March 2, 1998  
This Date's Issues:    2087  • 2088

Johnson's Russia List
#2088
2 March 1998
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Rossiiskaya Gazeta: PRIVATE ENTERPRISE IS NATIONAL INTEREST.
President Boris Yeltsin's Radio Address to the Nation.
2. Fred Weir in Moscow on the Czar burial controversy.
3. AP: Yeltsin Names Cabinet Replacements.
4. Russky Telegraf: Svetlana LOLAYEVA, CPRF--PARTY OF IRRECONCILABLE 
OPPORTUNISTS.
5. The Sunday Times (UK): Mark Franchetti, Inside Russia.
6. Boston Globe: David Filipov, US warns against pipeline going 
through Iran, but few listen.
7. Los Angeles Times: Vanora Bennett, Russia's Cuddly Tax Man. 
8. PONARS: Sarah Mendelson, Current Russian Views on US-Russian Security
Relations and Military Reform.
9. RIA Novosti: MUCH HAS BEEN DONE OVER ARMY REFORM -- RUSSIAN DEFENSE 
MINISTER.
10. Reuters: Russian Envoy Says Sees New Attitude in Iraq.] 

*******

#1
>From RIA Novosti
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
February 28, 1998
PRIVATE ENTERPRISE IS NATIONAL INTEREST
President Boris Yeltsin's Radio Address to the Nation
on February 27, 1998

Good morning!
Today, I would like to talk about those who are sure to
become the foundation of the new Russia's stability and
prosperity, about those who are classified as the middle class.
Many Russians are convinced that the fate of the Russian
economy completely depends on the government, on correct tax
and industrial policies, the prudent formation of the budget
and the work of concrete ministers. This was discussed, among
other things, at yesterday's enlarged session of the
government. The government must and will work better, more
efficiently. It goes without saying that a great deal depends
on the government--a great deal but not everything.
It was not when we learned to pronounce the word
"macroeconomics" that our country began changing. This happened
when people became firmly convinced that their happiness and
well-being depend on themselves, first and foremost. At
present, Russians are free to decide whether they wish to
continue living on their small wages or to take the risk of
starting a business of their own. Those who are running a car
repairs shop, a photographer's studio or a private kindergarten
come up against serious difficulties. They have to register
their businesses, find raw materials, search for orders and vie
with bigger rivals for clients. Having started from scratch,
many of them have already reached their goal. They have found
their place in this complex but, you will agree, interesting
life.
The number of small businesses is approaching the
1-million mark already. A tenth of the country' population are
engaged in this sector. They produce about 12% of our gross
domestic product.
It is not much, of course. In industrialised countries
from 60% to as much as 80% of the population work in this
sector. These people are the most reliable foundation of
stability in a country and the best guarantee against any
revolutionary shocks.
Support for small businesses is particularly necessary in
our Russian conditions. Small businesses create new jobs and
help people acquire new trades, teaching them to adapt to new
conditions on the go, so to speak, and solve their own material
problems.
In our difficult budget situation small businesses cannot
count on solid material support from the government.
Nonetheless, the government can and should protect businessmen
against the arbitrariness of bureaucrats, simplify and reduce
taxes and help them with credits.
Irina Khakamada, who has been recently appointed head of
the State Committee of the Russian Federation for Small
Business Support and Development, only seems to be helpless
because of her delicate constiutution. Her energy and flair for
business are well known. I think she will cope with her
assignment.
Dear Russians,
A numerous middle class no longer appears to be just a
dream. The situation is changing in front of our very eyes.
Just judge for yourselves: the number of private car owners
increased by a million every year; more than 16 million
Russians made business trips or spent their holidays abroad
last year. Many Russians already live in flats and houses of
their own.
We pin our hopes mostly on such hard-working, educated and
independent people. The country's recovery depends on them. It
is the task of the government to create conditions under which
their number will grow and small businesses will not only
survive but develop and flourish. Then we will have a
cross-section of well-to-do people who are sure of themselves.
Such is the main aim of our reforms.
Thank you.

********

#2
From: fweir.ncade@rex.iasnet.ru
Date: Mon, 02 Mar 1998
For the Hindustan Times
From: Fred Weir in Moscow

