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CIAO DATE: 8/01
Russia Doesn't Need a New Czar
On The Issues
July 2000
Russian president Vladimir Putin is pressing to reduce the autonomy of regional governments and to concentrate power in Moscow. That effort threatens Russia's democracy and, because it is likely to breed deep resentment in the provinces, even its territorial integrity.
The recent arrest of media magnate Vladimir Gusinsky ought to prompt both the Russian public and the Duma deputies to take another hard look at the package of laws submitted by President Vladimir Putin in May to Russia's parliament.
The package of laws, most of which have already been adopted by lopsided majorities in the lower house, and even to dissolve local legislative bodies if they are deemed to be in violation of federal laws or the constitution. The proposed legislation threatens the imperfect but real federalism of Russia, as well as its democracy. In the long run, it would also jeopardize the country's territorial integrity. Mr. Putin must either abandon the package, or radically modify it, before the laws have a chance to wreak their havoc.
Russian history is a trove of cursed dilemmas, and this one—the choice between a country that is decentralized and self-governing, or "unitary" and authoritarian—is among the most intractable. In the more than four hundred years of the modern Russian state, no one ever has managed to have it both ways. Like Brazil, India, and the United States, Russia is too big and diverse to be both unitary and democratic.
With the exception of Czar Alexander II, who introduced limited local self government in the 1860s, Boris Yeltsin was the only Russian ruler to choose decentralization and self-government over direct control by Moscow. From 1992 to 1995, his policy of extending maximum self-rule to Russia's eighty-nine vastly different regions, coupled with the conclusion of individually tailored treaties with most of them, saved Russian democracy from collapse and the country from disintegration. Mandated by Mr. Yeltsin, gubernatorial elections were held in most provinces, and virtually all of Russia's local leaders were elected by the end of 1997. For the first time in their history, Russia's people were ruled by leaders whom they chose themselves.
In spite of his lust for power, as well as his jealous protection of presidential prerogative, Mr. Yeltsin understood that attempts to lord over provincial leaders would undermine Russia's democratic experiment and lead to a breakup of the country. In a lengthy interview for my biography of Mr. Yeltsin, Galina Starovoitova, the radical anticommunist who was his top political adviser in 1992, recalled the last Russian president's stubborn resistance to her urgings to "deal with" reactionary chiefs of local administrations. "But they are sabotaging the revolution and ignoring your decrees!" she would tell him. "You must dismiss them!"
"But then, Galina Vasilievna," Mr. Yeltsin would answer, "how would I be different from the Politburo?"
By the time Mr. Yeltsin resigned, he had conjured a miracle: a Russia radically decentralized, yet whole, for the first time in its history. ("Anarchy" is how some ignorant or lazy U.S. journalists and "experts" like to call this state of affairs.)
Preventing Russian Disintegration
As is the case with everything of significance in a revolution, decentralization came at a steep price. The five-year-old local democracy has been shamelessly manipulated. All manner of crooks, thieves, thugs, and petty dictators came to power, and they flagrantly violated constitutional and federal laws. Although many were not reelected in 1998—99, a number are still in power, joined in many cases by newly minted governors with similar proclivities.
Angry and frustrated, the voters in Russian provinces cried out for a traditional Russian solution: a kind and honest czar. Mr. Putin's popularity is in large measure due to a skillfully projected image of someone who is his own master and who would be "tough" with governors. Establishing "order" in the provinces became part of his electoral mandate.
Instead of abetting this undoubtedly short-lived flight from freedom, however, Mr. Putin must buck public opinion. Like young adults, fledgling democracies must be allowed to make mistakes and correct them. Given the chance and time, Russians should prove no less capable than other people of learning from their own errors. Take the example of the unhinged nationalist, Vladimir Zhirinovsky. In 1993, his political party led the party-list vote with 22 percent—prompting the first wave of the "who lost Russia" hysteria in the West. In 1995, his party slid to 11 percent, and got just 6 percent of the national vote last December. Mr. Zhirinovsky's movement appears today to be headed for extinction.
Another reason to dislike the proposed new laws is that they would be redundant. Many local legislatures already have the right to impeach governors. In the past few years, increasingly independent Russian courts have ruled against local executives on numerous occasions.
Of course, as Americans can testify, impeachments and court procedures are prone to being cumbersome and uncertain. Yet seemingly effective in the short run, the Kremlin's diktat is fraught with potentially enormous dangers. If the laws are adopted, the Kremlin will inevitably have to answer for every provincial ailment. More troubling still, an overbearing Kremlin would breed resentment in resource-rich Russian regions and especially in ethnically non-Russian ones, causing them to begin to distance themselves from Moscow. Secessionism and national disintegration, which Mr. Yeltsin prevented so masterfully five years ago, are likely to become explosive issues again.
At the most recent U.S.-Russian summit in Moscow, Mr. Putin characterized American efforts to amend the ABM treaty as "a cure that is worse than the disease." To use his own metaphor, that is precisely what the new laws are as well.
As he attempts to fulfill his mandate by combining Russia's newly found liberty with order, honesty, and equality under law, the first serious test of Mr. Putin's vision and leadership is upon us. Let us hope he realizes that this latest attempt at paternalism from Moscow will spell nothing but disaster for Russia.
Leon Aron, a resident scholar at AEI, is the author of Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life (St. Martin's Press, 2000). A earlier version of this article appeared in the Wall Street Journal on June 21, 2000.
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