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Johnson's Russia List
 

 

September 12, 1998   

This Date's Issues: 2366 2367 2368


Johnson's Russia List
#2368
12 September 1998
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Masha Gessen: More on anti-semitism.
2. Jerry Hough: Yeltsin.
3. The New Republic: Jacob Heilbrunn, TRB From Wasington: Clean Break.
Why Russia's dissolution might not be such a bad thing after all. 

4. U.S. News and World Report: Christian Caryl, Russia's tough guy.
So Primakov is a patriot; can he fix the economy?

5. abcnews.com: Juliet Butler, While Politicians Skirmish, Citizens Wonder 
How to Cope. Ordinary Russians Hurting.

6. Moscow Times: WHAT THE PAPERS SAY: Fair Weather As Primakov 'Magic Carpet'
Takes Off.

7. Journal of Commerce: Michael Lelyveld, Yeltsin sparks renewed anger over 
his central bank nominee.

8. Sovetskaya Rossiya: Aleksandr Frolov, "Again Plunder and Redistribution." 
(Paper Rules out 'Evolutionary' Scenario)]

*******

#1
From: "Masha Gessen" <mgessen@glasnet.ru>
Subject: more on anti-semitism
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1998 01:22:44 +0400

A few points to add to Paul Blackers':

Luriy's assertions that university-educated Jews were allowed to live in
cities before the revolution and rode a ticket to privilege after the
revolution are equally misleading. The separate tests for Jews and Russians
were administered during both epochs--starting with admission to grade
school. Alexandra Brumshtein's memoir "Doroga ukhodit v dal'," which
Russian girls have read for generations, describes the author's experience
of being administered separate tests and being singled out as a Jew on the
first day of elementary school around the turn of the century. Seventy
years later, I experienced more or less the same thing. From the time I was
a child, I knew I had to be ten times as good as everyone else to have the
same opportunities. There were colleges that were known not to accept Jews
at all (e.g., Moscow First Medical (now the Russian Academy of Medicine),
the philology and physics faculties of Moscow State University etc.), while
most other schools were known to limit Jewish enrollment to two percent of
the entering class--this considering that in the 70s about 1 million out of
Moscow's 8 million population were Jews.

Nor was a university degree the ticket to a life of equal opportunity.
Before the revolution, university-educated Jews, allowed to live in the
cities, were still denied a number of rights, among them the right to marry
Christians and the right to hold office. In the early 20th century my own
family, for example, split: the baptised Iosif Gessen became a member of
the Duma (as he wrote later in his memoir, on the day he was sworn into
office, filling out some sort of new-deputy form, he wrote "Russian
Orthodox" under 'faith,' then added in parenthesis: "nationality--Jewish");
his unbaptised cousin Arnold Gessen, my greatgrandfather, reported on the
Duma for "Birzheviye vedomosti." I guess one could call that a "number-two
position."

After the revolution it briefly got better, and after World War II it got
much, much worse. After the anti-cosmopolitan campaign it never really let
up. It is ironic that following Yale Richmond's message on anti-Semitism
Johnson's list published an interview conducted by Yevgenia Albats. Ask
Albats what her job title was before perestroika, when Jewish bylines were
heavily rationed? If I'm not mistaken, she was called a proofreader. And I
know a number of other such "proofreaders" who wrote other people's
articles, did other people's editing and authored other people's
dissertations. Perhaps sometimes this willingness to do others' dirty work
finally won them recognition in the "number-two post"; mostly, though, they
just put up with the humiliation of it. Those who wanted to avoid that fate
either left the country or went to great lengths to procure passports that
said they were Russian and changed their last names (i.e. Primakov) or used
their mothers' Slavic maiden name (i.e. Kiriyenko) or changed their
patronymics (i.e. Yavlinsky, whose father Yevsei morphed into Alexei).

For the few hundred thousand Jews still living in this country, the absence
of state-enforced anti-Semitism over the last ten years or so has felt like
a gift: we almost don't care about the day-to-day anti-Semitism as long as
we've got a fighting chance. But the day-to-day is still very much there.
And if the state (or city) propaganda machine ever felt like flipping that
switch back on, the support would be there, and the people would easily
shift their focus from the Caucasians to the Jews again. There is a vast
reservoir of hate in this country.

Masha Gessen
Chief correspondent
Itogi

******

#2
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 
From: "Jerry F. Hough" <jhough@acpub.duke.edu>
Subject: Re: 2366-Landsberg/Yeltsin Losing Grip?

I think it wrong and dangerous to say that Yeltsin is gone, 
assuming he survives physically. Like Kiriyenko, Primakov is attractive 
both to him and the Duma because he is not a credible president. He has 
every incentive to keep Yeltsin in power. The Communists are afraid of Lebed
in an election and will not push things. The only consequence of putting
Yeltsin down will be to lead him to do something to show he is 
powerful, and that is likely to be very counterproductive. Moscow 
intellectuals need to learn to show political responsibility in their press.

