Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 11 – It is often said
that there is no division of power in Russia, but that is not strictly true.
While there isn’t the division between legislative, executive and judicial
authority that is the basis of political arrangements in the West, there is an
essential division between the supreme power and the bureaucracy, Vladimir
Pastukhov says.
The London-based Russian analyst
says that during the recent debates on constitutional reform far too much
attention has been devoted to the extension of Vladimir Putin’s time in office
and far too little to two other vastly more important aspects of the Russian
political system (mbk-news.appspot.com/sences/obnulenie-ili-delenie/).
On the one hand, most have ignored
that the 1993 constitution allowed Putin to achieve what he wanted in fact and
that the new changes only bring the document into correspondence with what he
is already doing. And on the other, most have failed to recognize that Russia
really does need constitutional reform in order to address a fundamental
problem in Russian life.
That problem, Pastukhov argues, is
this: What Russia needs is not the annulment of presidential terms but the establishment
of the division of powers within the system so that Russia can follow Europe in
“demythologizing and demystification” of the supreme ruler and embed him in the
political system rather than allowing him to remain above it.
All efforts to do that have failed
because Russian attitudes are different than those which have emerged in
Europe. “If the attitudes a Russian has
toward power as a whole for a long time have been utilitarian and rational
(even with a clearly expressed anarchist tendency), those the majority of the population
has toward the supreme ruler remain almost religious.”
That ruler, regardless of his title,
“is irrationally viewed simultaneously as the embodiment of the entire vertical
of Russian power and as a figure separate from it and even opposed to it and
thus a separate branch of power consisting of a single person,” the Russian
analyst says.
What that means is that there isn’t
a division of powers in Russia like the one in Europe, but there is a separate
of powers between the “supreme” ruler and the “ordinary” governmental
machine. For most Russians, “the supreme
ruler” is on the one hand “’the boss of all bosses” and on the other their
defender against these bosses.
That in turn menas that “the country
has always been ruled by ‘an eternal outsider,’” someone called in to rule to “compensate
for the inability of the population to be run by its own “’effective managers.’”
That is a major part of what Pastukhov calls “’the Russian matrix,’” and it
must be demolished if Russia is to develop.
But doing so is extremely difficult because
the quasi-religious view of the population of their leader is a strong narcotic
and weaning the Russian people off of it will inevitably be extremely
difficult. Simply writing a constitution
isn’t enough because rulers will exploit this attitude of the population to
rule as their predecessors did.
And that will happen even if, as
happened in 1917 and 1991, the old state is destroyed, Pastukhov argues. What
is needed is a certain trick or perhaps better a kind of substitute narcotic like
methadone to wean Russians off of the heroin-like narcotic of viewing the
supreme leader as above the state.
The London-based analyst says that
in his view, perhaps the most useful way to do that is not to smash the state –
because in that event whatever is written in the constitution, the old matrix
will return – but rather divide the sacredness of the ruler by having two and
not one person in charge as a step toward liberating Russia from this unfortunate
limitation.
“’The cult of personality,’
Pastukhov continues, “is not about Stalin and Stalnism but about Russia and ‘the
Russian matrix.’ No lengthy and stable rule in Russia up to now has been ab le
to do without this cult” because it provides a cushion of security for the
ruler and allows him to base his power over the bureaucratic machine on popular
attitudes.
According to the analyst, “the
simplest means of doing away with the cult of personality is to take the
personality out of politics and leave only institutions” – or rephrasing
Stalin, “’no personality and thus no problems with its cult.’” But that ignores
the Russian tradition and every time it has been tried, it has failed.
“The key to success of
constitutional reform in Russian conditions is to find such ‘a formula of power’ which on the one hand destroys the basis of ‘the
cult of personality’ as the basis of the foundation of Russian autocracy and on
the other does not take it away instantly, something that can provoke chaos”
which Russians will seek to end with another autocrat.
Pastukhov says that he sees “only
one method” of achieving that, “the cult must be divided in two.” And the place
to begin in the search for that outcome is in changing the relationship between
the president and the prime minister. Up to now, one has always been the shadow
of the other rather than a self-standing center of power.
The constitutional reform Russia
needs must address that, giving each real powers but limiting those powers by
the power of the other. “The president must become the guarantor of the Constitution
but his role must be limited to this. All operational rule must be concentrated
fully in the hands of the prime minister.”
Russia needs a president not to rule
the country but so that “the prime minister will constantly feel that behind
his back stands ‘a political watcher’ ready at any moment to fulfill the
functions of an arbiter. In general,” Pastukhov says, “the Russian coat of arms
will acquire a new and contemporary meaning.”
Organizing this will be difficult,
the London analyst concedes, and he offers one set of suggestions involving
elevating the Federation Council to the status of a State Council with the
president at its head, giving the president the power of appointment but not of
removal, and making the prime minister responsible to a majority in the Duma.
“One way or another,” Pastukhov
continues, “movement in this direction,” one that involves not “’annulling’”
term limits but “’dividing’ authority” would make possible “serious progress”
toward the kind of government that would ultimately end the sacred nature of
power and thus the constant return to authoritarianism.
But “unfortunately, Putin’s
inability and unreadiness to move in this direction … and not his striving to
hold on to power for live makes him a brake on historical progress in Russia.”
It is quite possible as Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore to rule for life but not get
in the way of significant movement forward.
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