Andrew Wilson of the European Council on Foreign Relations has a piece on Transitions Online which takes a look at some opinions of Gleb Pavlovsky and Yevgeny Gontmahker to debate what the Pikalyovo incident did and did not teach us about politics in Russia.
Pikalyovo was also an attempt to address the inefficiencies in Putin's authoritarian project by creating what Russians call obratnaya sviaz ("reverse connection"). The system works, but only just. Russia still needs a modernization project, albeit not the "prosperity project," backed by good finances and sound macroeconomics, which the Putin-Medvedev tandem was originally supposed to implement. Not only will Russia have to proceed with fewer resources, it will have to tackle the flip side of a stronger state, what even Pavlovsky calls "severe monopolism in all social spheres," not just in government and the economy, but in the mass media and in society at large. The intermediary structures he helped set up are passive and inert, particularly "the party," now normally referred to in the singular as in the days of the CPSU, i.e. United Russia, which, unlike the CPSU, is mainly a vehicle for governors and lower bureaucrats to advertise their loyalty. Hardly anybody in the Kremlin belongs to it. Moreover, the stasis extends to society as a whole. After the "20-year crisis" of the 1980s and 1990s, "all social spheres are static. There is a conservative mood, even in business. There are no risk takers. The atmosphere is against innovation."
Pikalyovo was supposed to spark an inert bureaucracy into life. The search for "reverse connection" has also led to some outreach to civil society, but one that will be very different to the kind of liberalization advocated by Russia's surviving liberals, men like Gontmakher and Igor Yurgens, the head of the Institute of Contemporary Development, the think tank currently favored by Medvedev. Gontmakher has recently argued that the system needs "Khrushchev-ization" - like Khrushchev after Stalin, Medvedev (or Putin) needs to break with the system he helped create. In his first year in office, Medvedev has managed to maintain the impression that he is all-things-to-all-liberals, and that he might be willing to create a bigger tent, bringing in some survivors from the 1990s. In fact, Medvedev's job is to promote a "soft form of cooptation." The new Kremlin-sponsored "liberal party" Right Cause and the new Civil Society Forum are designed to prevent liberals reaching out and making common cause with protestors. Medvedev's job is to persuade civil society to play along, or it will be subject to re-control by real hardliners. The regime needs NGOs to improve the upward information flow, but the chief Kremlin ideologist Vladislav Surkov, who was responsible for the original law restricting the operation of NGOs in 2006, made the terms of the bargain crystal clear at the last meeting of the Civil Society Forum in June. Civil society leaders are requested to provide concrete proposals on specific policy areas, but should not think of getting involved in politics and should not speculate about the system as a whole.
There is, as yet, no real sign of any second summer of perestroika. Medvedev has yet to prove that he is some kind of chrysalis liberal. The Institute of Contemporary Development, which has become the first port of call for Western visitors seeking to spot the first green shoots of reform, is in fact complaining it is starved of money, resources, and influence. Russia's gamble is to keep with the system it has for now. It has run down its reserves, but kept most of its money in the bank, and is banking on oil price recovery to lift it off the rocks. The one thing Russia is not doing is using the crisis writ large as a new form of shock therapy. Russia had had too many shocks recently.
"There is, as yet, no real sign of any second summer of perestroika."
Good thing too. The last one turned out catastrophically. Population loss in Ukraine has been ~12% since then, and births still exceed deaths there by almost 250,000/year. Russia is recovering and total population loss there in 2008 was trivial, with the first six months looking a bit better than that.
Why is everyone so eager for another socio-economic catastrophe?
It's pretty amusing to watch Russophile filth moving their lips as RKKA is doing above while attempting to "think." Should he blame the West for Russia's population loss? But then why didn't Putin solve it? Or should he tout Russia's solving the problem? But then how to blame it on the West?
Russia ranks #130 out of all world nations for adult lifespan. Its population is not falling faster only because Russians are being booted out of all the other countries in the world where they aren't wanted and are returing home. Once that immigation is over, Russia's population will plunge rapidly as FAR more people perish than are born. Vladimir Putin, not Bill Clinton, is to blame for that, and only a true psychopath can fail to appreciate that.
Ukraine suffers because of decades of exploitation and mass murder by Russia. RKKA is apparently unaware that Russia ATTEMPTED TO ASSASSINATE Ukraine's anti-Russian president and routinely cuts of energy flows, attempting to starve and destroy Ukraine until it is once again a vassal state that can be victimized by another Holodomor.
Meanwhile, scum like RKKA work to avoid any reform taking place in Russia, so that it will once again collapse from incompetence and corruption just the same way the USSR did, and the institution of the Tsar before that. They are Russia's true enemies, let nobody doubt it.
Phoby, Phony, Phoby....
"Once that immigation is over, Russia's population will plunge rapidly as FAR more people perish than are born."
Nope. Even excluding immigration, Russia's rate of population decline is ~0.2%/year. Ukraine's on the other hand is over twice as high.
"Ukraine suffers because of decades of exploitation and mass murder by Russia."
Poor Phoby, her utter cluelessness is indicated by the fact that Ukraine's population was rising while her fantasized "exploitation and mass murder by Russia" was actually going on. It's only after all that "exploitation and mass murder by Russia" stopped that the Ukrainian population decline from 52 million to 46 million even started.
"routinely cuts of energy flows, attempting to starve and destroy Ukraine until it is once again a vassal state that can be victimized by another Holodomor."
Then why was Ukraine's population declining even while Russia was charging only $50/1000m3 for natural gas?
Boy, Phoby will dodge, squirm, and lie most enterainingly to conceal the fact that she truly has no clue!
"Meanwhile, scum like RKKA work to avoid any reform taking place in Russia, so that it will once again collapse from incompetence and corruption just the same way the USSR did, and the institution of the Tsar before that. They are Russia's true enemies, let nobody doubt it."
When "reform" = "reckless adoption of inapplicable socio-economic models that wind up causing millions of deaths just to conform to the 'Washington Consensus'" I do oppose it. Show it to be reason. Show it to be good sense. Show it to be a useful means of attaining a valuable object and I'll support it. On the other hand, vacuous "reforms" for no reason other than to please Andy Wilson and the European Council on Foreign Relations get laughed out of Moscow and rightfuly so.