March 30, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4209 • 4210  4211

Johnson's Russia List
#4210
30 March 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. David Kramer: Adam Ulam. (DJ: As a former student of Ulam's let me add my own regrets.)
2. AFP: Over 50 Pct Of Russians Expect Long Guerrilla War In Chechnya.
3. Interfax: Sources close to Putin dismiss chances for coalition government.
4. Moskovsky Komsomolets: Parallels With Some Problems.
COMMUNISTS COUNTED PUTIN WITH LESS THAN 50% OF VOTES.
5. Interfax: INDEPENDENT TV HEAD WORRIED ABOUT PUTIN'S ATTITUDE TO 
MEDIA. (Igor Malashenko)
6. AP: Yeltsin Retains Immunity Rights.
7. Chicago Tribune: Geneva Overholser, HOLLYWOOD OVERSHADOWS PUTIN'S EVENT.
8. Jude Wanniski on US press coverage of Russia.
9. smi.ru: Russians Demand a Change of Political Course.
10. Boston Globe: Marshall Goldman, Politics, Russian Style.
11. Philip Waring: Open and closed societies. (Response to Soros)
12. Financial Times (UK): A journey into the unknown: As the world waits to see how Vladimir Putin will perform, the west must be careful to keep its distance.
13. Jamestown Foundation Monitor: BEREZOVSKY-CONTROLLED PAPER ATTACKS OLIGARCHS. (Migranyan in NG)
14. Andrew Miller: Neo-Soviet Russia, Week One.]

*******

#1
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 
From: DJKmd1@aol.com (David Kramer)
Subject: Adam Ulam

Dear David,

I thought that you and readers of Johnson's List would want to know the sad 
news that Adam Ulam, one of the real giants in the field of Soviet studies, 
died last night after a lengthy illness. He was 77, just shy of his 78th 
birthday. He had been a member of the Harvard faculty since 1947, most 
recently as Gurney Professor of Government and History, a position he held 
until his retirement in 1992. For many years he served as director of 
Harvard's Russian Research Center. He was the
author of twenty books, including Expansion and Coexistence, The
Bolsheviks, and Stalin. Adam will be sorely missed by his family,
friends, colleagues, and all who were enriched by and benefitted from his
great mind and his wonderful wit. A memorial service in Cambridge is
planned for later in the spring.

******

#2
Over 50 Pct Of Russians Expect Long Guerrilla War In Chechnya

MOSCOW, Mar 29, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) More than half of Russians 
expect a long guerrilla war in Chechnya, where Russian forces have been 
battling rebels for the past six months, according to an opinion poll 
published on Tuesday.

Only 12 percent of people polled in the ARPI survey believe the separatists 
have almost been defeated as the Russian army claims, while 52 percent are 
braced for a long drawn-out conflict, Interfax reported.

The poll surveyed 1,600 people on March 12. 

*******

#3
Sources close to Putin dismiss chances for coalition government

MOSCOW. March 29 (Interfax) - Sources close to Russian President-
elect Vladimir Putin have denied that the next government will be a
coalition.
"This makes no sense. Putin has won the election and does not
intend to share his victory with the left-wing opposition, which would
like to save face through the formation of a coalition government," a
source in Putin's entourage told Interfax on Tuesday.
However, professionals may be invited to join the government, the
source said. "But only as professionals and not as members of any
particular party."
Kremlin and government sources said Putin would consult left-wing
and other parliamentary deputies before asking the State Duma to confirm
his nominee for prime minister. "This is normal practice, which,
however, has nothing to do with the formation of any kind of government
coalition," the sources said.
Currently, Putin is acting president and prime minister
simultaneously. He will retain these positions until his inauguration,
to take place between May 5 and May 8.
The sources said there is little chance of a drastic government
reshuffle before the inauguration. "That would make no sense. Under the
Constitution of the Russian Federation, the government is to resign
after the inauguration of the head of state," the sources said.
But "minimal changes" are possible before Putin is sworn in, they
said.
The sources do not know who the next prime minister will be.
"There are several candidates," they said. "Mikhail Kasyanov, the
current first deputy premier, is undoubtedly one of them as a high-class
professional who has been coordinating the work of the Cabinet for the
last three months."
Other potential candidates are well-known "Muscovite St.
Petersburgers," First Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin,
Communications Minister Leonid Reiman and Anatoly Chubais, chief
executive of national electricity company Unified Energy Systems.
Chubais, however, "is a radical option, which would be rejected by
a considerable part of the State Duma," one of the sources said.
But Putin, the sources said, will keep control of the government
regardless of who is prime minister.
"There will no longer be any standoff between the Kremlin and White
House (the popular nickname for the government building), as in the
times of the premiership of Yevgeny Primakov, nor will there be any
discord between the presidential executive office and the government
executive office.
"All that is already part of recent Russian history," one of the
sources said.
The sources said members of the Putin team, including Dmitry Kozak,
head of the government executive office, and Kozak's deputy Andrei
Vinogradov, who stayed in the White House after Putin moved to the
Kremlin, would apparently keep their Cabinet positions or might join the
president's executive office.

