Alla vigilia delle presidenziali: dalle proteste, al ruolo della

29 febbraio 2012
Alla vigilia delle presidenziali: dalle proteste,
al ruolo della classe media, alle relazioni con Ue e Italia
Oleg Barabanov(*)
L’atmosfera alla vigilia delle elezioni presidenziali in Russia è molto effervescente a causa di
un’inattesa attivazione della società civile, a partire dall’ufficializzazione dei risultati delle elezioni
alla Duma del 4 dicembre 2011. Pochi giorni dopo migliaia di moscoviti sono scesi in strada per
dare vita a una imponente e variegata manifestazione, la più grande protesta a Mosca dai tempi
della perestroika e della dissoluzione dell’Unione Sovietica.
Quali sono le cause di questo movimento di protesta? Sicuramente c’è stato un effetto contagio da
parte della Primavera araba. Ma come dimostra la storia contemporanea i soli fattori esterni non
sono sufficienti a comprendere e spiegare dinamiche così complesse. La Rivoluzione arancione in
Ucraina di fine 2004 non ebbe, per esempio, alcun effetto sul precedente ciclo elettorale russo
(2007-2008), a differenza di ciò che si attendevano molti esperti e analisti in Occidente.
Per questo ciò che accade oggi in Russia deve essere letto in chiave interna e non soltanto analizzando il comportamento della classe media nelle grandi città russe. In generale, una nuova classe
media era già emersa durante il precedente ciclo elettorale (2007-2008) in quanto quelli erano gli
anni del cosiddetto “decennio grasso”, il periodo della continua crescita dell’economia russa grazie
agli alti prezzi del petrolio. Tale benessere aveva consentito di aumentare i salari che in molte città
russe hanno addirittura superato i livelli delle retribuzioni nell’Ue. Tuttavia in quel periodo la classe
media non ha avanzato richieste politiche, né ha espresso la volontà di un maggiore coinvolgimento nella gestione della cosa pubblica. Mi sembra che il catalizzatore attuale dell’attivismo sociale
della classe media sia proprio la crisi del 2009 in quanto si teme che il livello di benessere e il nuovo stile di vita raggiunti in precedenza possano essere compromessi.
Le motivazioni delle proteste russe non appaiono perciò troppo dissimili da quelle che hanno alimentato il movimento newyorkese di “Occupy Wall Street”, che pacificamente denuncia i guasti del
capitalismo finanziario e quello degli “Indignados” europei che contestano il sistema bancario e
auspicano maggiore equità e più lavoro. In questi due casi è stata proprio la crisi a mettere in moto
la protesta popolare e si è assistito alla trasformazione della consumerist society in società dei
cittadini. Affermo questo non in riferimento alle Ong che sono sempre state attive sia nell’Ue che
negli Usa, ma alla classe media, intesa sia come white collars che come blue collars.
Negli Stati Uniti il passaggio da semplici consumatori a cittadini è stato ancora più interessante che
nell’Ue. Il movimento “Occupy Wall Street” ha ricordato a molti in Russia il senso civico che emerse duranti i primi anni della perestroika. L’euforia che si coglieva al parco Zucotti a New York mostra che molti dei partecipanti a queste proteste per la prima volta si sono sentiti non semplicemente consumatori, felici della propria vita, ma cittadini finalmente consapevoli. Un esempio molto interessante è il discorso (postato su Youtube) – una sfilza di slogan popolari e piuttosto banali – che il
Le opinioni espresse sono strettamente personali e non riflettono necessariamente le posizioni dell’ISPI.
Oleg Barabanov, direttore del Dipartimento di Politiche pubbliche europee dell’Istituto degli Studi europei dell’Università
statale di Mosca di Relazioni internazionali – MGIMO –, autore del recente libro Italia dopo la guerra fredda: dalla media
potenza verso il mondo dei protagonisti, pubblicato dalla Casa editrice dell’Università MGIMO.
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ISPI - Commentary
filosofo sloveno Slavoj Zizek ha pronunciato a parco Zucotti e che i presenti hanno ripetuto frase
dopo frase per circa mezz’ora. Tutto ciò mi ha fatto tornare alla mente le prime proteste di massa
ai tempi della perestroika. Ed è esattamente la trasformazione della classe media da consumatori
in cittadini in seguito ai guasti della crisi che ha spinto molti russi a scendere in piazza nelle grandi
città.
Alle preoccupazioni per le conseguenze dell’esito delle elezioni presidenziali si aggiunge una certa
apprensione dei russi rispetto alla stabilità monetaria europea e alla tenuta dell’euro. Sin dall’inizio
della crisi dell’euro in Russia si sono delineate due tendenze contrapposte rispetto a questo tema.
Da una parte, una parte dell’opinione pubblica russa ha espresso un certo compiacimento nel constatare che anche l’Ue stava attraversando un momento critico sia in termini economici che di clima di opinione e quindi di legittimità della stessa costruzione europea. Questo sentimento si spiega col fatto che l’opinione pubblica russa si è stancata delle “lezioni” impartite dall’Ue al paese e
dell’atteggiamento di superiorità ostentato da alcuni suoi funzionari. Si è parlato a lungo di “neoimperialismo” e “neo-colonialismo” per descrivere il rapporto asimmetrico fra Ue e Russia. Questa
insofferenza è emersa soprattutto durante l’amministrazione Obama. In seguito alla politica del
reset the button del 2009, il presidente statunitense ha abbandonato i tradizionali toni paternalistici
nei confronti della Russia e ha optato per un approccio più pragmatico.
Un ruolo importante nel giudizio dei russi nei confronti dell’Ue lo ha giocato il recente rafforzamento dei rapporti strategici russo-cinesi. Solo nell’ultimo anno (e in relazione con la crisi dell’euro) si
può cogliere un cambiamento di fondo nel tono e nelle dichiarazioni di molti esperti e politologi
cinesi. A partire dall’estate-autunno 2011 molti di loro hanno iniziato a parlare apertamente di un
mondo futuro sino-centrico, di come l’ordine mondiale sia entrato in una fase di trasformazione
senza ritorno indietro (prima i cinesi si rifiutavano di trattare di questi temi e sottolineavano che il
loro paese non nutre ambizioni globali). In questa nuova prospettiva, i cinesi hanno iniziato a definire la Russia come il “sostegno strategico” o come la “schiena strategica” della Cina e hanno progressivamente cercato una convergenza con Mosca riguardo a decisioni e posizioni in ambito internazionale. Il formato Brics (Brasile, Russia, India, Cina e Sudafrica) ha contribuito in maniera
rilevante a questa nuova tendenza. Non bisogna dimenticare che la Cina è l’unica grande economia che nonostante la crisi e, a differenza dell’Ue, ha continuato a crescere. Questo dato ha spinto
molti a considerare la possibilità che la Cina possa sostituirsi all’Ue come partner economico strategico della Russia e che l’aquila russa possa realmente guardare non più solo a ovest ma sempre
di più anche a est. Nel corso del 2011 la Russia ha perduto perciò percettibilmente interesse verso
l’Ue e ha ri-orientato i suoi interessi verso la Cina.
Allo stesso tempo, in Russia si riscontra anche un’altra posizione che rimane tuttora molto forte.
Dal momento che l’Ue è il cliente principale delle esportazioni russe di gas e petrolio, il permanere
della crisi e un’eventuale diffusione della recessione nei diversi paesi membri dell’Unione Europea
finirà con l’avere riverberi negativi sulla stessa crescita russa. È necessario perciò che la Russia
adotti misure serie per aiutare i paesi dell’Ue a uscire dalla crisi perché solo così sarà in grado di
salvaguardare anche i propri interessi economici. Questa è stata anche la posizione del presidente
Medvedev. La Russia non ha perciò esitato a sostenere l’euro sia all’interno del Fmi che, indirettamente, sul mercato, acquistando le obbligazioni dei paesi della zona euro. La Russia ha quindi
accolto positivamente la formazione di un nuovo governo in Italia sotto la guida dell’ex commissario europeo Mario Monti. È nell’interesse russo che l’Italia si salvi e le chance che Monti porti il
paese e il suo sistema finanziario fuori dalla crisi sono più alte (rispetto a quello che è riuscito a
fare Berlusconi). La Russia è pronta a sostenere l’Italia in questi sforzi. Tuttavia a Mosca si teme
che il governo Monti possa vacillare a causa della crescente opposizione dei sindacati alle misure
di contenimento della spesa pubblica e dell’ostilità di varie lobby a una liberalizzazione di alcuni
comparti dell’economia. Si potrebbe aprire allora una pericolosa fase di instabilità che potrebbe
creare una grave falla a livello europeo.
ISPI - Commentary
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È probabile anche che la nuova presidenza russa sia più assertiva nel relazionarsi con Bruxelles.
La nomina a presidente del Comitato per gli affari esteri della nuova Duma del conduttore televisivo Aleksei Pushkov (sostituisce Konstantin Kosachev, politico dallo stile diplomatico e moderato),
noto per le sue simpatie per visioni radicali e per il rafforzamento della posizione internazionale
russa, va in questa direzione. La Russia continuerà la politica dell’energy superpower sia nei rapporti con i paesi dello spazio post-sovietico che con quelli europei. Dopo l’avvio del Nord Stream
l’attenzione principale sarà sulla realizzazione dell’altro progetto di gasdotto – South Stream. Relativamente a quest’ultimo appare evidente la stretta collaborazione costruttiva con l’Italia in quanto
proprio l’Italia potrebbe in prospettiva diventare il consumatore-chiave del gas trasportato dal
South Stream, mentre Eni è già uno dei partner principali di Gazprom nella costruzione di tale gasdotto. Così i rapporti tradizionalmente stabili tra l’Italia e la Russia riceveranno uno stimolo aggiuntivo per il loro ulteriore rafforzamento.
Dal momento che l’ex cancelliere tedesco Gerhard Schröder presiede il consorzio del Nord Stream, a Mosca si vocifera (sono apparsi alcuni articoli in tono ironico) che la stessa carica per il
South Stream potrebbe ora toccare all’ex presidente del Consiglio Silvio Berlusconi. Tuttavia questa opzione sembra poco plausibile.
Non è un segreto che la leadership russa abbia avuto relazioni molto strette con l’ex presidente del
Consiglio Silvio Berlusconi. Il presidente e poi primo ministro della Federazione Russa, Vladimir
Putin, aveva costruito un rapporto personale di amicizia ed empatia con Berlusconi. L’Italia e la
Russia hanno maturato visioni comuni per le questioni di politica internazionale e hanno sviluppato
in maniera attiva i loro rapporti bilaterali sia politici che economici. Per di più l’Italia di Berlusconi ha
spesso contribuito a stimolare all’interno dell’UE un dibattito su tematiche di particolare interesse
per la Russia come la questione dell’abolizione dei visti tra l’area Schengen e la Russia, che costituisce uno dei punti più critici nel dialogo Mosca-Bruxelles. Ebbene la proposta di abolire il regime
dei visti è stata per la prima volta lanciata dallo stesso Silvio Berlusconi durante la presidenza italiana dell’Ue nel 2003.
