#6145 #6146 #6147
[Third Issue of the Day]
#1
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002
From: Heinrich Vogel <Vogel.heinrich@gmx.de>
Subject: THE PUTIN SYSTEM Power restored but now come the real problems
Dear David,
the attached article was published in "Internationale Politik"
(Transatlantic Edition) No. 1/2002, vol. 3.
I hope it will be of some interest.
Heinrich Vogel
Internationale Politik (Transatlantic Edition)
1/2002, Vol. 3 (Spring Issue)
Copyright: Frankfurter Societaets-Druckerei GmbH
THE PUTIN SYSTEM
Power restored but now come the real problems
By Heinrich Vogel
Heinrich Vogel is Member of the Board of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin.
Both the hopes and the fears aroused by the unexpected rise of Vladimir Putin to become president of Russia have been realized. But not fully, and not quite for reasons that could be blamed only on the new man in power. The encouraging strong growth of the economy is the result of high profits from the export of energy and devaluation of the ruble, while anti-democratic tendencies are nurtured by the authoritarian reflexes of the political elites and of Russian society in general.
The achievements of the new government include implementation of important reform laws in the Duma; reduction of the outstanding wage debts; raising of wages, pensions, and salaries in the public sector; and a start in disciplining the administration. These achievements mark a clear transition from the increasingly crisis-ridden economy and politics in the last years of President Boris Yeltsin, and they are acknowledged by sustained high approval ratings for the president's policies.
There are doubts, however, about the durability of this unaccustomed stability based on political structures that are not very transparent. Russia's domestic climate is characterized by uncertainty about existential problems, such as guaranteeing the energy supply for the approaching winter. But there are also basic questions about how much stress public institutions can sustain, the integrity of officials at all levels, the veracity of official information on politics and the economy, and, not least, the true intentions of those in power with regard to social policy. The impression created in official statements about an enduring and comprehensive consolidation of leadership is deceptive, as is evident from a glance at central aspects of economic and social policy.
One should not underestimate the legislative achievement of the past year-in reforms of taxes on income and profits, laws on land sale, increased efforts to curb bureaucratization of the administration and achieve transparency in the economy, and, last but not the least, reform of the court system.
It has to be said, though, that these steps entailed relatively low political risk, since they did not impose a direct burden on the majority of the population. And it is revealing to note which structural reforms have not yet been tackled, which bills still need to be ratified by the Duma (pension and labor laws), and which issues must still be dealt with if the government is to retain its reform credibility (banking reform; dismantling of monopolies in the energy and raw materials sector; reduction of energy, municipal, and housing subsidies; and rehabilitation and reform of the social safety net).
The latter projects of liberal market-oriented reformers will entail noticeable, regressive tax burdens for the population during the second half of the legislative period. At the same time, these reforms will challenge powerful sectoral and regional interest groups that have a major impact on the macro economy, such as Gazprom, Lukoil, or Sberbank. Such reforms can be pushed through only within a general context of high growth rates and positive expectations in society, but neither of these is assured. Thus it is hardly surprising that Minister for Economic Development and Trade German Gref has extended the time frame for reducing subsidies for housing and communal development to ten years-and that he has postponed until late 2004 reform of the monopoly of the Unified Electric Systems (UES).
As for the real income of the population, this has grown since 1999 but still remains far below the level of December, 1997. It is uncertain whether there can be continued improvement in living standards because of the acute threat of inflation; moreover, the laws that have recently been approved can lead to enhanced growth only after a lead time of several months. The volume of investments in recent months is too small and too exclusively concentrated on consumption-related sectors to maintain the maximum growth rate that is so crucial politically; meanwhile, the capital balance, the most important indicator of domestic and foreign investors' confidence, continues to remain negative. Yet the expenses of the structural reform that is now needed exceed the available financial framework of even the most optimistic prognoses.
