A shot from the movie Ordinary Wonder, Andrei Mironov acting as prime-minister.
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The Cleaner
In Evgeny Shvarts’ play Ordinary Wonder (Obyknovennoe chudo), there is a notable character, the minister-administrator. Mikhail Fradkov is being called upon to be just that. Granted, there is a difference from the play: Shvarts’ minister-administrator is a political figure, whereas Putin’s Fradkov is an administrator, but not a politician in any sense.
In Quentin Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction Winston Wolf, played by Harvey Keitel, has coolly and masterfully carried out the dirty work of eliminating the traces of an accidental murder. Or rather he arranged the job but others washed away the blood. His profession is to solve problems, that is, to be a cleaner.
Not everyone can solve administrative problems either. This takes a special knack that no Russian prime minister has ever shown in full measure. There have been one-day-wonder prime ministers in Russia (Sergei Kirienko and Sergei Stepashin). There have been prime minister-politicians like Evgeny Primakov, who lost his job for that reason. Viktor Chernomyrdin wanted to be an equally successful politician. Mikhail Kasyanov always refused to have anything to do with straight politics. However, as prime minister, at least until very recently, he still ended up being involved in it. Recall his speech to State Duma deputies in May 2002, when he declared that, “There won’t be any breakthroughs!” Kasyanov was in fact opposed the president’s policy of accelerating economic growth (the well-known call to double the GDP appeared a year later). The prime minister proposed a course of gradual but across-the-board growth, thus treading on the president’s territory. Growth rates in Russia and all statistics in general are politics not macroeconomics. It is no accident that as political demands to raise the level of national well-being and GDP volumes increase, the statistics also increase.
However, no one debates with Vladimir Putin except in private, or in extreme cases, in a very narrow circle of authorized persons. Airing dirty political linen outside the Kremlin is hazardous. As administrative experience shows, the president does not react immediately, but he reacts strongly. Political prime ministers do not last very long in Russia.
Vladimir Putin needs a prime minister-cleaner. Today, the Russian political class is once again becoming stratified and a change of elites is taking place. Mikhail Fradkov will clear a place for the new elite. And there will be no elite left either in uniform or in trench coats.
What will the Cleaner Do?
First, Mikhail Fradkov has to prune the government apparatus. He will start with his deputies, just like he did in the tax police. In 2001, while he was head of the Federal Tax Police Service (FSNP), he cut the number of deputies in half and replaced nearly 100% of the personnel. It is more difficult to do this in the White House, of course. But he has already set himself this task by announcing that he will have a maximum of two deputy prime ministers. He has already named the first one: Aleksandr Zhukov. The cutbacks will continue up to the level of the ministries. There are currently nearly 30. Only half of them will be left, but the survivors will gain a fair amount of administrative weight. Next in line will be the middle echelon, e.g., committees and federal services, agencies, and inspectorates. They are also expected to be cut in half. This means getting rid of at least 30% of all bureaucrats. Mikhail Fradkov cut the FSNP by 25%.
Second, he has to introduce electronic regulations with an iron hand; in other words, put bureaucrats under nonhuman control (computer software). The bureaucrats’ activities stipulated in their job descriptions will be recorded in these programs. The idea is first to apply the Taylor system to bureaucrats (Taylor was actually a time study engineer); second to make their operations more transparent to their superiors, which means reducing the level of corruption without regard for rank; and third to develop these regulations to the point where they cover departments as a whole in order to strengthen both White House and Kremlin control over a bureaucrat’s every move.
Third, the cleaner has to implement a number of unpopular tax measures outside the government apparatus, above all increase fiscal pressure, an old acquaintance, on resource producers, especially oil companies. There may also be a cleanup of the main natural monopolies, except Gazprom.
Fourth, Mikhail Fradkov will likely use his work experience on the Security Council, where he was responsible for economic security, to progressively block opportunities to “optimize” taxation.
Fifth, the new prime minister may change foreign economic policy by toughening Russia’s positions on cooperation with the European Union and the WTO. Russia’s negotiating positions may become even more uncompromising.
Unlike the hero of Pulp Fiction, Mikhail Fradkov will not necessarily have to succeed at everything, but he will have to solve the main problem, which is to enable the next prime minister to work clean-handed. That is, domestic conditions—Mikhail Fradkov will not be able to influence the foreign oil market—must favor the president’s next chosen one.
Konstantin Smirnov
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 08, 2004
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