System backwardness of Russia: main characteristics

For two decades Russia has been loosing its way. Where is Russia today in comparison with developed countries of the world? In what ways our country is lagging behind and how deep is this backwardness? What system flaws should be eliminated in order to change the situation for the better?

We can say that time is the only irreplaceable resource and at the same time associated criterion for retrospective evaluation of the direction and quality in the development of the government. Efficiency of the time use is relative. In our modern world for successful development it is necessary to use the time more effective than other countries or than its overwhelming majority. In this context modernization is the right instrument which switches political, governmental and social systems to more effective and more competitive regime of functioning.

A lot of factors, which in general are universal practically for all countries, impede effective use of time. Another fact is evident that many countries become more civilized. However their rate of change is not similar and on short period of times could be barely noticeable. At the same time in the world practice there is an example of boom of some countries in their development, when for several decades the government from obvious for everybody outsider moves to the forefront of the global economy. One of these countries is China, which in the Concept of long-term socio-economic development of Russia till 2020 year is named a leader in the sphere of science, national innovation system and technologies. In this context Russia is among the states in which political and bureaucratic conservatism dominates over economic common sense, in result of which the need of native entrepreneurs in innovations becomes unnatural.

 Some areas that increase system backwardness of Russia could be viewed in three dimensions: economic and technological, administrative, social.

1. Economic and technological backwardness

Economic and technological backwardness of Russia is characterized in that today there are practically no economic sectors, industries, technologies in which Russian positions remain strong in comparison with the developed countries.  Moreover, technological backwardness becomes the source of many expected and unexpected technogenic catastrophe, permanent character of which stresses the need for system change and realization of the complex of large long-term investment projects oriented on the development of industries and infrastructure.

For a long time traditional niche in Russia has been space exploration. However during the last time even this sphere is in crisis. A series of failures with the launch of missiles and with the put of satellites into the orbit could be great evidence. Also, if a series of catastrophes continues, this will lead to temporal and probably continuous refusal from flights, termination of their own space programs because of large economic losses and liability before foreign partners, and this will be the end for domestic aerospace. If in other spheres situation is less evident, in this case failures, which are very difficult to hide, and total absence of flights will be eloquent proof of Russian loss of its positions in space investigation and exploration.

Another sphere where Russia traditionally had technological advantages was armament. However, today there are no significant breakthroughs in this sphere. For example, Russia has already spent 14 years (from 1998 till now) and tens of billions of rubles only on developing and testing of intercontinental ballistic missile “Bulava”. Only 16 test launches of “Bulava” were made, and only 8 were successful, two more were partially successful. The last launch of the missile was in August 27, 2011. Today “Bulava” is not on combat duty and also the lifetime of the missiles “Topol”, which was the development of the USSR, terminated in 1988, has been extended.

For a long time axiomatically it was assumed that the potential of military-industrial complex and military science is not lost – it is invisible due to high secrecy. However in 2011 the General Staff of Russia publically confirmed that the Russian army and military science lag behind the Western countries at least for 20 years. If this phrase was said 10 years ago, maybe more opportunities had been left in order to change the situation. So, the long-expected transfer of military technologies to civil sector has no sense. In current conditions the only alternative for Russia is to buy for its elite units of power not only the helicopters “Mistral” and unmanned aerial vehicles, but also modern small arms, which are notable for high accuracy. In general, the comparison of Russian weapons with the weapons of the developed countries leads to the same conclusions as when comparing the products of the Russian and foreign automotive industry.

A significant threat for technological security of the country is total absence in Russia of the production of computer equipment of a complete cycle, which is the base not only of modern arming and informational technologies of the governmental administration, but also of a daily life. Also there is no reason to believe that in the next 10 years such production in Russia will be organized. The absence of this industry automatically leaves the country outside the scope of high technologies, leaves the country just in status of a recipient and doesn’t allow domestic scientific researches in this perspective sphere to develop.

The following data could be the evidence of the depth of this economic and technological backwardness.