MOSCOW (HT) -- The Russian press is already joking that it
will be "the Tomb of the Unknown Emperor". 
Despite ongoing controversy, President Boris Yeltsin
this week approved a plan to give the disputed remains of the
last Czar, Nicholas Romanov, and his family a lavish state
funeral on the 80th anniversary of their execution by the
Bolsheviks.
But the powerful Russian Orthodox Church has backed off its
earlier pledge to canonize Nicholas, citing doubts over the
authenticity of the royal remains. It wants the bones placed in a
temporary grave until their identity is proven.
"If not we will be worshipping false remains, which is
unacceptable," said Metropolitan Yuvenaly, a top Church official.
"The Church doesn't have the right to make mistakes."
President Yeltsin also distanced himself from the decision,
leaving it up to a government commission to verify the bones and
decide when and where the royal family would be laid to rest.
The commission decreed last week that the remains -- and
the vexing historical problem they represent -- will be buried in
the Romanov family crypt in St. Petersburg's Peter and Paul
Cathedral on July 17, eighty years to the day after they were
shot.
"The figure of Nicholas II is very controversial, so
everyone wants to avoid direct responsibility," says Viktor
Levashov, of the Institute of Social and Political Studies.
"The Communists are still a powerful force in Russia, and
they're against honouring a man they see as a bloody tyrant who
ruined the country," he says. "Many other people are skeptical
about the authenticity of the bones, or the wisdom of giving them
a big official funeral."
After the USSR's demise, the Romanov bones were exhumed near
the western Siberian city of Yekaterinburg, where they died, and
subjected to years of elaborate testing. Most experts are now
certain the remains are those of Nicholas, his wife Alexandra and
three of their five children.
The Kremlin and the Orthodox Church have shown intense
interest in the issue, in part because burying the last Czar
offers a ceremonial occasion to lay claim to his mantle and
emphasize the current elite's continuity with Russia's pre-
revolutionary heritage.
But most Russians seem less concerned.
"With all the problems people have today, what to do with a
pile of old bones from a previous era is not high on their list
of worries," says Mr. Levashov.

********

#3
Yeltsin Names Cabinet Replacements 
By Anna Dolgov
Associated Press Writer
March 2, 1998

MOSCOW (AP) -- President Boris Yeltsin, completing a shakeup meant to mete
out punishment for Russia's woes, dismissed his minister of atomic energy
today and named three veteran administrators to replace Cabinet officials
he fired over the weekend. 
Yeltsin also moved ahead in his campaign to reduce government spending,
ordering the dismissal of bodyguards for a dozen top government officials,
the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing presidential spokesman Sergei
Yastrzhembsky. 
Yeltsin had warned immediately before the shakeup that he intended to
identify those responsible for the country's woeful economic state and fire
them. However, he denied today that the replacements were anything but
ordinary personnel rotations. 
``What reorganization? Ministers come and ministers go,'' ITAR-Tass
quoted him as saying. 
No replacement was named for Atomic Energy Minister Viktor Mikhailov,
who was relieved of his duties ``due to a transfer to scientific work,''
according to the presidential press office. 
Mikhailov, formerly the Soviet Union's top nuclear weapons designer, has
long said he would like to return to research. 
Last month, Mikhailov announced his ministry would close three of eight
plants involved in nuclear weapons production due to severe funding
shortages. He has been an enthusiastic backer of Russian nuclear
cooperation with foreign countries, including construction of a nuclear
power plant in Iran that the United States opposes. 
Yeltsin appointed security chief Ivan Rybkin as deputy prime minister in
charge of relations with other former Soviet republics. Rybkin will replace
Valery Serov, who was dismissed Saturday. 
Rybkin has been the chief Russian negotiator with Chechnya, consistently
voicing the need for a gradual approach to normalizing relations between
Russia and the separatist republic. 
Rybkin told reporters that he would continue to oversee negotiations
with Chechnya for some time. 
Yeltsin also promoted first deputy ministers of transport and education
to the posts of minister, replacing their bosses. 
Yeltsin frequently shuffles his Cabinet, and is known for placing blame
on others for failures that might otherwise be considered his own. 
``Somebody has to answer for the current state of affairs,'' he said
last week. 

*******

#4
>From RIA Novosti
Russky Telegraf
February 25, 1998
CPRF--PARTY OF IRRECONCILABLE OPPORTUNISTS
By Svetlana LOLAYEVA

