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Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Russia
Jan 21 2009
The Policy of the Siamese Twins
Article by Dmitriy Furman
We do not have separation of powers or even a diarchy. We have highly
hampered powers.
Another scandal has broken out in the European home. Everyone lives in
tranquillity in this home and everyone is friendly to some
extent. Wailing can always be heard near the eastern entrance,
however. Many people live on this side of the building, but when the
shouts are heard, everyone knows it is not Ukraine bickering with
Belarus, not Latvia fighting with Lithuania, and not even Armenia
arguing with Azerbaijan (they were at war and they still "do not say
hello to each other," but they do not start any scandals either). It
is Russia "getting up off its knees" and fighting with one of its
neighbours.
We Rail Against the Social Order
This happens for a variety of reasons - because Estonia moved the
Bronze Soldier, because we do not like Moldovan wine, because we
support the separatists in Georgia, and certainly because of the
prices of the gas we deliver and the transit fees for this gas. We are
more or less accustomed to gas controversies, but this time the
scandal acquired colossal dimensions, affected all of the people in
the building, and is being discussed in every household.
The argument that these scandals are neurotic in nature and give
Russia exactly what it does not want (the anger of its neighbours, who
dream of being less dependent on it and having less to do with it in
general, and the Western countries' treatment of it as a "problem
state," with which "something has to be done") is self-evident. The
connection between this policy (if it can be described as such) and
the evolution of our social order is also quite obvious. On the one
hand, our order is the main cause of our isolation and the reason for
the impossibility of our integration into the alliances of the
developed democratic countries and for the danger of the expansion of
these alliances. On the other, the disappearance of the opposition in
our country and the total unanimity of our main media outlets are a
sign of the atrophy of critical thinking, which can restrain neurotic
impulses and correct behaviour. All of this is understandable, but
something else is less understandable: the reason that our conflicts
with our neighbours acquired this unprecedented intensity after Putin
left office as the president.
First, Second, Third
The fundamental outlines of our foreign policy, just as the
fundamental outlines of our sociopolitical system, took shape before
Putin took office. Putin's personal mindset (we can recall his image
of the boy walking towards a hostile group, clutching a piece of candy
in his "sweaty fist," hoping to exchange it for something better but
knowing it might be taken away from him instead) and his professional
habits were ideally suited to our public thinking and those
established outlines. Our second president strengthened and thoroughly
developed everything that was put in place when the first president
was in office. The futility of that policy, in which we were driving
ourselves into a corner, was already fairly obvious after Putin took
office. Furthermore, there was a sense that Putin's increasing anxiety
and irritability towards the end of his term were connected with his
vague awareness of that futility, and his decision to leave office was
due partly to his realization that the next stage of development would
require a different person, someone with a different mindset and a
different image. It was no coincidence, of course, that when Putin
named his successor, it turned out to be a man who was of the same
stature (which evidently was extremely important), but did not have
the same social origins and the same mindset. He was not as stiff, he
was not at all neurotic, and he had some righteous and liberal
tendencies. There was every reason to expect the new president to make
some "corrections" in the policy line.
In democratic systems, the opposition waits for each mistake the
government makes, exaggerates it, and strives not to be ignored. The
government, knowing that elections are on the way, strives to avoid
mistakes and has to listen to criticism and take it into
consideration. If it is unable to adjust its policy line, it ceases to
be the government and someone else makes the adjustments instead. The
system of democratic rotation is a mechanism built into the society
for the constant adjustment of the policy line and the correction of
mistakes.
This mechanism does not exist in undemocratic systems. Even in these
systems, however, the policy line is periodically adjusted. In tsarist
Russia, each new tsar made some changes in policy. The new tsar was
the new man in charge, he could look at policy from a new standpoint,
and he had no reason to stubbornly defend the obvious mistakes of his
predecessor. After all, they were not his mistakes. This also happened
in the Soviet era. As soon as Stalin died, his successors ended the
futile Korean war, and the thaw began soon afterward. Why did the
change of presidents in today's Russia not lead to policy adjustments?
Why did it actually intensify its most dangerous aspects instead? Why
did we start moving more quickly towards an impasse instead of trying
to avoid it?
