Nezavisimaya Gazeta: “The Meaning and Implication of Our Time”
The meaning and implication of our time
It is not absolutely clear whether it is possible or impossible to live the way we do.
By late 2009, it had become obvious that something was changing in Russia. It seemed that someone had used a needle to puncture a tiny hole inside a balloon, and that the gas was slowly but surely seeping out. Although not everyone realises the scale of the leak, people are no longer confident that the airship is ascending. Is the fear probably vanishing through the tiny hole? I don't know. But they are now telling different and funnier political jokes. In the past, they used to tell a joke about an open refrigerator and shaking jellied minced meat. Everybody knew that the phrase: "Don't shake, I just want to get some beer" implied disgraced oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. At present, they are joking about the four major national problems, including the two most famous problems - fools and bad roads. This implies the ruling tandem. Andrei Kolesnikov from Kommersant recalls how a journalist threw a cigarette butt on the road, while waiting for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and was promptly rebuked by a Federal Body Guards officer who said "What are you doing? The president of the government is coming!"
The State Duma's opposition parties also staged a demarche, making accusations of election rigging. The State Duma resembled a parliament for several days. A drunken police major with his denunciations who is still at large, and even has his own supporters and fans. Everybody remembered the advice of Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev to rebuff unjustifiably aggressive police officers. After that, the Moscow - St Petersburg train exploded and burned, and a night club in Perm caught fire. All this time, people have tried to find out who was to blame.
Several troubled spots received extensive media coverage throughout 2009. Motorists driving imported cars in Russia's Far East staged protests. Workers in Pikalyovo, a single-industry town, were allowed to block a federal highway for eight hours. Bus-and-shuttle accidents were reported each day for a whole month.
The meaning of modernisation and its conservative implications
President Dmitry Medvedev subsequently published his long-awaited article "Forwards, Russia" which raised extremely serious issues. Medvedev asked whether Russia can drag its primitive raw-materials economy into the future, and move away from chronic corruption, that long-time habit of relying on the state, foreign countries, some "omnipotent doctrine" (This is part of Vladimir Lenin's quotation "The doctrine of Marx is omnipotent because it is correct." - Ed.), rather than ourselves, during the solution of various problems. Has Russia, which is burdened with such problems, its own future? An anti-paternalist platform prioritising individual efforts, a free-market economy and freedom was unveiled.
The article was discussed for two months in the hope of transforming it into a more binding and imposing document, namely, the state-of-the-nation address. The discussion proved quite interesting.
The state-of-the-nation address was long and dull, containing numerous reservations intended for various interests and elements of conservatism. Nor did the address stipulate any real political and institutional modernisation structures. Medvedev's discourse about the excessive number of Russia's time zones sounds absurd and funny, reminding one of Baron Karl Friedrich Munchhausen (1720-1797), a German nobleman who served in the Russian Army and supposedly told a number of outrageous tall tales about his adventures and exploits.
Several days later, the United Russia party held its congress in St Petersburg and approved a programme of Russian conservatism. Consequently, Medvedev's statements about the need for change and the unbearable paternalist burden and its incompatibility with the ideals and values of a modern state received a conservative wrapping and implication.
The extent to which Vladimir Putin assessed all risks linked with his temporary resignation as president has become more obvious. The same is true of Putin's subtle efforts to create mechanisms and institutions forcing his successor to tone the Putin line. Putin also found it important to become the leader of the ruling United Russia party which has the majority of seats in the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament. Russian history knows numerous examples when the entourage of a national leader had sworn eternal allegiance to his ideals but started quickly and angrily dismantling the achievements of the previous era. Putin paid attention to this specific feature of Russian national traditions and retained the post of United Russia leader, so that the new President would be unable to automatically establish control over the party.
Vladimir Putin's four-hour question-and-answer session became the most outstanding text message of December 2009. The main points are as follows: I will soon return, social spending will expand even more quickly, and the state will not abandon the people.
Putin's meaning is supported by multi-billion-rouble budgetary and extra-budgetary allocations and the entire influence of the administrative machinery facilitating government control over the implementation of its decisions. This is a reality, rather than some abstraction, spirit or phantom.