Communists today suffer from a seasonal exacerbation of
"infantile disorder" diagnosed way back by Lenin. With the
coming of spring, peaceful Big Four and round-table gatherings
have given way to protest rallies. However, it is unlikely that
the leaders of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
(CPRF) have abandoned the policy of conciliation and resumed
revolutionary trends. The practices of the past four years show
that the fluctuations from radicalism to a constructive
approach are seasonal. A pendulum in its left swing will
inevitably return to the right.
This inevitability is predetermined, above all, by the
character of the CPRF. It has never been a party of a "Leninist
type," that is, a revolutionary vanguard of the working people.
Even when rallies of protest against the anti-popular regime
were attended by tens of thousands of people, Zyuganov's
communists did not burst to engage in a combat. On the
contrary, the Communist Party elite has always stayed away from
most dramatic developments.
It is even more unlikely that the communists of 1998, who
have abandoned their ascetic style in favor of expensive
foreign cars, bodyguards, and impressive offices, will launch
resolute actions. Only the eclectic program guidelines have
remained from the past. In them communist dogmas are strangely
intermingled with ideas of a strong state, Orthodox
Christianity, populism, and patriotism which is more like
chauvinism. However, this awfully peculiar jumble of ideologies
has always been designed for outside use. The CPRF leaders, who
came from the third and fourth echelons of the communist
functionaries of the Brezhnev era, have always preached one
principle, that of the Soviet-style bureaucratic
"nomenklatura."
Hence the main goal--to regain the lost nomenklatura
positions, and to come back to power, preferably in the safest
way. When the come-back to power, though only legislative,
occurred, the chief task was to retain it. But, according to
the rules of the game fixed in the Constitution of 1993, to
retain power one is to act with utmost caution. Therefore the
communists can use no other tactics than opportunist ones.
It used to be simpler in the first State Duma, where the
communists numbered less than 50 and could, without being
responsible for anything, use the parliament rostrum for
attacking the authorities, and use the technical and other
opportunities of the Duma for strengthening their party. But in
the 1995 elections the communists won a convincing majority and
became hostages of the executive power branch, which may use
their act of disloyalty as a pretext for dissolving the Duma.
This is what made the communist deputies approve
Chernomyrdin in the post of Prime Minister, vote for the
federal budget every year, and support many market-economy
laws, which not only contradict the program guidelines of the
Communist Party but help to pursue a liberal economic course
and strengthen the very regime, against which they urge the
popular masses to struggle.
The process of regaining positions by the communist
nomenklatura, which started in 1992 with the support of the
popular masses, ended in 1996, when communists, having lost the
presidential elections, still won gubernatorial elections in a
number of Russian provinces. But neither Tuleyev nor
Chernogorov, nor Lyubimov nor any other communist-supported
regional boss has become a really "Red governor." They play
according to their customary nomenklatura rules and are far
more interested in good relations with the Kremlin and the
Government than in pursuing Communist Party guidelines.
However, though the CPRF can well be called a "velvet"
opposition, one can hardly expect it ever to become transformed
into a social-democratic party of a Western type. Besides,
there are simply no social conditions in this country for the
emergence of such a party, and the CPRF leaders are absolutely
incapable of painstaking work to defend the economic interests
of the working people (for instance, to build strong labor
unions.) So, workers struggle against wage delays, bad working
conditions, and so on, independently and without any
participation of the CPRF.
How long will the new type of the party, which profanes
all the slogans it declares, will be able to keep afloat? As
long as a considerable part of the country's population can
neither adapt itself to the new conditions nor radically revise
its nostalgic attachments, the CPRF may expect to have seats in
the parliament.
On the other hand, the ordinary voters may soon get bored
by the tactics of peacefully merging with the regime, so
convenient for the party elite, and they may join radical
communists. To avoid this, the CPRF, like double-faced Janus,
from time to time turns its face of the irreconcilable
opposition towards the executive power branch.

********

#5
The Sunday Times (UK)
1 March 1998
[for personal use only]
Inside Russia
Mark Franchetti

Bad reception for Viktor, the television premier 

In an attempt to banish his reputation as Russia's least telegenic 
senior politician, Viktor Chernomyrdin, the prime minister, is to launch 
his own weekly television show. The prospect fills Muscovites with 
dread. 
The premier, popularly known as Chernomord (blackface), has never 
mastered the art of oratory. 
Invited recently to reflect on his achievements after five years in 
power, his response was typically opaque. 
"If one considers what could have been done, and then what we did do 
over this long time, one can conclude that something was done," he said 
with evident satisfaction. 
In the television show, which begins this week, he will take questions 
from members of the public, a strategy apparently intended to enhance 
his standing as President Boris Yeltsin's most likely successor. 
Viewers, however, are unlikely to warm to Chernomyrdin, who once shot 
and killed a bear cub on camera. "This show is hardly a great idea for 
him," said one political commentator. "We will just get flooded with 
angry callers asking why the country is faring so badly." 
The remarkable banality of the prime minister's speeches in the duma, 
the lower house of parliament, is attributed by some to a reluctance to 
swear in public, as colleagues do to devastating effect. 
Self-effacement also hampers his presentation. "We have been unable to 
keep pace with the times, unpardonably slow in making decisions and 
lacking in responsibility," he said last week in a meeting with Yeltsin 
that was broadcast live. However, Chernomyrdin has striven in recent 
months to transform his stodgy image. He has started using a 
teleprompter to curtail convoluted monologues, and footage showing his 
human side is broadcast regularly on Russian television: Chernomyrdin is 
seen singing at family reunions and even playing the accordion. 
This public relations offensive confirms his presidential aspirations. 
His chances of ascending to the highest office improved after a 
protracted struggle with Anatoli Chubais and Boris Nemtsov, the 
reformist young deputy prime ministers. Yeltsin stripped them of control 
over finance, foreign affairs, fuel and arms exports, and gave their 
powers to Chernomyrdin. 
"He is feeling more confident than ever. After years of infighting, he 
has become Yeltsin's gatekeeper," said Nikolai Petrov, a political 
commentator at a Moscow think tank. 
The premier's political future promises to be a good deal brighter than 
his television programme. 

•Russians with grudges are turning to Unkind Services, a new company in 
Moscow that offers them the chance to take their revenge on anybody who 
offends them. The choice of services includes arranging for a black cat, 
a woman with an empty bucket or a priest to cross the culprit's path: 
all are seen in Russia as omens of impending doom. Disgruntled workers 
at one factory paid for a large tree outside the home of an unpopular 
boss to be covered with hundreds of anonymous insults. 
The staff of Unkind Services are heavily insured against aggression. The 
families of any shot dead while meeting an order will receive a £25,000 
"compensation bonus". 

