Russia 2010. Part 1. Political System of Russia

(the part of book "Russia 2010. Report of Transformation")

Part 1. Political System of Russia 

Challenges to stability and consolidation of the political system

Despite the current challenges the Russian political system generally maintained its stability last year. Towards the end of the year the signs of a political crisis became increasingly obvious, which was manifested in a wave of nationalistic actions (their main participants were Russian and Caucasian radicals). The inability of other players to shatter the stability of the political system can be accounted for by their being part of it and working in the interests of a number of elite groups incorporated in power (for example, the leaders of “dissenters” act in the interests of the “family” group). Besides, before the December nationalistic actions organizers of the protests were creating hierarchic structures disguising them as network structures (for example, organizers of protests in Kaliningrad region at the beginning of the year). The nationalist activity in December was manifested in the format of a purely network structure, without a unified center of management and decision-making, which ensured the fact that the traditional hierarchic structures (law-enforcement agencies, national diasporas, fan-clubs) failed to curb the wave of violence.

Russia has recently witnessed a series of ethnic conflicts that draw a wide response in mass media and in the society. These were generally clashes between local population (native or Slavic) and newcomers from the Caucasus and more seldom from Central Asia. Irrespective of the instigator of the conflict, the injured party was generally representatives of the native population, which further exacerbates interethnic contradictions and provokes mass unrest of citizens.  

For the first time in the history of post-Soviet Russia “the national issue” at the Russia-wide level came up pressingly in 2006 during the events in Kondopoga, its name becoming a common noun. Chronologically this coincided with promotion of the Movement Against Illegal Migration (DPNI) that tries to get rid of its fringe image and emphasizes its intention to act by legal methods only as distinguished from its predecessors in the nationalist camp. At the same time some individual incidents evidencing aggravation of the issue of inter-ethnic relations had occurred before as well. For example, in 2003 the Rodina party (or the Motherland-National Patriotic Union) that used moderately nationalistic slogans in its campaign achieved substantial success at the elections to the State Duma.

However, the forecasts regarding the nationalists’ entrance into the “big policy” arena did not hold up. The peak of the “Kondopoga syndrome” was the Russian March in autumn 2006 when the situation in the capital seemed extraordinarily tense. However, on the whole the action went off without any incidents, and the «center of gravity” of public policy shifted to other idelological niches (ultraliberal, for example).

Over the recent years the society has accumulated a significant “cumulative effect” provoked by the growing intra-Russia and external migration as well as similar processes on the post-Soviet area. The multiple growth of migration intensity was triggered off by the actual disappearance of the institution of official residential registration as well as by the nonuniform economic development of territories in Russia. The situation was aggravated by the process of deindustrialization in most regions of the North Caucasus after the outflow of Russian-speaking population, which was exacerbated by the demographic explosion among the indigenous groups. This resulted in ousting of the “excessive” human mass to regions of “big” Russia that lacked historical experience of co-residence of peoples with a different culture and way of life, which has been provoking conflicts between them. The problem is getting still more vexed due to the striving of the migrants from the North Caucasus to secure a footing in the most prestigious spheres (law­enforcement agencies, business) rather than in the “secondary” spheres having a demand for immigrant labor power (public utilities sector, construction), which irritates the local population.

The number of reports about conflicts on inter-ethnic grounds has been recently growing noticeably. As a rule, they occur either in big cities or in the south of the European part of Russia (Stavropol Krai, Krasnodar Krai, Rostov region). There are also reports about exacerbation of inter-ethnic relations coming from regions far from the North Caucasus but quite rich and thus attracting attention of internal migrants (oil and gas bearing provinces of Siberia).

The exacerbation of the mass discontent with the newcomers and with the lack of desire on the part of the state to regulate these processes was triggered off by the murder of two Spartak fans by natives of the Caucasus that happened in Moscow over a couple months (Egor Sviridov who was killed in December was one of the leaders of the fan community). The subculture of football fans all over the world is distinguished by increased corporate solidarity and aggressiveness; therefore, the incident had far-reaching consequences. In particular, about a thousand of fans of different and even warring Russian clubs blocked Leningradskoye shosse chanting nationalist slogans and promised to organize several acts in memory of the dead. The actions were coordinated through Internet.

For obvious reasons these events, first and foremost, drew attention of representatives of the liberal camp that divided into two non-uniform groups. The first group that made the minority responded negatively, which was not surprising. In particular, Galina Kozhevnikova, a representative of the Sova human rights center, who died suddenly in the early 2011, expressed her indignation by the fact that OMON (special purpose police unit) did not disperse the crowd chanting nationalist slogans. Representatives of this group suggest that the authority allegedly yielded to the pressure of national-radicals and came to terms with them, thus demonstrating its weakness.    

However, a considerable part of representatives of the liberal camp regarded the actions with favour and their comments contained some points that fans are a part of the civil society that is becoming more active. Such loyalty that stood in contrast to the traditionally negative liberal point of view on nationalism is explained by at least three reasons.

Firstly, representatives of the liberal camp perceive the North Caucasus as a threat to “democratic” development of Russia. The Muslim population of the region that is much more religion-minded than their coreligionist from Volga region, for example, is a potential conductor of the influence of the “traditionalist” Islamic project that may replace the Western liberal democracy that has discredited itself. In this case it is the Islamic secular project rather than regigious fundamentalism that is meant. Secondly, liberals perceive any destabilization of the internal political situation as good. Finally, liberals try to use nationalists as “gun fodder” of street policy failing their own mass resource.

