August 14, 1997  
This Date's Issues: 1122 • 1124 • 1125 1126

Johnson's Russia List [list two]
#1124
14 August 1997
djohnson@cdi.org

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Andrei Korbut, PROFESSIONALS, LOYAL TO THE KREMLIN, 
APPOINTED TO KEY POSTS IN POWER STRUCTURES.
2. Don Hill (RFE/RL): World Press Review: Money's Long Arm 
And Its Firm Embrace.
3. Rossiyskiye Vesti: Duma Deputy Boris Fedorov on Need To Fight 
Corruption.
4. Rachel Douglas transmits article by Konstantin Cheremnykh, 
"Kuzma's Children," dealing with youth in Russia today.]

********

#1
>From RIA Novosti
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
August 13, 1997
PROFESSIONALS, LOYAL TO THE KREMLIN, APPOINTED TO KEY POSTS IN POWER
STRUCTURES
The Appointment of Leonty Shevtsov to the Post of
Commander-in-Chief of the Interior Ministry Troops
Seems Not to Be the Last in the Military Sphere
By Andrei Korbut

The Russian leadership continues its personnel policy
connected with the appointment of people loyal to the present
regime to key posts in the power structures. Following Defence
Minister Igor Sergeyev, Chief of the General Staff of the
Russian Armed Forces Anatoly Kvashnin and Minister of Justice
Sergei Stepashin, Leonty Shevtsov has been appointed
Commander-in-Chief of the Interior Ministry troops. 
Before that, he occupied the post of Deputy
Commander-in-Chief of the NATO Joint Armed Forces in Europe
for the Russian contingent of the troops in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. He is believed to be from the team of ex-Defence
Minister Pavel Grachev. At any rate, Leonty Shevtsov studied
jointly with Pavel Grachev in the Military Academy of the
General Staff. After graduating from it in 1990 he was
appointed the chief of the 8th Guards Army of the Western
Group of Troops. 
When Pavel Grachev was appointed Defence Minister in
1992, Shevtsov made a brilliant carrier: that same year he was
appointed Commander of the Army in the Western Group of Troops
and after its withdrawal in 1993 into Russia, he received the
post of Deputy Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of
the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian
Federation. (This Directorate is the key unit of the country's
"chief military brain"). At that time the post of one of the
Deputies of the Head of this Directorate was occupied by the
present Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the
Russian Federation, Lieutenant-General Anatoly Kvashnin. 
Quite possible that it was Kvashnin who proposed Shevtsov
to his present post where he commands the troops whose
numerical strength and importance can be compared with a group
of the land forces. Jointly with Kvashnin, Shevtsov was one of
the organisers of the Chechen campaign in 1995. At that time
he performed the duties of the chief of the staff of the
United Group of the Russian Forces in Chechnya. These two
generals are perhaps from among those few generals who have a
considerable experience in organising large-scale military
operations in local conflicts. Apart from that, Shevtsov has
the experience of commanding international peacekeeping
operations. However, this can hardly be regarded as the
sufficient reason for appointing him the Commander of the
Interior Ministry Troops which perform absolutely different
functions in Russia. 
In the past, quite a lot of representatives of the army
served in the Interior Ministry troops. But as a rule they
were officers and warrant officers not of high ranks. It was
very difficult for them to get accustomed to the specific
features of this kind of the troops. Quite possible that the
same fate is in store for Shevtsov. But the Interior Ministry
troops need such a general today. The "Chechen explosion" may
happen also in other parts of Russia. The authorities and the
troops must be ready for such a situation. But are they ready?
The analysis of the military operations in Chechnya shows
that the Interior Ministry troops failed to carry out their
functions in full, because what they were prepared for
differed from what they had to do and what they are doing now
in the troubled spots of Russia. 
Acting in the second echelon of the army troops and
performing their own operations for "mopping up" the
territory, they were often forced to wage real battles and act
as army units. It was difficult for them as a rule to carry
out such operations and they sustained great losses. According
to the plans of the Russian leadership, the coming to the
Interior Ministry of a man from the army must apparently help
to improve the controllability and the fighting efficiency of
these troops.
Most likely, however, there are also other reasons here.
The pair Shkirko - Kulikov was not to the liking of many
people from among the President's entourage. These generals
sometimes imposed on the Supreme Commander-in-Chief "other"
rules of the game, including the army reform. At any rate,
Anatoly Shkirko viewed differently than other politicians and
generals the role, functions and tasks of his troops. (This is
the reason why the people from the Kremlin insisted that
ex-commander of the Interior Ministry troops Colonel General
Anatoly Shkirko should resign on the ground of poor health.) 
Shkirko opposed the optimisation of the districts of the
Interior Ministry troops in accordance with the structures of
the Armed Forces. His replacement by Leonty Shevtsov from the
General Staff has removed this problem. 
Anatoly Kvashnin already stated recently that his idea of
forming six unified operational-strategic territorial
formations for all power structures had found understanding in
other government departments, including the Interior
Ministry. 
Igor Sergeyev and Anatoly Kvashnin, who have recently
come to the Defence Ministry, are "favourites" now in 
questions of conducting the reform not only in the Army and
Navy but also in other power structures. 
Their intentions are supported by the Kremlin, because
they do not enter into conflict with the Russian President's
entourage, as ex-Defence Minister Igor Rodionov did, and do
not ask more money for the reform than has been allocated. 
Time will show whether they are right or not, but both
generals fit in very well with the present team of radical
reformers who have set the aim of getting the country out of
the social and economic crisis. Quite possible that if
appropriate measures are not taken, this crisis may grow into
a chaos and people's uprisings. The opposition and Lev Rokhlin
have started organising officers' movement; therefore
generals, loyal to the regime, are especially needed. 
It is for this reason, apparently, that, jointly with
Shevtsov, Lieutenant General Vladimir Chilindin has been
recently appointed to one of the key posts in the Defence
Ministry - head of the Main Administration of the Land Forces.
This general is from the Main Military Inspectorate which
today is subordinate to the Administration of the President of
the Russian Federation. It is this administration which, under
the plans of the "reformers," will be in charge of not only
the combat training of the Army and the Navy, but also the
training of units in other power structures in the context of
the unified territorial formations. 
The Kremlin also needs to have its own man in NATO. Quite
possible that the appointment of Shevtsov is in some way
connected with the name of Pavel Grachev who will replace his
"junior comrade" in the headquarters of the North Atlantic
Alliance. Such are the rumours in the political quarters
today. However, the post in NATO which Pavel Grachev agrees to
occupy will differ from that held by Shevtsov. 
According to the Founding Act about relations between
Russia and the North Atlantic Alliance, signed on May 27 in
Paris, this post is called "Russia's military representative
in NATO." This representative will have an appropriate status
and apparatus. Thus, Grachev's former "companions-in-arms"
from the Defence Ministry can also hope for posts there. At
any rate, according to reliable sources, former press
secretary of the ex-Defence Minister Yelena Agapova did not
look for any other job after being sacked from the Defence
Ministry. Apparently she really hopes to get a cosy office in
Brussels. 
As has been pointed out by a source from the Defence
Ministry, the appointment of Pavel Grachev as Russia's
representative in NATO is quite possible. Grachev is
complaisant and during the time of being in the shadow of
official politics he did not do anything that would compromise
him in the eyes of the President; he always spoke about him
respectfully and in a positive tone. 
According to the information from the Russian Foreign
Ministry and Defence Ministry, the country's leadership
intends to expand its military and political contacts with the
North Atlantic Alliance. Taking into account a certain
opposition on the part of the military men towards NATO, the
Kremlin needs a loyal general for achieving its aims. Pavel
Grachev meets the requirements very well. 