Fun on the run 

As if there were not enough crime on the streets of Moscow already, 
Russian television has organised a Saturday-night game show in which 
contestants are challenged to escape from police in a "stolen" car. 
Participants race around town tailed by police, and win the car if they 
evade arrest for 35 minutes. 
On one show, a driver crashed into a lamppost. Another was caught after 
driving onto a river boat. 
"It's basically for men who want to get their juices flowing,"said David 
Gamburg, the producer. "Even if you are the most bourgeois guy in the 
world, you have the desire, if not to be a criminal, at least to get 
into an extreme situation." 

Wired for sound on the metro 

Following several incidents in which drunk drivers have fallen asleep on 
the Moscow metro, a special alarm has been designed to keep them awake 
and prevent their trains from speeding through stations they are 
supposed to stop at. 
The device, resembling a hearing aid, emits a piercing screech whenever 
the driver's head reaches an angle that suggests he or she has nodded 
off. 
Drunkenness on the metro is almost as dangerous among passengers. One 
man who missed his train chased it through a tunnel in a vain attempt to 
catch up. He emerged blackened and exhausted at the next station, to the 
bewilderment of other commuters. 

How they stopped the war 

A Russian daily newspaper claimed last week to have helped avert 
American-led airstrikes against Iraq. Komsomolskaya Pravda collected 
more than 6,000 readers' letters and sent them to President Bill Clinton 
with the message: "You can sleep with whoever you like, but don't bomb 
Iraq." 
The letters were delivered to the American embassy in Moscow, where a 
spokesman said Clinton was grateful for the "moral support". The paper 
responded by drawing one letter at random, sending its author, a 
70-year-old woman, to Washington. She said she hoped to give her message 
to the president. 

*******

#6
Boston Globe
1 March 1998
[for personal use only]
US warns against pipeline going through Iran, but few listen 
Race to export Turkmenistan's oil looks to logical route
By David Filipov

