Politician Rogov. How Oil Profits Are Killing Russian Democracy

https://www.site/2017-10-24/politolog_kirill_rogov_kak_rossiya_mozhet_ryvkom_dognat_ostalnoy_mir

"People sitting upstairs are tough, unkind - but not idiots"

Political scientist Kirill Rogov: how Russia can quickly catch up with the rest of the world

It is not enough to write and adopt a good economic program. Change must begin with a request from the population and elitesKremlin.Ru

“In 1991, we were seized with a certain idealistic euphoria. My friend, philologist, culturologist Andrey Zorin called this "a historically progressive delusion". It seemed to us that communism was over, and now, of course, there would be democracy. Because communism is a dictatorship that interfered with democracy, and since the communist regime has fallen, we will move from one “room” to another. Of course, it must somehow be framed, that is, some laws must be adopted, but in principle there is no other way. Now we know that most countries in the world are neither communist dictatorships nor democracies, but are located between these poles, making movements here and there and hanging out in this space for quite a long time. Why didn't we get into that "room"? Why was euphoria and enthusiasm replaced by pessimism? Since we were supposed to be in democracy, but we didn’t, it means that someone betrayed us, deceived us, someone was wrong, guilty? Yeltsin, Gaidar, Chubais? - this is how the well-known political scientist Kirill Rogov began his lecture at the Yeltsin Center. According to Kirill Yurievich, historical roots today's "public-private oligarchy" - much deeper.

How the Stalinist model of modernization destroyed the USSR

— Here it is important to look at the years lived in the communist regime. What was this mode? Those who came to power in October 1917 were Marxists, but the regime they began to build after seizing power had nothing to do with Marxism. Marxism understood socialism as the next stage after mature capitalism and the transition to a new stage. Russia lagged behind Western Europe for about half a century, industrialization did not take place in it, and Marxism did not assume that it was possible to build communism in such a backward country. But in the late 1920s, Stalin adopted a plan to build socialism in a single country, began to justify that this was possible, and - in a sense, spontaneously - a completely new economic model arose.

Such a model is typical for countries that are in a “trap of backwardness”: due to a lack of resources and investments, they cannot overcome the imbalance between sectors, primarily agricultural and industrial, cannot move the industrial sector forward and move on to growth. The Stalinist model was a model of non-market industrialization, when the state seizes all the resources in the country and begins to solve the market problem that cannot be solved by the market method, under the conditions of a dictatorship, a harsh repressive regime: it redistributes funds from the agricultural sector to the industrial sector, underpays workers and increases the share of investments - and thus makes a big leap. Considering the number of peasant uprisings in the early 1930s and how they were suppressed, this was in fact another civil war in which Stalin subjugated the countryside, stateized it, seized the resources of the agrarian sector and forcibly redistributed them to the industrial sector.

MMK website

It should be noted that the Stalinist modernization was quite effective: it gave a quick result, which made it possible to jump out of the “trap of backwardness” and start building industry. In the 1930s, the Soviet economy developed quite rapidly, and by the end of the 50s - the beginning of the 60s, a large urban population had developed, we achieved technological parity with the United States: we were the first to launch satellites, the first to fly into space. And in the military sphere, too, they became the second superpower. Then the virgin lands turned up, in the 60s they began to develop West Siberian oil and gas, and this gave a strong impetus to the economy, and in the 70s oil prices rose, and this made it possible to extend the life of the system. The system existed at the very least for about 70 years, moreover, it "infected" half the world. Yes, Eastern Europe was under Soviet occupation, but the socialist regimes in the Balkans arose without much intervention from Stalin, most of Asia fell ill with this “disease”: China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos. Now it seems to some that the collapse of the communist regime was almost accidental - if not for the fall in oil prices, if not for Gorbachev ...

