United Russia – a conservative party?

Graham Stack for Russia Profile
Putin’s party United Russia is increasingly referring to itself as a ‘ ‘conservative’ party. But is it anything like a conservative party in the Western sense?

One of the surprises following the death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn has been the reaction of Putin’s party United Russia. While the laments and praise of liberal figures, and the silence of the Communists were predictable, the leadership of United Russia was unexpectedly vocal in claiming Solzhenitsyn as one of its own – as a conservative.

Andrei Isaev, head of the Duma committee on labour and social policy, and leader of United Russia’s Centre for social-conservative policy, called Solzhenitsyn August 14th ‘the founder of conservative ideology in Russia,’ according to polit.ru

And with Solzhenitsyn’s death closely followed by the 100th day of Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency, United Russia figures were quick to claim the new president as one of their own as well – as a conservative. Isaev claimed that Medvedev was no liberal but “just as much a conservative as Putin.”

There are even rumours afoot that United Russia is about to adopt ‘conservatism’ as the sole definition of its ideology at its party conference in November.

‘Conservatism’ would then replace the current master concept of ’sovereign democracy’, dubbed by critics ’sovereign disregard for democracy’. Medvedev himself has publicly criticized the ’sovereign democracy’ concept, and Putin, now United Russia’s honory chairman, himself has repeatedly savaged for its lack of any clear ideology.

Political conservatism in Russia is paradoxical – the very word had to be imported from English, and is unfortunately consonant with the Russian for condom. Russia’s conservatives in the literal sense would seem to be the Communists and nationalist parties, harking back to Soviet and imperial greatness – and propogating the very opposite of Western conservative values.

So is United Russia really going conservative, or is the label just a Potemkin village?

“There isn’t, in my view, a Russian equivalent to the conservatism of European Christian Democrats or of either the free-market trend or the one-nation trend in British conservatism,” says Phillip Hanson, emeritus professor at Britain’s foreign policy institute Chatham House. “Russian conservatism as the Russian political mainstream is dogmatically nationalist and its connections with business are close and corrupt, but Russian political conservatism is not business-friendly in the sense of either dancing to the tune of big business, or seeking to promote a good business environment for all comers.”

However, politics professor Nikolai Petro of Rhode Island University, disagrees:

“I believe that United Russia is what political scientists like to call a “catch all party;” i.e., one that defines itself not in partisan terms, but as THE party of law, order, and prosperity, an agenda that transcends political divisions. They model themselves on the French Gaullists, whose purpose is to preserve a politically viable elite in power, not to promote any particular ideology. (…) Also, as the country as a whole is becoming more aware of its pre-Soviet historical identity, it is becoming more comfortable with an identity that is truly “conservative,” in the traditional sense. Such an identity was severely repressed in Soviet times, and is just now beginning to become politically significant, with the political rise of young people”

Private property and political rights are key to conservatism

Conservative parties the world over indulge in nationalist rhetoric, especially when it comes to foreign interference in domestic affairs, and also talk tough about law and order. The key to conservatism, however, is that all the “strong state” talk stops as soon it comes to private property and political rights. Because basically, conservatism is all about political rights protecting private property from state intervention.

This is the million dollar question about Russian conservatism.

“Russian society views conservatism as the idea of strong state protection. Conservatism has stronger traditions in Russian politics than socialism. At the same time, elements of the socialist past are regarded as part of the idea of conservatism as well,” says Alexander Rahr of Germany’s foreign policy think tank German Society for Foreign Policy.

So in Russian conservatism with a small c, the protection of private property plays a small role – because historically private property has played a small role in Russia.

Now, however, with 80% of Russians homeowners, after the privatization of the 1990s, conservatism theoretically has a natural constituency – a vast one at that.

However, United Russia are clearly reluctant to harp on about private property. The reason is that the population de facto owned their apartments in late Soviet times, although they could not buy and sell them. “Private property”, on the other hand, is still widely associated with the injustice of the 1990s’ privatizations that saw a class of ‘oligarchs’ emerge. And, although Vladimir Putin’s election in 2000 arguably saved the 1990s privatization from reversal, the Putin administration resorted on occasion to anti-oligarch rhetoric, and in the notorious Yukos case, to very real deeds.

So the jury is out on whether Russia’s self-named conservatives really understand that the key to conservatism is the self-restricting state.

Critics point to media control, violence in Chechnya, nationalization of key companies and appointment of regional governors as indicating otherwise.

Putin supporters, on the other hand, argue that it was Putin who saved privatization from reversal, unified the legal space, introduced private ownership of land, brought in jury trials, slashed the draft, retained the death penalty moratorium and, finally, stepped down after two terms.

With this ambivalence at the heart of Russia conservatism, it is telling that the homage paid to Solzhenitsyn was also ambivalent.

For all that Solzhenitsyn loathed communism, Isaev finds in him support for a gradual move from communism instead of the ‘ultraliberal course’ embarked on in the 1990s by Boris Yeltsin, i.e. as a critique of privatization.

“I remember that Solzhenitsyn’s article ‘How to rebuild Russia’ of 1990 seemed to many in the country to be too moderate, conservative and even out of touch,” says Isaev. “But now, with hindsight, if we had listened to him then, we would have been able to avoid many disasters.”

Russian’s wannabe conservatives might better heed Solzhenitsyn’s more recent words – in his last interview – on the importance to conservatism of property rights and entrepreneurship.

“Although many fortunes were amassed in Yeltsin’s times by ransacking, the only reasonable way to correct the situation is not to go after big businesses but to give breathing room to medium and small businesses. That means protecting citizens and small entrepreneurs from arbitrary rule and corruption,” Solzhenitsyn told Germany’s Der Spiegel in 2007.

Conservatives prefer evolution to revolution – and Russia’s conservatives, like Russia itself, are themselves still only evolving.