March
22, 2000
This Date's Issues: 4188 • 4189
•
4190
Johnson's Russia List
#4190
22 March 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com
[Note from David Johnson:
1. Komsomolskaya Pravda: FINAL DIAGNOSIS? (election prediction)
2. AP: Russia Mulls Nuclear Treaty.
3. Boris Kagarlitsky: How I Became an Enemy of the State.
4. Christian Science Monitor: Judith Matloff, Russian execs mobilize
against crooked deals.
5. RFE/RL: Paul Goble, Two Kinds Of Elections.
6. Reuters: Paul Taylor, Wary world pins hopes on Putin.
7. Paul Panitz: Re: Andrew Miller #4182/Soros' New Book.
8. Segodnya: ALEXEI ZUDIN: "PRESIDENT PUTIN NEEDS AN IDEA"
9. Ira Straus: Re: the capitalist conspiracy, and the real
motivations of the West.
10. PRNewswire: Former Prime Minister Kiriyenko Lays Out Challenges
For Putin Presidency at U.S.-Russia Business Council Event.]
******
#1
Komsomolskaya Pravda
March 22, 2000
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
FINAL DIAGNOSIS?
Having generalised the results of studies of different
sociological services and opinion polls conducted among 100
experts, the Moscow-based Strategic Analysis and Forecast
Centre, or TsSAP, made the following forecast for March 26
election returns.
Vladimir Putin will win in the first round of the election
with 52% to 55% of the vote, Gennady Zyuganov will come the
second with 23% to 26% and Aman Tuleyev and Grigory Yavlinsky
will share the 3rd and 4th places with 4% to 7%, each.
Yavlinsky has been lately losing supporters because of
excessive television advertising, while Tuleyev has been
winning new followers in the country's industrial regions.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky will be unable to rise higher than the 5th
place (with 3% to 4%) because of his late registration as
presidential candidate. Stanislav Govorukhin is unlikely to
garner more than 1% or 2% because he is not very widely known.
The other candidates will score no more than 1%, each.
According to TsSAP's estimates, no more than 6% of the
electorate will vote "none of the above."
******
#2
Russia Mulls Nuclear Treaty
March 22, 2000
MOSCOW (AP) - Top security officials and members of parliament discussed
the START II nuclear arms reduction treaty at a closed-door meeting
Tuesday, and issued a statement encouraging the full parliament to ratify
the document.
START II, signed in 1993, limits the United States and Russia to about
3,000 nuclear warheads each but has been stalled in Russia's lower house of
parliament, or Duma, waiting ratification.
Hard-line deputies argue the country needs a stiff nuclear shield to
compensate for shabby conventional forces.
But military and foreign policy leaders have said they support the treaty,
in part because Russia cannot afford to maintain a large nuclear arsenal,
and regularly prod the Duma toward ratification.
Representatives of the Ministry of Defense, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov
and members of three Duma committees attended the meeting, according to a
statement from the Foreign Ministry.
Ratification of START II is ``in the interest of guaranteeing the national
security of the Russian Federation and strengthening strategic stability in
the world,'' the statements says.
Participants at the meeting also recommended the Duma ratify amendments to
START II concerning enforcement, and amendments to the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty, the statement said.
Russia and the United States are currently at odds over a U.S. proposal to
scale-back the ABM treaty to allow the United States to built a limited
missile defense system.
*******
#3
From: "Renfrey Clarke" <renfreyclarke@gulf.net.au>
Subject: Kagarlitsky on Russian election campaign
Date: 22 March
#How I Became an Enemy of the State
#By Boris Kagarlitsky
#MOSCOW - A few months ago I was simply a political analyst. Since early in
March, however, I have stepped back into a role I had almost forgotten -
that of coordinator of an informal political movement, in this case one
established to organise an electoral boycott. This return to public
activity is not because I am incapable of shutting up, but because the
current elections for the Russian presidency are simply revolting.
# The only response a self-respecting person can make to these elections
is to refuse to play along with them. The only thing I can do as a citizen
is to declare my position to all and sundry. Democracy without freedom is
impossible, and freedom stops where manipulation begins. An indestructible
bloc of oligarchs and political fixers merits only contempt, and a boycott.
In such a case, the only way of winning is to refuse to play the game. To
ignore the propaganda. To make pointless the manipulations by the political
puppeteers, and in the process, to turn their intrigues back upon them.
#If the politicians connive behind the backs of the citizens, why
shouldn't the citizens also unite and tell the politicians what the public
thinks of them? So it was that the Union 2000 movement arose, putting the
slogan: <I>Don't Vote - It 'd be Shameful.<D> The principle behind the
movement was that its members saw the legitimising of Putin's rule as a
political farce. Our campaign began with a demonstration on Theatre Square
on March 11, when activists smashed television sets at the monument to Karl
Marx. After this a rock group performed, and young anarchists sang and
danced in a ring. More respectable members of other left tendencies stood
and watched. It was a sacrificial offering, a Russian journalist remarked.
Just like in New York, a <I>Boston Globe<D> correspondent agreed cheerfully.
#The militia, the Russian police, took their own view of the proceedings.
