Unstable Stability
Of late many observers have been discussing political stabilization in Russia as of an important element for its future economic growth: it seems like the war in Chechnya has already been forgotten, a balance between the center and regional levels has been found, and the political and financial clans have become reconciled after several conversion auctions... Though, the Monday has come, which undoubtedly will go down in history not only as a day of the fall of the Chernomyrdin government but as triumph of President Yeltsin’s demonstrative power.
Two days later, during his meeting with French and German leaders Yeltsin subconsciously boasted to have proved to everybody who was the real boss in Russia and dispelled any doubts concerning his ability to rule the huge country. He does not even understand that he provided grounds for comparing him and his style of ruling and, actually, Russia with the Middle Ages. The czar got up on the wrong side of the bed Monday, scratched his head, and wrote an ukase. The chief boyar was given an order and, a couple of hours later, got his head cut off. As for the rest of the royal court, some will be sent to Siberia (Chubais and Kulykov), some to the dungeon, and some to wait at the Kremlin wall for their verdicts.
There is something not solid about a country, which at the end of the twentieth century claims to be called civilized, where very clever and talented people, speaking (in contrast with former construction worker Yeltsin) several foreign languages and being (in terms of ideas and mentality) real men of the world, have to stoop and to wait humbly for the monarch’s to express his will. Each time Anatoly Chubais spoke of his future and said it was in the hands of Boris Yeltsin, one felt embarrassed for the young reformer and the political system in which he and those like him have to operate.
The excessive concentration of the power in one man’s hands after centuries of autocracy and Soviet authoritarianism is Russia’s tragedy. One might say that officials threatened by the czar will not steal, but lo and behold! They do.
Political stability in Russia is simply out of question since neither the ruling elite nor millions of Russians have received a clear and honest explanation of what caused the dismissal of the government and Prime Minister. Everyone failed to notice the gradual and noiseless regeneration of the hoary art of Kremlinology when you had to analyze and predict Kremlin intentions by the most subtle of clues, reading between the lines, as well as to figure out to whom President Yeltsin said farewell face-to-face and whom by phone. Such a country cannot be a reliable international partner. What kind of partnership it is, where the leading Americans, as if trying to excuse themselves for Russia’s accession to G8, explain that President Yeltsin has the right to change his government? What kind of strategic partnership it is, where the Ukrainian Premier admits honestly that the events in Russia have taken aback President Kuchma and him.
Such scenarios do not favor Russia’s business image either, since big foreign investors before investing in Russia look for reliable high contacts, for almost all business under the political system there is very personalized and requires “support” from those in power. Now all of a sudden the whole government is fired, and nobody knows what and who will be next. All this make foreign investor think: either Russia depersonalizes its system or better to invest somewhere else.
Russia’s lesson for Ukraine is that it is not acceptable to copy the Russian political model with its interlocking state-business relationships and simultaneously declare its intention to be integrated into Europe. International relations should not be over-personalized either. Perhaps, in the future, under new conditions someone will recall in Russia that Leonid Kuchma was the last foreign leader, who met Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin in Odesa and took him to the Opera Theater.
