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Johnson's Russia List
 

 

December 8, 1997  
This Date's Issues: 1416  1417


Johnson's Russia List
#1417
8 December 1997
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Toronto Sun: Matthew Fisher, The new Russia is much like the old.
2. Aaron Tovish: Yeltsin in Sweden.
3. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Sergey Glazyev, "Russophobia. In Order To 
Survive We Must Stop Pinning Our Hope on Others." (With comment by
NikSt). (DJ: Long-time JRL recipients may remember my fondness for 
Glazyev, the former minister of foreign trade who was the only member 
of the Yeltsin gang to resign in protest over the September-October 
1993 events. He was later a member of the Duma and associated with 
Lebed. He is now, I believe, working for the Federation Council.
Glazyev is one of a number of solid alternatives to the existing
ruling group.)

4. Renfrey Clarke in Moscow: MOSCOW ELECTION CANDIDATES DEMAND 
DEMOCRATIC RULE.

5. RFE/RL NEWSLINE: YAVLINSKII DOUBTS GOVERNMENT CAN ADHERE TO 
BUDGET, NEMTSOV IN CHILE...SAYS THERE'S NO 'RUSSIAN PINOCHET,'
and LUZHKOV SAYS HE WON'T RUN FOR PRESIDENT.

6. Steve Blank: Re 1416-McFaul/McDaniel.
7. St. Petersburg Times editorial: Bailing Out the IMF's System.
8. New Scientist editorial: A global nightmare. (Re nuclear 
contamination in former Soviet Union).

9. Reuters: Russia's Recovery Hides Deep-Rooted Problems.
10. Interfax: Duma Deputies Expect Yeltsin To Sign Land Code.]

********

#1
Toronto Sun
December 8, 1997 
[for personal use only]
The new Russia is much like the old
For millions, even a meal at McDonald's is still out of reach 
By MATTHEW FISHER ( 74511.357@CompuServe.com)
Sun's Columnist at Large
 MOSCOW -- Students at Moscow State University, with whom I met recently,
weren't much interested in my take on Russia. They wanted me to provide
them with gory details of war reporting and a few juicy tidbits about
Princess Diana's life and death. 
 A small group of students I met with last month at the University of
Western Ontario in London weren't at all interested in my war stories or my
brushes with the princess. What they wanted to hear about was Russian life
today and how the country had changed since I first got off a train in
Moscow 19 winters ago. 
  Given all the hype in the West about perestroika and glasnost and the
new Russia, my answer may have come as a surprise. Russia hasn't changed
that much. 
  My travels have taken me from the Kuerile Islands, the Kamchatka
Peninsula and Vladivostok in the Far East to Yakutia in the Far North, to
Novosibirsk and Perm in Siberia, to Chelyabinsk and Ivanovo in the
industrial heartland and to Buddhist Kalmykia and Muslim Ingushetia in the
troubled south. 
  It is my impression that most people in the hinterlands are a little
less well off than they were under communism. But it's difficult to measure
their suffering because Russians possess a seemingly infinite capacity to
tighten their belts and stumble forward. 
  Old party bosses armed with new titles and spouting a capitalist creed
they don't understand still control most local administrations and factories. 
  Collective farms still barely function. Petty bureaucrats and cops still
make others' lives as miserable as possible. Men still drink prodigious
quantities of vodka. Mothers and grandmothers still carry the society on
their backs. Almost every building still looks as if it should be
condemned. Much of the countryside is still ravaged by pollution. Heroic
iron and granite statues of Dedushka (Grandfather) Lenin still blight
virtually every town square. 
  Although it doesn't affect individual lives that much, perhaps the
biggest difference between Soviet Russia and the new Russia is that large
chunks of the outback no longer obey the Kremlin. They are subject to the
whims and intrigues of local godfathers who style themselves after the big
fish in Moscow. 
  The capital is often offered as an island of western consumerism and an
example of Russia's glorious capitalist future, but it hasn't changed
nearly as much as is popularly imagined. 
  Visitors tend to be fooled by the Christmas lights, well-stocked shops
and fancy hotels and restaurants along Tverskaya Street and the German
luxury sedans which crowd it and a few other major thoroughfares. 
  As in Soviet times, when the communist elite had access to special
shops, only the criminal elite and the small middle class which serve them
and their western partners can afford such pleasures. Even a McDonald's
hamburger remains beyond the means of millions of Muscovites. 
  Although the Soviet Union was modernized by Stalin, the notion that it
had ever become a modern country was totally wrong. However, the world
bought into this myth largely because of big ticket items like the space
program and the mistaken belief that institutions such as the Red Army were
truly world class. 
 STILL A VILLAGE 
  As in Soviet times, the capital, with its magnificent Kremlin, its broad
avenues and its superb Metro, remains a Potemkin village. It helps convince
outsiders and Russians alike that Russia is a dynamic nation when it isn't. 
  Visit any outlying district in Moscow. Most factories are either closed
or barely operating. Most of what little new construction there is has been
paid for by banks competing with each other to build the gaudiest
headquarters. Most of the labor involved in these tinted glass and marble
shrines to excess isn't even Russian. It's provided by Ukrainians who will
work for far less money than locals, or by Turks and Yugoslavs, who are
thought to do a much better job. 
  Just as the space program and the supposed might of the Red Army once
obscured the grim Soviet reality, Moscow's new banks aren't even financial
institutions as we understand them. They are banks without customers,
created thanks to tight government connections and ludicrously generous
access to government money. Consumerism, such as it is, involves buying
western goods with money borrowed from the West. 
  As for democracy, that's something of a Potemkin Village, too. Elections
are bought. Parliament is routinely subverted. Communists professing to be
democrats and capitalists run the country for their own benefit like the
dictators who preceded them. 
  