The power, in its turn, found itself in rather an intricate situation. The situation resulting in exacerbation of national relations was brought about by a complex of objective reasons resulting from the collapse of the USSR. The government machine of the Soviet Union worked to enforce the national and supranational interests prevailing in the state. Thus, the Russian-speaking population that had got used to such a paradigm over the centuries of existence of the Russian state felt comfortable under the then existing rules of the game.

The collapse of the USSR entailed disappearance of the ideology that ensured functioning of the government machine while the native population found itself in a complicated situation. The national tactics gave place to the tactics of individual and group survival, and the peoples of the North Caucasus appeared to be better prepared for it using the mechanisms of mobilization based on the ethnic characteristic. In its turn, this resulted in a situation when with all other things being equal, they achieve life success more easily using such mechanisms.

In the current situation the power has too little room for manoeuvre. A return to the Soviet ideology is absolutely inacceptable for the entire corrupt law-enforcement system that lobbies group rather than national interests. In this case the strong public pressure forces it to share some of its powers by involving the most active strata of the society in their exercise as it happened, for example, with the Cossacks in Zelenokumsk.

An interim result of the escalating interethnic tension was the riots organized by football fans and young people siding with them in Manezhnaya Sqaure in Moscow as well as clashes between Russian radicals and the Caucasians mostly in mid-December practically all over Russia. Despite the invocations of some human rights activists about the need for “common” tough coercive suppression of such actions, the problem requires a more flexible and nonstandard approach. In the recent twenty years many institutions of “the day-to-day state” have been eroded while the population left in a vacuum have been seeking for ways to survive and assert themselves, which often takes deviant forms.    

At the same time the government institutions demonstrate their lack of understanding of the fact that the problem of interethnic tension has overbrewed over the recent ten years and is pushing the boundaries. They try to respond in the same old way searching out organizers instead of solving the problem in a package. The existing situation may be called the problem of a barrel of gunpowder and an instigator with a fuse. The authorities focus their attention on a generalized image of an instigator with a fuse that was sure to be present in Manezhnaya Square. However, a search for such a “Father Gapon” is a palliative measure and fails to provide a package solution of the problem just adding to the problem and ensuring a cumulative effect.

Despite their absurdity and lack of logic (it was illogical to demand observance of lawfulness through clearly unlawful methods) the riots in Manezhnaya Square resulted from tectonic changes taking place in the mass consciousness. This is a de facto spontaneous and largely meaningless protect against the current conversion of Russia into an estate state where some citizens are de facto superior to others just due to their affiliation with a certain “corporation”. Getting into such “corporations” is possible through one’s profession: we can already witness segregation of government officials, officers of law-enforcement agencies, journalists, for example. Another way preconditioned by the specific features of Russia as a multinational state is affiliation with some ethnic minorities. A perfect example of the stratification is the fact that the same crimes committed by representatives of different “estates” are de facto defined based on different CC articles. While some estates do their best to hide their privileged position (government officials and officers of law-enforcement agencies, for example, mask it by statist rhetoric), the Caucasian young people on the contrary accentuate this position due to their mentality. This is why the radically-minded crowd chose “the Caucasians” as the object of their aggression although purely hypothetically representatives of other “privileged estates” could also become such an object.  

It has already been stated that another challenge to the political system last year was the attempts of the non-system opposition and the patronizing elite groups to shatter the situation. However, the power fended off these attempts almost without overintensifying its efforts. The mass rally in Kaliningrad in late-January organized, according to the opposition, by the local branch of the Solidarity Party demonstrated that it can mobilize and mount the protest wave of the population although just a short time ago it was predicted a quiet decay. Although, according to a semiofficial version, the mass character of the rally was provided by influential ill-wishers of Governor Georgy Boos (either from the local elite with which he allegedly failed to find a common language or from Moscow elite as he had supposedly aspired for the position of Moscow mayor), such mobilization cannot be explained by material motives only. A noticeable part in shattering of the situation was played by the changed tactics of the non-system opposition (primarily the liberally-inclined opposition).

In particular, it banked on a false maneuver offering the power a false image of a potential enemy and destroyer of the existing status-quo. For example, human rights activists that have traditionally sided with liberals speak about the growing danger of the “national-fascist” threat. Moreover, they try to twist even the facts disproving their calculations to their advantage. For example, the Sova Center specializing in monitoring of extremism and xenophobia stated decline of the level of this kind of violence in the country. This was largely ensured by more active work of law-enforcement bodies that initiated criminal proceedings against many activists of the nationalistic and Nazi movement.

However, even in this case the human rights activists tried to whip up the situation. They claimed, in particular, that instead of “direct actions” the extreme right continued with terror against state bodies and public persons. This was thought to happen because recently the state has been more actively prosecuting extremists while anti-fascist and human rights organizations have been tracing and neutralizing their propaganda and curbing their mass actions. 

Meanwhile, the actions of those whom the human rights activists do not traditionally reckon among the radicals (liberals, antifascists, etc.) were more and more resembling in style similar actions of the extreme right but under different slogans. Antifascists, in particular, increasingly hit at representatives of the opposite subculture (individually or at the latter’s mass events) and go into direct confrontation with law-enforcement agencies. The latter thesis may be strongly exemplified by the action on the anniversary of the murder of S. Markelov and A. Baburova when it were the antifascists that were the main instigators of the scuffles with the police and the latter had to use force and make mass arrests.

Tandem’s activities and „problem of 2012”

Last year the tandem representatives demonstrated a well coordinated game that did not, however, preclude rivalry that is incidentally getting more intense. However, this rivalry has a covert and extramural character, and there was absolutely no question of direct confrontation of the two politicians in 2010. By the end of the year the balance of advantage obviously lay with Vladimir Putin despite the efforts of Dmitry Medvedev’s team.

