Surkov at the LSE. Photo from government.ru

The Kremlin's gray cardinal Vladislav Surkov has been forced to resign from his position in the Russian government.

It's helpful to read about Surkov's rich past and remember (as Georgy Saratov was best at doing) that Skolkovo wasn't really about innovation. And yes, it's true Surkov, that dark prince, is half-Chechen, and even, it appears, a distant relative to Dzhokhar Dudayev, the leader of Ichkeria (independent Chechnya) for a time before he was assassinated. (Yes, it appears the suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston Maraton bombing was named for Dudayev).

Surkov already seemed to be deposed when Putin completed his switcheroo again with Medvedev and took over the presidency again — it seemed even back then that the more harsh Volodin was going to be responsible for "ideological construction".

But that didn't mean the "gray cardinal" was left without a cathedral, as he was still in charge of a bunch of portfolios where the state feels it must control everything — religion, youth organizations,  education, science and "innovation" at Skolkovo. Surkov was credited with devising the "Nashi" youth movement (dubbed "Nashisty" for their fascistic behaviour).

As a Chechen — a Chechen turned toward loyalty and not disloyalty regarding the Russian empire unlike other Chechens — Surkov was said to be involved in relations with Ramzan Kadyrov, Putin's appointed leader of the Chechen Republic, notorious for his oppression.

But I don't think it's fair to say that Surkov was "in charge of" the North Caucasus writ large, as there were other officials, including the regional governors and federal viceroys put on that job. Someone more expert in this subject than me can comment.

Even so, the fact that a jihadist with permanent residence in America and family in the police forces *and* in the extremist movements could come and roam around both Dagestan *and* Chechnya for six months and come and go through Moscow — and then go and set down backpacks with pressure cookers filled with bombs and nails in Boston — well, perhaps someone thought Surkov could have done more to prevent that. Perhaps not in the direct sense — that was the job of the FSB and the MVD and other "organs" — but in the larger ideological sense, it was part of the overall failure to prevent jihad sentiments in all these young people who should have been happily bought off by sports or educated to be more loyal in the schools or happy with this "sovereign democracy" constructed for them. That is, it could have been said he didn't help.

So perhaps it was one among a number of reasons Surkov had to go. Just saying.

The immediate reason is said to be his defiant remarks at the London School of Economics. I have to wonder about that, as something like a forced dismissal would have to be in the works for awhile. There is this claim that a British official who went abroad and complained about Scotland Yard would be instantly dismissed, but it doesn't work that way.

Meanwhile, Ilya Ponomarev, the Duma deputy and Just Russia leader who is being investigated for $750,000 in lecture and consulting fees he received from Skolkovo — Surkov's project —believes there won't be a criminal case opened in the affair (he's been told this by…Zhirinovsky, and I'm sure that means you can take it to the bank *cough*).

You know, I'm not sure that getting Skolkovo to oversee is any prize. Maybe it's like Jack Kemp getting housing and having to go to Buffalo. Skolkovo has been something of a bust, despite millions pumped into it by overeager Americans and Europeans. Recently I asked some of the young Russian developers who showed up at TechCrunch Disrupt, some involved in some promising projects, what they thought of Skolkovo. They simply stared in disbelief. It had nothing to do with any live, growing tip of start-up ville in Russia. There was no money there for people who were independent of the state. Perhaps there were sometimes some receptions there where perhaps somebody might network, but it wasn't really about start-ups, but about big state projects.

But let's say that it was something potentially promising for future post-government connections for Surkov — his cocky claims that Vekselberg wouldn't have any rationale for corruption, or that the amount given to Ponomarev was not significant in fact betray a frog-in-boiling-water quality that I also see in Ponomarev — who seems unaware of how it sounds to be grilled for six hours about a mere consulting fee.

Both are right that these fees are nothing in the scheme of things — Silicon Valley "thought influencers" and "thought leaders" like Tim O'Reilly get $50,000 or more per lecture. It's nothing to get $10,000 for a talk which in fact isn't just a lecture, but is a kind of structured influence peddling — a granting of connections, a giving of advice about how to do business. There's nothing wrong with this; it's what the market will bear.

I am puzzled why the Russian probe about this is about what seem like large fees and not about the conflict of interest of both being the head of a parliamentary committee to oversee Skolkovo and innovation and getting a fee from it — but that's just it, Russians see jobs like those (ever since the tsar's days) about gaining and selling influence, not preventing corruption. Even so, by US standards, Ponomarev would be seen as committing an ethics violation. In the US, Congressmen can take fees — if they do not make up more than 15% of their salary.

Someone who is an expert on ethics violations can comment, but I don't think this would become a criminal case in the US.