*******

#2
From: Aaron Tovish <tovish@swipnet.se>
Subject: Yeltsin in Sweden 
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 19:02:38 +0100
Organization: EarthAction

Dear David,
Psychologically I miss the old JRL flood of information, but the weekly 
version is good and suits my actual needs better.
As I am now living in Sweden, I thought I might comment on the piece
below. 
There should be no confounding of Yeltsin's Tuesday and Wednesday 
announcements. On Tuesday he was speaking extemporaneously and was clearly 
a befuddled old man. (Reminded me of Reagan.) His "misspeaks" were 
corrected immediately by his press spokesman. On Wednesday, he was reading 
from a prepared speech and did not deviate from at (at least on the Baltic 
security issue). The fact the Segeyev confirmed what he said at the 
defense ministers' meeting should settle that if there was any doubt.
None of the articles cited mention his other gaff which JRL readers may
not 
have seen covered anywhere else either. While listing the nuclear weapons 
states he included Germany and Japan. (His spokesman assured one and all 
that he was wrong about that.) He also rattled on about Russo-Finnish War 
as if he was in Finland.
Your own piece noted that his health might be a good "pretext" for him to 
step aside. I would elevate that to good "reason."

******

#3
From: "nikst" <nikst@glasnet.ru>
Subject: Russophobia takes the offensive
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 12:27:06 +0300

The following is an extract of a recent article in Nezavisimaja Gazeta
(Moscow) otlining the impact of a new wave of Russophobia, now shaping
public opinion in the West. The author exhibits one fundamental flaw in his
thinking, currently widespread in the Russian post-Soviet elite: the idea
that *if* Russians do not consider anyone as their enemy, then such enemies
*do not exist*. In reality, the lack of enemies is a *bilateral* condition
-- it is not sufficient for only *one side* to be friendly; if the
counterpart is hostile, no amount of one-sided "friendliness" will prevent
conflict. It is becoming apparent that Russian belief in the "end of the
Cold War" and that "Russia has no enemies" is naive and highly premature.
People like Z. Brzezinski, acting on the basis of specific *ethnic*
interests (his nationality is Polish) are pursuing a policy of implacable
hostility towards Russia, dating back from the Middle Ages. Their
pronouncements remind one of Cato's "Carthago delenda est" -- however, they
do not realize, that the partitioning of Russia, its liquidation as even a
regional power, will result in 1.5 billion Chinese, with assorted Islamic
fundamentalists, on the frontiers of their beloved "Polska"...

Sincerely yours, NikSt

---------------------
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
18 November 1997
"Russophobia. In Order To Survive We Must Stop Pinning
Our Hope on Others"
By Doctor of Economic Sciences Sergey Yuryevich Glazyev

The new book by the influential American political
scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski, "Geostrategy for Europe,"
extracts from which were published in Nezavisimaya
Gazeta recently (24 October 1997), clarifies many avenues 
of contemporary American geopolitics. 

