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CDI Library > Johnson's Russia List

Johnson's Russia List
 

 

November 11, 1998    
This Date's Issues: 2470 2471 2472


Johnson's Russia List
#2472
11 November 1998
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Big powers in Russia for economic crisis talks.
2. Kurt Porter: Russian Language Corruption?
3. Renfrey Clarke: FEEDING THE NEW RUSSIA: WORK FOR THE SOUP KITCHENS.
4. Jerry Hough: Russian agriculture problems.
5. Peter Ekman: re Blundy-Mortimer.
6. AFP: Top Cop: Death Penalty to Slow Crime Wave.
7. Moscow NTV Carries Poll Results on Russian Politicians.
8. AFP: Zyuganov: Primakov Failure Could See Military, Criminal 
Dictatorship.

9. LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE: Moshe Lewin, A COUNTRY FALLING APART.
The collapse of the Russian state. (Excerpt).

10. RFE/RL: Floriana Fossato and Russell Working, Russia: Remote Regions 
Face Coldest Winter In 30 Years.]

*******

#1
Big powers in Russia for economic crisis talks
By Martin Nesirky

MOSCOW, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Leaders from three continents beat a path to Moscow
on Wednesday to find out how Russia's beleaguered government plans to tackle
the worst economic crisis since the fall of Communism. 
Keizo Obuchi arrived on Wednesday afternoon, becoming the first Japanese Prime
Minister to make an official visit to Russia for a quarter of a century. 
Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy held talks with his Russian
counterpart Igor Ivanov in the morning. And Germany's new Foreign Minister
Joschka Fischer arrived in the evening for later meetings with Ivanov and
Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov. 
Obuchi is scheduled to meet President Boris Yeltsin on Thursday -- the first
time the ailing Kremlin chief will have received a foreign guest in several
weeks. 
All three visitors represent members of the Group of Seven rich nations and
important donors or trade partners for Russia. 
``At the request of the Canadian side, the participants in the talks discussed
the Russian government and central bank's programme of immediate measures to
stabilise the social-economic situation,'' RIA news agency reported after
Ivanov met Axworthy. 
Diplomats and officials say the Japanese and German talks will undoubtedly
also concentrate on Russia's economic problems, although Obuchi and Yeltsin
will discuss the fate of four small Pacific islands seized from Japan by
Soviet troops in 1945. 
Russia and Japan are working toward a peace treaty formally ending World War
Two hostilities, but the territorial dispute has been the main stumbling
block. 
Russia sorely needs Japanese cash to help tackle its economic crisis but it
fears any deal involving territory would spark a furious nationalist backlash.
Primakov on Wednesday vowed to crack down on tax dodgers and those who smuggle
capital abroad. He also said he would not turn to liberals from a previous
government to head talks with the International Monetary Fund, which have so
far been fruitless. 
The Fund has criticised the Primakov government's outline of an anti-crisis
plan, which calls for printing more money and increasing state control over
the economy. There had been some speculation that Primakov might draft in
liberals to help make the government's case to foreign lenders. 
On Tuesday, Russia's Communist-led opposition cautiously backed parts of the
still unpublished plan after the government set out details at a closed
parliament hearing. 
The cabinet is seeking urgent passage of reform laws and cooperation on the
annual budget, which it has promised to deliver by next month. The plan, which
has gone through numerous revisions behind closed doors, has been distributed
to deputies and should be made public in the next few days. 
But the government's precise intentions will not be spelled out formally until
the budget is ready, leading to charges that Primakov had acted too slowly
since taking office two months ago. 
Russia has more than $20 billion in foreign debt repayments due this year and
next, and the government has not said how it will pay. The government also
owes billions to its own citizens in back wages, pensions and other debts. 
World Bank President James Wolfensohn arrives on Thursday for a two-day
working visit. In Tokyo, he was asked whether he would be discussing the
prospect of new loans with Russian government officials. 
He replied: ``We will be discussing everything.'' 

