January 14, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4034 4035 4036

Johnson's Russia List
#4035
14 January 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. RFE/RL: Tuck Wesolowsky, Officials And Bureaucrats Still Enjoy The Good Life.
2. Financial Times (UK): Andrew Jack, Chechen war lets Putin show his tough side.
3. Boris Kagarlitsky: Russia: The `Bear' Triumphs - and Yeltsin Departs.
4. Christian Science Monitor: Fred Weir, Refugees target of Russian ire. A sweep of all 'fighting age' Chechen males sparks concerns of new concentration camps. 
5. Moscow Times: Fyodor Gavrilov, Will Putin Be A Liberal, or a Centrist? Yes! 
6. Parlamentskaya Gazeta: Nikolai Sakharov, 3RD DUMA: AN ATTEMPT AT A COLLECTIVE PORTRAIT.
7. Rossiiskaya Gazeta: Roy Medvedev, It Was the Epoch of Yeltsin.]

*******

#1
Russia: Officials And Bureaucrats Still Enjoy The Good Life
By Tuck Wesolowsky

The perks and privileges that Soviet bureaucrats received under the Communist 
system were legendary. But RFE/RL correspondent Tuck Wesolowsky says the 
system is scarcely fairer today, and may even be worse.

Moscow, 13 January 2000 (RFE/RL) -- In the early morning and evening rush 
hours, Moscow's Kutuzovsky Prospect looks more like an elite speedway than a 
routine roadway.

Scores of Mercedes and other luxury cars sporting special license plates zoom 
down a specially reserved lane. They blur past a mass of mostly battered 
Soviet-made cars nudging along in the crowded lanes reserved for no one. Many 
of the gleaming autos are traveling to or from places like Zukovka or 
Barvicha, new gated communities that have cropped up on Moscow's periphery to 
provide homes for the elite. 

During the Brezhnev era, only 124 autos were outfitted with the special tags 
that essentially give their holder carte blanche to drive with little regard 
for the rules of the road. But today, the special plates adorn not only the 
sleek sedans of the "creme de la Kremlin." Duma deputies and low-level 
government functionaries have them too. And a newly introduced series of 
license plates, designated 0-00, is available for sale to business people. 
Five to ten thousand dollars buys them freedom from traffic regulations.

The special license plate is just one of the many perks government officials 
enjoy in today's Russia. President Boris Yeltsin may have been the St. George 
who slew the communist dragon, but many critics blame him for not only 
tolerating but expanding the already bloated bureaucracy and its attendant 
perks. 

Vladimir Simsky of the Moscow-based Democratic Information Center of Russia 
says the system of privileges, special favors and gifts was so widespread 
during the Soviet Union that the question arises whether they were really 
privileges. He says that system continues to this day.

"Millions of people were on these lists [of bureaucrats] and received various 
privileges. Even the janitors in the Kremlin got some special benefits -- and 
they still do. So, in my opinion, basically nothing has changed."

Simsky says the traditional system of favors and gifts -- and not market 
methods -- is what is guiding Russia's transition from communism to 
capitalism.

"Many members of our elite are using the system of privileges and titles to 
allow them to influence specific government decisions. And, of course, the 
system also brings with it [nice] cars, summer homes, [special] apartments, 
and other things like special medical treatment, etc."

In last month's election to Russia's lower house, the State Duma, candidates 
were vying for more than just a seat in the legislature. Duma membership 
carries significant perks. One of the most coveted of these is the right to 
acquire a cheap apartment in the Russian capital, where housing is tight and 
expensive. At the end of the term, legislators have a unique right to 
purchase, or "privatize," the apartment at a low price.

And within the Duma, all legislators are not alike. You won't find the 
"council" of the State Duma mentioned in the Russian constitution. But for 
those lucky enough to sit on the council, it means more riches. Simsky 
explains:

"[The council] is the body handling the agenda for the Duma's work, and it 
decides which questions will be addressed at which session. The council is 
led by the chairman of the Duma, his assistant and the leaders of all the 
Duma committees. [Council members] get more perks than the rest of the Duma. 
They have their own cars. They get special medical treatment, just like 
government officials have."

The council is also the scene of the most intense lobbying -- and legislators 
who sit on it have the best chance of picking up some cash on the side. 
Russian elites with a stake in a certain legislative issue do their utmost to 
ensure that the council schedules the issue for debate before the full State 
Duma. 

In other words, the political system taking root in Russia is taking on many 
of the darker traits found in the West, where campaign financing has long 
been a reform issue. Maybe Russia is changing after all. 

*******

#2
Financial Times (UK)
14 January 2000
[for personal use only]
RUSSIA: Chechen war lets Putin show his tough side 
By Andrew Jack in Moscow

Russia's violent feud with the breakaway republic of Chechnya is providing 
observers with clues about both the past influences and future style of the 
country's acting president.

The timing of the conflict - spanning parliamentary and presidential 
elections - coincides with that of the last one in 1994-96. The political 
stakes are just as high. And the militaristic app-roach that has been adopted 
by the authorities is leading to many of the same errors.

The key difference is that this time Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister 
and acting president, is the man who appears firmly in control. Some analysts 
suggest the former KGB man is running events in a way that provides signs of 
how he would govern the country in the years to come.