Price of Balance 

If the official U.S. national security doctrine merely notes
the U.S. Administration's claims to interfere in the internal
affairs of other countries and to dictate its own interests in
any part of the world, Mr. Brzezinski's arguments leave no
doubt that Russia has turned out to be the main expendable
card of U.S. geopolitics. It is obvious from his book that 
the cold war against us is not only continuing but from
being a cold war against the USSR has in fact switched to
aggression against Russia with a view to destroying it.
Brzezinski, who constantly stresses the identity of Russia
and the Soviet Union, notes the need, from the viewpoint of
U.S. interests, to destroy Russia, describing its future in
U.S. geostrategy either as a "political black hole" or as "a
freely confederative Russia consisting of European Russia,
a Siberian republic, and a Far Eastern republic."
Of course Mr. Brzezinski is not president of the United
States and not even secretary of state. Official Washington
will hardly confirm the existence of such a geostrategy with
regard to Russia. Nonetheless many facts attest to the
undoubted influence of the ideas expressed by this
political scientist in the practical work of U.S. special
services and pressure groups. It is curious that in his
geostrategic arguments Brzezinski pays tribute to the
interests of all major Eurasian powers except Russia. With
regard to China and Japan he declares the need 
for "profound strategic mutual understanding between
America and China and a clear determination of Japan's
growing role."
Brzezinski also defines Turkey as the United States'
strategic partner: "Constant consultations with Ankara with
regard to what kind of future is expected in the region of
the Caspian Sea basin and in Central Asia will strengthen
feelings that Turkey is the United States' strategic
partner."
Nor does Brzezinski forget the interests of India and Iran,
traditionally oppressed by the Americans: "India must take
part in discussions relating to regional stability, not to
mention the fact that it is essential to continue to strengthen
bilateral contacts between the American and Indian
military departments." Or: "The United States is still
interested in ensuring that Iran is strong, even if it is moved 
by religious motives."
Suggesting that the Eurasian superpowers subordinate
themselves to"soft U.S. hegemony," Brzezinski seems to be
currying favor with them, persuading them to take in
exchange control over parts of Russian territory. Having in
the past concentrated all geopolitical resources on
the struggle against the USSR, the United States has missed
the emergenceof two powerful new geopolitical rivals --
Japan and China, following whichother large and rapidly
growing powers of the region are stating their claims.
The enormous sums of money invested by American
taxpayers in the arms race and the militarization of Europe
and the Near East are devalued in the new geopolitical
reality, which is determined not by force of weapons 
but by the dynamism of national and international
innovatory and economic systems. American hegemony,
weighed down by hundreds of billions of dollars
in annual military expenditure, is becoming an unnecessary
and expensive burden for Eurasia. Brzezinski, fearing the
devaluation of the trillions of dollars invested in the
USSR's destruction, is in fact suggesting to the
United States' new rivals that they share the booty of the
cold war, which is how he sees Russia and the CIS, as long
as they do not cast doubt on the United States' expensive
hegemony.
The balance of forces in the new world order, according to
the leading U.S. political scientist's scheme, should be
achieved at Russia's expense, right up to the partition of its
territory. From his viewpoint "the loss of territory is not
the main problem for Russia." Russia's division into
three parts, Brzezinski believes, will be the basis for
achieving a balance of forces in U.S. interests in Eurasia: 
"Each of these confederative formations will be able
successfully to develop local creative potential, for
centuries slowed down by Moscow's heavy bureaucratic
hand." The development of the "creative potential" of the
pieces of a divided Russia will, according to this scheme,
take place under the leading influence of the United States
and its partners. It is planned to carry out the American
colonization of Ukraine together with Germany and France,
the colonization of Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan together
with Turkey and in part Iran, and of Siberia and the Far
East together with Japan and China. As we can see, from
the viewpoint of the chief U.S. geostrategist there is
enough Russian heritage for everyone, which will enable
the United States to implement its strategy of "soft
hegemony" in the world, paying with Russian resources. It
is planned to build at Russia's expense a touching system of
"trilateral accord -- with America on one side as a world
power, China on another as regional leader, and Japan on
the third side as leader on an international plane."
Brzezinski's writings could be seen as the ramblings of an
anti-Soviet who has developed a passion for Russophobia
were it not for his authority as a leading U.S. geopolitical
strategist and his role as the public expressor of
geopolitical interests and the feelings of highly influential
circles of the U.S. oligarchy. Moreover, Brzezinski's words
usually do not differ greatly from the deeds of the U.S.
special services which from their foundation through to this
day have believed Russia's destruction to be their
paramount task. The CIA's direct participation and active
role in the USSR's destruction is no longer a secret since
the numerous publications by U.S. authors describing the
purposeful and consistent efforts made in this direction by
President Reagan and CIA Director Casey and by
subsequent U.S. and CIA leaders.

In the Open 

The practice of the American special services' work against
Russia provides numerous instances of corroboration of
that line. Against the background of the noisy and
revelatory scandals over the failures of the Soviet (and for
present Americans Russian) agents who operated against
the United States -- agents recruited by the KGB and now
exposed -- and the already almost implemented demands
on Russia to stop any intelligence activity, the American
special services' espionage activity against Russia is being
drastically activated. It is being conducted on an enormous 
scale not only by traditional secret methods but also
entirely openly, not only on Russian territory but also in the
CIS countries. At the same time as the galvanization of the
U.S. special services' activity against Russia Washington's
official foreign policy line is acquiring an increasingly
Russophobic nature. The lightly camouflaged support for
the Chechen separatists, the NATO expansion to the East,
including with the intention of including the Baltic
countries and Ukraine under the protectorate of that
military machine, the declaration of the Central Asian
republics and the Caucasus as a zone of U.S. vital interests,
the refusal to repeal the legislative acts adopted against the
USSR and discriminating against Russia -- this is a far from
full list of indications that the official U.S. foreign policy
line is anti-Russian. It is not hard to convince ourselves
either of the coincidence between what Brzezinski says and
what the U.S. Administration does. The U.S. national
security strategy adopted by the U.S. President's
administration is couched in the spirit of Brzezinski's ideas,
which are slightly camouflaged by semi-official
phraseology. In particular this document stresses: "Special
attention in our strategy is paid to the influence exerted on
the United States' current and long-term foreign policy
course by international problems which used to be
considered far removed from ussuch as the depletion of
resources, the rapid population growth, pollution, and mass
migrations. Considering these circumstances we have not
set ourselves the aim of drawing a clear distinction between
domestic and foreign policy. We have sought to determine
policy in fields like the economy and security which
promote our interests and ideals in a world where the
dividing line between the domestic and foreign policy
course is being increasingly 'blurred.'"This is put quite
frankly. The safeguarding of global control on the most
important questions of servicing the interests of
multinational capital is declared to be a sphere of
responsibility of the U.S. national security organs: 
Unimpeded access to other countries' resources, including
their natural and manpower resources, and to their markets
and the elimination of any national barriers to the
movement and reproduction of national capital. At the
same time control over population, pollution, and political
systems in other countries is declared to be a sphere of U.S.
national security. The U.S. people must be prepared to pay
for that global control: "U.S. involvement in world affairs
depends on the readiness of the people and of Congress to
pay for the protection of U.S. interests in dollars, energy,
and, when there is no other alternative, in the lives of our
citizens." To justify to the U.S. taxpayer the expediency of
paying for dubious punitive operations abroad, the strategy
of U.S. national security is introducing the category of
"important national interests" which "are not connected to
the country's survival but which influence U.S. welfare and
the nature of international relations." In such cases it is
recommended that "use be made of available resources to
promote our aims, measuring the cost and the risk against
our interests." Then the intervention in Haiti and
participation in the NATO operation in Bosnia and
Herzegovina are cited as examples of such actions.
Some U.S. politicians' paranoia has led to the dangerous
displacement of the vector of the United States' foreign and
military policy a long way from that country's national
interests. Mr. Brzezinski's political adventure is more like
the desire for revenge on the part of a Polish nationalist
with a grievance over the partition of Poland two centuries
ago than justification for U.S. geostrategic interests. 
Nonetheless the U.S. people are paying quite a high price
of hundreds of billions of dollars in annual appropriations
for militarization, are risking their soldiers' lives, and
provoking global destabilization and the threat of a new
world war for the imperial ambitions of "their own"
imported radical nationalists. Our historical experience
attests graphically to the extraordinary danger of political
utopias of that kind. In the past the chief organizer of the
civil war in Russia -- Lev Trotskiy -- passionately desired 
world rule. Not so long ago Adolf Hitler wanted the same
thing. Today Mr. Brzezinski wants it. We know well how
this ends. Perhaps the U.S. establishment does not know --
they have been reading different history textbooks.

