Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 29 – The arrests of
former senior officials Mikhail Abyzov and Viktor Ishayev on charges of
corruption in fact, Moscow analysts are almost unanimous in saying, has little
to do with the formal charges and everything with ensuring total elite loyalty
to Vladimir Putin during the upcoming transition.
But despite that unanimity, many of
those writing on this topic provide insights about what is going on. Two especially
thoughtful ones, Sergey Obukhov and Aleksandr Shatilov spoke with Andrey
Polunin of Svobodnaya pressa (svpressa.ru/politic/article/228799/); a
third, Sergey Shelin provides more details (rosbalt.ru/blogs/2019/03/29/1772620.html).
Obukhov,
a secretary of the KPRF Central Committee, says that in his view, the key thing
of the two arrests is the way in which the Kremlin balanced an attack on
someone associated with liberal causes (Abyzov) with one on an obvious
conservative (Ishayev), an indication that the Kremlin wants everyone to
understand that no one is exempt from charges.
What
got each of them in trouble, the analyst says, is not corruption – that is
nearly universal in the Putin elite – but rather the fact that each “generated
intra-elite squabbles. Under current conditions, the Kremlin wants people to
avoid these and to steal only as much as can be done without unsettling the
current balance inside the elite.
Both
these men, Obukhov says, violated that rule and violated another: they had the
kind of contacts outside of the charmed circle that the Kremlin finds
increasingly unacceptable -- Abyshov with Khodorkovsky and Kokh, the kind of
links that attract the interest of “Western special services.” Ishayev did the
same by supporting opponents of the Kremlin after his time.
None
of this is having much impact on the population which understands very well
that this is not about corruption but about power relations within the
elite. But because Putin’s standing is
again falling after a certain period of stability, Obukhov says, it is likely
that after these repressions “within the elite,” those against the opposition
are likely to intensify.
The
second commentator, Aleksandr Shatilov, dean of the sociology and political
science department of the government’s Finance University, says that “the
events of recent days highlight one thing: the former consensus of the
intra-elite model in Russia is beginning to be re-examined and revised.”
The
former consensus, he says, worked well when oil prices were high and for quite
a long time “made possible the consolidation of the Russian elite and the stability
of the state. But after 2014, Russia entered a period of mobilization and the
consensus of elites was transformed into their paralysis.”
“Today
it is obvious,” Shatilov says, “that some new intra-elite forms of inter-relationships
is required because to have pluralism under conditions of wars, even cold ones,
is extremely difficult.” The Kremlin is
doing so with these two arrests in a way that will rebalance the elites and
also help meet the public’s demand for fighting corruption.”
And
Shelin points out that by selecting people long out of power, the Kremlin is
avoiding disturbing the balance of current officials while sending the message
to those who are working and to the broader Russian population that greater loyalty
is required and that no rocking of the boat will be tolerated.
The
open question, the Rosbalt commentator says, is how up the line such repressive
actions will have to go in order to achieve the Kremlin’s aims. If people fall in line quickly, perhaps not
so far; if they don’t, others far closer to the center of power or far more directly
involved in opposition activities could become victims.
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