By Maria-Louisa Tirmaste
Creation of Public Council of ZaModernozatsiyu.Ru (ForModernisation.Ru)
was announced yesterday. Its co-chairman and member of YABLOKO’s
Political Committee Grigory Yavlinsky said that modernisation
was impossible without political changes. He compared the
projects of creation of a kind of the Silicon Valley in
Skolkovo in the outskirts of Moscow and introduction of
nanotechnologies with countrywide planting of corn by Nikita
Khrushchev.
The plans to create a Public Council of ZaModernozatsiyu.Ru
were announced by co-chair of the Right Cause party and
head of the Delovaya Rossiya (Business Russia) organisation
Boris Titov late in 2009. Yesterday the Public Council held
its first meeting organised jointly with the Stolypin Club.
The key topic of the meeting was modernisation announced
by Dmitry Medvedev. Mr.Titov stressed that business should
have the leading role in formation of its strategy. Alexei
Golubovich of Arbat Capital, who prepared a large report
on the topic, noted that “it would be difficult to say what
can make the government to change its structure", moreover
modernisation was unlikely to get interest “either from
the military who can see no opportunities for modernisation
of the army, or intelligentsia who lacked the motivation.
At the same time "the bureaucratic machinery is too
closely integrated into the largest companies," he
said. Anatoly Leirikh, head of Khimex and member of the
Delovaya Rossiya General Council and the Right Cause Political
Council, stressed that modernisation required political
will and a clear plan and comprehensible plan rather than
"idle talk from governors, government members and the
Cabinet head". "Talking about nanotechnologies
is great, but nothing will come out of it without involving
the basic industries and sectors of the economy. No group
of persons or oligarchs will succeed with modernisation
without support from the broad layers of the population."
In his turn Grigory Yavlinsky, co-chair of the Council
of ZaModernozatsiyu.Ru and member of YABLOKO’s Political
Committee, stated that that "discussing enforced modernisation
would be a waste of time and effort”. "History shows
us that a totalitarian regime can transform an
agrarian state into industrial, however an industrial state
can not be transformed into a post-industrial in such a
way." “We have a country of total literacy, however
why should we seriously discuss Skolkovo (Kommersant: creation
of the Russian Silicon Valley there),” Yavlinsky said. “This
is like growing corn which we all witnessed once (Mr.Yavlinsky
is speaking here about countrywide cultivation of corn initiated
by Secretary General of the Communist Party Nikita Khrushchev
in early 1960s)! The same thing has been happening with
nanotechnologies. Why should we discuss this on a national
level?!”
Grigory Yavlinsky also noted that all discussions of the
ways to conduct modernisation “are pure fantasies”. "I'm
told that this is not a meeting to discuss the political
situation, however, without changing the political situation
we shall not be able to conduct modernisation – and I am
ready to prove it every day," Yavlinsky stressed (Kommersant:
When asked who prohibited him to discuss the political situation
he answered with a smile "I got a phone call")
He also added that "There is more to modernisation
than screwing the light bulbs a new generation."
Expert Vyacheslav Inozemtsev, despite Grigory Yavlinsky’s
criticism, said that the goal of creating ZaModernizatsiu.Ru
was to get a “final product”, i.e., a plan and strategy
of modernisation. Boris Titov “We are forming a community
of businessmen, experts, and public figures”. The Council
will meet once a month.
We should note here that the projects by Mr.Titov and Mr.Yavlinsky
has become already the third proposal to prepare a modernisation
programme for Dmitry Medvedev for the past week.
The same work has been made by the CPRF which proposes of
project of "socialist
modernisation", while United Russia's Liberal Club
has been developing a program for 2012 –
2018.
See also:
the
original