For the Russian economy the value of traditional performance of production efficiency: labor productivity, capital productivity, environmentally friendly production, energy consumption, is several times worse than in the developed countries. For example, in labor productivity Russia lags behind the USA in 4 times. The average age of production equipment in the Russian industry is 20 years when in USA the same performance is 7 years. With such a level of differentiation the country can’t have high economic results and can’t be competitive. Perhaps, this backwardness of Russia from the developed countries will last long, however the scope of this backwardness is more significant, long and short distances separate Russia from the countries-leaders.

Technological ineffectiveness in the sphere of energy production could be presented by comparing the consumption of «natural gas» with plants that generate electricity in the cities.  Modern steam-gas plants, for example, produced by Siemens, in comparison with traditional steam-turbine plants, exploited by JSC “Mosenergo” from Soviet times, have higher coefficient of fuel usage, allowing saving gas consumption up to 30%.  In the conditions of the market monopolization consumers pay for excessive gas consumption. Nationwide technological backwardness in energy sector turns into huge costs. It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that power industry is not the sphere of the economy which has shortage of investment funds.

Despite high demand and profitability, oil refinery industry doesn’t hurry to invest into expansion and modernization of production and to produce motor fuel, which complies with modern European standards. According to available data, out of 31 large oil refinery factories of Russia only 6 have reached the depth of  oil refining in 80-88%, and this brings them closer to the 90-percent level of the USA and Europe. At the same time total capacity of 6 plants in the total capacity of 31 oil refinery companies is 26,4%. Moreover, the fuel shortage periodically appears in some regions of the country, including Moscow airports.

In general, the consequences of technological backwardness are diverse. This is acceleration of technological disasters with massive human losses and economic damage, increasing import dependence, and consistently high prices on various products of the same or even worse level of quality in comparison with the developed countries.

2. Backwardness of administration system

Backwardness of administration system consists in inability of the state machine to make and realize effective decisions in due course, to bear responsibility for the consequences of made decisions. The majority of state issues of operational and medium-term nature are considered for years and decades. At the same time decisions that were made ten years ago are used.

The absence of system autonomous functioning of the state machine in accordance to the law is compensated by «manual» control. So, in 2009 the quantity of orders of the Russian President increased by 30% in comparison with 2008 – from1354 units to 1753 units (almost 5 orders a day – http://kremlin.ru/news/7114). There could be even more orders of the Russian Prime Minister. At the same time it is necessary to notice that these orders quickly compensate the drawbacks of the current normative-legal acts, substitute decrees and resolutions.

Moreover, governmental decisions, which take the form of normative-legal acts and even resolutions, are characterized by a low degree of execution. The great example could be identified crimes in secretion by law enforcement agencies of banned gambling business. Moreover, some orders of the Russian President remain unfulfilled.

Disorganized work of the state machine leads to ineffective expenditure of budgetary funds. So, according to the data of the Russian President, from 5 trillion rubles of annual volume of governmental procurement the size of the theft is 20% and this exceeds the annual volume of financing all realized in the country federal programs.  This fact also characterizes ineffectiveness of the corresponding law, and also the work of governmental financial and regulatory authorities.

Timeliness of decision-making leads to spatial and economic distortions. For example, the decision about administrative transformation of Moscow and Moscow region was made only when in the capital of Russia there was no space left for new housing development, and city came really close to the collapse of the transport system. Taking into account the current rates of housing growth, increase in transport and passenger traffic; it wasn’t very difficult to forecast the onset of critical moment for Moscow.

In general administration system, being in the condition of extreme passivity or of extreme instability, doesn’t perform its function of organization of social and economic relations in order to increase its effectiveness. In such conditions administrative system for a long time has been in the state of forced self-organization, the foundation of which is rules far from being civilized.

3. Social backwardness

Social backwardness of Russia consists in a low quality of life, which is determined by the level of health care development, the condition of a housing sphere, education, science and other spheres.