Side Effects
We have already caused ourselves colossal damage in the two conflicts
of the "early Medvedev era." As a result of the Georgian conflict,
Georgia, under any president whatsoever, will be Russia's enemy for
many decades, and we do not have the slightest idea of what should be
done about Abkhazia and South Ossetia (which even Belarus has chosen
not to recognize). As a result of the gas conflict with Ukraine, we
not only lost our good reputation (although these fine points are no
longer relevant here), but also lost billions of dollars and will lose
tens of billions more in the future - an amount many times the sum we
ever could have gained from Ukraine. We abruptly intensified our
isolation tenfold. We strengthened the tendency towards European
integration, which is something we did not need at all, because it is
more convenient for us to take advantage of the conflicting interests
of various European countries. The gas conflict also revealed the
surprising inertia and ungainliness of our policy line. It is obvious
that the conflict did not have to happen. The agreement Putin and
Tymoshenko recently reached could have been concluded in
December. When it became completely obvious that it was time to end
the conflict, when Europe was freezing and moaning, we could have
concluded the agreement and turned the gas back on in a day or two,
but this is the third week that nothing has been done.
I think the reason for the intensification of our propensity for
conflicts and our sluggishness is the highly peculiar situation of the
tandem Putin created. Putin decided to abide by the Constitution and
give up the presidency. But he could not give up his power, as Yeltsin
did, and he chose to become the prime minister. It would have been
psychologically difficult and even dangerous for a man as young and
healthy as Putin to give up all of his power. Besides this, Putin
probably thought he could consolidate the government, help the young
president, and guarantee the continuity of policy by taking office as
the prime minister. He attained his goals, but the attainment of any
goal often has unforeseen side effects. By changing offices, Putin
created a situation hampering his friend and successor, himself, and
our entire political mechanism.
We now have a president who was chosen by his prime minister, and the
removal of this man from office would be incredibly difficult for the
president in the psychological and political sense. By the same token,
even if the prime minister regrets his choice, he has virtually no
chance (at least until 2012) of getting rid of the president he
chose. Our ruling tandem is "fused together by a single goal" and is
even something like a set of Siamese twins, and any operation to
separate the two would be extremely dangerous and frightening to both
of them and to our entire political system.
There is no doubt whatsoever that our rulers are friends and that
Putin chose a man he trusts more than anyone else as his
successor. There are certain situations that objectively breed
conflict, however, and they are stronger than we are. We must not
think, for example, that the members of the Stalinist Central
Committee Presidium "made a mistake" when they elected Khrushchev, or
that Khrushchev was a villain, planning from the very start to destroy
the people who had put their trust in him and with whom he had shared
whole barrels of wine at Stalin's dacha. It is just that all of them
were in a situation in which conflict was inevitable, and Khrushchev's
victory was the highly probable outcome. The same can be said of many
historical conflicts between friends and colleagues - from the
conflicts between the Roman triumvirs to Yeltsin's conflict with
Rutskoy and Khasbulatov.
Trapped by Each Other
Putin and Medvedev are friends, but they have ended up in a situation
which is objectively uncomfortable, painful, and conflict-prone. It is
a situation in which neither can make a single move freely, because
the people around them are waiting with a sinking heart for any sign
of real or imaginary disagreements between the rulers, and any sign of
disapproval of one partner in the tandem could give rise to an
extremely painful conflict with unpredictable results and to overall
destabilization, which both men dread. Putin and Medvedev are very
different people, and there are signs of their differences of opinion,
if not disagreements. Medvedev may have said it was wrong to "create
nightmares for business" at the very time that Putin was "creating
nightmares" for Mechel, for example, and Medvedev even expressed his
dissatisfaction with the excessively bureaucratized government
recently. These statements probably were not meant to send any
particular message, however. At a time when the president's decision
truly could have sent this kind of message, Medvedev, who obviously is
not an evil man, nevertheless did not pardon Svetlana Bakhmina.
Any attempt at the adjustment of the policy line would be extremely
difficult and dangerous in this situation. If Putin had simply gone
away, as Yeltsin did, Medvedev could have made some changes in our
policy and could have blamed various difficulties on the burdensome
legacy he had inherited, as Putin had done earlier and Yeltsin had
done before him (every president inherits a burdensome legacy). He
cannot do any of this, however, because Putin did not go away. If the
prime minister had not been Putin, Medvedev could have sent him
packing and then gone on to make some changes in policy and to blame
everything on the man he fired. But Putin cannot be removed from
office! If, on the other hand, Putin had stayed in the president's
office, there would have been less chance of policy adjustments, but
they nevertheless would exist. It is difficult to admit one's own
mistakes, especially for a man who only hears words of praise and
support from every direction. It is possible, however. Now there is no
possibility of this being done by Medvedev or by Putin.
