MOSCOW, March 3 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's future to a considerable extent hinges on the ability of its business community to become a national bourgeoisie, a senior Kremlin official said in the text of a speech published Friday.
"Unless the business community evolves into a national bourgeoisie, we will have no future," Vladislav Surkov, presidential deputy chief of staff, told a meeting of United Russia activists.
Surkov singled out bureaucracy as another "leading element of society."
"It has yet to emerge from a semi-Soviet, semi-professional, sluggish bureaucracy into a robust, competitive community of civil servants," he said.
Surkov said education was another sphere that required work, adding that Russian colleges and universities did not always have a sufficient material, financial and intellectual base.
"I, for one, would not be afraid to invite more foreign professors. It is vital for us to modernize education so that our university graduates are every bit as good as Harvard or Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni," Surkov said.