However, the fact is that in the 1970s and 1980s, another model of overcoming the backwardness trap began to take shape in Asia, the model of export-oriented modernization: with the help of cheap labor, you produce goods for the markets of rich countries for very little money, people come to you investments - you produce and sell even more goods, and there is a rapid industrialization. That is, if the Stalinist model was based on artificial, state-managed redistribution between sectors within the country, then this one is based on redistribution between countries. It turned out to be more efficient and profitable. The Soviet system is in crisis: by this time, unlike the Stalin era, the USSR is already too integrated into world trade, we already have large export earnings and large imports, while prices are flexible in the foreign market, and rigid in the USSR, and this leads to an inevitable crisis and collapse.

Mikhail Kovalevsky/Facebook Kirill Rogov

One of the problematic legacies of non-market industrialization is the location of resources. Resources were distributed across the country in accordance not with market incentives, but with centralized tasks. In the 1990s, it was discovered that in certain industries there were only two or three, or even one largest enterprise, which produces the lion's share of the products. And try to arrange a market here, if there is a ready-made, established monopoly that cannot be destroyed: we will not cut a huge plant in half. It turned out that entire cities, districts, regions are tied to these enterprises, and when such an enterprise runs out of resources, no one receives a salary, and the labor force has nowhere to go. IN market economy it flows into other sectors, and if your tank plant stops working and provides half of the region with jobs and money, then everyone has no money. And you won’t flow anywhere, into any market sector, because the market sector develops when people bring money there, but they don’t have money, they don’t get paid.

How Stalin's legacy brought a "gang" of oligarchs to power

— Non-market industrialization is a fundamental event in Russian history. In general, the way industrialization proceeds, crucial moment in the history of any state. In Western Europe, the formation of both the model of industrial growth and the social model of society is connected with industrialization: there industrialization took place primarily at the expense of private capital, the main agents were private firms. Behind private firms, corporations, private banks are drawn, behind them - a whole system social institutions, political parties. A proto-democracy is emerging that is not at all like the modern one: quite corrupt, dirty, but since private firms need access to markets and competition, the social system also adapts to economic agents.

Accordingly, in Russia all this is not. In the Stalinist model, the only agent of modernization was the state, which, on the contrary, suppressed all other agents in order to carry out industrialization with an "iron fist". And at the moment when the communist system falls, we have nothing of the Western European socio-political infrastructure. In our country, the state has corporatized everything, crushed all structures under itself - there is no tradition of private corporations and political parties, that is, associations of citizens.

We pass laws, rules, create institutions, but there are no agents who should use them, are interested in them and support them. These agents have not yet grown up in our country, we are furnishing a “room”, and there is no one to live in it. We introduce elections, but there are no established parties, no social trust skill that supports them so much that they can continue to exist in an impersonal way, that is, not associated with specific individuals that make them influential, beyond the life of these individuals, without them. We have not only parties - ministries or regions are strong when they are headed by "strong leaders" who, using their connections, build a self-contained system of personal relationships that give the ministry or region certain advantages over others. These are patrimonial, or patronal, relations: the whole society consists of a system of patrons with their clienteles, everything is built into patronal pyramids and rests on interpersonal relationships.

Viktor Chernov/Russian Look

For example, one of the great achievements of Russia in the 1990-2000s was the creation in Moscow of a new, big and good university, the best in the country now - the Higher School of Economics. Yaroslav Kuzminov and his associates created it with great difficulty. But at the same time, Kuzminov is the permanent rector of the university, it never occurs to anyone that rectors are being changed. Because Kuzminov has very strong connections in the government, in the presidential administration, in political circles (we note that Yaroslav Kuzminov is the husband of the chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Elvira Nabiullina. - Ed.), And everyone understands that if Kuzminov leaves, the Higher School of Economics will be under attack: it is not known who will be sent and what he will do. And we need to save Kuzminov, because only he can cover up and develop this excellent educational institution.

In this example, we see that the mechanism of patronage relations operates not only at the very top of the political pyramid, but reproduces itself on all floors: it excludes impersonal institutions that work for everyone, and replaces them with relations of individuals that subordinate organizations: I appoint you as the Prosecutor General you'll be my attorney general. This institutional trap is a huge, key problem in our society.

