Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

If Boris Yeltsin were still alive, he would have celebrated his eightieth birthday on Tuesday .  Although his record in the job was chequered, to say the least, the current Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, paid tribute to his predecessor in Yekaterinburg. A monument to Yeltsin was unveiled in the city where he lived and where, as a communist functionary during the 1970s and 1980s, he built up his political power base.  Medvedev chose the occasion to announce an expansion of the human rights council, ordering it to investigate the cases of Yukos bosses Sergei Magitsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. It was an interesting piece of symbolism - both historically and in the context of Russia‘s current system of government.  It implied that Yeltsin was the father of democracy and human rights in Russia and it rather suggested that his successors haven’t been as faithful to that legacy as they might have been. Clearly, there are problems with that interpretation.  It can...

Further evidence of Dmitry Medvedev’s growing assertiveness in the cause of reform. After a public spat, Yuri Luzhkov, the demotic mayor who ran Moscow like a private fiefdom, has been dismissed by the Russian president. Luzhkov, a Yeltsin functionary and then a fixture of United Russia who had held his position since 1992, clashed with Medvedev when the Kremlin cancelled a road building project, due to objections by environmental campaigners. Against a powerful enemy, often portrayed as untouchable, the President showed steely determination. In recent weeks Russian state TV shone a spotlight on the corrupt kleptocracy which Luzhkov operated in Moscow, in order to enrich his own family. Despite clear signals from the Kremlin that his reign was nearing its end, the mayor clung on to the bitter end and refused to jump. Medvedev held his nerve and applied a much needed shove. The interesting aspect of this dismissal is that Luzhkov had made some very dismissive comments about t...

The Yorkshire Post carries an interesting piece by Lord Howell, marking a quarter of a century since Mikhail Gorbachev took power in the Soviet Union. It was during the evening of March 10th 1985 that Communist Party General Secretary, Konstanin Chernenko, who had been slipping into decrepitude for at least a year, died. The Central Committee wasted little time appointing Gorbachev as successor. Much revisionist ink has been spilt diminishing Gorbachev's reformist credentials. By some assessments he was simply engaged in a belated rearguard action, attempting to salvage a crumbling empire. However, at the time of the General Secretary's appointment, neither the shape of 'perestroika', nor the dismantling of oppressive structures which accompanied it, were inevitable. Certainly Gorbachev aspired to breathe new life into a moribund Union. His aim of withdrawing Soviet forces from Afghanistan was not realised until 1989, but it was an ambition from the outset. The U...

I was introduced to Charles Crawford’s ‘Blogoir’ site through the Bloggers’ Circle initiative. Charles, a retired FCO ambassador, purports to publish the world’s first hybrid diplomatic blog / memoir. Clearly Crawford has a deep knowledge of Russia and the post Soviet space. Although I don’t agree with all his conclusions, I read, with a great deal of enjoyment, commentary which is well informed and clearly articulated. Today Blogoir carries a post following up on some points made during a debate about the scrapped missile shield. It is inspired, partly, by an argument I made in the comments’ zone of a previous post , in which I had challenged the perception that Putinism is merely a crude form of nationalism. A mark of the quality of his analysis is that Charles is prepared to accept that I have a point, as has another commenter, who believes that western decision making has played a considerable part in Russia’s ‘uncooperative’ attitude to Europe and America. Charles ad...

Comment is Free carries an article by James Marson examining perceived discontent fomented by the economic crisis, in Russia. It is a more thoughtful piece than the brand of ‘perfidious Kremlin’ geopolitical waffle which most commentators are producing . Whilst the Federation is by no means the oppressive totalitarian state which is frequently depicted by western media, undeniably a more open, accountable approach would afford Russian democracy more air to breathe. Medvedev is by no means a lost cause in terms of steering his country towards that outcome. I have previously insisted that Putinite notions of a ‘power vertical’ and ‘sovereign democracy’ are by no means as insidious as they have often been portrayed. In many respects they simply represent Russian solutions to Russian problems, drawing on a political tradition which differs dramatically from the experience in western Europe and the US. Against the backdrop of a huge, diverse state, Putinism has attempted to strengthen...

Today is an official holiday in Russia , marking the country’s ‘national day’. The 12th of June was first decreed a holiday in 1991 when Boris Yeltsin’s government instigated Independence Day. Given that Russia has not undergone foreign occupation since Moscow freed itself of the ‘Tartar yoke’ in 1480, the day is viewed with ambivalence by the majority of Russians. The nominal ‘independence’ to which Yeltsin was alluding was a declaration by the Russian Congress of People’s Deputies in 1990 that Russia had become independent from the federal authority of the Soviet Union. The holiday has since undergone two name changes, and it is now known simply as ‘Russia Day’. However, despite Putin’s attempts to harness the day to an all-encompassing sense of national pride, “on this day we honour our motherland, our Russia. We honour the country of a thousand years history and unique heritage, the country which united on a huge space many peoples, territories and cultures”, it retains its li...

Dmitry Medvedev looks set to be the next President of the Russian Federation. Whether he acquires real power or whether Vladimir Putin, who will give United Russia's chosen candidate his backing, retains the bulk of influence will become clear in the months after the March election. Putin’s murmurings about alleviating election fatigue have been interpreted in a sinister fashion by some commentators . The suggestion is that Russia is embarking on a course whereby managed elections could become effectively no elections at all. The difficulty with this argument lies not necessarily with the assertion that Putin is becoming increasingly tyrannical but rather with the conception of Russia between 1991 and 2000 being on a meaningful road to liberal democracy. This view posits a tradition of authoritarianism linking Putin to the Soviet regime, interrupted by movement toward a democratic path under Boris Yeltsin. More subtle commentators may acknowledge a much earlier psychological a...