"This conflict is about trying to solve Russian and not Chechen problems," 
says Nikolai Petrov of the Carnegie Moscow Centre think- tank. He suggests 
that in order to maintain high support ahead of his presidential bid in 
March, Mr Putin "needs a result that can be reported as a victory, so that 
the fighting can stop for a while". So far, even adjusting for Russian and 
Chechen claims and counterclaims, a reluctance to engage in close combat 
seems to have kept the number of casualties relatively low. But the pledges 
made by Russian generals that the fighting will soon be over are being 
regularly extended, as reports grow of Chechen resistance.

Grozny, the capital, is surrounded but it has not been captured. A number of 
other towns supposedly firmly under control have been scenes of regular 
fighting with rebel forces. And even in the "liberated" north of the republic 
there are frequent skirmishes at night.

Now the pro-government consensus in the Russian media - up to now far less 
critical of the campaign than in the previous conflict - is also beginning to 
crumble. NTV, the television station, is airing reports of wounded and dead 
soldiers. A number of newspapers have begun to suggest that the fighting is 
running into problems.

For some, it is no coincidence that these media outlets are not controlled by 
the state but by powerful business oligarchs and others trying to establish 
their relationships with and renegotiate their influence in Mr Putin's new 
administration.

Mr Putin appears to be sending out contradictory messages. He has called for 
a political settlement in Chechnya in talks with international bodies but in 
domestic speeches he has soothed the military by placing a strong army at the 
centre of his vision for Russia.

Just after his appointment, he stressed that he believed in protecting 
freedom of expression. But the national Security Council met on Wednesday to 
discuss controls over information and hinted at steps to prevent the 
broadcast of interviews with Chechen "terrorists".

Mr Petrov argues that such conflicting signs smack of old-style KGB tactics. 
"It's an information war," he says. "You spell out lots of different 
scenarios and then chose whichever one you consider suitable."

But public opinion is playing a role that it did not in the KGB's era. 
Whoever was behind the bomb blasts that killed 300 people last autumn and 
provided justification for "anti-terrorist" campaign in the North Caucasus, 
there is little doubt that Mr Putin has been the principal beneficiary. The 
strong showing of the Unity party, which he endorsed in the December 
parliamentary race, has served to underline his popularity.

For some analysts such as Sergei Markov from the Institute of Political 
Studies in Moscow, Mr Putin's support will not suffer even if the conflict 
worsens. "What Russians wanted was someone who showed he could be tough and 
take decisions," he says.

"But if Chechnya goes badly Russians will sympathise with him for having 
tried to do something."

But Yevgenny Krutikov, head of the political section at the newspaper 
Izvestiya, says: "If all of a sudden Putin finds out that losses in the 
Russian army are causing his ratings to drop or decides that a ceasefire 
would be good for his image, he will stop the conflict."

******

#3
From: "Renfrey Clarke" <renfreyclarke@hotmail.com>
Subject: Kagarlitsky article
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000

#Russia: The `Bear' Triumphs - and Yeltsin Departs
#By Boris Kagarlitsky

#MOSCOW - The campaigning for the December 19 elections to the State Duma,
the lower house of Russia's parliament, was notable for the listlessness of
everyone who took part. It was not simply that the various candidates and
parties were uninterested in explaining their views. Even where the
politicians had taken positions, they did their best to hide them. The
reason was obvious: for the present-day ``political class'' to speak openly
about its ideas and goals would mean arousing the fury of the population.

#During 1999 the ``party of power'' had marched beneath two banners.
Bureaucrats of the old school had grouped themselves in the ``Unity'' bloc
(known colloquially as the ``Bear''), while young careerists had set up the
Union of Rightist Forces. The master-work of the ``Bear'' campaign was a
cartoon clip in which a bear took over and fixed up a fairy-tale house,
throwing out a wolf that had vowed to privatise the dilapidated dwelling.
Audiences, however, would not have forgotten that in the Russian folk tale
on which the clip was based, the house collapses after the bear moves in.
The results of a victory for the ``Bear'' were not hard to foresee - and as
for the Union of Rightist Forces, the symbolism of the ``wolf'' was
decidedly apt. 

#The 1999 elections were neither honest, nor free. Parties that lacked the
blessing of the Kremlin were denied access to the all-Russian television
channels ORT and RTR, while Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and his bloc
Fatherland - All Russia were smeared with mud on a daily basis. Unlike in
previous elections, no-one attacked the Communists, but they were not
allowed to present their views. 

#There was no indication that the central authorities personally rigged the
vote. However, it is a tradition of elections in post-Soviet Russia that
regional political chiefs are told what results are expected of them. How
these results are obtained is then up to the local leaders, who have a
choice of methods ranging from crude falsification to subtle media
manipulation. Where the choice is for outright fraud, ballot boxes may be
placed in the polling stations already part full of voting slips favouring
``approved'' candidates and parties. Or else a certain number of ballots,
filled in all at once on behalf of electors who have not come to vote, may
be thrown in at the last moment. 

#Direct falsification is encountered less often in urbanised districts of
European Russia than in ``bear's dens'' in the north and east, areas which
observers can often reach only by helicopter. The local administrations in
these regions are often highly dependent on budget handouts from the
centre, and thus have a special incentive to deliver what is required.

#Whatever the precise incidence of fraud, the 1999 elections clearly
displayed both the influence of regional political chiefs, and also the
power of the Kremlin, which is able to coordinate the efforts of thousands
of functionaries. To judge from the election tallies, voters showed an
extraordinary solidarity with their regional leaders. Since these leaders
line up with a range of political currents, the election results differed
strikingly from one province or republic to the next. In Samara Province,
40 per cent of the votes went to the Union of Rightist Forces, of which
provincial Governor Konstantin Titov is a member. Rural districts populated
largely by pensioners were especially zealous in voting for the rightists,
who described themselves as the expression of the ``new urban generation''.
In Bashkortostan, where republican President Murtaza Rakhimov was backing
Fatherland - All Russia, no fewer than 73 per cent of voters opted for this
bloc, with rural districts again showing particularly single-minded support. 

