Delegates at United Russia’s 9th Congress voted unanimously to make Putin its party chairman. Putin accepted. Surprise, surprise. This possibility has been buzzing around the Russian media for a few weeks now. And in one fail swoop, what was thought to merely be a shell of a political party, has gained importance. Clearly Putin’s “election” to Party leader shows that United Russia is nothing without him.
That of course raises the issue of whether a nothing party like United Russia will actually give Putin something. As Konstantin Sonin noted in the Moscow Times, leading United Russia wouldn’t necessarily give Putin any guarantee over controlling the government. “The party has nothing to offer Putin in his struggle for power,” says Sonin. Indeed, political parties mean little real political power in Russia, even well connected behemoths like United Russia. Sonin continues:
In reality, United Russia’s 300-plus State Duma deputies are ready to give their allegiances not to the party leadership or to Putin personally, but to whomever they believe will be the country’s next leader. If they are convinced that Dmitry Medvedev has ultimately taken hold of central authority, then he will be the one who is able to control the Duma.
The chairman position gives Putin virtually unlimited power within UR. Putin will have the power to appoint party leaders and suspend their powers, and override any party decision expect for those adopted at congresses. His removal is only possible with a 2/3 congressional vote.
If Putin can be taken at his word, he has plans for United Russia. In his address to the Congress he stated that the party of Power needed to “reform itself become more open for discussion and for taking into account the opinion of the electorate, it must be de-bureaucratized completely, cleared of casual people pursuing exclusively their own material gains.” Look out, there’s a new sheriff in town.
Plans have already been set in motion for the recognition of internal factions. Three “clubs” have been created within United Russia to represent its right, center, and left. There is the Center of Social Conservative Policy, headed by Andrei Isaev, the liberal-conservative “November 4th” club led by Vladimir Pligin, and the State-patriotic club led by Irina Yarovaya. Whether these clubs will actually mean anything in terms of inter-party dialog remains to be seen.
Putin’s chief task, if he chooses to take it, will be to rid the party of what he calls “corrupt people.” A task easier said than done. Historically, attempts to clean up party corruption have horribly failed. Often the anti-bureaucratic campaigns, purges, and even arrests within the Communist Party created more corruption. And like the Communist Party of the past, United Russia seems allergic to any real cracking down on its corrupt members. Last week, the United Russia dominated Duma rejected a bill which would require deputies to declare the incomes and property of their relatives up to three years after leaving office. Hiding wealth and property in the names of family members is a common, albeit crude way, of hiding corruption.
Basically, if Putin actually decides to lead United Russia, he’s going to have his hands full. Just because he is the almighty Putin doesn’t mean he will be successful.
One should note that Medvedev was invited to join UR, but he declined. “Certainly United Russia is a party of my like-minded fellows, but I believe my membership in the party premature,” Medvedev stated. “I believe that after my election to the presidential post it would be more correct to remain a non-partisan.” Yeah, non-partisan in form, but not in content.
Murray Feshbach is the guy! I was trying to remember the name of the man whose articles I read back in the 1980s about the USSR/Russia’s coming demographic crisis. As far as I know, he sounded the alarm years before anyone else did and certainly years before anyone paid any attention to it. I cannot say for sure, but I think that his alarming writings also contained recommendations on how to either prevent or ameliorate the problem.
It will be probably be a fascinating talk, Sean. I’ll certainly be eager to read your report.
Hi all. I’d have contributed earlier, seeing as how my article was mentioned, but I was busy. So…
@Sean,
I would question whether high alcohol prices did much to lower consumption. For example, the prohibition 1914-1925 did virtually nothing to lower consumption. In fact, it appears that all it did was increase bootlegging and cause the state to lose a lot of money because it held a monopoly on alcohol production.
While illicit production does increase in times of prohibition, the overwhelming evidence for Russia, at least in mid to late 1980′s, was that in health terms it was outweighted by lower overall consumption. After all, at least in its early days, there were serious penalties for selling moonshine. Unfortunately that effort collapsed, because the USSR decided to have perestroika and social loosening at the same time, and because this prohibition did more than anything to dent Gorby’s popularity (which is sad – it’s one of the few unquestionably good things he did)…
Hello to you Kolya. It makes sense to me too especially considering DR’s intricate analysis. But I’m not fully satisfied with the alcohol explanation. Alcohol is always raised as a cause when it might be more a factor among many. I wonder if the dip in mortality in the 1960s also has to do with the WWII generation entering their 40s and presumably dying off earlier. Living under 4 years of war and then 10 years of reconstruction will do that.