The diffusion of Schumpeter's innovations and modernisation
Medvedev's modernisation document is virtually based on nothing. The ineffective Commission for Modernisation and Technological Development of Russia's Economy has little use. Complex labour is not the result of multiplied simple labour. A hundred council members will not replace 10 smart consultants. It would better to hire well-paid analysts from McKinsey consultancy, and they will draft a document in six months. The document will form the foundation of the 2010 budgetary process and organisational changes, including those in the Government.
Medvedev ought to continue modernising the Russian economy and our entire socio-political life because his status allows this. At the same time, I don't think it appropriate to view modernisation as a key concept in a system of possible measures. Modernisation is the consequence of other market-related motives. There can be no separate and special modernisation policy. Innovative changes take place in conditions of proper state administration and a favourable business environment.
In 1911, Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883-January 1950), an economist and political scientist born in Moravia, then Austria-Hungary, now the Czech Republic, wrote his "Theory of Economic Development" proving that business facilitates economic innovations. According to Schumpeter, entrepreneurship engenders innovation and its practical realisation. Under capitalism, businessmen play the part of a force that changes the system all the time.
Schumpeter's theory was confirmed by the global economic history of the past 100 years.
Worldwide economic and social progress is facilitated by the diffusion of two types of innovation, namely, organisational-managerial innovation and innovation based on information technology. The first type of innovation is widely represented in Japanese production-management and quality-control systems. It is impossible to hope for the modernisation of our life, unless such tactics and methods are introduced into the state-administration and other spheres. This factor is particularly important for Russia in the context of the role and scale of state finances and the public sector. It appears that the scale of losses and embezzlement exceed the 1999 Russian federal budget several times over. The standardisation of processes during the organisation of the work of the administrative and bureaucratic machinery is a high-priority objective. Bureaucratic chaos spells untold hardships for the Russian Federation's nations. Each day brings reports of tragedies, disasters, accidents, explosions and fires highlighting the inability of Russian bureaucrats to effectively exercise their functions. The corrupt bureaucracy is turning into an independent economic and even political player which ruthlessly defends its own material interests. Official reactions to yet another fire include orders to deploy additional brigades and to toughen criminal legislation. Nothing specific is said about changed work procedures and standards aiming to prevent tragedies.
The material and political interests of bureaucracy
I am absolutely convinced that land plots in Russia cannot be expensive, because this country covers one-seventh of the earth's land surface. Bureaucratic barriers, limited access to land resources and corruption-oriented land-allotment methods facilitate high land-plot prices. It is hardly surprising that the relatives of governors and mayors nationwide are major landowners and developers. This is their business. High land prices facilitate the capitalisation of their assets. Land pledged at banks is the source of cash, the ultimate liquid asset. By increasing the supply of land on the market, and it would become possible to reduce the price of land and other assets seized by bureaucrats. Moreover, the real estate bubble or property bubble would be deflated.
Their wealth would disappear, and they would be left with debts that can be repaid by selling some lucrative land plots. This would also increase supply and bring prices down. Most importantly, investment would be rechanneled from rent-extraction sectors to other sectors which are more useful for Russia and its economy and which are linked with the creation of jobs and added value.
But it is hard to imagine any radical changes in this sphere because any bureaucrat signing documents on liberalised land sales and purchases would be the loser. The conversion of bureaucratic status into a land-owner's capital is the most natural manifestation of a Russian-type shortage economy. In Soviet times, commodity shortages were converted into mountains of cut-glass ware, rugs and carpets, owned by those who had access to them. And now land plays this part.
Capital which does not know any territorial boundaries and which does not discern between various sectors is invested in the most profitable sectors.
The mortal danger of bureaucracy
The memoirs of Albert Speer (1905-1981), minister of armaments and war production for the Third Reich, contain some interesting opinions of bureaucracy. Speer was shocked to learn that Germany produced fewer munitions in 1944 than it did in 1918, citing a bloated bureaucratic machinery as the main cause of this. For instance, the Armaments Department had ten times more employees than a similar World War I agency. According to Speer, the more he opposed bureaucracy, a salient feature of Germany, that had grown many-fold in conditions of a totalitarian regime, the more his criticism of petty tutelage of the armaments industry by state bodies acquired the nature of a political concept.