ASHKHABAD, Turkmenistan - As the world follows the high drama involving 
Iraq, Washington's economic blockade against its other archrival in the 
Persian Gulf - Iran - is slowly coming apart with barely a murmur. 
Regional powers and multinational energy corporations are racing to 
build pipelines from Central Asia and the Caspian Sea region, home of 
the world's second-largest fossil fuel deposits after the Persian Gulf. 
Iran looms as one of the favored routes to get the oil and natural gas 
out to international markets, despite Washington's warning of sanctions 
against companies that invest in the Islamic state. 
The development represents an unexpected snag in US policy in the 
Caspian and Central Asian regions, which has encouraged the newly 
independent states to reduce their dependence on Moscow by building 
pipelines to replace the existing ones, all of which go through Russia. 
It is a high-stakes game that has cast a shadow on US-Russian 
cooperation, and it may lead to dark political intrigues in the region. 
Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, for one, said last week that a 
Feb. 9 assassination attempt against him was planned by opponents of a 
pipeline that would carry Caspian oil through Georgia and Turkey and 
bypass Russia. 
No one has welcomed the US policy promoting independence from Russia 
more than Turkmenistan, an impoverished desert nation that sits on the 
world's fourth-largest reserves of gas but has had no way to sell it to 
world markets. 
In December, Turkmenistan became the first former Soviet republic to 
build a tiny pipeline out that does not go through Russia. Unfortunately 
for Washington, the route leads over Turkmenistan's southern border into 
Iran. Now, Royal Dutch Shell is conducting a feasability study for a 
larger pipeline that would carry Turkmenistan's gas through Iran and 
Turkey to Europe. 
Shell officials say they are wary of the US Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, 
designed to punish any company that invests more than $20 million in 
Iran. But they also express hope that Washington will soon abandon its 
efforts to exclude Iran from the Central Asian bonanza. 
So do the Turkmens, who spent seven decades as a southern Soviet outpost 
with their 600-mile-long border with Iran shut tight. They are not about 
to let someone else tell them to close it again. 
''I understand that the US has its interests as a superpower, but we 
have our interests, and we have to feed our people,'' Yolbaz Kepbanov, 
Turkmenistan's deputy foreign minister for economic affairs, said in the 
capital, Ashkabhad. 
People here like to talk about historic trade ties to Iran, which date 
to the time of the Great Silk Road that passed through today's 
Turkmenistan on its way from Persia to China. But Turkmenistan's recent 
history offers a better explanation for its independent stand on Iran. 
As a Soviet republic, Turkmenistan supplied Russia with natural gas, but 
got little in return. Independence in 1991 did not help. All of the 
republic's pipelines lead to Russia, whose powerful gas monopoly, 
Gazprom, took huge transport fees and was unwilling to let the Turkmens 
profit by selling their gas to Europe. Instead, Turkmen gas was sent to 
other former Soviet republics like Ukraine and Georgia, which have 
little money and have paid in barter with domestic goods that are often 
late and of poor quality. 
In response, Turkmenistan's President Saparmurad Niyazov, a former 
Communist Party leader who has installed a repressive regime and a 
bizarre personality cult to keep control of his 4 million citizens, has 
pursued a foreign policy that invites all bidders to make their best 
offer for a share in his country's riches. 
Keeping Turkmenistan's options open has been the centerpiece of this 
policy. Last March, Niyazov ordered shut the gas pipelines to Russia. In 
December, along with Iran's President Mohammad Khatami, he opened the 
new gas pipeline between the two countries. 
The deal is not scheduled to bring Turkmenistan profits any time soon, 
and Moscow and Ashkhabad have continued their negotiations on reopening 
the Turkmen-Russian pipeline. Unconfirmed reports surfaced last week 
that the two sides were nearing a deal. But Niyazov's message was clear. 
''Maybe somebody thinks Turkmenistan has to crawl and ask for 
something,'' Niyazov told reporters last month. ''We can easily live two 
or three years without exporting any gas.''
Perhaps in the spirit of supporting such independence, when the 
Iran-Turkmenistan pipeline was announced last July, Washington seemed 
tacitly to accept the deal. But the number and scale of the projects 
involving Iran have increased. Along with the Shell project, the British 
company Monument Oil is heading a consortium to build an oil pipeline 
south from Turkmenistan to Iran, and Gazprom is planning to develop, 
along with French and Malaysian companies, a gas field in southern Iran. 
As a result, Washington has restated its hard line. ''US policy is to 
oppose all pipelines across Iran,'' said a Western diplomat in 
Ashkhabad. ''The Turkmens know the light is red, believe me.'' But while 
Turkmen officials are aware of the US position, they say they are not 
bothered by it. 
''Let the Americans say, `Don't be friends with Iran,' but we can't do 
th at, because we are a neutral country,'' said Kepbanov, the Foreign 
Ministry official. ''In our eyes, everyone is equal but Iran comes 
first. ... We have to cooperate with them.''
A European official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was more 
blunt. ''The US position of excluding Iran is patently untenable,'' he 
said. 
Last week, the 15-member European Union upgraded relations with Tehran. 
EU ministers said they would continue to press Iran over alleged support 
for terrorism. But the move opens the way for European companies to 
pursue deals with Iran. 
Undeterred, the Clinton administration has been trying to persuade 
Turkmenistan to build a pipeline across the Caspian, where it would link 
up with a planned route that will take oil out of Azerbaijan's rich 
offshore fields through Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean. 
But the route has some glaring drawbacks. For starters, it would be 
longer and more expensive to build than going through Iran. Washington 
may enjoy friendly relations with all of these countries, but 
Turkmenistan barely talks to Azerbaijan. 
''This plan is further off in the future than the route through Iran and 
Turkey,'' the Turkmenistan Foreign Ministry's Kepbanov said. 
Unable to participate in deals involving Iran, US companies in 
Turkmenistan have been forced to be creative. The prize in this 
department goes to Unocal, the leader of a consortium to build a gas 
pipeline from Turkmenistan to the Indian subcontinent through 
Afghanistan, which has been plagued by nonstop civil war for two 
decades. 
Scott Barber, director of Unocal's Ashkhabad office, says his company 
had been training Afghan workers to build pipelines and is maintaining 
friendly ties with both the fundamentalist Taliban militia that controls 
most of Afghanistan and the opposition in the north. 
The company is hoping that the two sides some day will form a coalition 
government. But even if they do, a pipeline would not be ready until 
four years after that. Barber acknowledges that President Niyazov 
probably will not wait that long. 
''The American State Department doesn't like the idea of him shipping 
gas down to Iran,'' Barber said. ''But the bottom line is that he has to 
sell his gas.''

********

#7
Los Angeles Times
February 28, 1998 
[for personal use only]
Russia's Cuddly Tax Man 
Kindly cartoon figure on leaflets gently urges millions of workers to 
report earnings. 
By VANORA BENNETT

