The fundamental problem of the Russian economy is that, having abandoned central planning, Russia has yet to stand on its own feet as a free market system. The corrupt liberalisation of the economy’s commanding heights in the mid-1990s under President Boris Yeltsin, whose family had fingers in the pie, discredited a very necessary process and made possible the persecution of the new billionaires and along with it the persistent harassment of small entrepreneurs by corrupt officials supposedly collecting taxes which, if all paid, added up to more than the cash coming into the business.

There is no rule of law in Russia. Dictatorial power gave way to chaos rather than democracy and the system was highjacked by the siloviki. Russia is certainly no Rechtsstaat, either. Arbitrary behaviour by those in power has consistently undermined business confidence, and without business confidence economic growth cannot flourish. The President and his Prime Minister make grand speeches predicting respectable rates of economic growth, yet nothing improves. The IMF reckons that Russia’s GNP by 2021 will be not much more than 2%, yet this is well under the IMF’s prediction for global growth, at 3.6%.

The entrepreneur in Russia is effectively not so much on strike as “working to rule.” The nature of political power has to change for a turnaround. This means that those in power have to answer to those making the money, and that will not happen until those in power are willing to stand down and let democracy take hold. Nezavisimaya gazeta, not for the first time, pleads for the Kremlin to give business room to breathe.