I agree that it’s many causes. Russian men in particular have a perfect fusion of lifestyle choices that guarantee their early demise, including smoking, high-fat, high-sodim diet, as well as alcohol. (Although I still think alcohol is the biggest single culprit).
The WW2 explanation is totally unconvincing. There was no such mortality increase in Germany, a country where 5.3mn soldiers died and which faced something close to a famine in the aftermath of WW2. It also doesn’t explain why Russia’s mortality for older men continued to increase, including amongst those too young to have lived through WW2 or the Stalinist period in general.
I would think the hardships of total war and prison camp conditions would have more of a longterm impact on the health of a population no matter how many people are huddled in basements gulping cheap vodka. Frankly, while alcohol is a problem, to overemphasize it sounds too stereotypical to me.
The theorizing about stressed out WW2 veterans and Gulag inmates having lower life expectancies are conjectures; the correlation between alcohol consumption and mortality, on the other hand, is solid.
Note that the Gulag prisoners were released in mid-1950s’. Mortality rise started only in mid-1960′s.
Thanks for the link Kolya. Incidentally, I got an email today that Murray Feshbach is coming to speak at UCLA on May 1 on the demographic issue in Russia. I plan on going and will give a full report.
That would be very kind of you. I especially interested in indepth information about the AIDS situation.
@Kolya,
In any event, Da Russophile thinks that, among things, cheaper prices played a role in increasing Russia’s alcohol consumption. Makes sense to me. Whether he’s correct, I don’t know.
If you look here (http://darussophile.blogspot.com/2008/04/editorial-demographics-ii-out-of-death.html) at the graph called Alcohol and Life Expectancy in Russia 1990-2007, you will see that there’s is a remarkable correlation between changes in alcohol prices relative to food prices, alcohol consumption levels and life expectancy.
For what is worth, I distinctly remember people drinking vodka out on the street when the Soviet Union still existed and Yeltsin was not in power. Not only drinking out on the street, but also drunks lying right there on the sidewalk.
True. The only time there was ever an effort against this was during Gorby’s anti-alcohol campaign. Otherwise, the continuity from RSFSR to RF is almost perfect.
About Eberstadt…
His stats are true, but he is an incorrigle pessimist. As I covered in my mortality post, rapid improvements in that area are possible, as shown by Karelia in Finland since the 1970′s (when its stats where comparable to Russia’s today) and Estonia since 1995.
@Candide,
Actually, modern Russians are way behind some other nations in alcohol consumption (leastwise officially). Irish drink a whole lot more, for example. Luxembourg is No. 1 in drinking, I believe.
These are by official stats. It’s estimated that Rosstat estimates are a third lower than the real figure because a lot of alcohol sales/consumption is unregistered.
Sean, out of curiosity, did you go to Murray Feshbach’s talk? I hope they’ll have the podcast up. Judging from the podcasted lectures they have, it seems that it takes about a week or so before CEES puts them up. A great service! The information revolution indeed.
With what’s available now to students (and faculty), it gives me the impression that it was during the Middle Ages when I went to college….
Kolya, I did. And it was depressing to say the least. Especially, in regard to birth/death ratios. One stat that I won’t forget is that for every 3 births there are 2 abortions. Simply staggering. Unfortunately, he gave out so many figures, I’m afraid my notes are half hearted at best. But I plan to give some thoughts on the talk probably when the podcast is up. I’ll exert some pressure on CEES to get it up quickly. I’ll tell them the masses can’t be denied!
Thanks for you work on behalf of the masses, Sean! I’ll check the podcast once it up.
@Sean,
One stat that I won’t forget is that for every 3 births there are 2 abortions.
This particular figure is falling quite rapidly, though. In the 1990′s, IIRC, there were two or three abortions for every birth.