MOSCOW--Softly, softly, Russia's newly lovable tax man is coming. Cuddly, 
with kind eyes, he looks at first-time taxpayers from the cover of a 
booklet on how to fill out the form correctly, saying cheerfully, "Don't 
be afraid!" 
     Up to 5 million of the leaflets, filled with cartoons and 
reassuring explanations, are being distributed to mailboxes in mostly 
urban areas of Russia. The idea is to gently encourage millions of 
self-employed or freelance Russians to be public-spirited enough to 
submit an income declaration, before April, on their 1997 earnings. 
     Inadequate tax collection--mostly from big enterprises, whose 
bosses are chummy with leading government officials--has bedeviled the 
government's attempts to reduce its budget deficit. It has also 
irritated Western organizations--such as the International Monetary 
Fund--that are helping Russia modernize its economy; the groups suspect 
that government leaders are letting cronies escape their tax bills. 
     Now Moscow is on a campaign--spending $500,000 for a media blitz 
that includes the tax leaflets--to boost its tax revenue. Finance 
Minister Mikhail M. Zadornov said this month that revenue for January 
was up 30% from the same time a year ago and that the Russian Tax 
Inspectorate nearly reached its monthly target of 10 billion rubles 
($1.7 billion). 
     "This isn't only a tax-collection exercise. The leaflet's also an 
ad to explain why people need to pay tax today. For people filling out 
their forms for the first time, the leaflet is an educational tool," 
said Nikolai Nikolayev, spokesman at the tax inspectorate. 
     This year's comic-strip tax man is far removed from the scary image 
that many Russians still have of revenue agents. That grim picture was 
etched into the minds of many who watched the televised 1994 arrest of 
Sergei Mavrodi, the creator of a pyramid scheme that deprived millions 
of Russians of their life savings. Mavrodi was hauled off for 
questioning by hulking agents in commando gear and black ski masks; they 
nabbed him after rappelling down his building and swinging through the 
window. 
     The new tone is one of sweet reason. "Until 1992, no one ever 
explained to us how much tax we paid or what it was for. What has 
changed? Why has it become so important?" the leaflet asks rhetorically. 
     A cartoon of a giant pair of hands shaking dozens of tiny citizens 
in a sieve, their money dropping out of their pockets into an enormous 
hat, illustrates the old Soviet tax-collecting principle. The cartoon of 
today's citizen--"who is the master of his property, his labor and his 
income"--shows a much larger person. He's a little sad, but he's pouring 
money from his own sack into different receptacles for "what everyone 
needs: health care, education, public sanitation, police and the 
environment." 
     "No one anywhere loves the tax man, but they have to learn to 
accept his presence. We're not asking for love, only for cooperation," 
Nikolayev said. 
     But whether the carrot approach will work on Russians, who are more 
accustomed to being coerced into obeying the law, remains to be seen. 
Many people have simply ignored the leaflet and all the ads. 
     "Oh, yes, those leaflets," environmentalist Natalya Kazanskaya, 50, 
said absent-mindedly. "I think I got one in my mailbox, but I didn't 
really read it. I just threw it away." 
     Even if this year's tax collection exercise is a success, the 
agency will have to go through another convulsion next year. A new, 
streamlined tax code, delayed for months before going to parliament, is 
expected to be passed by summer--meaning this year's forms will have to 
be changed. 

*******

#8
Program on New Approaches to Russian Security (PONARS)
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ponars/index.html

Policy Memo Series 
Memo No. 25 
PONARS, 1998 

Current Russian Views on US-Russian Security Relations and Military Reform
By Sarah Mendelson
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and
The State University of New York, Albany

January 1998
  
I recently returned from a research trip to Moscow and wanted to pass on 
some impressions. While there, I conducted interviews on two different 
issues: military reform and political party development. My focus in 
this report is on military reform. My comments draw on interviews with, 
among others, General Valery Manilov, First Deputy Chief of the General 
Staff; retired General Lev Rokhlin, chairman of the State Duma Defense 
Committee; General Alexander Vladimirov, military consultant to the 
Defense Council; and Peter Romashkin, staffer for the State Duma Defense 
Committee. 
  
General Comments 
There is much talk in Moscow these days about how US-Russian security 
relations have not lived up to the expectations for cooperation that 
many had five years ago. Instead, current US-Russian security relations 
compare negatively with the formal and informal ties that run through 
many other aspects of US-Russian relations. In part, this is because 
some US and Russian security interests appear simply to conflict, for 
example, in places like the Caspian Sea or Iraq. But it is also due to 
the fact that the post-Soviet experience of the Russian armed forces has 
been characterized by extensive corruption, a brutal war in Chechnya and 
dramatically declining defense budgets. In other words, the armed forces 
have not benefitted substantially from democratization or economic 
reform. To date, the Russian military has experienced little of the 
great transformation that has gone on within Russia and in Russia's 
relations with the world. As is, this unreformed military poses a threat 
to the democratization process within Russia, a process which is central 
to continued preventive defense. 
  
After five years of numerous delays and false starts, the Ministry of 
Defense (MoD) leadership appears to be poised for a serious attempt in 
1998 at military reform. While this window of opportunity exists, US 
efforts at engagement on reform should be prioritized and pursued with a 
renewed strategic plan. A reformed Russian military and greater 
cooperation in US-Russian military relations would enhance the 
US-Russian security relationship overall and bring it more in line with 
other aspects of bilateral relations which have moved beyond Cold War 
boundaries. 
  
Highlights of Military Reform 
•According to Moscow's civilian and military experts, US governmental 
and non-governmental groups have an important role to play in affecting 
how Russia pursues military reform. •Various institutions that have a 
stake in military reform are struggling over the right to set the agenda 
on whether and how reform takes place. The State Duma, while weak in 
many organizational and political respects, has say over the budget and 
will attempt to exert greater influence over the military reform 
process. •Little consensus exists on how dire the need for military 
reform is: at one extreme, Sergei Yushenkov, former chairman of the 
State Duma Defense Committee and member of the reformist Russia's Choice 
party said that he and many of his colleagues believe that the accounts 
of hunger and murder in the army are exaggerated. This view contrasts 
with Russian NGOs and other Duma deputies who argue that the human 
rights violations of soldiers are so widespread that conscripts prefer 
jail to military service. •Most political analysts say that it is too 
early to dismiss out of hand the political movement headed by Duma 
Defense Committee chairman Lev Rokhlin "in defense of the military" and 
that there may well be support for the movement by officers despite 
reports to the contrary in the Russian and Western press. 
The Potential of US-Russian Military Contacts 
Widespread support exists in Russia for programs of engagement with the 
West on aspects of military reform. Military and civilian experts within 
the MoD, the Defense Council and the Duma all argued that the US (and 
European states) have an important role to play in helping the reform 
process along. Not unlike the logic of the Gorbachev era, a significant 
way in which the US affects change in Russia is by helping to maintain 
good relations with Russia; in an atmosphere of calm in the 
international arena, calls for downsizing in the armed forces make 
strategic sense. 
  
