Russia is a unique country and civilization. Its uniqueness lies in the enduring peaceful coexistence of various ethnic communities and religions. Unlike the U.S., Russia is not a "melting pot"; it has managed to work out a common Russian identity while preserving the cultural and national characteristics of each ethnic community.
The Russian consciousness perceives our country as a great power with a mission. While America's mission is associated with liberty and Britain's with civilization ("the white man's burden"), Russia's mission is in one way or another associated with the concept of justice. In Russia itself the idea of justice could take both creative and destructive forms. In instances when justice was achieved through a united effort by all people, Russia usually triumphed: think of its victories in cruel wars, the reconstruction of the war-devastated country, and great leaps in economic development. Whenever justice was imposed through one part of society struggling against another, destruction ensued.
Nothing can be easier than putting all the blame on Russia's enemies from without. However, the enemies would never have succeeded but for the internal ills that afflicted our country. The worst of them is the betrayal of the political elite ("the boyars"). Under the tsarist regime, the elite, having renounced the course of incremental reforms and painstaking work to ensure a peaceful transition to the industrial stage of development and carried away by the farce of "opposition", brought the country to the catastrophe of 1917. The inconsistency and cowardice of the Soviet communist elite eventually brought about the demise of the U.S.S.R.
Russia resurgent
It is not by chance that the breakup of the U.S.S.R. has been described as the biggest catastrophe of the last century. Tens of millions of people lost their homeland, the country lived through years of chaos, most people saw their living standards fall, and an entire generation lost its sense of purpose in life.
The new elite, consisting of the oligarchs who grew rich overnight, the turncoat party functionaries, and the liberal pro-Western intelligentsia, tried to build a semi-colonial pseudo-democratic regime with a weak economy dependent on Western loans, private and government financial pyramid schemes, a growing foreign debt, a hypocritical government incapable of delivering on its promises and a farcical opposition. This economic system collapsed during the 1998 default, while the political collapse took place in 1999 and 2000 when the people voted for Vladimir Putin and the centrists (they later formed the United Russia Party) and removed the bloc of oligarchs and bureaucrats from power.
Our life changed dramatically over the past eight years. The disintegration of Russia was stopped and the terrorist underground was smashed. An economic boom began; the GDP almost doubled. These changes were reflected in people's living standards: wages and pensions were growing, poverty was cut by half, and many families were able to buy flats, plots of land, and cars. Life became stable and predictable. The harbingers of long-term government planning were the National Projects that set the goals and charted the path for the development of the key spheres in the life of society for many years ahead. Later, the three-year budget and the Development Programme through 2020 appeared. The events in South Ossetia showed that Russia will no longer tolerate being talked to from a position of strength ignoring its opinion and interests, as happened, for example, during the Yugoslavia crisis. The country's political system became stable and predictable. Instead of the dwarf parties and blocs that mushroomed before every new election only to be disbanded once the elections were over, there emerged broad-based political parties with clear programmes and stable constituencies. The voters have a real and not a mythical choice, a real opportunity to make the authorities accountable for the results of their activities.
In government, dreary bureaucrats are increasingly being replaced by people with a clear political stand who are responsible to their party and its constituency. A stable and predictable Russia attracted investments, and companies with world brands opened their enterprises here. Another five years of stability would have seen Russia among the world's top strongest economies. Then disaster struck: we were faced with the consequences of the world economic crisis.
The multicoloured world
The main cause of the crisis is that the world is uni-polar. While before the current global economic downturn many in Europe perceived the Russian leadership's warnings about the dangers of a uni-polar world as claims to leadership, today it has become obvious that in the existing world order the economic problems of one country affect everyone. By the beginning of this century the U.S. had come to disregard the opinions of others and recognized its own position as a universal value. The dollar became virtually the only world currency. "Democracy" was anything that the U.S. government liked.
The U.S. approach generated double standards both in politics and economics. Supporting the Kosovo separatists, the Americans paid lip service to the right of nations to self-determination while denying the same right to the Ossetians and the Abkhaz. The peaceful dispersal of an opposition rally by the Lukashenko regime in Belarus was branded as a hideous crime while similar actions (but with the use of water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets) by the guardians of the "democratic" Saakashvili regime in Georgia were accepted without a murmur. While recommending a tough monetary policy, forbidding the printing of "excessive" money, and objecting to any increase in government spending on social needs and infrastructure in the former socialist countries, the U.S. built a veritable financial pyramid, similar to Russia's MMM, a huge tower of unsupported dollars and obligations, a tower that eventually collapsed.
