Letter From the Editors
Politicians often tout the accomplishments of civil engineers – laying roads, boring tunnels, damming rivers – and who can blame them? Not everyone can leave their mark on the earth, and it’s much easier than leaving your mark on society. Human beings are much less cooperative than stone, and social engineering requires more dynamic fine-tuning.
For example, you might recall that last year Vologda Governor Georgy Filimonov restricted weekday alcohol sales to two hours a day. Well, this year the law has been tightened further (to fix the loopholes observed last year), shutting down brand-name liquor stores and mom-and-pop dramshops. However, during her visit to the city, NGE’s Irina Garina found ample opportunity to tipple. In addition to bootlegging cabbies (still there), shoppers can obtain booze from a rash of new dining establishments. As one supplier told Ganina, “they add a few tables and voilà – it’s a restaurant.” Ganina herself bought a serving of wine in a café under the shadows of Filimonov’s new statues to Russia’s most famous social engineers: Ivan the Terrible and Joseph Stalin.
One place you won’t see Stalin this year (or Lenin, or even Zhirinovsky) is in campaign literature, as Putin has launched the first Duma race in which the depiction of deceased individuals is banned. Nevertheless, the RFCP is jumping in with an unusual show of feistiness. NG’s Ivan Rodin describes the party as “pointedly taking the position of an ‘alternative party of power,’ which has never happened in Russia in the post-Soviet era,” with a particular new emphasis on young people and those impacted by inflation, tax hikes and Internet blocks.
As it happens, the Russian political system might be in need of an alternative, expert Dmitry Loboiko writes. Describing recent low-turnout elections, Loboiko observes that “People stop going to the polls for the same reason they stop watching a match when they know the score in advance.” He further warns authorities that “Without a valve for expressing dissatisfaction, the pressure does not dissipate. It looks for another way out.” NGB writes that Yabloko, despite numerous arrests, still plans to field a slate of 300 candidates under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom.” Perhaps Putin would prefer that loyal Zyuganov taps the keg.
Over in Moldova, former lawmaker Zurab Todua describes a different sort of pressure valve – EU hopes. “In the 12 years that right-wing parties have been at the helm, the topic of EU accession has been a lifeline for them,” says Todua, no fan of these governments, noting in particular the “convenient and practical” benefit of visa-free travel. It seems that pro-EU policies relieve pressure on parties on two levels: Lowering unemployment through emigration provides a constituency of pro-EU emigrants. Amid the current energy shocks and economic troubles, Todua calls a Euro commissioner’s visit to launch the first cluster of negotiations “the oxygen line Moldova’s ruling Party of Action and Solidarity desperately needs.”
“All post-Soviet countries suffer from a similar disease: Their populations pin their hopes for a radical improvement in their well-being on the EU,” scholar Sergei Zhiltsov concludes after the Armenian elections, in which Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan led his Civil Contract party to victory this week. In franker terms, one of Pashinyan’s detractors said of his supporters that “these guys want to exchange it all for a visa-free regime with the European Union. The dumber ones think they will be able to go to Europe on a tourist visa, find a job and eventually get legal status.”
In other domains of geopolitics, one can see pressure points as a benefit rather than a liability. During the war with Iran, the US was forced to exempt Russian oil from sanctions to stabilize the global market. Now, though, Washington is back on Europe’s team and is letting the exemptions expire. In Trump’s words, “we’ll be able to do that because the oil is now flowing.” Just make sure one spigot stays open – or your opponents could have you over a barrel.