IMAGINE a town or settlement of 30,000 people, probably near Moscow. Its high-tech laboratories and ultra-modern glass houses make California’s Palo Alto look ancient. It has a greater concentration of scientists than anywhere else in the world. The atmosphere in the town is free, cosmopolitan and creative, almost anarchic at times. Police harassment is minimal, “at least to start with”. Riff-raff and drunks from surrounding villages are kept away by tight security.
The streets are clean, and shops are stuffed with organic food to stimulate the brain. Here, in this exclusive “zone of special attention”, the state is extracting creative energy from Russian and foreign scientists that is driving the country along the path of modernisation and innovation.
This is not a parody, but a government plan outlined by Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s chief ideologist, in a recent interview given to Vedomosti, a Russian business daily. It was entitled: “The miracle is possible”. The miracle Mr Surkov talks about is transforming the Russian economy and generating new technologies, where Russia lags badly (see chart 1)—and all without touching the foundations of the Russian political system.
Modernisation was the slogan proposed by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, in an article last September called “Russia Forward!”, published on a liberal website. “Should we drag a primitive economy based on raw materials and endemic corruption into the future?” Mr Medvedev asked rhetorically. While admitting a vast array of problems, from economic weakness to alcoholism, he painted a picture of a Russia with nuclear-powered spaceships and supercomputers. In short, if Russia managed to modernise, it would once again become a world leader.
Although Mr Medvedev’s article was dismissed by critics as a mere simulation of action, it inspired lively debate among the elite. Even those who suspected the slogan was fake found they could not disagree with it. Thus discussion focused on different ways to modernise, but did not question the goal itself. The Kremlin had imposed its own agenda.
Liberal critics quickly pointed out that modernisation in Russia is impossible without political liberalisation and institutional change. A country with weak property rights and a rent-seeking bureaucracy, they argued, can invent new ways of extracting bribes and robbing businesses, but not of creating intellectual wealth. Most recently Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, said modernisation was impossible without democratic reforms.
Yet the experience of Mr Gorbachev’s perestroika—which started with talk of technological renewal but ended in the collapse of the Soviet system—has persuaded the Kremlin to define modernisation strictly within technological boundaries. Hence Mr Medvedev’s warning not to rush political reforms. His supporters argue that only authoritarian government is capable of bringing the country into the 21st century. “Consolidated state power is the only instrument of modernisation in Russia. And, let me assure you, it is the only one possible,” Mr Surkov told Vedomosti.
Read more: http://www.economist.com/node/15661865
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