#The more remote the region, the stronger the position of the ``Bear''. In
the ``bear's dens'' of north-eastern Russia, the Unity bloc headed the
poll, gathering more than 28 per cent. #Russia-wide, first place was
ultimately taken by the Communist Party, which won 24.2 per cent of the
vote; this figure was marginally above the party's result in the previous
elections, held in December 1995. The ``Bear'' came in second with 23.4 per
cent, followed by Fatherland - All Russia with 12.6 per cent, the Union of
Rightist Forces with 8.7 per cent, the liberal Yabloko bloc with 6.1 per
cent, and the Zhirinovsky Bloc (LDPR) with 6 per cent.

#The remaining parties and blocs, scoring less than the required 5 per
cent, failed to win representation in the Duma. Of those that missed the
cut, the most notable was the radical left bloc Communists, Workers of
Russia - for the Soviet Union. This bloc had been forced to campaign with
almost nothing in the way of funds or access to the mass media.

#Paradoxically, the Communist Party can be seen as the main loser in the
1999 elections. Back in November, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov boasted
to the Moscow daily <I>Nezavisimaya Gazeta<D> that his party would win as
much as 40 per cent of the votes, and together with its allies, would
finish up with two-thirds of the Duma seats - a so-called ``constitutional
majority''. In fact, the Communists not only failed to improve their
position in the parliament, but saw their strength sharply curtailed. In
the last Duma, the Communists and groups close to them had controlled 205
seats; this time, the party finished up with a mere 111. 

#The dramatic fall in the size and influence of the parliamentary bloc
headed by the Communists did not reflect any rightward shift by voters.
Rather, it stemmed from the peculiarities of Russia's electoral laws. At
the time of the 1995 elections, the right-wing side of Russian politics was
split into a series of contending fragments. The result was that much of
the vote for the right was wasted on groups that failed to make the 5 per
cent cut. The mandates that would have gone to minor groups were
distributed among the four parties that surmounted the 5 per cent barrier.
The bonus for the Communist Party amounted to around fifty seats. This
provided the Communists with exceptional political opportunities, which the
party leaders never managed to exploit.

#The eclipse of the Communists in the most recent elections was accompanied
by a sharp increase, to 105, in the number of independents who won Duma
positions by topping the poll in territorial electorates. A significant
number of these new deputies are regarded as leftists, though they also
include the oil magnates Roman Abramovich and Boris Berezovsky. A number of
non-party deputies were also elected on the Communists' list; these include
the prominent economist Sergey Glazyev. 

#As usual, the ``party of power'' proclaimed its victory. There was only
one thing overshadowing the celebrations - the war in Chechnya. Though used
by the state authorities as their main campaign ace, the war was already a
hopeless debacle. While the votes were being counted in Moscow, Russian
troops who had been airlifted into the mountains in the days before the
elections solely to allow Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to give another
``victorious'' interview were being annihilated. The airborne forces had
been dropped on a mountain with the symbolic name ``City of the Dead'';
there they remained beneath a mortar barrage, blockaded and lacking
adequate supplies of both food and ammunition. In the streets and squares
of Grozny lay the corpses of hundreds of soldiers who had died in the
course of a drawn-out assault the very fact of which was being concealed
from the Russian public.

#The propaganda machine was no longer coping with the situation, and even
<I>Nezavisimaya Gazeta,<D> which at the start of the conflict had taken an
ultra-militarist position, stated on December 21 that the armed forces were
``hiding the truth about the battles in Grozny.'' The Putin government was
trapped. It could neither end the war, nor win it. All it could do was dig
in its heels and tighten its censorship, while arguing to an increasingly
angry society that Russians had an unquestioning love for the state
authorities. The generals who had hoped that the politicians would once
again pull the army out of Chechnya, accepting blame for the defeat, had
miscalculated. No-one was about to bring the troops home. The army was
being sacrificed to electoral expediency. Successful vote-rigging required
a propaganda cover, and the officers and troops were condemned to pay for
the false ratings with their blood.

#The setbacks in the war made the electoral victory of the ``party of
power'' meaningless. The lies and crimes, the bombed-out villages and
pointlessly slaughtered soldiers, would have to be answered for - and not
only to the Chechens and world opinion, but also to the Russian population.
The situation did not provide the slightest grounds for optimism. The
position on the Chechen front, along with Russia's socio-economic
condition, was deteriorating fast; even with the help of censorship and
information manipulation, it would be impossible to maintain the illusion
of well-being until the June presidential elections, when according to the
original scenario, Putin would replace Yeltsin. 

#On December 30, 1999, Yeltsin made his final public appearance in the
Kremlin, bestowing the decoration of Hero of Russia on two of the leading
commanders of the Chechnya campaign, generals Kazantsev and Shamanov.
Praising the generals, Yeltsin declared that they had conducted themselves
irreproachably. The heroes themselves looked decidedly gloomy. 

#Next day, Yeltsin went into early retirement, in the process spoiling the
people's new year celebrations. Instead of being able to turn their backs
on politics and forget the country's disasters at least for one day in the
year, millions of people, gathered around their new year's tables, were
forced to discuss anxiously what would happen next....

