RUSSIA 2010: SUMMING UP THE YEAR FOR THE THAW AND THE TANDEM

COMMENTARY

by Gordon M. Hahn 

Again, for the third year in a row Russia saw modest progress in the continuing thaw under the ruling tandem of President Dmitrii Medvedev-Premier Vladimir Putin.  

Some of year 2010’s gains in domestic policy include:

• the return to allowing opposition demonstrations (even in the heart of Moscow);
• another round of toughening anti-corruption legislation;
• adoption of a new law ensuring multi-party representation at the level of municipal government;
• adoption of a new law requiring the release of terminally ill suspects from custody;
• adoption of a new law that will make the Federation Council a body of elected representatives from regional or municipal legislatures;
• the subordination of the siloviki (MVD, FSB, and prosecutors) to regional governors;
• considerably more open and broader discussion in state media;
• approval of a major economic de-nationalization (privatization) process to begin year 2011;
• and the beginning of another de-Stalinization campaign of sorts in education and culture reminiscent of Mikhail Gorbachev’s use of a similar campaign to push his own liberalization program ‘perestroika’ in the late 1980s. 

Perhaps the most important of these policy changes – permitting opposition rallies in central Moscow – held forth despite the ultra-nationalist riots on Moscow’s Manezh Square and in other Russian cities on December 11^th and the fact that the federal election cycle is approaching.  Days after those riots, Russian liberals, public figures, and others, including Kirov Governor Nikita Belykh, gathered in the largest demonstration since the thaw began nearly three years ago and the new policy of routinely permitting rather than refusing opposition demonstrations began this past summer. 

The 3,000-strong crowd rallied against the inter-ethnic hatred of the December 6th nationalists’ riots by counterposing the slogan “Russia for All” against the neo-fascists' “Russia for Russians” (Dmitrii Florin, “Na miting protiv ksenofobii v Moskve sobralis’ bole 3 tysyach chelovek,” Kavkaz uzel, 26 December 2010).  Moreover, Medvedev-appointed liberal governor of Kirov Oblast Nikita Belykh told both President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin at a session of the State Council on December 27^th that the federal authorities should organize its own representation at such rallies where the liberal opposition’s stance equates with the Kremlin’s own (“Stenograficheskii otchot o sovmestnom zasedanii Gossoveta i Komissii po realizatsii prioritetnykh natsional’nykh proektov i demograficheskoi politike,” Kremlin.ru, 27 December 2010).

The ultranationalist riots were perhaps the most resonant event of the year.  Sparked by a ‘perfect storm’ of ethnic Caucasian violence, police incompetence, and ethnic Russian ultra-nationalist agitation, they were predictable, though not inevitable.  The development of Russian neo-fascism has traversed a rather turbulent path over the years.  The early focus on party politics during the late perestroika and early post-Soviet years gradually gave way to street violence by small skinhead groups often tied to larger underground neo-fascist parties like Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI), Slavic Union (SS), Great Russia (VR), and Russian Form (Russkii Obraz or RO).  The DPNI’s organizational efforts, led by charismatic leader, Alexander Belov-Potkin, culimated in 2006 when his organization parlayed the murder of an ethnic Russian by Chechen toughs in Kondapoga, Karelia into a pogrom against Chechens and the exodus of the entire Chechen diaspora from that northern town.  The DPNI tried to repeat the Kondapoga scenario several times since but to no avail, in part because in 2009 Belov-Potkin was imprisoned for whipping up inter-ethnic hatred.

Last December's riots and pogroms were precipitated most immediately by the Moscow branch of the MVD’s mishandling of a case involving the murder of ethnic Russian football fanclub leader Yevgenii Sviridov by a group of ethnic Caucasians from Kabardino-Balkaria.  The Moscow police released the main suspect in the murder, Aslan Cherkessov, a twice convicted resident of the North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkarai.  Sviridov’s relatives, friends, and fellow soccer fans saw Cherkessov’s release as unjust and likely ‘facilitated’ by payoffs from the ethnic, often criminalized Caucasus disapora prominent in many Russian cities.  Their ensuing protest march played right into the hands of ultra-nationalists, who escalated the demonstrations into riots and pogroms in Moscow and a few other cities.  The popularity of the Moscow soccer team ‘Spartak’ and its fanclub gave a boost to the scale and scope of the marches and riots.