One of the indicators of the wellbeing of the family is their own housing, and also the affordability to buy it. показателей благополучия семьи является наличие собственного жилья, а также доступность его приобретения. In the level of housing supply (the ratio of the volume of housing to population) Russia lags behind Germany, which was also destroyed during the World War II,  in two times, USA – in three times. At the same time, taking into consideration the rates of housing construction and the natural outflow of the housing stock, it will be possible for Russia to reach the current level of Germany and USA in 40 and 95 years accordingly. Because of the shortage of housing in Russia, prices and interest rates on mortgage loans are very high, much higher than in the developed countries.

Russian system of higher education, which previously was the best in the world, today is uncompetitive on international level. For example, in the rating of universities Academic Ranking of World Universities for the year 2010 only 2 Russian universities were among the top 500 universities: Moscow State University (MSU) (place 74) and St. Petersburg State University (in the fourth hundred). Other national universities are not listed in this rating. At the same time the possible skepticism  towards foreign ratings will not increase the quality of Russian higher education, which costs practically the same as in the universities of Europe and USA.

Today some universities plan to get the status of a scientific-research center. But practical use of many breakthrough scientific results, if these universities manage to get such in medium-term or long-term perspective, is quite doubtful when the Russian economy doesn’t have hi-tech economic sectors. Its creation and adoption will require more than 10 years if significant investments are made. So corporate science, according to similar reasons, remains in crisis.

The modern civil sector of Russia in the framework of state academies of sciences is shrinking, the proof of it could be decreasing quantity of researches, and also it continues to be autonomous from the real production and education. Practice shows that total absence of connection between basic researches and perspective use of its results in applied researches allows qualifying the program of basic researches of the RAS (Russian Academy of Sciences) and some other state academies of sciences as exclusively venture product with high risks of failure. The cost of this project is 52 billion rubles a year.

In 2011 the list of priority directions of scientific, technological and technical development of Russia, and also the list of critical technologies were approved by the Presidential decree. But still the vector of development of national economy and science is not determined. In the concept of a long-term social economic development of Russia till 2020 hi-tech sectors of national economy are presented, among which there are aviation and space-rocket industry, shipbuilding, radio-electronic industry, nuclear power generation complex, power engineering, information and communication technologies. But still there is a connection, although not full, between priorities, critical technologies and hi-tech sectors.

For successful development of hi-tech sectors, priority directions and critical technologies, and also for ensuring the competitiveness on international level, first of all, it is necessary to analyze advanced achievements, including the results of global science, to acquire the rights to use the most significant results, legally or  in other ways to acquire at a stated time all the necessary modern technologies (including technological equipment), and then on this basis to develop our own production and scientific researches.

Out of three sectors of Russian science – corporate-industrial, academic and university – the leading role should be given to the first one. Academic and university sciences are necessary supporting elements, scientific results of which will accelerate the progress of corporate-industrial science in the development and improvement of new technologies and in the development of new knowledge. Also academic and university sciences should supply qualified scientific personnel for corporate-industrial science. Cooperation of the leading enterprises of hi-tech economic sectors and its scientific departments with the leading universities and scientific organizations could be successfully implemented within the framework of technological platforms.

Modern fundamental science of Russia is in need of rational integration with international science because of high cost of modern researches, the necessity to use modern unique scientific stands and facilities and in order to overcome the backwardness. The program of fundamental researches of the core state academies of sciences and the expected scientific results should be coordinated with the leading enterprises of hi-tech sectors. Financing the program should be linked to priority directions and critical technologies.  

Medium-term program of scientific researches of the core state universities and state scientific organizations in the form of a state job, financed from budgetary funds, should be formed to meet the needs of the leading manufacturing companies from hi-tech economic sectors and should take into account the work, carried out in the framework of academic science. Also integration of universities and scientific organizations into international scientific community is very reasonable.

When set priorities are reached, the degree of research independence of academic and university science from enterprises in hi-tech economic sectors could increase. However today system, including technological, backwardness of Russia from the developed countries doesn’t allow the domestic science to be fragmented and to be engaged in creative search independently from each other. Modernization and the problem of accelerated technological development makes consolidation of the national sector of researches led by corporate-industrial science more needed.

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