#In his last presidential address, Yeltsin looked completely broken. He
seemed about to burst into tears, and even asked the people for their
forgiveness. It was as if he were making a speech at his own funeral. For
Yeltsin, farewelling power was more terrible than farewelling life. 

#The triumph of the ``party of power'' in 1999 did not mark the beginning
of a new period in the history of post-Soviet Russia. Putin's acting
presidency is merely the latest stage in the death-agony. Russian society
is fated to pay in blood for the incompetence, irresponsibility and
treachery of its elites. 

*******

#4
Christian Science Monitor
14 January 2000
Refugees target of Russian ire
A sweep of all 'fighting age' Chechen males sparks concerns of new 
concentration camps. 
By Fred Weir, Special to The Christian Science Monitor

Datu Isigova is beside herself with worry. A resident of Grozny, besieged 
capital of breakaway Chechnya, she escaped Wednesday to neighboring 
Ingushetia. 

Her husband, Suleiman, and her 11-year-old son, Arvi, didn't make it. Just 
yards from the the border, they were pulled from their bus by Russian 
soldiers implementing a new policy that regards all Chechen males between the 
ages of 10 and 60 as suspected terrorists. 

"I had to leave my son and husband behind," Mrs. Isigova told human rights 
workers as she disembarked. 

The number of Chechens fleeing through the only open escape hatch, here at 
Sleptsovsk, has swollen to crisis levels in recent days. A new Russian rule 
that forbids males of "fighting age" from entering or leaving Chechnya is 
causing an uproar among refugees separated at the border. 

The US State Department yesterday asked Russia for clarification of its 
policy. 

"We are deeply concerned by this order, which effectively deprives all males 
of the right to be refugees," says Peter Bouckaert, a monitor with the 
independent, New York-based Human Rights Watch. "This is a disturbing new The 
new rule is apparently a panic reaction to last weekend's stunning offensive 
by Chechen rebels, which wreaked havoc far behind Russian lines and 
challenged the military's control of key Chechen population centers. 

"The impression from here is that things are getting out of control in the 
Russian-occupied areas," says Tom Trier, project manager for the Danish 
Refugee Council, an aid group financed by several Scandinavian governments 
and the Danish Interchurch Committee. "We are seeing a big increase in the 
flow of refugees because the front line in Chechnya is breaking up, guerrilla 
war is flaring up everywhere, people are running away." 

Russian commanders have blamed the rebel attacks on lax security in the 80 
percent of Chechen territory now under Moscow's control. They have ordered 
fresh "cleansing operations" to root out hidden fighters, rebel sympathizers, 
and arms. 

As part of the new vigilance, all Chechen males, even teens, traveling on the 
war-torn republic's roads are to be treated as potential enemies until they 
prove they are bona fide refugees. Human-rights workers say most male 
detainees are forced to return to their homes, but there are increasing 
reports that some men taken at Russian checkpoints are disappearing. 

Russian soldiers at the Sleptsovsk crossing point, a grim funnel-like 
fortification straddling the main highway to the Chechen capital, said 
Wednesday they were turning back all Chechen males old enough to carry a gun. 

"They are taking away all the men, and they disappear," says Malika Mahagova, 
a former Grozny resident who came through the crossing Wednesday to reunite 
with her family, which has been in Ingushetia for two months. She had planned 
to take her children to a refugee camp at Sernovodsk, just inside Chechen 
territory, where conditions are better than in the bleak and overcrowded 
camps in Ingushetia. 

But she has a son in his twenties. "We do not intend to move because the 
Russians will take him for sure," she says. 

The Russian ministry of emergency situations said 2,500 people crossed from 
Chechnya Wednesday, way up from the average of about 500 per day in December 
and January. That brings the total to about 176,000 Chechen refugees staying 
in Ingushetia, an impoverished republic with a population of just 300,000. In 
recent weeks, tens of thousands had returned to Chechnya after receiving 
Russian assurances that it was safe to go home. 

"Now the flow is reversing again, and more are coming to Ingushetia," says 
Mikayel Aleksanyan, a field worker with UNICEF, the United Nations Children's 
Fund. "All this is linked to the pace of military activity in Chechnya. We 
are building up contingency stocks of supplies to handle a much bigger 
problem." 

Even Chechens working hand-in-glove with Moscow to bring the wayward republic 
back under Russian rule are furious. "The Russians are repeating all their 
mistakes of the last war," says Mohamed Arsanukayev, an official of the 
Chechen State Council, a pro-Moscow shadow government for the region. "The 
Russians can take territory, but it's quite a different matter to establish 
civic order. Imposing a tougher military regime is a huge mistake that will 
only play into the hands of the rebels." 

In the previous 1994-96 conflict, Russia's military occupied almost all of 
Chechnya, but was unable to stop highly mobile guerrillas from striking 
almost at will behind Russian lines. 

The Russians responded with harsher measures, including infamous "filtration 
centers," or concentration camps, where the record shows thousands of 
suspected rebels were detained without notification, beaten, and sometimes 
tortured. 

"We're very worried that these new measures mean the Russians are going down 
the same road as the last war, and we could soon see this herald the 
reintroduction of filtration centers," says Mr. Bouckaert. "When you create a 
regime where any male can be summarily detained, this opens the likelihood of 
abuse." 

*******

#5
Moscow Times
January 14, 2000 
NOTES OF AN IDLER: Will Putin Be A Liberal, or a Centrist? Yes! 
By Fyodor Gavrilov 

One slogan from the nightmarish swirl of Stalin-era slogans still bears true 
today: Stalin is today's Lenin. That is to say that its spirit remains true - 
that the social and economic plans of the state - and the methods used to 
implement them - remain supreme. Boris Yeltsin's resignation has made this 
even clearer: When a charismatic leader leaves the people, he leaves them 
orphans. 

