21.5.2007 13:37 MSK
Mistake Number Two
Analysts offer different explanations for the failure of Russian democracy over the last 20 years. Some blame everything on "predatory privatization", some blame the growing relationship between authority and criminals, some blame corrupt law-enforcement agencies, some blame the indifference and submissiveness of the people, and others blame the failure to establish lustration (the identification and disqualification from public office of former communists, informers, and secret police), and so forth.
Maybe there is truth in all these explanations. Part of the truth. Alas, few are interested in discovering why the best path from communism to democracy was not chosen. Not only was the path taken to democracy not the shortest, but it took the country in the completely the opposite direction.
Today we can justly be indignant: the authorities are taking from us the civil liberties we fought for in the 80’s and early 90’s—more or less valid laws, relatively honest elections, an independent press. In order to, at the very least, return to all this and not lose it again, we must understand what happened. We must comprehend our experience and our errors.
Not the only, but the most fatal error, was that the democratically disposed part of society, after condemning Communist ideas and practice, entrusted the country’s new democracy to former Communists, to high-ranking functionaries of the party, and to government apparatuses. In those days, demonstrations against the 6th Article of Brezhnev’s Constitution, which asserted the predominant role of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) in the life of society, drew hundreds of thousands people in Moscow. The desire of the majority of people to leave behind the Communist Party and Soviet lawlessness was so great that authority could not keep its balance before this pressure, and it trembled and began to surrender one position after another. However, the people who believed in a democratic future and attended mass demonstrations called by democratic leaders could not be constantly occupied with policy. Like all normal people in all normal countries, they dealt with their daily problems. They worried about daily necessities, but they were ready to express their support for changes, when such support was required, whether at elections or on the street. They entrusted daily policy to professionals. They trusted those they listened to with rapture at demonstrations, and whose words they believed.
Meanwhile, the people in whom they believed were of the opinion that the key man to bring democratic changes was a high-ranking Communist, secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, member of the Politburo, and First Secretary of the Moscow CPSU, Boris Yeltsin. In 1987, at the October plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, he criticized his party for indecision in the matter of perestroika and became well-known among liberals. But in the summer of 1989, at the XIX Party Conference, he repented before the party for his errors and asked to be rehabilitated. All these acts did not prevent him from becoming the leader of an interregional group of deputies and subsequently from assuming a key role in democratic processes. The leaders of democratic change favored him, and a society tired of socialism believed its leaders. As a result, after obtaining real authority in August 1991, Boris Yeltsin did not create a democratic government, preserved the KGB, and forewent lustration. He did not place insurmountable obstacle in the path of possible restoration of authoritarianism. The democratic leaders who supported him were replaced by political rogues, grabbers, Soviet officials, and recent party and Komsomol functionaries.
To be fair, it must be said that Yeltsin had many successes. He liberalized the economy, he did not prevent freedom of speech, he took Russia into the Council of Europe, and he protected the country from the Red Mutiny in the autumn of 1993. But he was not steady with democratic reforms. This was not work for the former Secretary of the Central Committee. This is not to reproach him - you can’t jump higher than yourself. This is a reproach to those who tried to mold him into a democratic leader, whether they didn’t understand this undertaking, or whether it was based on customary Russian wishful thinking. But a miracle did not occur. The country experienced an unprecedented level of corruption, the Chechen war, and finally a new President from a KGB that was unchanged since 1991.
I foresee the traditional objection - "But if not him, then who?" Presumably there were worthy and clever people in Russia, not tarred by the brush of the CPSU, the KGB, Komsomol, or other Soviet structures. Indeed, in a country very small in comparison to us, the Poles managed to find trade-union leader and electrician Lech Walesa. In even smaller Czechoslovakia, writer and dramatist Vaclav Havel was found. Was Russia really more lacking in worthy politicians? It is obvious that the problem was not a scarcity of people, but a question of correct selection.
