год 2010-й - более 30.000.000 обращений

President Putin, elected in April, 2000 took the fist step in the sphere of an administrative and political reform. It was division into 7 federal districts, a new procedure of formation of the Upper Chamber of the Federation Assembly, setting up of a State Council, upcoming reformation of electoral legislation, prospective enactment of Political Parties Law, etc. All these measures give hope that the process of formation of a civil society in Russia (which has been practically discontinued over the recent years) may be resumed again. There are some apprehensions, however, that all those democratic reforms would slip off to the beaten track of authoritarian and bureaucratic rule, which will result in just another redecoration very soon. Without claiming to propose a remedy of his own, the author made an attempt to reflect on the problem why democratic changes made in recent 10 years have failed in our country and what major problems constitute the inheritance of the new Russian leadership.

Brief historical review.

Let us try to briefly analyze what major problems in the sphere of this administrative and political reform (including the objective of formation of a civil society) are.

Political regime, which existed in mid-80s in the USSR, was in our opinion characterized by the following traits:

Lack of development or absolute absence of basic political institutes (such as President, professional parliament, independent courts) and mechanisms of their democratic formation, lack of civil society institutions (political parties, local government bodies, independent trade unions, etc.), while nominal institutions like the Supreme Soviet, government, etc. were strictly controlled by the communist party.

Absence of the institution of private property and total control of state ownership on the part of party and bureaucratic elite rendered the very existence of an institution of political representation of certain sections of population practically unnecessary. It narrowed the real field of action for public and political forces and led to behind the scenes bureaucratic intrigues and conflicts between different elite groups (party, economic, soviet, military and KGB ones) in which the leadership of the CPSU usually acted as an arbitrator.

Absence of real economic and political competition in Soviet society caused serious atrophy of the institution of feedback between government and civil society. Lack of competition and rotation among political, administrative and economic elite, which resulted in depression in these sectors, led to economic and political stagnation.

At that time the very civil society was practically removed from substantial influence upon public policy in economic, political and other spheres and from participation of citizens in solving their own problems, which contributed to forming a paternalistic consciousness and public indifference.

Being formally a federal state, the USSR (as well as RSFSR) in reality were centralized and unitary states and that, of course, did not promote effective and integrated development of separate territories. Neither did it facilitate the matter of settling the national problem, which was extremely important for such a multinational state as the USSR.

Solution of these major problems was the basic task of the initiators of perestroika in the sphere of public and political reformation of the society. They had realized all this only 2-3 years after the commencement of the reforms was announced. It is clear that there existed many other problems in the society, which were of no less importance, especially those in the sphere of economy. But their analysis lies far beyond the focus of this article. I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that the initiators of perestroika advocated evolutionary transformation of the society, which possessed a deep-rooted authoritarian inheritance. In fact, practical transformation of public and political institutions, public opinion, including political elite, formation of a civilized private property institute and many other things inevitably call for time, consistency and gradual changes.

Did we succeed in resolving these problems within the 5 years of perestroika? An objective and unbiased analysis makes it clear that this short historical period enabled us to take only the first step along this hard way. Nevertheless, it was during these years when institutions of democratically elected presidents and parliament were introduced, political monopoly of the CPSU was abolished, a multi-party system was declared and independent trade unions emerged. As a result of these changes an institution of competition and rotation of power elite started to form which caused a very negative reaction on the part of the conservative wing of political and bureaucratic groups which turned into opposition to the reforms on the right. Progressive part of nomenclature in conjunction with the most active representatives of Soviet middle class who succeeded in making use of democratic elections in order to enter into newly formed representative organs insisted on speeding up the reforms and thus became an opposition force on the left.

Initiators of perestroika failed to form their social support in the person of the middle class which did not have enough time to take shape neither economically nor politically and therefore they kept on losing support of the society. Having found themselves face to face with their political opponents on the right and on the left, they yielded initiative to the democratic opposition headed by new Russian leadership. Without going into detailed analysis of the reasons why perestroika failed, let us note just one aspect of the present Russian leadership: today social-democratic reforms in socio-economic and political sphere are not possible without active support on the part of the majority or a considerable part of the society which should be actively involved in all economic activities and have a real political representation in authoritative power structures at different levels.

Following the collapse of the USSR the Russian State declared a policy of continuation of and speeding up the reforms. It must be admitted that at the initial stages definite positive results have been achieved. They succeeded in preventing the return to power on the part of the communist opposition, though it was made with the help of undemocratic and uncivilized means. Institute of private property was finally formed and took root in the society. Business groups started to form. The process of formation of a civil society went on. New political parties representing interests of different social groups in federal and regional parliaments as well as in organs of executive power arose. As a result a real mechanism of civilized competition among political elite which previously never existed in our country started to form. The new Russian constitution set forth the principles of real federalism in relations between the center and regions, introduced the institution of local government which autonomous bodies were no longer a part of the state government system.