Movement activist Vladimir Malkin and I were detained as instigators of the
act of vengeance against defenceless television sets. As we were shoved
into a militia Lada, young anarchists with threatening expressions gathered
about. We explained that as law-abiding citizens, we would not put up any
resistance. Peace was then restored. A third instigator, journalist Ivan
Zasursky, was left alone by the militia; someone had to ensure order on the
square. Through a megaphone, Zasursky declared the demonstration a success,
since the organisers had been arrested.
#As it happened, we were not charged. On the contrary, the militia
themselves were intrigued by what was going on. After studying the leaflets
of Union 2000, they asked whether the smashing of the television sets had
damaged the monument to Karl Marx. They were assured that no damage had
been done, and that fhe organisers of the action held both Marx and his
monument in the utmost respect.
#A pause followed. Then a militia colonel asked: "What brand were the
sets?" Temp and Rubin, made in Russia and considered of dubious quality.
"We've got a Sony here," said a representative of the authorities. After
discussing whether to smash the Sony as well, the militia officers decided
that for a start it would be enough simply to turn it off. After 20 minutes
the organisers of the demonstration were set loose.
#The campaign for a boycott did not always pass off so peacefully. On
March 14 people calling for a vote against all the candidates decided to
mount their own action, but unlike the organisers of the earlier boycott
demonstration, they had not obtained the required permission from the
authorities. The result was 14 arrests, including four of casual
passers-by. In the city of Kirov, an activist of the radical left Movement
for a Workers Party was arrested while pasting up posters denouncing Putin
and the elections. When a fellow member of the movement, a deputy to the
provincial assembly, tried to intervene on his behalf, the deputy was
threatened with loss of his legislator's immunity from prosecution. On
March 17 activists of Union 2000 who had been pasting up posters in Moscow
were also stopped by militia, who confiscated the posters and let the
activists go.
#Meanwhile, wreaking vengeance on television sets proved such a popular
idea that Zasursky's phone ran hot as friends got in touch and offered
their sets to be smashed. True, the offerings were mostly of ancient black
and white Rekords and Rubins, rather than state-of-the-art imported models.
Meanwhile, the television sets were not altogether defenceless. As early as
the evening of March 11, they began to strike back. All the channels
featured reports in which the organisers of the demonstration were accused
of extremism, and of trying to undermine the Russian state system. The
people trying to sabotage the elections were enemies of democracy, declared
the head of the Central Electoral Commission, Mr Veshnyakov, who went on to
threaten that the authorities would not stay on the sidelines. Supporters
of the boycott, Veshnyakov suggested, might be charged under Article 41 of
the Criminal Code, on hindering the exercise of electoral rights. Poor
Veshnyakov evidently did not realise that this article relates primarily to
his fellow officials of the electoral apparatus. If, for example, we bolt
the doors of the polling stations, burn the ballot boxes, and send the
ballot papers off to be pulped, that will be precisely Article 41. But
practical jokes such as these are permitted only to officials. Activists
exercising their freedom of speech and conducting lawful agitation on the
streets, filling out all the required forms and obtaining permission for
their actions, clearly belong to another category of people. Especially
since the right not to vote is just as sacred as the right to vote and to
stand for election.
#Hard-headed analysts and political specialists immediately began trying
to work out who was behind the boycotters. It did not enter their heads
that people might act on their own initiative, because they wanted to
defend their ideas. For the political fixers to accept that a demonstration
shown on almost all the television stations could be mounted without
spending money was quite impossible; that would be to undermine the market
for their own services. Such a demonstration must certainly have cost
several thousand dollars. The cost of reproducing the labor power of the
election specialists, including holidays by the Black Sea and dinners in
expensive restaurants, would have needed to be met. But this time, nothing
came of the specialists' search. Their methods, meant for an imitation of
political activity, are powerless once a real political struggle begins.
#On Monday March 13, representatives of the left organizations opposing
the elections decided to hold a press conference. The time proved
ill-chosen. An hour and a half before the press conference was due to
begin, the National Press Institute, which was providing the hall, called
the meeting off; the reason, it seemed, was the views of the institute's
sponsors. Since press releases had already gone out, and editors had
assigned reporters to cover the event, a group of journalists gathered at
the doors of the institute. The radical left parliamentarian Oleg Shein
also arrived. Something like an impromptu meeting with journalists then
took place.
#Our press conference was finally held on March 17 in the House of
Journalists. Here, there was a new surprise. Before the meeting with the
press, Ivan Zasursky received a phone call which he could not help but
relate to his colleagues. ``The authorities are creating not only angels
such as Putin,'' Zasursky observed, ``but also demons. The authorities now
need to present the people campaigning against the elections as a terrible
destabilising force. They need to create the next enemy. I have received a
phone call from someone close to Putin's election campaign staff, offering
to finance our actions.'' Everyone in the hall strained to hear the name of
the person involved. It turned out that the person who had phoned Zasursky
was the famous Marat Gelman. ``I told him I'd think about it,'' Zasursky
related, ``but now I realise that this is something we don't need. We're
putting our ideas, and we're not doing it for money. I don't want to take
part in Gelman's intellectual provocations.''
