Politics in a New Democracy

What led you to leave the academic world and go into politics?

The first steps of Russia as a new country, as a democratic country, brought a lot of misgivings and disappointments. In particular, the devastating shock therapy of Gaidar's economic reforms -- the confrontational tactics and domestic politics that all led to this terrible crisis in Moscow in October of 1993, when there was firing on Parliament. It was very frustrating and shocking.

At that time, I was still in the academic community, but then I decided that things were going in a very, very wrong direction, and that a person of active nature should either leave the country for good or join contacts in order to try to affect the way things were evolving. Exactly at that time, I got an invitation from Gregory Yavolinksy, who was organizing a new political party to take part in parliamentary elections in December, 1993, and I agreed to join. Since that time, I've been at Parliament.

What are the particular problems that arise in the political realm in what is essentially a new democracy? Are there particular challenges in running for office and making your arguments before the voters?

Yes, sure, there are huge problems. Some of them are common to all democratic countries which have elections and multiparty systems. Some are peculiar to Russia. What is peculiar to Russia is that it's not in the Russian tradition to have democracy. The authoritarian and totalitarian tradition goes back in history, not only to seventy years of communist rule, but even before that, many hundreds of years to the first Russian empire. It's a very painful and difficult process of many mistakes when people receive the right to vote, to elect their leaders when they become the subject for mass media for political manipulation. In particular, in a country like Russia, because we had to go through this period very quickly, it has been, I would say, a crash course in democracy.

In other countries, take Western Europe, take the United States, democracy was evolving during hundreds of years, gradually. Election rights were given gradually to a broader and broader number of people. In Russia, it all came all of a sudden. But I do not want to blame the Russian population, the Russian public for being not quite ready for democracy. I think that all in all, during the nineties, the Russian public at large showed enormous wisdom and tolerance. Can you imagine any other nation living through two coups, two defaults, and two wars, and still supporting democracy and all that, in only one decade? I would say that Russian leaders, the Russian elite, proved to be much less prepared for democracy and much less prepared to operate under the rule of law under democratic procedures than the Russian population.

Was this conclusion that you've reached about the Russian people your expectation when you started running? To go from an academic life in the Soviet Union to "going out on the hustings," as we say -- "pressing the flesh," as Lyndon Johnson used to say -- was that a big leap for you to make? Or was there a basic trust of the people?

It was certainly a very big leap and a very hard choice. I remember spending several sleepless nights thinking of my future, when I had to make the choice to join politics and to leave a secure and familiar academic environment, which I love very much and which I love still now, and which has honest advantages. Besides, already at that time I was beyond forty, so I was very well established. I had a great future in the academic community, and changing it so drastically, certainly, was not easy. But I'm not sorry about it now.

Next page: Parliament and the Transition