Russian leaders issued repeated warnings about that threat. In his Munich speech addressed to the West, Vladimir Putin spoke in detail about the looming problems. His was not a solitary voice. The U.S. policy was criticized in Europe, in Latin America, and of course in the Islamic world, but that criticism was mainly over specific manifestations of US hegemonism or specific grudges. Russia alone declared that it was not a question of grudges, that the uni-polar world was inherently unstable and was heading for a collapse, and that everyone would have to pay the cost of America's policy.
Internal problems
And yet do all the causes of our current problems originate from abroad? Our own old sins compound the consequences of the crisis. Yes, in recent years we have greatly improved our quality life, but we have still not coped with traditional Russian ills. Corruption takes pride of place among them. This endemic problem has its roots in the era of feudalism that lasted in Russia far too long, when entire regions were given to the tsar's appointed governors for "sustenance", and when the miserly salaries of Russian civil servants spawned universal bribe-taking. Lenin tried to combat bribe-taking, describing it as "the main enemy", but even the totalitarian communist regime was powerless to curb that evil.
Corruption gained the upper hand, contributing to the degradation of the Soviet nomenklatura and accelerating its political demise. Corruption flourished under the regime of the oligarchs in the 1990s. It would be naïve to believe that eight years of Putin's presidency was enough time to cope with that old affliction. This lends added importance to the national anti-corruption doctrine proclaimed by Dmitry Medvedev. All of us have grown up in an atmosphere of endless small bribes and tips without which you could neither have your water tap fixed nor sort things out with a traffic policeman. We should all change our approach. Pay for services should become legal and free services should be paid for by the state, depending on the quality of these services. The power of the bureaucrats should not be held as something sacred, and should be seen as largely technical; their activities must be transparent, their salaries must be comfortable, and punishment for bribe-taking must be inevitable.
Another national problem is inertia. The national projects were too slow in getting off the ground, the bureaucrats in charge of finances and economics were reluctant to adopt a new mode of behaviour, preferring to sit and pile up "reserves". Little has been done to progress from lip-service to an innovative economy to real innovations at every enterprise, in the cities and villages. The oligarchs who got rich at the expense of their country gave too little thought to the future: to scientific grants, schools and universities, "brains", and technologies.
It would be wrong, however, to put all the blame on the bureaucrats and the fat cats: inertia afflicted most of us. Tens of thousands of smart and educated young people, instead of starting their own businesses and engaging in creative work, preferred to enjoy their comfortable salaries inside financial bubbles, spending half of their working time in computer chat rooms and with computer games. How many of us in recent years have upgraded our skills, mastered a new profession or moved to live where real challenging work needed to be done? Alas, such people are in the minority. In order to overcome the crisis we will have to change our attitude toward life and work. Everyone must change: the bosses and the subordinates, government and society. Only then will Russia have a chance.
The first ingredient of victory
Russia is a country with a strong leadership tradition. Throughout our history, this tradition has been cemented by the image of the leader who embodied national unity and the national interests. Historical epochs are associated in the popular mind with the name of the leader who headed the country at the time. We speak about the reforms of Peter I, the reforms of Alexander II, we associate the October 1917 Revolution and the establishment of Soviet power with Lenin, the formation of the system of state socialism with Stalin, "the epoch of stagnation" with Brezhnev and perestroika with Gorbachev. Personification of power is an ingrained part of our political culture. Over the centuries, only the method of gaining the status of the national leader has changed.
It is very important that at this critical juncture that role fell to Vladimir Putin. He was democratically elected - nobody can question his landslide victory in the presidential elections in 2000 and 2004, nor can anyone deny the results of all the opinion polls that still reveal that Putin is the most popular politician in the country. In the eyes of the public he has never been perceived as a representative of the elite ("the boyars"). Born into a humble family, a security officer in the past, he was never obsessed with power and with building a career. Power was "dropped in his lap" at the most difficult moment in Russia's history when the country was on its last legs due to a systemic crisis that was, if anything, more serious than the current one. Mr Putin managed to restore what seemed to be lost - that is, faith that a reasonable and just government was possible in Russia. He proved to be a strong-willed leader capable of putting down a mutiny: he was ruthless in combating terrorists and could challenge the elite by changing the procedure of electing Federation Council members and governors. Mr Putin managed to secure popular approval even when he had to make and implement difficult but necessary decisions: to pay off foreign debts, stash away money in the Stabilization Fund, and replace benefits in kind with cash payments.