On a programmatic level, policymakers and experts claimed that there 
were specific lessons to be learned from the US military experience 
after Vietnam concerning downsizing, positive changes in 
military-societal relations and curriculum changes within the service 
academies. This last issue is particularly important since the academies 
are populated by teaching staffs that have not incorporated lessons from 
the wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Regardless of whatever resistance 
one might encounter in pursuing academy-academy links, efforts to place 
Americans (perhaps done jointly with Europeans) in military academies, 
or to discuss changes in the US curriculum after Vietnam, should be a 
priority of governmental and non-governmental programs. 
  
General Valery Manilov of the General Staff talked about the importance 
of pursuing both US governmental and non-governmental programs on 
lessons from Vietnam, including the idea of having seminars on a series 
of issues in Washington and at the Carnegie Moscow Center. He praised 
Ambassador Blackwill's Executive Program for Russian and US General 
Officers at Harvard extensively and said there was a need for additional 
programs as the MoD pursues reform in 1998 and 1999. 
  
In response to my comment (drawing on my experience with US civilian 
democracy assistance programs in Russia) that additional contacts on 
joint programs were needed beyond the "drop in" visits that US officials 
make, General Manilov said that they would welcome an American civilian 
with Russian expertise based in Moscow to liaison with them and direct 
programs: a closer working relationship would generate more useful 
cooperative programs. 
  
Peter Romashkin, an expert on military reform and staffer for the Duma 
Defense Committee, requested literature on civilian control of the 
military and congressional relations with the Pentagon. He spoke of the 
lack of defense budget transparency that continues to be a main block 
for the Duma on military reform and contributes to poor Duma-MoD 
relations. 
  
Comments by Romashkin and others in the Duma underscored the importance 
of US governmental and non-governmental efforts to work with the 
civilian institutions that have a stake in military reform (e.g., the 
Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Education) in addition to the Duma. The 
need to work with these institutions will become more acute as reform is 
implemented and as the next electoral cycle approaches. From over a 
dozen interviews on the subject, it seems that Russians continue to want 
information about the role of the military in a democratic state, as 
well as advice on how to incorporate retired members of the military 
(which may number as many as 500,000) in a market-driven economy. 
  
On the possibilities of joint NATO-Russian operations based on the 
Bosnian model, Russian military and political perceptions clearly 
diverge from those of US and NATO defense officials. Differences arise 
around not just symbolic issues, such as the role of Serbia in Russian 
national thinking, but concrete operational issues. Many Russians I 
talked with felt that Bosnia had not been a good test of the possibility 
for cooperation since there had been few casualties and no real 
"military tests." Some in the Russian military also disagreed with the 
way in which certain areas in Bosnia were demilitarized. American 
policymakers need to address these differences of perception head-on or 
the Russians are unlikely to view these efforts as areas for real 
cooperation. 
  
Russian Military Reform 
The past several months have seen a wide range of discussion in Russia 
on the course of military reform from Alexander Bessmertnykh's internet 
group (www.russ.ru/gb), to a series of articles in the scholarly journal 
published by the Institute on World Economics and International 
Relations (IMEMO), to the Carnegie Endowment's Russian journal Yadernoe 
rasprostranenie (Nuclear Proliferation), to numerous reports released by 
Alexei Arbatov's group of experts. As yet, no civilian group seems to be 
a significant player in military reform, with perhaps the exception of 
Arbatov's group due to his position on the Duma's Defense Committee. 
Several deputies and staffers claimed that the Duma was poised to 
attempt a more active role regarding the issue of reform, but it is 
unclear how this will play out. 
  
The obstacles to reform of the armed forces are enormous. The two most 
commonly cited ones are lack of money and lack of political will. Within 
the Yeltsin administration itself, there continues to be very little 
interest in matters related to national security, particularly as the 
"reformers" move into the next phase of privatization of nation-wide 
resources. Indeed, many economic reformers think that the reports on 
conditions within the military are exaggerated. I have heard that some 
top reformers believe that "smashing the military" is a positive thing 
for economic reform. On the other hand, those outside the administration 
who are pushing for reform fear that Defense Minister Sergeev does not 
have an accurate sense of conscripts' conditions within the different 
branches and that his Strategic Rocket Forces background is so anomalous 
to the Russian military experience that he is not widely respected at 
the troop level. 
  
Members of the nation-wide Russian non-governmental organization 
"Mothers of Soldiers" (which is a network of regional groups, some 
working in cooperation with regional branches of the military) showed me 
photographs of starving soldiers from the elite Dzerzhinsky division and 
letters from parents whose sons had died in non-combatant circumstances. 
They fear that if reform does not happen soon in a way that positively 
affects the quality of life for officers and soldiers, the possibilities 
for politicization within the armed forces only increase. 
  