In his report to Adolf Hitler in the summer of 1944, Speer wrote that Germany's enemies had opted for the art of improvisation at a time when the Third Reich had introduced a system of excessive bureaucratisation. He said posterity would have no choice but to state that Germany had lost the war because its outdated and inflexible system, chained to traditions, had suffered a complete failure.
What can be said in this context? If a key member of Hitler's entourage cites bureaucracy as the main cause of Germany's defeat during World War II, then this prompts one to reassess the terrible potential of bureaucracy's destructive force, to say the least. It would be a shame if our posterity states that Russia had surrendered to the future in favour of thriving bureaucracy.
I noticed one more thought that had surprised Speer. He said Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt did not hesitate to force their nations to bear the hardships of the war, while the authoritarian German regime tried to win the sympathies of the people. In effect, democratically elected and democratic-minded leaders told the people about the real situation, demanded all-out mobilisation and met with popular support. At the same time, an authoritarian bureaucracy flirts with the people, thinks about popular moods, does not tell the truth, makes boasts and lies about the real situation.
The people's rational opinion and elections
Flirtation with the people is a sign of a backward and old-fashioned state.
The state treats the people like small children and tries to ram home the simple idea that it cares about their needs. After listening to numerous sweet-sounding statements, the people begin to trust words more than their eyes.
For me, this highlights rudimentary democratic institutions and procedures because the classic theory of democracy implies that the people have a certain rational opinion on every issue. Furthermore, such a rational opinion is realised through elections of representatives who facilitate the consistent implementation of this opinion.
As we can see, democracy considers the existence of a rational opinion, as well as a combination of institutional means for making political decisions that facilitate all-out prosperity, to be an important aspect. Although elections can be held, the people will vote for an irrational opinion. This is a problem for Russia. I get the impression that our voters have ignored the 53% increase in housing/municipal-utilities and transport prices in the past two crisis-ridden years. Far from being spontaneous, such prices are regulated by local leaders of the ruling United Russia party. It appears that the people voting for this party vote with their hearts, emotions and feelings, rather than reason. Our people do not view elections as a means of improving their life, to say the least, or as a pretext to discuss this highly painful financial issue with the government.
Dmitry Medvedev faces a serious hurdle in this context. Economically and socially active young people virtually do not watch federal television channels. Those who will determine Russia's economic and political life in the next 10-20 years do not watch television and do not vote. In effect, their views, values and preferences have been removed from the circulation of ideas for mass consumption. Another Russia, different from the one now casting its ballots and electing those who exert the most serious influence on it through their decisions, is being essentially reproduced outside official control. In my opinion, this conceals a certain contradiction, if not conflict. Apart from the ideological and value-oriented dimension of this contradiction, a generation gap should also be mentioned. The new generation has its own idea of Russia's grandeur and its desired merits. The Internet is an extremely powerful source of modern ideas and concepts of what a normal home or country should be like. The attractiveness of this home in conditions of freedom of movement will be largely determined by an ability to create prerequisites for self-realisation of individuals' creative potential. New patriotism implies the creation of such institutions of freedom, democracy, business and innovation, facilitating individual prosperity to the greatest possible extent. It will now be impossible to accumulate creative potential with the help of Stalin-era Sharashkas, an informal name for secret research and development laboratories in the Soviet Gulag labor camp system.
Trade at sea
Recently I read a report that LUKoil will invest less in oil prospecting and production projects in the next 10 years. That same day, Russian Natural Resources and Environment Minister Yury Trutnev said foreign investors were less interested in the country's natural resources. A prominent financier and a board member with several Western investment companies set forth the current foreign attitude towards doing business with Russia. He said Moscow should not bother foreign companies with its problems, that it should either sell or buy something, but that advance payments were essential. He explained that such approach had already been formulated with regard to Nigeria and referred to as trade at sea. The companies concerned send their tankers to Nigerian oil rigs, take on oil and sail away without going ashore. The world is scared by Nigerian lawlessness, gangsterism and corruption. Even the temptation of entering this under-developed but potentially attractive market cannot overcome such fear.
