July 13, 1997   

This Date's Issues:   1039 •1040  1041 1042

Johnson's Russia List [list two]
#1041
13 July 1997
djohnson@cdi.org

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Sovetskaya Rossiya: Federation Council Appeal to Yeltsin 
Viewed. 
2. Los Angeles Times: Vanora Bennett, In Russia, Hope Gets a 
Cameo Part. Movies: Filmmaking may slowly be gaining its voice 
and some degree of profitability. 
3. Rabochaya Tribuna: Bribery Becoming 'National Security 
Problem.'
4. Vlast: PERSONNEL MATTERS AS SEEN BY SOCIOLOGISTS.
5. Moskovskiye Novosti: Ukrainian Ambassador Interviewed on 
Relations With Russia.]

********

#1
Federation Council Appeal to Yeltsin Viewed 

Sovetskaya Rossiya 
July 8, 1997
[translation for personal use only]
"Observer's Opinion" by Aleksandr Frolov: "Opposition or Fronde?"

The litigation over the situation in Maritime Kray was continued in
the Federation Council last week. Nazdratenko, the kray's governor, whom
the president has virtually debarred from carrying out his key official
duties, turned to his colleagues for support and met with full
understanding on their part. They were particularly alarmed at the fact
that the chief of the local Federal Security Service directorate has been
made the kray's "governor general." In an appeal to the president the
Federation Council asked him to abide by the constitution in relations
between the federal center and the Federation components.
This is the second solidary statement by members of the Federation
Council recently on acute questions of current policy. The first of them,
which was sent to defend the State Duma and to prevent its unconstitutional
dissolution, was totally ignored by the semiofficial mass media because it
clearly ran counter to the Presidential Staff's plans. It was no longer
possible to ignore the second one, because the tendency for the upper
chamber of parliament to be gradually drawn into opposition to the
president is becoming just too obvious.
This kind of opposition is highly specific, however. Quite a few very
experienced bureaucrats sit in the Federation Council, and they have
grasped well the old rule of apparatus work: "If a process cannot be
halted, you should head it." We are already seeing in the protesters'
front ranks such pillars of the ruling regime as Moscow Mayor Luzhkov and
Sverdlovsk Governor Rossel.
It would be naive to think that both figures are concerned about
abiding by the constitution as such and that they have suddenly turned into
champions of legality for legality's sake. For Luzhkov and Rossel did not
object when, in September 1993, for example, with the help of the
Special-Purpose Police Detachment, Yeltsin removed from his post Bryansk
Oblast Administration Head Yuriy Lodkin, who had been lawfully elected by
the whole people. What has happened now?
In order to get to the bottom of this question, a whole number of
factors must be taken into account. First, both Luzhkov and Rossel head
Federation components which in contemporary economic mythology are called
"donor regions." Of course, it is an illusion of the first water that a
small group of regions -- less than 10 -- feeds the whole of the rest of
the country. At any rate, in respect of Moscow the situation is the direct
opposite: The entire country's wealth is pumped through it, enabling the
capital to lead a relatively happy existence and to return a sizable sum to
the federal budget. It is also possible to speak only in a highly
hypothetical sense of the "donor" status of the raw material regions, whose
production and extraction base was created by the whole country. Second,
let us also recall that it was financial flows that the president's vice
regent, who was planted in Maritime Kray, was empowered primarily to
control. Third and finally, this time the president's sanctions turned out
to be directed no longer against a member of the opposition but against one
of his most loyal supporters.
All this put together occasioned extreme concern in the leaders of
rich and influential regions with regard to keeping their privileged
position. For whereas it was still possible to interpret the incident with
Lodkin as an exception to the rules, it seems that the rules themselves are
changing now, as is Yeltsin's "regional policy," which, like any other
policy of his, was always subordinate exclusively to considerations of
attaining personal power and holding on to it. Yeltsin's entire political
career hitherto was built on separatism or encouragement of separatism.
Along with other republican leaders he acted as a separatist in respect of
the Union. Then, in the struggle with the Soviets, he managed to rely on a