Inoltre, in occasione del conflitto russo-georgiano dell’agosto 2008, l’Italia ha sostenuto l’azione
diplomatica svolta dalla presidenza di turno detenuta dal presidente francese, Nicolas Sarkozy,
che ha mediato fra Georgia e Russia al fine di pervenire a un accordo (12 agosto) in sei punti per il
cessate-il-fuoco. L’Italia si è opposta anche alla convocazione di una riunione di emergenza dei
capi di stato e di governo come invocato da Lettonia, Polonia, Repubblica Ceca e Svezia e
all’applicazione di sanzioni nei confronti di Mosca. L’Italia si è alla fine allineata alla decisione del
Consiglio europeo straordinario (1 settembre 2008) che ha definito la reazione russa in Georgia
sproporzionata. Il presidente del Consiglio italiano tuttavia sottolineò la propria perplessità sul concetto di “proporzionalità della reazione” in un contesto complesso come quello della Georgia.
Non sorprende quindi che, in seguito alle dimissioni dell’ex premier italiano, Putin abbia espresso
pubblicamente il suo apprezzamento nei confronti di Berlusconi. Negli ambienti politici russi si è
sentita, diciamo, una certa nostalgia per Berlusconi dopo la sua uscita di scena, temendo che ciò
potesse avere un impatto negativo sulle relazioni con Roma. La reazione russa al nuovo governo
italiano è stata di neutralità, nonostante non ci fossero motivi per essere critici nei suoi confronti.
L’Italia insieme alla Germania è tra i partner economici dell’Ue tra i più importanti della Russia e un
default dell’economia italiana non corrisponde affatto agli interessi russi, anzi a Mosca c’è molta
apprensione sulla tenuta dell’euro. Nella misura in cui il nuovo primo ministro Mario Monti sarà in
grado di stabilizzare l’Italia e quindi di salvaguardare l’euro, ciò sarà estremamente apprezzato
dalla leadership russa.
In generale i politici russi non si attendono cambiamenti sostanziali nei rapporti con l’Italia.
L’interdipendenza energetica fra Italia e Russia è molto forte così come molto attive sono le piccole
e medie imprese (Pmi) italiane in Russia. L’operato di queste ultime viene coordinato dalle Camere
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ISPI - Commentary
di commercio delle diverse regioni italiane all’interno di accordi tra le regioni italiane e quelle russe.
Il totale degli investimenti diretti italiani in Russia supera i 10 miliardi di euro e se togliessimo gli
investimenti diretti esteri in Russia provenienti da paesi membri Ue, quali Cipro, Lussemburgo,
Gran Bretagna, il cui totale ammonta a circa 20-40 miliardi di euro (una parte importante di questi
però consiste in capitali russi che ritornano in patria), allora l’Italia risulterebbe tra i leader Ue in
termini di investimenti in Russia.
La storia degli ultimi vent’anni mostra che l’Italia è sempre stata, sotto qualsiasi governo, desiderosa di instaurare un dialogo costruttivo con la Russia. Ad esempio, proprio nel 2000, quando l’Italia
era guidata da un governo di centro-sinistra, il ministro degli Esteri Lamberto Dini si adoperò in
sede di Consiglio d’Europa (l’Italia ne deteneva allora la presidenza) affinché la Russia non fosse
sospesa dall’Assemblea parlamentare del Consiglio d’Europa a causa della seconda guerra cecena. Quindi Mosca si attende un mantenimento delle dinamiche positive nei rapporti politici bilaterali
anche con il nuovo governo.
Dubbi sorgono tuttavia per altri aspetti. In primo luogo, l’influenza della Russia sui rapporti italoamericani. Silvio Berlusconi ha cercato di presentare l’Italia come un “ponte” tra Washington e
Mosca. E questa politica era molto efficace, soprattutto durante l’amministrazione Bush. In quel
periodo, grazie ai suoi rapporti personali sia con Bush che con Putin, Berlusconi riuscì ad ammorbidire diverse tensioni tra la Russia e gli Stati Uniti. Alla realizzazione di questo “ponte” ha contribuito molto anche l’operato dell’ex ministro degli Esteri Franco Frattini, considerato a Mosca uno
dei politici italiani più filo-americani. Nonostante l’amministrazione Obama e un dialogo aperto con
gli Usa, la Russia tuttavia rimane interessata alla presenza di simili “ponti” allo scopo di elaborare
dei framework di dialogo più flessibili e trovare forme di compromesso su questioni particolarmente complicate nei rapporti russo- La ricerca ISPI analizza
americani (quali la difesa anti-missile e altre). Di conseguenza è le dinamiche politiche,
nell’interesse della Russia che l’Italia perseveri in una politica estera strategiche ed economiche
di mediazione fra Washington e Mosca. Per ora il governo guidato del sistema internazionale
da Monti non ha avuto occasione di dare segnali chiari su questo con il duplice obiettivo di
punto. La nomina a ministro degli Esteri di Giulio Terzi di informare e di orientare
Sant’Agata, ex ambasciatore italiano negli Usa, indica però che le scelte di policy.
avere stretti rapporti con Washington sarà una delle priorità della
I risultati della ricerca
politica estera italiana.
vengono divulgati
Un’altra questione che ancora non appare chiara a Mosca è in che
modo i rapporti tra Roma e Bruxelles all’interno dell’Ue influenzeranno i rapporti con Mosca. Prima Berlusconi conduceva una politica estera più autonoma da Bruxelles e questo consentiva all’Italia di
posizionarsi come “ponte” non solo tra Mosca e Washington, ma
anche tra Mosca e Bruxelles. Tuttavia, Berlusconi non era visto
positivamente da alcuni politici e funzionari Ue e, non è un segreto,
che molti a Bruxelles esplicitamente auspicassero le sue dimissioni.
Ciò ovviamente ha indebolito il suo potenziale “lobbistico” presso la
Commissione europea. È evidente ora che Mario Monti, a differenza
di Berlusconi, con la sua politica estera non si permetterà una simile
autonomia dalla Commissione europea, ciò nonostante la sua autorità a Bruxelles è senza dubbio decisamente più elevata rispetto a
quella del suo predecessore. Se la Russia riuscisse ad accordarsi
su alcune questioni cruciali con l’Italia, allora nuovamente essa potrebbe rafforzare la propria posizione in ambito europeo e perseguire più agevolmente i propri interessi nazionali.
attraverso pubblicazioni
ed eventi, focalizzati su
tematiche di particolare
interesse per l’Italia e le sue
relazioni internazionali.
Le pubblicazioni online
dell’ISPI sono realizzate
anche grazie al sostegno
della Fondazione Cariplo.
ISPI
Palazzo Clerici
Via Clerici, 5
I - 20121 Milano
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© ISPI 2012
Philip Hanson
No. 100 – MARCH 2012
Economic challenges for Putin
Abstract
In his first two presidential terms, 2000-2008, Vladimir Putin was
lucky. The massive devaluation of the rouble in 1998 had kickstarted Russia’s economic recovery; then rising oil prices, supported by abundant cheap credit from abroad to Russian companies, together with growth in Europe – Russia’s main export market – produced a boom. When things went wrong, from 2008,
Putin was at least somewhat less conspicuously in charge. Now
he returns to the presidency at a time when the economy, though
growing again, faces big problems.
Russia has not returned to the boom of 1998-2008, when GDP
growth averaged 6.8% and personal real incomes were growing
faster still. Russia’s recent growth rate of 4% would be welcome
in the West, but it is below-par for an emerging-market economy,
and it is not expected to improve. Indeed there are scenarios in
which it could get a lot worse. In addition, there are big question
marks about the public finances.
Some Russian analysts have suggested that Russia has fallen
into the “middle-income trap”. A number of initially fast-growing
middle-income countries experienced, at around $16,000 per
capita GDP (international purchasing power, 2005 prices), a slowdown. This was apparently because the scope for catching up the
developed world by absorbing foreign technology and by the
movement of resources out of low-productivity into higherproductivity lines of production began to narrow.
This might be part of the problem for Russia but other influences
are more obviously at work. The working-age population has
started to decline, and there is now much slower growth of international credit to Russian banks and non-bank corporations;
moreover, the European economy is in bad shape and there is
uncertainty about future oil prices.
Last year the Moscow Higher School of Economics Institute of
Demographics projected an 11 million decline in working-age
population over ten years, in the absence of net immigration. This
is a profound change. During the boom, employment was growing
After the economic boom in
the period 1998-2008, when
GDP growth averaged 6.8%,
now Russia is recovering from
the global crisis faster than
most Western economies.
Nevertheless, its recent growth
rate of 4% is below-par for an
emerging-market economy,
and it is not expected to improve.
Russia might have fallen into
the so-called “middle-income
trap”. The economy of the
country is confronted with
challenges such as: a declining working-age population,
lack of technology, oscillating
oil price, reduction of international credit, Europe’s stagnation.
Next President’s legitimacy will
even more depend on the economic performance of the
country.
Philip Hanson is Professor at the
University of Birmingham , Centre for
Russia and East European Studies
and Associate Fellow of Chatham
House.
(*) The opinions expressed herein
are strictly personal and do not
necessarily reflect the position of
ISPI.
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ISPI - Analysis
at about 1% a year and the working-age population was also increasing, even while the total population was in decline. Now the state statistical agency projects a fall of just over 10 million in working-age population between 2010 and 2030, even after allowing for net in-migration of 4.5 million.
A steep fall in the number of young labour-force entrants has already begun. This means that the
problem is not just one of reduced labour inputs. Young people are more geographically and occupationally mobile than older workers, and more open to the upgrading of education and skills. The
drop in their numbers will therefore slow productivity growth from occupational shifts and improvements in human capital.
The slow-down in international credit has been abrupt. Loans outstanding to Russian banks rose
four-and-a-half-fold in the three years to October 2008; three years later the total was down by about
a fifth. The corresponding figures for non-bank corporations are a three-fold increase and very
slightly (5.7%) up. There is no prospect of lending returning any time soon to its former growth rate.
Europe’s weakness matters because about half of Russia’s exports go there. As for the oil price, it
is perfectly true that it may well rise further; but recent experience has reminded everyone that the
price can fall as well as rise.
These circumstances point to a trend rate of growth over the next decade of around 4% a year. If
the capital stock continues to grow at about 3% annually, while the labour force declines at perhaps 0.5% a year and productivity growth, for the reasons suggested above, weakens somewhat,
it is hard to make a case for 5%, let alone more. And if there were to be a sustained fall in the oil
price, the Russian economy could slow down or even go into reverse.