Foreigners who are losing interest in Russian natural resources will hardly be interested in manufacturing products for the domestic market with an unclear liquidity. Although Dmitry Medvedev has stirred powerful emotions with his article, he has failed to provide a clear programme for implementing its basic provisions in the past four months. The article's discussion on the presidential blog has marginal value compared to the scale of national problems.
The role of the presidential team
There is no structure. There is no team. Moreover, ideas do not evolve into specific policies.
The presidential team is a highly important context of power. The president must be surrounded by like-minded persons and supporters, while tackling extremely complicated problems facing the country. Other aspects, including billiards, steam-bath sessions, martial-arts fights, tennis matches, showdowns and jokes, are also important. The almost daily gatherings involving the inner president's circle interpret all nationwide developments. The actions of various ministers, businessmen, governors and mayors are discussed. Specific decisions in interests of team members are crystallised. Personal and private interests often replace the ideology of change, while the relevant ideology is introduced later after proprietors change hands.
Medvedev lacks such a team. Although several impostors and upstarts in Moscow hinted they were close to the corridors of power and were also well-informed, their articles unequivocally exposed the "superintendents of modernisation" against a backdrop of presidential speeches and texts.
The team issue is also important because its establishment and strengthening is a highly important institution of change. No team will emerge, if Dmitry Medvedev's blogger habits do not need showdowns and are content with the intensity of Twitter chats. Two years have passed since Medvedev occupied the place of president in the public space. Those wishing to join Medvedev's team are craving for positions and loyalty prizes. They want to become ministers, bankers and CEOs of major corporations. Yeltsin provided his supporters with the benefits of privatisation. Putin gave them instruments, namely, gas, oil and budget flows, which allowed Russia to rise from its knees. They are loyal to Putin, his idea and their interests. Medvedev's team will remain on paper, unless he starts giving lucrative posts to his supporters.
It would also be appropriate to establish a new party with a parliamentary potential and advocating Russia's modernisation. Just like United Russia, this party should be established from above and under the same pretext: promoting and expediting processes of ideological crystallisation of political space. Moreover, such a party, whose ideolog is Dmitry Medvedev, would guarantee the continuity of the modernisation line and would facilitate State Duma support for the relevant modernisation-oriented legislation. It may be strange, but such a party is not yet even on the drawing board.
Freedom and independence from power
The passing year has once again confirmed that two sources of power are a blessing for Russia. A bit more freedom and a bit less fear. For me, freedom implies confidence that I will be entitled to a fair trial if something happens. In that situation, a law-abiding person does not fear that he or she will be framed. This year, the number of absolutely free persons has doubled and reached two. The rest are not completely free. Fear breeds conformism, conformism breed stagnation because no or almost no members of the elite which has become integrated in the system want changes.
I recently learned that narcotic drugs, including heroin, provide pleasure. A drug-taker feels high during the first six months. After that, increasingly greater doses are required just to overcome suffering, discomfort and pain emanating from a changed brain. Just imagine, we think that a drug-taker feels high for 10 years. But this is not so. He or she feels high for just half a year, subsequently fighting pain and fear.
When they say that power is a narcotic, then one starts thinking about the correlation between feeling "high" and fears in the life of top officials. This serves as convincing evidence of the fact that democracy is an excellent means for avoiding power dependence, a grave, widespread and not so harmless illness.
Enclave of modernisation: meaning, implications and context
We have built enclave capitalism. And now it appears that enclave modernisation is next in line. This is boring. I never really understood the difference between meanings and implications in the Russia of 2009. If Dmitry Medvedev's article means something, then expectations of change and a farewell to the Putin era are its implications. If the Prime Minister's question-and-answer session has a meaning, then the implication is that Putin is coming back, that everybody must calm down, and that conservative modernisation lies in store.
Some people do not understand the meaning or implications and are left with the context. Others are already thinking that the meaning, implications and context will coincide in one person two years later.
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For me, freedom implies confidence that I will be entitled to a fair trial if something happens.
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Putin's has subtly created mechanisms and institutions forcing his successor to toe the Putin line.
Konstantin Remchukov