Putin used the established image of Mr Nice Guy: close to common people but simultaneously a hard manager and politician capable of making the wheels of the bureaucratic machine run and of solving a long-standing problem within a short time. In early December, in particular, he spoke at the Far East conference of “Unified Russia”, thus emphasizing again his special connection with the “party of power”. The format of his address was somewhat nontraditional and differed even from similar “public performances” of the head of the government at other regional conferences of the UR. In particular, Putin acted as the moderator of the discussion on projects of regional development presented at the forum. The prime minister tellingly showed that he was absolutely capable of controlling the government machine and there and then dug up resources necessary for implementation of a certain project commissioning concrete governmental departments and governors. Thereby he emphasized that the concept of the “hand control” often incriminated him by his opponents was rather a plus than a minus in the current situation of the faltering bureaucratic machine. In the opinion of the experts present at the event Putin demonstrated the technology of operative solution of problems without administrative delays, actually “in the live mode” that was new for the Russian government machine.

At the event the head of the government kept accentuating his connection with the “party of power” and positioning it as the institution absolutely necessary to accomplish the current tasks. On the one hand, he did his best to distance himself from the idea that the forum had a pre-election character: Putin urged the UR to avoid empty initiatives and popular affirmations and to think primarily about the people rather than election results when working out the policy. On the other hand, he said that the party had every opportunity to implement the outlined plans: it was in the majority in representative government bodies and enjoyed support of the people. Putin also urged to remember that the UR assumed the responsibility for fulfilling the declared plans and achieving concrete results.

The high level of information activity also persisted in other areas of the premier’s work. The subject of the victory of the Russian bid to host the 2018 World Football Championship got further development. There appeared information about Putin’s personal meetings with the FIFA Administration shortly before the announcement of the voting results. And although foreign sources kept hinting at the possible corruption background of the meetings, inside Russia the dissemination of such rumours was ensured the most favoured status. Thus, this stressed the special role of the prime-minister in Russia’s victory in the same way as four years ago in the contest for the right of Sochi to host the Olympic Games.

The topic of Russia’s “football” victory was used by the prime minister in one more area: to attack representatives of big business that is quite unpopular among “the masses”. Right after his announcement about the success Putin demonstrated his “master’s” style de facto ordering Roman Abramovich “to cough up” for preparation for the World Cup. It was later rumoured that this order concerned all big entrepreneurs. Thereby the premier reached two goals. Firstly, he collected additional points in the eyes of the population and some part of the elite by demonstrating “who is the master”. Secondly, such a dogmatic statement can be treated as a covert response to business that has been recently lobbying the idea of casting off some part of social commitments. 

Such a confident play of the premiere was ensured both by subjective (a memorable political style and the desire to mobilize the electorate) and objective factors. In particular, the premiere’s social-economic strategy chosen by him yet in the middle of the zero years involves redistribution of budget revenues among various social and elite groups, which provides Putin with the maximum political support on their part. The onset of the crisis and the sharp drop in the revenues jeopardized pursuance of this policy due to the depleting resources. However, the temporary stabilization of the world economy and the growing raw material prices enable the proponents of such a model to be optimistic about the future, which objectively strengthens the premiere’s positions.

Dmitry Medvedev has been traditionally involved in political planning by “fine­tuning” the political system. His activities in this direction peaked in November. Firstly, he placed an address devoted to the condition of the Russian political system in the vlog. In the opinion of the head of the state, the system’s positive property of stability gradually started bringing it to stagnation. He highlighted the inadmissibility of development of the situation in the country according to the inertia scenario and spoke in favour of the higher level of political competition.  

Some experts interpreted this step as a purely tactical media-move of the president with a view to partial “compensation” for the long-drawn silence regarding the date of the release of the annual Address and its content. The head of the state may have really pursued this aim but by all appearances the appearance of the video message had more significant reasons. The power has been lately concerned about the fact that the key actors of the political system have been increasingly inspired with the “dependency” psychology supposing that they do not make any difference and the country’s leadership will resolve all major issues one way or another. Moreover, they occasionally ignore even the signals coming from above or simulate a response to them. 

It is this situation that Dmitry Medvedev called stagnation and standstill. It is not dangerous in and of itself and may continue for quite a long time; however, eventually there are serious risks of its moving into the stage of a breakup of the political system and political catastrophe. This is the way the situation developed in the USSR after the death of L.I. Brezhnev, “the general secretary of stagnation”. There is a potential danger of such developments now, too (it is for a reason that some opponents of the system try to intimidate and thus to paralyze its key actors, the laws-enforcement agencies, for instance).

Speaking about stagnation the head of the state basically meant the entire state machine but he expanded on the party system as an element of the political system to exemplify the idea. In 2010 all players of the party field demonstrated their confidence in preservation of the existing status quo. This was reflected not only in the “bronzing” of the Unified Russia at the local level where, if unchecked by the Center, the party’s chapters often ignore working with the voters supposing that they are automatically guaranteed the victory with account for the “ruling party” status. Meanwhile, the opposition parties that had lost faith in the prospects of their electoral growth tried acting “vertically” instead of competing among themselves and with the UR “horizontally”: they tried appealing to the head of the state and demanding de facto guarantees of particular election results irrespective of the results of their own work.

