The fight against corruption in Russia: methods and results

For many years, representatives of various sectors of civil society have been engaged in heated discussions and have been actively arguing over how effective and expedient the methods and methods are used to solve the problem called: “the fight against corruption in Russia”. Of course, no one doubts that bribery in our country is gaining truly menacing proportions, paralyzing the functioning of almost all institutions of human life. Bureaucratic bureaucracy is a breeding ground for bribery. Unfortunately, the main value for representatives of the top and political elite today are material resources. This "disease" has long acquired a systemic character. Naturally, the fight against corruption in Russia should be conducted all 24 hours a day. But at the same time, it is very important to understand whether the authorities are currently taking adequate measures to eradicate the aforementioned evil. Where did it come from and what is it? Let's consider these questions in more detail.

History reference

Corruption arose many centuries ago. Even in the ancient works of India, China, Egypt and Mesopotamia, this negative phenomenon appears.

Problems of the fight against corruption in Russia also arose not yesterday. For the first time, social evil is mentioned in written sources of the 14th century. In the era of tsarism, bribery was classified into "extortion" and "bribery." In the first case, the "servant of the Sovereign" committed unlawful acts for a bribe, and in the second he performed his direct duties in the mercenary interests.

Only under Peter the Great did officials begin to receive a fixed salary, and bribery was seen as a crime. However, even after that, low-ranking civil servants did not refuse to receive money for “certain services”, since for them it was the only way to survive. But even the cruel punishments of stigmatization, execution and exile, which the Tsar-reformer introduced for the bribe takers, had no effect.

In the 19th century, the trend towards the spread of bribery in the lower echelons of power only intensified, and the authorities often turned a blind eye to the unlawful acts of their subordinates, because they realized that the salary of a petty official left much to be desired. That is why the fight against corruption in Russia of that period was ineffective.

In the last century, the problem of bribery was observed primarily in the areas of supplies for military needs and transactions with real estate. And all this happened against the backdrop of the growth of the bureaucracy.

The scale of evil in the Soviet era

Few people know that with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, corruption in the public administration system has not disappeared. An example is the vague story of purchasing locomotives abroad. The Bolsheviks planned to acquire about 1000 locomotives for 200 million gold rubles. The seller was one of the Swedish plants, which, in fairness, produced no more than 40 locomotives per year per year. Moreover, the Communists knew that about 1000 working locomotives were idle on the railroad tracks of their native country due to lack of fuel. As a result, church values ​​were expropriated for state needs, which were not spent on food, but on the purchase of railway trains. Despite the fact that bribery was not uncommon in the first decades of the USSR, it was equated with counter-revolutionary activity and those responsible for it were sentenced to death. Bribe-taking flourished in the law enforcement system.

The Chekists received a low salary for their work, and often for a certain bribe they went for malfeasance.

Stagnant Times

Corruption did not pass by the Brezhnev era. She was fueled by the very management style of Leonid Ilyich. He often placed his people in high positions, looked through his fingers at the behavior of his relatives and asked his colleagues to be gentle towards them. After some time, the everyday life of the Soviet man was replenished with the word “blat”, which endowed its owner with certain advantages over the others. If a person had the necessary connections, then he could always get a scarce product or had access to other goods. However, the fight against corruption in Russia forty years ago was carried out in a very original way: the facts of bribery were described in detail in humorous programs and feuilleton. Even high-profile scandals (cotton business, fishing business) did not fall on the pages of the Soviet press.

Corruption after the collapse of the USSR

In the 90s, when the power in the country changed again, bribery continued to paralyze many institutions of human existence. At the same time, it was transformed into some form of half-open robbery and outright racketeering.

The following negative factors contributed to this: an imperfect legislative base, weakening of the functions of state institutions, and the “cheapening” of moral standards in society. The dashing nineties gave rise to banditry and arbitrariness, which began to take place in the system of public administration. Corruption in Russia became simply terrifying overnight. The struggle of the authorities at that time with bribery was clearly unpromising. Gradually, the class of oligarchs came to the fore, who subsequently made the most important political decisions in the country, of course, exclusively in their interests. Naturally, the history of the fight against corruption in Russia in the 90s did not end.