compact with the regions' leadership according to this principle: "I give
you a free hand in the provinces, but do not poke your nose into my affairs
at the center." The compact was crowned by the present constitution, which
in no way prescribes the mechanisms of internal state subordination and of
the federal center's control over the Federation components.
For the time being such a situation could not have suited the powers
that be better, either at the top or down below. The heads of regional
administrations, particularly appointees, dutifully supported the president
on the federal level, while he did not particularly delve into their local
affairs. But times change, and sentiments in the regions started to get
further and further removed from local egoism. The last year has seen the
formation and strengthening of the "red belt," in which power passed to the
people's-patriotic bloc. It was then that it turned out that the
double-edged sword -- the regional power's high degree of independence --
had turned from being a mainstay of the regime into a direct threat to it. 
The mere thought that the "red belt" might become a real alternative to the
ruling regime and serve as a new center to attract and gather all of
Russia's healthy forces caused the Kremlin's incumbents to tremble and made
them urgently seek and rehearse means of pacifying the unruly regions. A
coming together of a number of circumstances resulted in the first
practical experiment of this kind commencing in Maritime Kray....
It was then that many previously loyal senators firmly stood up for
the former rules of play. Amazing metamorphoses began. Luzhkov, for
example, publicly proclaimed himself a social democrat, while Rossel, it
was learned from reliable sources, declared in private conversations that
he had been and still was...a communist. Of course, it is totally
inadmissible to deceive ourselves about this and at once regard all
malcontents as "proponents of a strong state and patriots." Such
miscalculations cost the opposition dear. The sad examples of Lebed and
Rutskoy speak for themselves.
Such strange metamorphoses are evidently accounted for by the fact
that the contradiction that now exists between the center and the regions
is itself, in its turn, contradictory and dual.
On the one hand, this contradiction within the actual ruling stratum
constitutes a struggle among the "elites" for a tastier morsel -- a
struggle which everywhere and always accompanies any division and
redistribution of property and spheres of influence. This struggle has no
bearing on national interests. The Chechen war
-- predatory and unjust on both sides in the conflict -- was its
extreme expression. Since the time of the famous events in 17th- century
French history such movements have been known as the Fronde.
On the other hand, the contradiction between the socioeconomic policy
of the president and the government and the all-people, national-state
interests of Russia as a whole is increasing all the time. It is precisely
in the regions that it is manifested most painfully -- which naturally
makes the regions turn increasingly "red" and think increasingly seriously
about the need to counter the center's destructive policy.
It is hard to judge from afar to which of these two things
Nazdratenko's case applies. It is most likely that both are intertwined
here. In just the same way both these aspects are present in the
Federation Council's position.
The very near future must show what we have more of here -- separatist
frondeurism or serious opposition based on an awareness of the
perniciousness of the present policy. It is on this, incidentally, that
the Federation Council's political fate depends. If the Fronde prevails, it
will not be too hard for the president to find some new form of agreement
with the regions and to turn the upper chamber back into a pocket organ. 
But if a sense of responsibility for the fate of the entire state gains the
upper hand, then the prospect of a serious change in the correlation of
forces on the federal level will open up -- the prospect of limiting the
president's absolute power, establishing parliamentary control over the
government, and, of course, establishing a more sensible relationship
between the center and the regions instead of the present chaos, which is
the main source of frondeurism.
The only condition for the development of events along the second path
can be the strengthening of the people's-patriotic wing in the Federation
Council and the advancement of new informal leaders from its ranks. The
preconditions for this exist.