*******

#2
From: kurt.porter@DTRA.mil (Kurt Porter)
Subject: Re: Russian Language Corruption?
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 

I was very happy to see Mr. Campbell's public apology for his
remarks about Anna Blundy. His initial rebuttal to her article seemed a bit
extreme and personal. However, since he was professional enough to realize
his error and apologize, that baby should be put to sleep.
In JRL #2470, Mr. Stowell listed some nice examples of American
words that have been adopted into the Russian language. One only has to
look the business or IT worlds to see this "invasion". Speaking of
Americanisms, has anyone taken a look at "HTML for Dummies" or any other of
that type book that's written in the Russian language? 
During the Duma's debate on Sergei Kiriyenko's nomination for
Prime-Minister, I was watching the Russian News and I heard house speaker
Gennady Seleznyov say (please forgive the transliteration), "My dolzhny
byly vzat' time-out." Now that's a pretty ancient Russian word (smile).
A point that has been lost throughout these discussions is, how do
the Russians themselves feel about this? And when we say "Russians," what
segment of Russian society is under discussion? It would be most
appreciated to receive some feedback on this issue from Russians in Russia.
I know how my Russian friends feel here in America, but they're the same
one's that say "Posle togo kak my zakonchim ehto, my poedem na lunch."
Translation issue: One could give the exact same text to three
different translators and receive three different translations. All
essentially correct and accurate conceptually, but different with regards to
shading, manipulation of the language, and style. Much depends on how
fluent one is in the source language and how eloquent one is in the target
language. Most translators that read JRL would probably say that the latter
is more important than the former (not to discount how important it is to
know the source language).
If one of Ms. Blundy's goals was to stimulate thought and
discussion, I'd say she did ok in that regard.

******

#3
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 
From: austgreen@glas.apc.org (Renfrey Clarke)
Subject: Feeding the new Russia

#FEEDING THE NEW RUSSIA: WORK FOR THE SOUP KITCHENS
#By Renfrey Clarke
#MOSCOW - Russians, like other northern Europeans, tend to be
tall if properly fed. ``If'' is of course the important word
here; throughout most of Russia's history, the nutrition of the
bulk of the population has been abominable. But by the 1970s the
worst problems were being coped with, and per capita consumption
in the USSR of meat, fish, eggs and dairy products was nearing
the levels of much richer societies in the West. The result now
is that the generation of younger Russian adults are noticeably
taller than their parents.
#Young adults, that is. The prospects for today's children are
different. One of capitalism's gifts to the twenty-first century
seems certain to be another generation of short Russians.
#The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies reported recently that about half of Russia's children
were underdeveloped mentally and physically due to
malnourishment. In some regions the proportion was as high as 70
per cent.
#Detailed figures have been available for years on the
nutritional decline that has beset Russia since the Soviet Union
was dismantled. But the setback has only become world news since
bad weather in the 1998 growing season, combined with a drastic
fall in the ability of Russians to afford imported foodstuffs,
brought pleas for international food aid.
#Ironically, there has been no unanimity among Russia's rulers
that such aid is needed. Food and Agriculture Minister Viktor
Semyonov insisted during October that there was ``no threat of
food shortages, no grounds for the threat of food shortages
today.'' Russia, he maintained, had stocked up ``rather well'' on
key foodstuffs.
#In one sense, Semyonov was right - the stocks in food stores in
most parts of the country are enough to meet expected demand.
Nevertheless, the Red Cross-Red Crescent was well advised earlier
in the autumn to launch a US$15 million international appeal to
help save Russians from starvation. The humanitarian organisation
has reportedly targeted 1.4 million people in a dozen of the
worst-hit Russian regions as urgent recipients of food parcels
and soup kitchen meals.
#The trouble is that large numbers of people in Russia are too
poor to buy the food that is available. According to the State
Statistical Committee more than 44 million Russians, some 30 per
cent of the population, live below the official poverty line.
Even the wages of large numbers of full-time workers are below
the ``minimum subsistence level'' of about 500 rubles (US$32) a
month, and many elderly people receive pensions of as little as
270 rubles.
#The budgets of millions of households took a drastic blow in
August when devaluation of the ruble more than doubled the price
to Russians of many imported foodstuffs. Earlier in the year,
imports had accounted for as much as 70 per cent of the meat and
dairy products consumed in Moscow and other large cities.
#The new post-devaluation Russian government sent out feelers to
the US and the European Union seeking food aid. Burdened by farm-
sector surpluses, the US government responded with an offer of
food grants and concessional loans for the purchase of meat and
grains. A final agreement on the aid was reached on November 6.
#Commentators in the Russian press have argued that the Clinton
administration's offer had more to do with securing rural votes
in a congressional election year than with helping Russians
secure their next meal. And indeed, the aid will do essentially
nothing to solve the immediate challenges involved in preventing
widespread hunger.
#Russian agriculture suffered cruelly in 1998 from hot, dry
weather in May and June, followed in the central areas of
European Russia by cool, wet weather in July and August. The
drought was among the causes of the smallest Russian grain crop
since the early 1950s, down by 47 per cent from that of last
year. The cold and rain favoured the spread of fungal diseases
through the potato crop, ruining the hopes of millions of part-
time gardeners that they would eat cheaply through the winter.
#The real disaster was arguably the potatoes. Russia has
reportedly harvested enough grain this year for human
consumption, and the country's market for animal feed grain has
shrunk dramatically in the 1990s as the ability of the population
to afford meat has declined. But home-grown potatoes are the
staple of countless people whose wages have not been paid or
whose jobs have disappeared entirely. Among these people, there
are many who now face actual starvation.
#The US food aid, which is to be resold by the Russian government
to food processing and distributing firms at commercial prices,
will do nothing for such people. Their need is for their
purchasing power to be restored, through the payment of wages and
livable pensions. But the Clinton administration, while shipping
part of the US agricultural surplus to Russia, backs the
International Monetary Fund in calling on the Russian authorities
to avoid any major expansion of the country's money supply, even
for the purpose of paying wage arrears.
#While the incidence of hunger can be expected to rise sharply in
Russia in the coming months, the phenomenon was already well
established in the country during the period of economic
``stabilisation'' that ended abruptly in August. According to US
researcher Frank Durgin, average daily caloric intake in Russia
fell from 3300 kilocalories in 1986-90 to 2460 in 1997. The
latter figure is about sufficient for a physically active adult.
With income inequalities at extreme levels, millions of Russians
last year must already have been receiving far less.
#Figures cited by the OECD in October suggested that tens of
millions more Russians, while avoiding actual hunger, had seen
the nutritional value of their diets fall alarmingly. From a per
capita figure of 75 kilograms per year in 1990, average meat
consumption was down to 51 kilograms in 1997. Durgin notes big
declines for intake of dairy products, fish, eggs, and fruit and
vegetables.
#While imports have meant that the average Russian diet has not
been tied directly to the crisis in the country's agriculture,
that crisis has been dire. Livestock numbers have halved in the
past five years. According to the OECD, Russian agricultural
output in 1997 was 64 per cent of the 1990 level, and official
Russian figures suggest a further drop in 1998 alone of at least
10 per cent. The OECD states that total capital investment in the
Russian agro-industrial complex fell between 1990 and 1997 by a
factor of 16.
#Meanwhile, the government newspaper <I>Rossiyskaya Gazeta<D>
reported on October 6 that compared with last year, the country
was behind both in the sowing of winter crops and in autumn
ploughing. ``The federal stock lacks exactly half of the seed
required.... The same goes for mineral fertilisers and
pesticides.''
#Feeding the new capitalist Russia, it seems, will increasingly
be a job for the soup kitchens.

