Abstract
Born in violence, rushed into being during a referendum, populated by a strange and sometimes frightening cast of characters and dominated by a president who had already made plain his willingness to resort to violence, Russia’s Second Republic should have been, by any reasonable expectation, an autocracy with a short half-life. The unexpected survival of the Second Republic and the gradual strengthening of the democratic institutions within it were the results of a shock to the Russian political system that ended any romantic notions either of a Soviet restoration or the immediate appearance of a smoothly arranged Western style parliamentary democracy. The realization that foes were not going to be vanquished in hours, that the government could not be captured in a day, and that the country could not be changed completely in a week forced all sides in Russia’s political struggles, including the public, to approach the task of rebuilding the system with a more realistic attitude. As David Remnick later described it, after the smoke cleared in October 1993, “the hangover in Moscow was deadening ... The relatively easy verities of the old political struggle—good versus bad, reformers versus reactionaries, democrats versus communists—dissolved in a bitter soup of uncertainty.”1
I will state frankly: Some people do not like the smooth working arrangements and the inapient stabilization in economics and politics. Some are inclined toward customary swaggering, rallies, kicking up a racket, and weeping and wailing ... But for the most part, all this sludge is being submerged by profitable legislative work.
—Duma Speaker Ivan Rybkin, 1994
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Notes
David Renmick, Resurrection (NewYork: Random House, 1997), pp. 80–81.
The regional governments were divided about the violence in October, but many of the local soviet’s past resolutions that, unsurprisingly, defended the independence of the national Supreme Soviet, and Yeltsin was being urged by many in his circle to move quickly against retrograde elements at all levels. Most, however, called for neutrality and a return to the status quo ante of September 21. For day-by-day reports on reactions in the regions, see 93 Oktiabr’ Moskva: Khronika tekushchikh sobytii (Moscow:Vek XX i Mir, 1993). Also see “Yeltsin’s Regional Policy Assessed,” FBIS-SOV-93–194, October 8, 1993, p. 20, and “Roundup of Regional Reactions to Moscow Events,” FBIS-SOV-93–192-S, October 6, 1993, pp. 49–50; “Regions Views of Yeltsin, Supreme Soviet Viewed,” FBIS-SOV-93–187-S, September 29,1993, p. 35; “Regions Lean toward Neutrality,” FBIS-SOV-93–184-S, September 24, 1993, pp. 45–46.
Institute for Social-Political Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Reformirovanie Rossii: mify i real’nost’ (Moscow:Academia, 1994), p. 293.
For commentary on the constitutional status of the president’s powers, see A. I. Kovalenko, Osnovy konstitutsionnogo prava Rossiiskoi Federatsii (Moscow: TEIS, 1994).
Nicolai Petro, The Rebirth of Russian Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 153.
Lilia Shevtsova, “Russia’s Post-Communist Politics: Revolution or Continuity?” in Gail Lapidus, ed., The New Russia: Troubled Transformation (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), p. 23.
I. Kliamlan, V. Lapkin, and V. Panin, Mezhdu avtoritarizmom i dernokratiei (Moscow: Fond “Obshchestvennoe mnenie,” 1995), p. 16, and “Public Mood Surveyed . . . ,” p. 47.
A British study argued that the new constitution was the beneficiary of a halo effect, but I would counter that this was in fact support for the general orientation of a reformist government; there is no escaping the fact that there were no serious challenges to the presidentialist provisions save that of the communists. See Matthew Wyman, Stephen White, Bill Miller, and Paul Heywood,“Public Opinion, Parties, andVoters in the December 1993 Russian Elections,” Europe-Asia Studies, Fall 1995, pp. 610–611.
See, for example, the platform and application for membership handed out as campaign literature in Moscow in 1993 in “Obrashchenie Vladimira Zhirnovskogo, Programma Liberal’no-Demokraticheskoi partii Rossii, Ustav LDPR” (Moscow, pamphlet, no publisher). Zhirinovsky’s infamous brochure, “Last Dash to the South,” was actually one of a three-part series that put forward his political views in detail. See V. V. Zhirinovskii, 0 sud“ bakh Rossii, chast’ II: poslednii brosok na iug (Moscow: RAIT, 1993). For a short and entertaining compendium of Zhirinovsky’s more outlandish remarks, see Graham Frazer and George Lancelle, Absolute Zhirinovsky (New York: Penguin, 1994).
See Richard Sakwa,“The Russian Elections of December 1993,” Europe-Asia Studies, Spring 1995, p. 213.
“It is revealing,” one Russian legal scholar has written, “that the [first] State Duma, where there are more than 100 formally independent deputies, immediately ran into difficulties in forming parliamentary factions.°’ Iu. A. Iudin, “Parlamentskie vybory 1993 goda i problemy razvitiia izbiratel’nogo zakonodatel’stva,” in Federal’noe sobranie Rossii: opyt pervykh vyborov (Moscow: Institue of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 1994), p. 34.