********

#2
World Press Review: Money's Long Arm And Its Firm Embrace
By Don Hill

Prague, 13 August 1997 (RFE/RL) -- A number of Western commentators turn to
economic topics ranging from Caspian Sea oil to endemic corruption worldwide. 

THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE: Oil industry focuses on the Caspian Sea 

The president and a director of an oil research firm writes in a
commentary that formally appeared in The New York Times that the Caspian
Sea has become "the hottest spot" in the international oil industry. 

Daniel Yergin and Thane Gustafson of Cambridge Energy Research Associates
note that $50 billion are likely to be spent in the region over the next
ten years, aiming to exploit oil resources worth 100 times that amount. 

They write: "The Caspian (race) is a feverish amalgam of competition,
collaboration and political and economic wrangling." They say:
"Azerbaiijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan look like the big winners --
Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan with (most of) the oil, Kazakhstan and
Turkmenistan with well over half the gas. Russia and Iran appear to have
only minor reserves in their corners of the Caspian."

Yergin and Gustafson say: "As recently as the early 1990s, many Western
companies feared that investment in the Caspian region was too risky. The
new independent countries of the former Soviet Union were shaky at best,
and were ruled by former communists. There were numerous ethnic conflicts."
They say: "The region is hardly stable now, but the situation has improved
enough to encourage investment (and) Caspian development is off to a much
more promising start than might have been expected even two or three years
ago." 

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE: Corruption effects entire international
economic system 

In another commentary international lawyer Antonio Garrigues Walker writes
that corruption has emerged as one of humankind's most ubiquitous and
vexing problems -- not just moral, but also practical, because it disrupts
worldwide economic efficiency. 

Walker says: "It is a problem seriously affecting the credibility of the
entire (international economic) system."

He writes: "A procedure for ethical regeneration must be launched. Blind
worship of economics, consumerism, the decline of spiritual values, fierce
competition, a feeling of permanent insecurity, and fear of ever more
accelerated changes have made pragmatism the basic philosophy at the cost
of honesty and solidarity. This favors decisions that encourage aggressive
or even violent behavior to achieve one's own ends or defends one's interests.