Because of this, Russian and Western newspapers alike are obsessed with one 
issue: Who is Vladimir Putin? Is Putin today's Yeltsin? Is he an evil genius? 
A second Pinochet? Russia's savior? What awaits us in the future? 

Everyone is guessing. Journalists have spent weeks researching his 
personality with the aid of his expressions. How did he look at the meeting 
with Moscow writers? Did he look stern or lenient? 

But there is no cause for serious alarm; an analysis of Putin's public 
pronouncements shows we can expect no drastic political change. Putin is the 
Yeltsin of the 21st century, and people who survived Yeltsin will not suffer 
under Putin. 

Let's look at some examples. "Russia is on the road to political and economic 
development," Putin says. Russians want to use the opportunities opened up by 
forms of ownership, free enterprise and market relations. Russians have taken 
on values like freedom of speech, travel abroad, other basic political rights 
and the freedom of personality. Putin doesn't indicate he plans to interfere. 

His most important task, he says, is to find a new national idea to connect 
world values with traditional Russian ones. Putin can picture these values 
clearly. First of all, patriotism: "Russia has always been and will remain a 
great country," he has said. In the modern world, however, the power of a 
country is not its military might but its ability to ensure a high standard 
of living. 

The state has always played a special role in Russia. It is the source of any 
changes that take place. The state needs to coordinate the economic and 
social forces of the country, create a balance of interests, and determine 
the optimal goals for social development. This, of course, goes beyond the 
idea of the state's role being nothing more than a drafter and enforcer of 
certain economic rules. Putin understands this. And he hopes that "in time 
[Russia] will arrive at this formula." 

Among the most important challenges for Russia is to stimulate economic 
growth, to raise investor activity and to introduce effective industrial 
policies. Liberal measures are being proposed: tax reforms, liquidation of 
non-payment and stabilization of the ruble. 

But, Putin notes, "Russian society has a deep-set paternalistic mood." The 
majority of Russians have come to associate improving their situation not 
with their own initiative but with help from the state. Is this good or bad? 
Putin will not say. 

So who is Putin really? A liberal? Evidently, yes. A centrist? Of course. In 
a sense, he is God-like: He is everything and nothing. 

Here is a clue to the future strategy: An assortment of contradictions shows 
that the new democratic Russian leader will change direction according to the 
obstacles that stand in his way. The most important task is to guess what 
these obstacles will be. 

Fyodor Gavrilov is the editor of Kariera-Kapital, a business weekly in St. 
Petersburg. 

*******

#6
Parlamentskaya Gazeta
January 12, 2000
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
3RD DUMA: AN ATTEMPT AT A COLLECTIVE PORTRAIT
By Professor Nikolai SAKHAROV, chief of the initial analysis section 
of the State Duma's analytical department

The Central Election Commission officially reports
that 441 of 450 members of the 3rd State Duma were
voted in in the December 19, 1999 elections, including
225 members elected on the federal party lists and 216
elected in single-mandate constituencies. 
Repeat elections will be held in eight
single-mandate constituencies on March 26. Elections in
the one single-mandate constituency located in Chechnya
will he held at a later date.