#It seems that Union 2000 is by no means the only group that has received
offers of money. The group Proryv (``Breakthrough'') has held a whole
series of demonstrations under the slogan ``Vote against all of them!''
Proryv leader Roman Tkach maintains that he has had no contact with Gelman
for an extended period. Journalists, however, think differently. According
to the internet source deadline.ru, money was most likely offered to Gelman
and Tkach, and since Tkach, unlike Kagarlitsky and Zasursky, was not
fighting for ideas but for a generous payment, it was easier to reach
agreement with him.
#On March 18 Tkach appeared at a Union 2000 demonstration with a dozen of
his followers, each of them with a professionally prepared placard.
Accompanying them was a brass band. This would have been simply amusing if
they had not had with them a truck carrying 200 kg of buckwheat, which the
Proryv members planned to distribute to the population. If Electoral
Commission chief Veshnyakov had needed proof that the opponents of the
elections were using illegal methods, here it was. A classic case of
vote-buying, and those who were answerable for it were not the people from
Proryv, but the organisers of the demonstration. As deadline.ru noted, the
ploy was totally in the spirit of Father Gapon. The provocation did not
succeed, as Union 2000 called a halt to the demonstration. As soon as this
was announced, the militants of Proryv loaded their placards into the truck
with the buckwheat and quit the square.
#Why should political specialists close to the authorities play at these
games? The anwer is simple: they need an enemy, and they also need to have
people turn up at the polling stations, at any price. Even if people vote
against Putin, the main thing is that they should turn out. Provided
enough people do this, the vote-counting specialists will manage the rest.
In the 2000 presidential elections, ``Against All'' is being cast in the
role filled by Zyuganov in 1993 and 1996.
#It is another matter that the electoral ``technocrats'' around the
Kremlin have clearly been carried away with the game they are playing. They
have ensured that the only meaningful choice before electors is whether to
vote against all the candidates, or else to boycott the elections entirely.
In the process, the political fixers have unmasked the system they helped
construct. Now they have nowhere left to retreat to. If things continue in
this fashion, at the next elections the population will be offered a choice
between a boycott and an armed insurrection. What if they choose the latter?
*******
#4
Christian Science Monitor
22 March 2000
Russian execs mobilize against crooked deals
By Judith Matloff, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Lev Kaplan, a St. Petersburg construction executive, became fed up with bribe
demands and mafia activity. It galled him to see unfair competition and
corruption flourish.
The city in which he lived - Russia's second most well-known - had gained the
unflattering sobriquet of the country's "crime capital" for its dirty deals
and high-profile contract murders.
But instead of just shrugging his shoulders, Mr. Kaplan decided to do
something about it a year ago.
He gathered 240 fellow members of the St. Petersburg Association of
Construction Companies to draw up rules of ethical conduct. They agreed that
anyone who violated the code would be kicked out and black-listed.
It was a pioneering move. But the effort appears to be gathering momentum
among local business owners.
And the likely prospect that the tough acting president, Vladimir Putin, will
be officially elected March 26 has the business community aflutter with hope.
Expectations are that Mr. Putin will make good on his promise to establish a
"dictatorship of law" - a term that doesn't seem to bother supporters - to
overcome the crookedness that has marked the 10-year transition from Soviet
rule to robber-baron capitalism.
"Before, no one cared about the principles of ethics in business," says
Galina Ratnikova, an official with the Russian Chamber of Commerce in Moscow.
"But suddenly, the reputation of a company is a very important factor. The
mentality is changing across Russia."
The absence of a strong state under former President Boris Yeltsin meant that
small businesses that challenged government authority often risked sanctions
or harassment by tax police. Low salaries encouraged corruption by
politicians; parliamentarians had immunity from prosecution. The judiciary
was not independent.
Putin supporters like Kaplan talk hopefully of such issues as transparency,
respecting client confidentiality, honoring contracts, rejecting libel, and
removing unfair advantages that hamper competition. Among the recent
initiatives are plans for a competition organized by the chamber to honor the
most-honest bosses and enterprises in Russia.
The fervor is remarkable considering that there are no guarantees that Putin
will succeed. Detractors note that he has revealed no concrete measures and
question whether he will crack down only against political enemies.
While Putin was deputy mayor in the early 1990s, St. Petersburg's economy
declined. In fact, critics say, Putin nurtured the establishment of
secretive, monopolistic structures that facilitated corrupt practices.
Associations other than Kaplan's are drawing up their own codes of conduct.
According to Ms. Ratnikova, entire branches of industry - such as realtors
and bankers - are discussing the need for regulations.
American businessman Matthew Murray, who has collected 100-plus signatures in
St. Petersburg for a Declaration of Integrity in Business Conduct, says he
has been swamped with queries on how to translate the document into action.
To meet the "overwhelming" demand, he plans to hold a series of seminars
starting next month to teach Russian entrepreneurs how to write and enforce
ethics charters. "People are gravitating to the theme of Putin's
'dictatorship of law.' They genuinely believe he will place the Kremlin's
authority behind the court system," Mr. Murray says.
