Elites. Government

This is an interview that Anastasia Karimova gave, on the terms of anonymity, the expert of one of the analytical centers under the Government of the Russian Federation is included in the COLTA.RU ELETA-2016 project. In it, representatives of different elites (and in this text - rather, the witness and participant in the life of the political elite) talk about the country today.

The project was made very difficult, the editors are not embarrassed to tell about it and here explains why.

In the same series, read the conversation with a large businessman (the fortune of more than 200 million dollars; anonymously), the city head of one famous industrial city (Anonymno), founder of the 418 club, the Moscow IT-Girl Nadezhda Obolentseva and a political technologist who worked for the presidential administration, Andrei Kolyadin .

I came to the civil service under the government from research activity actually because I had, and now there is a proportion of idealism. I believe that the system must be changed from the inside, that the more normal people in it, the better. It was interesting for me to understand how the projects were implemented at the state level, how large managers work-governors, ministers, deputy prime ministers.

Now, if there are no special events, my working day begins at 9 am. It is attached to specific assignments, I have assistants who solve technical problems. State work is a very difficult thing in the number of events, and in the sense of the principles by which the management machine operates. There are a lot of players, everyone plays for himself, and therefore it is very difficult to build relationships, designs, and solutions to problems.

Government members work in different mode. Someone works more with documents, someone holds more meetings. The reputation of everyone is also different. There was, for example, Fedorov, the Minister of Agriculture, he behaved like a freak, performed with some long tirades at the government’s meetings of nothing, everyone laughed quietly at him. In the end, he could not resist. There are fairly conflicts like Livanov (the monologue was recorded even before the resignation of the former Minister of Education. - Ed.) Or Medinsky. Tkachev, the current Minister of Agriculture, is also not easy to build relations with colleagues. Rogozin stands apart. He, as it were, sits on this topic of the military -industrial complex ...

Everyone gives instructions contrary to each other, and ministries are engaged in unsubscribing on these assignments, they take up to 70% of the time.

The government meeting takes place once a week, a meeting with the participation of the President - once every two weeks. Each month, some minister (less often-Deputy Prime Minister) performs either in the Federation Council or in the Duma with a report. Different officials build their work in the Duma in different ways: someone works with all the factions, someone is not with all the factions, someone does not work with anyone at all and then get a grenade for it.

The main Think-Tank 'and-this is a wound and tower. All ministers, deputy prime ministers, prime minister use their services; Especially if you need to prepare for large software performances, use their analytics.

For employees of the government and high -level civil servants, classes are regularly held at the RANEPA. Governors and vice-governors are regularly assembled there, and they meet with ministers and deputy prime ministers on this site.

Everyone understands that hardware reforms are needed. Firstly, everyone duplicates each other. We have a very large administration, a very large government apparatus, which in fact performs largely similar functions with the administration and ministries.

For example, some meeting is being prepared. It is prepared by the ministry. But further in the government there is a profile department that takes all these documents from the ministry, and it is he who brings them to the table to the deputy prime minister, without performing any additional analytical actions.

Secondly, a huge number of instructions. There are eight deputy prime ministers, each of whom can give an assignment to any department, there are presidential assistants, they also give instructions. And all these instructions go down to the ministries. The ministers have an exploding head. The hardest level of work - in principle, here, ministries can work around the clock. They have large personnel problems, because the salaries are small, unlike the administration, from the apparatus, it is difficult to attract high -quality personnel. The terms are usually very compressed, everyone gives the contradictory instructions, and this leads to the fact that ministries are mainly engaged in unsubscribes on these instructions, and this unsubscribes takes up to 70% of the time. Where, in theory, the main semantic things should come up with, they simply do not have time to do a substantial job.

Crimea is a decision that we did not know about until the last moment. Nobody really consulted with the ministers.

Sometimes in Putin's programmatic performances we hear what we did not expect. Any of his software performance is the work of a sufficiently large number of people, and since the work is collective, the result is unprofitable. There is an apparatus of presidential assistants, many ministers who can go around the deputy prime ministers to assistants and to the president, to convey their ideas. These ideas can squeeze into Putin's programmatic performances.