So growth prospects are problematic. So is the outlook for the public finances.
Some ambitious public spending has been approved for the next few years, especially on the military, but budget plans do not allow for sustained falls in the oil price. The capacity of the government
to resist further the big spenders is in some doubt following the challenges to Putin’s authority. The
temptation to keep the defence and welfare lobbies on side will be stronger than before.
Figure 1 shows official budget plans for 2012-14 and budgets from 2015 through 2020 as projected
in a 2020 strategy document. The chart also shows the assumed average annual Urals oil price in
each year. The picture is one of continued deficits but at the same time (and optimistically) no significant fall in the oil price. This year Urals oil would need to average $116/barrel for the federal
budget to break even.
Figure 1 - Russia: federal budgets actual and planned, 2010-20 and the average annual Urals oil price
(% of GDP and US $/barrel)
120
25
80
15
60
10
40
5
20
0
0
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
revenue
2015
spending
2016
oil price
2017
2018
2019
2020
Average annual Urals oil price ($/b)
Federal budget income & expenditure (% GDP)
100
20
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ISPI - Analysis
Experts advising the government on its economic strategy have
called for all the standard institutional changes, including independent courts and a level playing field for all firms. Aleksey
Kudrin, the former finance minister, has called for automatic
spending cuts if the oil price falls. Russia’s leaders are unlikely to
liberalise the economy because their own power depends on
corrupt links with business. They are unlikely to curb spending
because of the fragility of their political base.
Putin could be lucky again. If he isn’t, the outlook is not good.
La ricerca ISPI analizza le
dinamiche politiche, strategiche ed economiche del sistema internazionale con il duplice obiettivo di informare e
di orientare le scelte di policy.
I risultati della ricerca vengono divulgati attraverso
pubblicazioni ed eventi, focalizzati su tematiche di particolare interesse per l’Italia e le
sue relazioni internazionali e
articolati in:
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9
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9
9
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9
9
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Programma Africa
Programma Caucaso e
Asia Centrale
Programma Europa
Programma Mediterraneo
e Medio Oriente
Programma Russia e
Vicini Orientali
Programma Sicurezza e
Studi Strategici
Progetto Argentina
Progetto Asia Meridionale
Progetto Cina e Asia
Orientale
Progetto Diritti Umani
Progetto Disarmo
Progetto Internazionalizzazione della Pubblica
Amministrazione
Le pubblicazioni online
dell’ISPI sono realizzate
anche grazie al sostegno
della Fondazione Cariplo.
SPI
Palazzo Clerici
Via Clerici, 5
I - 20121 Milano
www.ispionline.it
© ISPI 2012
No. 215 - MARCH 2012
Laura Petrone
The Russian Opposition
and the 2011 Duma Elections.
Potential and Problems of a Multifaceted Movement(*)
Following the last Duma elections (December 4th) Moscow
has witnessed some of the
largest protests against the
Kremlin in years, with thousands of citizens with different
political affiliations and backgrounds taking to the streets.
While the cause of free and
fair elections ensured the opposition movement had an
effective “glue” capable of
smoothing out fracture lines,
its capacity to seize the opportunity to structure and consolidate a real alternative to
Putin’s rule appears quite defective.
More
particularly,
some problems have emerged
in reaching a consensus regarding drawing the boundaries of its participation.
The aim of this analysis is
two-fold: firstly, it seeks to
determine the strengths and
weaknesses of the Russian
opposition movement, with a
special focus on the strategies
used during the electoral
campaign for the 2011 Duma
elections. Secondly, it discusses to what extent the
opposition forces in Russia
have sought to take advantage of the political opportunities currently available to undermine the ruling power. In
this regard, some institutional
constraints come into evidence with regard to the Russian case, notably the room
for manoeuvre available to
opposition forces in a regime
of limited pluralism that circumscribes social diversity and
constricts the expression of
political dissent.
The demonstrations in Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov
Avenue in Moscow, following
denouncements of ballotstuffing and fraud by Mr.
Putin’s party United Russia
during the Duma elections,
were
rather
unexpected
events. Over the months preceding the electoral campaign, Russian opposition
forces were unable to mobilise dissatisfied citizens in
mass protests and initiatives.
Up until December only a few
hundred participants attended
the biggest rallies organised
in the capital and other major
cities, showing the opposition
groups’ inability not only to
consolidate supporters but
also to interact with each
other. This was especially true
for those youth movements,
from both the left and right
wing of the political spectrum,
which in recent years have
proven to be relevant actors in
the extra-parliamentary oppo-
Abstract
The Russian opposition is increasingly in the spotlight after the
December mass protests. The
scale of the demonstrations was
such that they received high resonance in the media. Even Statecontrolled news outlets, which
usually omit coverage of political
dissent, thoroughly reported on
the opposition’s rallies and slogans. This movement has significant implications for the next
presidential elections, strengthening the idea in society of unfair
elections as well as casting doubts
on the Duma’s legitimacy. Many
challenges still lie ahead arising
from both external and internal
constraints to the movement itself.
On the one hand the opposition
encounters serious institutional
constraints to the participation in
the political arena; on the other it
suffers from profound divisions
and divergent positions concerning strategic issues. Thus it risks
to become even more detached
from the population. On the eve of
the presidential elections the incumbents are responding with a
pretty effective strategy of containment of dissent centered on
the mobilisation of pro-Kremlin
supporters in mass counterprotests.
Laura Petrone,
Researcher.
ISPI
Associate
(*) The opinions expressed herein
are strictly personal and do not
necessarily reflect the position of
ISPI.
2
sition. Interestingly, during
that time the anti-government
initiative that managed to
bring most people onto the
streets was the “Russian
March” which took place on
November 4th, the day of National Unity, and was promoted by different nationalist
organisations.
Considering this fact, what
does the sudden resurgence
of Russian opposition initiatives and the wider support
among the population soon
after 2011 Duma elections
explain? What is the opposition’s potential to mobilise
citizens in mass protests after
these events? What are the
problems of coalition building
related to common programmes and policies for
these movements?
The multiple faces
of opposition
The distinction between systemic and non-systemic (sistemnaya-vnesistemnaya)
opposition constitutes the
primary criterion characterising Russian opposition forces.
These are terms coined
mostly by the media to distinguish between those opposition parties which are registered, and thus recognised by
the State, and those which
have been refused formal
recognition. Hence, while the
Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), the
Liberal
Democratic
Party
(LDP) and Just Russia are
systemic opposition parties,
Parnas (the People’s Freedom Party) was denied registration in the 2011 Duma elections, and Yabloko was cut off
from the political arena with
the introduction of the 7%
electoral threshold in the 2007
ISPI - Policy Brief
parliamentary elections. The
party or movement’s political
orientation represents a further criterion: we can place
the
United
Civil
Front,
PARNAS and Yabloko within
the liberal-democratic landscape, while the Left Front
(Levy Front) encompasses a
range of left and ultra-left
political organisations such as
the CPRF, the Vanguard of
Red Youth, the Revolutionary
Communist Youth League
(Bolshevik) and the Russian
Communist Workers Party
Revolutionary - Party of
Communists (RCWP-RPC).
Despite the ideological distance, starting from 2006
some representatives from
the leftist movements, such as
the National Bolshevik Party
leader Eduard Limonov and
Sergei Udaltsov of the Vanguard of Red Youth, have
gathered with some right-wing
as well as mainstream liberal
representatives (Garri Kasparov and human activist
Lyudmila Alexeyeva) in an
umbrella coalition called “The
Other Russia”. What is worth
noting here is that this coalition constituted the most relevant attempt ever accomplished in post-Soviet Russia
to bring together different
forces of the opposition universe. The coalition succeeded in organising several
joint protest actions such as
the “March of the Discontented” in December 2006,
and during the latest elections
signed a declaration pledging
to boycott the 2011 Duma
elections due to their illegitimacy 1 .
1
http://www.theotherrussia.org/2011
/10/0 5/russian-oppositionists-uniteto-boycott-duma-elections/,
S.
UDALTSOV, Boycot kak sposob
In addition, when we analyse
willingness to take part in
institutionalised political efforts, strong differences arise
among these political groupings: apart from the established
opposition
parties
(CPRF, Yabloko, Just Russia
and the LDP) the others are
mostly grass-roots movements refusing to participate
in official politics. The only
exception is Parnas, which
has sought political recognition in vain. The People’s
Freedom Party was founded
in 2010 by Mikhail Kasyanov,
Vladimir
Ryzhkov,
Boris
Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov,
four experienced figures and
former high-ranking government officials, with the declared intention to participate
in the 2011 Duma elections.
Nevertheless, the Party was
denied registration with the
justification that it had not
provided for rotation of leadership on its platform and that
the information contained in
the documents presented for
registration did not comply
with the procedures envisaged by the Russian Law on
Political Parties 2 .
The systemic and nonsystemic distinction proves to
be especially useful when
examining the opposition’s
protests during the last Duma
elections.
Deep
divisions
emerged firstly over the
strategies to be adopted at
the ballot boxes, with Parnas’s prominent leader Boris
Nemtsov inviting voters to
octat’sya chestnym, 25 November
2011 (http://www.leftfront.ru/ 48E54
398C28CD/4ED00B6EBE15F.html).
2
http://svobodanaroda.org/about/
party
_documents/refusal_to_
register.php.
3
ISPI - Policy Brief
spoil their ballots3 . The aim
was to reach the 7% threshold
for the elections to be annulled
and rerun, but at the cost of
taking votes away from CPRF
and Just Russia, the principal
opposition parties challenging
UR’s monopoly in the Duma.
Significantly, during the electoral campaign the debate on
whether and how to vote appeared to have its privileged
locus more on the web than in
party congresses and press
conferences. In particular, a
strong resonance was received for the initiative “How
to vote properly so they won’t
steal your vote” from a group
of anonymous bloggers who
advised people not to skip the
elections and to vote for any
party except United Russia 4 .
In fact the huge investment on
the Internet both by incumbents and opposition forces
was one of the most remarkable phenomena in the last
election campaign. While
parties’ websites received
little public attention and media coverage, the social networks, blogs and fora played
a leading role in the public
debate. On the one hand the
party in power, United Russia,
has been regularly portrayed
by bloggers and critics as the
party of bureaucrats responsible for rampant corruption
and weak political and social
rights in Russia; on the other
hand, Internet bloggers and
opposition parties have been
reported to suffer continuous
3
In his popular slogan «Nachnach, golosuy protiv vsech»
Nemtsov suggested voting against
everybody. To be true, Russian
voters were previously able to vote
“against all”, but that option was
removed from ballots in 2006.
4
http://ru-cprf.livejournal.com/107
688 2.html.
attacks from the authorities.