New Wave

We believe that the cold war has ended and that democratic
Russia has no enemies. The U.S. foreign policy makers
think otherwise: Russia, which has lost the cold war, must
be split up, plundered, and definitively destroyed as an
independent state. The makers of U.S. cultural and
information policy obviously think the same. At any rate
those who "call the tune in Hollywood" are doing so with a
powerful Russophobic bias. The new wave of American
cinematography is imbued with anti-Russian hysteria,
depicting Russians almost exclusively as terrorists, bandits,
rapists, and monsters who should be feared and against
whom "everything is permitted" for the protection of the
"civilized world."
This year alone the Hollywood beau monde (movie stars,
directors, and producers), beloved of the Russian public
and idolized by the Moscow clique, has "...assailed the
public with three expensive and deliberately breath-taking
projects simultaneously, and will produce more soon. 
All with superstars," the magazine Itogi points out (21
October 1997). 
They are "The Saint" in which "a Russian nationalist in
possession of computer super-technologies and a pack of
killer dogs destabilizes the situation in Russia in order to
seize power and at the same time rampages in Europe." 
Then there is "Air Force One" in which a group of fanatical
Russian terrorists, hijacking the aircraft with the U.S.
president's family and administration, mete out brutal
treatment to the women hostages. And there is "The
Peacemaker" in which "a Russian nationalist general (who
is also a bandit connected with our mafia in Europe and
with the Bosnians) steals 10 nuclear warheads" and,
covering his tracks, destroys an entire guards platoon and
"organizes a clash between the rolling stock transporting 
the warheads and a passenger train (with a large number of
casualties) and in addition sets up a nuclear explosion in
the middle of Russia."
And so a new image of the enemy in the shape of the
Russian criminal community and the "criminal-syndicalist"
Russian state is being actively created in the public opinion
of America and the whole world. That is how the new
social system in Russia is described by the "organized
crime in Russia" report prepared by the Washington center
of international and strategic studies for the U.S. Congress
and widely publicized by Russian television. The report is
an overtly biased piece of pseudo-research containing a
pseudo-scientific generalization of all kinds of rumors and
stories about the criminalization of the Russian state and
society. 
The report contains no real facts but an abundance of all
kinds of subjective assessments and arguments, including
some from some Russian officials, taken out of context and
prepared to suit a social agenda. This agenda, as is obvious
from the report's content, consists in proving the
extremecriminalization of Russia which, turning into a
"criminal-syndicalist" state, as the authors of the report put
it, presents a threat to U.S. national security and the whole
world.

********

#4
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 13:49:03 +0300 (WSU)
From: austgreen@glas.apc.org (Renfrey Clarke)
Subject: Moscow city duma elections