**********

#2
Los Angeles Times
July 7, 1997 
In Russia, Hope Gets a Cameo Part 
Movies: Filmmaking may slowly be gaining its voice and some degree of
profitability. 
By VANORA BENNETT, Times Staff Writer
 
MOSCOW--There's no razzmatazz here: "Russia's Hollywood" looks as if a 
storm had hit it. A damp set sags forlornly on an abandoned open-air 
lot. Mysterious heaps of rotting wood have gathered behind crumbling 
buildings. Weeds cling to mangled cars in the alleys. 
     But there's an unfamiliar whiff of optimism in the air at Mosfilm, 
the damaged 15-acre studio complex that was once the huge Soviet movie 
industry's showcase. 
     The post-Soviet fear that engulfed the industry in the early 
1990s--that capitalism would destroy Russian cinema--is receding. 
     "We've lost a sail or two, but we've reached quiet waters and we're 
ready to move on," said Abdurakhman A. Mamilov, Mosfilm's deputy 
director. He said the Russian movie business has weathered its first 
post-Cold War storm and is learning how to navigate the uncharted waters 
ahead. 
     The first glimmers of hope were the 1995 Oscar for Nikita 
Mikhalkov's "Burnt by the Sun," the story of a Stalin-era arrest, and 
the 1996 Cannes director's award for Sergei Bodrov's "Prisoner of the 
Caucasus." 
     Now, the most adventurous of independent directors are also taking 
heart. 
     "The feeling is that the cinema is starting to reanimate itself. 
It's still pretty scary, but what we have now is still significantly 
better than what used to exist," said Ivan V. Dukhovichny, whose 
bittersweet movie "The Glutton" won a Russian award for most stylish 
film of the year in 1995. 
* * *
     Stocky, energetic and mobile-featured, Dukhovichny believes that 
Russian society has stabilized enough for people to make sense of it. 
After six schizophrenic years--brute poverty on one hand, brute wealth 
and copying the West on the other--Russians are ripe for a renaissance 
of their own national culture. 
     "You can imagine what it will be like when a new film boom begins 
in a country of 150 million people," he said with enthusiasm. "All those 
people who never think of the movies now will give up their gambling 
dens and the stores where they pay $5,000 for a pair of trousers, and 
creative life will resume. 
     "Some new rich are still lost in games they don't understand, 
playing Barbie and Ken in their castles," he added. "But others are 
beginning to remember their roots: the village they were born in, the 
street, the little apartment. Yesterday they were lapping up foreign 
oysters and snails, now they're going back to the cucumber and sausage 
of their childhood. The process has begun." 
     He argued that "an American filmmaker like Quentin Tarantino works 
by taking the recognized cliches of his society and playing with them to 
create something new. Our problem recently has been that new Russia had 
no common language and no recognizable cliches. But now we're 
reanimating our understanding of our own lives and the specificity of 
our own Russian values." 
     This optimism is tentative. The crisis is far from over, and many 
directors are still filled with regret for the passing of Soviet order. 
Lacking convincing creative images of the radically changed society they 
live in, they also cannot handle the financial and organizational chaos 
that has forced them to strike out alone--or go under. 
     The Soviet cinema once was the cosseted darling of the state. 
Leaders saw movie theaters then as the best place to get their ideology 
across to a huge, mostly illiterate population. They paid lavishly for 
an art form that V.I. Lenin said was "at the vanguard of change." In 
return, directors had to portray society as political leaders chose to 
present it. 
     "We fretted at the censorship. We envied the West. When foreigners 
came here we used to say how lucky they were to be free. We didn't 
understand how useful it was to get state money," veteran director 
Viktor I. Merezhko said with regret in the cafeteria of the House of 
Filmmakers, where out-of-work directors still meet, smoke, drink strong 
coffee and worry. 
     Much of the huge Soviet output, when Mosfilm, Gorky and Lenfilm 
studios produced almost 200 movies a year, was trite, ideological and 
forgettable. But a few directors--the most celebrated of whom was Andrei 
Tarkovsky--still managed to produce elliptical masterpieces like 
"Stalker" and "Solaris." 
     The mavericks created compelling images of tormented individuals, 
struggling to understand themselves and the ghosts of their past, alone 
in giant machines or in the wildernesses that represented society. 
     "It turned out that when a person thought about how to overcome the 
framework of ideology, he became an artist," Merezhko observed. 
     Then came Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's glasnost, a new, 
golden age for the film tradition of such masters as directors Sergei 
Eisenstein and Tarkovsky. Huge state subsidies still rolled in, but the 
old taboos were lifted. Once-forbidden areas of history, politics and 
sex were explored in films like "Repentance," "This Is No Way to Live" 
and "Little Vera." Audiences hungry for innovation--and still unable to 
see Western films--flocked to watch. 
     It was only after the Soviet Union disintegrated that hard times 
began. The Russian government had no money and was uninterested in 
promoting a state ideology. State subsidies for the huge film studios 
dried up. 
* * *
     The private businessmen who began to appear didn't want to gamble 
their new wealth on Russian film projects. The state distribution 
network, which had once sent thousands of films 2to the outposts of 
empire, collapsed; this meant that filmmakers could no longer hope for 
big audiences, even if they scraped together the money to shoot. There 
was no way to get their money back. 
     Worse still, the borders had opened. Once-banned foreign films 
flooded Russia, with all the lure of forbidden fruit. Videos went on 
sale in every kiosk. Movie theaters started showing lurid sex-and-death 
