In the Kremlin

The results of the week. Manually

May 16, 2008 Alexander Golts

I heard this wonderful story from my friend and colleague Alexander Ryklin. The second -grader suffers over his homework: he is ordered to come up with a question for an arithmetic task, the conditions of which are known. In the end, he writes: “The chicken weighs 2 kilograms, and the piglet is 15 kilograms more. And what?"

If political scientists and analysts who, all week without a break for sleep, commented on appointments in the government and the presidential administration, would be honest, then this issue should have completed their thoughts. In fact, all reasoning boils down to the analysis of what hardware, the official N and whether he can use it in a new place. And also whether he will be able to outweigh his possible opponent NN. In fact, it is completely incomprehensible how the laws will function the state management system that is now created.

It seems that its creators set themselves the goal of confusing both subordination and responsibility as much as possible. 18 ministries account for 7 deputy prime ministers. So the activities of Viktor Khristenko must coordinate as many as three deputy prime ministers. Anyone who happened to work in an institution oversaturated with bosses knows that in this situation, a fight is unfolding for subordinates. And the latter has a great opportunity to choose whose commands to execute, but whose do not. Moreover, it is enough to carefully read the Putin order on the distribution of duties between his deputies, as it becomes obvious that the zones of their responsibility are repeatedly intersect and mutually duplicated. Finally, the clearly uneven distribution of the load is noteworthy. Behind the first vice - Igor Shuvalov - a good two dozen positions are assigned, and behind the second - Viktor Zubkov - only agriculture and fishing.

This may be, as it seems to me, two explanations. Firstly, it is possible that Putin deliberately confuses the decision-making process. In order to act as the only judge in endless disputes and conflicts. Such a vertical of power is the other way around. However, the situation is inevitable here when the only decision -making center will be buried under a huge number of issues requiring the highest attention. In this case, the creation of the Presidium of the Government, a sort of small Council of People's Commissars, which was organized when the Bolshevik government was mired in bureaucratic showdowns, logically proposed by Putin.

However, there is a simpler explanation for this man -made chaos. Rather, the fact that Putin gave the next to the nearest associates obvious synecuras, asking not to interfere in the management process. It can be assumed that only Igor Shuvalov, who will concentrate the leverage of the management of foreign policy activities, Sergei Sobyanin, who will organize the government, and Alexei Kudrin, who was prudently left the position of Minister of Finance, will be engaged in business.

An even greater riddle - who will control the so -called power departments. So far, it should be recognized: Putin as a whole should (at least at the institutional level) not to redistribute powers in his favor. The "security forces" are still directly obeying the president. The premiere’s control can be seen only in the fact that the heads of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, together with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, will become members of the Presidium of the Government. There are not a single one for whom the deputy prime ministers who would record any “coordination” of the armed forces, law enforcement agencies and special services. From this it follows that Putin’s control over the security forces will be mostly informal in nature, it will be based on the personal devotion of Putin people. Both those who hold the positions of power ministers, and sent to the administration of Medvedev.

With the departure from the Kremlin, Viktor Ivanov, whose apparatus de facto performed the functions of the department of administrative bodies of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the control of security forces, this activity will be engaged in Nikolai Patrushev as secretary of the Security Council. However, it should be borne in mind that the Secretary of the Security Council has no authority. He only prepares the decisions of the president. Therefore, his power and authority depend, firstly, on the weight and authority of the president (and all week the state of state propaganda was only engaged in what demonstrated that the country was not new, but the previous owner), and secondly, from how close the president’s secretary is. It seems that in this case it may not even be dual power, but an extremely dangerous vacuum of power. There are neither clear instruments of institutional control, no civil control. Instead, the hope for the notorious control in “manual mode”.

This is all the more dangerous that all higher posts in law enforcement agencies are occupied by people whose professional and moral formation was in the second half of the eighties and nineties. Unlike Soviet hardening officers, they have absolutely no reverence for political leadership, or even fear of it.

Nothing confirms the theory that the new management system is created according to some clear and thoughtful plan. Rather, it looks like an improvisation. Its authors, apparently, hope that everything will be resolved by itself. But Russian history knows the darkness of examples when those who counted on a “manual regime”, on charisma and a loud voice suffered brutal disappointment.