The concept

Currently, the above problem continues to disorganize the economy, the state, and Russian society as a whole.

In general, corruption as a social phenomenon is a corruption of power structures through its bribery. In other words, the venality of an official who lobbies exclusively for his own selfish interests is the meaning of bribery. From a legal point of view, a corrupt official is a person who, for money or other material wealth, performs the necessary action or inaction using his official authority. Naturally, we are talking about civil servants.

Sources

The fight against corruption in modern Russia cannot be effective without an understanding of where this social evil comes from.

And the sources of bribery are not devoid of "versatility." Firstly, we are talking about state financial and commodity flows. They are interwoven with absolutely all spheres of public and state life. The above flows are controlled by officials of various ranks and levels, and it is they who use them to please their selfish interests.

Secondly, these are monetary assets of business representatives and ordinary citizens who have legal needs and interests, but civil servants just do nothing for their implementation, and for some reason they are ready for some compensation.

Both of these sources are in the plane of regulation of branches of law (banking, administrative, customs and others). However, effective prevention and solving the problem of bribery is not possible through the inclusion of several articles in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation or provisions in the legislative act on the Foundations of Civil Service. Undoubtedly, the laws on combating corruption in Russia have a qualitative basis, but it is unlikely that they will be able to eradicate evil only with their help. Moreover, some legal acts directly or indirectly allow the use of bribery technologies.

Classification

Experts conditionally distinguish two types of bribery: small (everyday, grassroots) and large (elite, summit).In the first case, corruption is domestic in nature, when in everyday life a person locally solves the problems that have arisen. We are talking, for example, about paying fines on hand to the traffic police, envelopes that are addressed to the heads of medical institutions as gratitude, monetary rewards that are given to notaries for speeding up the process of paperwork.

Few people are already surprised that grassroots corruption has firmly entered the life of modern man. The lion's share of crimes is committed at this level. However, this does not mean at all that the fight against corruption of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs is focused specifically on the grassroots sector.

Investigators are making remarkable efforts to convict representatives of the top authorities in bribes. It is sometimes very difficult to hold them accountable, because they have a high social status, as a result of which they can enjoy certain privileges. Their wrongful acts are often committed through intricate schemes, and in this case only an experienced detective can promote the case. In addition, the damage from the criminal activities of senior officials amounts to many millions of rubles. Corruption schemes at the top are born in specific types of state activity, therefore, it is necessary to be able to understand them thoroughly, so that the guilty suffer the deserved punishment.

Action taken

Undoubtedly, a simple layman is interested in what methods of combating corruption in Russia are currently being undertaken and what can be improved in this regard.

Legislation

Many experts believe that one of the measures to eradicate bribery is to tighten the punishment for this type of crime. And the relevant amendments have already been made to the regulatory framework.

Civil servants were required to record all their earnings in declarations. As a result of this measure, about 3 thousand officials lost their positions of responsibility as of 2011.

Special bodies

In order to eliminate the negative social phenomenon, the Presidential Council for Combating Corruption was established. It included a number of senior officials: Yuri Chaika, Sergey Sobyanin, Sergey Ivanov. Under the prosecutor’s office, an anti-corruption department was created in Russia, whose employees were profiled in revealing precisely this type of crime. Already managed to bring to justice several regional governors and mayors.

Potential security measures

And what can be done to improve the situation? What kind of fighting system is needed? Corruption in Russia will not surprise anyone. However, the fight against it can reach a higher level if the laws adopted are properly implemented. To solve the problem, it is necessary that the activities of state bodies be open. All branches of government should be transparent to the people. It is necessary to carry out administrative reform in order to make the quality and accessibility of public services even higher, and the costs of entrepreneurs associated with budget regulation, lower. It is necessary to reform the judicial system and break the corruption component in it, leveling the influence of officials on representatives of Themis. It will not be superfluous to transform the sphere of natural monopolies. The activities of large companies are in the shadow not only for the average layman, but also for the shareholder's shareholder. It is necessary to make the housing and utilities system transparent. At the same time, as evidenced by the reviews of citizens, the measures that the state is taking to eradicate bribery are so far ineffective: officials continue to take bribes without fear of responsibility.