******

#3
The New Republic
September 28, 1998 
[for personal use only] 
TRB From Wasington: Clean Break
Why Russia's dissolution might not be such a bad thing after all. 
By Jacob Heilbrunn 

Russia is not in crisis. It is in dissolution. Kaliningrad, the Russian
enclave lodged between Lithuania and Poland, has halted payments to the
federal budget. Tambov, 250 miles southeast of Moscow, has restricted bread
sales to five loaves per customer. Murmansk has requested humanitarian aid
from Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Novgorod has created a commodity bank that
exchanges food for such goods as cardboard and fertilizer. And Krasnoyarsk's
new governor, General Alexander Lebed, has announced price controls: "I am
determined to stave off starvation in the region." 
News like this might seem to fulfill predictions of a new, fascist Russia
along the lines of Weimar Germany. Certainly the current arrangement cannot
last. While the Russian nation managed to survive 1989, the state did not.
Boris Yeltsin's inability to create viable and legitimate state institutions
meant that Russia survived as a ward of the West on an artificial
life-support system. Now that its vital signs are slipping, not even Western
aid can keep it going. 
But Russia's collapse could prove a blessing in disguise. For one thing,
the likelihood of a strong fascist state emerging appears remote. As Anatol
Lieven suggests in his new book, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power, it
may be oxymoronic to even speak of a Russian army. Afghanistan was
demoralizing enough, but the Chechen debacle showed that Russia no longer
possessed an army capable of functioning even within its own borders.
Meanwhile, Russia withdrew from a Latvian radar station last week and is
relying on American assistance to detect a ballistic missile attack. And,
unlike Weimar Germany, Russia does not have the advanced industrial base or
intact officer corps necessary for a revitalized, new army. 
So Russia might well come to resemble the Germany of another age--the
eighteenth century, when the country was nothing more than a haphazard
collection of local states lacking any central authority. And such a
devolution of authority could permit autonomous regions to free themselves
from Moscow's ham-handed and exploitative policies in order to pursue ones
more closely shaped to their own requirements. For, rather than ushering in
a new economic era, the privatization of Russia's state industries actually
represented a continuation of the old Soviet tradition of sacrificing the
provinces to Moscow's interests. 
To be sure, Yeltsin's appointment in April of 35-year-old Sergei
Kiriyenko, who made his name as a reformer in Nizhny Novgorod, had seemed to
signal a move in the other direction. While Kiriyenko carefully cultivated
ties with powerful bureaucrats in Moscow, he also worked closely with the
World Bank and the International Finance Corporation in pushing for local
autonomy. He also worked to restructure local agriculture and industry and
to privatize housing. His reforms became the model for the democratic
leaders of Samara, Petersburg, Yaroslavl, Saratov, and Novgorod. 
The attempted reappointment of Chernomyrdin, however, signals further
friction with the increasingly restive regional leaders. Chernomyrdin is the
instrument of the industrial conglomerates. In 1988, he founded the
petroleum company Gazprom and worked for oil tycoon Boris Berezovsky. When
he first went to revisit his old office at the Russian White House, he
paused to allow Berezovsky to enter it first. Chernomyrdin worked
relentlessly to maintain Moscow's control over regional resources: as much
as 84 percent of finance capital is held by Moscow. According to Gordon M.
Hahn in the September/October Problems of Post-Communism, "[W]hile enjoying
large breaks on taxes they never pay, the Moscow-based monopolies levy
exorbitant tariffs for railroads, electricity, and pipelines on regions
outside Moscow, driving up production costs.... This federal-regional
conflict has reached critical mass since the 1996 presidential election...."
So inefficient is the production and distribution system that cities such as
Vladivostok are getting by on a few hours of water and electricity per day.
Food and fuel will be in dangerously short supply this coming winter. 
It's hardly surprising, then, that so many of the 89 regions, including
Chechnya, that comprise the Russian federation are beginning to wonder if
they can't do better on their own. The governor of Yeltsin's old hometown,
Sverdlovsk, has even issued a declaration of a "Urals Republic." 
But, however logical a goal, wouldn't the process of dissolution spell
disaster? Most scenarios for Russia have been doomsday ones involving
rioting in the streets, civil war, and, worst of all, terrorists getting a
hold of nuclear weapons. But perhaps it is the West's support for a unitary
Russia that is leading to exactly that denouement. The best thing might be
for the United States to encourage the peaceful breakup of Russia rather
than a violent upheaval, in which Moscow attempts to quash declarations of
independence. 
After all, back in 1989, as the Soviet empire crumbled, many Western
policymakers feared a bloodbath was inevitable. It never happened. Instead,
republics like Ukraine not only moved peacefully toward independence but
even surrendered their nuclear weapons--so much for the loose nukes problem. 
In short, given the inability of Russians to establish a strong and
democratic central state, perhaps many of the economic problems afflicting
them could be better solved on the local level--where officials can be held
accountable. Anyway, de facto independence already exists. Regional
governors and legislative assemblies have begun to gain mandates through
democratic, direct elections and to ignore the central government's decrees. 
The United States could also benefit from the disintegration of Russia.
For one thing, the United States would have more leverage in dealing with
individual states inside the former Russia since it could play them off one
another. And the United States would have more power over them by virtue of
its sheer size. A world in which there is no major Russian power would
immeasurably help maintain American dominance abroad. Already, the United
States has taken over Russia's former Eastern European empire by expanding
nato. Despite Republican charges, the United States didn't lose Russia. But
maybe we should. 