#MOSCOW ELECTION CANDIDATES DEMAND DEMOCRATIC RULE
#By Renfrey Clarke
#MOSCOW - Real democracy, most of us would agree, cannot exist in
a country without a functioning parliament. With a population of
nine million people - more than many independent countries - the
city of Moscow also has its parliament: the Moscow City Duma.
#Until a few weeks back, that in itself would have been news to a
lot of Moscow residents. In a recent survey in the Russian
capital, 9 of every 10 respondents said they knew nothing of the
activity of the city legislators. City government so far as most
residents of the Russian capital are concerned has consisted of
one man: Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov.
#Now, the city duma is emerging from obscurity. On December 14
its 35 members will face re-election. Canvassers are knocking on
doors and extolling the virtues of election candidates - an
average of ten per single-member electoral district.
#It is now more than four years since Russian President Boris
Yeltsin set up the Moscow duma, as a replacement for the Moscow
City Soviet which he had just disbanded along with the national
parliament. Hurried polls in which the opposition had no chance
to participate saw the election of a legislature aligned totally
with Mayor Luzhkov, a close Yeltsin ally.
#The deputies settled down to a peaceful life of discussing the
bills forwarded to them by the mayor's office. From time to time
they turned down proposed legislation, but instances of them
adopting legislation independently of Luzhkov were virtually
unheard of.
#After two years, the city deputies' first term came to an end.
The parliamentarians then unilaterally voted themselves another
two years. A lengthy court case finally saw their move ruled
illegal, but by this time the end of their second term was in
sight.
#Meanwhile, Moscow continued to be run very much as Luzhkov
wanted. The ingredients in the mix included Soviet-style command
administration, with the city government keeping big stakes in
numerous Moscow enterprises and dominating their management;
coercion, based on the fact that the city government continued to
own as much as 70 per cent of commercial property and had many
ways to discipline tenants; vast, ill-costed festivals and
property developments; and numerous mystifying deals with
business magnates.
#The city's financial structures became an object of wonderment
to investigators with the guile to explore them. Even today, huge
sums accruing to the Moscow city authorities completely bypass
the official budget, flowing instead into tenebrous ``non-budget
funds''. Records of property ownership and commercial
transactions are ``not exactly on offer''.
#A final ingredient in the Luzhkov mix has been populism. Though
only Luzhkov seems to think his administration is not rotten with
corruption, he has successfully cultivated an image as an
energetic, can-do manager with simple tastes and roots among the
people. His personal popularity has endured, and he won the last
mayoral election in 1996 with around 90 per cent of the vote.
#To be sure, Luzhkov has benefited from a uniquely favourable
local economic situation. Playing host to the bulk of foreign
investment in Russia, and soaking up wealth from an increasingly
impoverished hinterland, Moscow has remained comparatively
prosperous even while the rest of Russia has sunk into
depression. A vindictively enforced residence registration system
- a sort of Moscow passport - keeps provincials at bay and
reserves the prosperity for the mayor's constituents.
#In a functioning democracy, newspapers expose crooked officials,
and the powers of the legislature are available to thwart
arbitrary acts by the executive branch. But in Moscow, newspapers
fear losing municipal tax breaks, or being evicted from city-
owned premises. The city duma, meanwhile, is in strict legal
terms little more than a decoration; Luzhkov, like Yeltsin, has
broad powers to legislate by decree. Still, the fact that
oppositionists could potentially use the duma as a sounding-board
for dissent amounts to a weak point in Luzhkov's otherwise
armour-plated system of rule.
#Russia's main opposition currents might therefore be expected to
stand candidates in the Moscow duma elections and to campaign
vigorously. And indeed, the liberal oppositionists of the
``Yabloko'' group will have candidates in 11 of the 35 districts,
while the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has organised
a bloc with ``patriotic'' organisations to contest 28 seats. But
curiously, neither of these electoral blocs has shown any
interest in exposing the way Moscow is run, or in trying to
mobilise voter support to force a clean-up.
#The explanation given privately to journalists has been that
Luzhkov is unassailably popular, and that attacking him would
simply cost votes. But more fundamentally, most of Moscow's
better-known ``oppositionists'' share a common past with Luzhkov
as influential members of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union. In an urban system based on sweetheart deals between old
associates, ``opposition'' leaders have typically found cosy
corners for themselves, and have little wish to venture back out
into the cold.
#The role of a genuine opposition in the elections has been taken
on by an impromptu group headed by the one-time chairperson of
the Moscow City Soviet, Nikolai Gonchar. In the words of
political scientist Vladimir Mironov, Gonchar's group is ``the
only bloc that has adopted a platform critical of the way Mayor
Yury Luzhkov runs the city.'' Most of the funding for the bloc
has reportedly been contributed by defence sector enterprises -
notable for having missed out on Moscow's relative properity.
#In conventional political terms, Gonchar's bloc is strikingly
diverse. The candidates range from left-wing intellectuals such
as <I>Pravda<D> chief editor Vladimir Ryashin and socialist
writer Boris Kagarlitsky to liberal economists Larisa Piyasheva
and Nikolai Shmelev. The main political cement holding the group
together is agreement that the city government should be based on
a genuine separation of powers, and that the duma should have
real legislative authority instead of being ``a pie with no
filling''.
#``Moscow needs a strong professional duma, not a poodle sitting
on its hind legs,'' Gonchar has been quoted as saying.
#Other democratic demands advanced by the bloc include an end to
the immunity of deputies from prosecution, and the passage of a
law providing for the recall of deputies by voters.
#Gonchar himself has avoided specific criticisms of Luzhkov's
administrative acts, limiting himself to calls for
``professionalism and honesty''. Nevertheless, Luzhkov has
reacted with alarm to the prospect of a sizable opposition
fraction appearing in the city parliament. On live television and
in statements to the press, the mayor has repeatedly attacked the
Gonchar group, urging electors not to vote for it. Meanwhile, he
has praised the existing duma leadership.
#A problem for Luzhkov has been the fact that the Moscow
electoral law explicitly bans city office-bearers from taking
part in ``all forms of agitation'' around the duma elections. At
a press conference on December 1, candidates of the Gonchar bloc
argued that the mayor had broken the law. The Moscow Electoral
Commission eventually agreed, but took no action apart from
asking Luzhkov to ``refrain from acts that might have the
character of electoral agitation.''
#Moscow residents are not, on the whole, masochists in respect of
the people they want to rule them. Nor are they indifferent to
their rights, or to the tasks of constructing democracy on the
municipal level. If Luzhkov is popular among them, it is largely
because the mass media have trodden warily around the abuses in
the city administration, and because the mayor's opponents have
mostly been so feckless.
#Among the candidates in the city duma elections, there are some
who have faith in the voters, and who state bluntly that the way
Luzhkov runs Moscow is bad. The most prominent of these
dissenters include Ryashin and Kagarlitsky, on the left of the
Gonchar bloc. Their campaigns have called for a fundamental
realignment of municipal spending, so that money is spent under
public control on real public needs.
#If showy prestige projects were called off and city accounts
were properly audited, these candidates maintain, funds would
appear for tasks that the Luzhkov administration claims are
unaffordable - such as providing new accommodation for ill-housed
citizens, and renewing and expanding the public transport system.
#With Moscow electors so widely dismissed as the dupes of mayoral
bread and circuses, it will be interesting to see the response
which Ryashin and Kagarlitsky receive.

