On November 12, Dmitry Medvedev announced his second message to the Federal Assembly. From it it became clear that the third president of the Russian Federation certainly intends to go down in history - either as a great modernizer of a backward country, or, at worst, as a person who made the immortal radio phrase irrelevant: “It’s midnight in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.”

DMITRY KAMYSHEV

Many Russians were waiting for this message with special interest. Firstly, for a novice author, the second creation often speaks of more talent than the debut. Secondly, according to the genre traditions of the message, in the first speech the head of state, as a rule, outlines the strategic goals of his reign, and in the second he moves on to setting tactical tasks. For example, in 2000, Vladimir Putin announced strengthening the vertical of power as the main goal of his first term, and in 2001 he already spoke about judicial reform and the modernization of pension and labor legislation. So politically active citizens were curious to know what specific instructions Medvedev’s last year’s arguments about freedom and justice for the people, and not for officials, would result in.

Finally, thirdly, interest in the message was fueled by a fundamentally new format for its preparation: in September, the head of state published an article on the Internet “Russia, forward!”, calling it an outline of a future speech and inviting everyone to send feedback and suggestions (see “Power” "N 37 of September 21). Therefore, those who sent such proposals were eager to catch their own thoughts in the president’s words. And those who limited themselves to reading the “summary” were worried whether Medvedev, as in the article, would continue to criticize the Putin era and whether he would find in the political system any more screws tightened by his predecessor that could be at least slightly unscrewed.

In a moment, the audience will notice the appearance of two spiritual and two chamber leaders - and in a single impulse they will stand up
Photo: Alexander Miridonov, Kommersant

Searching for encouraging contradictions in the words and deeds of the leading tandem is the favorite pastime of representatives of the liberal public. Just as the discovery of facts proving the absence of such disagreements is a matter of principle for every self-respecting sovereign-democratic commentator. The 2009 Address gave food for thought to both, because for almost every thesis that can be regarded as an attack on Putin, if desired, an antithesis can easily be found that looks like an unconditional assurance of complete respect for him.

For example, at the beginning of his speech, Medvedev recalled one of the most striking passages from his article that the opposition really liked - about the “primitive structure of the economy” and “humiliating dependence on raw materials.” Considering that in September many interpreted this phrase in the spirit of “a student criticized the teacher,” then its demonstrative repetition in the message can be considered a kind of signal: “Yes, you understood everything correctly.” However, a minute later the president was, in fact, quoting the prime minister (“Despite the fall in budget revenues, the state’s social obligations are being fulfilled in full. And it will continue to be so.”) and boasted of successes in the social sphere (increasing pensions and providing housing for veterans), which is precisely is the prime minister's strong point. Although, following anti-Putin logic, he could probably say: “If it weren’t for the mistakes of recent years, pensions would now be much higher.”

In another case, the head of state seemed to be polemicizing in absentia with the chairman of the government, calling “not to look for the culprits (in the crisis. - “Vlast” ) only outside,” because Putin said that Russia is now suffering solely because of mistakes in the US financial policy Until recently I spoke at every opportunity. But already in the next paragraph, Medvedev made a reservation that “a large-scale program of anti-crisis measures (developed, by the way, by the government - “Vlast” ) made it possible to stabilize the situation by the middle of this year.” And this is called "criticism"?

We will, we will, we will create

The 2009 Address to the Federal Assembly marked a new stage in the grammatical development of this genre. Instead of the dull obligatory modality (“we must” and “we need”), Dmitry Medvedev used a cheerful future tense.

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Another seemingly obvious attack on Putin is a hidden reference to one of the meetings of the government presidium, at which the prime minister, speaking about the effectiveness of the fight against smuggling, angrily asked: “The result is imprisonment. Where are the imprisonments?” However, having started for the health of the liberals - “Plantings alone will not solve the problem,” the president immediately, after a second pause, finished for the peace: “But we must plant.” How, one might ask, is this to be understood—as a criticism of Putin’s tough approach or, conversely, as his complete support? And what should still be considered the Kremlin’s general line - a promise to create “additional conditions for free, fair and civilized competition between parties” or a warning that “any attempts under democratic slogans to shake up the situation, to destabilize the state, to split society will be suppressed”?

