Financial crisis boosts Russia statists: Yakunin

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The financial crisis has boosted those in the Russian government who believe in a strong state and economic liberals are in headlong retreat, a powerful state company boss and close ally of Vladimir Putin told the Reuters Russia Investment Summit.

Vladimir Yakunin, the president of Russia's vast railway network which employs 1.2 million staff, told the summit that even President Dmitry Medvedev -- often considered a liberal -- was now talking of a bigger state role.

"All those who used...to say that neo-liberal theory will pull Russia out of stagnation are today hiding in corners holding their tongues so they are not reminded of their words," Yakunin said.

"Because today the President (Dmitry Medvedev) talks about the necessity of an appropriate role for the state".

Yakunin's comments are significant because senior Russian government officials very rarely speak in public about ideological differences within the ruling elite or about how the balance is shifting between liberals and hardliners.

Yakunin, 61, served as a Soviet diplomat at the United Nations in the 1980s and in recent times was viewed as a possible presidential candidate until then-Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin picked Medvedev for the job instead.

A nationalist and an unapologetic supporter of a strong state, Yakunin was relaxed and expansive in the interview at Reuters Moscow offices when he explained why he thought the financial crisis had boosted those who shared his ideology.

"If anyone is sick from economic disease, it is the United States, which is infecting the global economy," he said, expressing a view common among the Russian elite.

"We do not agree with the conclusion of the neo-liberal theory of the withering away of the state in modern times. We have always said that the balance of interests in society should be regulated. It can't be just regulated by the market."

Yakunin peppered his remarks with generous references to Putin, whom he said had "inscribed his name in the history of Russia and the world" by rescuing his country from chaos and restoring its sense of self-esteem.

But he bristled at the suggestion by another summit guest, liberal Medvedev aide and think-tank chief Igor Yurgens, that if Putin stayed in power too long, he risked becoming another veteran Soviet-style leader like the late Leonid Brezhnev.

"To judge people who risked their life and the lives of their loved ones to protect the unity of Russia from some kind of professorial rostrum must be very tough," he mocked.

"In order to have the right to judge someone, you must first do something yourself."

Yakunin also rejected the notion that Russia, which is rated by Transparency International as one of the world's most corrupt nations, had a particularly bad problem.

Corruption in the West, he suggested, was often worse because there was more wealth to steal.

"Remember please the self-inflicted suicides of U.S. citizens who confused company money with their own," he said.

Asked whether Russia needed to have a fully competitive and democratic political system in order to guarantee clean government and an end to corruption, Yakunin replied:

"I am rather skeptical about the length of time it would take under this model to reach a non-corrupt and clean society..."

"You and I are quite wealthy people who wear Canali suits and ties, but there are a huge mass of people 200 km from Moscow who are fighting for the survival of their children. And they will do anything in order to feed their children."