The future of Russia studied
A report called “Alternative Futures for Russia” will be issued in Washington today by the authoritative nonprofit Center for Strategic and International Studies. Besides the usual criticism of democracy in Russia, some parts of the report are downright fantastic. One of the alternative futures the report contains is a scenario built around the possible assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin on January 7, 2008, in Moscow. Kommersant Washington correspondent Dmitry Sidorov has read the report.
The authors of the 59-page report are director of the CSIS Russia and Eurasia program Andrew Kuchins, former senior director for Russian affairs at the National Security Council Thomas Graham, Assistant Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University Henry Hale, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics Anders Aslund and others. On the report’s cover are five photographs: Russian President Vladimir Putin with the G8 leaders, Putin with the Chinese President Hu Jintao, the recent arrest of Other Russia leader Garri Kasparov, snow-covered oil wells and children in a computer class.
Although the scenarios for Russian development suggested by the American experts differ noticeably from each other in accordance with their personal points of view, they hold unanimous positions on a number of principle points. The authors are certain that Russia will not become a mature democracy in the next ten years. They do not consider the current political stability durable. One reason for that is that the political course of the country depends too heavily on a single figure, rather than on institutions of authority. In addition, as Aslund explains, the tension between the centralized political system and the market economy based on private enterprise will not abate. Aslund identifies “aggressive rationalization” as one of the main problems in the Russian economy, which, he says, has a negative effect on corporate management and economic effectiveness.
The most speculative part of the research is a discussion of the future of Russian politics and its leader. Graham thinks Putin will hand over power smoothly to the successor he chooses and will begin to fade from the political scene as that successor consolidates his position. Eight years later, according to Graham’s scenario, a new successor will calmly take over.
Kuchins has an entirely different vision. He imagines that “Russia and the world were stunned by the assassination of Vladimir Putin as he walked out of a midnight mass at the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow on January 7, 2008 [Russian Orthodox Christmas] .” Kuchins continues that killer would not be caught and Russia would be thrown into immediate chaos. The stock market would collapse, mass strikes and demonstration would begin and, on January 20, a state of emergency will be declared. “What looked to be a fairly smooth transition to longtime Putin colleague Sergei Naryshkin taking over as president with Dmitri Medvedev stepping into
the prime minister position was disrupted by the killing of Putin,” Kuchins summarizes his scenario, and the enforcement bloc in the Kremlin will gain power, that is, Igor Sechin, Sergey Ivanov and Nikolay Patrushev. By naming Naryshkin, not Medvedev, Putin’s successor, Kuchins has already erred by that much.
As it continues, Kuchin’s scenario starts to sound more and more like a suspense novel. After the imposition of the state of emergency, he posits, head of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin would become president and order the shooting of striking oil worker in Surgut. St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko and Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov would be sentenced to death for the embezzlement of billions of dollars. Nationalism will rise significantly along the way. But, after a series political and economic shakeups, there is a happy ending in 2016, with Boris Nemtsov becoming president with the help and funding of the again-free Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Kuchins, the former head of the Carnegie Fund in Moscow, is one of the best-informed and authoritative Kremlinologists in the United States. He participates in practically all major international conferences on Russia. Before the July 2006 G8 summit in St. Petersburg, Kuchins sent a personal letter to Putin in which he explained to him how to observe democratic principles and assured him that America does not need a weak Russia, as the Kremlin believes. In spite of his continuing criticism of “sovereign democracy,” Kuchins is in the small circle of Western experts who meet annually with Putin at sessions of the so-called Valdai Club. At this year’s meeting, which took place in the president’s Sochi residence, Kuchins asked whether the “Putin plan” wasn’t for United Russia to win in the parliamentary elections and become the ruling party for decades to come.
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