Why did it happen? In the 1990s, it was not so much private corporations and political parties that arose and operated in Russia, but rather gangs. In gangs with low social capital, violence was the main craft, in gangs with higher social capital, which were formed on the periphery of Soviet corporatist institutions - the Komsomol, sports sections, - circles with high interpersonal trust were formed, ready to seize space, property, power. Parties are broad horizontal structures with open access, gangs are small vertical structures with closed access. And since, due to the lack of tradition and infrastructure, social trust in society was low, small groups with high interpersonal trust turned out to be stronger than broad, amorphous structures. The parties of the 1990s are pure clientelles of various industrial, oligarchic and bureaucratic groups. Such parties do not depend on voters who help them come to power and gain power through parties, but on persons who have already received power and create a party in order to maintain this power. I call such a system, which took shape in the mid-1990s and until the early 2000s, a “competitive oligarchy”. This is a pluralistic-oligarchic regime, it has developed not only in Russia, but also in Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, and also in Georgia in the 90s.

Interestingly, in the 2000s, when there was more money, we switched to an Asian, authoritarian type. Russia is an ambiguous state, it is here and there. In 1991, along with the Baltics, it is the most advanced state in terms of the influence of the democratic coalition; today we have no pluralism. There is a deep disillusionment with democratic institutions. This structural problem, in which no one is specifically to blame, this is the reality that came after we went through non-market industrialization, without creating the institutions that Western Europe created in the course of its industrialization.

How Oil Profits Are Killing Russian Democracy

- According to the economist, Nobel laureate Douglas North and his co-authors, there are no separate political, separate economic institutions, they interact and support each other. Competitive economic institutions support competitive political institutions, thus creating open access orders; restricted access orders are arranged in the same way. The open access order is not at all a realm of universal justice, it does not exclude rent: you have invented something that everyone wants to buy, but you do not let anyone know how it works, and you, as the only manufacturer, receive rent.

Rents undermine the economy, but open access provides access to rent and other agents, and the more people rush into the sphere of rent, the smaller the rent itself and the more dynamic society develops, since rent does not become a plug in the economy and does not undermine it. That is, the order of open access ensures high internal competition, and - most importantly - it is much more adaptable to challenges, external changes than the order of closed access. In closed access orders, the government or some groups immediately begin to seize the source of rent, control it and try to keep anyone out of it. Sometimes they even try to organize a fair distribution, but in any case, for many years and decades, their task becomes the conservation of rent.

Oil is what else greatly distorted our trajectory. Were it not for oil, we would remain within the very immature, clientelist pluralism of the 1990s. Still, it would be a pretty competitive situation. But in the 2000s, due to rising oil prices, both the economic and political infrastructure of the country began to change. The first oil boom began in 2003 and ended in 2008, the second occurred in 2010-2015. And the current oil prices are not low, they are close to the average for the period since the 1970s, and back in 2005 we considered such prices to be very high.

Kremlin.Ru

What do we see? What if during the first boom both oil prices and Russian economy, then after 2009 prices are again huge, and the economy is not growing, we have moved to a protracted stagnation. Our GDP today is almost the same as the GDP of 2008, the economy has practically not grown. In numbers, the picture is even more frightening. In 1992-1998, during a deep transformational crisis, our exports amounted to $1 trillion, while the economy was falling by an average of 5% per year. In 2000-2008, exports amounted to twice as much - $ 2.2 trillion, and the economy grew by 7% annually. In 2009-2016, exports doubled again to $4.15 trillion, while the economy is growing at about 0.5% per year. That is, during the second oil boom, we got a very bad situation, when there is a lot of money, but the economy is not growing.