*******

#4
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 
From: "Jerry F. Hough" <jhough@acpub.duke.edu>
Subject: Russian agriculture problems

It is gratifying that the West is showing some interest in the 
Russian agriculture problems and a willingness to help. But the whole 
process is a bit of a mystery. People don't eat wheat, and it 
goes to bakeries. There is little alternative to using Russian state 
wholessale enterprises (that is, formally privatized firms) for that. The 
corruption is inherent in the formally privatized structure (Kulik is 
probably a shareholder of the "privatized" trade network and presumably is 
paid dividends out of the "profits"). The solution to the corruption of 
that type in the short and medium term is renationalization, and we are 
never going to support that. Maybe we can try to insist that the 
Russians distribute the goods without making a profit on them. 
But I had the impression that Russia probably had enough wheat 
for its bread as long as it is distributed regionally. But people 
literally don't live by bread alone. The disaster comes in animals, 
butter, milk, fruits and vegetables. The disaster comes in the lack of 
capital investment on the farms, the lack of fertilizer and pesticides. 
The key aid that is needed is feed grains--corn, soybeans, etc. It has 
to go to the larger collective units. (You have never seen corruption 
such as would occur if we insisted on it going to private farms unless we 
allowed it to go to "privatized" collective farms, for every insider 
would get a private farm and them sell the feed grain to others.)
But that kind of meaningful help requires two difficult things: 
(1) An intelligent agriculture reform in Russia which has to have the 
early Chinese combination of leasing to agronomists, etc., rather than 
equal distribution to babushki, low-cost rationing of some of the product 
in the cities , and the rest sold freely on the market; (2) A hard decision
in Washington. Wheat is politically easy. Feed grain pits the 
grain-producing states against those like Tysons who want to export the meat.
Let us hope the former mobilize their for support or that Gore is concerned 
about Iowa in 2000 and that someone from a corn and soybean state like 
Gephardt raises the issue.