"Over the past eight weeks there has been a great deal more interest. Before,
it was only a handful of reformers. Now a more diverse group of people are
generally interested in the process."
The pessimists say that corruption is so deeply embedded in Russia that it
will be difficult to change mentalities that have lasted most of this
century.
"The establishment of ethics codes is certainly useful. But much more-serious
changes are needed to create a civil society," says Alexander Metveyev, an
analyst with the Russian Economic Barometer, an independent research
foundation in Moscow.
But businessmen such as Kaplan and Murray, who worked with Putin earlier in
his career, are convinced the former KGB spy can mobilize the secret services
to crack down on shady dealings - and that he's keenly aware of the need to
revitalize Russia's moribund economy.
"I am absolutely sure Putin can do it," says Kaplan. "He told me himself that
Russia is doomed if it fails in fighting corruption."
Even without Putin, Kaplan will continue his efforts as head of the local
construction association. Over the past year, the organization expelled nine
members for unfair practices, such as failing to fulfill building contracts.
Another successful venture belongs to the St. Petersburg Insurance Companies
Union, which wrote up a detailed list of rules, including prohibiting
statements that damage other members' reputation and requiring honesty with
clients.
The union also set up an ethics commission that has heard five cases in
recent months, most of them centering on suspicions of unfair competition.
Each one was settled via mediation by the commission.
"Guilty parties have demonstrated goodwill so far," says Olga Samovarova, the
union's president. "The threat of expulsion is a good whip, which luckily we
have never had to use."
Successful as they are, such practices are far from the norm in Russia's
chaotic business climate. "There was a sense of exhaustion and frustration
before, because there was no firm government. But I think hope is returning
that there will be a flicker of governance," says Scott Blacklin, president
of the American Chamber of Commerce in Moscow.
*******
#5
Russia: Analysis From Washington -- Two Kinds Of Elections
By Paul Goble
Washington, 20 March 2000 (RFE/RL) -- The upcoming presidential ballot in
Russia will be like the last two elections there: a vote about the nature of
the country rather than one on the policies that the government should follow.
And that pattern will hold even though the communists against whom former
President Boris Yeltsin defined himself and his regime so skillfully have
declined in importance and even though no new major challenger to the party
of power has yet emerged.
As a result, Russia's transition to a more normal democratic system, one in
which voters select among candidates who advocate different policies but
accept the fundamental rules of the game is likely to be delayed for yet
another electoral cycle.
That is the judgment of Grigory Yavlinsky, the presidential candidate of his
Yabloko faction and a fierce critic of acting Russian President Vladimir
Putin and his policies.
In an interview last week in Moscow's "Novaya gazeta," Yavlinsky noted that
"today's campaign is not a competition of programs, of who will lower taxes
more by 7 percent or 15 percent. It's a question of whether a country such as
Russia will continue to exist."
Yavlinsky's suggestion challenges a widely held assumption that the decline
of the Communist Party has fundamentally changed the electoral situation in
Russia.
In all his races, Yeltsin positioned himself as the defender against a return
of the old order, a position that forced many of his critics to support him
even when they did not agree with his policies or approach.
The declining electoral strength of the communists, many Russian and Western
observers had suggested, meant that Russia was moving toward a more normal
democratic system, one in which no political figure would be able to play
that card to prevent the rise of a genuine opposition.
But instead, Putin is using the supposed threat of terrorism and state
disintegration and the call for the creation of a strong state in much the
same way that Yeltsin used the threat of communism to undercut the chances of
his opponents to gain support.
On the one hand, Putin's efforts in this direction may be nothing more than
smart politics. Incumbents always try to control the agenda to their own
advantage, and Putin, who had virtually no support when he was named prime
minister, is now the overwhelming favorite to win.
But on the other hand, Putin's actions, as Yavlinsky suggests, appear to
entail three more disturbing aspects.
First, they allow Putin to portray his opponents as soft on terrorism even as
he claims that he is committed to democracy.
Yavlinsky himself was subjected to withering criticism, including suggestions
that he was not patriotic, when he suggested earlier in the campaign that
Moscow should seek a negotiated settlement in Chechnya.
Second, they allow Putin to play the politics of either-or rather than
more-or-less, to suggest that those who are not with him are somehow not
interested in Russia's future even though he has been unwilling or unable to
put out programmatic statements about what he plans to do.
Indeed, by portraying himself as the embodiment of the state and thus as
someone who does not need to articulate a program, Putin effectively stifles
any chance for the kind of debate about policy that is at the core of
democratic choice.
And third, Putin's approach, his dismissive attitudes toward campaigning, not
only reduce public attention to the issues but allow him to do what Yeltsin
did so successfully, to portray himself as a democrat even though he is not
acting like one.
Indeed, his team is already using the praise he has received from Western
leaders as a democrat and a man they can do business with to eliminate
questions about what he intends from the public debate.
None of this is to say that anyone knows just where Putin will take Russia or
whether the more apocalyptic suggestions of Yavlinsky and others are correct.
But it is to note that this presidential election, one that so many had
awaited as promising the first democratic transition in Russia's history, is
proving to be another kind of election, one that has far more in common with
the authoritarian past than with a hoped-for democratic future.