******

#4
U.S. News and World Report
September 21, 1998
[for personal use only]
Russia's tough guy
So Primakov is a patriot; can he fix the economy?
BY CHRISTIAN CARYL

MOSCOW--After weeks of political fiddling while the Russian economy burned,
President Boris Yeltsin's decision last week to compromise with the
communists in parliament and name Yevgeni Primakov as prime minister was met
with near euphoria in Moscow. Politicians and journalists strived to outdo
each other in praise for the new man. The newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta
described Primakov as a "Russian Churchill," and the leading TV news show
Vremya suggested that Primakov's sign of the zodiac--Scorpio--destined the
former foreign minister and KGB chief for great things.
Primakov's earthly qualities are unusual enough. He is one of the few
political figures in Russia palatable to groups across the spectrum, from
communists (who like his get-tough foreign policy toward the West) to
liberal democrats (such as the Yabloko party of Grigori Yavlinsky, which
considers him a pragmatic technocrat). It was Yavlinsky who first suggested
Primakov after the Duma, or lower house of parliament, twice rejected
Yeltsin's original nominee, Victor Chernomyrdin. The clash between Yeltsin
and the Duma finally had brought Russia's political system into sync with
its economy--both were on the brink of total meltdown. A third negative vote
would likely have led Yeltsin to dissolve the parliament and the parliament
to impeach Yeltsin, forcing the Constitutional Court and possibly the
military to choose sides. According to one poll, 66 percent of Russians
expected force to be used to settle the crisis, just as it had been when
Yeltsin ordered a tank attack on the parliament building in October 1993.
Relief over the compromise was practically universal, and Primakov's
nomination sailed through the Duma by a vote of 317 to 63 on Friday. But
don't expect the United States to join the rejoicing. The West knows Yevgeni
Primakov above all as a former Soviet spy master, a friend of Saddam
Hussein, and a leading critic of alleged American plans for "world
hegemony." During his 2 years as foreign minister, Primakov battled NATO
enlargement, opposed Western sanctions on Serbia, and tried to resurrect
Soviet interests in the Mideast. He lobbied for the lifting of U.N.
sanctions on Iraq and tolerated Russian deliveries of nuclear technology to
Iran. One of his pet projects has been the reunification of Russia with the
former Soviet republic of Belarus. Most recently, he marshaled opposition to
NATO-led military intervention in Kosovo.
Despite Primakov's hard-nosed pursuit of Russian interests, however,
American diplomats say they respect him for his professionalism. Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright called Primakov to congratulate him on his
appointment and came away with the impression that he is approaching his new
job warily. "He doesn't regard this as a great thing," noted one U.S.
official, adding that Primakov sees it "more as a duty than a desire. In
other words, he wasn't ecstatic."
Even in Moscow, the enthusiasm for Primakov is not quite what it seems.
It reflects a certain desperation: No one knows how to get out of Russia's
financial bog, but maybe Primakov can take a few steps through the muck and
at least give the impression of purposeful movement. "The country has fallen
apart before our eyes," says parliament member Dmitri Rogozin. Since August
17, the ruble has lost 70 percent of its value. Panic buying has emptied
shelves in stores across the country. The financial markets and banking
system have virtually shut down. The resignation of Central Bank Chairman
Sergei Dubinin passed almost unnoticed last week as millions of bank
customers tried, mostly in vain, to recover their deposits. Meanwhile,
nothing has been done to address the roots of the collapse: Tax collection
is down 40 percent from last year, unpaid wages have hit $10 billion, and
the government cannot pay its debts. To top it off, the crucial potato
harvest is bad this year, and union leaders are planning a national strike
in October.
Transitional. The high hopes for "Mr. Compromise"--as one Russian
newspaper dubbed Primakov--are probably unrealistic. Foreign-policy expert
Sergei Karaganov, who knows Primakov well, describes him as "a transitional
figure, a regent for a certain period." With no experience as an economic
manager, Primakov is expected to adopt the prescription advocated by the
communists: printing money and spending it freely to stimulate the economy,
even at the risk of hyperinflation.
Foreshadowing this, two key posts in the new government have gone to
Soviet-era apparatchiks. Yuri Maslyukov, former director of the Soviet
central-planning agency Gosplan, is first deputy prime minister. And the new
central bank chief is Victor Gerashchenko, who held that job in the 1980s
and was described by the Economist as "the world's worst central bank
director." Yeltsin also cemented Russia's foreign-policy line by naming
Primakov's deputy, Igor Ivanov, to succeed him as foreign minister.
Born to Jewish parents in the Ukraine in 1929, Primakov grew up in the
Georgian capital of Tbilisi. His ambition was clear as a youth when he
changed his surname from Finkelstein to the more Slavic-sounding Primakov
("primak" is Ukrainian for son-in-law), probably because antisemitism would
have impeded his rise through the Soviet system. After joining the Communist
Party in 1959, he won a coveted post as a foreign correspondent for
Pravda--a cover for work for the KGB.
During the 1960s and '70s he specialized in the Middle East and got to
know such future leaders as Saddam Hussein and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. With
his fluent Arabic, firsthand knowledge of the region, and formidable
organizational skills, he became a foreign-policy adviser to a series of
Soviet leaders. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, he even ascended to the lofty
position of candidate member of the Politburo. But in a feat that few have
managed, Primakov got along swimmingly with Yeltsin as well as Gorbachev,
which allowed him to make an apparently effortless transition from the old
Soviet power elite to that of the new Russia. In 1991, in the waning days of
the U.S.S.R., he was appointed to run the foreign intelligence branch of the
KGB. When the KGB broke up into several parts after the collapse of the
Soviet Union, Primakov continued his work in the newly separate Foreign
Intelligence Service. He remained at its helm until January 1996, when he
was appointed foreign minister by Yeltsin.
Whether Primakov is the right person to govern Russia is one question.
Whether Russia is still governable is another. Moscow's failure to cope with
the deepening economic crisis has aggravated separatist tendencies in the
provinces, raising fears that Russia in 1998 could go the way of the Soviet
Union in 1991. Some regional governors have stopped transferring tax money
to Moscow. Others are restricting "exports" to the rest of Russia. Siberia's
resource-rich Sakha Republic, source of 90 percent of Russia's diamonds, is
setting up its own "gold and foreign exchange reserves." The governor of
Krasnoyarsk Territory, presidential hopeful Alexander Lebed, has imposed
price controls on staple foods and tried to fix utility fees for local
consumers, without much success. "They're trying to bring back the Soviet
economy," said Yuri Chigishev, a 33-year-old engineer in Krasnoyarsk.
The most frightening prospect is that a breakdown of central authority
could leave part of Russia's vast nuclear arsenal in unreliable hands. Last
week, a teenage sailor shot eight crew mates aboard a Russian
nuclear-powered submarine and barricaded himself in the torpedo room until
troops stormed it and killed him; officials reassured the public that the
sub did not have nuclear weapons aboard, but the incident was illustrative
of the military's disintegration. The regular Army is running out of food,
fuel, and money. Most senior officers have not been paid since May.
Yeltsin's personal security rests with the 254,000 well-armed troops of the
Interior Ministry and a few thousand members of special units beholden only
to the president. Yet even many of them have been waiting in vain for their
salaries.
As for Yeltsin, Russians increasingly see him as the core problem from
which all others stem. Says Karaganov: "The current reason for the crisis is
political--and the main reason is the fact that the president is incapable
of ruling." He adds that groups within the political elite have already
started negotiations with Yeltsin's entourage to ease the president gently
out of power.
With Alexei Tarasov in Krasnoyarsk and Kevin Whitelaw in Washington

