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Having learnt the theory one feels confident and strong enough to climb a corruption tree. This is a very comfortable seat for the top corrupted circles of Russian state. Ironically, the state announced the anti-corruption war and started swinging a stem of the tree of poison and ulcer.
It does make any sense for getting troubled. Top authorities will not cut their favorite tree. The only advice should be suitable: beware of falling down! It is easy to fall downwards the peccable ground and be caught by guards, stuffed with handcuffs; finally, be imprisoned.
The results of this study have definite implications for both corrupted officials and for those who broke an anti-corruption war. Everyone should be aware of a destructive nature of corruption. It ruins moral, political and socio-economic basics of the Russian society.
References
Big Academic Dictionary of the Russian language (Moscow -St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2007, v.8), in Russian Big Dictionary for Layers / Eds. A.Y. Sukharev; L.E. Krutskikh (Moscow:Infra-N, 2000), in Russian. Grin, R. 48 Laws of Power. - Ripol Classic, 2001. - 768p., in Russian.
A. Salagaev,
political scientist
IS TATARSTAN TYPICAL OR UNIQUE AT THE BACKGROUND OF THE RUSSIAN REGIONS?
Many new actors of a political process - the regional political communities, elites, political systems and etc. - could be more exactly called as "demonstration" but not as the appearance in Russia at the turn of 1980-1990-ss. But this variety couldn't be demonstrated in full
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though the regions of Russia differed from each other including a political aspect (in contrast to the parties).
Strengthening of the regional identity in Russia of 1990-ss was also a response for the soviet identity crisis whereas the Russian identity was being in the process of establishment. It's possible that a process of a regional differentiation and decentralization in 1990-ss had gone too far and so the inverse process changed it in the next decade. One can suppose that the processes of recentralization and decentralization, the regional constituent increasing or decreasing in the public consciousness will change each other during some period of time like ebbs and flows until achieving some optimal balance at that moment.
What are the sources of a regional variety? As it seems it can be turned into the main four groups of factors. Firstly, it's a population of the region being characterized with specific quantitative and qualitative features. The quantitative characteristics are, first of all, the population size; the qualitative characteristics are ethnic, confessional and other kinds of the identity distributed in the region.
The second important source of the regional variety is the physical-geographic peculiarities of the region defining its economic specialization. Oil production and petrochemistry are prevailing though Tatarstan's industry keeps a diversified structure inherited in the soviet period of time and the territorial poly-centric. They became the leading branches in 1990-ss whereas production volume of machinery-building was reduced in 1,5 times. A number of the factors promoted to petrochemistry's and oil production's success. Oil industry workers were the political allies and the regime support and only Tatarstan's oil was in demand at the external market - with few exceptions. The republic directorate was practically split at the turn of 1980-1990-ss because of sovereignty policy supporting.
The directors of the defense plants oriented only at allied center but the republican leadership managed to attract the oil industry workers. The representatives of oil industry workers took the important place in the regional elite during 1990-ss and take it now.
If to compare two republics being similar enough in the minerals availability and economy structure - Tatarstan and Bashkortostan one can note the importance of the first factor in comparison with the first one. Petrochemical and oil producing plants of Tatarstan rank N 10 and N 14 among the biggest companies of Russia but Bashkortostan - 35, 44, 229, 315 and 319. The energetic company "Bashkirenergo ranks N 72 but "Tatarenergo-79. "Kamaz" ranks N 46 but Ufimskoe motor works -309. Nevertheless, it's evident that just 3-4 above-listed branches of the industry prevail in the both republics.
However, one shouldn't hurry to make conclusions that "oil curse" is economic basis of "authoritarian situations".
The ethnic population structure differences of the republic as it seems influenced on the structure of the ruling elites of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. The problem is that the Bashkirs are not a dominating ethnos in turns of numbers in Bashkortostan (29,8% in 2002). So, the social basis was less steady in comparison with M. Shaimiev but a reaction to opposition demonstration was tougher. As a result in 2000 M. Rakhimov had to come to the great terms for the federal center: the Bashkir "neftyanka" passed under the control of AFK "System".
The third source of the regional variety is the peculiarities of a social and a political development being as a result of "historical way" (path-dependent). First of all, M. Shaimiev's group relying on the agrarians and oil industry workers excluded the party managers from the republican political forefront and then neutralized the directorate of the industrial plants. After that the fate of the opposition (or halfopposition) political movements - democrats, communists and the
Tatar ethno-nationalists - was predetermined. In the middle of 1990-ss they are excluded from the political forefront and marginalized.
And at last, the fourth factor is unpredictable but inevitable chances which can be quickly accumulated in the complex and super-complex systems according to the chaos theory even if there were their initial similar parameters. Occasional fluctuations quickly make the systems unlike each other being developed independently. In particular, the internal structure of the regional ruling elite at the turn of 1990-ss -2000-ss was, to our mind, the result of a number of chances in many respects. The structure of the late-soviet regional elite was in many respects based on the trade and hierarchical principles (but the main groups were the party managers of the republican level, the soviet managers of the republican level, directorate, agrarians, the municipal managers) but by the end of 1990-ss these principles were changed with a principle of a personal loyalty but the trade groups - with the personal "clans".
It's in many respects accidentally that just those figures headed the above-mentioned groups. If these figures were elsewhere the similar sub-elite groups were headed by somebody else and the political spectrum within Tatarstan's elite was the same structurally but it looks different personally.
So, is Tatarstan unique or typical? Tatarstan is unique like any Russian region because of singularity of those initial components forming socio-cultural portrait of the region, those components determining multidirectional and conflicting processes being a socioeconomic, political and cultural life of the region. One can't name the other Russian region where two ethnic communities would so peacefully and friendly coexist during many centuries. One should mention relative economic good of the region based in many respects
on oil production and petrochemistry, million-plus city having a rich history and culture and uniqueness of these criteria will unquestionable.
However, Tatarstan is also typical. And it doesn't concern the internal heterogeneity of ant regional community as the experts of Perm suppose. Only those value orientations are typical for Russia which were demonstrated during the mass inquires.
It's important that today that impulse of the social activity, of "will for the changes" Russia was spread at the end of 1980-ss seems to be completely exhausted. The country fell into "sleepiness" having given itself up to the social passiveness. In some regions like in Tatarstan it happened earlier, in the other - a little bit later.
The social passiveness also makes the modernization difficult: even the most active and well-to-do citizens (one-third) believe that the results will be positive owing modernization campaign. Almost 60% of the citizens don't know which groups can be a moving force of innovations but 23% are sure that there are no such groups at all. Why? It's so because the majority of the Russian population doesn't rely on its own resources and consider that the situation can be changed only from above. Those who rely on their own resources wait for nothing good of these changes from above. The results of public opinion poll in Tatarstan demonstrated vividly the same public mood - paternalism of the weak social groups and individualism of the powers.
"Sociokulturny portret Respubliki Tatarstan", Kazan, 2009, p. 199-124