By mid-90s all hopes for steady process of real reforms faded. Firstly due to the obvious fact that president and his team dominated in the country. Absence of civilized laws and lack of mechanisms of governmental control and economic activity regulations, including privatization, bankruptcy, deposit insurance, tax payments, etc. resulted in a situation where state represented by executive authorities (President, the government, governors, mayors) exerted direct influence upon economy, first of all in the sphere of its most profitable industries (fuel and energy complex, transport, non-ferrous metallurgy, banking, mass media, etc.). Formation of this oligarchic system allowed a number of people to privatize main institutions of state power, which resulted in the following consequences:

Monopolization of economy and destruction of the foundation for a civilized market fair competition, criminality of the economy; outflow of foreign investments and flight of capital, etc.

Preservation of ruling elite which is especially dangerous because of the fact that it causes a combination of power and property in their hands, wild outburst of corruption, decrease in proficiency of administrative bodies at all levels.

Weakening of government institutions and their complete inability to solve the most important problems of the country preserving its integrity, worthy living standard, observance of human rights, including preservation of environment, destruction of early stages of civil society, marginalization and washing out of the middle class, especially after August 1998, which today is practically ousted from active economic and political life.

Weakening of the beginnings of federalism and local government which were substituted either by cynical agreements between different levels of power about full non-interference with each other or by enhancing the tendency of centralization and dictates on the part of higher levels of power with respect to lower ones.

The very society was forced to pay a triple price in the form of reduction of the standard of living and real incomes of the majority of the population which had to live below poverty level during all those years as well as moral crisis of the society and considerable reduction of authority on the part of the government by the end of the rule of the first President of Russia.

Reform of government and political system some improvements and principal transformations.

The new Russian President B. Putin enjoyed vast support mainly due to the fact that he declared the necessity for fundamental renovation of state power institutions in his program. However, there were some nuances of his coming to power, which maintain doubts that the declared reforms will only be a redecoration and will lead to a mere redistribution of power and property between old and new oligarchs, which will not alter the essence of this political regime which was established during these years.

First steps taken by the new power in the sphere of political and state reform do not fit into any logical framework. Let us suppose what could be done by authorities in this respect in case it had really wished to really reform this political and state system with the aim to enhance its effectiveness from the point of view of public interests even under these complicated circumstances.

Proceeding from the results of the above analysis the major task, figuratively speaking, is “nationalization” of power, which had been privatized during these years by a group of oligarchs. Power and property must be separated and the state must retain its active position in economic sphere as well as in other spheres of political life mainly through formation of definite and generally recognized rules and ensuring their observance by all participants of these processes. But present authority copes with these functions very ineffectively due to the fact that its branches which are directly responsible for realization of the above functions parliament (legislative) and judicial system (guarantees observance of the law) are totally devoid of real ability to act independently on the political arena and thus turned into an appendix to the executive power.

It is obvious that the state is obliged to play the major part in the life of the society by redistribution of a substantial part of GDP collected in the form of various taxes and dues. Nevertheless in order to successfully realize this function executive power should be controlled by the Parliament, Counting Chamber and mass media which must be to a definite extent independent from the government.

Thus it is quite clear that a real reform of governmental and political system is impossible without redistribution of authorities between the head of state, executive, legislative and judicial branches of power. In order to enable this it is necessary to introduce definite amendments into the constitution which will require a lot of preparatory and coordination work. We will have to take into consideration the interests of different forces and branches of power. But without doing this the reform of political and governmental system will be purely commercial in its nature.

Undoubtedly, mere-introducing amendments into the constitution is not enough for the Parliament to become a more active participant in the system of state power institutions. It is necessary that an effective political and party system is formed in the country. This system must comprise 3-4 influential parties reflecting the interests of all major social groups of the modern Russian society which are capable of generating parliamentary majority or a constructive opposition, to take part in formation of government, legislative and executive power of federation subjects (administrative-territorial units of the RF) at the level of local government depending on the results of parliamentary and presidential elections.

