Political Process
Soviet-era politics was authoritarian and predictable. The CPSU dominated the political process, and elections were merely ritualistic, with voters not allowed a choice between freely competing political parties. Political reform in the 1980s and 1990s brought greater freedom, but it also spawned a multitude of political parties, which disagreed fundamentally over the pace and direction of reforms. Although reform-oriented parties won victories in the early 1990s, institutions such as the army and the intelligence services continued to exert considerable influence, and many bureaucrats were highly resistant to change. Some political parties that were popular at the time of Russia's independence were moribund by the beginning of the twenty-first century, and some coalitions were formed solely around the appeal of charismatic leaders. In contrast to 1995, when 43 political parties competed, only 26 contested the 1999 election. Legislation enacted under the Vladimir Putin regime further reduced the number of political parties by mandating that they have at least 10,000 members, and registered offices in at least half of Russia's regions, to be eligible to compete in national elections. In the 2007 legislative elections, only four parties gained enough votes to be represented in the State Duma.
All citizens become eligible to vote when they reach the age of 18 years. Presidential elections are contested in two rounds;
if no candidate receives a majority in the first round, there is a run-off between the top two candidates. For elections to the State Duma, voters cast separate ballots for a party and for a representative from a single-member district. Half the seats in the State Duma are allocated on the basis of the party vote (with all parties winning at least 5 per cent of the national vote guaranteed representation on a proportional basis), and half through the single-member-district contests. Each regional governor and the head of each regional assembly appoints one member to serve on the Federation Council.
Several of the political parties that formed in the 1990s had a notable impact. Despite the dissolution of the CPSU and the general demise of communism, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation emerged asa major political force. Indeed, in both 1996 and 2000 the Communist Party's leader finished second in the presidential balloting, and in 2000 its contingent in the State Duma was the largest (though the party was a distant second in 2003). The ultra-nationalist and xenophobic Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) capitalized on popular disenchantment and fear in the early 1990s. Led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who finished third in the presidential election of 1991, the LDP won more than one-fifth of the vote and 64 seats in the State Duma elections in 1993. By the end of the decade, however, support for the party had dropped dramatically; its support rebounded slightly in 2003, when it won nearly one-eighth of the vote. Throughout the 1990s Yeltsin's government was viewed unfavourably by a large proportion of the Russian public. To secure legislative support for his policies, Yeltsin encouraged the formation of the Our Home Is Russia Party in 1995 and the Unity Party in 1999; both parties finished behind the Communist Party in parliamentary elections. The most liberal parties found themselves unable to secure a firm base outside the intelligentsia. One of the most intriguing parties that formed in the i 990s was the Women of Russia Party, which captured 8 per cent of the vote in the 1993 State Duma election, though its level of support had dropped by about three-fourths by the end of the decade. In 2001 a number of parties merged to form the pro-Putin United Russia Party; beginning in 2003, this bloc held the largest number of seats in the State Duma.
In the Soviet era women played a prominent roie in politics. The Soviet Congress of People's Deputies required that women constitute at least one-third of the total membership. Quotas subsequently were removed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and representation for women had declined dramatically by the mid-1990s to roughly 10 per cent in the State Duma and 5 per cent in the Federation Council.
In 2005 a People's Chamber was established to serve as an advisory board for Russia's civil society. A Soviet-style amalgam of officials (President Putin supervised the confirmation of the initial members), it provided additional support for the presidency.
Security
The Russian armed forces consist of an army, navy, air force, and strategic rocket force, all under the command of the president. About half the troops are conscripts: military service, lasting 18 months for the army or 24 months for the navy, is compulsory for men over age 18, although draft evasion is widespread. In addition to an extensive reserve force, Russia maintains defence facilities in several former Soviet republics and contributes a small proportion of its
COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES
Free association of sovereign states formerly part of the Soviet Union
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was formed in 1991. It comprises Russia and I I other former Soviet republics: Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (which has, however, announced its intention to withdraw from the CIS in 2009), and Moldova, Its administrative centre is in Minsk, Belarus. The Commonwealth's functions are to coordinate its members' policies regarding their economies, foreign relations, defence, immigration policies, environmental protection, and law enforcement.
troops to the joint forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Russia's military capacity has declined since the break-up of the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, it still has one of the world's largest armed forces establishments, which includes a vast nuclear arsenal.
During the Cold War the Soviet Union established the Warsaw Pact (1955), a treaty that was designed to counter the United States-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Warsaw Treaty Organization was dissolved in 1991, after which Russia maintained an uneasy military relationship with the United States and NATO, particularly during the fighting in the Balkans in the 1990s. Nevertheless, by the end of the 1990s Russia and NATO had signed a cooperation agreement, and in 2002 the NATO-Russia Council was established. In
1991 Russia assumed the Soviet Union's permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
Foreign and domestic intelligence operations are managed, respectively, by the Foreign Intelligence Service and the Federal Security Service, agencies that emerged in the 1990s after the reorganization in 1991 of the Soviet KGB (Committee for State Security). High officials are protected by the Presidential Security Service, which was established in 1993. A Federal Border Service, which combats trans-border crimes (particularly drug trafficking and smuggling), and several other intelligence agencies were also established in the 1990s. Local police forces have been overwhelmed by the organized crime that flourished in Russia after the fall of communism. Well-trained private security forces have become increasingly common.
The Economy
By virtue of its great size and abundant natural resources, the Russian republic played a leading role in the economy of the Soviet Union. In the first decades of the Soviet regime, these resources made possible great economic advances, including the rapid development of mining, metallurgy, and heavy engineering; the expansion of the railway network; and a massive increase in the energy supply. In the 1960s a second phase of Soviet industrial development began to exert a particularly strong effect on the Russian republic. In addition to further growth in established industries—especially in the ptoducti on of oil, gas, and electricity and in the chemical industries-there was a marked diversification in industrial output, including a limited expansion in consumer goods. In the years before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, the economy of Russia and of the entire country was in a state of decline, and official statistics masked industrial inefficiencies.