films from the West--cheap, tasteless, usually pirated and running 
seemingly all the time. 
     Then the theaters emptied. The new Russia suddenly offered other 
entertainments for the young: racy bars, casinos and nightclubs. The 
traditional audience here for movies--middle-class 
intellectuals--expressed their dislike of the bad films showing by 
skipping them. They also were suddenly too poor to afford the rocketing 
ticket prices; they also were scared off by the post-Soviet crime wave 
that kept them from theaters, many in run-down areas. 
     In despair, many thousands of professionals employed in film left 
to try to make a living elsewhere. Other piqued young directors, out of 
money and luck, retreated into the twilight zone of the avant-garde. 
     By 1995, Mosfilm, which had put out more than 60 films a year in 
Soviet days--one-third of the country's total--found itself with just 
two movies in the works. Directors who had always judged the health of 
their industry by the quantity of its output pronounced it dead. 
     "Unfortunately, nothing is happening in cinema," said Karen G. 
Shakhnazarov, who directed "The Murder of the Czar," a 1992 film. "And I 
think we can now say for sure that our national cinema no longer 
exists." 
     Nostalgia for the security of the old days is strong. Some 
directors still plead with the state to remember the importance of 
ideology--a word with fewer negative connotations here than abroad--and 
to pay for films giving a sense of collective direction. 
     "Every state needs ideology, something laying out what people 
should aim for. Trying to live without ideas makes no sense," 
Shakhnazarov said. "However paradoxical it seems, where there's 
ideology, there's culture." 
     But other filmmakers are beginning to understand that the state no 
longer plays the all-powerful role in Russian society that it did in 
Soviet days. To survive, they must stop expecting help from on high. 
"Our strategy now is to rely only on ourselves and not to have any 
illusions about the government or the state coming to the rescue," 
Mosfilm's Mamilov said. "And I don't want to wring my hands about this." 
     Mamilov's recipe for success is to keep the giant studios of the 
Soviet state-run industry going, as centers of excellence from which a 
new industry can emerge. He rents space and technical expertise to the 
many small private firms, both Russian and foreign, which have set up in 
the last few years. 
     The total number of Russian films made at Mosfilm last year rose to 
26, although only six of these were Mosfilm's own projects. Mamilov says 
with quiet satisfaction that the surge has allowed him to keep on at 
least a few hundred of the 5,000 staffers who once crowded the premises. 
     Because even the tiny allocations of state money promised in the 
budget--the equivalent of $1.5 million this year--materialize late, if 
at all, Mosfilm has found private backers to pay for nine "quality 
popular" films this year. It is setting up a distribution company to 
sell the film to theaters all over Russia. 
     The pilot was the lighthearted 1995 movie by Vladimir Menshov, 
"Shirley-Mirley," a thriller-cum-farce packed with James Bond-like 
villains, giant diamonds and car chases--but also with more familiar 
Russian generals, bungling cops, tony classical music and a family of 
quadruplets separated by the Soviet state and reunited through the theft 
of the diamond. 
     Energetically distributed, it recouped Mosfilm's investment. 
     Mosfilm is also hoping that several long-delayed pieces of 
legislation to encourage private investment in movies will soon be 
enacted; these include a law giving tax breaks to businesses that put 
money in films and a law allowing Mosfilm to be privatized. 
     As for the truly adventurous movie-makers here, they have raced so 
far toward the millennium that they have no desire to see big Soviet 
studios back. Dukhovichny, who has broken new ground by getting private 
backing for his efforts, sneers at the leftovers of the Soviet film 
apparatus. "The idea of bringing back those dinosaurs is complete 
nonsense," he said, adding, "Mosfilm today is a cheap dump full of 
crooks wholesaling tea and furniture. They hardly make any films of 
their own." 
     He is equally dismissive of GosKino, the ministry of filmmaking, 
which he says wastes whatever odds and ends of state aid do still 
trickle down. "Lots of people," he said, "work at this enormous 
ministry: a huge staff that gets money to sit in offices talking on the 
phone. They have security guards, grand reception rooms, offices and 
halls, but they do nothing and they know nothing. After paying their 
salaries, all that's left of the miserable $6 million allocated to the 
movie business is perhaps $3 million." 
     But Dukhovichny, working with the private sector, noted that he 
already has his next screenplay written: a series of sketches about 
people who buy and sell a single Soviet car during its 20 years on the 
road. It is a parable about how society has changed in those years. 
     His creative financing is all worked out, too. He plans to approach 
the cash-strapped factory at Tolyatti, where the tinny Zhiguli car is 
produced. "They'll have to pay," he said. "Not to prove it's the best 
car in the world--it's the worst!--but just because it's our Russian 
heritage and their only chance of getting good publicity." 
     But such positive thinking is worlds away from the anxious 
atmosphere at Moscow's half-empty theaters. They are still scraping 
along, leasing bits of their property to private firms and sleuthing for 
good films at moderate prices from shady small-time distributors. 
     At the Moskva theater, which has given up on a long post-Soviet run 
of erotic movies and is trying to again attract its old audience of 
intellectuals, tickets now cost the equivalent of between $2 and $5. But 
half the dusty foyer still is given over to a cat show. Maria N. 
Vorobyova, the deputy boss, put her head in her hands when asked if the 
theater ever made a profit. 
     "Profit?" she answered. "No, that was in Soviet times." 