Also, there are changes in the lineup of members elected on
the federal party lists. Some of them prefer to stay in their
previous positions, and their mandates will thus be handed to
other candidates on the lists of respective parties and movements
as stipulated by the election legislation. 
But on the whole, the 3rd Duma has been elected, which
enables one to make an attempt to draw its collective portrait. 
So who are the people chosen by the voter to make new laws
in the new Duma? To start with, only 157 of them have served in
the 2nd Duma. The Duma's lineup has thus been renewed by more
than two-thirds. The same was true of the 1995 Duma elections,
when as many members had served on the 1st Duma. 
But there is a difference: there are 16 more veterans in the
current Duma. Nine of them have served in the 1st Duma to be
elected to the 3rd Duma, and seven have been members of the 2nd
Duma but left prematurely to take high posts in the government.
They are MPs again.
As to the 157 members that the 3rd Duma has 'inherited' from
the 2nd Duma, 64 of them have been running on the lists of
various parties and movements, and 93 have been elected in
single-mandate constituencies, with 76 of them running for
reelection in their 'native' constituencies. 
One can thus hope for the continuity in the Duma's
law-making.
Thirty new members of the 3rd Duma have been serving on the
legislatures in the Russian Federation's constituent members.
Some of them have chaired regional legislatures and been members
of the upper house, the Federation Council. A dozen of them used
to combine their membership in the upper chamber with other
activities--administrative, journalistic, entrepreneurial,
etc.--which were the main line of work for them. Eight members
have been on the lineups of the local governments' representative
bodies, some of them in parallel with other jobs.
Nine new Duma members have been working on the staffs of the
federal and regional legislatures or have been assistants to Duma
members. In all, no less than 220 members of the 3rd Duma have an
experience of work for legislative or representative bodies. This
is close to a half of the chamber's lineup, which is important
factor of the new Duma's high professionalism. 
Another numerous group is composed of those who have been
holding various positions in bodies of the executive authority,
other state agencies and departments, and companies in the public
sector: ministers and deputy ministers of the federal and
regional levels, regional and municipal administrators, and heads
of administrative departments--close to 70 people in all. 
Quite a few members of the 3rd Duma have been recent ranking
officers in the state apparat. The new Duma is unique in that its
lineup includes all former federal premiers: Yegor Gaidar, Viktor
Chernomyrdin, Sergei Kiriyenko, Yevgeny Primakov and Sergei
Stepashin, who have decided to become law-makers at the current
stage of their political careers. 
Also, there are ten former federal ministers, three former
first deputies to the premier and two former vice-premiers, two
former governors, and one ex-director of the Federal Security
Service. 
Hopefully, the formerly high ranking officials will bring
their rich experience and their visions of priority directions of
law-making to the new Duma. 
The leaders of many national parties, unions, movements,
national public political organisations who have been elected to
the 3rd Duma, will certainly be active in the lower chamber.
There are nearly 30 of them, both veterans and first-term MPs. 
Not only separate parties, but blocs composed of several
parties and movements are known to have run and won in the
December 19 elections. The blocs' cofounders have thus made it to
the Duma. 
Thirteen new members used to head various public
organisations, centres and foundations. Trade union leaders--ten
in all--form a separate category.
A characteristic feature of all three Dumas: members of the
corpus directori, business people, farm managers and heads of
organisations and foundations maintaining close connections with
business circles are well represented. Some of them used to be
members of regional and municipal bodies--in parallel. In all,
some 80 members of the 3rd Duma represent business circles and
are capable of exerting noticeable influence on the law-making. 
Just like in the wake of the 1993 and 1995 elections, the
new Duma features a score professional scholars, experts and
heads of research institutions, and quite a few of them have been
ranking government bureaucrats into the bargain. Sixteen new
members used to be rectors of universities and institutes, or
professors thereof. Seven new members used to head or work for
major health care establishments. 
There is a many-time Olympic champion and former director of
an academic drama theatre in the 3rd Duma. 
Just like in the previous Dumas, representatives of the
media are conspicuous by their presence in the new lower chamber:
chief of a local TV company, editor of a local newspaper, anchor
of a national TV channel, and two regional correspondents on the
staff of two national dailies.
Two new members used to be commanders of units in the field.
Another two used to head professional organisations of lawyers.
One new member has been a plant worker, and another one, a
farmer. Three new members have been running as unemployed and
three are on old-age pensions. 
In all, the new Duma duly features most variable social and
professional strata of Russia's society. 
As to the age groups represented in the new lower chamber,
members in their forties and their fifties are the two
predominant groups. The youngest member is Vladimir Dyomin, b.
1974, who has been elected on the list of the Zhirinovsky Bloc,
and the oldest MP, Yegor Ligachev, b. 1920, has been elected in a
single-mandate constituency. 
There are 34 female members in the new Duma, i.e. less than
in the opening period of the 2nd Duma's work, when there were 46
female members. There are 90 members under 40 in the new lower
chamber, compared with 50 members of this age group in the 2nd
Duma. 

*******

#7
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
January 6, 2000
It Was the Epoch of Yeltsin
By Roy Medvedev
[translation by Olga Kryazheva (okryazhev@cdi.org)
Research intern, Center for Defense Information]

"I am leaving…" these words Yeltsin repeated over and over in his
television announcement to the Russian citizens. The end of the year and
the end of the century was also the end of Yeltsin's epoch, which lasted
almost ten years of Russian history and concluded with his voluntary
resignation on the last day of 1999. For the first time in Russian history
the entire epoch goes into the past with the sounds and lights of
fireworks, with neither revolution, bloodshed, coup nor conspiracy. Russia
enters the next century led by a new leader Vladimir Putin. Russians take
it not as a disaster but as a Christmas gift of fortune.

The unexpected news of President Yeltsin's resignation once again proved
his unpredictability (in the opinion of Kremlin news reporters.) But facts
of the past few years cannot support that. Unexpected was just the fact
that Yeltsin announced his resignation on the last day of the 1999. 

No, Yeltsin did not want to leave. However, he had not only thought but had
spoken of the resignation since the summer of 1996, when his heart
condition made him practically unable to work. During fall of the same
year, when the President was getting ready for the coronary operation,
state officials and Yeltsin himself had to predict all outcomes including
resignation.

In 1997-98 Yeltsin's condition seemed to be critical. In September of
1998, during the meeting with Yeltsin, his demoralization and physical
condition astonished President Clinton and his advisers. In October during
Yeltsin's visit to Tashkent and Alma-Ata hundreds of people observed his
disabilities and medical problems and members of the Russian delegation and
reporters were nervously waiting for something terrible to happen. Almost
half of the Federal Council voted for "President's voluntary resignation"
in the same month. 

Since January 1999 Yeltsin's medical conditions worsened. His resignation
became a major topic for many publishers. No doubt, Yeltsin's ability to
rule the country after several major health crises surprised everybody.
This happened in December of 1998, when Yeltsin after a long stay in the
hospital, came back to the Kremlin and unexpectedly changed his
administration and later addressed Russian citizens with his speech on
January 1, 1999. This also happened in May 1999, when Yeltsin fired famous
Prime Minister. Y. Primakov. This again happened in November, 1999, at the
OSCE Summit, when Yeltsin impressed diplomats and reporters by seeming
strong, healthy, and confident. As one of the diplomats joked: "Yeltsin
did not bang on the table with his shoe, he untied it… I don't know what
medicine he takes, but it seems to help." However, these flames of
activity became rare and riskier. In the meanwhile, Russia needed a healthy
and active president on post, not in the hospital. It seemed that our
country was close to having this type of a leader. 

