Conspiratorial Nature Of Russian Politics Reddaways View

A Conspiracy to Destabilize Russia and to Cancel or Postpone the Elections

As Peter Reddaway has underscored, the modus operandi of Yeltsin and his
entourage led more or less ineluctably to the growth of various conspiracies.
“Part of this process,” Reddaway noted, “was the growing non-accountability
of the regime and the taking of most real decision-making out of the public
sphere and into the privacy of the bath-houses and tennis courts used by
Yeltsin, his confidant Aleksandr Korzhakov, and their cronies. The increasingly
secretive method of government that this group developed involved the
manipulation of parties, social groups, and public opinion, both through the
media and through a wide range of deceptions and dirty tricks during election
campaigns and in other contexts. Inevitably, therefore, conspiracies of
various degrees of complexity became common, especially in Russia’s ‘court
politics.’”
Elsewhere Reddaway has emphasized that modern Russian political life
cannot be understood without reference to “political technology,” which
represents an extreme form of political consultancy involving manipulation of
individuals and large-scale deception. Since, Reddaway explained, at the core
of any “political technologist’s” plan, there lies a conspiracy, any good analyst
of Russian politics needs to be a conspiracy theorist as well. Conspiracy
theorists, he noted, are usually mocked in countries with transparent political
systems. But a system becomes more prone to conspiracies if the ruler
remains in power for a long time and controls large parts of its wealth.
Russia and Iran, he observed, would be two examples of present-day
countries with conspiratorial politics.
The conspiratorial nature of Russian politics, Reddaway added, presents a
challenge to the normal research methods of political science, since
quantification cannot be applied to the analysis. As a result, scholars of
contemporary Russia have to study minute documents and to determine
which Russian analyst is close to the regime. The study of Russia’s politics,
Reddaway concluded, requires “the resurrection of Kremlinological methods
with which to understand the various manipulations and conspiracies.”

Leaving Room for Contingency

In discussing conspiracy, it is also necessary, as Donald Jensen has pointed
out, to leave room for contingency.
Conspiracies often do not produce the
effects desired by the conspirators. One key contingent effect triggered by
the conspiracies discussed in this article occurred in early to mid August
1999, the chronological terminus of this paper: ethnic Avars living in
mountain Dagestan reacted highly unfavorably to the incursion spearheaded

12 From a written comment made by Reddaway on this manuscript in December 2004.
From comments made by Reddaway serving as one of the two discussants of this paper
at a seminar chaired by Professor Bruce Parrott and held at SAIS on 8 October 2003.
From Reddaway’s written comment of December 2004 on this paper.
From comments made by Donald Jensen while serving as a discussant of this paper at
a SAIS seminar on 8 October 2004.