This means that economic agents that live on growth do not benefit, but those economic agents that live on the distribution of money coming into the country benefit. Money is distributed in two ways - through formal networks (this is the budget) and informal ones - this is rent, which in different ways settles in the hands of officials, firms and corporations associated with them. These distribution networks create powerful coalition, a private-state oligarchy, when you don't understand where the private ends and the public begins. Today, not a businessman, but the prosecutor's office and the Investigative Committee are the most important people, that's who drives super-expensive cars. And businessmen no longer look like a “white caste”, as it was in the 90s, they “get by”. The private-state oligarchy is the main beneficiary and the ruling elite of the country, managing and protecting this model.

Why does Russia still have a chance for a breakthrough

- However, we do not have and are not expected to have a systemic economic catastrophe, as in the 80s in the USSR or as it is now in Venezuela. We must try to turn Russia into Venezuela. At the same time, the people sitting at our top are tough, unkind, love themselves and money and don’t want to let anyone get close to money, but you can’t say that they are idiots. What to do?

A significant deterrent is demographics. We have an aging population: life expectancy is increasing, but the birth rate is low, there are few young people. And it would be nice to learn from China. In the late 70s, the Chinese elite was horrified, there was a clear realization that they could not feed such a number of terribly poor people. In the next 30 years, China experienced a paradox: it learned to sell its problem and make money on it. It was the huge and poor population that became the main competitive advantage of China and allowed it to make a huge breakthrough.

The demographic problem of Russia can also become a competitive advantage. Our bright feature: we have an incredibly large territory. The population density is 8 people per square kilometer, if you do not take into account areas unfavorable for life, no more than 25 people. If Russia were to attract 20-30 million people, this would make it possible to make an economic breakthrough, roughly similar to China's. This is 20-30 million additional consumers, an increase in the capacity of the domestic market. The influx of migrants is the most important condition for the start of Russia's development. So far, I must say, our government is on reasonable positions, realizing the critical importance of the influx of migrants for the economy. But migrants have obvious problems with registration due to the corruption of this area, and we have to compete with other countries to attract labor.

Russia has a lot of territory and few people. Our chance is to attract migrants Sergey Kovalev/Global Look Press

Another structural problem that needs and can be solved is federalism. We have a disproportion in the representation of territories in political system countries, in their influence on this system. Let's see how Russia chose State Duma deputies from party lists. Least of all percent "United Russia" received mainly in big cities. 47% of all voters live there, the turnout was approximately 38%, on average, United Russia received the same amount. IN national republics ah, 14% of all voters live, the turnout is somewhere around 75%, on average 78% voted for United Russia: there is a different political culture, no observers, what the authorities wrote down - that's it. As a result, 14% of voters give more than a third of all the votes received by United Russia, and we have what we have: Russia big cities it is represented three times less than Russia's national republics, and in parliament - a political monopoly.

We need real federalism. Russia consists of territories that are in different historical cycles. And it is important to come up with such a federal structure, which, on the one hand, will ensure consistent connectivity of the territories, and on the other hand, will give these territories a significant autonomy of socio-economic models. So that, for example, Dagestan or Tuva do not transmit their social and political habits to Moscow, and vice versa, so that they coexist in one country, but at the same time develop in those traditions and modernization trajectories that are adequate and comfortable for them. Now everything is exactly the opposite.

The third key issue is economic growth. We have serious limitations - an aging population, huge pension obligations of the state, dear work force, a large share of labor in GDP. On the other hand, we have a rather powerful culture of urban agglomerations, a large market and a well-educated population. Therefore, with the potential for growth, everything is not easy, but it is there. Especially since modern world makes it possible to integrate into value chains and thus develop economic growth. It used to be like this: in order to ensure economic growth, it was necessary to build the entire industry. Today, it is enough to enter world production in very narrow segments and thus quickly break into the core of the world technological process. For example, some European countries cannot afford to create universities as powerful as private universities in America, but they choose one or two subspecializations, compete with the most advanced universities and scientific centers and come out of the periphery. That is, now a country with poor starting data can also claim economic leadership.