In consistently pursuing "market" reforms to which our liberals in the 1990s merely paid lip-service, by cutting taxes on businesses and introducing private ownership of land, he always kept people's interests in mind, directing the benefits from the resurgent economy toward raising living standards. Mr Putin introduced the practice of constant communication with the people, discussing with them the most acute problems and adjusting government actions, never being afraid to publicly admit his mistakes. He demonstrated genuine respect for the Constitution, turning down the suggestions that he should run for a third presidential term. Putin voluntarily limited his own power by encouraging the creation of large political parties that increasingly took over power from the non-partisan bureaucracy that owed its loyalty only to the top leader. Putin has a programme and a long-term vision for the country's development. The programme, known as the "Putin Plan" was the focus of public attention and discussion during the last elections for the State Duma and was backed by the absolute majority of voters.
The people have a strong and experienced leader who knows which way to go. That is the first ingredient of our possible victory.
The second ingredient of victory
One serious cause of crises and upheavals in Russia has always been the continuity of power. A lack of certainty on the issue was the cause of the Time of Troubles and of palace coups. It has become a deplorable tradition in Russia for every new leader to reject the deeds of his predecessor. The result was a shortage of healthy conservatism, frequent changes in policy, and constant criticism of the past. However, a society that is not embedded in its own history and in which the political class is constantly at war with the past is extremely vulnerable; its ideology can be easily diluted and its potential for long-term planning is negligible because the values and the goals keep changing. Such a society finds it hard to withstand crises and win in world competition because it is preoccupied with internal struggles. This is why it is so important that the continuity of political course has been emerging in Russia in recent years. That continuity has been confirmed by the nationwide democratic elections, when the whole people elected Dmitry Medvedev as Vladimir Putin's successor. Today we witness a unique situation in Russia when a strong president and a strong premier are not trying to trip each other up but are working as a single team, enhancing each other's potential and making the country's policy stable and predictable. This is another ingredient of our future triumph.
The third ingredient of victory
One of Vladimir Putin's achievements as a politician was the creation of a broad-based parliamentary party, United Russia. The party was not monolithic from the outset. It saw never-ending arguments between the adherents of social, liberal, and strong government approaches: so broad was the public support of Putin that different people were prepared to vote for his policy. Workers and businessmen, urban and rural folk, public sector employees and small-time businessmen held different views on many problems, reflected in the arguments among party ideologists. Nonetheless, they were united on one point. They realized that United Russia was not just another party project but a way to mobilize the healthy forces in society to meet the main challenge of the time: to bring the country's life back to normal, to regain control over their own country. United Russia was accused of not having a fully-fledged ideology, but wasn't it the case that the absolute majority of our fellow citizens who had broken free of the ideological captivity under the communists, when children were taught politics in kindergarten and were required to earn "Leninist credits" in trade schools, shied away from any ideology? If a party wanted to be a broad-based party and not a sect it could not afford to be too ideological.
Those who, while they were in power in the 1980s and 1990s, brought the country "to the brink" and knew from their own experience how our people hated the powers that be, hastily labeled United Russia as the "party of power". It did not work, however, and Putin remained popular. Today, United Russia is implementing a project called "reserve cadre". Its aim is to open the way into government and economic management for new, energetic, educated, and efficient people. In the context of the crisis, United Russia faces another important task. It has to turn into a crisis management headquarters and be on the side of those who are in trouble: the laid-off workers, the poor, the people who have been cheated out of their savings and shares - it must find ways of solving problems, restoring justice and legality, and helping to settle disputes. This is what the party's leader, Vladimir Putin, calls for. This work is already underway everywhere. Over the past years, the party has grown stronger; it has created a nationwide network of branches, acquired extensive experience in law-making and public control, and has come up with a coherent ideology. It is an ideology of patriotism and Russian conservatism in the best sense of the words: reliance on the country's traditions, a commitment to the success of the whole people, putting national interests above those of social classes and groups, a socially oriented market economy, adherence to democracy, protection of the state sovereignty of Russia, and sustained development without stagnation or revolutions. The existence of the strong, broad-based patriotic party is the third ingredient of our future victory. If the ingredients of victory are there, who can stand in its way?