Some good commentary on Surkov's release "to free floating" comes from a TV Rain talk show on 8 May

Rain says Surkov turned in his resignation back on April 26, and reported this to Kommersant, and Medvedev's office confirmed this. It wasn't for the first time, as he had apparently tried to resign before.

His knock in the LSE speech on the Investigative Committee as being "too energetic" was said to serve as the reason. Actually, Markin, in describing this, misquotes Surkov, possibly deliberately.

Surkov said (unless this version has been edited, which it may have been):

The Investigative Committee has some ideas about these relatively
small amounts of money that, by the way, cannot be compared with the
Skolkovo budget. This may be crime, but maybe not. It is necessary to
take these matters to court and let the court decide whether it’s a
crime. The energy with which the Investigative Committee is making its
thinking public makes ordinary people feel that there’s been a crime.

Markin misquotes him (or quotes a different version?)

"The Investigative Committee is too hasty, loudly proclaiming abuses in
Skolkovo. The energy with which the Investigative Committee is making
its thinking public makes ordinary people feel that there’s been a
crime."

Odd, that. What happened?

I think it's safe to say that this resignation didn't start with the London speech reaction and isn't merely about Skolkovo.

On Dozhd, Stanislav Belkovsky says the main opponents of Surkov in the Kremlin are Sergei Ivanov, and he remains as head of the presidential administration responsible for the power ministries, and the person who replaced Surkov in his former job, Vyacheslav Volodin, first deputy head of the administraiton.. "Surkov was inevitably in constant battle and under fire from the apparat". This speaks to the close relations of the power ministries and the president, of course, who himself is a former KGB agent. Belkovsky thinks that Surkov was better at internal politics and manipulations than managing the government apparatus and that his previous job was not an "organic" one for him.

When he made the move out of the apparat, Surkov was quoted as saying "I am too odious for this beautiful new world," when he had to leave the Kremlin and go to the (Russian) White House or government. "Alexei Chesnakov, a former member of Surkov's team, believes that in the current system, Surkov had no place, but the people who came into the president's administration are not politicians."

Rain recounts how first on the blog of Mikhail Prokhorov, a former presidential candidate, a comment about Surkov's departure appeared, "fish rot from the head down" and "it's time to throw out our fish," and this was said to have been penned by Stanislav Kucher who does most of Prokhorov's published texts, but then later Prokhorov himself disavowed the remark from abroad and asked for it to be removed and changed to "With the resignation of Surkov, the era of 'sovereign democracy' has ended. Whether you like it or not."

Marat Guelman, who himself has been an advisor to the government, said he thought Surkov would find it a "relief" to be let go finally. As long as you didn't openly challenge the government, you could internally have differing views – but this all changed with Volodin's arrival, he thinks — "whoever is not with us is against us."

I think this is very good because the government is deconstructing itself. If Putin believes that the corruption he is fighting is just some infection on the body of the government, in fact, corruption is the very body of government. To be honest, I was happy when I learned about it. I was happy for Slava [Surkov], that he got out in time, and happy for us. Putin will be left in solitude. The Oprichina today isn't possible. This is not the Middle Ages. In the information society, the Oprichina as a metaphor is possible, but what they are trying to do now is make it literally a reality.

Oleg Kashin says Surkov's former functions are divided into three among Volodin, who does "old school politics" — elections, the parliament, the governments; Bastrykin, who has been given the opposition — "I think he really decides who to put in jail and who to promote," says Kashin; and Kapkov, who now is responsible for culture and creatives. Kashin thinks the structures Surkov built will live on:

He convinced us all that he is such a romantic figure, described by Pelevin. He is the creator of the school of Russian-style political PR — elections in the regions, they arrested one candidate, they removed another from the elections, beat up a third, but then printed a million leaflets, stole money, won the elections, wow, we're such kick-ass PR men. He's the creator of this school, I do'nt think it will die with his departure.

Evgeny Gontmakher reminds us what this is really about, however, the terrible thing Surkov did to Russia after the freedoms that began under Yeltsin:

He has dealt colossal damage to our public life, to political life. These Putin phantoms that he had in his head in an inchoate form, Surkov managed to capture them and turn them into these techniques that Oleg describes. But it was all for harm. Now we see the systemic crisis in the country, the systemic crisis in society, it's all the achievement of Vladislav Surkov. I don't see anything positive.

Gontmakher may be exaggerating the effect that Surkov had mainly using Putin's oil-barrel powers, but he has read him correctly as a man who jumped from the train when he could. "I think we'll soon get a fruitful writer" out of Surkov, he concludes, with a reference to Surkov's writing an introduction about a thinly-disguised novel about a figure like himself.

I don't think we've seen the last of Surkov any more than we've seen the last of Gleb Pavlovsky, who also disappeared from the scene.