Yeltsin Says Farewell and Asks for Forgiveness 

In his last address to the Russian people, we can feel the bitterness of
resignation and insult. "They said I would never leave." Yeltsin asks for
forgiveness of Russian people for his unaccomplished plans, mistakes, and
illusions. He thought he could correct mistakes of the past and move on
from a totalitarian to a "civilized society" in one big step. He failed to
do so.

Obviously, Yeltsin paid too much attention to the people who said what he
wanted to hear. He blindly believed in a magic force of the "shock
therapy" and free market; in ability to implement the "constitutional
order" in Chechnya in no time, in possibility to create an effective
private property system by means of vouchers. This list of examples of
economic, political, and military illusions is endless. 

Unfortunately, Yeltsin was not the first one to have illusions. Nicholas
II dreamed about a small and victorious war; his dreams came true in
Tsusima War and Revolution of 1905. Lenin dreamed about world socialist
revolution, which Russia would start and Europe would support and continue.
Stalin's "revolution from above," which led the country to the most
terrible terror in its history, was an attempt to solve the problems
unresolved in decades. Nikita Khrushchev, who dreamed of catching up with
the United States and even surpassing it, and the short-term campaigns of
Gorbachev's Perestroika can complete the list of illusions of Russian
leaders. 

Yeltsin was not the only one in his impatience, even though he sometimes
wanted to surpass his predecessors in radicalism of his reforms. But he
was the only Russian leader of the twentieth century who asked Russians for
forgiveness of his mistakes. 

The Problem of Successor

We saw Yeltsin more often than western officials and diplomats; obviously,
Yeltsin put himself at risk delaying his resignation month after month, and
even year after year. What made him take the risk? Some say it was his
dissatisfied hunger for power, or even his habit of power. Power was the
only meaning of his life. I will not argue this obvious fact that Yeltsin's
desire was to acquire and strengthen the power. It is evident that the
past few years in office Yeltsin devoted to preservation his power and
search for successor. He was looking for a man capable to hold the given
power in interests of Yeltsin's team and in the best interests of Russia,
as President viewed them. 

In 1993-1995 Yeltsin not once mentioned his successor, but everybody seemed
to believe it was a game or a joke. He favored Sergey Shakhrai, Vladimir
Shumeiko, and Oleg Soskovets, and noted, the next president "at least
should be tall." In reality Yeltsin did not want to hear about any
successor at that time, and even excluded the article on Vice President
from the Constitution of Russian Federation, important for the Main Law of
the country. 

This changed in the summer of 1996. The medical condition of the President
had worsened; people began questioning Yeltsin's ability to rule the
country. Yeltsin announced that he is concerned with the choice of
successor, and even pointed him out: "There is a man and you know him."
Then everybody knew that he implied Alexander Lebed, but the union between
Yeltsin and Lebed broke in few months. In November of 1996 Prime Minister
Victor Chernomyrdin held the office as the President of Russian Federation
for 17 hours. However, Yeltsin did not accept the idea of Chernomyrdin as
his successor, which led to Chernomyrdin's sudden resignation. In spring of
1997, Yeltsin was seriously thinking about the possibility to grant
presidency to Boris Nemtsov, who became Vice Prime Minister. Newspapers
called Nemtsov "dofin" or heir. But his failures disappointed Yeltsin, as
well as the people. 

It was obvious that Yeltsin did not see Yevgeniy Primakov as a successor,
although he was grateful to Primakov for overcoming the consequences of the
country's financial crisis. 

President was quickly disappointed in new Prime Minister Sergey Stepashin,
whom he removed from his position without hesitation. 

This painful and endless search resulted in appointment of Vladimir Putin
as the Prime Minister of Russian Federation. Yeltsin seemed to be
satisfied with Putin's work and behavior, whose fame among Russian people
quickly grew. "Yeltsin was always lucky. He always found the way out, "
said Mikhail Poltoranin, his close companion during the beginning of 90s.
He was finally lucky with a successor. 

It seemed almost impossible, that the man with such strong intellectual
abilities and character, with hidden potential and talents, which Putin
shows today, could appear among the President's people. 

What Will History Say?

People from Yeltsin's team admit that for the past few years Yeltsin was
concerned about future successor as much as he was concerned about his
personal role in the Russian history. What will history say about him?
Yeltsin thought about it before, but lately it has turned into the main
area of his concern. Many books are written about the President and his
epoch and many others will follow. People argue over events, judgements,
and values of this period of the first Russian Presidency. 

There are certain judgements that are unquestionable for the historians of
different views. Yeltsin's epoch cannot be called coherent. We can easily
distinguish several periods. I would say that the first period was the time
from August 1991, when political power was turned into Yeltsin's hands,
until the unexpected and dramatic events of the fall of 1993. The liberal
reforms of 1992 and confrontation with Russian Parliament were the main
events of this period. Second period ended with elections of 1996. The
main event was the painful war in Chechnya. Third period opened with
inauguration of the President in August of 1996 and ended with financial
failure on August 17, 1998. The forth period ended with Yeltsin's
resignation. 

During all these years the situation in Russia and around the world
changed, people in the government and Yeltsin's administration,
Constitution and laws changed, too, but President Yeltsin remained in
power. He somehow changed the situation in Russia, and he himself kept
changing as well, adjusting to the new environment. He had a unique talent
to remain himself, but at the same time constantly changing for better or
for worse.