******

#5
abcnews.com
September 10, 1998
While Politicians Skirmish, Citizens Wonder How to Cope 
Ordinary Russians Hurting 
By Juliet Butler

“People are starting to panic because things are really getting out of hand.
The price of everything is tripling and quadrupling but the wages are frozen.”
—Lyena Svyerdlova, 38 
“This last fortnight the State has managed to choke all small businesses to
death and kill the people's faith in the ruble.”
— Sergei Gusakov, 22 
“I don’t know if we’ll get paid at all this month and I don’t ask.”
—Katya Lazareva, 18

M O S C O W, Sept. 10 — As soon as the famously mercurial Russian President
Boris Yeltsin dumped his prime minister and his entire government, the
spotlight hit the Kremlin and the wrangling in the Russian parliament. 
But the people most affected by the economic crisis that pushed Yeltsin
to shake things up are not in the Kremlin. They are the ordinary Russian
citizens who stand in lines, try to put food on their family’s tables and now
watch their savings evaporate. Here are five of them: 

Katya Lazareva, 18. Ballerina. 
“I trained at the Bolshoi Ballet school, which was very tough, and then
joined a Moscow troupe. I earn 150 rubles a month —it used to be about $25 but
today it’s more like $7. What can I buy with that? Katya Lazareva with her
mother Natasha and her sister Sasha, a student. (Peter Blakely/Saba) 
A monthly metro pass! I darn my tights and tutus. And now our wages are
frozen in the bank so I don’t know if we’ll get paid at all this month and I
don’t ask.”
“This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a crisis—there seems to be an
endless string of them in Russia. They said last night there were tanks
massing outside Moscow but that wouldn’t be for the first time either.”
“My grandma gets a pension of 400 rubles (about $20) and mum earns 220
rubles in the State institution she works in and they haven’t even paid her
that for two months. We economize in every way we can but we don’t go hungry.
Maybe it’s just as well we don’t have a man in the house because they eat too
much!” 