Zamir Usmanov/Russian Look

In general, in fact, everything is not so bad. True, with such regimes as ours, it happens that they themselves do something that greatly shakes them up. It is sometimes said that if Kudrin comes up with the right reform program, gives it to Putin, Putin accepts it and starts implementing it, then we will have good, self-sustaining economic growth. It's not, and it won't be. Reforms are usually not composed by some group of economists and are not introduced by presidential decree. They begin when there are groups of the population and elites who are interested in removing restrictions on economic growth in the form of inadequate institutions, including political ones. But what do we see? If in 1999 the turnover of the 60 largest companies was equal to 20% of GDP, in 2013 it was already more than 50%, today half of Russia's GDP is the turnover of only 50 companies. Gather 70 people in one hall - it will be 70% of GDP. Terrible concentration. In this system, it is difficult to expect anything other than a political monopoly that will maintain a monopoly in the economy.

The most important obstacle, as I have already said, is oil, the reserves of rent from which remain significant. Therefore, oil should "run out a little" and, probably, everything is going to this. Somewhere since 2003-2004, Gazprom and Rosneft assured us that shale oil- complete nonsense. However, the "shale revolution" has occurred, and irreversibly. The chances that the oil era is ending and today's price decline is not the limit are quite high. We see a powerful preparation of global corporations and governments: these are the developments and plans of the largest automobile companies to produce electric vehicles, legislation that prohibits the use of non-hybrid, and even gasoline engines after 2030. And when the players in the oil market realize that an irreversible or long-term reversal to low prices, then the mechanism will turn on, the opposite of the logic that now prevails in OPEC - to sell less oil so that prices are higher. At a certain moment, the largest players realize that they will never sell their oil reserves at high prices and profitably sell as much as possible. more oil. There will be a dramatic drop in prices.

Finally, if we look at social skills, how networks are organized, civil organizations, how people are able to interact in some situations, we will see that our society is, in principle, much more ready for democracy than in the early 90s, when no one did not understand how to interact, negotiate, create civil associations, and so on. Private organizations, both in the economy and politics, still existed all these 25 years, and we have a certain capital, sooner or later it will show itself.

On October 22, the Yeltsin Center in Yekaterinburg hosted a lecture by political scientist Kirill Rogov “One Hundred Years Ago – One Hundred Years Ahead. What Soviet and Post-Soviet Experience Tells Us About Russia's Future. She continued in the series of lectures "The Future of Russia in the Developing World", which was opened by a political scientist.

- In 1991, we were in a state of euphoria, - said Kirill Rogov. – It seemed that communism was over and democracy would come. As if we had left one room - and had to get into another. Today we know that most countries are neither dictatorships nor democracies, but are located between two poles. However, the fact that we, figuratively speaking, "did not get into another room" led to a surge of pessimism in society.

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Lecture by Kirill Rogov

Photo by Artur Seleznev

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Lecture by Kirill Rogov. Host - Evgeny Enin

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Lecture by Kirill Rogov

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Lecture by Kirill Rogov

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Lecture by Kirill Rogov

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Lecture by Kirill Rogov

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In order to understand the essence of what is happening in Russia in last years and look into the future, Kirill Rogov made an excursion into the past together with the audience.

“The people who came to power in 1917 were Marxists, but the regime that they began to build after seizing power had nothing in common with Marxism,” Rogov shared his point of view. - Russia lagged behind Western Europe by about 50 years. A new economic model arose, the meaning of which was that all resources were concentrated in the hands of the state, which began to distribute them among sectors. The Stalinist model was a model of non-market industrialization, with strict administrative control. The only agent of industrialization was the state. Non-market industrialization has become a fundamental moment Russian history.

This model, Rogov noted, gave a quick effect of industrialization, which was especially in demand by those countries whose economy did not allow for a quick industrial breakthrough, but as a result, in the second half of the 50s - the first half of the 60s, according to Rogov, the USSR and the USA reached technological parity.

At the same time, after the collapse of the communist system, Russia found itself without the tradition of private property, the experience of a multi-party system and competition, while gangs that developed on the basis of sports and other communities became more active. Rogov characterized these structures as highly motivated and united by interpersonal trust.

