“Structuring of discontent”

The data of a sociological poll carried out by the Levada Center in February 2010 show that more and more Russians believe that their country is sinking into anarchy and losing order. At the same time, the numbers of champions of a strong state power are growing in the country.

Almost half of Russians believe that a centralized state, with local authorities being appointed from Moscow, is the best option for their political system. Do Russians really want more authoritarianism and less democracy, which for many is associated with anarchy? What tendencies are brewing in the Russian society? The answers to these questions can be found in the interview given to The Day by Lilia SHEVTSOVA, the leading expert at the Moscow Carnegie Center.

“The answers to individual questions may indeed suggest that Russians are feeling more and more nostalgic for the strict, centralized authoritarian power and, moreover, desire the intensification of centralism on the part of the Kremlin, and that they are very suspicious, or rather, reluctant to rely on local self-government.

“However, regarded as a whole, the answers yield a completely different picture. On the one hand, 30 percent of Russians seem convinced that the situation in the country can best be described as the development of democracy. But, on the other hand, 32 percent believe that the country is facing the growth of anarchy, loss of order, or the establishment of dictatorship, while 11 percent think that Russia is lapsing into the pre-perestroika political practices.

“Such confusion shows that people do not have a clear idea of what kind of country they live in. They do not know  what they should make out of the political regimes and the political system. They are totally disorientated.

“Here are some other poll results, which allow us to have a more precise idea of the degree of this disorientation. For example, 85 percent of the respondents think that they have absolutely no say in the process of the official decision-making process, while 62 percent believe that they can only rely on themselves and should in no case get involved with the authorities. In addition, 77 percent of the respondents do not want to take part in political activities and are convinced that they do not owe anything to the state.

“I can conclude with saying that all those polls testify to the demoralization of the society, its disorientation, and the loss of direction. But more than anything else, the polls show that the society and the authorities have turned into two independent galaxies, moving along some indefinite paths — but definitely in different directions.

“This indicates the aggravation of the degradation of the country’s political system, which is unable to contact the society and lives its autonomous life. Also, it shows the first ever increase in the passiveness of the Russian society; moreover, it indicates a fundamental slackening of paternalism.

“The people live independently from the authorities. The vast majority of Russians will not have anything in common with those authorities. They have learned to live on their own.

“What can come out of the independent movement of the two galaxies? It is doubtlessly the aggravation of the rupture of relations and a crisis between the authorities and society. So far, the people are not prepared to actively resist the authorities or actively interfere in order to change the situation.

“The polls indicate unfavorable sentiments in society. They should cause serious concern for the authorities, which are no longer able to control the aggravation of the rupture.”

Such protest sentiments should become a hotbed for a force which would offer an alternative route for Russian society. However, as the regional election of March 14 has proven, it is the communists that are getting more votes, while the liberal forces are left in the shade.

“You got the problem right. Now we are facing a situation showing that the system is degrading and losing support in the society. All this is happening while there has not yet appeared a massive alternative, favored by the majority (or, at least, by a considerable proportion of the population). The system is decaying and begins to collapse (I mean first of all Russians’ attitude towards the Ministry of the Interior and the police) without any pressure from the outside.

“There certainly exists a political vacuum. At present, there is no sign of a force which would structure the social emotions, frustrations, discontent, and disappointment. There are a host of small forces. Among the legal parliamentary parties there are the communists, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Spravedlivaya Rossiya (A Just Russia), but none of them can claim to be the alternative capable of consolidating 70 percent of the population, which is already living on its own.

“It is natural that occasionally the communists get the upper hand in the regions, and sometimes it will be the people who identify them as an alternative to Yedinaya Rossiya (United Russia). It is curious that the parties in the upper spheres, including the communists, have become so snug among the system’s other parties that they are losing control over the activities of their local organizations.

“On the local level, as we have seen in Kursk and, first and foremost, in the Urals, the process of consolidation of the local political forces has begun. Communists, social democrats, liberal democrats, the remains of the liberal parties, including what has left of Pravoye Delo (Just Cause) and Yabloko–United Democrats, plus the United Civil Front — they all stand up together to back a candidate who is in opposition to Yedinaya Rossiya. This is how the mayor of Irkutsk was elected.

“This voting for a candidate who represented an alternative to the Kremlin party shows that we witness the beginning of a tendency towards the spontaneous consolidation of isolated, fragmentary political forces which the country has inherited from the past or which are arising now, in opposition to the Kremlin bureaucracy.

“At present, it is not quite clear to what extent this tendency is going to develop further. But one thing is obvious: the population is beginning to undermine, albeit spontaneously, the foundations of the system. It spontaneously opposes the loathsome ‘bears’ (the bear is the symbol of the Kremlin party Yedinaya Rossiya – Author).

“Here, a lot depends on the merging of several crucial factors — personality, idea, boldness, and social energy — in a definite spot, which can give rise to a more or less organized political alternative. So far, we are dealing with rather spontaneous structuring of discontent.”