LiveJournal, considered the
platform most suited to opposition initiatives, was the target of a heavy hacker attack
last April which bloggers
claimed could not have been
possible without the full endorsement of the authorities.
The alleged aim was to leave
Russian bloggers without a
single, stable arena and disperse them to social networks
where it is easier to fight individual users 5 .
The “Navalny effect”
One of the symbols of the
Russian protest movement is
the blogger Aleksey Navalny,
who was arrested together
with 300 activists on 5th December when some 6,000
people gathered in Moscow to
protest about the election
fraud. Navalny, who ahead of
the elections had been urging
viewers of his blog to vote for
any party but United Russia,
gained broad popularity by
coining the expression “Party
of Swindlers and Thieves” to
describe the party in power. A
lawyer by profession, he is not
affiliated with any political
organisation. His activism has
been primarily oriented at
denouncing theft in state-run
corporations and United Russia’s failures and broken
pledges: on his web page he
published confidential documents about «the numerous
economic crimes committed
by Transneft, its subsidiaries
and contractors during the
construction of the Eastern
Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline», for which he argued that
5
A. ODYNOVA, State Blamed in
LiveJournal Attack, in «The Moscow Times», 6 April 2011.
the State was damaged to the
extent of no less than US$4
billion 6 . He also created the
Internet project “RosPil”, a
system of monitoring abuse in
government requests for tenders, which is entirely funded
by voluntary donations from
citizens. By the time the project became active a number
of state agencies had removed the most dubious tender dates and contract timetables from their websites 7 .
Nevertheless, Navalny also
espouses nationalist sympathies that often come at odds
with his supporters, who are
largely liberals. As a “national
democrat”, as he defines himself, he has attended the Russian March since it began in
2006. He was a co-organiser
of the last march in November
2011 and appeared as a
speaker alongside neo-Nazis
and skinheads, who chanted
slogans like “Russia for Russians” and “enough feeding
the Caucasus” 8 .
In reality Navalny appears to
address two different, apparently antithetical forces of the
opposition movement: the
urban, educated middle class,
and Russians with nationalist
sympathies. Whether he will
succeed in solving this ambiguity and appealing to both
groups in the long run is difficult to predict. Navalny tried to
clarify his position better on
the eve of the November
march, claiming that he hoped
to change the annual Russian
6
http://navalny.ru/, http://www.
komme rsant.ru/factbook/191904?
stamp=634592611516054051.
7
http://rospil.info/about.
8
A. GORBACHEV, Po Moskve
proshlis’ “Russkim Marshem”, in
«Nezavisimaya Gazeta», 5 November 2011.
4
March and the nationalist
movement that drives it, into a
moderate force that could one
day be transformed into a political organisation. Yet as Aleksei Mukhin, head of the Center
for Political Technologies, has
noted, Navalny will have little
luck because the radical nationalists will not fully accept his
moderate stance9 .
The Rise of the
Nationalist Movement
The other massive opposition
event was the Russian March
on 4th November, which gathered 10,000 sympathisers.
What it is worth noting here is
that this event acquired tremendous relevance, more
than ever before, for two main
reasons. Firstly, according to
Levada Center data, on the
eve of the Duma elections a
third of Russians supported
the slogans of radical nationalism: 62% of respondents
questioned between 18-28th
November 2011 definitely or
probably supported the slogan
“Enough feeding the Caucasus!” 10 . Secondly, the nationalist attitude to the upcoming
elections became the major
theme of the March, with the
leaders urging people to vote
for any party other than
United Russia 11 . This meant
9
A. BRATESKY, Russian March
Resists Navalny, in «The Moscow
Times», 7 November 2011.
10
In «Press-vypusk», Rossyane ob
obstanovke na Severnom Kavkaze,
natsionalizme, politike i finansirovanii regiona, lozunge “Khvatit
kormit’ Kavkaz”, 15 December
2011, http://www.levada.ru/15-122011/rossi yane-ob-obstanovke-nasevernom-kav kaze-natsionalizmepolitike-i-finansir ovanii-regio.
11
A. KOZENKO, Russkiy demarsh,
in «Kommersant», 200, 4741, 25
October 2011.
ISPI - Policy Brief
that the movement turned out
to be a real threat for the
presidential
administration,
with the parliamentary elections approaching.
The last two years have seen
the ultra-right movement attempting to gain attention in
the public sphere, in particular
by holding various public
events and protests. The
clashes in Manezh Square in
Moscow on 11th December
2010 and similar more recent
events (e.g. the protest actions following the murder of
former colonel Yuri Budanov
in June 2011) demonstrated
the high topicality of the nationalist issue in Russia and
the leadership’s difficulty in
controlling it. While the level
of racist violence has significantly decreased starting from
2009, dangerous propagators
who regularly spread propaganda and call for violence
remain outside the attention of
the law enforcement agencies, as documented by the
Sova Center 12 . The Kremlin
has appeared ambiguous in
addressing migration-related
issues, and especially in handling the anger voiced against
migrant workers from North
Caucasus and Central Asia,
as the country’s oil-fuelled
economic boom has given
way to the hardship of the
global financial crisis. Putin’s
recent article Russia: the Ethnicity Issue seems to be an
attempt to remedy religious
and ethnic intolerance as a
serious threat to the State and
social cohesion, with refer-
ence to nationalists’ popular
slogans: «When they start
shouting, “Stop feeding the
Caucasus” tomorrow their
rallying cry will be “Stop feeding Siberia, the Far East, the
Urals, the Volga region or the
Moscow area. […] The selfdetermination of the Russian
people consists in a multiethnic civilisation with the Russian culture at its core. The
Russian people have confirmed their choice time and
again – and not through plebiscites or referendums, but
with their blood, during all of
their
thousand-year
history» 13 .
After the December 2011
events. What’s Next?
Following December’s mass
demonstrations, the opposition appears divided with regard to the means to be used
in protest actions. After an
initial period of common
stance in denouncing fraud in
the elections, the systemic
opposition started distancing
itself from the “street opposition”. The leader of the CPRF
Gennadii Zyuganov has recently accused the nonsystemic parties (Parnas and
Yabloko) of using popular
wrath to their advantage. Furthermore, earlier in December
representatives of the CPRF
condemned the European
Parliament resolution against
the Duma election, which
urged Moscow to hold new,
free and fair elections after
registering all opposition par-
12
N. YUDINA - V. ALPEROVICH,
Summer 2011: A New Batch of
Neo-Nazi Convicts and Dreams of
a Second Manezh, http://www.
sova-center.ru/en/
xenophobia/
reports-analyses/2011/11 /d22976/.
13
V. PUTIN, Rossiya: Natsional’nyi
vopros, in «Nezavisimaya Gazeta»,
23 January 2012.
5
ISPI - Policy Brief
ties, as interference in Russian domestic affairs 14 .
Yet within the non-systemic
opposition spectrum there
have been some considerable
efforts to act as a unified
movement, especially in view
of the upcoming presidential
elections. The most visible
example is the establishment
of
a
“Civic
Movement”
(grazhdanskoe dvizhenie) on
January 17th, with the aim, as
stated in the founding document, to protect people’s right
to free expression, civil liberties and social justice. The
new movement brings together politicians, human
rights activists, ordinary citizens and opposition groups,
against election fraud, corruption, and arbitrariness of State
officials. The initiative group
includes both parliamentary
opposition members such as
Just Russia members, and
members
of
the
“nonsystemic” opposition (Parnas,
Left Front and nationalist organisations). The movement
has managed to preserve its
unity with the broad anti-Putin
cause so far, putting aside
any issue which could raise
relevant disagreement 15 . As a
result the February 4th demonstration evidenced protesters from various party and
non-party affiliations – democrats, nationalists and communists – marching side-by-side
to demand democratic reform,
release of the country’s political prisoners and free and fair
elections 16 .
14
N. ZVEREV, Parlamentskaya
oppositsiya otmezhevalas’ ot ulichnoy, in «Nezvisimaya Gazeta», 20
December 2011.
15
http://com10dec.ru/board/2-1-0-8.
16
A. GORBACHEV, Bolotnaya
ploschad’ sobrala vsekx nesoglas-
The “glue” of the December
and February protests that
managed to bond together
diverse expressions of the
Russian opposition was the
election results, which were
marked by a decrease in
votes for the UR party and
fraudulent electoral activity.
Russian voters appeared to
be sorely disappointed with
Putin’s decision to run for a
third term as President, and in
general by his determination to
stay in power for the next
twelve years, considering the
extension of the presidential
term from 4 to 6 years ensured
by a law passed in 2008. So
far, however, the opposition
has not shown the ability or the
will to structure and consolidate a real alternative to
Putin’s rule, due to elements
which are both internal and
external to the movement itself.
First and foremost, institutional constraints represent a
decisive factor. The nonsystemic opposition has been
shut out of the electoral process for a decade as result of
the incumbents’ interventions
in the arena of political competition aimed at curbing dissent and pluralism. The legislative
measures
adopted
since 2001 reveal the intention to achieve simplification
of the party landscape
through mechanisms favouring the disappearance or
marginalisation of the minor
political forces. This is the
direction behind both the strict
regulations envisioned for
registration of new political
parties and the raising of the
electoral threshold from 5 to
7% for access to proportional
nykh s vlasyami, in «Nezavisimaya
Gazeta», 5 February 2012.
distribution of seats in the
lower house. At the same time
Russian leaders have invested a great deal in the
“party in power”. As a result,
over the last decade the party
landscape has emerged as
one strongly tilted in favour of
one political party, namely
UR, which has strongly benefitted from State resources. As
commentators have pointed
out, since 2003 the ruling
party has exercised a monopoly of power to the extent that
all three different party configurations (CPFR, Just Russia, Liberal Democratic Party)
even when taken together,
have failed to provide a significant alternative 17 .
Alongside these structural
conditions, the Russian opposition’s profound divisions and
poor strategy should be
stressed. The economic crisis
in Russia represented a fundamental problem for the
authorities as it threatened the
very legitimacy of a regime
that had been to a significant
extent based on satisfaction
with the perceived economic
achievements of its leadership
over the previous decade.
Research and social surveys
show that attitudes to protest
in Russia have been increasing over recent years, notably
under the harsh conditions of
the economic crisis 18 . But
whether or not this has
brought about greater legitimacy for the opposition forces
17
V. GEL’MAN, Politicheskie partii
v Rossii: ot konkurentsii - k ierarkhii, in «Polis», 5, 2008, pp.13552.
18
V. FEKLYUNINA - S. WHITE,
Discourses of ‘Krizis’: Economic
Crisis in Russia and Regime Legitimacy, in «Journal of Communist
Studies and Transition Politics», 27,
3-4, pp. 385-406.
6
inside and outside Parliament
is another issue. The above
paragraphs have briefly depicted the main forces encompassing what is known as
the Russian opposition universe. In reality these forces
have a weak national presence, and it remains to be
seen whether they will be
capable of sustaining a
movement against the current
leadership in the long run.