However, the power’s functions, first and foremost, include elaboration of the “rules of the game” and guarantees of their observance while the political subjects are to follow them and use such rules to their advantage. In other words, the supreme power gives parties “a fishing rod” rather than “fish”. The present opposition, however, demands “fish” in the form of concrete percent for their candidates at the elections. This results from the stagnation in the party system when its actors see no prospects for themselves if the game is played according to the existing rules (whether because of the rules or their own apathy).

Besides, Medvedev stressed in his address that such rules of the game had been largely established over the two recent years and it was the turn of the participants to act. The head of the state gave a detailed list of the innovations: minimized tampering during the elections, equal access to mass media for the parties, protection of party “minoritaries”, etc. Obviously to stimulate he said that the current rules of the game were far from ideal and would change. However, the power will strive rather to improve the quality of the political system. In other words, no radical reforming is in view and one should rather expect continuation of the “point tuning”.

Such signals had been sent to the political class earlier last year by Vladislav Surkov, the president’s first deputy chief of staff. Speaking to American students he enlarged upon the prospects of the Russian political system. His targeted audience was clearly broader than the American students: the power de facto declared its vision of development of the political and party system in the country for the next 10-15 years. That is why the key theses of his speech were widely replicated in Russian mass media and they appeared, first of all, in editions close to the power. 

Surkov, in particular, pointed out the probability of lower results of the UR at the nearest elections to the State Duma, which may make it impossible for the party to form constitutional majority in the lower house of the Parliament (there is no doubt that the party will receive simple majority). As a result the Russian party system will embark on the course of forming “the coalition culture” when the UR will have to find a common language with the opposition to pass laws requiring constitutional majority. This trend may continue later and within 10-15 years it may result in a situation when “the party of power” will get less than 50% of the votes and lose its “priority” status. As a result the country will be ruled by a party coalition comprising representatives of once opposition parties.

These words were also meant to stimulate the activity of the position. It was signaled that the rates were raised and in the case of its successful performance at the elections it may count both on a number of deputies’ seats at Okhotny Ryad and on participation in making key decisions. Formation of such a “coalition culture” is as beneficial for the power itself. Implementing the strategy of “involvement” it expands the base of its support as the opposition forces joining the coalition with the party of power thereby actually render support to the existing political system raising its legitimacy and stability.

The power and the UR have demonstrated that they are ready to make concessions and even some steps that are unbeneficial for them. In particular, the UR deputies introduced a bill cutting the number of regional lists at the federal elections from 83 down to 70. De facto this is quite beneficial for the opposition. Due to its status the UR has no problem placing several hundreds of politicians popular in particular regions at the top of the regional lists. Due to its much smaller number of supporters, especially among the elite, the opposition, however, finds it hard to complete such lists. 

However, the response of most observers to the two policy statements was predictably hackneyed and blinkered. Generally speaking, analysts have split into two camps. Representatives of the first group proceed from “the conspiracy theory” rooted in their system of values and a sophisticated game of politics behind their statements. In particular, Medvedev’s video message is thought to be a veiled challenge to Putin (“the party of Internet” against “the party of television”) while Surkov allegedly tried to neutralize the effect of the president’s statements. According to the other version, Surkov’s words about reduction of the UR’s indicators are a “warning” to Vyacheslav Volodin who allegedly planned to create a political department in the government office and to delegate it a considerable part of powers of the internal policy division of the government office.

The representatives of the second camp are the very “stagnant” group criticized by the president. They claimed, in particular, that it not just was necessary to set normal rules of the game but also to ensure that the opposition should be guaranteed getting into government agencies irrespective of the level of their activity, i.e. they wanted “fish” instead of “a fishing rod”.

The second significant step of the president in modernization of the political system was the release of his Address that, however, provoked a wave of disappointment. The president’s Address was expected to answer the question about who will stand for the next presidential term. Despite the naivety of such expectations they were widespread and were stirred up by mass media. Medvedev’s address, however, did not contain any information on that point. On the one hand, it had nothing of a report about the accomplished work (as the “preventive” video message, for example), which could be construed as a refusal from presidential ambitions. On the other hand, the document lacked any concrete program of actions for the next six years that could be considered an electoral one.

The Address demonstrated that the domestic elite is changing its planning horizon at least at the level of the top executives of the state. Addressing the upper crust of the Russian political class the president spoke about the processes that will take place in the next 10-15-20 years, that is clearly beyond even his possible second legislature. Such time frames were set out, in particular, when Medvedev spoke about the key issue of his speech: social modernization that is to bring about better quality of life, first and foremost, of the future generations. Thus, the power signals the elites that they should think not only about the processes taking place within the chronological frames of one presidential term or even one presidency (two terms in succession).

The address of the head of the state contained one important aspect devoted to political reforming. In pursuance of the logic selected as early as 2008 he paid attention to the municipal level after the federal (2008) and the regional (2009) one. In particular, the power continued its policy of stimulating party activity, this time locally. During elections practically all parties, except the UR, almost ignore municipal campaigns. Introduction of a proportional or mixed system in municipal (in medium-sized and large cities with the number of deputies over 20) is to stimulate the activity of opposition parties. This is what another proposal of the president (that he himself did not link directly with the municipal political reform) is aimed at: release of the authorities from non-core property. This means inter alia that municipal and regional authorities will lose their direct control over mass media that is practically total now as distinguished from the federal level.

The head of the state also tried to get some electoral points. Power in Russia, in particular, is quite popular with all layers when it acts as “a giving hand”. The Address contained some advances of such kind: for example, the idea of allotting charge-free land parcels in the vicinity of large cities to families having their third child may become quite a good capital.