"Ethics is not a question of morals or religion only It also is a required
condition for efficiency of political democracy and the correct operation
of the market economy." 

SUDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG: Covert tax shelters develop in European Union 

Andreas Oldag comments today that among the unintended consequences of the
European Union is the development of a number of covert tax shelters that,
in particular, siphon off revenues from Germany. He writes: "Free passage
of people and goods has become a reality in Europe and a common European
currency is waiting in the wings. But Europe's tax policies have remained
locked in the 19th century. EU member-states jealously guard their national
tax-collection systems. That could even be an overall advantage if it were
linked with more equitable regulations governing business competition. But
there is hardly any likelihood of that happening. On the contrary, tax
policies are being used by more countries to secure themselves advantages
at the cost of others."

Oldag says: "The European Commission has now submitted a proposal for a
code of conduct (intended) to dam the outflow of funds. Amazingly enough,
it was the German government which expressed reservations. It was afraid
that too many areas of authority would be surrendered to Brussels. But
other countries also slam on the brakes when it comes to putting uniformity
into taxation policies. If the EU really wants to get to grips with tax
dumping, it could turn to Article 101 of the Treaty on European Union.
According to it the EU is obliged to remove legal and administrative
regulations which distort internal-market competition." 

FINANCIAL TIMES OF LONDON: Estonia gets points for economic reforms 

Commentator Edward Mortimer, writing today sees nothing incongruous in the
European Union's recognizing Estonia's leap into post-communist market
reform while delaying consideration for EU membership of the other two
Baltic states, Lithuania and Latvia. 

Mortimer says: "None of the three Baltic states likes being lumped
together. But so far it is Estonia, the smallest and northernmost of the
three that has done best by demanding to be judged on its own merits.." 

He says: "Estonia struck out fastest on the road of economic reform,
abolishing all import duties and pegging the kroon to the DMark under an
independent currency board. Last month, it got its reward, being the only
one of the three included in the group of countries with which the European
Union's Commission recommended membership talks to start next year." 

LOS ANGELES TIMES: United States should review visa policy for Eastern
European visitors 

Dean E. Murphy took aim yesterday at a target which is drawing charges of
human rights insensitivity and unfairness. That is the U.S. policies that
deter the awarding of visas to tourists and other travelers from Eastern
and Central Europe. 

In a news analysis, Murphy wrote: "Spurred by unusually cheap air fares,
newfound prosperity and a fascination with things American, a record number
of Central Europeans want to vacation in the United States this summer. But
because of a highly restrictive U.S. policy on tourist visas, untold
numbers are not making it beyond the consular offices of American
embassies. Tough visa requirements are not new for Central Europeans. They
have a well-documented habit of overstaying visits, U.S. officials say."

He said: "People around the world complain about U.S. visa policies, the
indignity of waiting in long lines and the seeming arbitrariness of
consular officials. But upcoming NATO membership has transformed the
ever-sensitive debate into a simple issue of fairness for many Central
Europeans. If we are good enough to risk our lives with you on the
battlefield, they say, we should be good enough to share your campgrounds
and theme parks."

Murphy said: " 'The relative economic parity between the United States and
countries like Germany makes it clear the average German isn't going to
drive a taxi in New York City,' said a U.S. Embassy official. 'That changes
dramatically when the taxi driver earns more than a doctor or lawyer back
home. If you are only making $3,000 a year and you say you are going to the
United States for vacation, we have to ask, 'How are you going to pay for
Disneyland?'" 

*******

#3
Duma Deputy Boris Fedorov on Need To Fight Corruption 

Rossiyskiye Vesti
July 23, 1997
[translation for personal use only]
Article by Boris Fedorov, State Duma deputy: "When
Will We Begin Fighting the Corruption?"

