Theoretical Considerations On Russian Political Ailments

Some Theoretical Considerations

Yeltsin’s Russia in 1999 was suffering from many of the same political
deficiencies and ailments that had afflicted it in 1994, when a decision had
been taken to invade Chechnya, and in 1996, when Yeltsin had initially
decided to cancel or to postpone the presidential elections. To sum up the
key points made by Michael McFaul in his book Russia’s Unfinished
Revolution: Russia under Yeltsin represented an unconsolidated and
sluggishly developing proto-democracy which lacked key institutions (for
example, an independent judiciary) of a Western-style liberal democracy. By
the spring of 1999, Russia found itself once again in a “balanced” situation,
always dangerous in that country, in which the Yeltsin group, the Communist
Party with its powerful parliamentary faction, and the ascendant Luzhkov-
Primakov forces were all contesting fiercely for power. There had taken place
no pacting among these battling groups. The Communists in the Duma were
moving ahead with an effort to impeach the Russian president. “Ambiguous
calculations about power,” McFaul concluded, “constitute a major cause of
conflict [in Russia].”

One other factor needs to be noted here: The fierce political struggle which
had broken out was also an economic one. The Communists were seeking to
reverse the process of capitalism in Russia, while the Luzhkov-Primakov
group were interested in stripping certain oligarchs and bureaucrats in
Yeltsin’s entourage—Roman Abramovich, Boris Berezovsky, Aleksandr
Voloshin—of their wealth and, optimally, also in incarcerating them in prison.
As McFaul and others have underscored, when an economic struggle
becomes intertwined with a political one, then the chances of a successful
transition to liberal democracy are greatly reduced.