“You know, as soon as times get bad, people close ranks and there’s a sense
of unspoken camaraderie. There’s a good atmosphere at work, and we’re in good
spirits at home. Having supportive friends and family can get you through any
crisis.”
Larissa Meshkova, 33. Housewife. 
“This economic crisis has only affected me morally. My husband is a
banker and gets a reasonable wage—$2,000 a month. Actually, this month they
only paid him half that because of the ruble devaluation, but he feels calm
about the situation. 
The state shops are running out of staples like flour and bread, but you can
still get everything you want from the ‘upmarket’ stores, which are more
expensive and sell imported food.”
“What I do worry about is the future, particularly with regard to my son,
Denis. He’s 10 now, and we wanted to send him abroad to a boarding school but
I’m afraid that with this unstable political situation the borders might close
again and then we’d all be stuck in Russia. No more jaunts abroad!”
“We had savings in the State bank, which are now worth about a fifth of
what they were two weeks ago, so it’s lucky that we renovated our home in
summer and went on a family vacation to Cyprus before all this started! 

"Last month I decided to buy myself another fur coat—a silver fox. At
first my
husband was against it but now I’m so glad I went ahead and bought it because
it would cost three times as much this week.”
Lyena Svyerdlova, 38. Cleaning lady. 
“This crisis has affected everyone I know—everyone! To my mind people are
starting to panic because things are really getting out of hand. The price of
everything is tripling and quadrupling but the wages are frozen. Lyena
Svyerdlova went to the shops-four rolls of toilet paper costs 50 rubles, a
kilogram of sugar is the same, she nearly fainted. 
My husband loads up trucks and he brought home his usual monthly wage of 500
rubles yesterday. Last month that was worth $90, now it’s more like $25. How
are we supposed to live on that?”
“The State rent for our flat has already gone up to 200 rubles. Plus the
electricity, gas and telephone bills have been hiked. So by the time I’d
finished paying the bills, I had 200 rubles (about $10) left to support the
family this month.” 
“Then I went to the shops—four rolls of toilet paper costs 50 rubles, a
kilogram of sugar is the same—I nearly fainted! If I didn’t manage to earn
extra as a cleaning lady we’d be in a really bad state. 

"Luckily my neighbor Lyuda has a rich husband and she brings food round for
the kids every day or else I don’t know what I’d do…I have no idea how we’ll
get through this winter.”
Gennadi Belyakov, 39. Former surgeon. 
“I used to be a surgeon in a city hospital but I just couldn’t feed the
family on my $100 wage so now I sell medical equipment and my wife works as an
accountant. Even so, most of our combined wages goes on food.”
“We’d been scrimping and saving to buy wallpaper and tiles so we could do
up the flat, and we’d just about saved enough, when this devaluation happened
and ruined all our plans. The price of everything here is the same as in the
rest of Europe if not more—what sort of a life is it for a man when a half
pint of beer in a bar costs $6?”
“Lucky for us my parents have an allotment in the country so we get
vegetables, milk and eggs from them. Then at weekends we collect berries and
mushrooms from the woods and my wife pickles enough tomatoes, cucumbers and
mushrooms to last us through the winter.” 

“I hardly see my wife and children any more because I work all the hours God
gives me—and for what? A pittance. There’s talk of civil unrest but I can’t
see it happening because we Russians are unbelievably adaptable. We’ll cope.” 
Sergei Gusakov, 22. Entrepreneur. 
“I started up a little ‘business’ if you can call it that, buying smoked
salmon and other delicacies from a factory and reselling it to shops at a
profit but now people don’t have the money to buy such things so I’m virtually
out of work.”
“And Ira, my partner, worked in a shop but that’s just closed down so she’s
out of work too. Yet we still have to pay the $200 rent on our bedsit
[apartment]. We appealed to our landlady to let us pay in installments until
things settle down again, but who knows when—or if—it will?”
“The shops are putting whatever price they like on goods, the buses
aren’t running today—is it because the price of gasoline has gone up or
because they’re striking? It’s chaos. This last fortnight the State has
managed to choke all small businesses to death and kill the people’s faith in
the ruble.” 

******

#6 
Moscow Times
September 12, 1998 
WHAT THE PAPERS SAY: Fair Weather As Primakov 'Magic Carpet' Takes Off 
Special to The Moscow Times

Russky Telegraf, Sept. 11

There is a great temptation to say that the president has finally made a real
decision, and that this is a sign of Yeltsin's return to the political arena,
something that no one had thought possible after the catastrophic ruptures the
Kremlin has been suffering over the past three weeks. There is also great
temptation to imagine that the political corpse that everyone has considered
the president to be (thanks to his administration chief) has declared: "Lift
my eyelids!" and pointed his shaking finger in a real direction. Now, however,
the country's immediate future will depend on whether this signals his
resurrection or the last glimmers of the aging president's consciousness ... 