The perfect storm that sparked December’s multiple Kondapogas is unlikely to repeat itself (though there are opportunities: the building of Spartak’s new stadium in the Tushino District where the DMNI, SS, RO and GV are active).  The State Council session put governors, government ministries, police, and courts under pressure to monitor inter-ethnic relations and to root out and punish both Russian neofascist and Caucasian ethnic crimes.  It also laid out parameters for a long overdue invigoration of Russia’s nationalities policy in order to rollback neofascism among youth and develop multiculturalism and tolerance policies for the education system, culture, and overall society. (“Stenograficheskii otchot o sovmestnom zasedanii Gossoveta i Komissii po realizatsii prioritetnykh natsional’nykh proektov i demograficheskoi politike,” Kremlin.ru, 27 December 2010).  This should help prevent, though does not exclude a repeat of such episodes or worse catastrophes and cataclysms that inter-communal antagonism in a multi-communal society can have.

The police’s role in helping to foment December’s nationalist riots followed November’s mass murder of villagers by a criminal gang in Kushevskaya, Krasnodar.  As with the Sviridov case in Moscow, this calamity was also a conseqhence of the inability or unwillingness of the MVD and other law enforcement organs to tackle organized crime.  These two incidents throw Medvedev’s MVD reform and anti-corruption efforts into sharp relief.  The MVD reform in particular has been delayed because of infighting over the scale of this crucially important and desparately needed reform.  This issue will carry over into 2011 and will say much about the pace of reform and the future of the liberalizing thaw, not to mention that of the Medvedev-Putin leadership and the soft authoritarian regime itself.

There was no reason to expect an acquittal of Mikhail Khodorkovsky or clean elections this year under the Medvedev-Putin long-term strategy of painstakingly gradual liberalization.  As usual, the Washington Post revealed its bias when its editors declared “Mr. Khodorkovsky's conviction should make clear that Mr. Medvedev's project is going nowhere” (Will Vladimir Putin pay a price for his persecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky?,” Washington Post, 28 December 2010).  

Because some things remain the same does not mean that nothing has changed, and just because the U.S. mainstream, in particular the WP, does not report on any of the substantial number of positive changes ocurring in Russia, cannot change the fact that they are happening.  One needs only to recall the zigs and zags of the perestroika era to understand the ambiguity of reform regimes.  Khodorkovsky will be pardoned no sooner than after the 2012 election cycle.  By then Russia's leaders should be in preparation to graduate from liberalization to the democratization stage that will be concluded most likely in 2020's, with more or less free and fair elections.  Most importantly, Putin, the main obstacle to a pardon or significant reduction in sentence for Khodorkovskii, will be preparing to retire from politics.

THE TANDEM’S NEW THINKING

In foreign policy, the tandem’s new thinking yielded improved relations with the U.S. and Europe in some of the following ways:

• the New START Treaty;
• a U.S.-Russian agreement to seek cooperation on building an AMD system for Europe and Eurasia;
• the cessation of Russian sales of S-300 and all other weapons to Iran;
• the expansion of the Northern Distribution Route through Russian territory to U.S. for NATO troops in Afghanistan;
• recognition of the Katyn massacre and rapproachement with Poland;
• the resolution of border issues with Norway;
• Moscow's refusal of Kyrgyzstan’s request for Russian troops and its cooperation with the U.S. during the June Kyrgyzstan crisis.

To be sure, much work remains ahead.  Domestically, elections must become fair and free of the partisan use of state or ‘administrative resources’.  More independent media must be created, protected and nourished.  The FSB, MVD, and the Russian military need radical reform and full subordination to civilian authority, especially the courts.  The fight against corruption needs to be even more aggressive.  The history and future of the 1990’s oligarchs needs to be evened out, especially with respect to Mikhail Khdorkovsky.  The investigation into Sergei Magnitsky’s death in Russian prison needs to go beyond liberalizing some of Russia’s sentencing and imprisonment policies to bring fundamental prison reform and indictments for Magnitsky’s cruel death.  In foreign policy, Russian weapons sales to Venezeuela and Syria, nuclear fuel supplies to Iran, and concord on relations in the former Soviet Union, especially on the issue of Georgia, remain problematic issues on the U.S.-Russian agenda that could threaten the Obama-Medvedev rapprochement.