Transformation of institutions of administration and changes in the elite political landscape

The year of 2010 witnessed a severe intraelite fight that quieted down a bit in 2009 in the light of the crisis. The key players made active attempts at expansion realizing that the result of the effort will determine their positions during the next president’s legislature in 2012-2018. The players that considered themselves losers (the “family” ones, for example) increasingly resorted to some steps that were quite risky in terms of stability of the political system. In particular, direct attacks increasingly targeted Vladimir Putin personally and the key institutions: the UR, youth movements and their leaders.

The last months of 2010 were marked by further exacerbation of confrontation between the groups of “conservatives” and “liberals” in the Russian top notches that was related with identification of the candidature of the future president, with the latter being quite assertative. Pro-Kremlin youth movements were still at the gunpoint, the campaigns against them being waged, among others, by high-ranking officials from the team of the head of the state. The incident of the assault on Oleg Kashin, a journalist of The Kommersant, by some unknown attackers gave some mass media a reason for veiled accusations against these organizations that later became more concrete but on other occasions already. Although during the first questioning Kashin tied the attack to publications about Khimkinsky forest, which partly “rehabilitated” the pro-Kremlin youth, one of the founders of “Nashi” movement, head of the RosMolodezh Vasily Yakemenko found himself on the line.

First presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich criticized his proposal made at the meeting with Vladimir Putin about the plans to modernize school classes in physical education that are still conducted according to Soviet patterns. This was dome with the help of the social Twitter network in an emotional manner without any supporting points, which is allowed by the format of such an unofficial response. The official’s opinion was immediately replicated by mass media. By the way, the very fact of the subsequent meeting between Putin and Yakemenko is remarkable: the premier wanted to demonstrate his support to the official supervising youth policy in the government. Some time later “indiscriminatory evidence” about the head of the youth department was published by The Moskovsky Komsomolets, close to “the family”. It was alleged, in particular, that Yakemenko misinformed Putin at the meeting saying that modernization of school classes in physical education was already under way although schools did not confirm this fact in phone interviews.

Yakemenko also found himself in the center of a scandal on another occasion related to the assault on Oleg Kashin. In his blog he made a failed attempt to make a hit at the media hype around this case. Trying to stress the strong mythologization of the situation, he used such attributes as “Lenin”, “zombie”, “lizard”, “yoga”, “invisible men”, “amphibian man” regarding the injured journalist. Mass media gladly replicated the official’s epithets, which positioned him in quite an uncomplimentary way.

Another pro-Kremlin movement, the Young Guard of the Unified Russia (YGUR) also found itself under information pressing. For example, Kashin “identified” a football fan in one of te attackers, which occasioned speculations regarding connections between fan-communities and pro-Kremlin young people. Besides, the movement was involved in a scandal related to the struggle for power in it. In particular, there appeared information that the head of the Supreme Council of the UR Boris Gryzlov was going to nominate his press-secretary Timur Prokopenko for the position of the YGUR leader. This functionary linked to security services, according to some information, was to strengthen the influence of the State Duma on the Young Guard.

These plans, however, faced an opposition inside the movement. In particular, in his personal blog Vyacheslav Pravdzinsky, a creative designer of the headquarters of the Young Guard, expressed his indignation regarding the possible coming of “an external manager” into the movement and urged the organization to elect new leaders and to take its destiny into their own hands. This fact was recorded by The Gazeta.ru liberal edition that specially emphasized that, as said by Pravdzinsky, the YGUR divisions really functioned in 15 regions only.

Proponents of the “tough line” were also subject to the growing pressure from abroad. The lightning-fast extradition of Viktor But to the USA (the wife and lawyers learnt about it after the event) shocked some part of the Russian elite. It was suggested that But was under protection of Igor Sechin (who served with him in Mozambique in the 1980ies) and the extradition would enable the American side to get valuable damaging evidence against the leader of the Russian security officials and his team. It is noteworthy that the response of the Russian elite to this event was not consolidated. For example, the president’s aide for international issues Sergei Prikhodko with the reputation of a pro-American liberal said that Russia was interested in an honest and comprehensive investigation of the activities of this arms dealer.

The Russian elite was also subject to other aggravated risks related to foreign pressure. In particular, Alexander Lebedev indirectly admitted his links with Wikileaks web-site. It is considered that this Internet-resource may be the key one for publication of the damaging information of foreign security services about Vladimir Putin and his team in case of intensification of the struggle for the Russian “throne”. It was suggested that the searches in the structures controlled by Lebedev were related with the attempts of security services to send a stern warning to this player with a view to curbing his “unauthorized activity.

Besides, a representative of the non-system opposition Boris Nemtsov demanded to block the accounts of a number of representatives of the Russian elite, in particular, the accounts of Vladislav Surkov, the president’s first deputy chief of staff. At the same time Nemtsov has long been “under the wardship” of “the family”. It is remarkable that upon arriving in Moscow Nemtsov was exposed to an image attack on the part of representatives of “Nashi” although the movement itself denies involvement in this incident.

Head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin also demonstrated a burst of activity by the end of the year. In the middle of November the State Duma approved in the first reading the bill “On Investigative Committee of the RF” and it was later passed in the final readings and signed by Medvedev. The bill “On Investigative Committee” was proposed by the president as the first step towards creation of a single investigative body that will appear, according to Medveded, on the basis of the future IC.