And even Medvedev’s words about the futility of the institution of state corporations (GC), dear to the heart of any true market specialist, can be interpreted in two ways. Yes, he made it clear that this form of management does not suit him and most of these structures “should eventually be transformed into joint-stock companies controlled by the state.” But a blow to the State Corporations, which, according to critics, allow the unhindered transfer of state assets into private ownership, is also a blow to Vladimir Putin, whose closest associates run these corporations.

But, on the other hand, what does the president propose? Transform the group of companies into joint-stock companies, which then, perhaps, “will be sold to private investors.” Does anyone doubt that the heads of the former Civil Codes will be their current leaders? And that the largest blocks of shares in new joint-stock companies will accidentally end up in their ownership, as was the case, for example, with Gazprom? So should Putin be offended by such an “attack”? Rather, he should thank his successor for correctly understanding party policy.

Dmitry Medvedev gave listeners the opportunity to hear what they wanted and not hear what they didn’t want
Photo: Alexander Miridonov, Kommersant

But in Medvedev’s latest proposals to “unscrew the screws” there is no duality observed. And experts have practically no reason to argue in this case. Is it possible that loyal Putinists will insist that the implementation of presidential instructions will lead to the complete and final triumph of true democracy, and critics of the regime will note that this is only a continuation of “liberalization for our own”, announced in the first message.

Moreover, in a number of cases, the head of state did not even come up with anything new, but simply proposed moving initiatives already implemented at the federal level to the regional level. In particular, the constituent entities of the federation are ordered to ensure representation in their parliaments of parties that received more than 5% of the votes (in most regions, following the State Duma, the barrier has already been raised to 7%), guarantee the equality of parliamentary parties in the local media and legitimize the practice of annual reporting by governors to deputies.

In addition, Medvedev spoke in favor of extending the so-called parliamentary privilege (the right to nominate candidates without collecting signatures) to parties represented not only in the State Duma, but also in the legislative bodies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation (in the corresponding regional and municipal elections). True, the opposition hoped that the president would support its idea to generally exempt all seven parties registered in Russia from collecting signatures. But he considered this measure possible only “in the future” - apparently because among party members, unfortunately, there are still citizens who do not fully share the ideals of sovereign democracy.

But the head of state listened to other complaints from the opposition regarding the fight against election fraud. He proposed “finally putting things in order with early voting in local elections” and “analyzing the practice of using absentee ballots.” These two points really cause a lot of criticism from independent experts, since, in their opinion, they are actively used to rig the voting results. However, the president said nothing about the most popular method of falsification today - the banal rewriting of numbers in protocols by the heads of election commissions. Although the same opposition expected from him at least a ritual promise to thoroughly investigate all cases of fraud and demonstrably punish the perpetrators.

Why Dmitry Medvedev was applauded

During the 1 hour, 39 minutes and 40 seconds of the message, the audience applauded the president 64 times. The total duration of the claps was five and a half minutes. "Power" presents selected statements that have received general approval.

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However, the promise to “intensify work on technological support for political competition” can be partly considered a response to these expectations. Dmitry Medvedev considers the main component of this work to be “the introduction of electronic means of counting votes and processing information at polling stations,” which “will help combat abuses during election campaigns” and make “the electoral system at the regional level more transparent.” We are apparently talking about a widespread transition to so-called electronic ballot boxes, equipped with scanners for reading information from ballots. According to statistics, in polling stations with such ballot boxes, United Russia usually receives fewer votes than in places where manual counting is practiced. True, the enthusiastic support shown recently by United Russia for this idea suggests that the Kremlin political strategists have already solved the problem of correctly programming electronic ballot boxes.