It appears Yeltsin is hoping that with Primakov and his partially Communist
government, the country will be able to fly through this fall's almost certain
social upheaval as if on a flying carpet. The Communist Party's leaders are
certainly not going to take to the streets in protest of a prime minister
whose candidacy they backed or against a Cabinet led by a member of their
faction. And if the potential social demonstrations become unmanageable, the
president will be able to count on Primakov as a man whose orders the power
ministers will obey. 

Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Sept. 11 
A Man for All Seasons 

What's so good about Yevgeny Primakov? A lot, but foremost: First, he has
credibility both in the country and abroad, in the West as well as the East.
Second, the West is even a little fearful of Primakov. Third, his
"Sovietness", in the good sense of the word: He can speak on equal terms with
all the CIS presidents, and with some of them even in a paternal manner.
Fourth, the fact that he is a former member of the Politburo of the Soviet
Communist Party Central Committee, but at the same time he is no leftist at
heart, which distinguishes him from Yegor Stroyev in a positive way. Fifth,
the fact that he was one of the two big political figures that Yeltsin,
despite all his hatred for Gorbachev, kept from Gorbachev's staff (the second
was Yevgeny Shaposhnikov), and so Yeltsin will not be afraid to trust his own
fate to him. Sixth, the fact that by dint of his directorship of the Foreign
Intelligence Service he is an insider who enjoys the respect of Russia's
intelligence services, which is very important at the current time. Seventh,
the fact that society fully approves of Primakov's recent work in the Foreign
Ministry (although there are a few financial-industrial groups that do not.)
Eighth and finally, the fact that at this moment and under current
circumstances, those Duma forces typically at odds with each other (the
Communists and Yabloko members) could unite (for differing motives) in support
of Primakov, just as they did in putting down Chernomyrdin. 

In addition, Primakov is smart enough not to get involved in things he is not
professionally qualified to handle: finances and specifically, the economy.
But this also leaves him with the complex policy and staffing problem of how
to balance the personal ambitions of the various forces supporting him while
selecting a deputy in charge of economics who is capable of correcting the
situation in that sphere. Unfortunately, there is no avoiding compromise here.

Izvestia, Sept. 11 
Firefight Not Over Yet 

The Communists are celebrating -- for the first time in 10 years, they have
forced Yeltsin to back off. There is no doubt they will try to maintain
momentum toward the left. 

The president's decision to submit Yevgeny Primakov rather than Viktor
Chernomyrdin for the third time is the result of purely political motives and
has nothing to do with trying to find a solution to the economic crisis. The
Kremlin appears to have considered very seriously the possibility of a
stalemate situation in which initiation of impeachment proceedings would call
into question any dissolution of the Duma. And they concluded that the
president has neither the strength nor the support for a repeat of the events
of October 1993. 

Yevgeny Primakov will without a doubt be confirmed by the Duma. And executive
and legislative branches of government will be able to contain the flames of
political crisis. But they won't be able to put out the fire. The conflict
between the president and parliament will continue to develop. And it won't be
in a direction beneficial to Boris Yeltsin. Having conceded once to the
opposition, he will be forced to do so again and again, gradually
relinquishing power. It is completely likely that in addition to serving as
prime minister, Yevgeny Primakov will have to assume the responsibilities of
interim president between now and 2000. 

Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Sept. 11 
Flipside of Kiriyenko 

Primakov's appointment is like Kiriyenko's, only vice versa. Just as the
young, highly recommended head of the Fuel and Energy Ministry was at one wave
of the president's hand forced to deal with troublesome territories and
military conflicts, yesterday's minister for foreign affairs will now have to
wrack his brains over transfers to the regions, and reserves of goods in the
trading system. 

Segodnya, Sept 11 
A Blast From the Past 

Anyone who has managed to forget about Soviet-style economics will have a
chance to remember. And having remembered, to start everything all over again.

*****

#7
Journal of Commerce
September 14, 1998
[for personal use only]
Yeltsin sparks renewed anger over his central bank nominee 
Choice of Viktor Gerashchenko eclipses the confirmation of Yevgeny Primakov as
Russia's prime minister. 
BY MICHAEL S. LELYVELD
JOURNAL OF COMMERCE STAFF

