俄罗斯并不完全是美国官员们所想象的那种犯罪国家——就像前些天维基解密(WikiLeaks)公开的大量密电中所描述的那样——而是一种有所不同的犯罪国家。其中央政府并不是政治暴力的主要导演。相反，大部分政治暴力事件都是地方政府官员及其他犯罪分子所为，只不过得到了高层的容忍。
民主本身并不能解决俄罗斯的问题。在许多国家，民主体制可能与腐败、残暴的寡头统治共存。菲律宾就是一个例证，在那里，新闻工作者的死亡率比俄罗斯还要高。
但是，尽管民主对于社会和经济进步而言不是必要条件，法治却是。在当今的俄罗斯体制内，法治受到政府本身的普遍藐视，这使政府无力采取行动来打击腐败，以及这种腐败所滋生的暴力——因为任何有效的反腐败运动，都有可能让脆弱的现有体制崩溃。
俄罗斯的政治与司法体制有相当大一部分腐败成风，与有组织犯罪相互勾结，并对批评人士和反对者动用暴力。世界媒体现在担心，这会如何影响2018年将在俄罗斯主办的世界杯足球赛。对新闻工作者的暴力攻击持续不断，可相关新闻报道却减少了，最近的几起攻击是针对一些作家，他们反对修建一条横穿莫斯科附近科希姆基森林(Khimki Forest)的公路。这些攻击更有可能是那些与地方官员和承包商关系密切的人所为。
追究地方政府官员及有组织犯罪分子刑事责任的法官和检察官也大量遇害。因此，尽管一些袭击可能得到克里姆林宫的授意或默许，例如2006年女记者安娜•波利特科夫斯卡娅(Anna Politkovskaya)的遇害，但此类情况是少数。从这一点上看，俄罗斯更像是阴冷版的意大利，而非升级版的斯大林政权。
当前这种形势始于上世纪90年代国家权力的倒台。当时，有组织的犯罪集团用暴力手段攫取了大量财富，或是成为政商要人的盟友和枪手。其结果是暗杀事件激增，几乎每天都有官员、商人和记者遇害。武装寡头对国家体制造成的破坏，引发了诸多严重后果，包括国家征税能力和公共服务崩溃。
曾出任总统的俄罗斯现任总理弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)的伟大功绩，就是为这种混乱局面带来了一定的秩序。鉴于寡头和有组织犯罪集团的势力和残忍程度，国家安全部门必然会在这场较量中扮演重要角色。不过，在这一过程中，他们自己变成了坐拥财富的精英，虽然不像90年代的前辈那样无法无天，但同样依靠腐败和隐匿在国家机器内部。为了捍卫自己的地位，他们有时也会诉诸暴力，但更多的是动用国家对媒体的控制来压制批评者——上周，电视记者列奥尼德•帕夫扬诺夫(Leonid Parfyonov)在一次大无畏的演讲中对此进行了控诉。
因此，普京建立的秩序已经失去了价值——尽管如何在不导致政权垮台的前提下改革这种秩序，是一个极其棘手的问题。政府一直无力将很多犯下政治谋杀罪的人绳之以法，也无力整顿既无能又腐败的警察队伍。无数西方投资者和一些正直的俄罗斯商人都提到这些问题给经济发展造成的灾难性后果，他们需要一个比较廉洁且可预测的法律秩序。
无论是俄罗斯还是其它国家，最关键的是在政府体制内部以及全社会增强法治意识。为此，俄罗斯必须让新生的中产阶级发展壮大，让他们取代目前的寡头集团——中产阶级不仅要拥有全新的政治思想体系，还要有新的道德观。
这不会很快实现，但并非不可能之事。因为冷酷版菲律宾的形象，与俄罗斯人对本国伟大历史的自豪感实在不相称。
本文作者为伦敦大学国王学院(King's College London)教授，其新作《Pakistan: A Hard Country》将与2011年4月出版
译者/陈云飞
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001035940
Russia is not exactly the criminal state imagined by the US officials quoted in last week's WikiLeaks cable dump – it is a different kind of criminal state. The national government is not chiefly responsible for directing political violence. Instead, most is the work of local bosses and other criminals, tolerated by those at the top.
Democracy in itself is not the answer to Russia's problems. In many countries, forms of democracy co-exist with domination by corrupt and brutal oligarchies. One example is the Philippines, where the death rate of journalists is even higher.
But while democracy is not essential to social and economic progress, the rule of law is. The present Russian set-up, in which the rule of law is widely flouted by the state itself, makes the government incapable of taking action against corruption and the violence this corruption breeds – because any effective anti-corruption campaign would risk bringing the fragile existing order down in ruins.
Much of the country's political and judicial system is riddled with corruption, links to organised crime and the use of violence against critics and opponents. The world's media now worry about how this might affect the 2018 football World Cup, which Russia is to host. Less coverage is given to ongoing physical attacks on journalists, only the latest of which have come against writers who had condemned plans to build a road through Khimki Forest near Moscow. These attacks are more likely to be the work of those close to local officials and building contractors.
Judges and public prosecutors who go after local political bosses and organised criminals are also being killed in considerable numbers. Thus while some attacks, such as the murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, may have taken place on Kremlin orders or with its acquiescence, these have been the minority. From this point of view, Russia is closer to a grimmer version of Italy than it is to an updated Stalinism.
The present situation began with the collapse of state power in the 1990s, in which organised criminal groups shot their way into control of massive amounts of property, or were adopted as allies and gunmen by business and political figures. The result was an explosion of assassinations that claimed the lives of officials, businessmen and journalists on a near-daily basis. The undermining of the state system by armed oligarchs led, among other things, to a collapse of the state's revenue raising capacity and therefore of public services.
The great achievement of Vladimir Putin, president and now prime minister, was to bring a measure of order to this chaos. Given the power and ruthlessness of the oligarchs and the organised criminal groups, it was inevitable that the security services would play a big part in this struggle. In the process, however, they themselves become a property-owning elite, less anarchic than their predecessors in the 1990s but equally dependent on corruption and concealment in the state apparatus. To defend their position they sometimes employ violence, but more often the state's control of the media is used to stifle criticism – as highlighted in a courageous speech last week by Leonid Parfyonov, a television journalist.
The order fostered by Mr Putin has therefore now outlived its usefulness – though how to reform it without bringing down the state itself is a horribly difficult question. The government has not been able to bring to justice many of those who have committed political murders, or to clean up the incompetent and corrupt police. The disastrous results of all this for economic development have been highlighted by numerous western investors, as well as by honest Russian businessmen who require a reasonably untainted and predictable legal order in which to operate.
What is essential, in Russia and elsewhere, is a stronger sense of the rule of law, both in the state system and in society as a whole. For this, new middle classes would have to develop to replace the existing oligarchy – classes that would be the bearers not just of a new political ideology but a new morality.
This will not happen any time soon, but it is not an impossibility. For to see themselves as a colder version of the Philippines is hardly compatible with Russians' sense of their country's historical greatness.
The writer is a professor at King's College London. His next book, Pakistan: A Hard Country, will be published in April 2011
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