Deripaska, the founder of Rusal, published a commentary in the RBK on December 30, pouring out the big bourgeoisie’s plans to get Russia out of difficulties. According to Deripaska, to overcome the obstacles before Russia’s development, these are the must-do’s: Staying in the market economy in the age of change, “rejecting the delusions of the sinister state capitalism,” and “removing the visible or quiet bans” on “businesspeople” taking part in the government.
“Deripaska’s manifesto”
While it’s essential to break down each of the points in this neoliberal manifesto on its own, the truth is that nothing here is genuinely novel. Deripaska had already announced his program on April 8: Abandoning “state capitalism,” adopting a “market economy,” and calling an end to the Ukrainian campaign. Then, realizing that the Kremlin might get enraged over the Ukraine situation, and this time it would not be limited to being publicly shamed over a ballpoint pen and a collective bargaining agreement, he removed the message. On April 17, a revised version of the program, which deliberately made no mention of Ukraine, was issued: It is needed to “find new markets,” “deal with exports,” and establish a new “beginning point”; in this way, “we can create a strong economy in 10 years”. At the time, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, another regardable journal of the liberal bourgeoisie, covered this program under the heading “Deripaska’s manifesto” (and with absolute enthusiasm. Please see the following sentence: “Deripaska’s manifesto is a collection of extremely serious theses, proposals, and recommendations”).
Let’s have a look at the details of the April manifesto:
The end objective is to eliminate state capitalism. The reason is that “history has revealed that only under the circumstances of a free-market economy and with the importance of private property, it is feasible to achieve a high and steady rate of economic growth that ensures a balanced development and rise in incomes for the entire community.”
It’s incredible, isn’t it? It’s great to be able to quote these words as if they were verses from the Bible in a nation that owes achieving the world’s highest pace of industrialization to socialism.
If so, large it! If competition is sacred, all obstacles before foreign capital should be eliminated, free zones must be created to entice foreign capital, all state-owned businesses must be privatized, and assets held by pension funds must be transferred immediately. There must be no restrictions on moving money out of Russia. It’s necessary to reduce state expenditures at all levels. Not only at the national level, federal, regional, and local levels, including the Central Bank and state monopolies, as well as law enforcement and civil servants. The state instrument should be slashed in half; law enforcement that is “unrelated to the military” should be decreased by three or four times (it takes courage to call for lower military spending while the Ukraine crisis persists, and Navalny is the only one who has shown that). From Gaydar to Nemtsov, Ryzhkov to Navalny, this has been the common dream of all liberal prophets in Russia. At the same time, Deripaska called for an amnesty for all “businesspeople” convicted under Articles 159 and 160 of the Penal Code, as well as a release from the “aggressive pressure of law enforcement officials who dismissed them.” Fraud, credit card fraud, check fraud, electronic payment fraud, insurance fraud, data theft, extortion, and embezzlement are all covered in these articles and clauses. Deripaska’s class solidarity is a trait that should be admired and even followed as an example. Not enough, he demanded that the government and the Central Bank utilize all sources at their disposal to get out of the current crisis. He warned that escaping this crisis would be possible in commensurate with “the strength of the entrepreneurs.” Calls for the welfare state were sprinkled in the manifesto as well. For example, he wanted local governments to build homes and federal district banks to put more money into regional projects. Perhaps most importantly, he advocated for the state to finance small and medium-sized private businesses. However, these enterprises he deemed available for funding would be limited to spare part manufacturers; he favored allowing the middle bourgeoisie to rise only in intermediate goods production. Deripaska’s hopes were limitless as well as his hopes. He demanded to end “the senseless compensation of state capitalism for more than 14 years”. “Either the employment of ordinary, normal citizens who always pay their taxes regularly will be retained, or the state bourgeoisie will continue to be pampered,” Deripaska concluded his manifesto.
Deripaska’s goals are thus:
1) Wiping out all state-owned monopolies and complete privatization.
2) The middle bourgeoisie engaging solely in producing intermediary goods.
3) The “downsizing” of the government.
4) Eliminate any regulatory and legal obstacles to foreign capital, such as inquiries into the motivations of their investments in Russia and the threat of an investigation into offshore accounts.
5). A blanket pardon for the bourgeoisie, who has been convicted of bribery, embezzlement, corruption, fraud, etc.
It seems like he’s gearing up for an all-out confrontation with the Kremlin. However, that’s not the case. The big bourgeoisie is shrewd. Before publishing her manifesto, Deripaska had also argued with Lyubov Sokol, and her former silent partner had come out against this indomitable preacher of the liberal bourgeoisie, calling her an “idle parasite,” “debauched,” “racketeer,” and “jackal.” Deripaska went as far as accusing her, the most rightist woman imaginable, of being a “radical leftist.” This was the case. Sokol urged Deripaska and the other representatives of the big bourgeoisie to rise up against the Kremlin. This call terrified him so much that Deripaska wanted to guarantee that he would never do such a thing with phrases ostensibly targeting Sokol: “Don’t be afraid, I’m not keen on becoming a chef.”
The sole difference between Deripaska’s April and December manifestos is that in the latter, he enthusiastically argued that there is discrimination against entrepreneurs and demanded equality: “As long as free and private entrepreneurs enjoy equal rights with all other social groups (artists, patriotic journalists, athletes, siloviki, representatives of law enforcement, veterans), [these free entrepreneurs] along with the dismissed intelligentsia remain as ‘the impotent.’ But it is up only to entrepreneurs to bring about significant change quickly.”