Russia chose political over economic stability Friday as President Boris
Yeltsin nominated Viktor Gerashchenko to head the country's central bank.
The return of Mr. Gerashchenko, 60 -- once dubbed "the world's worst central
banker" by Harvard University economist Jeffrey Sachs -- could eclipse the
confirmation of Yevgeny Primakov as prime minister in a move aimed at ending
Russia's political crisis.
Mr. Yeltsin sacked Mr. Gerashchenko as central bank chief nearly four years
ago after the ruble plunged over 20% in value on Oct. 11, 1994, which has
since become known as "Black Tuesday."
Russia experts see Mr. Gerashchenko's previous policies as a disaster.
Analysts also reacted sharply to reports that Mr. Primakov will appoint Yury
Maslyukov, a Communist who recently resigned as trade and industry minister,
to be the government's top economic manager.
"It's ominous," said Marshall Goldman, associate director of Harvard
University's Davis Research Center for Russian Studies. "There goes the reform
movement."
The designation of Communist-backed officials for monetary and economic policy
is the first sign of which way Mr. Primakov, previously Mr. Yeltsin's foreign
minister, would lean.
On Friday, Mr. Primakov told the parliamentary State Duma that he has no
economic plan because there has been no time to make one since his nomination
for the post only the day before.
Such an admission might have torpedoed the nomination of a more liberal
official. But the Duma confirmed Mr. Primakov easily by a vote of 315 to 63.
The Primakov statement may signal that he will exert little control over
economic matters. Mr. Gerashchenko said that the central bank should be
answerable to the Duma instead.
Under Mr. Gerashchenko's earlier two-year tenure, the level of the central
bank's hard currency reserves were the equivalent of a state secret. Western
economists who were advising the government would frequently wait months for
firm figures, and even International Monetary Fund officials complained that
they were left in the dark. Some experts believed that Mr. Gerashchenko often
did not know.
There is little to suggest that Mr. Gerashchenko has learned much about market
economics in the meantime.
On Friday, Mr. Gerashchenko said that some "small-scale" printing of rubles is
inevitable, but he declined to quantify the planned amount of monetary
emission.
Mr. Yeltsin has been under pressure to allow the printing of some 37 billion
rubles to pay back wages and pensions. The move is certain to spark an
explosion of inflation. The idea is economic anathema to the IMF.
Although reviled in the West, Mr. Gerashchenko commands respect in Russia for
his experience during this latest time of crisis. The temptation for an easy
short-term solution to the arrears problem may also prove too great to resist.
But an injection of new rubles would almost certainly delay the IMF's next
scheduled loan installment of $4.3 billion, which already has been put off
until October.
Mr. Gerashchenko's replacement of Sergei Dubinin at the bank is an ironic
replay of the events of Black Tuesday. After the collapse, which capped a 70%
decline in the ruble, Mr. Yeltsin fired Mr. Dubinin, who was then the acting
finance minister.
When critics complained that the blame was misplaced, Mr. Yeltsin then turned
his wrath on Mr. Gerashchenko. But the Duma defended him as a source of easy
credits to failing state-owned industries. He was finally pressured to resign.
In the aftermath, it was learned that the bank had spent its reserves down to
nearly nothing in defending the ruble.
Analyses differ, but most economists believe that the bank tried to keep the
currency artificially high and then suddenly withdrew all support, prompting a
sudden collapse.
At the time, the government had virtually no coordination with the bank's
policies or knowledge of the impending disaster.
When it struck, Mr. Yeltsin was attending a summit meeting in Washington and
hastily flew home. 

*****

#8
Paper Rules out 'Evolutionary' Scenario 

Sovetskaya Rossiya 
8 September 1998
[translation for personal use only]
"Columnist's Opinion" ,by Aleksandr Frolov: "Again Plunder
and Redistribution" -- passages within slantlines published inboldface