“My main idea is that the history of Russia in the 1990s was dramatic, because for the previous 70 years we have been moving along a trajectory that is different from the trajectory of Western Europe,” Kirill Rogov formulated. - Elections appear in the 90s, but there is no social trust skill that would support the existence of parties.

The difficulties that, according to Rogov, Russia has to cope with on the way to the future are in the vast territory, the demographic problem, the aging population, as well as the need to form a model of federalism that would combine coherence, consistency and at the same time autonomy in the development of traditions and ways life in different areas. As an example of a clear difference in ways, the political scientist cited Moscow and Dagestan.

Lecture by Kirill Rogov at the Yeltsin Center

Video: Alexander Polyakov

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Lecture by Kirill Rogov

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Lecture by Kirill Rogov

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During the dialogue that took place after the lecture, the audience was interested in the speaker's attitude to religion, as well as the difficulties associated with migration and modernization.

Kirill Rogov visited the museum of the first president of Russia and assessed it from the point of view of modern political science.

“I really liked the exposition of the Yeltsin Museum,” Rogov admitted. - I am professionally engaged in the 90s and I know a lot about this time. In the 90s, I was an adult, a participant in some of the events of those years. The museum makes a strong impression, it is famously done. I really liked the video, straightforward, beautiful and impressive. In general, it is wonderful that there is a Yeltsin Center. The Yeltsin Center is magnificent, it is very lively, it is one of the centers of life in Yekaterinburg and raises the city to new heights. And largely thanks to this, Yekaterinburg becomes the historical capital of Russia, in any case, one of the focuses of Russian history is located here. One of the dramatic moments of this story: when Yeltsin demolishes the Ipatiev House, and then, being in a different capacity, Boris Nikolayevich turns history in a different direction.

- Participates in the repose of the remains royal family V Peter and Paul Fortress in 1998?

- Yes, and in this act - the drama of time. The most historical figure of Yeltsin embodies the ambiguity of Russian history. It also remains a mystery to me how Yeltsin went for broke during the conflict with Ligachev ... And in 1991, I stood in the inner ring and defended the entrance to the White House.

- Also partly went for broke. Did you feel fear then, and did you get the feeling that you were changing the history of Russia?

- Yes, it was scary. Because the Soviet government rested on the fact that it made such decisions, which could be the storming of the White House. Logically, the assault should have taken place. The space near the main entrance was open on three sides. I don't understand why they didn't.

- Why was a peaceful decision made, what do you think?

- The commanders of the units that could do this, apparently, did not want to do this. The minutes were dramatic. There was a fine line...

- Did you see Boris Nikolayevich's performance then?

- Yes, sure. The first performance was even before the arrival of the tanks, he spoke from the balcony. There were still few people on August 19, as on the night of August 19-20. And then there were a lot. People, obviously, at first did not yet understand that it was possible to speak out, and they would not do anything for it. And on the second day, when I went down to the subway, there were a lot of people coming up.

- Did you then feel that the country is already different?

- Yes, sure. Not like the other - there was a feeling that we won. The Soviet system was demoralized.

– Can we say that in the 1990s, thanks to Yeltsin, Russia tested different models of its future under the leadership of several prime ministers?

– There was a period of powerful chaotic transformation. What we saw in the 90s was the historical creativity of the Russians, it was what Russia could produce. Yeltsin's colossal merit is that he did not want to establish a firm government. He had the gestures of a Russian autocrat, but, in fact, in content, he did not have this. And this is a huge advantage.

– What is the role of 1917 in the history of Russia?

“It was a dramatic turn. February Revolution was the right transition to a republic. As for October, this date was largely invented by the Bolsheviks. From February to October, they launched the civil war mechanism. If we look at how political forces usually behave, we will see that they are striving to prevent civil war the Bolsheviks did the opposite. They wanted to play one against the other.

- When will white spots disappear in the history of Russia?