Currently the most active part in the formation of this political and party system will be and even already is played by major businesses and present-day authorities (today it is all the same). Outlines of this system do already exist in Russia today and its further transformation must occur through purely evolutionary methods. But it is also obvious that in its present capacity the party system is incapable of performing its most important functions. Firstly because it inadequately reflects and represents the social structure of the society: the right coalition today enjoys a stable support of 7-8% of the population, the ruling party 20-25%, the communist party 20-25% and national-patriots 3-4%. So even proceeding on the assumption that about 10-12% of the population have absolutely no interest in politics and therefore require no representation, we still have 30-40% of those who see no congenial political subject which could adequately assert their political interests. In present-day Russia they represent a social group conditionally called “the middle class” which consists of the representatives of small-scale and medium business, the leadership of high and middle ranks of state-run and major stock companies, institutions of higher education, technical and engineering employees, physicians, teachers, creative intellectuals, etc. According to longstanding experience of the majority of foreign countries modern European Social Democracy with its slogans for freedom, solidarity and justice most adequately represents the interests of this social layer. It is no accident that today 12 out of 15 leading western European countries social democrats are in power. Those parties in our former socialist countries, especially in Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Baltic countries share the same position. And if present-day Russian leadership is intended to follow the course of truly democratic reforms, it must have a clear idea of the fact that having no steady support from this social layer it will be impossible to solve this problem.

The second gap of present party and political system which is of no less importance lies in the fact that this system fails to perform the very important function of creating a civilized mechanism of competition among political elite. Present-day opposition, which is currently, represented in the Lower Chamber of Parliament by KPRF (Communist Party of the RF) on the left and “Yabloko”+SPS (Alliance of Right Forces) on the right. This kind of opposition is justly called “systemic” and a lot of time passed since it had convinced everyone including itself that it was not going to compete with the authorities. It is quite suitable for it to be close to the throne, to be responsible for nothing and pleased to criticize everyone. But the society is obviously tired of this, let me say so, opposition which benefited from public discontent with the authorities and their policy during the elections and which very quickly forgot about its promises after coming into parliament or indulged in lengthy explanations on why it turned out to be impossible to finally put their election pledges into practice.

Complexity of this problem could be proved by the fact that Mikhail Gorbachev did not cope with it (though we must give him his due just for the fact that he was the first to tackle this problem). B. Yeltsin just evaded the necessity of its solution since this problem did not exist for him. And today Putin faces a dilemma: either to tackle this problem or to leave it as it is, without changing the situation on todays political Olympus just slightly redecorating it. It can be said beforehand that the latter will cause a condescending smile on the part of the majority of experienced politicians. “No one will take the risk of training his own rivals”. Though I do realize that such a proposal is unrealistic on the surface, I will dare to point out two arguments in support of this point of view. Firstly, as I have stated above, the project of creation of a civilized party and political system could be realized not earlier than in 8-10 years, which will require at least 2-3 cycles of parliamentary and presidential elections. And finally, here is the second argument. If we speak about real reforms and not about just another imitation then it is necessary to admit that until we have a civilized competition among political elite in the country, oligarchy and all its concomitant consequences in the form of monopolism, corruption, criminalization and social stratification will always dominate the society no matter how many new programs aimed at its eradication are adopted. Civilized competition of political elite acts as an engine, which sets into motion the complicated mechanism of a democratic state and a civilized market. Without it they turn into a fiction and serve as a cover for authoritarian and oligarchic regimes.

This is why it is no wonder that there is a certain opinion taking root mostly among poor educated section of the population according to which those institutions of a democratic state and market economy built in our country over the last 15 arduous years are inefficient or are not suitable for Russia. As a result we have all those appeals to come back to our time-proved system of authoritarian or even totalitarian rule. We think that these institutions are simply unfinished because democracy and civilized market are extremely complicated phenomena and taking into consideration our lack of managerial experience in this sphere we needed some time to gain an understanding of all the details of this construction. The process of learning took a long time and we had to pay a high price for the knowledge and experience but we hope that it was not in vain. And in order to achieve success the most advanced part of political elite and society must take a step towards each other to enable a decisive advance rather than a backward motion.

It is obvious that in order to do this it is necessary to pass the law on political parties, which should toughen the requirements for registration of parties granting them an exclusive right to take part in presidential and parliamentary elections, should provide the opportunity for government financing based on the results of the elections. All this in combination with amendments to electoral legislation is supposed to enhance integration processes on the international arena and to facilitate the formation of a more effective party and political system by the time the next parliamentary elections are to be held. It is a matter of extreme importance that one could work out and maybe even introduce amendments into the constitution which enlarge supervisory powers of the parliament and its capability to exert influence upon forming of a government by the beginning of the year of 2003.

It is also necessary to enhance independence of Central Electoral Commission so that to minimize influence exerted on it on the part of various branches of power. Of course, this thesis appears to be rather naive because everyone is aware of this old principle of Stalins era: “the main thing is not the voting but the opinion”. This principle never ceased to exist in our country and it is becoming especially popular in recent years. But the reasoning here is just the same: speaking about real transformations of the political system one must admit that this principle in not way agrees with them.