political opponents, if, of course, the secret services fail to cope with that on their own. Such a party has no goals of its own, though it readily gathers for meetings to display its support for the president.
Latin America knew a lot of parties like that. None of them outlived their presidents.