Most importantly, they are yet
to come together and decide
to run a single candidate who
could challenge Putin in the
next presidential elections.
According to some estimates 19 ,
the “non-official” opposition is
not credible to the majority of
Russians (58%). In particular,
the level of trust that citizens
give to the representatives of
this opposition is strikingly low:
3% of respondents trust Boris
Nemtsov of Parnas, with the
other
co-chairs
Vladimir
Ryzhkov and Mikhail Kasyanov
scoring 3% and 2% respectively. 2% of respondents trust
the leader of the “United Civil
Front”, Garry Kasparov, while
only 1% trust Aleksey Navalny.
The principal reasons for this
attitude can be found in two
surveys by the Levada Centre, the first conducted on a
nationwide
representative
sample of the urban and rural
population, and the second
solely within the city of Moscow: 49% of respondents
surveyed on a national scale
think that the opposition criticises the authorities without
having a coherent programme
for the country’s development,
19
V. KRAMAEV, Nesistemnoy
oppozitsiy ochertili uzkiy krug.
Nakanune
vybory
ona
ne
pol’zovalas’ doveriem rossiyan, in
«Kommersant», 8 December 2011.
ISPI - Policy Brief
while only 22% of respondents recognise that the opposition does have such a
programme. Although the
numbers of sympathisers with
leaders of the non-systemic
opposition slightly increases
among Muscovites, the main
reasons for not supporting the
opposition’s cause seem to be
the same e.g. their inadequacy in addressing concrete
problems, and their inability to
represent people’s interests
and to provide positive
ideas 20 .
However it should be noted
that this opposition has managed to spread among the
public the idea that UR is a
“party of crooks and thieves”,
which became the main
theme of the electoral campaign. Mr. Udaltsov, arrested
at an unsanctioned protest on
the Election Day on December 4th, has recently invoked
the Occupy Wall Street
movement, calling the protesters “the 99 percent” and
saying that Russia was led by
a corrupt 1% of bureaucrats
and oligarchs. In these times
of widespread dissatisfaction
and distrust of politics in
Western democracies, establishing a parallel between the
Russian opposition and the
Occupy Wall Street movement and in general the Indignados sounds pretty tempting. Nevertheless it is likely to
overshadow
the
peculiar
20
Vybory v Gosdumu, chast 3. Ob
oppositsii I kritike vlasti, 7 December 2011, http://www.levada.ru/0712-2011 /vybory-v-gosdumu-chast3-ob-oppozit
sii-i-kritike-vlasti;
Moskvichi ob oppositsii i aktsii
protesta, 19 December 2011,
http://www.levada.ru/19-12-2011/
mosk
vichi-ob-oppozitsii-iaktsiyakh-protesta-vystupleniyakhv-podderzhku-edinoi-rossii.
character of the Russian protest initiatives: social themes
were overall absent from the
protests,
December
24th
whose demands had mainly
political and civic orientations.
Indeed, the holding of new
elections for the State Duma
and removal of the chair of
the Central Electoral Commission have been the unifying, main claim of the protest
movement so far.
In addition, a significant element of the recent mass demonstration held in Moscow on
February 4th was the attendance of the rival rally
“against the orange revolution” organized by pro-Putin
activists and public personalities (including the leader of
the international “Eurasian
Movement”, Aleksandr Dugin)
with the participation of
138,000 people according to
some estimates. In their
speeches the organizers publicly condemned the antigovernment protests as an
attempt to change the regime
in Russia with the blessing of
the West 21 . Although it is
quite difficult to ascertain the
spontaneity of such mobilization – also considering that
the United Russia party was
its main sponsor – this massive participation at the progovernment rally indicates
that Putin still has the support
of a large part of Russian
citizens. But at the same time
it proves that the incumbents
are seriously concerned about
the “orange threat” and are
seeking to mobilize their supporters ahead of the next
presidential elections.
21 P. MORDASOV, Poklonnaya
antioranzhevaya gora, in «Nezavisimaya Gazeta», 2 June 2012.
7
ISPI - Policy Brief
Final remarks
The protests following the
Duma elections have significant implications for the next
presidential
campaign,
strengthening the idea within
Russian society of unfair elections, as well as casting
doubts on the Duma’s legitimacy. This widespread discontent is expressed to a
large extent by the new urban
middle class of professionals
and entrepreneurs concentrated in the big cities. These
people are increasingly aware
of their rights and expect the
authorities to respect them.
Thus the protests are seen by
the Russian leadership as a
fairly serious challenge to
their power, precisely because they are engaging the
highly skilled part of the population, that same part which
should provide the greatest
support in carrying out the
modernisation plan.
So far the Kremlin’s strategy
has not envisaged any form of
repression or intimidation;
instead the incumbents give
the impression that they are
listening to the protesters by
establishing an inquiry into
reports of electoral fraud and
blaming lower functionaries for
sporadic rigging of the elections. The policy proposals
recently announced by President Medvedev, just as those
reinstating the direct election
of governors and easing registration of political parties,
move in that direction as well.
This proves that interplay
between the State and society
is extremely important in Russia: in this context reliance on
authoritarian methods is insufficient and staying in power
requires responding creatively
to a changing society
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© ISPI 2012
No. 216 - MARCH 2012
Tomislava Penkova
Putin and the new political activism in Russia(*)
The last three months in Russia have been characterised
by a very intense, shifting,
and unpredictable internal
political dynamics. December
protests, following the alleged
frauds that marred State
Duma elections, represented
for the first time in the last
twenty years a manifestation
of popular activism and interest in the political course of
the country. Voters appeared
indeed to be more demanding. They wanted to see
changes either in personnel or
in (the absent) ideology, while
parties elected to parliament
did not meet these expectations. People’s discontent was
mostly genuine, not stimulated from abroad although
the West supported it afterwards. The fact that rallies
have been a domestic product
challenges significantly the
Kremlin’s rule. Changes in
Russia’s domestic politics still
remain an exclusive domain
of
the
political
elite’s
(re)action. Protests did not
possess the necessary force
and scope to provoke them in
a bottom-up manner but they
are a signal that a top-down
change is urgently required.
For this reason, a revolutionary scenario seems unlikely. It
poses much more problems
than solutions and is not convenient for any party (neither
for the population, nor for the
political leadership, nor for the
country and the adjacent region, EU included, given the
ongoing
economic
turbulences).
Moreover, the absence of a
clear-cut reform agenda as
well as of a charismatic and
strong leader capable to unite
the outside-Duma opposition
diminishes significantly the
chances that a revolution
occurs.
Experts’ debates on the future
scenarios of development in
Russia – status quo and stagnation; authoritarian modernisation;
liberal-democratic
reform promotion; or revolutionary-democratic reforms animated further the already
lively political post-electoral
atmosphere. However, besides any predictions and
their questionable realisation
as well as questions about the
underlying reasons (political,
ideological, economic) that led
people to take to the streets,
what is relevant is that their
demands became a sort of
requisites for the next presidency. In fact, demonstrators
Abstract
The unprecedented protests
following Russia’s 2011 parliamentary elections signalled a
declining popular endorsement
of Putin’s regime. In response to
citizens, incumbent Premier and
likely winner of 4 March presidential race published a number
of articles outlining his electoral
platform.
In internal affairs, he shows an
apparently accommodating
stance promising greater people’s participation in politics.
However, this is a difficult task
to accomplish considering the
characteristics of the power
vertical and Putin’s overt disdain
for opposition outside the Duma.
His goal seems to be to render
forms of future discontent more
manageable.
Putin is also trying to restore his
image and authority by recalling
national values and traditions of
which he allegedly becomes a
fierce defender. It is likely that
the next presidency will not be
an easy period but rather a turbulent transitional phase of Russia’s internal political evolution.
Tomislava
Penkova,
Associate
Research Fellow ISPI, Programme
on Russia
and EU
Eastern
Neighbourhood; Assistant Professor
at the Catholic University of Milan.
(*) The opinions expressed herein
are strictly personal and do not
necessarily reflect the position of
ISPI.
2
succeeded in conveying their
message to the federal authorities. In slightly more than
a month (between 16 January
and 27 February 2012), incumbent Premier Vladimir
Putin, the likely winner of the
presidential race 1 , published
seven articles in newspapers
with different political orientation 2 as an expression of his
electoral programme and a
response to the citizens’ demands. This analysis will outline Putin’s vision on how the
next presidency should engage with Russians within the
domestic political domain.
Searching for a dialogue
and greater national unity
December 2011 Duma elections showed that Putin did
not enjoy any longer the levels of support he did in the
previous electoral cycles. It
also pointed out that the tandem
Dmitri
MedvedevVladimir Putin, a rather unique
governing arrangement, had
exhausted its potential to
attract supporters. Previously
the tandem served the pur1
The state-run All-Russian Center
for the Study of Public Opinion
(VTsIOM) predicts presidential
candidate Vladimir Putin will win
the election in the first round of
voting with 58.6% of the vote. The
remaining candidates are headed
by Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov with 14.8% of the
vote, followed by LDPR leader
Vladimir Zhirinovsky with 9.4%,
businessman Mikhail Prokhorov
with 8.7%, and A Just Russia
leader Sergei Mironov trailing the
pack with 7.7%. See http://www.
themoscowtimes.com/news/article/
state-run-poll-has-putin-winning-elec
tion-in-first-round/453373.html.
2
The text of all Putin’s articles
could be found at: http://www.
rg.ru/tema/avtor-Vladimir-Putin/
index.html.
ISPI - Policy Brief
pose not only to allow Putin to
stay in power, but also to
preserve and even broaden
the basis of his electorate
since Medvedev, contrary to
Putin, was perceived as a
liberal politician. The tandem
indeed responded to a “wider
range of mutually complementary constituencies” 3 , but as
Medvedev’s presidency presented some features of continuity with Putin’s ones, its
power to unify people declined. Nevertheless, Putin’s
candidacy is still backed by
the majority of Russians. Yet,
this seems not enough as it
was mainly the so-called middle class, the part of society
on which Putin relies the most
for the implementation of his
policies, to attend the protests. Putin’s somewhat delayed electoral campaign
reflected entirely the issue of
rallies.
As he admitted at the end of
his first article Rossia sosredotachivaetsia – vyzovy, na
kotorye my dolzhny otvetit’
(Russia is concentrating – the
challenges to which we must
respond), the series of articles
he had published on economic, political, security and
foreign policies, should be
viewed as an attempt to
launch a wider discussion with
Russians on his concrete
policy
proposals.