*******
#6
ANALYSIS-Wary world pins hopes on Putin
By Paul Taylor, Diplomatic Editor
LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) - A wary world is counting on Vladimir Putin to
put Russia's economic development ahead of a confrontational foreign policy
after his expected presidential election triumph on Sunday.
Despite misgivings raised by Putin's suppression of rebel Chechnya and a
perceived authoritarian tendency, the West is looking forward to a more
predictable Kremlin policy.
Major powers have not waited until polling day to embrace the former KGB spy,
whose election has seemed a foregone conclusion ever since he replaced the
ailing and erratic President Boris Yeltsin in a surprise New Year's Eve
handover.
U.S. President Bill Clinton sent Putin a virtual Valentine on February 14,
just as Russian troops were crushing the last Chechen rebel resistance in
Grozny, declaring him to be ``capable of being a very strong, effective,
straightforward leader.''
China announced on March 10 that Russia's acting president would visit
Beijing for an ``important summit'' later this year, omitting any mention of
the formality of his election.
And British Prime Minister Tony Blair rushed to be the first Western
government leader to shake Putin's hand, calling him an impressive, focused
fellow moderniser after talks and a night at the opera in St Petersburg on
March 11.
WEST ``BACKING PUTIN?''
Veteran French commentator Andre Fontaine, writing in the newspaper Le Monde,
cited three reasons why in his view the West was backing Putin:
a belief that the choice was between Putin and anarchy, and that Russia was
not yet ripe for full democracy;
a perception that Putin, who unlike past Kremlin leaders has first-hand
experience of the West, is realistic, pragmatic and on the ball, perhaps due
to his KGB background;
a confidence that his commitment to modernising Russia will drive him to
pursue constructive ties with the West.
A NATO diplomat put it succinctly: ``It's clear to everyone that Putin is
sharp, sober and in charge, and he's going to be running Russia for the next
four years or longer.
``In foreign policy, he is largely a blank page. It's up to us to write on
that page.''
Despite fierce Western media and public criticism of Russia's military
assault on Chechnya, Putin's first moves have mainly reassured Western
governments.
He invited NATO Secretary-General George Robertson to Moscow and restored
relations with the Western alliance that had been cut back to a bare minimum
by Yeltsin in anger at NATO's air war against Yugoslavia over Kosovo last
year.
He is pressing the State Duma lower house of parliament to ratify a 1993
strategic arms reduction treaty with the United States and a global nuclear
test ban treaty.
RESTORING AUTHORITY
At home, he has vowed to restore the authority of the state and impose a
``dictatorship of the law'' to combat corruption and organised crime, which
had reduced Western financial aid and investment to a trickle by the end of
Yeltsin's erratic rule.
``Putin can afford to build up relations with the West. After Chechnya, no
one can accuse him of being soft,'' said Roy Allison, head of the Russia and
Eurasia programme at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs.
He said the West should not be worried by Putin's decision to raise military
spending and restore some pride to the Russian armed forces, noting that the
U.S. prisons budget was several billion dollars bigger than the entire
Russian state budget.
Some analysts voiced concern when the Kremlin approved a new military
doctrine in February with a more aggressive tone towards the West.
But London-based analyst Anna Matveeva said the disintegration of the
once-mighty former Soviet military, with its arsenal of nuclear weapons,
posed a far greater threat to world peace than any modest attempt to shore it
up.
PUTIN SEEN FOCUSED ON EUROPE
Several analysts said Putin was likely to concentrate on building relations
with Europe, which he needed for debt relief, investment and a stable
security environment.
``He is going to be very pragmatic, economy-oriented and pro -European at the
outset. He can get more from Europe than from the United States, where
Congress is on an anti-Russian trip,'' said Oksana Antonenko of the
International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Ties with Washington could be troubled, at least until after the American
presidential election in November, by a dispute over U.S. proposals for a
limited national missile defence (NMD) against so-called ``rogue states,''
although most analysts believe Putin will ultimately cut a deal to amend the
Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty in exchange for arms control concessions.
While Putin's first meeting was with Blair, relations with Germany, Russia's
biggest creditor, and France, its frequent ally in the United Nations, would
be his biggest priority, Antonenko said.
She said Putin would be less inclined than Yeltsin or former Prime Minister
Yevgeny Primakov to seek a strategic alliance with China or a bigger role in
the Middle East.
Given how little is known about Putin, who emerged from the shadows only last
year, Antonenko said the main concern was how he would react if and when the
economic going got tough.
``What happens when the economy turns sour, or if the West does provocative
things like the NMD decision or another military intervention in the Balkans
if Montenegro flares up? That is the potential threat because Putin doesn't
have a stable foreign policy compass,'' she added.
******
#7
From: PPanitz@aol.com (Paul Panitz)
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000
Subject: Re: Andrew Miller #4182/Soros' New Book
I've been a reader, not a contributor to JRL, because I'm no expert, just a
businessman with a small operation in Moscow. However, Andrew Miller's piece
on George Soros is over the top.