The present situation is not a lawful democratic case of the
separation of powers or even a case of diarchy. This is a case of
severely hampered powers. Medvedev cannot be a normal, fully empowered
president as long as Putin is the prime minister. Putin, a man who was
just recently referred to as the national leader and whose face was on
the T-shirts handed out to Nashi members, cannot be a normal prime
minister, modestly working on the crisis-ridden economy and waiting to
be dismissed. They are fused together. Siamese twins have to
synchronize their moves. They have to move together along an appointed
route, not deviating from it in any way. It is logical that the
leading member of the tandem is Putin, if only because all of the
current conflicts are continuations of conflicts that existed when he
was the president. He has already mastered the proper reactions and he
is more familiar with our common route leading to an impasse.
The gas conflict could have been resolved quickly. If Medvedev had
done this, however, it would have signified indirect criticism of
Putin. Some people would have been certain to say that Putin raised
Russia up off its knees, but Medvedev is a weak man who makes
concessions. Others would have said that Putin led us into a blind
alley and Medvedev had led us out of it. If, on the other hand, Putin
had done this himself, it would have been an admission of his own
mistakes. Theoretically, this would have been possible for President
Putin, but it is not something Prime Minister Putin can do. As a
result, the conflict acquired unprecedented dimensions, and a problem
that could have been solved in a day at a loss of a few billion is now
taking weeks to solve at a loss of tens of billions.
Our ship of state is sailing in an unknown direction. Neither Putin
nor Medvedev knows where they are sending it. Of course, even in the
absence of a distinct route, the captain of a ship can change course
if he sees reefs. If, on the other hand, there are two captains and
they are Siamese twins, their reactions are slowed down and they lose
control of the ship. The storm of the crisis is ahead. The losses we
incurred during the gas crisis as a result of this loss of control are
only the beginning.
[translated from Russian]
Jan 21 2009
The Policy of the Siamese Twins
Article by Dmitriy Furman
We do not have separation of powers or even a diarchy. We have highly
hampered powers.
Another scandal has broken out in the European home. Everyone lives in
tranquillity in this home and everyone is friendly to some
extent. Wailing can always be heard near the eastern entrance,
however. Many people live on this side of the building, but when the
shouts are heard, everyone knows it is not Ukraine bickering with
Belarus, not Latvia fighting with Lithuania, and not even Armenia
arguing with Azerbaijan (they were at war and they still "do not say
hello to each other," but they do not start any scandals either). It
is Russia "getting up off its knees" and fighting with one of its
neighbours.
We Rail Against the Social Order
This happens for a variety of reasons - because Estonia moved the
Bronze Soldier, because we do not like Moldovan wine, because we
support the separatists in Georgia, and certainly because of the
prices of the gas we deliver and the transit fees for this gas. We are
more or less accustomed to gas controversies, but this time the
scandal acquired colossal dimensions, affected all of the people in
the building, and is being discussed in every household.
The argument that these scandals are neurotic in nature and give
Russia exactly what it does not want (the anger of its neighbours, who
dream of being less dependent on it and having less to do with it in
general, and the Western countries' treatment of it as a "problem
state," with which "something has to be done") is self-evident. The
connection between this policy (if it can be described as such) and
the evolution of our social order is also quite obvious. On the one
hand, our order is the main cause of our isolation and the reason for
the impossibility of our integration into the alliances of the
developed democratic countries and for the danger of the expansion of
these alliances. On the other, the disappearance of the opposition in
our country and the total unanimity of our main media outlets are a
sign of the atrophy of critical thinking, which can restrain neurotic
impulses and correct behaviour. All of this is understandable, but
something else is less understandable: the reason that our conflicts
with our neighbours acquired this unprecedented intensity after Putin
left office as the president.