***********

#3
Bribery Becoming 'National Security Problem' 

Rabochaya Tribuna
July 8, 1997
[translation for personal use only]
Article by Dmitriy Dorofeyev: "Borzoi Puppies in the Wide Open Fatherland"

"I tell everyone openly that I take bribes, but what kind of bribes? 
Why, borzoi puppies. That is quite a different matter." N. Gogol, "The
Government Inspector."
Shadow structures spend around $7 billion every year on bribes.
Experts claim that only one in three of all the bribetakers that are
exposed is successfully convicted.
Any generalization is subjective. Hence I have personally always been
dubious about statements of the type: "You can get nowhere without a
bribe." But life has dispelled these doubts once and for all.
A pass mark in a mathematics test last semester at my own institute
cost 100 "greenbacks." The professor's honor, in my opinion, is worth the
same amount. A young person just starting out in life already knows that,
if you don't bribe the right person at the right time, you won't get very
far. That is how we turn into invalids with cast-iron elbows and rubber
consciences.
Looking round, you start to realize that bribery, thievery,
sensational swindles, and other kinds of extortion determine our lives in
many ways. In pre-perestroyka times bribery rarely extended further than
commerce, the service sphere, and petty officialdom. Today it has become
standard. Whatever door you enter, on every side there are people who
sting you for whatever they can get. Provincial clerks, city bailiffs,
lawyers, all sorts of consultants, and hordes of functionaries of various
ranks slip their hands in your pockets. And all this, by the way, is done
openly and shamelessly. But here is the most terrible thing of all.
Bribery has become the norm, an everyday phenomenon, in institutes,
schools, and hospitals. Children become parties to deals. Conclusion: 
Young people are being corrupted wholesale. Any talk of education or of
the morality of the rising generation is quite out of place.
So, now let us turn our gazes toward those who are directly
responsible for catching bribetakers and putting them behind bars. At once
you are surprised to find that among the unbridled ranks of bribetakers
there are not a few valiant officers of the law enforcement organs. Here
is a new example. Moscow City Court is preparing to hear a case involving
allegations of "abuse of office" against officials of the police and the
prosecutor's office. A close-knit team consisting of a prosecutor, an
investigator, an attorney, and some judges for a lengthy period of time
with considerable success "wrecked" criminal proceedings on behalf of
criminal gangs. A clear and well-oiled system operated. Using their
connections in the law enforcement organs the so-called guardians of law
and order gathered information on the progress of investigations and
falsified it with a view to getting the criminal proceedings dropped. 
Naturally, the financial question played the decisive role here.
But these are just "small fry," the reader will say. But the sad
thing here is that today you will perhaps find no region in the country
where the law enforcement organs are piously pure in the eyes of the people
and the law. And never mind the provinces! Look what is happening "at the
top"! Before they had gotten over the arrest of acting Russian Federation
General Prosecutor Aleksey Ilyushenko, who was embroiled in corruption,
when demoralized Russians learned of the billions taken in bribes by Army
General Konstantin Kobets, deputy defense minister and chief of the
military inspectorate. There is every indication that many military chiefs
worry not so much about the Army's combat capability as about their own
pockets. Theft, fraud, and corruption have reached an unprecedented scale
in the higher echelons of the Pacific Fleet command. The other day the
military prosecutor upheld the guilty verdicts against Admiral Khmelnov,
former commander of the Pacific Fleet and chief of the Navy Main Staff,
Rear Admiral Germanov, former commander of a submarine combined unit, and
Vice Admiral Kharnikov, former commander of the Kamchatka Flotilla.
Admiral Khmelnov and Vice Admiral Kharnikov were convicted of housing
machinations that inflicted significant material losses on the fleet's
budget. Under Khmelnov's command two aircraft-carrying cruisers -- the
Novorossiysk and the Minsk -- were sold to South Korea. According to
Admiral Khmelnov's statement, the $9-million proceeds from the deal were
used to provide the fleet's officers with housing. In all, under Khmelnov
64 warships were decommissioned from the Pacific Fleet and sold to India
and South Korea.
The investigation conducted by the fleet's prosecutor's office showed
that housing was mainly bought and distributed to the admiral's "own
people." In addition to his own machinations over apartments Khmelnov also
connived at the pilfering of fleet money by friendly fleet departments. 
Budget billions assigned to the fleet to construct a Center of Maritime
Fame in Vladivostok were also spent "on the side." Rear Admiral Nikolay
Germanov, who put the theft and sale of fuels and lubricants onto a broad
commercial footing, was caught red-handed.
In my opinion, the history of the Fatherland has never seen the like: 
Corruption has penetrated all the echelons of power. And this despite the
fact that five years ago the president issued the edict "On Combating
Corruption in the State Service System." It did not help. Two years ago a
special administration to combat corruption in the organs of power was set
up in the MVD [Ministry of Internal Affairs]. It did not help. Finally,
in May this year Boris Yeltsin signed an edict on combating corruption. 
But corruption continues to thrive as much as ever.
In this situation it is hard not to agree with the general prosecutor,
who states with alarm that corruption in Russia has become a national
security problem.