******

#5
From: "Peter D. Ekman" <pdek@co.ru>
Subject: re:Blundy-Mortimer
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 

Anna Blundy-Mortimer defends her strange piece on Russian language purity
with the following "when writing for a newspaper one does not express one's
personal opinion (or at least one tries to
minimise that side of things when filing for the news pages) but ideally one
reports upon events as one sees them." Her defense fails if you go back and
look at the article which contained the following phrases:
"THE Russians, sick of the linguistic colonisation that has been taking
place in their country for almost a decade,"...."the proposed law will limit
the use of the unnecessary foreign words which arrived in Russia with the
first 'Beeg Mac i fraiz' and have increasingly infected the language ever
since,"...."the desperate state of their language." These phrases were not
attributed in the original article, and can only be read as
Blundy-Mortimer's personal opinions.
The reason that I found the article strange is not that it contains
Blundy-Mortimer's opinions (which I disagree with), but that anybody would
consider it news that Russia has many uptight language teachers. Every
country has language teachers and grammarians who try to inflict their views
of purity on the masses, which go on happily communicating in the new,
evolving language. The Russian language is certainly evolving now and needs
to. Can anybody out there think of "pure Russian" equivalents for the
following words "kserokopiya," "faks," "mikser" (note that smestitel is
already used for a plumbing device) "forvardy," "optsiony," "chipsy,"
"dzhinsy?" If you can, is there any reason to think that your choice of
words is in any way better than the words that Russians have actually chosen?

*****

#6
Top Cop: Death Penalty to Slow Crime Wave 

MOSCOW, Nov. 11, 1998 -- (Agence France Presse) Russian Interior Minister
Sergei Stepashin has promised tougher law and order enforcement, declaring
that serious criminals should be sentenced to death. 
"A thief should go to prison, but a gangster should be killed," Stepashin said
on national NTV television Tuesday. 
Russia has yet to abolish the death penalty, in spite of promises it made to
do so on joining the Council of Europe almost three years ago. 
Stepashin referred to high-ranking figures in Russia's corruption-soaked
political and banking circles, and said that nine regional administrative
officials have been arrested since the start of the year. 
The nation's top cop maintained that his department had managed to wrest some
half a billion dollars "out the hands of bank robbers." 
Crime in Russia, in particular organized crime, has risen sharply in recent
months, largely in connection with the country's worsening economic situation,
Stepashin said during a recent trip to Europe. 
He said gang bosses had been concentrating their efforts on high-profile
white-collar crime, largely the exporting of capital.

*******

#7
Moscow NTV Carries Poll Results on Russian Politicians

NTV
November 8, 1998
[translation for personal use only]

A Constitutional Court decision, which was at the focus of all
political debates in Russia recently, has gone nearly unnoticed because of
all the intricacies of the class struggle in Russia. By this, I mean the
verdict which deprives Boris Yeltsin of the opportunity to run for the
presidency in the year 2000. [passage omitted on Yeltsin saying many times
that he will not participate in the next presidential elections]
Here is the latest data of the Public Opinion Foundation:
If presidential elections were held this Sunday [1 November, according
to a caption], 18 percent of respondents would have voted for Communist
leader Gennadiy Zyuganov. This is almost the same as three weeks ago [11
October, according to a caption], when sociologists included Prime Minister
Yevgeniy Primakov in their polls for the first time. The figure was 17
percent then. Primakov is now very close to Zyuganov. Primakov's ratings
rose by six points. If the elections were held on 1 November, he would
have collected 15 percent of votes. Primakov is ahead of [Moscow mayor
Yuriy] Luzhkov with 13 percent of votes, Krasnoyarsk Governor [Aleksandr]
Lebed with 12 percent, and Yabloko leader [Grigoriy] Yavlinskiy with
10 percent.
At the same time Primakov's negative ratings are still the lowest. 
Only 6 percent of respondents said they would have never voted for him
under any circumstances, while 27 percent categorically refused to vote for
Zyuganov. Primakov has still the highest confidence ratings. A total of
40 percent trust Primakov, and 23 percent of respondents do not trust him. 
Gennadiy Zyuganov, on the contrary, tops this list. Over half of
respondents, in other words, 51 percent, said they do not trust the
Communist leader, and less than a third, in other words, 29 percent, said
they trust him.
Incidentally, 68 percent of respondents approve the idea of Primakov
acting as vice president until the next elections in the year 2000. This
idea has been voiced many times recently. Only 14 percent said they did
not like the idea, and 18 percent found it difficult to answer the
question. Those taking part in the poll said that among actions and
statements made last week they remember Primakov's actions and statements
better than those by any other officials. His public speeches and
activities attracted the attention of 20 percent of respondents. The next
on the list is Grigoriy Yavlinskiy. As "Itogi" predicted, Yavlinskiy's
statements that the government is corrupt did not go unnoticed, and this is
reflected in the ratings of Yavlinskiy's party.
If elections to the State Duma were held this Sunday, Yabloko would
have been the second largest parliamentary faction. A total of 13 percent
of respondents said they would have voted for it. The Communists top the
list, naturally, with 23 percent, while their allies--the Agrarian Party
and People's Power--have no chance of winning seats in the State Duma. 
They were given 1 percent each, which is basically nothing.
The Russian People's Republican Party, headed by Aleksandr Lebed,
would have gathered 11 percent of votes, and a party which has not yet been
set up by Moscow mayor Yuriy Luzhkov and which sociologists have until now
been referring to as the political center party would have gathered 9
percent. Those running the risk of not overcoming the 5-per cent barrier
and not being elected to the next State Duma among other parties
represented in the parliament are Vladimir Zhirinovskiy's Liberal
Democratic Party with 4 percent and Viktor Chernomyrdin's Russia Is Our
Home with 3 percent.