The number of the opponents of the high-ranking security officer appeared to have grown considerably: many players consider that adoption of the document will strengthen Bastrykin’s positions considerably. The most serious resistance was caused by the legal confirmation of the separation of investigation and procuracy supervision (it happened de facto four years ago). At the same time all critics “forgot” that the integration of these two instances was Stalin’s innovation and happened in the 1930ies when the state machine was intensively preparing for mass repressions. Integration of investigation and supervision was to minimize the potential interdepartmental resistance for the “conveyor belt of accusations” to work in the most operative way. In most countries investigation and supervision belong to different structures.   

However, Alexander Bastrylin who benefitted from the adoption of the document in terms of the staff made a political mistake when lobbying it. Its long-time critic and opponent is a journalist and State Duma deputy from the UR Alexander Khinstein. He has been consistently pointing to the shortcomings in the activities of the Investigative Committee for a long time through mass media (mostly on the pages of the MK). He was also highly critical of the bill that, in his opinion, vests Bastrykin with unlimited powers. The head of the ICR tried to counterattack in the media field but failed. In particular, he “offered” Khinstein the position of a chief of a directorate of his department but Khinstein was said to have refused as he did not want to lower his formal status (a deputy is equal to the federal minister in terms of his status, package of privileges and compensations). Then Bastrykin raised the rates and invited Khinstein to the position of the coordinator of the Investigative Committee for the North-Caucasian FD that de facto equaled a ministerial position. However, heer again the deputy successfully fended the attempts at “engaging” him and refused “to be sold”.

Naturally all Bastrykin’s offers were clearly hypothetical and polemical and were meant to demonstrate one thing only: that Khinstein – the gabber scared of any practical work involving responsibility “was hindering the work” of those who does not shun this work. However, this “position-game” of Bastrykin irritated the president and his team for obvious reasons: the staff policy in security agencies has traditionally been the prerogative of the top executive and a symbol of his exclusive influence. Therefore, even the joky character of Bastrykin’s offers actually challenged the independence of Dmitry Medveded in such a strategic area as control over security officials. This resulted in arresting command from Kremlin (according to the tradition it must have been initiated by Medvedev’s press-secretary Natalya Timakova) when the head of the ICR was reminded that he “has undertaken too much”. It is characteristic that earlier a similar statement was aimed almost word for word at Yuri Luzhkov who was dismissed a bit later although this case scenario is less likely regarding Bastrykin.

Nevertheless, the grave mistake of the head of the Investigative Committee provoked new rumours about his possible replacement with account for his present interim status. In particular, mass media suggested that Bastrykin’s successor may be deputy prosecutor for the Northwest FD Alexander Gutsan. He is Medvedev’s course-mate, was the monitor in his student group (by the way, Bastrykin was the monitor in Putin’s student group) and has been long meant by experts as the one “for promotion”. However, in this case the rumours about his soon coming to the ICR were information speculations.        

However, last year Bastrykin suffered losses, too. In particular, his confrontation with the Prosecutor-General’s Office continued and was manifested in the fact that the latter would not affirm indictment on the cases processed by the ICR. For example, the decision was made about a supplementary investigation of the case of Barsukov-Kumarin, “an underworld entrepreneur” from Petersburg, and his team. Kumarin is considered to be “a keeper of secrets” of many influential representatives of the “Petersburg group” that had to deal with him in the criminal 90ies. Therefore, his arrest, according to some suggestions, might have been provoked by an attempt “to clean up”, and the failure of the investigation on this case may seriously discredit Bastrykin in the eyes of the “Petersburg group”.

Another case send for supplementary investigation was “the case of Storchak”, one of the key deputies of Kudrin. In this case, however, the blow at Bastrykin’s positions was not that bad. According to some information, the real cause of Storchak’s difficulties was the desire of some elite groups to make Kudrin “break open” the Reserve Fund. Its depletion during the crisis eliminated the grounds for the conflict. In the early 2011 the criminal case against the official was dismissed.

However, Bastrykin managed to get some image points, which is recognized even by his moderate critics. This refers to the cruel and high-profile crime in Kushevskaya Cossack village where 12 people, including children, were killed. The head of the ICR was quite operative in organizing the investigation and quickly got the first results (the paymaster and some perpetrators were arrested). This generally ensured the positive attitude of mass media to him and the favourable comments of experts. Besides, the work of Bastrykin himself in situ can be positively evaluated.  

Increased activity was noted in the work of “Russia” bank group that started consolidation of media-assets in the run-up to the “big” electoral cycle. Alexander Ordzhonikidze was appointed general director of REN TV-channel and started combining this post with his position of the general director of the National Media Group Holding. Mikhail Kontserev, the former general director of REN RV-channel, headed the television division of the National Media Group – the NMG Television Company. In his new capacity he focused on the financial and corporate issues of the company’s work.  

This reshuffle, especially the promotion of Rodnyansky, fits well into the preparation of the Russia bank group that is mostly controlled by brother Kovalchuk for the “big” election campaign of 2011-2011. Brothers Kovalchuk were among the first to appreciate the strategic benefits of control even over loss-making media assets (at his time the same conclusions were made by Vladimir Gusinsky, for example) and started their consolidation approximately from the mid-zero years. It is particularly remarkable that the forced work in this direction chronologically coincided with the start of the “big” election campaign that uet unites the federal parliament and presidential elections. Such a regularity was also observed in 2006-2007.

By all appearances the year 2010 witnessed a surge in the activity of the group along this line. Rodnyansky who was promoted to the level of an advisor to the chairman of the board of directors of the bank, is known to be one of the most successful television managers on the post-Soviet territory. At his time he made the STS cable channel a leader of the market of entertainment TV channels. In 2010 he was involved in repositioning with a view to increasing the audience of the two channels owned by the group: REN and the Fifth. It is noteworthy that both of them function in the public-political format, and after the aforesaid restructuring they have a much greater number of author’s programs in the infortainment genre (a mixture of politics and entertainment).