Valerii Vyzhutovich, “Bez sensatsii,” Izvestiia, January 12, 1994, p. 1. It should be noted that Borovoy, for one, believes that this moderating influence is to some extent unintentional, the by-product of the Federation Council’s overriding preoccupation with regional autonomy.
Michael Urban, et al., The Rebirth of Politics in Russia (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 308.
Aleksandr Batygin, “Ideia prekrasna, da khrupok mir,” Rossiiskaia Gazeta, September 21, 1995, pp. 1–2.
Anna Ostapchuk and Iulii Lebedev, “Na politicheskom barometre ‘iasno,”’ Nezavisimaia Gazeta, September 15, 1994, p. 2.
For details, see Al’bert Plutnik, “V Dume b’iut zhenshchinu,” Izvestiia, September 12,1995, p. 1; for more details, see “Draka na zasedanii Dumy,” Segodniia, September 12, 1995, p. 1.
Iurii Levada, “Trevogi i ozhidaniia,” Moskovskie Novosti, January 8–15, 1995, p. 14.
Iurii Levada, “Teper’ my bol’she dumaem o sem’e, chem o gosudarstve,” Segodniia, January 24, 1995, p. 10.
Robert Cottrell, “Russia’s Parliamentary and Presidential Elections,” Government and Opposition, Spring 1996, p. 160.
Olga Burkaleva, “Parlament—ne rychag dlia partiinykh tselei,” Rossiiskie Vesti, August 1, 1995, p. 2.
Thomas Remington, Steven Smith, and Moshe Haspel, “Decrees, Laws, and Inter-Branch Relations in the Russian Federation,” Post-Soviet Affairs, October-December 1998, pp. 288–291.
V. Kononenko, “Nezavisimo ot resultatov 17 dekabria kabinet Chernomyrdina ustoit,” Izvestiia, December 16, 1995, p. 1.
V. A. Chetvernin, “Vvedenie,” in V. A. Chetvernin, ed., Stanovlenie konstitutsionnogo gosudarstva v posttotalitarnoi Rossii (Moscow: Institute of State and Law, 1996), p. 7.
Russians overwhelmingly “reject the view that a tough dictatorship is the only way out of the current situation” Richard Rose, “BorisYeltsin Faces the Electorate: Findings from Opinion Polling Data,” Demokratizatsiya, Summer 1996, pp. 386–387.
Gleb Cherkasov, “Segoniia Duma budet utverzhdat’ kandidaturu prem’erministra,” Segodniia, August 10, 1996, p. 2.
Sergei Shargorodsky, “Russia-Revolution Day,” AP North American Wire, November 7, 1995. The speaker,Viktor Tiulkin, added the blunt admission that working people “cannot come to power by parliamentary means.”
Anna Kozyreva, “U Dumy dostatochno vlasti. Prosto eto vlast’ drugaia,” Rossiiskaia Gazeta, August 14, 1996, p. 3.
A. Frolov, “Pochemu El’tsinu udalos’ vyigrat’?,” Sovetskaia Rossiia, July 9, 1996, p. 2.
As ArturoValenzuela puts it, unlike presidential systems, in parliamentary systems “crises of government do not become crises of regime.” Quoted in Giovanni Sartori, Comparative Constitutional Engineering (New York: New York University Press, 1994), p. 94.
Irina Savvateeva, “El’tsin sokhraniaet pravitel’stvo i ugrozhaet dume rospuskom,” Izvestiia, June 23, 1995, p. 1.
Juan J. L inz, “ T he P erils of P residentialism,” in A rend L ijphart, ed., Parliamentary versusPresidentialGovernment ( O xford, UK : O xford U niversity P ress, 1994), p. 120.
See Anatol Lieven, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 89–94. Lieven points out that “in the search for ‘deeper’ reasons for the Russian decision to invade Chechnya, the hijackings are often forgotten.”
Lev Gudkov, “Vlast’ i chechenskaia voina v obshchestvennom mnenii Rossii,” Segodniia, February 23, 1995, p. 3.
Aleksei Kirpichnikov, “Vesna i votum nedoveriia obostriaiut chuvstvo nereal’nosti,” Segodniia, April 8, 1995, p. 2.
Vladimir Isakov, “Vremiia vybora,” Sovetskaia Rossiia, June 25, 1995, p. 2.
See, for example, Sergei Chugaev, “Esli kommunisty pobedaiut na vyborakh, novaia natsionalizatsiia neizbezhna,” Izvestiia, November 2, 1995, p. 1.
A.Yusupovsky, “A Political Portrait of Russia’s Upper House of Parliament, 1993–1995,” Demokratizatsiya, Winter 1996, p. 89.
Juan J. L inz, “ P residential or P arliamentary D emocracy: D oes it M ake a D ifference?,” in Juan J. L inz and A rturo V alenzuela, eds., TheFailure ofPresidentialDemocracy ( B altimore: Johns H opkins U niversity P ress, 1994), p. 7.
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© 1999 Thomas M. Nichols
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Nichols, T.M. (1999). The Unexpected Second Russian Republic. In: The Russian Presidency. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780312299088_4
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