One potential vehicle for an increase in politicization is General Lev 
Rokhlin's movement "in defense of the armed forces" organized in July 
1997 and which continues to grow. The founding statement calls for the 
improvement of life for those in the military and for the removal of 
Boris Yeltsin as President due to his neglect of the military. Most 
Russian political analysts I spoke with say that it is too early to 
dismiss this organization as politically insignificant, although clearly 
Rokhlin's calls for impeachment are more theatrical than threatening. 
The dedicated campaign within the Russian media to discredit Rokhlin 
makes it difficult to get accurate information on the movement. That 
said, even without this campaign, most analysts agree that Rokhlin does 
not have the national organization or personality to become a major 
political figure. 
  
Rokhlin does, however, have a clear message that cuts across the 
interests of many groups, causing many to align against him and many 
others--including it seems, some in the military--to align with him. His 
issue is hot, and he has gathered serious people around him. (Former 
Defense Minister Igor Rodionov makes his office in the Rokhlin 
movement's headquarters.) Rokhlin is not a presidential figure, but he 
conceivably could affect the political environment in Russia by either 
putting an active movement together or spurring someone else on to do 
just that. 
  
The Rokhlin movement is bound to have an effect on Alexander Lebed, who 
continues to be a political figure in Russia although he does not 
receive a lot of press. Most analysts think that he will lead a faction 
in the next Duma. He and Rokhlin continue to speak in the clunky 
political style of former Soviet military officers who have existed for 
much of their lives outside civilian society. The burden on them is now 
to build national networks, such as the Communists have, or at least one 
with the infrastructure of Zhirinovsky's LDPR with headquarters in every 
region of Russia. Nevertheless, how military reform is played out in 
Russia will affect the Duma electoral cycle in 1999, particularly with 
the expected downsizing in 1998 and 1999 of 500,000 personnel. 
  
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#9
MUCH HAS BEEN DONE OVER ARMY REFORM -- RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTER 

MOSCOW, MARCH 2 /RIA NOVOSTI'S CORRESPONDENT ALEXEI
MESHKOV/ -- In the field of reform of the Russian armed forces
"much has been done", Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev
told journalists today. He uttered this following his appearance
with a 1.5-hour lecture before students of the Military Academy
of the General Staff on work already done over the reform of the
armed forces. 
To him, "without losing combat efficiency" a whole set of
steps towards optimisation of different structures has been
carried out and simultaneously a certain saving of financial
resources has been effected. This fact weighs more than all sort
of deliberations over the matter, Sergeyev said. 
As regards possible increase in the monetary allowances for
servicemen, Sergeyev said that now there are several versions of
implementing this project. "The optimal version will be
adopted", he is sure. 
As to plans for the current month, Marshal Sergeyev said
that the leadership of the Defense Ministry and the General
Staff will be focused on resolving questions of control of the
planned measures on reforming the fighting services, economy of
the Defense Ministry's resources on the utilities, strengthening
of the military discipline, law and order in the troops. 

********

#10
Russian Envoy Says Sees New Attitude in Iraq 
Reuters
1 March 1998

MOSCOW -- Russia's special envoy to Iraq said he detected a new attitude in
the Iraqi leadership suggesting Baghdad would comply with the provisions of
a U.N. deal on arms inspections in order to get international sanctions
lifted. 
Victor Posuvalyuk told Russian public television on Sunday evening that
during his current talks in Baghdad he had noted a substantial change in
the Iraqi position in contrast to that following the Gulf War in 1991. 
"I have the feeling that their present attitude is completely different,
that at present their supreme task -- they are literally possessed by it --
is to achieve the lifting of sanctions," Posuvalyuk said from Baghdad. 
"If we can show that there is light at the end of the tunnel, if we can
show that there are guidelines...on the basis of Iraq's complete,
unconditional and conscientious fulfilling of the Security Council
resolutions, I think that it will be possible to avoid any exacerbation of
the situation." 
Russian officials have said their mediation in the weeks leading up to
the deal clinched by U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan last week was decisive in
averting U.S.-led strikes against Iraq. Russia, France and China had warned
of serious consequences if the attacks had gone ahead. 
Exploiting Russia's traditional influence in Baghdad, Posuvalyuk held
several meetings with senior Iraqi leaders before Annan's visit. 
Under the deal, Iraq agreed to allow inspections at presidential sites.
Disagreements have since emerged over the terms of reference of inspection
teams. 
In his interview, Posuvalyuk said Russia was keen to see a U.N. Security
Council resolution endorsing the agreement. 
"Our point of view is that it is necessary as soon as possible to put
this memorandum into effect and resolve the most acute problem of visiting
the presidential sites," he said. 
"The Iraqis are raising the question that this decision by the Security
Council should be a positive one and should not be an accusatory action
accompanied by routine threats." 
Britain amended a draft Security Council resolution over the weekend
endorsing the agreement and introducing milder language on the consequences
of Iraq failing to comply with its provisions. 

*******