Putin’s
overall tone when referring to
his fellow citizens evokes an
apparent willingness to engage in a sincere dialogue
(rather than an electoral
monologue) among peers on
the country’s progressive
3
F. Shaolei, Vladimir Putin is the
leader who actually leads Russia,
10 November 2011, http://valdai
club.com/politics/34480.html FENG
Shaolei.
future. He often addresses
Russians using ‘We’ and, in
general, verbs in first person
plural. This usage seems twofold. On the one hand, it hints
at himself as the personification of the nation’s voices,
hopes and concerns, as well
as of its achievements and
sacred aspirations because
he is part of that nation.
On the other hand, “We” refers to himself as the core of
Russia’s political leadership,
which has the final say on
national politics. Often these
two images and dimensions –
popular (together with ordinary people and being one of
them) and institutional (he and
President Medvedev,
the
government) – merge and blur
the reader’s perception where
one ends and where the other
starts. Interestingly enough
there is no direct reference to
‘you’, meaning Russia’s opposition; there is no intentional and explicit identification of two contrasting or
clashing camps and their
respected members as the
emphasis is put on the value
of being united.
The search for a dialogue with
people aims at uniting as
many citizens as possible and
convincing those who in December showed distrust and
dissatisfaction with Putin’s
leadership. Perhaps Russia’s
Premier deliberately chose
not to react in a harsh manner
suppressing violently manifestations, but to openly accept
them and build on them his
electoral programme. Nothing
can be more powerful in politics than using people’s demands to legitimise one’s own
rule. A forced suppression of
protests would have only exacerbated disapproval of fed-
3
ISPI - Policy Brief
eral policies and further undermined the image of the
political elite. Putin’s political
centrism needs a durable and
broad support by the electorate to be sustainable in the
long-term. In his previous
presidential terms, “Putin was
not simply able to appeal to a
variety
of
constituencies,
many of which would be exclusive if his ideas were
enunciated more clearly, but
the very nature of Putin’s
centrism acted to reconcile
antagonistic and contradictory
social programmes. He was
thus able to transcend narrow
party politics and affiliation
with either left or right not by
an act of evasion, but by a
distinct type of political praxis
that transcended the classic
political cleavages of the age
of modernity” 4 . Today, when
society appears more fragmented, greater unity is even
more than ever needed.
In the period 2000-2008, Putin
was a transitional leader who
reasserted and strengthened
State prerogatives and structures (following El’tsin’s era of
decentralisation). His power
vertical was an exclusively
State/politics-oriented system.
In addition, the notion of sovereign democracy was a justification for greater selfreliance in international relations and an expression of the
belief that the country should
follow its own evolutionary
path and problems arising
along that process should be
resolved by the country itself.
Although both the power vertical and sovereign democracy did not explicitly reject
democratic principles, in reality democracy was deteriorating because its societal component (namely people’s direct participation in politics)
was missing.
Medvedev’s presidency adhered to the rationale of
power vertical and sovereign
democracy. Thus, today the
entire political system in Russia appears close and hardly
accessible for non-Kremlin’s
people, leaving little or no
space for the development of
a new political elite. It lacks a
regular dialogue with people
and ignores their perceptions,
mood, and societal trends.
This characteristic has prevented the Kremlin’s leadership from timely identifying
popular
needs/expectations
so that at the end manifestations were almost inevitable.
December
protesters demanded primarily that the
Kremlin listens to their voice
and that both political and
social dimensions in domestic
politics are combined for a
viable and consensus-driven
legitimate governance.
Legitimacy has several nuanced meanings. It refers to
Russian people’s trust in political authorities and the conviction that what they pursue
is good for the nation and it is
carried out in accordance with
its laws 5 . If people trust their
politicians’ deeds, elections
will be supposedly fair. On the
contrary, what we are witnessing now is a lack of trust
by some segments of the
Russian
society
vis-à-vis
Putin’s governance. If he ensured honest and transparent
4
Richard Sakwa, Putin’s leadership: character and consequences,
in Europe-Asia Studies, 60, 6,
2008, pp. 881-882.
5
The reversed question – Does the
ruling elite trust people’s choices and
demands? – is equally important.
elections, this would significantly improve confidence in
his candidacy and would
prove his sincere willingness
to introduce changes to the
electoral system. Legitimacy
also refers to delivering concrete results on specific policies, not only electoral slogans. In the past Putin has
indeed identified challenges to
Russia’s future and advanced
workable
solutions
(also
thanks to the favourable economic conditions). This positive experience has been now
frequently exploited in his
articles as a basis for national
unity and evidence of his
genuine motivation to contribute one more time to national
progress. Finally, besides the
domestic dimension, legitimacy has also external implications. A legitimate president
enjoys stronger respect in
international relations.
The image of a person that is
supported by his population
averts foreign pressure or
interference in internal affairs.
This is indeed a sensitive
issue for Russia after years of
hardly reached rapprochement with the West and its
institutions. Moreover, given
the unstable political and economic situation around Russia
its leadership should ensure
domestic stability in order to
allow the country to maintain
its power on regional and
international arena. Hence,
legitimacy implies stability.
Is change of the political
system possible?
The need to coalesce both
political and social dimensions
in the political system entails
a modification the system’s
rationale itself. Putin’s article
Demokratia i kachestvo gos-
4
sudarstva (Democracy and
the quality of the state) 6 displays his positive attitude on a
broader involvement of Russian citizens in the state’s
government. Most importantly,
he acknowledges this fact, he
shows that he listens to people, to their aspirations and
needs, and he respects them.
In a rhetorically elegant style,
he points out that the new,
changed people’s demands
towards the political elite and
the accomplishments of the
middle class (beyond their
individual wellbeing) are indeed a result of the authorities’ hard work in the last decade. «Today the quality of our
State lags behind the society’s readiness to take part in
it. Our civil society became
much more mature, active
and responsible. We have to
update the mechanisms of our
democracy. They should involve increased social activeness». Putin even defines
what a democracy is. It is the
«fundamental right of people
to choose their political leadership but also the possibility
(not right – author’s emphasis) to influence continuously
the political leadership and
the decision-making process.
This entails that democracy
should envisage mechanisms
for constant and direct people’s intervention and control
over authorities as well as
effective channels for reciprocal communication». Further
on, the text clarifies that there
is a «passive right, i.e. the
possibility that a citizen reacts
to ideas and projects advanced by political authorities
or by the legislative power»
and there should be also an
6
See http://www.rg.ru/2012/02/06/
demokratia.html.
ISPI - Policy Brief
active right, consisting in the
«possibility for citizens to
shape the legislative agenda,
advance their own projects
and formulate priorities».
The article contains a number
of concrete examples on
these changes. In the last
months of his presidency,
Medvedev advanced a liberal
package of political reform
proposals to the State Duma
dealing with easing the registration procedures of political
parties and elections, return to
direct elections of governors,
and abolition of the need to
gather signatures for parties
that have federal candidates
lists. Putin also foresees discussion within society of all
bills, decisions, and programmes adopted at any
federal level, an assessment
of current laws and the effectiveness of their implementation; as well as reinforcement
of the functioning of selfregulatory
organisations
within civil society. He proposes to introduce a compulsory examination by the parliament of those citizens’ initiatives that are supported by
not less than 100,000 signatures collected on internet.
Hence Internet becomes a
means for dialogue with the
citizenry at all levels (federal,
regional, municipal) and ideally an evidence of the transparency and public accessibility of Putin’s future governance (he speaks of internetdemocracy and electronic
government which will disclose to people all necessary
information about governmental and municipal authorities’
activities). He also advances
proposals to strengthen the
power and responsibilities at
regional and municipal levels.
In the economic field, Putin
proposes to reduce significantly the share of the State
in certain economic sectors by
2016 7 . It is worth noting that it
is the economic factor that in
Putin’s view determines Russia’s leading role in the world.
The country should have a
diversified economy with a
competitive modern technologies-based industry and infrastructure, should be able to
attract highly qualified human
resources (while reducing
dependence on import of
western technologies), and
possess developed service
sector and efficient agriculture. Only such an economy
can guarantee to Russia its
stability, sovereignty, and
wellbeing. Similarly to domestic politics, economic advancement should benefit
from the initiative of private
Russian economic actors and
bestow on them greater participation in national affairs.
While all these proposals are
positive, the unsolved question remains whether they will
be able to introduce a real
breakthrough and change in
the current power vertical
system. How can that system
by reformed without provoking
a collapse of the State structures or even major disorders? In late December 2011,
Putin acknowledged that the
Russian political system was
imperfect and that he was
preparing to improve it. However, he stated that reforms
would be evolutionary and
gradual, which hints at confirming elements of continuity
7
Vladimir Putin, Nam nuzhna
novaya ekonomika (We need a
new economy), in Vedomosti, 30
January 2012, http://www.rg.ru/
2012/01/30/putin-ekonomika.html.
5
ISPI - Policy Brief
with the current system. The
latter became rather rigid so
any major alterations risk
resonating in all its constituting parts and hence destabilising it. This could be explained with the fact that «as
Putin centralised power he
imported into the Kremlin the
conflicts that in a more pluralistic system are played out in
society» 8 . Those conflicts
emerged in December. The
contradictions and ambiguities
of the system have fostered
people’s discontent. Nowhere
Putin speaks of changing the
system itself; instead, he uses
terms such as upgrade, finetune, but never change. Both
concepts – power vertical and
sovereign democracy – seem
to maintain applicability although minor adjustments
may be introduced for two
main reasons: to preserve the
political system and its functioning (see below party system) and to achieve greater
control/access to people’s
needs so as to be able to
react accordingly and timely
and avoid future even wider
manifestations of dissent.
Overall, such corrections will
not resonate on the rationale
behind the current system;
they will simply make control
over it more manageable.
Putin has stated this explicitly.
For example, while dealing
with Russian federalism and
the proposal to return to direct
popular election of governors,
Putin stressed that the President will nevertheless preserve all instruments of control over governors, including
the possibility to dismiss
them. This stance suggests
8
R. Sakwa, Putin’s leadership:
character and consequences, cit.,
p. 883.
that the Centre, namely the
Kremlin, will continue to carry
out the ultimate (financial and
personnel) governability of the
country. «The country needs
a strong, efficient, based on
[people’s] respect federal
Centre that is a key political
stabiliser of the balance of
inter-regional, ethnic and religious relations», reads the
final paragraph of the section
on Russian federalism of the
article Demokratia i kachestvo
gossudarstva. Radically modifying the system in a such
turbulent moment in current
international affairs would
expose Russia to dangerous
external influences (Putin
knows that he cannot operate
in a vacuum). The country has
just stabilised its foreign policy
(relations with the US and the
European Union have been
reset and foreign policy
seems a tool for domestic
advancement – see Russia’s
modernisation
partnership
with the EU) and Putin has
succeeded in persuading the
West to abandon its previous
“lecturing to its younger partner” attitude. Therefore, allowing possible external interferences would be both risky and
harmful. In other words, the
main challenge to Putin, as
Russia’s likely next President,
is to synthesise in a harmonised way the foundations of
the political system with people’s demands.