First, Second, Third
The fundamental outlines of our foreign policy, just as the
fundamental outlines of our sociopolitical system, took shape before
Putin took office. Putin's personal mindset (we can recall his image
of the boy walking towards a hostile group, clutching a piece of candy
in his "sweaty fist," hoping to exchange it for something better but
knowing it might be taken away from him instead) and his professional
habits were ideally suited to our public thinking and those
established outlines. Our second president strengthened and thoroughly
developed everything that was put in place when the first president
was in office. The futility of that policy, in which we were driving
ourselves into a corner, was already fairly obvious after Putin took
office. Furthermore, there was a sense that Putin's increasing anxiety
and irritability towards the end of his term were connected with his
vague awareness of that futility, and his decision to leave office was
due partly to his realization that the next stage of development would
require a different person, someone with a different mindset and a
different image. It was no coincidence, of course, that when Putin
named his successor, it turned out to be a man who was of the same
stature (which evidently was extremely important), but did not have
the same social origins and the same mindset. He was not as stiff, he
was not at all neurotic, and he had some righteous and liberal
tendencies. There was every reason to expect the new president to make
some "corrections" in the policy line.
In democratic systems, the opposition waits for each mistake the
government makes, exaggerates it, and strives not to be ignored. The
government, knowing that elections are on the way, strives to avoid
mistakes and has to listen to criticism and take it into
consideration. If it is unable to adjust its policy line, it ceases to
be the government and someone else makes the adjustments instead. The
system of democratic rotation is a mechanism built into the society
for the constant adjustment of the policy line and the correction of
mistakes.
This mechanism does not exist in undemocratic systems. Even in these
systems, however, the policy line is periodically adjusted. In tsarist
Russia, each new tsar made some changes in policy. The new tsar was
the new man in charge, he could look at policy from a new standpoint,
and he had no reason to stubbornly defend the obvious mistakes of his
predecessor. After all, they were not his mistakes. This also happened
in the Soviet era. As soon as Stalin died, his successors ended the
futile Korean war, and the thaw began soon afterward. Why did the
change of presidents in today's Russia not lead to policy adjustments?
Why did it actually intensify its most dangerous aspects instead? Why
did we start moving more quickly towards an impasse instead of trying
to avoid it?
Side Effects
We have already caused ourselves colossal damage in the two conflicts
of the "early Medvedev era." As a result of the Georgian conflict,
Georgia, under any president whatsoever, will be Russia's enemy for
many decades, and we do not have the slightest idea of what should be
done about Abkhazia and South Ossetia (which even Belarus has chosen
not to recognize). As a result of the gas conflict with Ukraine, we
not only lost our good reputation (although these fine points are no
longer relevant here), but also lost billions of dollars and will lose
tens of billions more in the future - an amount many times the sum we
ever could have gained from Ukraine. We abruptly intensified our
isolation tenfold. We strengthened the tendency towards European
integration, which is something we did not need at all, because it is
more convenient for us to take advantage of the conflicting interests
of various European countries. The gas conflict also revealed the
surprising inertia and ungainliness of our policy line. It is obvious
that the conflict did not have to happen. The agreement Putin and
Tymoshenko recently reached could have been concluded in
December. When it became completely obvious that it was time to end
the conflict, when Europe was freezing and moaning, we could have
concluded the agreement and turned the gas back on in a day or two,
but this is the third week that nothing has been done.
I think the reason for the intensification of our propensity for
conflicts and our sluggishness is the highly peculiar situation of the
tandem Putin created. Putin decided to abide by the Constitution and
give up the presidency. But he could not give up his power, as Yeltsin
did, and he chose to become the prime minister. It would have been
psychologically difficult and even dangerous for a man as young and
healthy as Putin to give up all of his power. Besides this, Putin
probably thought he could consolidate the government, help the young
president, and guarantee the continuity of policy by taking office as
the prime minister. He attained his goals, but the attainment of any
goal often has unforeseen side effects. By changing offices, Putin
created a situation hampering his friend and successor, himself, and
our entire political mechanism.
We now have a president who was chosen by his prime minister, and the
removal of this man from office would be incredibly difficult for the
president in the psychological and political sense. By the same token,
even if the prime minister regrets his choice, he has virtually no
chance (at least until 2012) of getting rid of the president he
chose. Our ruling tandem is "fused together by a single goal" and is
even something like a set of Siamese twins, and any operation to
separate the two would be extremely dangerous and frightening to both
of them and to our entire political system.
