Russia requires a dash of color

By Vyacheslav Nikonov

Tuesday, Oct 04, 2005, Page 9

`The Yeltsin regime was not so much democratic as anarchic and oligarchic. Today there is less anarchy and less oligarchy.'

Public always uses stereotypes. But it is always far worse when stereotypes take over the consciousness of a society's elites. Such is the case regarding Russia nowadays.

Liberal Western and domestic circles commonly characterize Russian President Vladimir Putin's government as increasingly authoritarian and ineffective. Inasmuch as illiberal -- and especially personal -- regimes are considered the least stable, the logical conclusion is that the "color revolution" scenario that we observed in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan is likely to repeat itself in Russia.

Of course, anything is possible in today's Russia. But I think that there is more wishful thinking than hardheaded logic among those calling for a "color revolution."

Consider, for example, that no one has ever developed a precise way to measure whether and to what extent a government is effective. If the criterion of effectiveness is the ability to achieve all of a society's goals, we will probably never find such a thing. The US, with a government that can hardly be described as weak, bungled the war in Iraq and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Compared to these failures, Putin's achievements in Chechnya look like the height of success.

Similarly, the EU's leadership is criticized for its inability to secure economic growth rates of more than 1 or 2 percent; by this standard, any government of a country with 7 percent growth -- such as Putin's Russia -- should be called super-effective. Indeed, today's administration is far more effective than former president Boris Yeltsin's government during the 1990s. Back then, most of the country was not governed at all, half of the economy's productive capacity vanished, the Kremlin could not get a single reform law through the Communist Duma, and only lazy people were not talking about the country's disintegration.

To be sure, contemporary Russia can hardly be called an exemplary democracy, and not all trends are encouraging. But to think that we are moving from Yeltsin's "democracy" to Putin's "autocracy" is simply silly. It is difficult today to imagine tanks firing on a legally elected parliament or privatization of state assets -- as well as delegation of the actual running of the country -- to the head of state's family and business cronies.

Similarly, it was not Putin who enacted a Constitution with an enormously powerful presidential government and a weak system of checks and balances, nor did he start the slaughter in Chechnya. The Yeltsin regime was not so much democratic as anarchic and oligarchic. Today there is less anarchy and less oligarchy.

The situation in Russia is far from identical to that which prevailed in, say, Ukraine at the time of last year's "orange" revolution." We Russians have no Victor Yushchenko, who from the start was the undisputed leader of the right-wing opposition. Nor do we have a Leonid Kuchma, an ineffective, weak-willed president who was widely hated. With an approval rating that hovers around 70 percent, no one can accuse Putin of being unpopular -- or, for that matter, of a willingness to surrender to the opposition or to people in the street.

In any case, it is not liberals who can get people into the streets in Russia; it is the Communists and nationalists. Their red and brown revolution would certainly be colorful, but not exactly the sunny outcome liberals profess to desire.

Liberals face up to grim reality: Russia already had an "orange" revolution, in 1991, and the results were not particularly impressive. In fact, perhaps Ukraine, too, is beginning to suffer its own form of revolutionary hangover. As Yushchenko's recent sacking of his entire government shows, color revolutions have yet to prove that they are effective.

Alexis Toqueville claimed that unfulfilled hopes lie at the basis of every revolution, that every revolution is engendered by disillusion caused by exaggerated expectations. The high point of disillusion with Russia's top leaders passed in 1999, when the level of trust in Yeltsin sunk to around 3 percent.

In reality, the main trouble with the current Putin government in the eyes of its Western critics is that its friends and like-minded thinkers are no longer in the loop. That can happen with anyone, but it is still no reason for revolution, which is always better wished on someone else than on yourself.

Yet despite all this, I have no doubt that an attempt will be made to bring down Russia's government by means outside the voting booth when the next presidential election is due in 2008.

Vyacheslav Nikonov, one of Russia's leading political scientists, is president of the Politika Foundation, Moscow.

Copyright: Project Syndicate