********

#5
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol 1, No. 174, Part I, 8 December 1997

YAVLINSKII DOUBTS GOVERNMENT CAN ADHERE TO BUDGET.
Speaking to RFE/RL's Moscow bureau on 5 December, Yabloko leader
Grigorii Yavlinskii predicted that the government will be unable to
abide by the 1998 budget, just as it was unable to fulfill revenue and
spending plans for 1997. Yavlinskii charged that a trilateral
commission of government, Duma, and Federation Council
representatives, which revised the budget after the Duma rejected an
earlier draft in October, had only made the budget worse. He argued
that the trilateral commission agreed to add more than 27 trillion
rubles ($4.5 billion) in expenditures but did not provide realistic
plans to increase revenues accordingly. Yavlinskii also criticized the
government for trying to boost 1998 revenues by raising various
taxes rather than by taking strong measures to improve tax
collection. LB

NEMTSOV IN CHILE... 
...SAYS THERE'S NO 'RUSSIAN PINOCHET.' While in Chile,
Nemtsov did not meet with General Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean
leader from 1973 to 1990 and currently commander of the armed
forces, RFE/RL's correspondent in Santiago reported. But in an
interview with RFE/RL, Nemtsov said Pinochet had played a major
role in leading Chile to economic growth. Nemtsov noted that some
Russian generals aspire to become political leaders, but he argued
that no "second Pinochet" will be found in Russia. He added that "I
simply do not know of any general" who would conduct the correct
economic policies for Russia. Nemtsov's comments were presumably
directed at former Security Council Secretary Aleksandr Lebed and
Duma Defense Committee Chairman Lev Rokhlin, who has founded a
movement to support the armed forces and defense industry. LB

LUZHKOV SAYS HE WON'T RUN FOR PRESIDENT... Moscow
Mayor Luzhkov has again denied that he plans to contest the next
presidential election, Interfax reported on 6 December. In particular,
he ruled out running for president in an alliance with Lebed. The
same day, Luzhkov attended the second congress of the Russian
Movement for New Socialism and told reporters that Russians
increasingly support socialism--not as a step toward communism, but
as a system to benefit the "absolute majority." LB

******

#6
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 08:48:17 -0500
From: blanks@carlisle-emh2.army.mil (Steve Blank)
Subject: various (re 1416-McFaul/McDaniel)

I have to take issue with my friend Mike McFaul's implied notion that 
historical based analogies of Russia are defective vis-a-vis those of 
political science. It is well known that American political science 
seeks to generalize precepts on politics based on alleged comparative 
analysis. I use the word alleged because all too often in analysis of 
Russia, little or no sign of the evolution of Russian institutions is 
given. Moreover, an ethnocentric concept of democracy and of 
political life is all too prevalent, e.g. the stress on elections as 
a sign of democracy. This failing is all too prevalent, e.g. Robert 
Kaplan's latest screed where he inevitably gets his facts wrong 
(Mussolini and Hitler were not called to power in elections). There 
are elements of democratization in Russia, but when Chubais can play 
his spin and undoubtedly is under survellliance what you have is the 
rule of wolves, or more accurately a neo-medievalism. In far too many 
ways Yeltsin's court is like that of the later Tsars. While Boris 
Nemtsov understands this, none of our colleagues seems to notice 
except for those trained historically. it would be useful for our 
comparativists not only to look at the Third World (the true 
comparison in many ways for Russia) but also at such historians of 
pre-revolutionary Russia as Leroy-Beaulieu, Zainonchkovskii, Korkunov 
(a legal scholar to be true), Yaney, Rieber, Wortman, etc. or even at 
younger scholars like David MacDonald on Foreign policymaking. They 
might be surprised at what they found. Indeed Max Weber's essays on 
Russia, now available in English suggest that he too can be read with 
profit. We do not need the impoverished psychology of rational choice 
as our crutch here because anyone who has lived a bit as a adult 
knows that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt 
of in rational choice philosophy and that few of us are so devotedly 
homo eoncomicus. Human psychology here as in Russia is a lot more 
complex than simple greed the only motive that Americans tend to 
ascribe to people in politics. an ascription that lies at the roots of 
many of our foreign policy errors.