Yeltsin had never fanatically followed one certain political or social
doctrine; that was one of the secrets for many years in power. He was a
communist administrator and a communist democrat, social democrat and
liberal, left wing radical, patriot, and ongoing fighter against
privileges. He could easily adapt and go in a new direction, without
surprising anybody; and even his yearly addresses to the Federal Council
differ from one another significantly not only in language, topics, but in
ideological contents. 

Undoubtedly, power, not ideology, was the main priority for Yeltsin, for
which he was seriously criticized. Critics wrote about him as of an
autocratic landlord, who destroyed his property, sank in debt, killed
people and cattle, fired managers and blamed them for his bankruptcy.
During the last year the most respectable western newspapers and magazines
criticized Yeltsin and the Family the most. But, for example, who could
replace Yeltsin in 1993? Khasbulatov? Rutskoi?

Who could become a head of the state in 1997? Nemtsov? Chubais?
Chernomyrdin? Was there an alternative to Yeltsin? Was Zuganov able to
take all the responsibility and avoid the shock?

An alternative to Yeltsin vaguely appeared with the appointment of Yevgeniy
Primakov, but political movement and ideology, which could have supported
Primakov, appear only today, and their development has not been finished
yet. By the same token, Yeltsin's regime also was not homogeneous: there
were themes of democracy and despotism; new Russian capitalism was
corrupted and contained roots of the former socialist relations. In
different management areas this regime has different colors, and even the
map of Russian regions is colored in different colors, including red, pink,
blue, white, and green. This mix of colors cannot be found in any other
country of the world.

All historians have one almost exact criterion to evaluate the meaning and
role of any leader in the history of their country. We compare the
country's situation when a leader took power in his country to the one when
he left his position in case of death or other circumstances. History will
decide whether to include Yeltsin into the list of the great reformers of
the twentieth century, such as Deng Xiaoping, Franklin Roosevelt, Konrad
Adanauer, and Nelson Mandela. The country was in bad condition when
Yeltsin came to power in 1993; but he leaves it for successors in even
worse condition. Based on major criteria, the level of life of an average
Russian decreased 40-50 percent, and the number of people living in
absolute poverty exceeds one half on the population in Russia. Crime
increased, and systems of education, healthcare, and culture stagnated.
Should I give more examples, numbers, and data that characterize this time
of decay?

It is hard to include Yeltsin on the list of the revolutionaries of the
twentieth century. He did not follow any new ideology, although he was
able to destroy previous laws and dogmas. Of course, Yeltsin is neither a
dictator nor a tyrant. He tolerated newspapers, magazines, and television
critics. He refused to prohibit the Communist Party of Russian Federation
and to conduct the "decommunization" as was required by right wing
radicals. He protected the freedom of press, opinions, information, and
political movements, which Russia was able to have. Democracy cannot be
built, it has to grow; and the basic conditions for such growth exist in
our country. Yeltsin signed the Belovezhsk Agreement and Union Treaty with
Belarus. Those who think that Yeltsin is just a puppet in hands of his
apparatus and oligarchs are mistaken. Yeltsin always made his own decisions
and was fully responsible for his actions. All Russian politicians and
leaders of other countries had to take Yeltsin into consideration, and not
only because Russia had all kinds of nuclear weapons, as Yeltsin mentioned
in Peking. All of the above is not enough to score high in the history's
trial. He could have done worse. 

Only ten people headed the Russian and Soviet state for the past hundred
years. Some of them ruled the country for many years and decades, some were
in office only for few months. Replacing each other in the Winter Palace,
and then in Kremlin Nicholas II, Alexander Kerensky, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph
Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Konstantine
Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Boris Yeltsin decided the future of the
country. They were different people with different views, ideas,
characters, intellectual ability, and style of work. But the people
elected only one of them; others came to power by means of revolution,
party decrees, coups or common intrigues. All of these leaders were not
selected by their predecessor, and often condemned his order, announcing
their will to establish new and better order. 

No need to say that Kerensky was not going to follow deeds and ideas of
Nicholas II, and Lenin - deeds and ideas of Kerensky. Lenin was afraid of
Stalin's taking over the country. Stalin, who exalted Lenin in his words,
absolutely refused to follow Lenin's ideas and policy in the beginning of
20s. Khrushchev believed that his main task was to fight against Stalin's
"cult of personality," and Brezhnev declared a war against Khrushchev's
"subjectivism and voluntarism." Andropov did not want Chernenko to become
his successor; Chernenko did not want Gorbachev, who started to fight
actively against laws of stagnation, to be his heir. We can still remember
the Yeltsin - Gorbachev confrontation. In the twentieth century Russia did
not have the regular and natural system of the power succession from one
leader to another. That was the main reason of our failures and hardships.
Five of the above-mentioned leaders of the country were heads of the state
till they died; three were removed from power as the result of the
revolutions, one as a victim of royal conspiracy. 

Yeltsin is the only one who voluntarily resigned, passing power to the
successor, whom he selected and trusted. This is progress in the country's
politics, and we can hope that this experience of power succession in
Russia will become a regular and peaceful constitutional procedure. Today
we have a real chance to create a democratic system of power succession and
we don't have a right to lose this chance. 

There is no doubt that many of the orders and disorders that consolidated
in Russia during the last ten years should be reconsidered. We should hope
that these inevitable changes will not turn into some fight with
"personality cult." The twentieth century was full of revolutions, coups,
conspiracies, and the country and people are tired of them. The change that
Russia needs is possible without extreme tension, by means of tremendous
amounts of resources and favorable conditions that Russia still has.
Unfortunately, these resources were misused. This epoch of Yeltsin that is
becoming history was another example of such misuse and wastefulness. 

******


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