"Fellow travelers"
Our main opponents are outside Russia, but they rely on "fellow travelers" inside the country.
Those in America who were building a uni-polar world have not renounced their plans. Moreover, they have become hostages to the policy of the previous administrations. To avoid a final collapse America will try to export its problems to other countries and make their economies work for the benefit of America. That of course is impossible if a country pursues an independent policy. However, hegemonists may benefit from the economic crisis that they have themselves caused. It can be turned into a political crisis: taking advantage of the popular discontent with the falling living standards, one part of society can be pitted against another. In a situation of instability, a government that pursues a sovereign policy can either be toppled or greatly weakened.
There is no doubt that Russia will be on the receiving end of such actions. However, our country's foes will not succeed unless they have "fellow travelers" inside our country. They can be roughly divided into two groups: those who play their role quite consciously, and those who have their own agendas but unwittingly contribute to the cause of the "unipolar world".
The first group includes the remaining oligarchs, those who amassed their wealth in the 1990s when the whole country went under the hammer and felt that they were masters of the land who had access to the highest offices. Now, they have been debarred from power and do not see how they stand to benefit from the strengthening of the Russian state. Their money is already being used to "rock the boat" and that tendency will increase.
The liberal pro-Western intelligentsia, a disease of Russian society that arose in the 19th century, belongs in the same camp. It was in that milieu that the idea of seeking the defeat of their own government in war was generated. It raised money to buy bombs for the Social Revolutionaries and praised the exploits of the "great guerilla fighter" Shamil Basayev. Hatred of the Russian government, whatever policy it may pursue, is endemic to these people. They have nothing but scorn for power. They spread their hatred of power to the people if the people are not prepared to challenge power. They have a gut hatred of Russia itself because it stubbornly resists becoming a piece of the West.
They are the vanguard of the anti-Russian army. Powerful logistical support of that army comes from unwitting "fellow travelers": the venal bureaucrats and our political opponents, the communist opposition, the separatists, and the neo-Nazis. While not wishing to play into the hands of our country's enemies, they will nevertheless do so by putting their group interests above the national interests. But we must win.
The recipe for overcoming
It should be remembered that our society today needs unity and civil solidarity more than at any other time. The crisis affects the interests of many and generates conflicts. A decent and civilized way out of these conflicts must be found. The employer must respect and cherish his employees. The employees should respect the interests of their employer. By working diligently and introducing innovations they should seek to strengthen the firm's economic position and authority. Banks and borrowers, builders and shareholders, consumers and producers of goods and services must be honest and open with each other and must look for mutually acceptable solutions.
Political stability is the guarantee of economic stability.
We should trust our government, listen to it, be in conversation with it, and perceive it not as an opponent but as a partner in rescuing our common home.
People should learn to live by the law and demand that others do the same, and protect those whose rights have been violated.
We should regain our country. It does not belong to the bureaucrats. Everyone should be telling himself: "This is my country, my city, my street, and my home". We should make sure that every government, especially local government, works in the interests of citizens. It is necessary to create a partnership of homeowners and elect a competent and committed chairman of the local trade union cell. Only participatory democracy will make embezzlement and corruption impossible.
We should not give in to provocations. We should watch carefully to see who is trying to solve a problem and who is using it to rock the boat and get political mileage. If conflicts and problems arise, people should go to local government bodies, to their trade unions or other community organization, to the "public reception room", to their deputy. You will always get help at the local branch of United Russia.
Be innovators. An innovative economy is not solely or largely about supercomputers and powerful instruments, it is about the ability to change one's work and life in step with the times. Look around you and ask yourself what can be improved and how your work and life can be renewed. Be in constant search and try to invent new things. Learn. The future economy is a knowledge economy. The winner will be he who constantly learns, acquires new skills, and expands his opportunities.
Be mobile. If you have lost your job, do not hesitate to acquire a new specialty, move to another place, try to start your own business. Each in his place must become like Putin, a real and not a former leader for his subordinates: the mayor, for his city, the manager, for his plant and everyone for his family. Think about their interests more than about your own. Concentrate on the main thing, hear everyone, follow your own line and achieve results.
Believe in yourself and in Russia. You will succeed. Together we shall overcome.