Parties on the eve of elections to the 6th State Duma

As the March elections of 2011 approached, the contours of the election strategies of the leading parties became clearer and clearer. The party of power demonstrated a new style related with the desire to rid it from personalism at the regional level, which was generally supposed to make it more stable and institutional. By all appearances, the trend of refusal from “locomotives” in the party is gaining momentum.

On the whole, such an approach, if properly implemented, may bring the party considerable dividends. Firstly, it distances itself from governors whose moral depreciation is directly proportional to the period of their tenure. Secondly, it extends in such a way the list of the persons recognizable at the federal level, which will ensure it the freedom of maneuvering with time and will decrease its dependence on these heads of regions.  

The plans of the opposition parties gradually also became clearer. In particular, communists have already decided on the format of their federal campaign, at least up to the official start of the campaigning in autumn 2011. They have brought out their intention to initiate an all-Russia referendum. The questions of the “people’s referendum” include nationalization of the natural resources and basic industries, the demand that the housing and public utilities fee cannot be higher than 10% of the aggregate income of a family, on replacement of the flat income tax schedule with a progressive one, change of the Land, Water and Forest Codes, inadmissibility of raising the retirement age.

Communists, however, have to resort to political stratagem. According to the current legislation, federal referendums are forbidden in the year of elections. The left asserted that there would be no formal referendum at the national level, they were alleged to be planning “a nationwide poll” to gather information. However, the regions lacking such a ban will have fully legally valid referendums that are supposed to encompass more than half of the subjects of the RF.

Such a move looks doubtful from the point of view of the law but quite effective from the point of view of propaganda. If all regions have the same questions, this referendum can be adjudged as a federal one and can be banned. However, this ban will play into the hands of the CPRF and will anyway contribute to the party promotion. If the power does not dare act in such a way, communists will stand to gain all the more and will be able to propagate their views until autumn when the official campaigning starts.

By all appearances the Just Russia has taken account of its failure in the autumn elections and has demonstrated its intention to secure itself against its recurrences. There appeared information that the party leader Sergei Mironov will no longer act as an electoral “locomotive” in regions. Last autumn he topped two lists and both of them snowed under in the election. In case of a recurrence the JR may present it as though the population refused Mironov its credence and thus he is to resign from his post of the head of the Council of the Federation and confirm the legitimacy at the elections the more so as he stood for return of electivity of senators. 

It should be noted that JR has demonstrated its intention to cooperate with popular figures disloyal to the power to raise the level of local electoral support. In particular, in Kaliningrad region the Just Russia planned going to te election in a bloc with nonparty oppositionists: its lists are supposed to include a deputy of the regional Duma Solomon Ginzburg and the head of the Justice nongovernmental organization Konstantin Doroshek who were the leaders of the protest actions in Kaliningrad in winter 2010. However, despite their opposition image both politicians have a reputation of quite “agreeable”.

The LDPR still stuck to the only tactics possible for it: its “eternal locomotive” was Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Due to lack of resources non-parliamentary parties nominated their candidates in some regions only.   

In 2010 the right-wing parties (after their failure to run for Moscow City Duma in October 2009) were in the periphery of the information field and practically did not try to be recalled. The rare exceptions just confirmed the rule: for example, the Right Cause demanded Luzhkov’s resignation in September 2010 amid the campaign against the Moscow mayor, which ensured it some publicity. Despite the statements of the CEC head Vladimir Churov that the autumn elections of 2010 demonstrated unprecedented activity of the non-parliamentary opposition (the number of the candidates nominated by it increased many times), the results of the campaign did not bring it any essential dividends.  

In such a situation quite high-profile was the announcement of the co-chairman of the Just Cause party Leonid Gozman that the party supports nomination of Dmitry Medvedev for a new term. According to Gozman, “the country has a real political choice if not a real political life”. The choice is as follows: “modernization or against modernization” and he associates the first option with Dmitry Medvedev only. Thus, he repeated the passage voiced by the ROSNANO head Anatoly Chubais in an interview to the German Handelsblatt newspaper (Chubais is considered to be the main financier of the JC). Later, however, Chubais corrected his words as they were too harsh for a manager incorporated in the system of power. But such a position was quite acceptable from te point of view of the existing rules of the game for a representative of a system party, though a non-parliamentary one.

Gozman’s position supported by Georgy Bovt, another co-chairman of the party, fits well in the discourse formed by the power. According to it, Medvedev and Putin embody two competing social-political projects though having a lot of crossing points. Thus, it is quite reasonable for system players to support one of the politicians while moderately criticizing the other. Hence, the leaders of the Just Cause demonstrated their full loyalty to the power without trying to form their own agenda, which qualitatively distinguishes it from its predecessor in the person of the Union of Right Forces Party that tried to act an independent subject of such sense-formation. It is quite likely to be related with some hopes of the JC leaders for arrangements with high-ranking functionaries of the Presidential Administration that the party will get 1-2 mandates in the “semi­parliamentary” quota in the next Duma.

As distinguished from its colleagues in the liberal camp the Yabloko Party was in a state of internal uncertainty and was unable to work out its strategy of behavior. As compared to the RC leadership, the party managers do not seem to se themselves in the party landscape after the 2011 elections, which undermines the morale in the Yabloko.