Mr.Miller seems to want to write a book review, but that's quickly abandoned;
instead, he's produced a personal attack on Soros. His piece seems more
motivated by some deep-seated hatred for Soros than by any desire to share a
reasoned viewpoint with JRL readers.
For a number of years before the Wall came down, at a time when most of the
West thought the Wall was impregnable, Soros was planting the seeds of the
region's rebirth, and in the process, helping to destroy communism. And the
events of 1989 were just the beginning for his efforts. What he's done, as
one individual, in helping build democratic institutions and values, is
nothing short of remarkable. His efforts have probably far exceeded what any
government or international organization has accomplished.
Even if he hadn't done these things, his comments and opinions would still
deserve to be discussed intelligently and dispassionately on their merits.
*******
#8
Segodnya
March 22, 2000
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
ALEXEI ZUDIN: "PRESIDENT PUTIN NEEDS AN IDEA"
There are only a few days left before the presidential
elections. Why did Vladimir Putin become the leader in the
race? These and other questions are pondered by Alexei ZUDIN,
director of political projects at the Centre of Political
Technologies, in an interview he granted to Segodnya analyst
Alexei MAKARKIN.
Question: Why does society needs such a leader as Putin?
Answer: It is still widely believed that the demand for
Putin was engendered by the explosions in large Russian cities
last year. But the public demand for leadership is a phenomenon
that goes very deep in the public mind. The phenomenon of a
popular leader developed under the influence of three factors.
The first was the rejection of Boris Yeltsin as a
political leader and the bearer of a certain political style.
The second was the public demand for leadership (what
traits should a federal political leader have?).
And the third was the structure of supply on the political
market (what politicians really claim leadership?).
As for the explosions, the public mind accumulated a set
of social emotions, which needed expression, and this
expression took different forms. The period from August 1998 to
September 1999 was a traumatic time for the public
consciousness. The deep national traumas were initiated by the
1998 financial catastrophe, which actually buried the former
political class and its leader, Yeltsin. The second trauma was
the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. The wave of terrorist acts in
large cities was only the third largest traumatic experience.
But public expectations started changing long before the
Moscow explosions. The public changed its attitude to the West
and reviewed the experience of the first Chechen war,
comprehensively and on a broad plane, including in connection
with the developments in Kosovo. The people came to think that
one must be able to defend oneself, that it is no longer
possible to "go the weak way," that we need power and will. So,
Putin is "Mr. Order."
Question: Putin is both a law-enforcer and the successor
of Yeltsin the democrat. Is this not a contradiction?
Answer: Putin's popularity developed in two waves. The
first wave was connected with the search for an adequate reply
to the threat of terrorism, and the second was engendered by
Yeltsin's resignation. There is a major contradiction between
the values of the first and the second wave of public
recognition of Putin. The values of the first wave were power,
resolve, toughness and ability to withstand the pressure of the
West. And the values of the second wave are law, order and
democracy.
Question: Which of them will prove stronger?
Answer: The values of the first wave are instrumental for
the public mind. They are the instruments designed to find
Russia a befitting place in the world. The values of the second
wave are of a higher order. They are the goal values. This is
why, while supporting the military operation of the federal
forces in Chechnya and the initial rhetorical harshness in
regard to the West, the public opinion did not approve of the
use of methods of restoring order in Chechnya on the rest of
the Russian territory.
Likewise, it did not approve of confrontation with the
West.
To the public, there is no irreconcilable contradiction between
the instrument values and the goal values. But this phenomenon
in Putin's policy can become the source of a serious
ideological conflict.
Question: How long will society continue to support Putin?
Answer: The public support for Putin is predominantly
psychological. It developed at a stage of national threat to
society and the state. It continued to run high during the
period of national concern engendered by the need to choose the
head of the Russian state at the presidential elections.
But such psychological support will inevitably crumple as
it goes beyond these two critical periods. It does not have an
ideological component linked with Putin. His predecessor,
Yeltsin, had a negative ideology -- anti-communism. But Putin
has actually rejected it.
Question: Does he need ideology at all?
Answer: To continue moving ahead after the elections and
maintain the support of the public, Putin will need his own
mobilising idea, his own national project. This idea cannot be
a state ideology or an all-embracing "Russian idea." It should
focus on the key element of the country's development in the
near future. Unless he finds such idea, Putin's marriage with
Russian society will end in a divorce. And this will weaken the
new, post-Yeltsin, political regime.
*******
#9
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000
From: IRASTRAUS@aol.com (Ira Straus)
Subject: Re: the capitalist conspiracy, and the real motivations of the
West
Dan Cisek (JRL 4187) has, by comparison with the cases of Poland and Ukraine,
amply disproved the "capitalist conspiracy" theory advanced by several
writers on JRL: that Western advice and policy toward Russia are determined
by business interests, and the results (the decline of the Russian economy
and society) correspond to the real intentions and interests of the Western
capitalists.
For the sake of intellectual hygiene, one point needs to be added:
If the goal of US policy has been to make Russia useful for Western trade and
investors, then it has been a miserable failure, not the success that it is
assumed to be in the conspiracy theory.