This suggests another transitional period (to some extent
Medvedev’s identification as a
liberal leader stimulated this
trend which now has to find a
modus vivendi within Russia’s
internal affairs 9 ) and not a
9
Interestingly enough, liberal personalities were allowed to enter the
government system, but liberalism
consolidation
one
which
would have occurred had
manifestations
not
taken
place.
The missing link – Russia’s
party system unchanged
The party system is an intrinsic element of the rationale of
the political system. The past
dominance of the party of
power – United Russia (UR) –
in the State Duma was the
backbone of Putin’s regime
architecture ensuring that no
political threats arise to that
regime. After December 2011
elections UR still formally
controls the party system and
the legislative process (opposition parties sitting in the
parliament are often considered as a kind of fictitious
opposition). Nevertheless, it
cannot control the outside of
parliament opposition. That
part of society responds to
different logic and values. In
2011, Putin created the socalled Russian Popular Front,
which
transcended
the
framework of UR and was
aimed to unite people with
different backgrounds and
political orientations, but it did
not receive the desired response.
That negative result was the
first signal of Putin’s declining
ability to unite Russia’s population as he did in the past. It
seems then that citizens’ dissent could be moderated by
appealing to the implementation of shared values – an
element that is present in all
Putin’s articles (see below)
and which plays the role of a
connection between the socias such could not become the
founding ideology of Russia’s
political system.
6
ety and the Kremlin. The systemic rigidity and ideological
amorphousness of UR certainly cannot perform that task
(even if it undergoes a rebranding process, as some
suggested in the beginning of
February). It should be noticed
that Putin’s ambiguous relation
to UR (overt support coupled
with a lack of formal membership in it) facilitates his actions
and confers to him greater
room for maneuver in relation
to the “management” of values.
Putin’s articles intentionally
avoid mentioning the opposition, especially not registered
one. This is not a sign of political comprehensiveness and
it is at odds with his claims to
reach all societal parties. To
some extent the lack of a
clear and appealing alternative to Putin does not put
much pressure on him to
change the party system.
However, this situation is risky
because it allows dissenters
to gradually mature their political platform in the next
years and to challenge the
political regime more strongly
from outside where Putin is
currently weak.
The power of values
Shared values (Russian language, culture, religion, and
so on) create integration and
render diverse segments of
Russia’s society more homogenous and easy to be
addressed in politics. Reiteration of common Russian values is an incontestable basis
on which to build what Putin
calls a «new state consciousness» – a state guaranteeing
better living and working conditions. While the exact content of the notion remains
ISPI - Policy Brief
obscure to the reader, what is
important is an attempt to
draw the attention on a mix of
values and national interests
that, according to the Kremlin,
may help solving the current
impasse on trust building.
The constant reference to
Russian intellectuals, historical personalities and cultural
roots in general is particularly
striking. Putin’s words are
presented as an expression of
his profound sense of Russianness and as an evidence
that his strategies will act
within that cultural and political framework. It is also worth
noting that the West is approached in a positive way
(exception is made in the
security field where NATO/US
regional and international initiatives continue spurring frictions). The West is depicted as
a source for best practices in
political and economic domains; it is emphasised that
Russia belongs to the European civilization and that Russia should converge and harmonise its legislation and governance practices with international norms and criteria.
The overall feeling when reading the articles is the importance of securing a better
future for Russia and Russians. This paramount goal
(heightening the electoral
rhetoric) permeates all of
them along with the idea that
it is Putin, who initiates the
wider debate on national priorities and long-term choices
regarding the country’s development. This is indeed the
quest for legitimacy of his
presidential bid based on
values such as stability (both
political and economic), societal solidarity, Russia’s greatness and State-centrism.
While stability for survival in
conditions of economic and
political adversity was the
main theme of Putin’s previous presidencies, now stability returns to be an ordering
principle with its primary reference to predictable, peaceful and resilient to challenges
development of domestic
affairs. The use of adequate
resources (in its broadest
meaning) will strengthen the
country’s role and will guarantee progressive advancement.
In Putin’s first article (Rossia
sosredotachivaetsia – vyzovy,
na kotorye my dolzhny otvetit’) stable development (i.e.
readiness to face and to respond to challenges, to participate in shaping the world
processes) is opposed to
stagnation (i.e. passive acceptance and/or assistance to
global processes). As such,
stability allows a gradual evolutionary development of society and economy as well as
the success of long-term policies. Stability is also opposed
to Russia’s cyclical revolutionary drives. The latter interrupt the gradual evolutionary
course. The reference to revolutions or unexpected ruptures
with a certain political line
hints at the protests and the
possibility that a radical
change may put at risk what
the Kremlin sees as a longterm prosperity. Revolutions
in Putin’s opinion may lead to
short-term gains, but sooner
or later they will reveal their
shortsightedness. Such a
statement carries a clear rhetorical content but it also tries
to establish a new value (stability) against Russia’s path
dependency on recurring
revolutionary drives. Thus,
although acting within the
framework of Russia’s history,
7
ISPI - Policy Brief
Putin attempts to break it and
adjust it to modern circumstances.
Putin also depicts solidarity,
respect for others and the
State as such (national interests), unity of citizens, interpersonal trust as another
traditional Russian value and
calls for its restoration in everyday activities. Referring to
national traditions, patriotism
and components of culture is
a powerful psychological tool
to unite people in a moment of
uncertainty for the current
political leadership but it is a
difficult aim to achieve in a
society where atomization
processes have already begun to undermine the sense
of collectiveness.
Finally, in his first article Putin
devotes a considerable attention to Russia’s greatness
(and national pride). It reads
that Russia is called to play its
due role based on its «civilisational model, great history,
geography and cultural gene
combining fundamental foundations of the European civilization with a centuries-old
experience of interaction with
the East, where now new
centres of economic and political power arise». Such an
approach has concrete repercussions on Russia’s foreign
policy and notably Putin’s
proposal for a Eurasian economic union. According to
Putin, the country’s civilisation
and intrinsic features render it
the natural core of this project.
Russia’s uniqueness is linked
also to its sovereignty and
guarantees for its preservation. In the second article
titled Rossia: nachional’nyi
vopros (Russia – the issue of
nationalism), Putin stresses
the basic difference between
Russia and other countries:
Russia is neither an ethnic
state nor a melting pot like the
US, it is has its own, unique
model – it is a «multinational
historical state» and a «multiethnic civilization». It is a state
built on a long-standing process of mutual adaptation,
penetration and union of peoples at all levels of social life.
It represents a «unity in diversity», as Putin puts it, where
there is a respect for reciprocal obligations but also for
shared values of coexistence.
This notion recalls the European Union motto «united in
diversity»
and
somewhat
evokes Russia’s European
roots. Despite commonalities
with Europe and thus a natural predisposition to rapprochement to the latter,
Putin’s Russia retains its distinctiveness; it cannot be
merged into other bigger political or cultural “projects”
because it constitutes itself
such a “project”. As a result,
Putin
continues,
Russian
people have the great mission
to strengthen their civilisation
and to safeguard Russia’s
cultural nucleus. Russia’s
state-centric tradition serves
this purpose because it is
through the State and its institutions that national societal
outlook and mentality are
shaped and passed on generations.
Conclusions
It is very likely that Putin will
win March presidential elections although the fight will be
serious. The question is how
he will trump his rivals as well
as what and how of his electoral programme will be implemented. At present, it is
evident that he is trying to
reach as many voters as possible emphasising common
values and identity as factors
of national union, while relying
less on ideologies or private
interests. Unlike in the past,
his future political agenda
needs to take into greater
account Russian citizens’
demands. Much in this process of interplay will depend on
the protesters’ potential to
formulate a concrete alternative to Putin’s political agenda
for change. So far, the latter is
missing. Alone they are unable to reverse the current
political system, they are not
the conclusion of a process,
but the beginning. Their value
is the signal that the system
should be opened if it is to be
rendered stronger and resilient to political and economic
provocations. Judging by
Putin’s electoral programme,
he appears willing to launch a
dialogue with Russian citizens, meanwhile he also preserves some rigid traits of the
system as a whole. Thus, he
stresses the need to upgrade
it but confirms a general continuity with the past success
stories of his and Medvedev’s
presidencies. He emphasises
national uniqueness and Russian
values/features
that
should be protected, while
promoting convergence towards Western standards on
a selective basis and in accordance with the country’s
values.
These examples indicate the
persistence of ambiguities in
today’s Russian domestic
domain and they indicate that
the next presidency will be
another transitional (instead of
consolidation) phase of political development. In other
words, the next years will
define the orientation of popu-
8
lar discontent – a confirmation
of the need to have a national
leader (with his power structures) or to be led by reform
agendas (lesser emphasis on
personalities). This is dilemma
that Russia’s middle class
should solve while interacting
with the power-centre in order
to determine the country’s
political future.
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7 marzo 2012
Russia: senza alternative. Sviluppo o declino
Aldo Ferrari(*)
Nonostante la netta vittoria di Putin, non vi è dubbio che si stia chiudendo la lunga fase politica
iniziata nel marzo del 2000, quando egli ottenne il suo primo mandato. Una fase che può essere
definita di “generale consenso”, determinata soprattutto dal sostanziale miglioramento della situazione economica interna (dovuta peraltro essenzialmente all’alto prezzo di petrolio e gas) e dalla
diffusa percezione di un rafforzamento della posizione internazionale del paese. Le numerose ombre di questa fase – involuzione autoritaria, corruzione devastante, insufficiente diversificazione
dell’economia, inarrestabile declino demografico, mancata soluzione della conflittualità nel Caucaso settentrionale, crisi economica del 2008-2009 – non avevano scalfito la vasta popolarità di Putin
e la stabilità del sistema politico-economico di cui egli è stato rappresentante e garante anche dopo aver ceduto a Medvedev la carica nel 2008. In un certo senso, nonostante le sue pesanti ricadute politiche ed economiche, la “vittoria” nella guerra con la Georgia nell’agosto di quell’anno ha
segnato l’apogeo di tale consenso. Una situazione sostanzialmente mantenutasi, pur se con alcuni
segnali d’allarme, anche nei tre anni successivi. In questi ultimi mesi, però, l’insuccesso del partito
presidenziale alle elezioni dello scorso dicembre e la comparsa di un’opposizione consistente e
decisa hanno profondamente mutato la situazione politica del paese, anche se non è chiaro sino a
che punto sia reale la prospettiva che per la Russia possano aprirsi scenari simili a quelli, peraltro
molto deludenti, delle “rivoluzioni colorate” (Georgia e Ucraina) di alcuni anni fa o addirittura delle
“primavere arabe”.