Really, when? Everyone in our country is talking about the
corruption everywhere. Other countries have called us the world
leaders in corruption, and we are ahead of the entire planet in
every possible rating. It is as if we periodically begin speaking
about stepping up the struggle against corruption.
The problem is that no one believes this. The statement by
S. Dubinin last week and the letter from the prime minister to the
procurator general can serve as examples. Knowledgeable persons
only smiled when they read it. And it turned out that they were
largely right. In literally a few hours, an invisible hand began
to "extinguish" the scandal, and it soon disappeared from all the
mass media. If we give some thought to this, quite a few such cases
may be found.
But, after all, we should have looked into these and many
other questions.
Corruption has permeated our entire society. It is by no means
a privilege of the high authorities or the capital"s offices.
If you think about it, corruption, that is, a demand for remuneration
in some form, is encountered at every step.
A militiaman who calmly puts a banknote received from a driver
into his pocket after the latter is literally watched from ambush.
What do we call this everyday practice? Everyone knows that all
drivers consider the GAI [state motor vehicle inspectorate] employees
to be common enemies and give headlight signals to oncoming vehicles.
They have to interact to protect themselves from the common misfortune.
The heat and water supply services and those who provide power
and telephone service—everyone considers the sphere of
activity entrusted to them by the state as a domain whose main objective
is "feeding." The monopolies set incredible prices, but the government
winks at this. If you need electricity, build a new transformer
station or install several poles. If you need a telephone, pay several
annual wages for an average citizen. And, if you complain, we will
not give you anything—we will turn it off or fine you.
Lawlessness is complete.
You may not demand a direct bribe, but demand payment to work
out "technical conditions" for any reason. You can compel a person
to stay in line, and then set an astronomical surcharge for "urgency"
in resolving a question. Continuous indignity and humiliation.
It is curious that everyone knows this very well, but no one
wants to combat it. Moreover, the task amounts to holding a position
in which one may extort and exchange this influence for services
to other persons.
Previously, the "illegal deals" consisted largely of the crafty
acquisition of commodities in short supply, tours, theater tickets,
and so forth. Today there are genuine market relationships in these
areas, and you will not have much here.
For this reason, corruption has relocated to the sphere of
state regulation: household items such as electricity, gas, and
telephone; authorizations to build and renovate; registration of
transactions with real estate; and so forth. Any person who has
had to interact with our system in these areas could not help but
come to hate it.
It is interesting that it is easy to see traces of such activity.
They bury robbers in cemeteries that have long been closed, those
who fight to maintain the monuments authorize the destruction of
palaces, and they periodically arrest the crime fighters for crimes.
What country allows known gangsters and shady individuals to officially
hire militia protection for themselves?
Of course, we are surprised by the scope of specific transactions
in high-level corruption, but I am not surprised if the total amounts
spent on bribes at the level of the lowest authorities add up to
billions of dollars in a year. It was time to sound the alarm a
long time ago, but no one is concerned about this.
Over a year ago, I wrote a piece on corruption for Rossiyskiye
Vesti in which I said that everyone knows about it but no one is
fighting against it. For the sake of fairness, I should say that
today we have numerous examples of attempts to actually combat corruption
and, accordingly, the scandals surrounding it. It is sufficient
to recall the stories of Ilyushenko, Stankevich, Kobets, and others.
It is as if a train has started. My sincere wish is that the
Procurator General brings all the cases begun to a swift conclusion
and exposes all the truly corrupt individuals. The conditions created
for this today are quite favorable, generally speaking.
However, it is alarming that not one case has reached the
stage of sentencing yet. Often they begin investigating the well-known
cases (such as the ones last mentioned) years after the events take
place. In our time, no one devotes any attention to reports in the
press on the most specific facts. While the sending of personal
letters at state expense is investigated anywhere in the United
States, flagrant abuses amounting to millions of dollars are disregarded
here.
Often the most complicated financial crimes are investigated
without adequate expert opinion by specialists, which helps these
cases to get stuck in the sand.
The impression is created at times that passions flare up
only when a conflict flares up between various gangs in business
or when highly placed individuals are involved. The effectiveness
of the fight against corruption should not be based on such factors,
of course.
The danger is that the executive authority, following individuals
in parliament (such as Ilyukhin), will be drawn into a war of compromises,
which unquestionably will weaken its capability and undermine the
confidence of the masses even further.
I personally believe that sooner or later we will be able
to begin a real struggle against the corruption that is eating away
at our society. This cancerous tumor can be conquered only by changing
our attitude toward the problem of public opinion and by decisive
actions from the very top level. I would hope that we ourselves,
not only our children or grandchildren, can see real progress.

********

#4
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 00:
From: cmgusa@mediasoft.net 
Subject: Degeneration (JRL1114)/degeneracy

Dear David Johnson,

Already in 1993, in the book version of his film "The Great Criminal
Revolution" (chiefly about the Rabelaisian-scale looting of Russia in
1992-93, when capital flight could best be measured in tons of
commodities), Stanislav Govorukhin titled a chapter, "Does Russia Have a
Future?" He surveyed "the components of a happy future, or an unhappy one"
- "the current state of science, medicine, health care, and defense. And,
of course, the education system, the children. As we raise our children, so
our country will be."
While I don't think Russia's degeneration can be looked at separately from
our own, especially as regards the standards and practices that
unfortunately go by the name of "Western culture" in Russia and elsewhere
these days, I'm sending along a contribution to the investigation of that
crucial measure, the state of mind of young people, in terms of several
Russian generations. The two-part article appeared in The New Federalist,
May 26 and June 2, 1997. I, and you, have the author's permission to post
it.

Yours,
Rachel Douglas

Kuzma's Children, Part I
VIEWPOINT
by Konstantin Cheremnykh
The author is a psychiatrist for the city mental health
system of St. Petersburg, Russia, and a journalist.

