Russia

Whether or not Montesquieu’s judgement that very large countries need authoritarian government still holds in the technologically advanced twenty-first century, recent attempts to graft Western institutions and managerial methods on to the Russian polity and economy have proved disappointing. This is partly because their proponents have failed to take sufficient account of Russian conditions and the traditions deriving from them. They have applied theoretical solutions to a country and a people they did not understand sufficiently well. Outsiders from a different habitat with different historical experience should not expect prescriptions which work in the worlds they know to succeed anywhere else even if they have the help of a few enthusiastic helpers in the country concerned. The attempt to impose a Western form of liberal democracy on Russia in conditions of economic and social collapse merely had the effect of making liberal democrats unelectable. Democracy may best suit comparatively rich countries, but if that is the case what are the prospects of an economic recovery which might provide more fertile ground for it?

After Yeltsin they were distinctly unpromising. In Putin’s first five years of office, however, the annual growth rate was in the region of 8 per cent a year, thanks largely, though by no means completely, to burgeoning oil revenues. If such a rate were to be maintained, GNP might well double within a decade. Since Yeltsin’s departure progress has been made to bring order to the disorderly state of affairs that was his legacy. The ruble has been stabilized, and Russia’s credit ratings have risen; corrupt localism has been restricted, social conditions have improved, and the new regime has committed itself to the rule of law. But problems remain. The media are not as free as they were, the limits of centralization have yet to be established, and the as yet unresolved Khodarkovskii case has raised doubts about the relationship between government and big business, between the state and the forces of free enterprise. Though often presented as incompatible, these are in fact complementary. Russia needs investment capital which only the world market can provide; but companies need to operate within a legal framework which only the state can maintain. If an accommodation between them is reached, the economic recovery should continue. If not, Russia will face unpleasant alternatives: either a return of the over-mighty state or untrammelled corporate greed.

In the long term, Russia’s economic power is contingent on the extent of its market and the size of its population. Perhaps the most serious consequence of the collapse was demographic weakness. Russia’s population continued to fall for more than ten successive years at the end of the last century. The climbing death rate of the Yeltsin years eventually eased off, but the birth rate failed to recover. According to the preliminary results of the 2002 census, the population in October of that year was 145.2 million — almost 2 million fewer than in 1989. ³ And there is a qualitative as well as a quantitative problem. Russia has been suffering from a ‘brain drain’. Many able young Russian scientists and economists, entrepreneurs and engineers who might otherwise have contributed to the new Russia now live and work in the West.

Not since the first Time of Troubles, at the beginning of the 1600s, have Russia’s fortunes been so low. Yet its recovery then was amazingly rapid, and it was soon on the expansionist path again. What, then, of Russia’s prospects now?

Emerging from their second Time of Troubles, the Russians themselves have been less interested in empire than in political stability, economic regeneration and the elimination of social distress. Putin has understood this. In his address to the country on 26 May 2004 he stated his priorities: ‘A stable democracy and developed civil society … the strengthening of Russia’s international positions. But … [above all] substantial growth in the well-being of our citizens.’ ⁴ The social objectives at least may soon be attained. Even if they are not, Russia’s status as a major power, though not as a superpower, will be maintained.