Well, so that no one draws too far-reaching conclusions from the current liberal initiatives, the head of state clearly outlined the boundaries of liberalization. Having stated that “a multi-party system in the Russian Federation as a whole has developed,” he especially emphasized that the programs of the existing parties “reflect the entire spectrum of political views existing in society.” That is, all “Solidarities”, “Left Fronts” and other radical oppositionists were asked not to worry: their political views were actually recognized as non-existent, and attempts to express them publicly “under democratic slogans”, as mentioned above, were subject to “suppression”.

The President called on parliamentary parties to sometimes listen to their unsuccessful competitors. United Russia member Vyacheslav Volodin (right) immediately took Nikita Belykh, a native of the right-wing forces, as his interlocutor
Photo: Alexander Miridonov, Kommersant

In addition to what exactly the president said in his message, it is also worth paying attention to how he said it.

First of all, it can be noted that the head of state only partially fulfilled his promise in the message, in contrast to the article on the Internet, “not only the questions on which we have many problems, but also answers to them.” Specific tasks for the authorities are, of course, set in the document, but there are much more general descriptions of how well we will all live after the promised modernization of the country. This is evidenced, in particular, by the abundance of perfective verbs in the future tense, which replaced modal constructions more common in presidential messages (see reference). And in connection with this, on Medvedev’s beloved Internet, comments appeared like: “I listened. An alien’s story about life on Alpha Centauri.”

The president, apparently, decided to compensate for the lack of specificity with the weight of what was said (slower - 92 words per minute versus the current 95 - only Putin announced his message in 2003) and the duration of the speech (100 minutes, which is 15 minutes more than the record set by the same Medvedev last year). And the dissimilarity of this speech from previous ones was emphasized not only protocolically (like last year, the president was the only speaker, whereas previously the meeting was invariably opened and closed by the speaker of the Federation Council), but also stylistically. The head of state carefully avoided the common folk expressions familiar to his predecessor, allowing himself, in addition to the above-mentioned passage about the landings, only the phrase that if there were proper security institutions in Europe, “Georgia would not have the impudence to start a war against Ossetia.”

Ooo!

During Boris Yeltsin’s speech to the Federal Assembly in 1997, what was heard from the audience was not applause, but mainly remarks from the dissatisfied opposition. “Power” reminds us how it was.

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Well, the main find of the presidential speechwriters, undoubtedly, should be recognized as a sensational proposal to reduce the number of time zones in Russia, which now interfere with “effectively governing our country” and “lead to the use of too expensive technologies.” After all, what will happen with modernization and whether it will work out at all is still unknown. And for the reform of standard time, as Kremlin officials have already clarified, only a government decision is enough. Then, of course, there may be other initiatives, for example, the introduction of the institution of presidential envoys in time zones. But the main thing is that if this reform takes place, Dmitry Medvedev will probably go down in Russian history as the person under whom the Far East moved closer to the center of the country for a couple of full-fledged hours. And this accomplishment of the third post-Soviet president will certainly rank with such unforgettable reforms of his Soviet predecessors as, say, the widespread planting of corn under Nikita Khrushchev or the anti-alcohol campaign of Mikhail Gorbachev.

What is your attitude to the President’s messages to the Federal Assembly? (%)*

They determine the social and political course of the country - 13

They contain tasks that the government and local authorities must solve - 26

They touch upon current problems in the life of the country, which become the subject of discussion - 23

This is an empty formality, a ritual that does not lead to practical results - 26

Difficult to answer - 13

Do you usually follow up on these requests? (%)* 2006 2009

Yes, I usually pay close attention I follow the performances president	25	14
I'm not paying attention, oh I find out the main ideas of the message from news releases	41	41
No, I usually don't I pay attention to this event attention	32	39
I find it difficult to answer	3	6

*The sum of the answers differs from 100% due to rounding of indicators.

Source: VTsIOM, 2006, November 7-8, 2009.

Testaments of Anatolyich