************

#4
>From RIA Novosti
Vlast, No. 6

PERSONNEL MATTERS AS SEEN BY SOCIOLOGISTS
By Professor Yevgeni OKHOTSKY, Doctor of Sociology, 
department head, Russian Academy of Civil Service

New managerial structures are gaining ground in the
country. There is a wealth of experience of organising the
civil service, but it is contradictory and controversial. Many
power structures and officials seem to be incapable of working
"on their own"; rather, they are inert and constantly expecting
instructions from above. As a result, many new ideas and
decisions get lost in the bureaucratic jungle, thus
exacerbating the crisis phenomena. 
The currently negative vision of the personnel working for
the federal bodies of authority is only logical. Everybody
seems to agree that it has to be improved and better adapted to
the new conditions. 
While acknowledging the crisis state of the current
bureaucratic personnel, four out of five experts indicate that
the switchover to a new model of state management is being
implemented in the conditions of an extremely complicated and
contradictory personnel situation which generates bureaucratic
inertia and imbalance. 
So far, the situation has defied all efforts to improve,
and is worsening, in the opinion of over 60% of personnel
department chiefs at ministries and departments. Only a few of
them (9.6%) are optimistic: they believe that the personnel is
progressing. 
What are the traits of the current bureaucratic personnel
crisis?
1. Experts say that the bureaucratic apparatus is largely
unstable: it is undergoing too many overhauls (69% of the
polled), the turnover is too high (48%), the personnel
selection is done too arbitrarily - managers are hired to head
an established team, and civil servants are chosen to be loyal,
managerial styles are largely autocratic (32.7%), and many
ranking officials are only making believe they are labouring
hard (23%). Corruption, abuse of office and red tape are
receding into the background. 
The numerous overhauls, the organisationally unstable and
weak structures, a shortage of high-qualification staffs, and
wage delineation of functions and powers are serious factors
that contribute to the crisis state of the state machinery. 
Admittedly, the main reason why people become civil
servants is their striving to guaranteed work and a stable
status. Yet today, only 8% of the bureaucrats are confident of
their future.
Hence, they are not really interested in efficient,
businesslike work or mastering new techniques (something
indicated by 54% of the personnel department chiefs; they tend
to be biased and possess a low managerial aptitude, they negate
the novel legal and organisational opportunities and their
reaction to the new Russian realities is inadequate (48% of
respondents); personnel relations have been placed on
commercial rails, and the better qualified personnel are
defecting to the non-government structures which offer better
working conditions and higher pay.
High turnover is explained by physical and nervous strain,
long working hours (21% of the polled experts), no satisfaction
and, often, vague rights and duties (13.5%).
As a result, all bodies of the federal authorities are
understaffed. 
2. Over a half (53.8%) of the personnel department chiefs
say the bureaucrats are insufficiently professional or
businesslike. In many a case, their professionalism does not
correspond to their posts. Many bureaucrats have had no
training in philosophy, socio-economic sciences, political
science, legal sphere, personnel management or social
psychology. 
When asked about personnel shortages, the personnel
department chiefs did not hesitate: lawyers - 72.5%, personnel
and operation managers - 61.4%, economists and auditors - 45%,
and informatics and computer experts - 30%.
Experts also point to the lack of such traits as
intellectual abilities (flexible thinking, education, the
ability to soberly assess the situation, make the right
conclusions and make bold decisions, and the talent of
conviction), personal maturity (uprightness, the ability to
make compromises, self-criticism, tact and communicability, a
high personal culture and education), and spiritual culture
(the knowledge of literature, the arts, music and history of
the country).
Twelve percent of the experts are pessimistic; they
believe that "few people [in the current apparatus] has
qualifications necessary for their posts." The result is that
lack of initiative and interest to one's duties is becoming a
common disease.
3. The analysis of the answers of personnel department
heads to the question about how much of their staff could be
reduced without detriment to the cause and with subsequent
increase in the monetary remuneration of the remaining staff
produced interesting results. As many as 35% of the respondents
said they would not reduce a single person. The rest said they
would reduce the staff by all means, and most of them said the
reductions would entail at least 10-25%.
This information shows that there are considerable
possibilities for reducing the personnel staff and improving
its structure.
On the one hand, this means that the heads of personnel
departments can assess the situation in their departments
reasonably, despite their natural desire to expand them. On the
other hand, the interviews showed that their agreement to
reduce their staff was prompted above all by the desire to
raise the salaries of the remaining staff and in this way gear
remuneration to the level of responsibility. The main criterion