******

#7
St. Petersburg Times
DECEMBER 8-14, 1997
Editorial
Bailing Out the IMF's System 

THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund has never much liked the "Asian Tigers," 
countries ranging from Singapore to China that looked to Tokyo - and not 
to Washington - for economic inspiration.
The IMF and the United States have their own recipe for a healthy 
economy: cut government spending, deregulate all cross-border flows of 
money, and privatize state-owned industry. It is an approach that has 
been adopted in Russia, Eastern Europe and Latin America, with 
disappointing results.
Tokyo and Asia have a different approach, one in which quasi-state 
conglomerates - Japan's keiratsu, South Korea's chaebol -are guided in 
their behavior and investments by long-term national strategies, not by 
quarterly earnings reports. Often this is accompanied by an 
authoritarian capitalism, one that dispenses with free speech, a free 
press and the consumer benefits of free trade.
Following this model, Japan and South Korea revived their war-torn 
economies in a matter of mere decades, and then continued to rise 
astronomically - until Japan was the second-largest economy in the 
world, South Korea the 11th. Whatever its flaws - and they are many and 
serious - this Asian model deserves more respect and study.
But that's not going to happen much this week, as fans of the IMF are no 
doubt taking some satisfaction in seeing South Korea prostrate - calling 
for a multi-billion-dollar bailout.
The IMF has put together a $57 billion package - with conditions that 
remain partly secret, but so far seem unjustifiably harsh. The New York 
Times, noting reports that the fund is insisting South Korean 
unemployment must double and growth must be halved, editorialized 
Thursday that the fund may have "cracked down needlessly hard ... as if 
slow growth were itself a virtue."
South Korean media are furiously attacking the deal. To them it must 
seem like the IMF, after frustrating decades of trying to argue against 
Asian success, now is eagerly remaking the nation in its own image. 
Already there is financial deregulation and cuts in government spending; 
soon there will apparently be a sort of privatization of the chaebols.
But ironies and paradoxes abound here. South Korea will probably 
recover; its economy is fundamentally solid and strong. But will Russia, 
as The Washington Post asked in an editorial Thursday? (See opposite 
page). 
Russia - thanks to policies championed by the United States, the IMF and 
like-minded locals such as Anatoly Chubais - is groaning under 
corruption, inequitable wealth distribution and uncollectably high tax 
rates. The indifference of the IMF and the West in general to Chubais' 
unethical privatizations has helped revive the same Communist opposition 
that is now holding up the budget and the tax code.
This is not to say Russia is doomed, far from it. But as the IMF rides 
as the White Knight to Seoul's rescue, it is worth remembering the IMF 
champions an unregulated system of world finance in which such enormous 
international bailouts are ever more common; and that the IMF champions 
policies that, where implemented, have usually left economies weakened. 

*******

#8
New Scientist
6 December 1997
[for personal use only]
Editorial
A global nightmare 

Stories of nuclear contamination have emerged with alarming regularity 
from the former Soviet Union since the end of the Cold War, and they are 
always shocking. But now comes the biggest shocker of them all. 
Last week, Norwegian and Russian scientists revealed that the Mayak 
reprocessing plant in the southern Urals has leaked five times more 
radiation than the Chernobyl accident, Britain's Sellafield nuclear 
plant and all the world's atmospheric bomb tests put together. 
Mayak was always known to be polluted. But the scale of the 
contamination is staggering. Its source, as the scienti-fic report makes 
plain, is the reactors and reprocessing plants that provided the 
plutonium for the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal. 
In many ways the mistakes made at Mayak are the same as those made in 
the 1940s and 1950s by the US at Hanford and Britain at Windscale (now 
Sellafield) in their race to develop nuclear weapons. The difference is 
the frightening scale of the Russian problem. Indefinitely containing 
Lake Karachay, for example, where most of the deadly strontium-90 and 
caesium-137 from Mayak is lurking, is a daunting challenge for 
engineers. It will also be very expensive. And the key question is: who 
should pay? 
At the moment it seems as if a small country without any nuclear 
pretensions is shouldering most of the burden. The Mayak report was 
funded by the Norwegian government as part of its £10 million-a-year 
programme to investigate Russia's nuclear hazards. The Norwegians are 
worried that some of the pollution could find its way to their northern 
shores. 
And yet, as Norway has been pointing out for years, it is not just 
Russia's neighbours who should be worried. If ever the rest of Western 
Europe needed an example of how Russia's nuclear problems could affect 
them, the Mayak catastrophe is it. If Lake Karachay's radioactive load 
leaks into the Arctic Ocean, one of the planet's last great 
wildernesses, it could travel halfway across the globe. 
Norway is worried that it will not be able to afford the measures 
necessary to stop this happening. Russia, although it certainly bears 
moral responsibility for what has taken place at Mayak, could never pay 
for it. Self-interest suggests that other European countries, and even 
the US, should dig deeper into their pockets. 
The moral logic is even more persuasive. Shouldn't all the nations that 
were caught up in the nuclear arms race start paying for cleaning up the 
mess it made?