Russia is not a very good place for Western trade and investment today.
Little trade or investment has been taking place. Western investment and
trade have been flowing instead in massive quantities to China.
If the West primarily wanted trade and investment in Russia, it would have
followed the path of its anti-capitalist critics on JRL and advised Russia to
take a more gradual, Chinese-style, state-administered path.
Western governments and Russia-advisers have pleaded with our own business
class, unsuccessfully, to invest in Russia. Our governments have pleaded for
this almost as a charity effort. While they have tried to appeal to the
profit motive, too, this being the only thing that is expected to influence
businessmen and financiers (although George Soros seems pretty often to defy
the rule), the fact that they have had to plead so hard, and so
unsuccessfully, shows that the profit motive is not what was at work in state
policy. The real motive -- usually mentioned explicitly in the next breath --
has been the foreign policy interest of the West in a solvent, successful,
stable, friendly Russia.
Market ideology may well have something to do with the advice the West gave
Russia, but not the business interests of capitalists. There has certainly
been a widespread belief that a market Russia would be a democratic Russia,
and therefore geopolitically friendly or at least never at war with the West.
It is this belief that is the ideological basis of the "economism" or
"reverse Marxism" or "market Bolshevism" of which Western advisers and
Russian liberals are accused. The goal-reference point of this ideology is
democracy and the foreign policy orientation toward pax democratica, not
money.
The only conspiracy theory that makes any sense at all is one that is built
on a postulated Western geopolitical interest in a weak Russia. It at least
makes some sense when Russians point to a correlation between the weakening
of their country and the former strategic interests of the West, that is, the
strategic interests of the West as they used to be defined in Cold War days.
Obviously this old definition of the Western interest still has its influence
in the minds of important bureaucrats and strategists, since nearly everyone
admits the possibility of the relationship going bad again. It also has its
influence in old entrenched military programs and client relations around the
world. (The same points are all true, mutatis mutandis, on the Russian side.)
It is not hard for Russians to believe that this continuing inertial factor
has on the whole overriden the conscious top-level policy of change and of
friendship toward Russia. From this it follows that anything that has gone
bad in Russia has fit in with the Western strategic interest as defined in
some Western minds. From this in turn it is easy to believe that anything has
gone bad has corresponded to Western intentions and has been a result of
conscious or semi-conscious Western policies.
I think that this conspiracy theory is also wrong, but at least it makes some
contact with reality. Russian conspiracy theorists, after all, are living on
the edge and have to deal with reality, even if they are prone to mistake the
fragments they touch for the whole elephant. This forms a contrast to some
Westerners who are more concerned with spinning out their ideologies.
- ILS
P.S. If we can get away from single-cause, single-motivation,
conspiracy-style thinking, the logical think to do for explaining US policy
is to combine:
(1) the economism-ideology that a healthy market Russia is the main criterion
for a friendly Russia,
(2) the corresponding negligence of political factors and of the pro-Western
sentiment of Russians circa 1989-91 as a reserve force and criterion for a
friendly Russia,
(3) the justifiable pessmism about Russia from a purist-economism
perspective, i.e. the belief that Russia was unlikely to make it to a
high-quality healthy market economy in this era,
(4) the mistrust of Russia, and unwillingness to take the risk of investing
much assistance in a country that might in the future be an enemy again,
(5) the temptation of putting Russia to the test of whether it is going to
become "healthy" or not by economism-ideological standards. This amounted to
gambling on Russia with the thought that "if it succeeds, all the better; if
it fails, it only shows it wasn't going to be a friend anyway". And to
virtually gambling Russia away in this manner.
No conspiracies here; just the foolishness of an either-or, black-white way
of thinking, and an unwillingness to take the moral and political risks of
helping Russia. Gambling on extreme options meant ignoring all the more
relevant probabilities on which we ought to have been building. It created a
simplified two-possibility universe in which the gambler could argue that,
logically, s/he was taking no risks at all. Meanwhile in the real world we
were risking all of Russia. The results do indeed correlate to the logic of
the policy, in the sense of coming close to one of its two foreseen possible
outcomes, but do not correlate to the preferences and intentions of its
authors.
One might add to the fifth point, a corresponding sixth:
(6) the temptation of putting Russian pro-Westernism to the test in foreign
policy.
Again this was done in an extremist, either-or manner that ignored the messy
problematic work of the real world. It took the form of asking Russia to
always follow after the Western lead and ignore its own interests and
dignity, in the faith that the West would eventually protect any valid
Russian interests anyway. NATO expansion was the most striking case,
although
far from the only one. The West told itself that, since a 100% healthy,
non-imperialist, democratic Russia couldn't be harmed by NATO expansion and
might even eventually get in on NATO, therefore no Russian who intended his
country to be a non-imperialist democracy could be against NATO expansion.
Therefore it was a fair test of Russian intentions to go ahead and expand
NATO. And if we lost Russia's friendship by it, it only showed that Russia
wasn't intending to be a friend anyway.
We've been gambling recklessly on Russian pro-Westernism in this manner. And
here, too, we have been gambling it away.