On the morning of April 24, Russians who were going to
listen to the radio news (Muscovites also the meteorological
forecast, with which they are traditionally obsessed), were
offered instead the latest weekly address of President Yeltsin.
The speech was dedicated to Russian youth. The President
emphasized that political management is now in the hands of the
younger generation, evidently meaning 41-year-old Anatoly Chubais
and the 37-year-old Boris Nemtsov, the new first deputy premiers,
and he urged Russian youth to become active in political and
social work, pointing at the favorable conditions for making a
quick career.
The mass media reacted in its usual way. Moskovsky
Komsomolets published a cartoon portraying two aged officials
behind the Kremlin wall, one telling the other, ``We should make
way for the young,'' and the second eagerly agreeing: ``Yes, the
older people are already too tired of stealing.''
That was all. Certainly, one could not have expected the
sort of ``unanimous youth enthusiasm'' which could have been
whipped up even a decade ago, according to the Party tradition.
But there was not even a sign of formal politeness from the youth
organization of Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin's ``Our Home
Russia''--one of the few youth alliances which exists more than
on paper. And none of the observers or most loyal officials even
took notice of the fact that, actually, this address by the
President was the first attempt of the ``reformist'' team to find
a common language with the ``post-Chubais'' generation--not
counting the 1996 election campaign, where the dumb language of
deafening and hypnotic rock music was utilized in image-maker
Sergei Lisovsky's propaganda, swallowing such an immense amount
of money as, perhaps, was ever spent, even to construct the
Baikal-Amur railroad.
- Where Were The Youth? -
The ``democratic revolution'' of 1991 was made without
participation by youth in the organizing. The younger part of the
new political elite, those who, promoted by tutors like Politburo
member Aleksandr N. Yakovlev and Izvestia's Otto Latsis, had
already managed to achieve certain positions in policy-making
circles, were probably too busy with privatization schemes to
perform public work with the generation of their own children,
while the leadership of the ``democratic parties'' was thinking
more of making careers in the executive branch of power, than in
that sort of social activity, though formally considering it very
important. In general, the ``reformists'' shared a view that
Russian teenagers and young people didn't need anything analogous
to the Pioneer and Komsomol organizations, and would develop all
by themselves without such nurturing.
The youth could hear their fathers, most of whom were
cheerfully adapting to the new world, where formerly condemned
speculation was now favored, and the previously favored worker's
or soldier's honor was not respected at all; they could listen to
their grandfathers, most of whom were deeply troubled and
insulted by the attitude of the fathers to their legacy of
industry and statehood which they had built up with their own
hands. But they could not join either the fathers' or the
grandfathers' side, probably realizing that, to a certain extent,
both were wrong. Those whose great-grandfathers were still alive
were luckier.
But those who had great-grandparents, and those who had only
parents, and those numerous unhappy children who had never seen
any of their relatives, had now no possibility to share thoughts
and experiences with each other. The whole huge system of youth
clubs (both for ``normal'' and for socially deprived youngsters),
health resorts and hostels, leisure camps, out-of-town
kindergartens, and so forth, collapsed in an instant; any lovely
mansion, or even a wooden hut in a nice location, became regarded
as a piece of real estate, not as a base for such
``unpractical,'' unprofitable public work.
At school, these youths were more embarrassed than educated.
In the primary grades, they were taught that all progressive
mankind is building Communism, but in the last classes before
graduation, often the very same teachers, with the same (absence
of) expression, explained to them something diametrically
opposite. The most evident conclusion to be drawn from such an
education, was that nobody was to be trusted, and nobody should
be an authority but oneself.
Already in 1990, some of the numerous new political parties
made honest efforts to involve the youngest generation in their
activities. The only organization which succeeded to some extent
was Democratic Union, but that is also the organization that took
first place in the number of youth suicides. In general, the
attitude of the older schoolchildren whose parents were
politically active in the early 1990s, was expressed by one of
the few published reports: ``When my mother, father, and
grandmother start arguing, I usually leave the house, and usually
nobody notices.'' The girl who wrote this was 12 years old in
1990. Now she is 19, and belongs exactly to the audience
President Yeltsin addressed.
At the same time, foreign tutors like the International
Republican Institute, with its NGO-building approach, made
attempts to attract young people to a political career. Probably
its teachers were even duller than the last generation of corrupt
Komsomol leaders, or maybe they preferred numbers on paper to
real results--in any event, in the field of youth recruitment
they were (luckily) much less successful than in Bulgaria,
Yugoslavia, or even Belarus.
- Terra Incognita -
For the Russian leadership, the alarm bell rang in late
1994, when 18-year-old young men were mobilized to fight in the