There were cases when there were tasks that were completely contrary to what we did. For example, Crimea was a decision that we did not know about until the last moment. Nobody really consulted with the ministers. Maybe with the Minister of Defense, but not with economic ministers for sure. Further, this already resembled a fire extinguishing, not systemic, long -term work.

Or obscurantist laws that harm, including the work of the government. I am talking about the Law on NPOs, about the completely crazy "package of Yarova" - the government does not know what to do with it. The government did not introduce them, did not coordinate them, and, in principle, everyone understands the degree of their crazy. This again happens due to the fact that there are too many players, and the FSB through Yarovy brings its ideas, which go completely contrary to what we do.

For example, the government was against a well -known “orphan” law, the ministry was looking for arguments so that it would not be accepted. But if there is a political decision, it is difficult to challenge it. Although Putin gives the go -ahead not all loud laws, not the whole royal business, but with orphans, as with NGOs and with “foreign agents”, the acceptance was received in the first person.

The Law on NPOs, the “package of Yarovaya”, “orphan” law: the government does not know what to do with it. The FSB through Yarovaya brings its ideas, which go completely contrary to what we are doing.

In the Kremlin, too, everyone to a certain extent for himself. It is clear that Ivanov and Volodin were opposed, Gromov and Peskov also somehow do not get along. The security forces are very segmented, the FSB has a bunch of clans that play different games, individual stories and ambitions in the Ministry of Defense. And, in principle, so at every level. Naturally, there are some situational tactical unions. Of course, everything is listening. And, of course, the increased influence of the security forces is already visible by the number of landings. Before that, many decades were the main method of their work was a denunciation. Actually, it is known that Mikhail Kasyanov was dismissed from the government after a denunciation, completely delusional: you might think that Mikhail Mikhailovich will arrange a breakdown of the presidential election ... But nevertheless, it worked. And it still works ... And after the arrest of the whites, at first everyone thought that this was also the production of the Investigative Committee. However, now there is a feeling that the rules of the game suddenly began to change, but no one explained how why they had not been planted before, but now they began to plant. Of course, the arrests of governors are not the fight against corruption. If we had a normal struggle with corruption, I think that everyone would be imprisoned.

After Crimea, all international contacts abruptly broke off. It was directly very noticeable. And, in principle, the system closed a little.

But you feel the lack of a clear strategy, it is not clear where we are moving.

There is a dive into a swamp, from which it is more difficult to get out. I have the feeling that we did not have any institutions. The judicial system is not built. The normal parliament does not function for many years. Although there were police reforms, the power system is ineffective. There are improvements, but cosmetic. In general, this is completely not what should be. At the same time, there is less and less money, accordingly, the struggle for current resources is exacerbated, which we saw, by the way, in the case of the FSO struggle for restoration contracts.

There is a lack of a clear strategy, it is not clear where we are moving. We need a global reboot, systemic restructuring.

There are two scenarios here. The first is inertial, we will continue immersion. If we do not change anything, then we will not succeed in any growth in six percent, because the system is not able to produce such an increase in the current form. And no Stolypin recipes or, conversely, the ideas of the Ministry of Finance will not be allowed to cut the effect, this is a dead poultice.

The second script is a sharp fracture. For example, the final coming to power of the security forces, a complete transition of the regime to another quality. Which also will not give any effect in terms of growth. Or the transition to a normal trajectory when we build a qualitatively other institutions.

I think they will never understand this at the very top. The higher you are, the more difficult to understand. The civil service is generally addictive, people, in principle, are inclined to sit on it, it is comfortable. But even if you are a very good manager, your eyes are blinked after four to five years, you stop feeling what you need to do. Of course, someone in seven years may not lose an adequate perception of reality. But definitely not for sixteen.

And I do not think that the only change of government will solve the problem. We need a global reboot, systemic restructuring. Many understand this at the top, even if not everyone admits this.

"Elites-2016"-the whole project:

Elites. Large business
Elites. City head
Elites. Nadezhda Obolentsev
Elites. Andrey Kolyadin