The common thread of both forms of gambling, economist and democratist, is
the ideological overconfidence of the West after its bloodless victory in the
Cold War. It has acted as its ideology were the universal solvent, a kind of
guaranteed solution for problems, risk-free and cost-free. The actual stakes
were enormous in its gambling, but the West didn't put any big money or chips
of its own on the table, it simply left Russia on the table to be gambled
away. Cheap gambling served as a substitute for all the effort and risk and
initiative that would have been needed for working through a real strategic
rapprochement and economic reconstruction.
Ira Straus
U.S. Coordinator, Committee on Eastern Europe and Russia in NATO
www.fas.org/man/nato/ceern
********
#10
Former Prime Minister Kiriyenko Lays Out ChallengesFor Putin Presidency at
U.S.-Russia Business Council Event
U.S. and Russian Business Leaders Address Russia's
Post-Presidential Election Investment Climate
WASHINGTON, March 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Former Russian Prime Minister Sergei
Kiriyenko stated today that Russian Acting President Vladimir Putin is
certain to win the March 26 presidential elections, and that the new
President's major challenges will be to reverse capital flight, eliminate
official corruption, and restructure Russia's industry. In an address to 200
key U.S. and Russian business leaders, Kiriyenko, a member of the Russian
Duma (the lower house of parliament) and leader of the reformist Union of
Right Forces political movement, stated that Putin's election marks the end
of Russia's "revolutionary transformation" led by Boris Yeltsin and the
beginning of a new era of "democratic and market reform "consolidation.
Kiriyenko was the keynote speaker at the U.S.-Russia Business Council's 8th
Annual U.S.-Russian Trade & Investment Forecast Conference conducted today at
the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, DC.
"It has been almost 10 years since the emergence of an independent Russia,"
Kiriyenko stated. "A whole new generation of Russians, who were raised under
market conditions and view free speech and freedom of the press as a basic
value and not a revolutionary concept, are now entering both business and
politics and are demanding change. Mr. Putin must involve this new generation
in the reform process."
Kiriyenko, whose party has endorsed Putin for President, gave a generally
positive assessment of the prospects for Russia's economic modernization
under a Putin Presidency. Kiriyenko stressed that Putin must act quickly to
develop and implement his economic policies, and highlighted strengthening
the independence of Russia's judiciary as an essential priority. He also
called on the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to send a team
to Russia within 30 days to work with Putin's advisors so that any new
economic program could be considered by the Duma before its summer recess.
Earlier in the day, U.S.-Russia Business Council Chairman Robert Strauss, a
former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, opened the conference by predicting that
foreign investment and economic activity will significantly increase
following the March 26 Russian Presidential elections. Russia's Ambassador to
the United States, Yuri Ushakov, also addressed the gathering and encouraged
Conference participants to give Russia another look. He stated that the
Presidential elections will result in a new reform effort and that a new
business culture in Russia is taking shape that is slowly but steadily
replacing the negative aspects of Russia's old business culture. "The role of
foreign investment in transforming Russia is pivotal," Ushakov said, "it is
time for foreign investors to get involved."
Robert McKee, III, Executive Vice President, Exploration Production at
Conoco, provided an optimistic assessment of the investment climate in
Russia. On the upcoming Presidential elections, McKee stated, "A (Russian
Acting President) Putin win on March 26 should enhance the prospects of
political stability in Russia ... this is the number one criterion for
transforming a volatile emerging market into a booming play that aggressive
companies can't afford to ignore." Conoco has operated on-the-ground in
Russia for more than 10 years. McKee reported that the oil reserve addition
of Conoco's joint venture, Polar Lights, was 220 percent of 1999 production,
and that the joint venture made $50 million in earnings in 1999 producing oil
for $1.03 per barrel.
McKee highlighted several encouraging economic indicators in Russia: Gross
domestic product in 2000 is estimated to be two percent above that of 1998;
the Russian stock market is at a 22-month high and continues to gain; 1999
tax collection surpassed targets by 30 to 40 percent; and, the Russian
Government is running a primary budget surplus with revenues for 1999
approximately 13-14 percent of GDP. However, he stated that foreign investors
would look to two specific actions in order to increase foreign investment.
"First," McKee stated, "Russia must strengthen investor protections,
shareholder rights, improve dispute settlement procedures and demonstrate
progress on rule of law issues. Second, Russia must complete the unfinished
business on the structural reform agenda including: tax reform, intellectual
property rights enforcement, adoption of international accounting standards
and completion of an upgrade of the Production Sharing Agreement list law."
The conference also included panel discussions on Russian politics after the
presidential elections, Russia's economic future and Russian e-commerce. In
addition, a special panel featured several members of the newly formed "2015
Club," a group of young Russian business leaders.
The U.S.-Russia Business Council is a Washington, DC-based non-profit trade
association representing more than 250 US companies doing business in Russia.
The mission of the Council is to advance the U.S.-Russian commercial
relationship and to enhance the position of the U.S. private sector in
Russia, thereby contributing to stability, democracy and the development of a
market economy. More information about the USRBC can be found at the
organization's website: www.usrbc.org.
SOURCE U.S.-Russia Business Council
******
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