No conclusion between Kremlin and protesters

Posted by Theresa Milano On Monday, January 16th 2012 in Politics

On Monday, an attempt to reach a conclusion between the Kremlin and the organizers that created the street protests failed once more. The dialogue was supposed to take place before the large scale demonstrations that are planned for the 4^th of February take place. The former finance minister, Aleksei L. Kudrin, who had wanted to act as intermediary, announced that after three meetings no progress had been made.

“This perfectly suits the ‘hardliners’ in each camp, but it cannot satisfy adherents of a rational approach,” stated Mr. Kudrin, who had been an ally of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin for a long time before being dismissed from his post this fall. “I consider continuation of the status quo to be dangerous. In order to retrieve this situation from a dead end, it is necessary for both sides to take a step toward one another.”

During the holidays, the two sides did not attempt to set up any kinds of meetings.

“A recurring problem in Russian history is the desire of a part of its elites to make leaps, to embrace revolution instead of sequential development,” wrote Vladimir Putin in an article. “Not only Russian experience, but all world experience shows the fatal results of historic leaps: haste and subversion, without creation.”

He added that even if new officials would be chosen, they would be powerless to conquer chronic failings like corruption, “parasitism” and stagnation. “At every opportunity,” he added, “the ‘subverters’ before our eyes become ‘self-satisfied gentlemen,’ who oppose any changes and jealously guard their status and privileges. Or the reverse — the ‘gentlemen’ turn into ‘subverters.’”