With official statistics still showing 27 percent of the population as losers from the transformation with a per capita income below the minimal subsistence level, social problems are potential political tinder-yet so far no one is challenging the profits amassed by the robber barons in the insider privatization of the 1990s. Accompanying the hardship is a demographic catastrophe that has been building for a long time and is effusively deplored. Yet there is not even an effective political medium-range strategy for coping with the concomitant problems ranging from the disastrous national health system to the overloaded pension system to the safe-guarding of minimal standards of living. In view of this challenge, it is not enough merely to stabilize what has been achieved, because Russian society is more deeply divided today than ever before. If one listens closely to conversations in Russia, one can sense unease in discussing the issues that must be resolved, and this not just among the notoriously pessimistic intelligentsia, but also in the broader public.
The Putin System
Putin's recent strengthening of centralized power, disciplining of the Duma and elimination of recalcitrant oligarchs fulfilled the lowest common denominator of expectations by a large majority of the population. No one protested when the organizational reforms of the state structure effected by decree (such as the introduction of regional governors appointed by the president, or the supplanting of the independent Federation Council by a new presidentially-controlled "State Council") downgraded existing constitutional institutions, or when the campaign against an unruly media mogul triggered concern in the West about the freedom of the press. To this day the Russian majority has not objected when the war in Chechnya has violated human rights, so long as the problem remains limited to the Caucasus region.
Under the eyes of a population, large sectors of which still believe in miracles, and under the close scrutiny of skeptical Western nations, the president must exude competence and optimism and must blaze a viable trail through the thicket of acute problems-or at least he must act as if he could. So far his charisma has withstood this test; popular approval ratings for his policy rose to 74 percent between July and August last year. Yet during the same time period the government's rating declined from 48 to 46 percent, and the willingness of workers to go on strike is increasing.
The widely held personalized view of Russian politics, and especially the focus on the man at the top, is misleading and tempts outsiders to demonize Putin. There is no doubt that his stature and competence have grown during the first half of his term in office. His policy statements exhibit considerable economic pragmatism, and his program for ensuring order builds on American models. But doubt remains both about the domestic policy objectives of the president and his role as architect of the democratization of Russia. His overly cautious style of leadership could be attributed to a lack of experience, a personal reluctance to make decisions, or the lack of a sufficient personal power base-but it could also be attributed to possible smirches on the legend of Putin as Mr. Clean (for example in the context of the notorious "Operation Successor" that facilitated his enthronement). The frequency of his use of the pronoun "we" in interviews when referring to the intentions of the Kremlin is striking. This usage is hardly a "plurale maiestatis," more likely it is motivated by modesty in the face of power that he is not yet accustomed to, or perhaps it is a Freudian slip when thinking about working within a leadership collective.
Obscure Inner Circle
The innermost circle of power continues to remain obscure. It is likely that Putin staffed central government functions with loyal comrades from his days in the KGB secret police or in the city administration in St. Petersburg. It is further plausible that one of the main script writers of the transition in power in December, 1999, Boris Berezovsky, had to be banished because he became a renegade like his fellow oligarch Vladimir Guzinsky and openly expressed his own and financed media criticisms of the Kremlin.
On the other hand, the Kremlin has been astonishing gentle in dealing with other protagonists of the ancien regime. Andrei Voloshin, Chief of Administration of the Kremlin under Yeltsin, is still in office. The governmental apparatus and regional administration were cleansed only when the charges of open corruption and incompetence could no longer be suppressed. And in spite of appalling shortcomings and charges of corruption on a grand scale, neither Yevgeni Adamov, Head of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy, nor the governor of the far-eastern region, Yevgeni Nasdratenko, is likely ever to have to answer for his actions in court; Nasdratenko was even rewarded with a ministerial post in Moscow. Surrounded by equally huge scandals, Mikhail Lesin, who started out as Voloshin's second-in-command, was first appointed chief of the radio and television station RTR, then Minister of the Press tasked with improving Russia's image abroad. The remaining oligarchs adopted the Kremlin party line and were renamed "magnates"-and they are now considered indispensable pillars of reform and economic recovery. Their influence should not be underestimated.