******

#8
Zyuganov: Primakov Failure Could See Military, Criminal Dictatorship 

MOSCOW, Nov. 10, 1998 -- (Agence France Presse) Russia faces a military
government or a dictatorship if the current Cabinet fails to haul the country
out of economic collapse, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov warned
Tuesday. 
"If the government fails, the (next) government will consist mostly of
military officers," Zyuganov told a press conference. 
The Russian authorities "today must follow a single, very narrow, path between
total chaos and a criminal dictatorship, in order to pull the country out of
crisis," he said without elaborating. 
The Communist party boss called for the creation of a special commission of
deputies and ministers to work out practical steps to ensure the hard-pressed
population survives the harsh Russian winter. 
The authorities must take fresh steps to ensure the supply of food, medicines
and hospitals, and crack down on corruption, Zyuganov said. 
The government "must say it is ready to do all that it can so that every
family has the bare essentials," he added. 
Last month a government minister conceded that food reserves in some regions
were down to a two-three week supply, although official estimates of food
stocks are contradictory, ranging from 17 million to 26 million tonnes. 
On Friday, Russia and the United States agreed a 3.1-million-tonne emergency
food aid package to be partially paid for by a long-term $600-million
Washington loan. 
The European Commission on Monday proposed a $480 million package of food aid
for Russia to offset the combined effect of Russia's acute financial crisis
and its worst harvest in four decades.

******

#9
Excerpt
LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE - November 1998
A COUNTRY FALLING APART
The collapse of the Russian state
by MOSHE LEWIN
Author of "The making of the Soviet system : essays in the social
history of interwar Russia", Methuen, London,1985.

The figures for September show that 44.4 million Russians are
living below the poverty line. Twice as many as this time last
year. Meanwhile the wheat harvest, at 50 to 60 million tonnes,
has barely reached second world war levels. It will cover only a
small amount of the country's requirements. The trial of
Aleksandr Nikitin, the retired submarine commander accused of
treason for exposing the danger of nuclear pollution in the
Barents Sea, reveals the scale of the environmental disaster. In
short, President Yeltsin's state of health symbolises the
country's overall dilapidation, to which his regime has largely
contributed. The new government led by Yevgeny Primakov aims to
get the economy, devastated by "shock therapy", back on its feet.
But its main task will be to restore the authority of the state,
whose role has been crucial in the century-long process of
Russia's modernisation.

