Parties, designs and traditions

In modern Russia, the party system is formed based on the architectural principle - this means that the federal government decides which parties are systemic and which are not, making a targeted artificial selection. Four systemic parties are represented in parliament, the capabilities of the systemic liberals (Yabloko) are sharply limited, the Union of Right Forces balances on the brink of being systemic and non-systemic, and the “Kasyanovites” from the RNDS, the Republicans of Vladimir Ryzhkov, the nationalists from “Great Russia” and a number of other political forces have no opportunity to be registered due to its “non-systemic” nature.

What is the result? Among the four parliamentary parties, one is United Russia, a political force that unites pragmatic officials at different levels. “A Just Russia” is an analogue of Noah’s Ark for those politicians who, for one reason or another, were not accepted into “United Russia”. The LDPR is a typical leadership party, the fate of which is connected exclusively with the figure of Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Finally, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation most closely resembles a classical political party, but, unwilling to seriously change, it has very few prospects for further development. The growth of support for communists in large cities in the last parliamentary elections is the result not so much of successful campaigning as of protest demand amid a shortage of supply. Voters supported the only opposition party that had a real chance of entering parliament. At the same time, the communists, in fact, imposed themselves as a parliamentary party - thanks to their ideological activists, they were not able to be turned into a completely manageable structure (although a serious attempt of this kind was made in 2004).

Thus, the formed four-party structure is very unstable - its long-term existence is in great doubt. Its main difference from the modern democratic multi-party system is the system of artificial restrictions that narrow the choice of the voter. Let's take Finland - at first glance, it seems that such an example is not very adequate, and that it is difficult to compare a calm and comfortable Western country with Russia, in which there is a clear lack of democratic traditions. However, let us remember that during the formation of the existing party system, Finland experienced a lot of trials - this was the short-lived but bloody civil war of 1918, the right-wing fascist “Lapua” movement a decade later, and the difficult “winter war” (after which it was necessary to solve the problem of resettling refugees from near Vyborg, who did not want to live in the USSR), and the country’s involvement in World War II, and the burden of defeat in this war, and contradictory relations with its Soviet neighbor for decades. In general, there are many reasons to tighten the screws, select parties for lambs and goats, and start constructing a party system “from above.”

However, this did not happen. The Social Democrats remained in the party system, who appeared more than a hundred years ago and during the civil war were in the ranks of the losing “Reds” - their final reconciliation with the “Whites” occurred two decades later, during the “Winter War” of 1939-1940, when the consolidation of all political forces in the country took place. The Swedish People's Party and the Finnish Center, the successor to the Agrarian Union, which united broad sections of the rural population, have a hundred-year history. The predecessors of the National Coalition Party were conservative monarchists who were skeptical about republican projects, but managed to integrate into the party system of the republic. All these parties really competed with each other, while also gaining experience of cooperation within the framework of coalition governments. Their frequent changes - during the period from 1918 to 1932, the country was ruled by two dozen cabinets of ministers - did not lead to the collapse of Finnish democracy. On the contrary, it was further strengthened due to the gradual “rooting” of the party system, the formation of traditions, which occurred naturally, without the presence of some kind of regulator from above. The only possible contender for this role, Marshal Mannerheim, tried not to interfere in political conflicts, thereby strengthening his authority in society (including winning the sympathy of the losers in the civil war). At the same time, smaller parties also exist freely in the country, some of which were part of the government at various stages of its history (for example, in the early 70s, the Rural Party of Finland was very popular, for which peasants who showed dissatisfaction with the “centrists” voted) . And no one is going to artificially reduce their number, because behind a small party there are often real public interests that must be respected.

One should not idealize the Finnish party experience, considering it to be fully consistent with democratic norms throughout the country's history. For example, in the pre-war period, the Communist Party was banned in the country, but it was subject to the principles of the Comintern, which provided for the conduct of not only legal, but also mandatory illegal activities. After the war, she was able (although not without problems) to become part of a civilized party system under the flag of the Democratic Union of the People of Finland and was repeatedly part of the country's governments that pursued a policy of supporting a market economy. In the 30s, the Finnish parliament included a pro-fascist right-wing radical party (however, at that time similar tendencies were characteristic of most European countries), but it did not have much influence.

The natural selection of the most viable parties led in Finland to the creation of a fairly stable party system in the conditions of the turbulent twentieth century. Something similar happened in Germany, where three of the four current leading parties and blocs (excluding the Greens) have predecessors that existed during the Weimar Republic. These are better examples to follow than, for example, Suharto's Indonesia, whose top-down three-party system did not survive its founder, General Suharto.

The author is vice-president of the Center for Political Technologies