Certainly, "the king makes the court", and selection is always done of one similar to oneself. And the tragedy isn’t that the kingmakers were wrong, but that the people believing their leaders were deceived. The tragedy is that many who never believed in Yeltsin now see the word "Democrat" as a slur. And democracy itself is seen by them as space for resourceful politicians who chase the electorate at election time and seek the support of interested people at protest actions. For this very reason, in past parliamentary elections, democratically disposed voters did not vote for the Democratic Party, and street protests now draw hundreds or thousands of people, but not tens and hundreds of thousands.
Meanwhile, the present day situation to a certain extent resembles late Soviet times. The breaking up of demonstrations, the prohibitions of parties, the control of television by authorities, pressure on the press, new political prisoners - all this clearly testifies to a return to the times of an open opposition between society and authority. Today many who perceive the creeping restoration of Soviet order are ready to support strong opposition and to participate in protest actions. A regime of "controlled democracy" which rests on repression is unacceptable to the widest variety of social forces and to people with the most differing interests. As a political force, ready to the oppose those in authority, they call themselves "The Other Russia".
The "Dissenters’ Marches" have created wide sympathy not so much because of the composition of their participants or their banners and slogans, but by their resoluteness and courage in arguing for the right to democratic freedom. Courage is very infectious, and in this sense there can be a great future for "The Other Russia". However, there is also the risk of making those mistakes which Russian society already made in the 80’s and 90’s. There is nothing new in using protest methods to attain political success. Possibly, there is nothing problematic in this if the purposes of the politicians leading the protests coincide with the purposes of those protesting. However, political purposes must not only be clearly presented; they must proceed from leaders in whom there are no doubts whatever. Doubts about their honesty, reputation, incorruptibility and reliability. Otherwise we risk making the same mistakes a second time.
What do we see in "The Other Russia"? Mikhail Kasyanov was Prime Minister in the first period of Putin’s presidency - from May 2000 through February 2004. In those years, Russia began its sharp turn toward authoritarianism, but the Prime Minister neither in word nor gesture indicated his adherence to democracy, and did not condemn the anti-democratic undertakings of the President. He now presents himself as a Democrat, a political outsider. Who will he become again, if the wave of street protest does raise him to the apex of state power? <BR.
Eduard Limonov was and remains an ideologue of National- Bolshevism – a system of views incompatible with democracy and human rights. A Russia built on the prescriptions of the National-Bolsheviks will prove to be one hundred times more nightmarish than it is now.
Garry Kasparov (of the OGF-United Civil Front) is the most attractive leader of "The Other Russia", if we ignore the errors of his youth and periods of absence and his love for socialism and his Komsomol past (he was a member of the CPSU and a member of the Central Committee of VLKSM, the All-Union Lenin Young Communist League). But his readiness to work together with the National-Bolsheviks and the Radical Communists gives grounds to assume that political success may be more important to him than a safe democratic future for the country.
It is possible this is not so, but the OGF’s union with anti-democratic forces appears forced and tactical. But is it not acceptable to use political manipulation in an attempt to use the protest mood to attain short-term tactical success? This is how Kasparov proposes to advance Victor Gerashchenko to the role of united opposition candidate in the presidential election. Kasparov is looking for a candidate who unites different political forces. In this case he has either completely forgotten about the opinion of democratic voters, or assumes that the obedient or devoted voter will joyfully vote for whoever the leaders of the opposition propose. This method of searching for a united candidate for the opposition greatly resembles the behind-the-scenes selection of the Putin successor, for whom, in the opinion of the authority, the voters will vote simply because he is proposed by the Kremlin.
Throughout the world, politicians are sufficiently cynical and prepared to manipulate the public mood to achieve personal or party goals. Russia in this sense is no exception. The difference lies in the fact that in democratic countries politicians more seriously consider reputational risks, and unexpected scandals and exposed frauds can affect politicians, but they do not impact the entire political system. The state of our political system is so unsteady that the democratic opposition does not have the moral right to risk its reputation and the confidence of voters. It will cost the country too dearly. It already cost us too dearly 15-20 years ago. If the same mistakes are committed a second time, it is possible to say with confidence that a third chance at democracy will not appear again very soon.
Also published in Daily Journal
Aleksandr PODRABINEK
http://www.prima-news.ru/eng/news/articles/2007/5/21/38234.html