Cadre Continuity
The remarkable continuity of the leadership cadre might be interpreted as a strategic concept for ensuring domestic calm, but an equally plausible hypothesis is that the barely veiled conflicts among rival groups in and near the Kremlin require elaborate fine-tuning in personnel appointments. Indeed, it would be difficult to reconcile the objectives and interests of the rearguard of the Yeltsin clan with the president's market-oriented soulmates from St. Petersburg, or those of the energy and raw-materials monopolies with the objectives of Putin's former KGB colleagues and their academic support troops.
As during Yeltsin's rule, the political process is characterized by covert conspiracies and privileged access by those in power to knowledge about skeletons in rivals' closers. The degree to which political opponents (including the Kremlin) draw on secret compromising information usually acquired by spying, is revealing. Publication of such compromising facts or allegations-or even the mere threat of publication-is often sufficient to eliminate a competitor. As a result, the public is no longer astonished by anything. In this atmosphere the Kremlin's "political technicians"-most of them former information managers from the intelligence community-have a free hand in manipulating public opinion. By now they no longer even try to hide their arrogance, which suggests that they have sanction from on high and indeed enjoy unlimited creative freedom as long as their means (ranging from pitch-perfect marketing of success to disinformation or even intimidation) serve to stabilize the retention of power.
Public relations, spin, or, more precisely, opinion management, is part of the political life of all democracies, but in the West the practitioners of this craft are held in check by vigilant media and a functioning judicial system and are therefore not nearly as free as those high priests of "political technology" in Russia who have become an integral part of the protected apparatus of power.
Thus the public is increasingly relegated to the sidelines as a passive observer, as it risks losing the media as a platform for dissemination and formation of opinions. The formal independence of the media can be undermined at any time through economic pressures, and their ability to act can be impeded through technical means. The planned concentration of the infrastructure of all electronic media in one comprehensive Russian state TV and radio holding company (VGTRK) subordinated to the Ministry of [Press, Radio, Television and] Mass Communication, opens up even more possibilities for state intervention. Costly polls plumb public opinion, and generally their results are even publicized.
But because these results can be easily manipulated, they are not politically relevant for the Kremlin and its advisors. They are merely instruments for generating support for the opinions of those in power-for example, in rejecting NATO membership for the Baltic states. If popular opinions do not toe the official line, they remain irrelevant in the decision-making process-as with the law on the import of nuclear waste, which was passed despite its vehement rejection by the overwhelming majority of the population.
Whenever there is a flaw in the Kremlin's carefully groomed image, as in the case of the sinking of the Kursk submarine, legends are invented. Thus, the official version justified the considerable cost of raising the submarine not with the securing of innovative weapons systems remaining in the wreck, but ascribed it to loyalty to the victims of the catastrophe. And the method of calculating the gross domestic product is changed from one moment to the next to prettify official statistics. The resulting improvements in current growth rates are not at all unwelcome, even if these imply no real increase in productivity.
Suspect Society
The reformers' liberal market concept is characterized by a philosophy that relegates the state to a subsidiary role. But if one looks at the domestic and social policy that is actually practiced or analyzes the consequences of strengthening a state in which the reflexes of the Soviet era are still very much alive, it becomes clear that what is actually advanced is the exact opposite of social emancipation. Insiders justify the Kremlin's arrogantly patriarchal attitude by arguing that after communism and the Yeltsin era, Russian society is not yet ready to claim a role in building stable democratic structures. The fundamental distrust of spontaneity, the fear of potential criticism that might grow into an organized political opposition or even into support for an opposition candidate for the presidency-all this can be explained only by the political socialization of Russia's governing elites.
Strict control by the institutions of a newly strengthened state are intended to keep society from engaging in undesirable activities that might disturb the efficiency of state reforms. The legislative initiatives and new institutions established by the Kremlin to control and co-opt any spontaneous societal impulses bear strong resemblances to the Soviet period, during which societal organizations were viewed as transmission belts for the political will of the political leadership.