breakaway republic of Chechnya, and demonstrated an absolute lack
of skills, courage, or commitment. Those who were captured as
POWs were often initiated into the Islamic faith, while others
who never returned home joined paramilitary groups led by
self-styled Cossacks. Among the majority who, under various
pretexts, avoided military service, a significant number of
youngsters were drawn into criminal groups. In this capacity, a
young person has often been the only breadwinner in a family. For
such ``advanced'' youths, and for their careless parents, Army
service was something that took them away from ``business'' for
two whole years, allowing their replacement by competitors. This
free market reality is probably left unnoticed by those too
narcissistic ``human rights protectors,'' who are impressed with
the popularity of pacifist views among young people. But it is an
obvious fact of life, for any school teacher in Russia today.
The limited, but impressive sociological data available on
the moral and psychological state of Russian youth suggest that
neither the efforts of the President nor of NTV, neither the
pacifism of neo-Buddhist ``human rights'' gurus, nor the
artificial Orthodox militarism of other ``children-lovers,'' are
capable of influencing the mood and intellect of those Russians
who are now approaching 20 years of age--this generation that has
gotten as used to lies, as the minorities of the Russian North
are accustomed to the long polar night.
The results of a poll conducted recently by the St.
Petersburg Institute for Complex Sociological Research (NIKSI)
[fn1] would disappoint, first of all, the human rights militants.
Though 35.6% of the draft-age youth denounce any kind of military
service, including so-called ``alternative service,'' only 14%,
as opposed to a firm majority of the rest of the population,
oppose the death penalty. While 45% are against the use of
military force in ethnic conflicts by the *existing* government,
58% think that this government must resign, and 22% accept the
possibility of using violence against it--half of this quantity,
or every tenth respondent, would eagerly take up weapons against
it himself! Over 82% of the ``pacifist'' young generation is
against NATO expansion, two-thirds of them categorically so,
leaving the pro-NATO organizer ``second Alexander Herzen'' Sergei
Kovalyov alone with Konstantin Borovoy and a few other eccentric
creatures. [fn2]
The next disappointed party would be the self-styled
Orthodox monarchist imperialists. Only 18% of the young people
are at all interested in national culture and history. Only 24%
say they are religious believers.
A socialist or communist would also feel sad, upon
interpreting the results of the poll, which reflect almost no
sign of leftist views or traditional ``textbook socialism.'' Over
16% of the respondents contemptuously explain the poverty of
other people as due to their ``inability to part with the old
ideology.''
So, the youngsters appear to be unaffected by any sort of
ideological influence, nor are they controlled by the mass media
propagandist machine. At first glance, it is hard to discern any
logic in their sympathies and priorities, concerns and motives.
They seem to be a sort of terra incognita, overgrown
with a wild jungle of fragmented judgments and obsessions.
Yet another set of questions addressed to the youth by the
NIKSI sociologists, would disappoint both reasonable Russians and
reasonable Europeans. One-third of the respondents regard Russia
as ``the country belonging to ethnic Russians.'' Sixty-two
percent, or two-thirds, believe that Russia needs a strong
national leader. The negative attitude toward military service
did not prevent Gen. Lebed from being the most popular political
figure among the respondents.
At the same time, an impressive majority of the respondents
reject the idea of using military force for the sake of
statehood. No wonder, since statehood, as such, is valued by no
more than one-third of them. So, the combativeness of youth
appears to have fallen by the boards. The same goes for
patriotism: While 59.7% are proud of being born in Russia,
``serving Russia'' is a priority only for 2.7%, appearing last
(!) on the list of priorities.
Respect for Mother Nature seems to be more firm and sincere.
Some 46% consider an ecological catastrophe to be the utmost
danger for mankind.
But, when all is said and done, what is true, what is valid
for this irrational and strange generation? Is there any issue
(except attitude to NATO) which is shared by more than two-thirds
of the poll?
There is one. Guess which? *Seventy-one percent of the
respondents think they need social protection from the state.*
All these ``pacifists'' and ``greenies,'' on the one side, and
``Russian chauvinists'' and ``authoritarianists,'' on the other,
and convinced anti-communists, with no regard for other
people(s), are most of all convinced of their own egocentric
desire for privileged protection for themselves, expected from
the despised state. It appears that we are dealing with
biologically adult and mentally infantile parasitic creatures,
who measure the world around them according only to the extent of
satisfaction it can provide them personally, and are deeply
dissatisfied with its present level and with those present
political figures who appear, in this superficial view, to be
responsible for this ``frustration.''
But, was it primarily the propaganda of individualism that
planted this blend of parasitism, excluding any notion of concern
for other people, or the country as a whole, not to speak of
mankind?
It was, certainly. But that is only half the truth.
(To be continued.)