The Russians have a word for it - "bespredel". That's how Russian
intellectuals describe the situation in their country. The term
defies precise translation. It denotes, at one and the same time,
hopelessness, rampant cynicism and antisocial behaviour at all
levels. It also implies an absence of limits, a situation in which
"anything goes".
The essential meaning, one Russian writer suggests, is "I'm all
right, Jack." The constant use of this word points to the deep
distress felt throughout Russia and the enormous effort and
suffering needed to surmount it. Its numerous connotations also
remind us that crises have multiple causes and that their
theoretical analysis, for the historian, is a much more difficult
matter than understanding and describing periods of progress. Yet it
is generally agreed that the present situation needs to be seen in
historical perspective. Analysing it as a "classic" crisis of
Russian history makes the situation, if not less desperate, at least
more intelligible.
It is an apparent paradox, though in fact entirely logical, that the
preponderant role of the Russian state has made the country
particularly vulnerable. This has proved to be the case throughout
its history, but particularly in the twentieth century, with the
crises of 1903-1907, 1916-1921 and the 1990's. The last of these,
which is the culmination of a long period of much less spectacular
though fatal decline, exhibits some parallels with the other two,
though of course in a different form.
The key to understanding these various types of crisis is the
interaction of historically conflicting socio-political strata
responding in different ways to strong pressure from dynamic
developments inside or outside the country that upset an already
shaky internal equilibrium. Rapid economic development, galloping
industrialisation, war and the inevitable arms race, a technological
revolution that puts severe strain on archaic or ageing social and
political structures resistant to change, are not unique to Russia.
They are the universal ingredients of the history of the twentieth
century. But the course they have taken has differed from country to
country according to historical circumstances....
At the present time, although the institutions in place more or less
resemble the government of a state, they are in fact presiding over
a growing political and economic vacuum. Russia is losing its
substance. A nation in which the state has historically played a
powerful, sometimes all-powerful, role now finds itself practically
without any state structure at all. Laws no longer exist or are
openly flouted. The judicial system is impotent. The military forces
resemble a beggars' army. The police act like gangsters. Some
regions have virtually seceded. The governors of the larger regions
are bribed by the president and negotiate special privileges for
themselves in exchange for their political support. Wages are no
longer paid. Nor are taxes, either because of fraud or for lack of
money. Ordinary people are increasingly dependent on barter and the
food they can grow in their gardens.
Such is the result of the "reforms" that have stripped Russia of its
state and its economy. The social consequences are terrible. A large
part of the population lives below the poverty line. Old-age
pensioners are dying of starvation. Life expectancy, especially for
men, is falling dangerously. The educated middle classes are
struggling to survive.
The crisis is systemic. It embraces everything from the government
and its policy to the moral and cultural substance of society. No
adequate remedy can be found or begin to be applied until Russia
possesses a government able to act. But that is just a necessary
precondition. Much more is needed. No economy can develop or
function without a viable state, meaning not only the state
apparatus as such but the whole political system. That is the crux
of the matter.
A political system capable of practising democracy needs a whole
range of social, cultural and political institutions, of which an
effective opposition, comprising powerful trade unions, political
parties, churches, etc., is an essential element. Only the presence
of such institutions can provide the binding force of legitimacy,
that is a degree of acceptance and support that renders the system
legitimate irrespective of the number of its critics.
Another vital ingredient, closely connected with legitimacy, is
political culture - meaning the ability of ordinary citizens to
understand the functioning and problems of the administration, to
choose and support political leaders, and to monitor their
behaviour. This assumes that citizens have a degree of confidence in
the system, that voters and their elected representatives basically
agree on a code of ethics, and that governors and governed share a
set of principles and ideals. Such are the necessary components of
any political system. Some of them may have been over-simplified,
but all of them are theoretically indispensable. To summarise them
in this way gives some measure of the crisis from which Russia is
suffering and the extent of its deficiencies.
After protracted negotiations, an agreement has been reached between
the Duma and President Yeltsin to appoint the former minister of
foreign affairs, Yevgeny Primakov, as prime minister. Mr Primakov is
a member of a category of apparatchiks known as "gosudarstvenniki".
Many of these professional state functionaries occupied senior
positions in the Soviet era but had no real control over the course
of events. They were known for their efficiency and are free from
any suspicion of corruption.
The formation in Moscow of a government that is - we have reason
hope - honest and at least minimally efficient is a crucial step
forward. But as we have seen, the state apparatus is only one part
of a much larger political system that no Russian government,
especially at the present time, can summon into being from on high.
The health of the Russian state is of major concern, but another
great historical handicap must also be borne in mind. Whenever state
power vacillates in Russia, when it needs to be restored in one form
or other, the old demons reappear, hovering over the political arena
like vultures. Statist fundamentalists clamour for a return to a
state-controlled society, an authoritarian system with a built-in
tendency to dictatureship that leads inevitably to all-pervasive,
debilitating bureaucratisation. It is, they claim, the only model of
society which the Russian people has ever been willing to accept or
able to understand.
An apathetic society in which the media are once again controlled by
the government and financial interests, the schools are falling into