*******

#9
Russia's Recovery Hides Deep-Rooted Problems
Reuters 
6 December 1997 [?]

MOSCOW -- Russia's economy, badly damaged by recent emerging market
turmoil, received a welcome shot in the arm this week from rising equities,
falling interest rates and key decisions by the central bank and parliament. 
But fundamental fiscal weakness in Russia and nervousness about emerging
markets in general could still threaten the recovery despite signs that
foreign investors are once again eyeing Russia for its rewards rather than
shunning it for its risks. 
"Clearly the past few days have brought good news to the Russian
market," said Charles Blitzer, chief emerging market economist at Donaldson
Lufkin and Jenrette in London. 
"On the other hand, there is a lot still to be done. The root cause of
Russia's difficult economic situation is on the fiscal side." 
The economy won its latest boost from a most unlikely source on Friday
-- the opposition-dominated lower house of parliament, the Duma. 
After a dramatic appearance by President Boris Yeltsin, the Duma adopted
the 1998 draft budget in its first reading after weeks of debate and
uncertainty over the passage of next year's financial framework. 
Economists welcomed the news, while noting that the vote was only the
first of four needed for the budget to be adopted. 
More important for Russian markets was the central bank's announcement
on Thursday that it would let the market decide interest rates, they said. 
"The biggest event here recently was (central bank chairman Sergei)
Dubinin saying that the risk would match the return on the bond market, and
that Russia would not suppress yields on local debt," said James Fenkner of
CentreInvest Securities. 
The decision has paid off so far. Yields on T-bills and domestic
government bonds fell sharply in the latter part of the week as the bank
reaffirmed it would bring key interest rates into line with market levels. 
The bank has also vowed to protect the ruble, a key to a long term
economic recovery. The battered currency showed some life on Friday, rising
strongly. 
Foreign debt instruments, including Eurobonds, have also moved in
Russia's favor in what First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais
described as a vote of confidence by foreign investors in Russian financial
policy. 
Shares have recovered some ground in the last two days. 
Key to investor confidence now will be the outcome of talks between
Russia and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). IMF officials are in
Moscow and are due to leave at the end of next week. 
But the return of a hint of the feel-good factor that accompanied
Russia's surging markets earlier this year cannot hide deep-rooted problems. 
Wage arrears are huge and companies are heavily indebted to each other.
A high percentage of goods are still paid for through barter arrangements
rather than in rubles, starving the corporate sector of a cash lifeline. 
Above all, Russia desperately needs to collect more taxes. A cumbersome
system and widespread evasion meant only half planned tax revenues were
collected in the first nine months of 1997. 
This forced the government to look for ways of raising funds fast to
make ends meet by the end of the year. 
The soaring cost of borrowing on domestic and foreign markets meant the
Kremlin turned instead to a group of Western banks to help raise an
emergency finance package of up to $2 billion -- a deal that sources said
was close to completion. 
Even that was in some doubt on Friday after the Duma rejected a proposal
to raise this year's budgeted foreign borrowing limit to $10.9 billion from
a previously agreed $9.8 billion. 

*******

#10
Duma Deputies Expect Yeltsin To Sign Land Code

MOSCOW, Dec 8 (Interfax) - At the roundtable discussion December 11
chaired by Russian President Boris Yeltsin, representatives of the State
Duma will ask him to sign the Land Code already passed by both
parliamentary chambers. 
Yeltsin should sign the Code, Duma Chairman *Gennady Seleznyov* told
journalists after his Monday meeting with parliamentary leaders on
preparing the discussion. "We will tackle the ten-year moratorium on
agricultural lands at a later stage," Seleznyov said. 
Making amendments to the Land Code is impossible since the parliament
approved in as a law, he said. 
However, "the sky won't fall to the ground and life will go on" in the
event an accord on the issue is not reached at the discussion, he said. 
Protecting citizens' bank accounts in the process of re- denominating
the ruble will not be dealt with at the upcoming discussion, he said. The
issue will be debated in late December after the government and the Central
Bank submit the necessary materials, he said. 
Seleznyov said the meeting of the "Big Four," consisting of Yeltsin,
Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Chairman of the upper parliamentary
chamber Yegor Stroyev and himself, will not raise the issue of forming a
Cabinet of popular trust on December 9. 
"A crisis in the executive branch of power is obvious," leader of the
Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov told journalists Monday. "The two terrible
accidents" involving the Zyryanovskaya coal mine and the air crash in
Irkutsk "make us think that the issue is extremely urgent and must be
debated without delay," Zyuganov said. 
An accord must be reached in the near future as to when and how to
debate improvements in ruling the country, he said. 
The Duma must consider the situation in both the coal and aviation
industries, leader of the Popular Rule parliamentary group Nikolai Ryzhkov
said at the Monday meeting. The working life of 80% of the assets in the
coal industry has expired, Ryzhkov said. 

********




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