There is no doubt whatsoever that our rulers are friends and that
Putin chose a man he trusts more than anyone else as his
successor. There are certain situations that objectively breed
conflict, however, and they are stronger than we are. We must not
think, for example, that the members of the Stalinist Central
Committee Presidium "made a mistake" when they elected Khrushchev, or
that Khrushchev was a villain, planning from the very start to destroy
the people who had put their trust in him and with whom he had shared
whole barrels of wine at Stalin's dacha. It is just that all of them
were in a situation in which conflict was inevitable, and Khrushchev's
victory was the highly probable outcome. The same can be said of many
historical conflicts between friends and colleagues - from the
conflicts between the Roman triumvirs to Yeltsin's conflict with
Rutskoy and Khasbulatov.
Trapped by Each Other
Putin and Medvedev are friends, but they have ended up in a situation
which is objectively uncomfortable, painful, and conflict-prone. It is
a situation in which neither can make a single move freely, because
the people around them are waiting with a sinking heart for any sign
of real or imaginary disagreements between the rulers, and any sign of
disapproval of one partner in the tandem could give rise to an
extremely painful conflict with unpredictable results and to overall
destabilization, which both men dread. Putin and Medvedev are very
different people, and there are signs of their differences of opinion,
if not disagreements. Medvedev may have said it was wrong to "create
nightmares for business" at the very time that Putin was "creating
nightmares" for Mechel, for example, and Medvedev even expressed his
dissatisfaction with the excessively bureaucratized government
recently. These statements probably were not meant to send any
particular message, however. At a time when the president's decision
truly could have sent this kind of message, Medvedev, who obviously is
not an evil man, nevertheless did not pardon Svetlana Bakhmina.
Any attempt at the adjustment of the policy line would be extremely
difficult and dangerous in this situation. If Putin had simply gone
away, as Yeltsin did, Medvedev could have made some changes in our
policy and could have blamed various difficulties on the burdensome
legacy he had inherited, as Putin had done earlier and Yeltsin had
done before him (every president inherits a burdensome legacy). He
cannot do any of this, however, because Putin did not go away. If the
prime minister had not been Putin, Medvedev could have sent him
packing and then gone on to make some changes in policy and to blame
everything on the man he fired. But Putin cannot be removed from
office! If, on the other hand, Putin had stayed in the president's
office, there would have been less chance of policy adjustments, but
they nevertheless would exist. It is difficult to admit one's own
mistakes, especially for a man who only hears words of praise and
support from every direction. It is possible, however. Now there is no
possibility of this being done by Medvedev or by Putin.
The present situation is not a lawful democratic case of the
separation of powers or even a case of diarchy. This is a case of
severely hampered powers. Medvedev cannot be a normal, fully empowered
president as long as Putin is the prime minister. Putin, a man who was
just recently referred to as the national leader and whose face was on
the T-shirts handed out to Nashi members, cannot be a normal prime
minister, modestly working on the crisis-ridden economy and waiting to
be dismissed. They are fused together. Siamese twins have to
synchronize their moves. They have to move together along an appointed
route, not deviating from it in any way. It is logical that the
leading member of the tandem is Putin, if only because all of the
current conflicts are continuations of conflicts that existed when he
was the president. He has already mastered the proper reactions and he
is more familiar with our common route leading to an impasse.
The gas conflict could have been resolved quickly. If Medvedev had
done this, however, it would have signified indirect criticism of
Putin. Some people would have been certain to say that Putin raised
Russia up off its knees, but Medvedev is a weak man who makes
concessions. Others would have said that Putin led us into a blind
alley and Medvedev had led us out of it. If, on the other hand, Putin
had done this himself, it would have been an admission of his own
mistakes. Theoretically, this would have been possible for President
Putin, but it is not something Prime Minister Putin can do. As a
result, the conflict acquired unprecedented dimensions, and a problem
that could have been solved in a day at a loss of a few billion is now
taking weeks to solve at a loss of tens of billions.
Our ship of state is sailing in an unknown direction. Neither Putin
nor Medvedev knows where they are sending it. Of course, even in the
absence of a distinct route, the captain of a ship can change course
if he sees reefs. If, on the other hand, there are two captains and
they are Siamese twins, their reactions are slowed down and they lose
control of the ship. The storm of the crisis is ahead. The losses we
incurred during the gas crisis as a result of this loss of control are
only the beginning.
[translated from Russian]