In light of the experience with a chaotic parliament in the Yeltsin years, it is not unreasonable for the number of parties to be reduced significantly by legislative means. On the other hand, this kind of law is by no means indispensable, since even the Communist Party subsequently adopted a more pliant course of "constructive opposition" in which even the most painful concessions can be made after only a nominal grace period.
Although achieving voting majorities in the Duma is no longer a problem for the government, it seems to be aiming in the long run for a two-or three-party system. But for now the fusion of the Kremlin's Unity party with the Fatherland/All Russia party is the primary goal of the government. The point is less the strengthening of parliamentary power than the control of political life. Here the Kremlin can count on the lack of backbone of the leadership of just about all parties in facing "the power" (the Russian synonym for the Kremlin leadership that is so characteristic for Russian political culture). The Kremlin can rely on the willingness of many of the regional governors to give up constitutionally guaranteed elections on the promise that they will be reappointed by the president; and it can also count on the approval of a public that does not view opposition as a vital function on the road to developing political alternatives within a democratic state.
It would surely be inaccurate to caricature contemporary Russian society as a malleable mass that can simply be molded by power-conscious technocrats without offering any resistance; the experience of collapse of the old order has initiated differentiation processes that have generated new self-confident social strata with their own economic interests, especially among urban populations. As the ferment in a dynamic democratic wave, they are by no means infinitely manipulable-and they can no longer be forced to remain silent. But they remain an ill-organized minority-the new middle class is estimated at only 7 percent of the urban population of Russia-and they see their own interests as ill-represented even by the reform-oriented political parties.
NGOs
Given this political and societal background, the remaining non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are even more important. The Orthodox Church cannot really be called a non-governmental (i.e., independent) organization. As always in Russian history, the state church has readily accepted the instrumental functions prescribed by the Kremlin. In spite of burning social problems, even the "independent labor unions" of the Yeltsin era have lost all their influence. Chances are they will become a factor to be reckoned with in politics and society only when they take more note of their local membership's real everyday problems and when a better employment situation again increases their negotiating leverage.
Other NGOs that have inscribed their banners with explicitly political goals, such as the protection of human rights and the environment, or the investigation of the crimes of the Communist regime, have come under attack by the government for some time now. All instruments of systematic obstruction-including the founding of rival organizations, taxation of donations, interruption of communications channels, and even arrest of activists on spurious charges of spying-have been applied against these organizations.
The mere accusation that one has oppositional political intentions is enough to create an aura of dissidence that is viewed as a potential danger to the state. Citizen activism critical of the Kremlin is denounced as being a front organization for foreign intelligence services or a "carrier of cultural distraction." The functionaries of such organizations are intimidated through chicanery and open threats; their public relations efforts are kept to a controllable level by keeping tabs on their communications channels and by restricting media access. In this process, the local power elites play a particularly unsavory role, as members of the so-called power structure are encouraged to drop any scruples by the fact that "one of their own" heads the state.
"Dialog of Equals"
On November 21, President Putin addressed a Civic Forum which brought together all NGOs of Russia. He assured them of his best intentions, calling for a "dialog of equals" between government and society and cooperation on all issues of human rights. For the time being previous apprehensions have to be shelved that the authorities would press for the foundation of a large "Citizen's Alliance," an organization serving as a Soviet-type transmission-belt for the Kremlin's directives that would report directly to the president and have a consultative function. The implementation of such high aims, however, will have to be monitored very carefully, given the history of previous manipulations and simulation of a Western-type approach to civil society.
Moreover, the official, smothering patriotic ideology of the great state has marked nostalgic traits, as when, for example, the technological and economic achievements of the Soviet era are celebrated, while the nasty aspects of Stalinism, Soviet imperialism, and the role of the KGB as an instrument of oppression remain taboo. "Gagarin without the Gulag" probably best describes the image of the past embraced by the political leadership. Even an incipient personality cult, such as the founding of a state youth association under the name of the president (christened "Putomol" by its detractors) smacks of nostalgia. The new association is less suspect for having been founded by the possibly over-eager party leadership of the "Unity Party" than for the Kremlin's consenting silence.