Comunque la si voglia valutare, un’eventualità di questo genere determinerebbe una situazione
quanto mai rischiosa. Nonostante i numerosi problemi interni, la Russia continua, infatti, a essere
un attore politico e militare (dal seggio al Consiglio di Sicurezza dell’Onu all’ancora imponente arsenale nucleare) di primaria importanza soprattutto nello spazio eurasiatico, capace inoltre di influire notevolmente sulla scena internazionale attraverso un uso spregiudicato delle sue enormi risorse naturali. Uno sviluppo negativo della situazione politica russa avrebbe quindi ricadute quanto
mai preoccupanti su scala globale. Per scongiurare un’evoluzione di questo tipo, il nuovo (o vecchio presidente) dovrà quindi affrontare una sfida di enorme importanza storica per la Russia. Non
è in gioco, infatti, solo il potere personale di Putin e del suo entourage, ma la capacità di innescare
quel processo di reale modernizzazione – politica oltre che economica – del quale il paese ha assolutamente bisogno. In effetti, tra gli attori principali della scena internazionale, la Russia è con
ogni probabilità quello il cui futuro appare più incerto, in bilico tra due scenari fortemente contrastanti: da un lato una prospettiva di crescita che potrebbe portarla definitivamente ai vertici della
scena politica ed economica internazionale, dall’altro una parabola di declino e di sostanziale marginalizzazione. Il futuro del paese si gioca in gran parte sul successo del progetto di rinnovamento
che la dirigenza russa riuscirà a realizzare nei prossimi anni. Per mantenere il passo con competitori sempre più dinamici (a partire dalla Cina), la Russia dovrebbe superare in maniera definitiva il
lascito negativo del periodo sovietico. Questo richiederebbe però alla sua leadership, che di tale
lascito risente ancora fortemente, di spostare con decisione la priorità dal “controllo” allo “sviluppo”
del paese, liberando energie – politiche, economiche e culturali – sinora soffocate o comunque non
Le opinioni espresse sono strettamente personali e non riflettono necessariamente le posizioni dell’ISPI
(*)Aldo Ferrari, responsabile dei Programmi Russia e Caucaso-Asia Centrale dell’ISPI e docente all’Università Ca’ Foscari.
2
valorizzate. È questo che domandano la parte più consapevole
dell’opposizione e i membri della stessa élite politico-economica del
paese. Nonostante tutti i dubbi che legittimamente si possono nutrire sull’effettiva capacità, e volontà, di Putin di procedere in questa
direzione, è tuttavia interesse comune della Russia e della comunità
internazionale che tale processo abbia effettivamente luogo, peraltro senza rotture traumatiche, coniugando il più possibile rinnovamento e stabilità.
ISPI - Commentary
La ricerca ISPI analizza
le dinamiche politiche,
strategiche ed economiche
del sistema internazionale
con il duplice obiettivo di
informare e di orientare
le scelte di policy.
I risultati della ricerca
vengono divulgati
attraverso pubblicazioni
ed eventi, focalizzati su
tematiche di particolare
interesse per l’Italia e le sue
relazioni internazionali.
Le pubblicazioni online
dell’ISPI sono realizzate
anche grazie al sostegno
della Fondazione Cariplo.
ISPI
Palazzo Clerici
Via Clerici, 5
I - 20121 Milano
www.ispionline.it
© ISPI 2012
7 marzo 2012
Un paese bloccato. Eppur si muove
Alessandro Vitale(*)
La Russia uscita dalle elezioni presidenziali ha visto la rilegittimazione del leader e la riconferma
del suo carisma, per quanto affievolito, in larghi strati, maggioritari, di popolazione. Il successo
questa volta è stato facilitato, più che dai probabili brogli, dal possesso di ingenti strumenti propagandistici – finanziati con i proventi dell’esportazione di idrocarburi – e di controllo sociale, sui quali
non potevano contare le frastagliate e disorganizzate forze di opposizione. Il Paese sembra ora
avviarsi sulla via della continuità e della stabilità: due condizioni largamente propagandate nella
campagna elettorale. Ma su quali basi quelle due direttrici potranno svilupparsi?
La vittoria elettorale di Putin, già titolare della carica presidenziale, ha stabilizzato quest’ultima, ma
reiterandola ha anche posto le premesse per ulteriori freni al rinnovamento interno, sempre più
impellente in un Paese bloccato dal suo obsoleto sistema politico, pieno erede di quello, settantennale, formalmente abbattuto dalla debole “Primavera della Russia” del 1991-1993, agilmente
“recuperata” da un apparato politico e amministrativo che aveva sviluppato nei decenni un’estesa
capacità di dominio interno. Nel contesto attuale sarà ancor più facile consolidare la rete di potere
di una classe politica erede del sistema sovietico, il suo controllo sui gangli vitali della Russia, il
suo patrimonialismo, il suo senso di onnipotenza, paralizzando gli incentivi a introdurre le parziali
riforme prospettate e con ogni evidenza ormai necessarie. È estremamente difficile che da continuità e stabilità di questo tipo, di lunga durata, scaturisca quell’autoriforma interna chiesta da larghi
strati di popolazione, dai giovani che non hanno conosciuto il sistema sovietico e dagli ancora esigui imprenditori che cercano a fatica di operare al di fuori dei monopoli statali.
Queste stabilità e continuità incentivano l’aumento della centralizzazione del potere (nei confronti
della quale sono ormai insofferenti, nelle regioni periferiche, anche coloro che pur supportano il
rieletto Presidente), che incrementa inevitabilmente il già elevato livello di corruzione, di persecuzione fiscale degli operatori economici indipendenti, di costosa burocratizzazione, di parassitismo
politico-burocratico, di sfruttamento dell’export di gas e petrolio a vantaggio di una ristretta cerchia
di persone, che getta solo le briciole a una popolazione che incomincia a sentire gli effetti della
crisi del 2009. Queste stabilità e continuità incentivano la prosecuzione di una lunga fase di restaurazione politica, iniziata già nel 1993, in pieno periodo eltsiniano e non con l’ascesa di Putin al
potere, nel 1999, come spesso viene sostenuto. Al di là dell’impressione di stabilità e sicurezza
confortante che il leader riesce ancora a dare a buona parte della popolazione, rimane la realtà di
un sistema politico che blocca l’evoluzione civile ed economica della Russia, in cui nemmeno il
livello di criminalità e di sicurezza interna corrisponde alle statistiche ufficiali e alla diffusa percezione e in cui sanità, istruzione, servizi pubblici continuano ad assomigliare a quelli di un Paese
rimasto in fase post-bellica.
È tuttavia probabile che il fosco quadro attuale, tipico delle fasi di lunga restaurazione, finisca per
scontrarsi con forti pressioni presenti in correnti sotterranee e di direzione contraria, che fanno
ribollire la Russia anche quando appare normalizzata e stabilizzata. Si tratta delle forze dell’innovazione, delle istanze maturate sull’onda lunga dell’esplosione e della diversificazione dei
Le opinioni espresse sono strettamente personali e non riflettono necessariamente le posizioni dell’ISPI.
(*)Alessandro Vitale, Dipartimento di Studi Internazionali, Università degli Studi di Milano.
2
ISPI - Commentary
bisogni, delle reti, della rivoluzione industriale in atto, basata sull’informatica e la comunicazione
diffusa, che già avevano contribuito a rendere obsoleto il sistema sovietico e che non sono più
facilmente controllabili con strumenti politici invecchiati e inefficaci. In questo contesto, un sistema
autarchico e rigidamente controllato sulla base delle banali formule politiche elaborate
dall’entourage presidenziale (“democrazia sovrana”, “verticale del
potere”, ecc.) finirà per scontrarsi con istanze di liberazione e di La ricerca ISPI analizza
riattivazione della vita civile e dell’economia, ben al di là della super- le dinamiche politiche,
ficiale richiesta di democrazia – auspicata in particolare in Occiden- strategiche ed economiche
te – forma di governo che può anche sussistere alla presenza di del sistema internazionale
con il duplice obiettivo di
centralizzazione, dirigismo, mancanza di libertà politica.
La società russa sta cambiando a ritmi ben diversi rispetto a quanto
non si renda conto il potere politico, negli ultimi quindici anni sordo
di fronte a queste istanze. Essa sta cercando di ritrovare, fra l’altro,
forme di riorganizzazione dal basso che sono già esistite in Russia
– contrariamente ai luoghi comuni ripetuti in Occidente anche in
questi giorni – in forme molto più marcate di quanto non si pensi,
nel periodo pre-1917 1. La Russia sta ancora facendo i conti con
l’eredità sovietica, che ha atomizzato ed egualificato gli individui di
fronte al sovrano collettivo (il partito), devastando la cooperazione
sociale e lasciandoli soli di fronte al suo totem. Quando quest’ultimo
è crollato, è subentrato il vuoto, di valori e di autostima. Tuttavia,
allorché il processo di lenta e faticosa ricostituzione del tessuto sociale si sarà concluso, forme e concezioni primitive di organizzazione del potere e di gestione della cosa pubblica, come quelle ancora
vigenti in Russia, dovranno fare i conti non solo con nuovi e crescenti bisogni e aspettative, ma anche con tradizioni che non possono essere ridotte a stereotipi semplicistici quali l’“orientalismo” o
la mentalità autocratica 2. La durata del processo dipenderà anche
dall’ostinazione o meno dell’Occidente a mantenere antistoriche
chiusure di fronte alla Russia, ormai ingiustificate e pretestuose, a
vent’anni dalla fine del confronto bipolare freddo.
1
informare e di orientare
le scelte di policy.
I risultati della ricerca
vengono divulgati
attraverso pubblicazioni
ed eventi, focalizzati su
tematiche di particolare
interesse per l’Italia e le sue
relazioni internazionali.
Le pubblicazioni online
dell’ISPI sono realizzate
anche grazie al sostegno
della Fondazione Cariplo.
ISPI
Palazzo Clerici
Via Clerici, 5
I - 20121 Milano
www.ispionline.it
© ISPI 2012
Numerose ricerche storiche hanno confermato nel decennio scorso l’esistenza in Russia, nel periodo pre-rivoluzionario,
di forme diffuse di solidi legami sociali e solidaristici non-statali, che funzionavano da contrappeso al monopolio statale in
molti settori. Per una rassegna, si veda B. EVANS Jr. - L.A. HENRY - L. MCINTOSH SUNDSTROM (Eds.), Russian Civil
Society, A Critical Assessment, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, New York – London, 2006.
2
A questo proposito sono di grande interesse i recenti libri di Vladmir Medinskij, che contestano i miti più diffusi sulla
Russia. Si veda ad esempio il suo O tjage russkich k “sil’noj ruke” i nesposobnosti k demokratii (Sull’attrazione dei russi
per la “mano forte” e l’incapacità di democrazia), Olma, Mosca, 2010.