RUSSIA: Bureaucracy Grows, Corruption With It

By Kester Kenn Klomegah Reprint | | Print |

Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW, Nov 15 2005 (IPS) - Bureaucracy has significantly expanded under President Vladimir Putin, and is now perceived as more corrupt, a new study says.

Research conducted jointly by the Sociology Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Friedrick Ebert Foundation from Germany revealed dramatic differences between how Russians view bureaucrats and how the bureaucrats view themselves.

Ordinary people considered bureaucrats indifferent, corrupt and incompetent, while bureaucrats saw themselves as professional, industrious and efficient.

The study was based on a nationwide poll of 1,500 Russians selected randomly and a parallel survey involving focus groups with 300 civil servants in 58 cities and towns between July and September.

“In Russia, a bureaucrat is no longer just a civil servant,” author of the research report Mikhail Gorshkov told IPS. “They make up a caste that lives for itself and not for the people and the state. Such a negative assessment of bureaucrats by citizens does not come out of the blue. It is formed by personal experience.”

Some points of convergence of views were more worrying. Ordinary people and bureaucrats agreed that the primary goal of bureaucrats was to maintain and increase personal wealth and administrative power at the expense of the people.

“The bureaucrats said that they knew they have their own interests that are separate from those of the state, and people tell us that they have emerged as a new political class that is unfriendly to common citizens,” Gorshkov said.

“The so-called administrative reforms have shown the way for deep-seated corruption,” independent parliamentarian Vladimir Ryzhkov told IPS. The disproportionate growth of the bureaucracy and the attendant corruption is one of the main obstacles in the way of rapid economic development, he said.

Seventy-one percent of respondents said bureaucrats were hampering Russia’s development, while only 27 percent said they were indispensable. “The image of bureaucracy is becoming increasingly more horrible,” Ryzhkov said. Russia has a population of 104 million.

Russia now has some 1.3 million civil servants, as opposed to about 660,000 for the whole of the Soviet Union, Ryzhkov said. “This study irrefutably proves that our officials are a class – a class which drastically differs from the rest of society.”

The study found that the average official was far more likely to be satisfied with his income, living conditions and healthcare than the rest of the population.

President Putin has said he wants to see noticeable improvements in administration and the elimination of any bureaucracy that puts its own interests above public good.

“Our bureaucrats are still largely a secluded and deliberately haughty caste, which regards civil service as a kind of business,” Putin said in this year’s state-of-the-nation address. “Party and corporate bureaucrats are no better than civil servants in this respect.”

But Putin’s words failed to satisfy his critics. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said that if excessive bureaucratic hurdles remain in place, “the regime will have to change its course, or leave.”

The Communist Party leader said that, “a peaceful people’s democratic revolution must have a political slogan – the elimination of bureaucracy as a class; a social slogan – the restoration of social welfare and personal security guarantees, and an economic slogan – the nationalisation of the natural resources and strategic industries.”

The Russian “bourgeoisie”, he said, is aware that “a red revolution may far outpace an orange one, which is clear from the situation taking shape right in front of us.” He was referring to the pro-market ‘orange’ revolution in neighbouring Ukraine.

Russia is controlled by political bureaucrats, Zyuganov said. “The economy remains underfinanced, while billions of petrodollars are being taken out of Russia.”

Jailed Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, 42, also criticised Russia’s path under Putin. He said in an interview posted on his website this week that an army of greedy bureaucrats held sway over the country, and that the fight against a “self-serving bureaucracy” was just beginning.

“They are trying to convince you, friends, that the fight is over, you must resign yourselves to domination by self-serving bureaucracy in Russia. This is not true. The fight is only just beginning,” he said.

Khodorkovsky, who is serving an eight-year sentence after being convicted for tax evasion and fraud in a disputed judgment, repeated a promise to enter politics on his release. He is in a Siberian prison near the Chinese border, six time zones away from Moscow.