NIKOLAI SHMELEV Russia: The Emerging Consensus on National Reconstruction T he political situation that has emerged in Russia in recent years is still prompting our economists and sociologists to conduct a debate about the country’s future prospects primarily in a spirit of confrontation and mutual non-recogni­tion: the left-wingers against the right-wingers, the socialists against the liberals, the dirigistes against the monetarists, and so on. But politics and the struggle for power have their own laws. It is hardly surprising that politicians of all leanings strive to make maximum use in their own narrow party­political interests of any, even invented, differences of opinion with their rivals merely so as to gain even the slightest political advantage and thus to strengthen their influence within society. Indeed, how can things be different in a situation where the public barely has time to memorize the sur­name of the latest prime minister before he is dis­missed. However, all societies, including Russian society, is not just about politics and politicians. It is in fact a consciousness, a view on life and the ideals and aspirations of the»silent majority«, or put differently, that predominant»non-political« section of the population, who does not perhaps outwardly have a great bearing on the present situation but on whose moods and preferences, in the final analysis, everything depends. The Russian public is tired of division and is demanding agreement. I can confirm that at least in the economic and social spheres, such a consen­sus is possible. Moreover, it already exists not only in words but in deeds, the only problem being that it is either deliberately or involuntarily not noticed. It is probably difficult for the stunned Russian, having lost all his sense of orientation, to notice that a national consensus in these areas is taking shape or has already actually emerged. After all, in the political arena and in the mass media he primarily hears extreme views being voiced. The far left is calling for a return to the past, to an eco­nomy based on a totalitarian dictatorship and uni­versal shortages, whereas the far right is still, after all the mistakes and failures of the policies of reform, talking about the healing force of»social Darwinism« and the dog-eat-dog struggle in the free market – what sort of consensus is that? However, the point is that if we look at things rationally, if we remove all the extremism and ignore the marginal forces on both the right and the left, which are absorbed by their mutual poli­tical destruction, we cannot help but recognize that Russia, which in the late 1980 s entered a phase of protracted socio-economic transforma­tions absolutely unprepared either theoretically or practically, has not lived through these recent years for nothing. It was not enough to comprehend and realise that the former totalitarian system was completely ineffective economically and therefore not viable – it seems that everyone agrees with this view today with the exception of the most extreme marginal forces. It was not enough to extol(unfor­tunately, almost a century late) social standards such as freedom, democracy, human rights, a civil society, the free market and social management as supreme values, because there are currently no serious(i. e. non-extremist) political forces and no social groups of real weight and influence to push those standards through. It was still necessary, having experienced such suffering, destruction and shattered illusions, to arrive ultimately at an under­standing of the specific tasks to be tackled by Russian society so that it can emerge from the pre­sent national crisis and at last embark on the path that most of the rest of the world is already pro­ceeding along. I am convinced that such an understanding has been reached in Russia. Of course, it is possible and necessary(so as not to repeat the mistakes already made), to argue about the»price« that the whole of Russian society has had to pay for this understanding. But with each day that passes, it is becoming increasingly evident that in the eco­62 Shmelev, Russia: The Emerging Consensus on National Reconstruction IPG 1/2000