Footnotes:
1. Vladimir T. Lisovsky et al., 1996, 1997, also in:
``Looking for Ideals: a Dialogue of the Generations'' (Vladimir
T. Lisovsky, Alexandr V. Lisovsky, SPb., NIKSI, 1996).
2. Sergei Kovalyov, a human rights activist, political
prisoner, and associate of the late A.D. Sakharov, became a
prominent liberal political figure. Konstantin Borovoy heads the
Party of Economic Freedom.

--------

Kuzma's Children, part two
VIEWPOINT
by Konstantin Cheremnykh
Part I appeared in our last issue, dated May 26, 1997. The
author is a psychiatrist for the city mental health system of St.
Petersburg, Russia, and a journalist.

- The Great-grandchildren -
- of Mr. Rotten Egg -
The great debate of the Father and Grandfather, both spelled
with a capital letter for the average respondent, originated when
the grandfather was a youth of almost the same age as the
grandchildren are now.
In late 1950s, along with Stalin's GULAG camps and Stalinist
neo-classical architecture, something very significant was taken
away from the grandfather. As before, he had an almost religious
respect for the Party, its cult, and its leader. But this respect
came into discord with the appearance, habits, speech, and
intellect of the person who replaced Stalin, and who, probably
also being aware of this dissonance, ordered the removal of all
monuments to his predecessor.
The deceased Generalissimus was famous not only for his
cruelty, but also for his intellect and outstanding, violent
energy. The whole Party apparatus was obliged to stay at the
office until late at night, as the Generalissimus did. The Sword
of Damocles, of sudden execution, hung over every citizen, but
they knew that some people, especially scientists, could be
brought back from the GULAG as quickly as they had been thrown
there, and begin their scientific work and even Party careers
over again, and that this was not a question of getting into
favor or out of favor, but of some sort of ``revolutionary
necessity.'' A number of loyal second-rank writers were in the
GULAG, but Mikhail Bulgakov and Boris Pasternak, both undoubted
dissidents, were more safe than an average party or intelligence
official. Priests were brutally executed and deprived, but after
the outbreak of World War II, albeit unofficially, religious
belief as such was no longer a reason for persecution.
The new leader was initially no less popular, with his love
of speaking to a broad public, and his romanticism which was,
however, more ridiculous than convincing. Hundreds of thousands
owed their freedom to him, but practically none of them came to
his funeral.
A superficial analyst would attribute the unhappy end of
Nikita Khrushchov to the authoritarianism in the heart of the
average Russian. But neither previous, nor modern history
supports this interpretation. Both old and modern Russian history
show that Russians preferred leaders with an integrated sort of
personality, regardless of whether that person was particularly
cruel or soft-hearted. Khrushchov was a total contradiction to
himself in everything. He launched great agricultural projects in
Kazakhstan, and forced the planting of corn in every possible
place, even above the Arctic Circle. He denounced Stalin's
violation of human rights, and he cranked up anti-Church
propaganda to a level unknown even for the original Bolsheviks.
He freed the inhabitants of rural areas from the serfdom-like
rules under which they had neither money nor passports, and he
carried out yet another expropriation of cattle and even domestic
animals, without any vital necessity. When he decided to
introduce a change in Russian grammar, all this was finally and
undoubtedly recognized as a lack of intellect. But long before
the Soviet citizens understood it, the entire management
apparatus had gotten used to having a fool instead of a leader.
The hypocrisy that later choked the country and finally
doomed the whole system of governance, originated at the time
when it became clear to senior- and middle-level managers, that
the Leader was no more than a remake of Saltykov-Shchedrin's
notorious governor with a hurdy-gurdy inside his skull. [fn1]
The youth of that day, today's grandfathers, were
disappointed with the whole system of management. This did not
make them dissidents, but the vast majority distanced themselves
from the authorities; having cultivated a quality of obedience to
the country rather than to the leader, they went on working
faithfully, and when some doubts troubled them, they dug them
into their plots of land which, ironically, the expropriator of
the kolkhozniki (collective farm workers) had granted to urban
citizens.
The birth of the ``dacha psychology'' was due not merely to
a property decree by the supreme state leadership. The XXII Party
Congress, which denounced Stalin, also elaborated a new formula
of Communism, in which an emphasis on consumption for oneself,
not of creation for the nation, was made so distinct that Mao
Zedong, after his famous quarrel with Khrushchov, called the
Soviet leader ``a rotten egg which is going to build
Goulash-Communism.'' Much later, the Soviet Union collapsed, but
the ``dacha psychology,'' originating from the verb ``to give,''
was alive, and is still alive, passing from one generation to the
next, and remaining in the culture, despite any cosmetic social,
political, and ideological transformations, or even profound
ones.
The fathers were the dacha children, brought up in the
confidence that the state owed them everything, without great
efforts expected from them, except formal membership in the
Pioneer, Komsomol, and Party organizations, and often also
assured by their parents (still believing in the Word from Above)
that a decade or two will pass, and Communism, i.e., the society
of *unlimited consumption*, will emerge of its own accord. Some
of them made Party careers, and realized that the promised land
