The last systemic liberal: why Alexey Kudrin is changing his position

Alexei Kudrin resigns as chairman of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation: the Federation Council received a proposal from the President of the Russian Federation on the release of Alexei Leonidovich from his current duties. It is expected that the President’s request will be considered by the upper house on Wednesday. And, of course, satisfied. Not only because it is not customary in parliament to refuse a head of state, but also because of the position of Kudrin himself: he himself wants to leave. And even hints where exactly.

“In total, I spent about 25 years in the public sector,” Kudrin writes in his farewell message posted on social networks. – Now I would like to focus on large projects that are related to the development of private initiatives in a broad sense, but at the same time have a significant effect on people. Therefore, I am leaving the post of chairman of the Accounts Chamber, about which I submitted a corresponding application to the President of the Russian Federation.

It is hardly possible to consider these words as a tribute to politeness, that in fact it is not Kudrin who is leaving, but his “leaving”. Alexei Leonidovich, as far as we know, is waiting for no less great things. Only lazy insiders do not say that the new field, which is so ornately described in Kudrin’s post, is nothing more than the Yandex company. More precisely, its Russian half.

The management of “Yandex” recently announced plans to divide the assets: their foreign part will receive complete independence from the business that remains in Russia, which, in turn, will acquire a new legal entity. The mystery, in fact, remains only what place Kudrin will take in the updated Yandex. It is clear that this place will not be the last, to put it mildly. For the sake of insignificant posts, such castlings are not played out.

Kudrin is not the first high-ranking civil servant to go into business. Before him, German Gref (former Minister of Economic Development and Trade, now Chairman of the Board of Sberbank), Oleg Vyugin (former Head of the Federal Service for Financial Markets, now Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Moscow Exchange), Alexey Miller (former Deputy Minister of Energy, now Chairman of the Board PJSC Gazprom)…

The list can be continued for a long time, this is quite a traditional way for officials. And not only in Russia – such a route is quite typical for Western servants of the people. But the employment of Russian retirees has its own characteristics, arising from the characteristics of the national economy.

Big business in Russia is either completely state-owned or has informal but strong ties to the state. In short, by and large it is also part of the public sector. And accordingly, resignation with leaving for such a business is, as a rule, not quite a resignation. More precisely, not a resignation at all, but a new responsible state mission.

It consists not only in improving the economic performance of the enterprise: profit, revenue and other EBITDA, but also in tying it more tightly to the power vertical, making it more manageable, more responsive to wishes, requests and hints. Yandex, by many indications, is now going through just such a stage in its development. Some experts even argue that the vertical is de facto nationalizing the Russian part of the company.

Of course, the authorities would not want such an impression to be created, so Kudrin’s mission, apparently, is doubly responsible: to make the process of “landing” a transnational company look not rude and forced, but elegant, market, voluntary and liberal. Will Alexey Leonidovich cope? Is not a fact.

On one side of the scale is his reputation as a sislib. Kudrin, perhaps, can even be called the father of Russian systemic liberalism, at least its modern version. Alexei Leonidovich managed to combine the incompatible – friendly relations with Vladimir Putin and speeches at “white-tape” rallies. However, now the situation is much more serious than at the time of the “snow revolution” at the turn of 2011-2012. It is unlikely that you will be able to sit on two chairs – only one will be counted.

But if the question of the success of Kudrin’s new mission is still open, then the fate of the Accounts Chamber he is leaving looks quite certain. And not only in the sense that his successor has been determined: according to rumors and insiders, he will most likely be the current First Vice Speaker of the State Duma Alexander Zhukov. The trick is that no matter who replaces Kudrin, this change will have no effect on the life of the control body.

Previously, in the era when the Accounts Chamber was just born, the role of the leading person in its history was incomparably higher. According to the founder of the chamber, ex-deputy chairman of the joint venture Yuri Boldyrev, the turning point was 2003, when radical changes were made to the law on the Accounts Chamber: the chairman of the joint venture, his deputy and auditors began to be appointed on the proposal of the President of the Russian Federation.

“From now on, there is no independent Accounts Chamber in the country,” Boldyrev was categorical in an interview with MK, dedicated, by the way, to Kudrin’s arrival in the joint venture (May 2018). – Who feeds the girl, he dances her. Who puts a person in a post – this person depends on that … The Accounts Chamber was reduced today to an understudy of the Control Department (President. – “MK”). With some public simulation of independent control.”

In short, it won’t get any worse.