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Without a doubt, open dialogue is a useful thing. But it's not all that helpful in a war for survival, which is what Russian democrats are being forced to wage today. Naturally, the ideological disagreement between Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, has its fundamental reasons. And both sides have their points, of course. The ideology of natural selection and the cult of wealth, which SPS believes to be the main driving force behind social development, will hardly win supporters by democratic means. On the other hand, Yabloko's rosy social policy wrapper may look tempting, but the party can't keep denying the laws of economic development forever. In terms of economic logic, SPS is clearly the stronger party. But does any of this matter in Russia today?
While the democrats are deciding whose ideology is better and bicker about how to divide up posts in a nonexistent party bureaucracy, the initiative on the political scene completely belongs to President Vladimir Putin and his circle. Putin has privatized the positive agenda. The few positive things that are happening in the country are portrayed as flowing from Putin. For this reason -- and not out of passionate love -- a huge number of completely sane and reasonable Russians voted for Putin and United Russia.
The liberals, however, have been utterly marginalized, and all this public debate, reminiscent of the conversations held in Soviet kitchens long ago, is only increasing this marginalization. There is absolutely no promotion of democratic ideas in Russia. As a result, a large number of Russians seriously believe that democracy is a fairy tale told by the West in its push to dominate the world. The young, who never knew life in the Soviet Union, are pining for the lost superpower, without any clue about what it was actually like to live with empty shelves, endless lines, absolute repression and the constant derision of the bureaucrats of the Soviet power vertical, who, unlike average citizens, had access to special supplies and goods. Now that it has managed to demonize the 1990s, the Kremlin will succeed in its next project of mythologizing the Soviet Union while celebrating the anniversary of the start of perestroika. This project will serve as the ideological coating for a new restructuring of the state.
Where are the democrats in all this with their constructive agenda? Where is the active promotion of the idea of democracy? Where is the economic program that will help Russia break through to a brighter future? For the time being, the SPS economists are working for Putin, while Yabloko's naive economic ideas bring tears of frustration to the eyes.
SPS and Yabloko leaders, if you need to develop a shared ideological platform, then you should lock a couple of eggheads in a room for a month and get yourselves a program. If you need to debate something, then be our guests. Just do it in private, guys. But please don't open your mouths until you have something substantial to say to the public. Better to take an oath of silence in the meantime.
In 2008, voters will go to the polls who were only 1 year old when the Soviet Union collapsed. They still do not know what kind of Russia they want to live in. You need to tell them. Until then, gentlemen liberals, Putin's political engineers will be far more interested in your speeches than anyone else. They will be picking them apart, looking for some new way to make fools of you. And they will find it.
Finally, you risk irritating the Russian public with your much ado about nothing. Russians are not particularly interested in how you disagree today or what you would have done in the past. Russians want to know what will happen to their country tomorrow. If you don't tell them this, Kremlin spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky or deputy chief of staff Vladislav Surkov will. And many voters will get behind their new political project, if only because it will at least offer something concrete.
Vladimir Milov, president of the Institute for Energy Policy, contributed this comment to Vedomosti, where it first appeared.
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