Before such unresolved issues can be addressed, however, Moscow is likely to see a major intra-elite political confrontation.  The winners will determine the thaw’s fate and the future role of society as one of subjects or citizens.  Russia will be choosing between two futures.  One will largely resemble but not mirror the West, the other could look more like the North Caucasus tinderbox.

THE TANDEM’S CHOICE AND ELITE UNITY

The choice could very well hinge on the tandem’s and the elite's continued stability and relative unity or the modality by which these unravel under the pressure of making this choice.  At present, the tandem is holding together despite continuing signs of tension between the respective leaders’ staffs, and of lesser but increasingly significant differences within the tandem itself.  However, the contradictions between the tandem’s halves with regard to their respective points of emphasis, assessments of events, and perhaps even policy preferences, do not as yet translate to very much beyond cryptic intra-bureaucratic competition, no less ideological antagonism or a power struggle.

It is likely that some of the divergence between the statements of the tandem’s two moving parts is rooted in a strategy on Putin’s part of preserving the possibility of his return to the presidency.  This, however, is Plan B and will happen only if there is a major crisis that requires stabilizing the political situation.  Plan A remains Medvedev remaining president with Putin the premier as they jointly oversee a gradual modernization and liberalization of Russian society and politics until such time as they judge it is possible to hold truly free and fair elections without detriment to themselves and the country's political stability.  Meanwhile, Putin will continue shifting decisionmaking to Medvedev in preparation for his own retirement from politics.  That final step will depend much on the veracity or any possible official investigations of Putin’s reported but still unsubstantiated ill-gotten riches.

In the end, the tandem and gradualist strategy is not viable in the very long-term.  The times require fairly rapid transformation of at least Russia's social and economic systems.  In the long run, divergent political philosophies and articulations from the Putin and Medvedev camps and the pressures of global competition will exacerbate tensions between these more liberal and more conservative elements, respectively.  It seems unlikely that the tandem can weather the trials and tribulations of Russian and international politics for more than two more presidential terms.  The pressures of different political sympathies and generations that separate the two leaders’ various elite and societal supporters, combined with the imperative of across-the-board modernization that Russia’s survival as a major power require, are already creating some tensions if not cleavages within the elite and even the tandem itself.  Recall the differing views on Russia's entry into the WTO.

The two leaders’ political sensibilities seem at odds once one moves beyond their common position that ‘Russia does not need anymore revolutions.’  These differences are driven by their very different social, political, and generational backgrounds.  Medvedev is a largely post-Soviet son of a professor and a teacher.  He is an intellectual and a lawyer with some business experience.  Putin is the Soviet-era son of working class parents.  He is a ‘cold as ice’ practical politician and traditionalist patriot, who was shaped strongly, but not defined solely by his more Soviet legacy which was conditioned by the KGB, the Cold War, and the Soviet collapse.  Thus, Medvedev seems to view democracy as an end.  Putin sees it as a secondary and conditional means; if democracy serves stability, then it is useful and should be employed.  If not, then 'traditional' Russian patterns of rule are in order.

Ultimately, a democratic transformation is required for Russia to become a truly modern country allied with the West against its common enemies.  In lieu of this outcome and the other changes outlined above, corruption and criminality will sooner or later seize full control of high politics and bury Russia’s multi-communal state and society in a sea of poverty, hatred and likely bloodshed.

Sooner or later, the tandem, collectively and individually, will face a choice of whether to continue change and risk democracy, or to rely on the deceptive permanence of apparent ‘stability’ under the comforting illusion of a successful Russian political tradition that over the centuries has more than once, in fact, gravely failed and held back Russia and Russians. We hope for the former.

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Dr. Gordon M. Hahn – Analyst/Consultant, Russia Other Points of View – Russia Media Watch; Senior Researcher, Monterey Terrorism Research and Education Program and Visiting Assistant Professor, Graduate School of International Policy Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, Monterey, California; and Senior Researcher, Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group. Dr Hahn is author of two well-received books, Russia’s Revolution From Above (Transaction, 2002) and Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007), which was named an outstanding title of 2007 by Choice magazine.  He has authored hundreds of articles in scholarly journals and other publications on Russian, Eurasian and international politics and publishes the Islam, Islamism, and Politics in Eurasia Report (IIPER) at http://www.miis.edu/academics/faculty/ghahn/report.