– Only when they are taken into account different points view, without ignoring any of them.

Landscape with a family, a city on the Neva and a Russian forest

Having arisen in the fall of 2001, this collision at first seemed like a "fight of bulldogs under the carpet." Then it turned out that this was not a fight at all, but a PR action of one PR man. However, it seems to Kirill Rogov that everything is much more serious.

Kremlinintrigue(conspiracy theory)

One way or another, the struggle between the "Petersburg" and the "Family" as the main Kremlin intrigue has become one of the basic pictures that determine the idea of ​​the current political process of the most informed and interested public. And if it is customary in the media to describe this conflict with hints and somewhat roundabout, then in the “kitchen” (restaurant) information space, interlocutors, as a rule, quickly switch to two simple terms and operate with them as key ones for describing current conflicts and events. The conflict, therefore, is described in the poetics of “court intrigue” traditional for the Russian political post-totalitarian mentality with business background, in poetics - conspiracy theory. There are no ideologies, there are groups (teams) and their business interests.

Yeltsin's inner circle, who planned and carried out Operation Successor, seeks to continue to control (control) the new president, thus protecting and guaranteeing, first of all, their direct (and very extensive) economic interests. This is one side of the coin. The “Chekists”, who constitute Putin’s organic environment and his natural support, are gradually seizing key positions in the Kremlin, pushing the “family” ones aside, placing their people on financial flows and striving to concentrate maximum economic and political power in state institutions under their control. This is a view from the other side.

There is no doubt that conspiracy theory has significant interpretative potential. Simply put, close to the truth. If only because its conceptual structures are characteristic and organic not only for observers of events (remote and close), but also for their direct participants. And here you can not argue, it would seem. Issues of property and its redistribution are of interest today public consciousness more than anything.

Family origin

Obviously, the weak point in this picture is, of course, the concept of "Family". What kind of Voloshin, Vanin or Surkov Yeltsin family? Even people with taste and understanding operate with this concept. Apparently, for want of a better one.

Meanwhile, the term "Family" was put into use by Gusinsky's political technologists and popularized through NTV with quite pragmatic goals: it was intended to become (and indeed became) one of the key concepts of information preparation for the presidential elections of 1999-2000. In a wide panorama of scandals with the affairs of Mabetex, Aeroflot, Bony, Yeltsin's cards, etc., the term "Family" was supposed to become a conceptual code integrating an ideologeme in asserting the idea of ​​the Kremlin in the late 90s as a mafia clan. The very word "Family" unequivocally projected these scandals on classic look Italian organized crime.

The effectiveness and persuasiveness of the concept of "Family" was determined not only and not so much by the fact that the Yeltsin administration was actually led by Tatyana Dyachenko and Valentin Yumashev. It never occurred to anyone to call the leadership of Gazprom or the Moscow authorities family, although the reasons for this were no less. The deep plausibility of the term was that the "inner circle" - the young parvenus of early Russian capitalism - turned out to be practically the only support of the sick Yeltsin, who had lost the support of almost all traditional economic and bureaucratic elites. It was this lack of rootedness, and not at all kinship, and the real volume of funds redistributed with the help of the power resource, that gave credibility to the picture of a comprador conspiracy against Russia with headquarters in the Kremlin.

clash of two oligarchies

By the electoral milestone of 1999-2000. in Russia, two management classes were formed with sufficient skills and resources to fight for power and the establishment of one or another economic and political order. Two types of oligarchy. The financial power and managerial efficiency of both of them relied on two corresponding - and fundamentally different - mechanisms of rent.

The first, traditionally referred to as "oligarchic", relied on the rent of raw materials - the export of oil, metal, etc. And on the management of "foreign" financial flows, primarily the flows of state infrastructure monopolies (MPS, SCC, etc.), which he "optimized » in relation to their goals and interests. The second - the municipal oligarchy - relied on the mechanisms of administrative-territorial rent, on the traditional administrative racket: doing business in the controlled territory is possible only with the participation of the local administrative-economic clan or sharing with it. The headquarters of the first was the Kremlin, the second was assembled under its banner by the Moscow mayor.