A demonstrative example of such pessimism was the meeting of the party federal meeting where energetic reports offered a contrast to the activists’ apathy. In particular, they were absolutely indifferent to the proposal of the party leader Sergei Mitrokhin to develop a system alternative to the present power that would include “deconcentration” of property, separation of business from the power, creation of a strong society free from the heritage of the totalitarian past, honest elections, independent courts, etc.

The power also sent a positive signal to some representatives of nonsystem opposition. Early in November the Ministry of Justice registered the Democratic Choice regional movement. Vladimir Milov, the leader of the movement, said that the registration experience could be used in future when the coalition of “For Russia without Arbitrary Action and Corruption” created in spring 2010 applied for registration as a political party.

This success inspired Milov and he confirmed his willingness to run for the president in 2012.

Partnership between the state and the civil society

In 2010 the power, primarily in the person of “liberal” Dmitry Medvedev continued demonstrating its willingness to have a dialogue with the civil society. In January the new Public Chamber was fully manned up. The first meeting of the new PC was conducted under the succession sign. It identified the new structure of the Chamber and elected the heads of divisions of the Chamber. In particular, the PC secretary Evgeny Velikhov and his deputies Sergei Katyrin and Mihkail Ostrovsky (considered to be the PC supervisor from the PA) kept their positions the same as chairmen of certain commissions. Other commissions were headed by social activists who used to be rank-and-file members in the previous Chamber. For example, the commission for issues of development of a civil society (that is of strategic significance as it supervises distribution of the resources of over one billion rubles annually allocated by the president through authorized NPO for development of the civil society) was headed by Iosif Diskin (a rank-and-file member of the previous Chamber).

The staff succession, however, does not imply complete conservation of the staff and the structure: the number of commissions was cut down, some old intercommission groups were abolished and new ones were created. For example, the commission for labour relations and pension provision was abolished and it was decided to unite the issues of ecology and health care. Problems of culture and cultural heritage preservation were also brought together in the commission on preservation and development of Russian culture. The commission on science and education was divided into two: the reform of the education system and science will be now supervised by two different structural divisions of the PC.

However, even such conservative staff policy faced solid resistance of the “old guard” (the situation around election of Elena Nikolaeva head of the commission on social issues and demographic policy was quite demonstrative). Besides, protest was also voiced by representatives of the social groups that considered themselves deprived of their due share in the process of reforming of the system of PC commissions. Fir example, the president of the Academy of Military Sciences, General of the Army Makhmut Gareev called the decision of the members of the new Public Chamber of the RF not to create a commission on affairs of veterans, military men and their families a grave mistake. In the previous PC the operating unit was headed by Alexander Kanshin, head of the National Association of reserve officers of the Armed Forces (MEGAPIR). It was quite noticeably presented in mass media and its initiatives evoked quite a noticeable response.   

It should be also noted that the PC demonstrated its intention to fit into the agenda. It formed, in particular, an intercommission working group on issues of industrial modernization (the accent on te technological component of modernization and the name of the commission are quite demonstrative). Besides, it created a separate commission on innovations headed by the director of Kurchatov Institute (considered to be a semiofficial “locomotive” of the innovation process and development in the field of nanotechnologies) Mikhail Kovalchuk. Finally, in the light of the growing significance of the staff juvenation at all levels there was created an intercommission working group on problems of childhood and youth policy.   

At the same time the first quarter of 2010 witnessed a growing pressure on the power on the part of the public, which, however, must have been provoked by activity of a number of elite groups incorporated in the power. Revival of mass policy (that appeared to be “spring exacerbation”) that was observed in the beginning of the year provided intensified pressure on the power on the part of various opposition groups. It became increasingly solid and multivector creating an illusion that sooner or later quantity will provide quality =, and the political system may be in for serious perturbations. 

One can identify two major directions of this impact. The first is the attempts of use the wave of mass actions in the early 2010 as an argument in bargaining with the power. The number of protest actions and their participants did grow, indeed. This surge of activity was hard to explain as such protests had been expected (and the expectations partially came true) in the early 2009 rather than 2010 when the economic situation generally stabilized although the return to precrisis indicators was out of the question. A similar paradoxical situation formed in the first half of 2007 with a short-term upsurge of mass discontent that ensured a relatively mass character of “Dissenters Marches” for some months against the background of constantly growing economic indicators (including incomes of the population).

And although the protest actions were hardly directed from one center, representatives of the liberal public clearly strove to use them to the best advantage with a view to forcing the power to start “broad democratization”. Therefore, the liberal mass media made active efforts to “promote” the protest actions, often politically “hyperbolizing” them. In particular, the number of the participants of the actions was often overreported (mass media gave the maximum possible assessment of the number of the participants) while the slogans were artificially radicalized. For example, a two-thousand rally cold have one poster with the demand for resignation of the government and twenty posters demanding lower housing and public utilities fees; however, mass media wrote that two thousand people demanded resignation of Putin. The trend to increased mass character of the protest actions and radicalization of their slogans did take place; however, it was exaggerated by mass media.

Another line of pressure on the power may be said to be a relatively new one although it was taken from the arsenal of the late 1980ies – early 1990ies. This is “addresses of intellectuals” where representatives of this layer (liberally minded, mostly) that were not formally related to any class criticize the power and call for its substitution. A demonstrative example of this “petition” media campaign may be said to be the letter published on the Web-site of the ultraliberal “The Daily Magazine” in which the ruling top was accused of the fact that their stake on “a person of doubtful reputation” preconditioned degradation of the institutions of state administration, doomed Russia for a historical dead end. At the same time a large-scale campaign was launched in the Internet to collect signatures under a letter with a demand for resignation of the premier.