is that this will not damage the quality of doing their duty. 
It is widely believed that the staff of state agencies,
above all in the centre, receive considerable salaries. In
fact, the situation is quite different. Only 1% of the
concerned staff are well off, and most of them are department
and section heads. The bulk (60%) live just like in Soviet
times, that is barely making it from one salary to another,
every sixth lives from hand to mouth (84% of them are junior
specialists). Many live on the money earned by other family
members, thanks to the assistance of relatives, the things they
grow on their dachas, and additional earnings from teaching
jobs. Some say that they live in poverty.
4. Another serious sign of the crisis is the grave
shortcomings in the style and the very system of work with
personnel, in particular the narrow social basis of the state
apparatus; the absence of an objective assessment and
encouragement of their work; authoritarian decision-making; and
the virtual absence of such forms of work as shop conferences,
tutelage and exchange training. That is why there is a high
probability of the appointment of incompetent, "chance" people
to these posts and a slow career in this system, say 20% of the
experts. 
The public interest for a career of a state servant has
been falling in the past few years, so that the educational,
sex and age structure of the apparatus has become unfavourable.
This truth has been reaffirmed by more than 86% of the polled
experts. The current system of state service has few impetuses
for effective and honest work, and does not offer clear-cut
possibilities for career and professional growth.
The 1996 poll produced similar results. As many as 85% of
the polled staff personnel of the State Duma, seven federal
ministries and eight regional administrations, when asked about
the possibility of making a career in their organisations, said
that they have neither competitive selection, certification of
the staff, tests, or qualification examinations. The only
"motive force" is the recommendation or the personal decision
of the boss.
5. In making this poll we attempted to reveal also other
reasons for the complicated situation with state servants, and
find out why the people's interest for service in the bodies of
state authority is dwindling. According to our information,
healthy and stable motives underlie the bulk of the
respondents' striving to work effectively: 
* The possibility of professional growth 50%
* The desire to earn more 44%
* The striving to occupy 41%
a befitting place in society
* The desire to prove one's worth 31%
in the managerial sphere
Every other official expects to occupy a befitting place
in society, grow professionally and make a good career. These
motives incorporate a considerable charge of optimism and
create the socio-psychological foundation for the development
of a stable system of state management. It is another matter
than many officials do not understand that they cannot
adequately express and protect the interests of the people.
The situation in the top managerial echelons is somewhat
different. The leading staff of many ministries and departments
have a considerable leaders' and scientific- creative potential
(3.7 by the 5-mark system), good working ability (4.2), and
spiritual qualities (2.9). When asked to choose terms which
would best express their professional and daily self-awareness
in office, 67% of the leading staff chose the terms "organiser"
and "generator of ideas." In general, they are satisfied with
the available possibilities for self-expression.
However, 50% of the chief and leading specialists are not
satisfied with their work, see virtually no possibilities for
applying their organiser talents, personal traits and
interests. Quite often, they are engaged in things which are
not stipulated in their list of duties. 
The main reasons for the negative trends in the personnel
sphere, the experts say, are the instability of state
establishments and their frequent restructuring; the low
prestige of state service and many of its institutions (this
view is shared by 76% of personnel managers; only 16% of the
state staff think that the public thinks kindly of them); the
inadequate normative-legal basis of state service and the
absence of personnel work technologies which would be objective
and independent of the boss's will (40.4%); the inadequate
service system, where responsibilities grow quicker than career
possibilities and material remuneration (23%); corrupt power
structures; and the absence of a fair and flexible system of
remuneration (12.%). 
Summing up the above reasons, it can be stated that it is
becoming especially important to raise the prestige of state
service, create the requisite economic and socio-legal
conditions which would preclude graft and corruption and
automatically cleanse the apparatus of the black sheep. 
Today, highly professional, law-abiding and educated
people often make worse careers that compliant and subservient
ones, who have personal contacts and a high-placed patron.
Political affiliations, nationality and wealth have virtually
no effect on one's career. Nearly all polled officials are
convinced of the necessity of market-oriented democratic
changes and think that the way back to "the socialist system"
has been sealed for good. However, when asked about their
personal attitude to reforms, many of them replied with
considerable reservations, especially with regard to the
priorities and the tactic of the reforms. 