Several events occurred last Friday which added new touches to the
picture of the Russian political crisis. Chernomyrdin unveiled the basic
tenets of his economic program at the Federation Council. For their part,
senators resolved to "react favorably" to his nomination for the post of
government chairman. Finally, the State Duma postponed until Monday
evening its vote on the premier's candidacy and cooperated with the
president's proposal to hold a roundtable that morning.
When I wrote these words, I was still not in a position to know the
results of both these events on Monday but the general background against
which they occurred was fairly clear.
The program announced by Chernomyrdin leaves us in no doubt that the
executive branch of power intends to continue to adhere to its bankrupt
economic policy. The proposed plan of action has long been very familiar
to us: First "controlled currency emission" is introduced then "economic
dictatorship" is established. Under Gaydar and Chubays and indeed under
Chernomyrdin himself these devices were respectively called "price
liberalization" and "strict credit and financial policy."
The current rapid collapse of the ruble and the increase in price of
all goods without exception, including both imported and domestically
produced goods, show that the cabinet's policy is to /consciously encourage
inflation/. By causing a wave of inflation, which may prove to be no less
acute than in 1992-1994, the government plans to pay off all its debts in
devalued rubles, that is to rob the population once more. Then, during the
second phase, it plans to tighten the screw in accordance with yet another
foreign scheme, this time an Argentine one. In connection with this,
"economic dictatorship" will signal the start of a new phase in the battle
to redistribute property. So, first property is plundered then it is
divided up and redistributed. In short it is planned to repeat everything
that happened in the preceding seven years with just as predictable results.
However, whether the new vicious cycle will reach its logical
conclusion is a very big question. The initial conditions are too varied. 
First, practically no material reserves have remained in Russia to be
plundered and eaten away at and the existing system of economic relations
prevents new ones from be formed. Second, the executive branch of power no
longer has the reservoir of public confidence that Yeltsin had in 1992. So
the economic and social conditions for a change of course have certainly
formed now. It is now a question of whether the political conditions are
right and of whether there is a realistic political alternative to the
existing regime.
Here we must admit that the opposition's main idea -- of changing
Russia's course and extricating it from the catastrophic situation it is in
by forming a government of national confidence based on the majority in
both Federal Assembly chambers -- is practically impossible to implement in
the specific conditions that currently obtain. Indeed, the idea in itself
is absolutely right and the opposition has not made any serious mistake by
putting it forward. However, its implementation presupposes the existence
of at least three major political conditions:
The departure of Yeltsin either through his dismissal -- the tough
alternative, or through his marginalization -- the gentle alternative. The
formation in the Federal Assembly of a stable majority which is not subject
to changing circumstances. The acquisition by this majority of a marked
left-of-center political orientation.
You can as yet only speak in general terms about the first, second,
and third conditions. Yeltsin is neither thinking of leaving office nor of
radically changing the Constitution right now. As its latest session has
demonstrated, the Federation Council proves at critical moments to be a
disunited assembly of people who understand little about the general
situation and who are to a decisive degree dependent on the central
executive branch of power. The state of the Duma is best characterized by
what happened on Friday. Concerned first and foremost by the question of
its own survival, it clutches at any straw offered to it. After all the
Duma can only ensure its own survival under two circumstances: Either it
finally confirms the new premier (not necessarily Chernomyrdin), for which
226 votes are required, or it manages to level official charges of serious
crimes at Yeltsin, for which as many as 300 votes are required. In both
cases it is very difficult, though for different, even opposite reasons, to
muster the required number of votes. There is little hope that the present
Duma, riven as it is by conflicting forces, will ever be able to make firm
and principled decisions concerning Russia's future. Under such
circumstances, even Yeltsin's departure will have little effect as the
political makeup both of the State Duma and the Federation Council is not
markedly left of center.
There are two ways out of the current situation: an evolutionary and
an accelerated solution.
To proceed in an evolutionary manner would involve holding out until
the scheduled parliamentary and presidential elections in 1999 and 2000
while building up the opposition's political authority. In the meantime
Chernomyrdin would be prevented from taking office and from implementing
the program he announced, after the president had been persuaded to appoint
a figure to the post of premier who would implement more moderate policies
and would not provoke a strongly negative reaction from the sections of
society who support the opposition. That is, for the time being we would
have to be satisfied with an adjustment to our present course as opposed to
a radical change of course. But does the country have enough time and
strength for the evolutionary solution? It seems that it no longer has.
The accelerated solution would involve simultaneous early presidential
and Duma elections. The main objection to early parliamentary elections is
that they will either not take place at all or they will take place
completely under the influence of people's financial circumstances and will
not express the true feelings of the majority of Russia's population. The
objection is absolutely reasonable, although it fails to mention the fact
that elections will take place in a year's time anyway. What is to be done
then -- will the present parliament and the hypothetical government of the
parliamentary majority be able to effectively control them? Consequently,
however you look at it, however you arrange the cogs of the present state
mechanism, it still lacks something which is exceptionally important and
necessary to the country.
The mass media are full of parallels between the current state of
Russia and its state at the beginning of 1917. Indeed, almost all the
factors that were present then are present today in the country. Therte is
a stubborn monarch who, in trying to cling onto his own personal power, now
maneuvers, now abdicates, now calls troops into the capital. Then there is
a government whose ministers do not know whether to work or to pack their
bags. And a State Duma with its "temporary committee for relations with
institutions and individuals," which strictly speaking the trilateral
commissions have been occupied with these past two weeks. And a (as yet
planned) "government of the parliamentary majority," which, with the
existing alignment of forces in the Duma and Federation Council, is doomed
to share the fate of the then Provisional Government. Finally, on the
horizon looms the figure of the "people's commander in chief, Kornilov." 
As yet the only element missing in the capital is the /Soviet of Workers'
Deputies/ (which later became an all-Russia organization).
In the present circumstances an equivalent body might be that force
under whose authority free, fair, and democratic elections might be held,
as a result of which a government of popular confidence based on the solid
left-wing parliamentary majority would be formed. If this does not come
about, elections will still be held in a year's time, but by that time
under the authority of the "currency board" -- the currency council serving
as an organ of international stewardship of Russia whose immediate
formation IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus is already demanding.
These are the only realistic alternatives today: Either we have a
currency council or a Soviet of Workers' Deputies, the latter serving as an
organ of a general strike; everything else is hardly a serious option. And
although at present there is no Soviet of Workers' Deputies as such, it
already exists in embryonic form in the guise of strike committees,
workers' councils, salvation committees, and so on. The beginning of their
unification into a single body may occur as early as 7 October. And it is
for the opposition to decide in what area to concentrate its greatestefforts.
[Description of Source: Sovetskaya Rossiya -- Pro-communist daily
sympathetic to CPRF leader Gennadiy Zyuganov.]

******


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