Paul Goble
Staunton, June 30 – The first half of 2021 has been far more significant for the political development of Russia than all of 2020 despite the wealth of events including the adoption of amendments to the constitution, the change in prime ministers, and the attempted poisoning of Aleksey Navalny, Vladislav Inozemtsev says.
That is because so far this year, the Russian economist and commentator says, the Kremlin has managed to crush the “extra-systemic” political opposition movements and fundamentally changed even the role and prospect of the “systemic” parties (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2021/06/30/konchina-rossiiskoi-oppozitsii).
In the last six months, there has been an all-embracing “purge” of the extra-systemic opposition by means of laws about foreign agents which limit their participation in elections, the prohibition of public enlightenment activities, and the expansion of the definition of the law on extremism which permits the powers to exclude seven to nine million people from voting.
The Kremlin wants everyone to accept that all this is occurring “within a legal framework,” Inozemtsev says; “but it is clear that law today reflects no more than the desires of the authorities at any particular time.” And what has happened means that “the opposition can no longer be called that” since it presupposes actions those so-called can’t take.
Opposition parties by definition, he points out, have opportunities to promote themselves and in time transform themselves into the ruling party.” But in Putin’s Russia, “such a prospect is completely excluded.” Russia has returned to where it was in Soviet times, where people who did not agree were not opposition figures but dissidents with only a small range of bad choices.
At the same time this has been going on, Inozemtsev says, tehre have been “serious changes in the ‘systemic’ opposition as well.” The leaders of the KPRF and the LDPR will be over 80 in 2024, and the head of the Just Russia party almost certainly will be shifted to the Federation Council “within the presidential quota.”
The KPRF hasn’t transformed itself into a genuine social democratic party and instead has become in many ways a pensioners’ party which plays to their memories of Soviet times and acts like a branch of United Russia in that respect. The Just Russia Party has degenerated into Prilepin’s party and will play little role at all.
And the LDPR of Vladimir Zhirinovsky has been reduced to a scandal-plagued clownade in which he and his family members distinguish themselves only by outrageous statements and corrupt actions. There is little reason to expect anything else in the near term, the Russian commentator says.
One way or another, he continues, “the ‘systemic’ opposition also has ceased to be an opposition, although in its case this has been a completely voluntary shift. The big difference is that while the “extra-systemic” groups have been reduced to the status of dissidents, the “systemic” ones have become a chorus for the ruling party.”
As a result, “there remains in Russia one party and several spoilers,” in some ways like the former USSR but in fact much closer to the GDR which is closer to Putin’s heart. And thus, the September 19 vote will be not an election but about the appointment of 450 statists who imitate legislative activity in the interests of the Kremlin.”
The question remains: “will the country begin to change even under these circumstances?”
Without feedback mechanisms, Inozemtsev says, “only two options are possible: either the enlightenment of the political elite in the form of a tragedy as in 1985-1990 or in the form of a face as in 2009-2011, or an unexpected collapse of the entire structure during the notorious ‘transit,’ whenever that happens.”
We don’t know which it will be, Inozemtsev says; “but we can assert with confidence that with the end of the Russian opposition, something we have witnessed in this year, any less dramatic variants of development should be completely excluded.”
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