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#5
Ukrainian Ambassador Interviewed on Relations With Russia 

Moskovskiye Novosti, No. 27
July 6-13, 1997
[translation for personal use only]
Interview with Ukrainian Ambassador to Russia Uladzimir Fedorov by
A.O.; place and date not given: "Kiev Battles for Sugar and Airplanes" --
first paragraph is introduction

State Duma deputies went on vacation without ratifying the treaty
between Russia and Ukraine. Our MN correspondent asked Ukraine's
Ambassador to Russia Uladzimir Fedorov to comment on the problems in the
two countries' relations.
[Moskovskiye Novosti] Why is the ratification of the Russian-
Ukrainian treaty being hindered to such an extent by both parliaments? The
treaty was signed in May, but the deputies have not received it. And now
it is already clear that they will begin debating it only after they return
from vacation.
[Fedorov] I would not say that ratification is being hindered. It is
just that haste would be inappropriate here. Both the deputies and society
must weigh everything. However, I think that the treaty will be ratified
by both Russia and Ukraine.
[Moskovskiye Novosti] After the top Russian officials visited Ukraine
functionaries from both governments were given the task of removing the
obstacles from the path to free trade between the two countries. What have
they managed to get done?
[Fedorov] Ukrainian delegations headed by Vice Premier Serhiy Tyhypko
and Foreign Economic Affairs Minister Serhiy Osyka have made several trips
to Moscow. They held consultations on lowering value- added tax on
Ukrainian sugar exports to Russia and abolishing the restrictions on the
amount of Ukrainian alcoholic products. In the near future I hope that
these problems will be solved.
[Moskovskiye Novosti] What else is being negotiated?
[Fedorov] A fall in trade between Ukraine and Russia is currently
noticeable in all categories of goods. And this is understandable. What
kind of trade can there be if production has practically stopped! 
Therefore, cooperation in production and the creation of
financial-industrial groups and interstate corporations in various areas
should become the main trend in economic cooperation between our two
countries.
[Moskovskiye Novosti] Are there any concrete projects yet?
[Fedorov] A financial-industrial group in the area of airplane
manufacturing may soon be founded. During Chernomyrdin's visit the Antonov
Aviation Manufacturing Association showed him several new planes. However,
they can only be built, and more importantly, can only find a market if
Russia participates. Projects in the fields of engineering and processing
of agricultural products are also being discussed.
[Moskovskiye Novosti] Information recently appeared in the Ukrainian
press that Russian citizens who had been working in the Ukrainian Embassy
in Moscow have been fired. Is this true? And why did they have to leave?
[Fedorov] This is much ado about nothing. It was to somebody's
advantage to exaggerate. Until recently there were people working at the
embassy whom we inherited from the permanent mission. Absolutely nobody was
persecuted. We made the usual rotation of personnel. Such rotations are
constantly made at diplomatic missions. The embassy is currently working
intensively and the people selected to work here are quite good.
[Moskovskiye Novosti] Why is it taking so long for the Ukrainian
cultural center on Staryy Arbat to open? It is almost finished, but its
opening has already been delayed for several years.
[Fedorov] That is Ukraine's fault. The cultural center used to be
owned by the Culture Ministry and now it is owned by the Cabinet of
Ministers apparatus. Construction was stopped while ownership changed
hands. However, I hope that the center will be open soon.

*********