So, in the shortest possible period of time the new authorities must bring the power structures under their control. If they are incapable of doing this, then they don’t hold power. And there’s no point in trying to work out in advance exactly how to do this: there are no ready-made recipes for it.
But there’s another important subject. There’s no problem with using force and putting a “man with a gun” in charge. The problem arises with how do you put a stop to that. Who makes the decision about the removal of the old siloviki and how this is carried out? Who makes the decision about the appointment of the new siloviki? The new leader, who’s the head of the temporary government? That would mean that he would be Russia’s new dictator. Firstly, because if he’s responsible for blood being shed (if it is indeed shed), then there’s no way back. And secondly because any new people whom he personally appoints will be beholden to him alone in the future.
We’ve already seen an example of this happen with Boris Yeltsin in 1993. There was an unsuccessful coup attempt and Yeltsin showed that he could be tough (at least from the point of view of the technology of the struggle for power), not allowing the seat of power to be dragged out from under him and suppressing the uprising of “the people in the White House”. As a result, he personally filled all the key governmental posts with those who were beholden to him. It then seemed that he didn’t have to do anything else. Having put his own people in all of the ministries of power, he no longer needed to engage in politics and the art of compromising – but without this, genuine politics no longer exists. After 1993 Yeltsin just pretended to play at politics, holding onto power mainly by strong-arm methods. And then he passed on the baton to the one who had managed this best.
How can we avoid this trap? How do we guarantee the success of the revolution without slipping back into the old ways? It seems to me that one of the possible ways of doing this is to delegate decisions to do with sanctions on the siloviki to a specially-created structure that is formally separate from the temporary government. Earlier I touched on the question of how a State Council, formed on a mixed regional and party principle, could assume power were there to be a temporary breakdown in the work of the representative and legal authorities. Inside this State Council a military commission could be set up, that would be a special emergency body, temporarily granted the authority to make decisions about the removal and appointment of the leaders of the power structures, as the representative of the temporary government and in the interests of the defence of the new authorities.
Such a division of powers could prove to be a workable and useful idea and would prevent the concentration of too much power in the hands of the head of the temporary government; power that he could, as a result, use not for society’s interests but for his own. No revolution passes off without the use of violence in a more or less mild form. But the use of force can rapidly lead society into a new authoritarian cycle. This vicious practice has to be stopped, or else the terror will never end. One way to do this, in my opinion, is that right from the start there should be an agreement that the new authorities will seek to delegate the process of taking decisions about the implementation of repressive measures.
This is the main thing. The details may vary, and exactly what they will be can be agreed upon later. I discussed one option above: decisions should be taken by a special commission of the State Council about the leadership of the power structures on the recommendation of the temporary government. The State Council is a temporary organisation, but one from which should come the complete constitutional division of power. But if no measures are taken to achieve this, all that will come of it will be violence and terror under new slogans.
Chapter 9. How to Create a Civil Service:
Employ Our Own Weak Staff or the Best from Abroad?
There is one reform that should be started immediately: administrative reform. It might seem that in the transitional period the temporary government will have many other urgent tasks to tackle. But if you’re going to deal with something, you must have the active tools with which to do it. If the government doesn’t have on its agenda the creation of a properly functioning state apparatus; if all of its plans will simply sink into a bureaucratic quagmire; then it won’t be able to achieve anything.
The quality of the state apparatus of a future government may seem of secondary importance when the future hasn’t yet arrived. This may be why today this question lies on the fringes of the public’s attention. But it’s well known that after any change of government this quickly becomes one of the most important issues – yet by then it’s too late to discuss it. What tends to happen is that the new authorities rush to the old state apparatus for help. In order to avoid this, it makes sense to agree on the basic solutions to the question ahead of time.
Few people among the opposition worry about the effectiveness of the state apparatus for the simple reason that their thoughts are dominated by two problems with power in Russia: the lack of democracy, and corruption. Many of them honestly suggest that all you have to do is solve one of these issues and everything else will fall into order behind it. The Russian opposition seems to believe in the old Russian tradition of relying on luck when it comes to the administration of the state: once democracy prevails, corruption will simply disappear, and everything else will follow.
It's not difficult to see where such an idea comes from. In a situation where the main task for the opposition is the battle against an authoritarian regime – and, what’s more, one that is degenerating into neo-totalitarianism – it seems only natural that the principal item on the agenda should be democratisation. And to some extent this is true. But something that doesn’t seem so important today will become one of the biggest headaches tomorrow, when the temporary government starts to carry out its functions. The new authorities’ ability to survive and demonstrate their superiority over the old government will depend also on how they show that they can quickly and effectively construct an efficient state apparatus.
Unfortunately, democratisation in itself doesn’t create an effective state apparatus. This depends on the quality of the new bureaucracy. And democratisation can often complicate this issue. Contrary to what many people think, democratisation and improving the efficiency of the state apparatus are not only separate tasks, but ones that can actually interfere with one another. When democratisation takes place rapidly and spontaneously, discipline can slacken, unbalancing the institutions of state. This isn’t surprising. But it can be very dangerous as the new government is taking its first steps, if it doesn’t move to restore discipline and generally raise the effectiveness of the bureaucratic system. If democracy isn’t based on a properly functioning state apparatus, then it will simply discredit the very idea of democracy itself.