The outcome of the elections confirmed, it seems that the first principle turned out to be somewhat more high-tech. The difference was that the federal oligarchs used the administrative resource to seize the sources of rent - the resources themselves or a monopoly (privileged) position in the market. Whereas the municipal oligarchs viewed administration itself as a permanent source of redistribution. In addition, the key to the success of the first group was that, unlike the municipal oligarchy, whose natural leader was the Moscow mayor, the Kremlin decided to nominate not his leader. Precisely because the sources of wealth of this oligarchy were less dependent on direct administration, they were privatized. While the municipal oligarchs, on the contrary, privatized the administrative and administrative functions themselves.

there is a city

Such an understanding of the events of 1998-2000. allows, it seems, to make some mental exercises with the word "Petersburg". Or, to put it differently, try to describe the socio-political nature of "Putin's party".

In fact, we are talking exactly about those who, for one reason or another, did not fit into the parties of the two oligarchies. And he was deprived of his share of the rent. That is why liberal managers and personnel Chekists (collectively referred to as "St. Petersburg") coexist in this not very well-formed conglomerate today, and in one vial with them - the hopes and aspirations of a simple Russian inhabitant, the so-called "electoral swamp". Both the liberals dissatisfied with the results of the initial reforms, and the professional “statesmen” from the authorities who were removed from power, and the townsfolk who are always late for the holiday of life equally perceived Colonel Putin as his man in the Kremlin .

The very mythology of St. Petersburg in Russian history last century- the rejected capital, the enlightened city is not the lot - turned out to be in a certain sense adequate to the mythology of the "third way", rejecting the oligarchic Moscow and the patrimonial, clumsy and inert capitalism of the provinces. In general, there is a city that is ready to assume full power. The city of intellectuals and Chekists. City of honest, decent people.

historical triangle

The clash between the St. Petersburg party and the party of oligarchic management, which has determined the face of the Kremlin in recent years, is thus by no means only an undercover Kremlin intrigue, but a reflection of a quite serious and meaningful political struggle. Quite a historical conflict. And the logic of this conflict, in the final analysis, politically motivates all specific positional battles and clashes, in the immediate background of which, of course, lie more mundane managerial and financial interests.

At the same time, the Putin-Peter party appears in its two guises alternately, so to speak - in the images of a good and evil investigator. On the one hand, there are liberals with projects of systemic restrictions for both oligarchies, reducing their opportunities for administrative business. On the other hand, lawless law enforcers are always ready to come up with a project of direct redistribution of property (take it away and imprison it!). Accordingly, the ideas of these two groups about the new owner also differ - about the one who should replace the regional and federal oligarch as an alternative hero of the capitalist everyday life. From the point of view of liberals, this is the same long-sought middle class and a mass owner, from the point of view of the latter, a powerful and honest State with cold hands and a head.

As the reformist projects were covered with a touch of bureaucratic everyday life, the security forces increasingly captured public attention and the political platform. And the last months have become the era of their almost triumph. The fight against the media oligarchs and the battle for Gazprom, like other forceful actions to “return property to the state”, frightened the metropolitan and liberal public, but in general the population was perceived rather as positive events. The fact is that the party of redistribution and the party of the legal capitalist order compete not only in the administrative team of President Putin, but also in those very “hopes and aspirations of the layman” that are the main personal political resource of the St. Petersburg president. As the second loses points, the first - goes to the forefront. Simply because the fight against the two oligarchies is a nationwide political mandate given to President Putin in the last elections. Not by washing - so by skating. Such is the order of the bear.

It can be assumed that the conflict of relationships in the triangle "managers - liberals - security forces" is close to climax. If only because the election cycle starting in a year will fix a new alignment of forces and set (even under the same president) a new configuration of the ruling coalition. At least, this is how things turned out in the previous Russian elections. Democracy is democracy. Albeit a little woodsy.