ruin and young people are totally uninterested in politics, is a
fertile breeding ground for those whose only programme is a "strong
hand" to restore order in Mother Russia. The sort of order that
would spell the final collapse of the country and plunge it into the
"fourth world".
As the country falls to pieces around him, Mr Yeltsin has been
casting about for a great idea to rally the nation. There were calls
to restore the monarchy, but that idea was soon dropped. In any
case, it would have been more like exhumation than restoration.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, overwhelmed by the extent of the crisis and
the suffering on all sides, looks to the Orthodox faith to turn the
Russians into patriots. But at the same time he describes the
Orthodox Church as irreparably corrupted by a chronic inability to
act.
Communism, too, no longer has a church worthy of the name. The
Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) is its only serious
political force, but it takes good care not to advocate a communist
programme. The party even considered changing its name, but - with
opinion polls showing widespread nostalgia for the Brezhnev era -
the change would have cost it too many votes. The CPRF is to the
left of Yeltsin, but it is not a left-wing party. It is essentially
a nationalist-statist organisation that seeks to rehabilitate many
bitterly criticised aspects of the Soviet past but does not advocate
a return to a non-market economy, a fully state-run society or even
a one-party system. It talks vaguely of "restoring" the Soviet
Union, but that is clearly not its first priority.
There is no lack of great ideas bandied about in Russia, but a
unifying national concept cannot be dreamed up by specialists in
propaganda or public relations. National identity, patriotism,
national characteristics and culture are organic products of
historical development, emerging from the interplay of conflicting
trends inside and outside the country. The new national anthem was
selected by a committee set up by the president, following a
nation-wide competition. The fact that the winning entry has no
words is spectacular proof that the emperor has no clothes and that
his thieves' kitchen of a regime is incapable of rallying and
leading the country.
But perhaps we are being too pessimistic. Are there no grass-roots
forces - in local communities or provincial administrations,
enterprises, schools, or among the intelligentsia - that might
eventually form the basis of a new system? At this stage, the most
urgent need is for action by capable administrators. Such people
already exist, and there are potentially more of them. But they will
not come forward unless the pump is primed by incentives, a measure
of hope, clear rational programmes for the immediate future and new
leadership.
It would be foolhardy to attempt to predict how a new upsurge might
originate. But it should not be ruled out. A credible improvement in
the performance of the central government, a promising provincial
experiment that could serve as a model, a stiffening of the sinews
by reliable, honest politicians that would encourage people to get
involved in the political process, might be enough to start the ball
rolling. None of this is impossible. A crisis of such proportions
leads inevitably to demoralisation, but it can also stimulate a
positive reaction.
This is amply demonstrated by the groundswell of social and
political activism during perestroika. The enthusiasm and
willingness to learn which the initial electoral experiments of the
period aroused in large sectors of society dispose of the notion
that the Russian people is inherently incapable of making democracy
work. But these positive developments were buried under the rubble
of the forced transition to the "market". For the time being, there
is widespread apathy and little cause for optimism. The fact that
politics has no attraction for young people is in itself a pretty
alarming symptom. Hostility to democracy, which put paid to the
emerging political activism, is primarily a reaction to a crisis
brought about by policies that claim to epitomise it. But widespread
participation in politics is absolutely necessary if Russia is
finally to lay its old demons to rest.
That they have reared their heads is eloquent proof of the burden of
history. The main problem is the disparity between the tasks to be
done and the means deployed to accomplish them. An obvious example
is the contrast between the size of the national territory and the
weakness of administrative control. With centrifugal forces
threatening to pull the country apart, the response was to step up
the centralisation of state power. Hypertrophy at the centre
inevitably resulted in a pernicious increase in the role of
government.
When the state gets out of control it fails to perform its vital
role as a regulator. Instead, it becomes a burden or a parasite.
Once the trend to an overblown bureaucracy sets in, all sorts of
barriers to development arise, and underdevelopment becomes a real
prospect. The whole situation reinforces a propensity, inherent in
action by the national government and the state, to foster
large-scale development measurable by quantity at the expense of the
small-scale, qualitative improvements that bear the seeds of
innovation.
To an historian, it appears as if we are watching the latest remake
of an old Russian classic. The forms are new each time, of course.
But the country is still struggling under the same burden. Tsarism
collapsed from exhaustion. The same thing happened to the
provisional government and to the party of Lenin, too weak to resist
attack from within by the exponents of all-pervasive state control.
Finally, although in very different circumstances, the
post-stalinist regime succumbed to the same fate. It had spectacular
successes, of course - in the space sector, the sciences, and in
providing an educational system accessible to all. But in the end it
was unable to shed its traditional burden.
Once again an energetic Russian state intent on modernising the
country has turned into a parasitic excrescence. The overblown,
dilapidated centre has finally admitted defeat and collapsed under
its own weight, like the Tsarist regime of old. Despite many
predictions to the contrary, it was not the periphery that finished
off the centre, but the collapse of the centre that signalled to the
nomenklatura in the national republics that they could now proclaim
their independence.
After so much effort and colossal expenditure, Russia seems once
again to have missed the boat. As the collapse continues, all eyes
are on the new government. Will it be able to reverse the trend?