Limits on Omnipotence
Already today there is no doubt that the next elections will result in a renewal of the formal legitimization of the Putin system, and there is no doubt that the Kremlin places a higher priority on maintaining power than on legitimacy. And yet many observers think that this president will turn out to have been overrated as the saviour of the fatherland, a role that is due less to his personality than to the system that has evolved contemporaneously with him as a system of a "controlled" (i.e., non-liberal) democracy, without checks and balances. An indicator of the type of political system the Kremlin envisions will be its project of a constitutional reform, with convocation of a constitutional assembly. Since there is no immediate political necessity for this, critical observers conjecture that the intention behind the project is establishment of streamlined structures designed to eliminate potentially obstructionist horizontal input that could challenge Putin's "vertical" or hierarchical control.
The limits to the government's room for maneuver are defined by the lack of sufficient economic resources, a fact that can be seen both in deteriorating infrastructure and in the huge capital gap that will be impossible to close without outside assistance. The neutralization of undesirable opposition destroys one important element of political innovation. But without reestablishing a new, trust-based balance in the relationship between state and society, even the most liberal economic reforms cannot bring about the required dynamic growth and mobilization of society. The proclaimed omnipotence of the president in turn implies comprehensive responsibility for all failures and delays; and many initiatives and interventions are bound to languish in bureaucratic limbo, especially since the already oversized Russian government sector continues to grow.
It is becoming more and more evident that President Putin can place only limited trust in the officials of the partially reformed public institutions. The Kremlin is granted obsequious obedience in suppressing undesirable political activities, and the resulting political correctness engenders lip service to a strong state; but the most immediate loyalty is to each local authority.
This is the invisible phalanx of the regional establishment that has again and again defeated the much-touted war against corruption, in spite of the super governors' and central authority's attempts at control. German Gref, arguably the most important thinker on the reforms, considers this war to be quite hopeless in the short run. He argues that the shadow economy will lose its attractiveness only after a prolonged period of high growth rates and improved general conditions.
Chechnya
Finally, one must mention the open wound of Chechnya, for which there is no cure in sight at this time. The Russian leadership now speaks of political solutions-but it can also point to international models for its approach of repression. The brutal cleansing operations of the Russian military will not achieve their purpose of bringing peace to the Caucasus region; on the contrary, indiscriminate Russian firepower compounds the political and social destabilization of the entire region, while the demoralizing effect on Russian society is ignored. As a result of the terrorist acts in New York and Washington last September, this domestic problem has lost some of its immediate urgency as Putin reaps some short-term benefit from the shock waves that have hit the world economy and global politics. Particularly Russia's role as a key exporter of energy and a counterweight against OPEC is seen in a new light. From a longer-term view, however, these windfalls merely reduce the pressure to continue the necessary reforms.
At least equally important are the effects of this crisis on Russian domestic politics, where the "anti-terrorist operations" in Chechnya have been touted as an early version of long-overdue joint actions of the global community against Islamic terror. Justified doubts regarding the Chechen responsibility for all the bombing attacks on Russian cities from September 1999 are conveniently forgotten, and Russian intelligence services make rather doubtful claims of superior professionalism.
The extent of the damage inflicted on Russia's political system, which is still unstable in its very foundations, cannot yet be predicted. At present the tried-and-true structures of the past are more likely to be viewed as the measuring stick for the further modernization of state and society than models provided by the Western democracies.
It would be negligent and perhaps even dangerous for Westerners, under the shock of the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, to hide their concerns about Putin's chosen course. If Russia is uncritically included in the emerging anti-terrorist alliance of civilized states, Moscow will interpret this as confirmation of the superiority of authoritarian rule and the methods of the police state. The impact of condoning Moscow's present course on the future of the concept of a strong but liberal constitutional state-even beyond Russia-is difficult to gauge.
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