Not freedom but prison
The term “slaboviki,” which I translated as “the impotent,” is a significant notion. Referring to the Medvedev fraction, the slaboviki is placed against the siloviki. The latter comes from the word “strong,” whereas the former is derived from the word “weak.” Siloviki means “employees of the force instruments to whom the state has delegated its monopoly of legal violence.” Therefore, it sounds Marxist since it refers to the state’s repressive mechanisms. In political contexts, however, the meaning narrows down: Siloviki refers not to all of the employees of these instruments but rather to their leaders, their representatives in power. Regarding slaboviki, before digging down to its meaning, I should quote a single sentence from a column that’s just as valuable as the definition itself. This is from an article regarding the situation before the Georgian war published on January 18, 2019, in Novaya Gazeta, the most “respectable” and militant mouthpiece of the big bourgeoisie and the advocates of liberal reforms (now fully declassified), former middle bourgeoisie:
“Medvedev’s slabovikis were wandering the Kremlin corridors; talks about modernization had begun.”
The slaboviki, then, included the following groups: The faction of the power bloc that Medvedev represented, the fraction against siloviki, the weak wing of power in the face of the siloviki; the proponents of “modernization,” or those who support Russia’s immediate integration with the imperialist world.
Obviously, liberal and slaboviki are linked ideas.
Saltykov-Schedrin wrote a story called “Liberal” which I translated into Turkish (in “Bilge Kayabalığı”; Helikopter, Istanbul: 2013). The liberal in Russia, and by extension all liberals, is portrayed as a man who abandoned his ideals altogether and “adapted them to life.” And how stunningly he depicts! The liberal’s ideal was not freedom anymore but a prison. He has buried his old ideas in the dirt, but he still hopes that the sun will rise tomorrow, and the muck will dry off of him.
Suddenly, he felt as if a drizzle had just hit his face. Whence did it come? What gives? The liberal looked up: “Is it raining?” However, he saw that the sky was completely clear, with the sun crazily hovering over the peaks. The wind was blowing, though, but yet there was no sign of water dripping from a window; there was no such thing.
“It’s a miracle!” said the liberal to his friend. “Not a drop falls, no puddles, yet something tickles my face.”
“But look, there’s a guy lurking in the corner,” replied his friend, “That’s his job. Due to your liberal affairs, he desired to spit in your face, but he didn’t venture into doing it. Here, in the context of ‘adapting to the life,’ he spitted out of the corner, and the wind blows his spit right to you.”
That liberal is slaboviki.
Theory and practice
I gave that a lot of thought. The adopted policy is the limitation of the political power of the big bourgeoisie and its economic power to the extent that it bolsters the political power and the replacement of the middle bourgeoisie, which has been declassed since February 24, with a new middle class that will be the stable mass base of the Kremlin. This policy can only be implemented with unstated NEP measures, leading to leftist backing.
The most crucial distinction between the big and middle bourgeoisie must not be overlooked. The big bourgeoisie can invest significant fixed capital and get adequate financing from the financial oligarchy of which it is generally a part. Thus, to maximize profits, it does not need to resort to primitive solutions like extending the workday or slashing social programs. (“Unnecessity” is a factual situation, but impulses, not needs, drive free-market capitalism.) When compared to the big bourgeoisie integrated with the financial oligarchy, the middle bourgeoisie is unable to make big investments in fixed capital or locate suitable credit opportunities like the bourgeoisie incorporated with the financial oligarchy. That fact leaves them with no choice but to resort to primitive methods like extending the working day and reducing social rights to increase profits.
The big bourgeoisie may, thus, inflame or quickly defuse the conflict with the working class it employs, but the struggle between the proletariat and the middle bourgeoisie only grows. This is the norm everywhere. This is precisely why the big bourgeoisie uses what is called “people’s capitalism” (of the kind that Potanin preached a few months ago) as one of the ideological means to gain the working people over the middle bourgeoisie. This “uselessness” situation facilitates the neutral position of the working class in the conflict between the big bourgeoisie with the middle bourgeoisie.
The bourgeoisie is generally impotent since they seldom claim for the government and almost always demand the state to protect its relative autonomy. In general, their political representatives usually rule on behalf of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie, both big and middle, want a “neutral” state. On the other hand, the monopoly bourgeoisie only favors a neutral state since its members are in a mortal conflict with one another and, therefore, have lesser shared interests against their enemies. But when it is united vis-à-vis a more significant threat and starts a struggle as a bloc against its common enemy by sidelining its internal conflict, it recalls that it is “crème de la crème.” Now it is less numbered to rule directly, but politically influential, economically robust, and enormously homogenous. The working masses are often seen as the only possible common opponent for the big bourgeoisie, but this view reduces the scope of the class conflict. The struggle, even the struggle for life and death, need not necessarily be monolithically between the bourgeoisie and the working class. Moreover, the dominant aspect of class struggle under capitalism is rather often the struggle of the bourgeoisie within itself.
Thus, Deripaska’s hubris to demand the de facto transfer of the state to the “businesspeople” stems not only from his relations with the ruling circles but also, and primarily, from these two reasons: 1) A new kind of NEP conflicts with the interests of the big bourgeoisie and that makes them unite against the common enemy (the rising middle bourgeoisie) and its political representatives. 2) Since resorting to the “basic” (not referring to “primitive,” “rudimentary,” or “extinct,” but to the most animalistic impulses that never go away) methods of capitalism is “unnecessary,” the working class can remain neutral in this conflict.
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