********

#10
Russia: Remote Regions Face Coldest Winter In 30 Years
By Floriana Fossato and Russell Working

Moscow, 11 November 1998 (RFE/RL) -- With temperatures across Russia now
plummeting, there is growing concern that the most deprived Russian citizens
--particularly those in remote regions-- will have a difficult time getting
through the Winter. 
Russian meteorologists warn that during the coming months temperatures will
reach their lowest levels in decades. Speaking yesterday on the commercial
television channel NTV, the director of Russia's weather-forecast agency
Gidrometzentr, Aleksandr Vasilev, predicted that this Winter will be the
coldest since the 1960s. 
Daytime temperatures in Moscow today fell to minus 15 degrees Celsius, while
night temperatures are expected to drop to about minus 20 degrees. At the same
time, in the Arctic Chukotka region just across the Bering Strait from Alaska,
temperatures have plunged to minus 25 degrees and are forecast to drop
further. 
The average Winter temperatures in the Chukotka range from minus 35 to minus
55 degrees. But Vasilev said that temperatures as low as those recorded in
Moscow and other regions in November occur only once every 20 years. Russian
TV channels report that about 1,000 people will soon be evacuated from
Chukotka because it has become too expensive to supply them with food and with
electricity for heat and hot water. 
Difficulties in obtaining adequate fuel and food supplies are not a novelty
for people in regions throughout the Far North and Far East. But this year, as
the country's economic crisis cut off supplies during the Summer months, whole
districts have been cut off. 
Many regions of the Far North have reportedly not received enough fuel to make
it through the Winter. Alexander Tryapitsyn, deputy governor of the Chukotka
region, told ORT public television last week that authorities have moved 1,100
people out of the Cape Schmidt area and are hoping to move at least 2,000 more
to Chukotka's larger towns. 
The daily "Moscow Times" quotes one of the 2,000 residents of the Chukotka
village of Mys Shmidta, Yelena Maglevannaya, saying that only the village
school and hospital are centrally heated. She said other buildings are warmed
by electric heaters or home-made stoves. 
But it is unclear whether evacuation operations are still underway in
Chukotka. Tryapitsyn said that evacuating residents has become too costly for
regional authorities. He said that each relocation costs about 50,000 rubles
(or $3,200). 
The situation is not much better in other regions. The Governor of the Far
East Magadan region, Valentin Tsvetkov, recently sent a letter to Prime
Minister Yevgeny Primakov, warning that without outside help Magadan will not
be able to supply itself with food and fuel or provide for its poorest
citizens. Magadan authorities have requested additional funding for buying
fuel and 20,000 tons of food. 
In their talks last week on a U.S. food-aid package, American and Russian
negotiators focused in no small part on providing food to Russia's more remote
regions. Critics say past aid packages from the West have been poorly
conceived. They worry that they may also be poorly implemented, despite the
needs of Russia's most destitute citizens, both in big cities and isolated
remote regions. 
According to the weekly "Ekspert," government officials have tried to give the
impression they have met food needs in remote Northern regions by sharply
reducing what is considered the minimum amount of food necessary for a person
to survive. As an example, the weekly says that the sugar ration was reduced
from 66 to 30 grams a day. 
Temperatures have dropped below freezing in the Far Eastern port of
Vladivostok. But our correspondent there reports that the city's heating
system has only just been turned on. The Interfax news agency reports schools
and day-care centers in the city have been closed. 
Elsewhere, below-zero temperatures are also creating difficulties. On the
Pacific island of Sakhalin, home residents are limited to a few hours of
electricity daily because the region lacks fuel. Temperatures on the Kamchatka
peninsula last week dipped to 18 degrees below zero, and a fuel shortage left
tens of thousands of families without heat or electricity. Government
officials traveled to the region with pledges of emergency shipments of oil
and money. 
In the regional capital of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, power has been cut off in
some city regions for between 14 and 21 hours a day. Larisa Ponomaryova, an
employee at the mayor's office, told our correspondent that her neighborhood
had been without electricity for 21 hours a day for over a month. 
The regional power utility Kamchatenergo imports its fuel from South Korea and
the U.S., and is the only power company in the country whose fuel is supplied
by ocean-going tankers. A spokesman for the utility told RFE/RL that not only
has the ruble crisis frightened off importers, but federal and local
governments have owed Kamchatenergo more than 2,000 million rubles ($129
million) for nine months. He said that "suppliers are afraid that we will
never be able to pay, and they stopped delivering fuel here." 
Kamchatka's regional parliament recently passed a resolution asking the United
Nations for fuel aid.
(Russell Working reported from Vladivostok. Nonna Chernyakova also contributed
to this report.) 

*******



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