could be provided, for a narrow circle of the most
``worthy''--worthiness being understood as a crude and very
formalized outward loyalty to the Party line and to Leonid Ilyich
personally.[fn2] Until the late 1980s, they were afraid to abandon
this line, preferring to ``err together with it'' under the whole
succession of post-Khrushchov leaders, because under their rule,
if a person was once expelled from the Party or Komsomol, that
meant a final end to his career as a manager, scientist, or
scholar, or, for an author or an artist, an end to the privilege
of being published or staged or exhibited.
Later, the fathers--both career managers and expelled
``outlaws''--were brainwashed by Gorbachov, especially thanks to
his foreign tutors, Thatcher and Bush, that the society of almost
perfect consumption already existed in the bountiful and advanced
West. This was transformed from a proposition into a belief,
during the so-called ``cooperative'' reform, when the fathers (of
both kinds!) assimilated the possibility of easily earning lots
of ``hot money,'' without any notion that the money was being
extracted from centralized state currency circulation, setting up
the sabotage of retail trade by the flourishing ``shadow
economy'' and the corresponding ``queue effect,'' which allegedly
proved the great and utmost superiority of an absolutely free
market over any sort of planning.
At the same time, politicians at the level of presidential
advisors, like the Slavophile writer Valentin Rasputin, claimed
that Russians should not be feeding the national minorities from
Central Asia and the Caucasus, and, therefore, Russia should
jettison them from the U.S.S.R.
In this historical soil grew the predisposition to
``hypochondrical chauvinism.'' The influence of the last six
years has manifested itself mostly in rage against those
*fathers* who had promised them at least as much as the
grandfathers did before, and turned out to be absolute swindlers
and liars. If so, why carry any responsibility for the blunders
these fathers have made, in Chechnya and elsewhere?
And Crimea--why, what is Crimea for a person with
consumerist thinking, and who is more environmentally obsessed
than his parent? Crimea is the site of health resorts and pioneer
camps and everything that the fathers possessed, but have
stupidly frittered away. And those young people who have at least
read a history textbook, also know that this earthly Paradise was
``stolen'' by the same Nikita Khrushchov, to whom these Kovalyovs
and Latsises (who are so useful for the purpose of my avoiding
army service, but this is no reason to respect them) are so
grateful!
- The New Enthusiasts -
Do you think that the great-grandchildren of Mr. Rotten Egg
consider themselves a lost and betrayed generation? Why, some of
them, maybe the most intellectual segment, agree. But this part
comprises ... 5.1%. Nine and two-tenths percent regard themselves
as an ``embarrassed generation,'' 6.2% as ``cynical,'' 2.5% as
``skeptical.'' But the enthusiastic half (47.9%) is sure that it
represents ``the generation of hope.'' In another measurement,
asked to choose only between ``hopeful'' and ``lost'', 78.5%
claimed ``hopeful''!
These peculiar new enthusiasts don't listen to TV, they
don't respect their parents, they don't much trust each other,
and therefore agree (again over 70%!) that ``state measures
against terrorism must be most cruel,'' and denounce the
abolition of the death penalty. In this respect, they exhibit a
real feeling of uncertainty, though it does not much differ from
that in the population at large. But in general, they are very
optimistic about themselves.
One more telling estimate: 75% of the respondents consider
that they are more adapted to reality than their fathers. Only
18% are afraid of unemployment, as an unemployed person can use
some other quality he has, which entails some risk, but brings
more profit and self-respect than a regular job. Twenty-three
percent of the respondents admit that they could take part in
organized crime, in the event that ``life makes them'' choose
this option. Another 11.4% regards crime as ``a normal way of
earning money.'' The corresponding numbers for prostitution
(among girls) are 11.1% and 5.7%. Only 9.5% of the youths admit
that they always obey the law; in general, legal behavior for
this generation is mostly a matter of stupidity, less frequently
a recognition of one's own poor skills in breaking the law (the
fathers are to blame, certainly), than something normal or
valued.
One modern satirist said that General Lebed ``thinks in
obscene [*materny*] language, which he translates into Russian
while speaking.'' This might be an exaggeration, but as a matter
of fact, the general's language really is rich with various
untranslatable ``salty'' folk expressions. So, his popularity
among the respondents is also quite natural.
During the same visit when he stood at the tribune of the
United Nations and took off his shoe to bang it on the table,
General Secretary Nikita Khrushchov exclaimed: *``Ya pokazhu vam
kuzkinu mat!''* The embarrassed interpreter followed him with a
literal translation of this Russian equivalent of ``I'll show you
what-for!'' saying, ``I'll show you Kuzma's mother!''
Nobody has ever seen the mysterious Kuzma's mother, and even
the most racially perfect Russian is unable to explain what she
looks like. But Russian citizens who are now approaching the age
of twenty, this horrific hybrid of cultivated Goulash-Communist
consumerism and IMF-IRI-Chubais-imposed free trade individualism,
will certainly display it to mankind, saying, with a careless
expression on its brutal face: ``Why, Mr. Yeltsin has urged me to
be socially active, hasn't he?''

NOTES
1. From the ``History of One Town,'' a famous satiric novel
of 1880s. A hurdy-gurdy substituted for the brain in the
chatterbox governor's head.
2. The name and patronymic of L.I. Brezhnev.

********