*******

#4
Russia Today presss summaries
Moskovsky Komsomolets
March 29, 2000 
Parallels With Some Problems
COMMUNISTS COUNTED PUTIN WITH LESS THAN 50% OF VOTES
Summary

The Communists don’t believe in Putin’s victory. Their regional offices 
throughout the country are checking election protocols and sending copies to 
Moscow’s KPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) Central Committee.

On Monday evening, Zyuganov came out with a statement: “At 12:00 p.m. on 
March 27 our election headquarters had checked the initial protocols of 998 
election committees (36% of the total number of election committees). This 
covers 24,173 voters from 36 subjects of the Russian Federation. So far, 
based on the documents we’ve checked, these are the results we are ready to 
consider valid: Zyuganov – 8,025,000 votes (33.2%), Putin – 10,823,000 votes 
(44.8%).”

By Tuesday night, the Communists had looked through some more protocols. 
Putin’s results increased slightly, but it was still quite far from the 
necessary “50% plus one vote” level. This means that if after checking all 
the protocols Putin’s results remain unchanged, Zyuganov’s headquarters will 
insist on a second round of elections.

The Communists’ intentions right now are as follows: as new data of parallel 
vote counting comes in, it will be immediately sent to CIK (Central Election 
Committee). Zyuganov will not make any compromises with the authorities until 
he has met with Putin. Otherwise KPRF will demand a second round of elections 
and prepare its supporters for mass actions of protest.

KPRF leaders’ policy is quite righteous, most of Zyuganov’s followers think. 
First of all, Zyuganov’s position as the leader of the left-wing opposition 
is quite weak right now. Secondly, according to the words of one of 
Zyuganov’s trustees, “the scale of falsifications is so large and blunt, it’s 
possible that during their meeting Putin himself will offer Zyuganov 
everything he wants, including the post of Prime Minister, so that Zyuganov 
will keep the real results secret.”

******

#5
INDEPENDENT TV HEAD WORRIED ABOUT PUTIN'S ATTITUDE TO MEDIA
Interfax 

Moscow, 28th March: Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin does not have a 
reliable political base at the moment, first deputy chairman of the board of 
the Media-Most holding company Igor Malashenko has said. 

"Unity is by no means a party," he stated on Tuesday [28th March] in an 
interview with Radio Ekho Moskvy, adding that the Unity movement is an 
"amorphous force" which will be very difficult for the new president to lean 
on. 

Therefore, he said, Putin has two choices: either to seek a union with the 
Communists, who received an unexpectedly large number of votes in the 
presidential election, or to work to establish his own political base. The 
president's choice will become clear as early as within the next couple of 
months, he said. 

Putin's decisions regarding his appointments to the posts of chief of staff 
and prime minister will also be significant, Malashenko said. If [chief of 
staff Aleksandr] Voloshin and [acting Prime Minister Mikhail] Kasyanov keep 
their posts, there can be no talk of the emergence of "new realities" in the 
country, he said. 

Malashenko slammed the Kremlin administration's policy regarding the media. 
"Putin is surrounded by colleagues and allies who are not able to work with 
the press," he said. "All these people can do is turn the media into an 
instrument of propaganda," Malashenko remarked. This is exactly what happened 
to the ORT [Russian Public TV] and RTR [Russian Television and Radio] 
networks, he added. 

******

#6
Yeltsin Retains Immunity Rights
March 29, 2000
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's lower house of parliament today voted down a 
Communist-backed motion that would have sought to strip former President 
Boris Yeltsin of immunity from prosecution.

The Communists only mustered 136 of the 226 votes needed for the motion to 
pass.

Yeltsin abruptly resigned from office on Dec. 31, six months before his term 
was to end. On the same day, Vladimir Putin, who became acting president, 
issued a decree giving Yeltsin immunity from prosecution and offering other 
perks to him and his family.

Putin was elected Russian president on Sunday.

The immunity deal led some observers to theorize that Yeltsin stepped down 
because of fears of investigations into his corruption-tinged administration.

Prosecutors investigating alleged Kremlin corruption have said there was 
evidence that Yeltsin and his daughters received kickbacks from a Swiss 
construction company that renovated the Kremlin. The Kremlin has denied the 
allegations and no charges have been filed.

The Communists claim the immunity guarantee given to Yeltsin violated Russian 
law. They drafted a motion to make an appeal to the Constitutional Court 
asking it to look into the issue.

But the Communists have lost control of parliament's lower house, the State 
Duma, to pro-government factions who opposed the move. Vladimir Ryzhkov of 
the pro-government Unity faction described the motion as a belated followup 
to Sunday's presidential election, in which Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov 
came in second.

``This is part of the election heat,'' Ryzhkov said. ``The Communists have 
been carried away by their campaign slogan that Putin is a successor to 
Yeltsin. The struggle is over, but they continue to play the tune.''

Former Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko, who leads the liberal Union of Right 
Forces, agreed: ``They are angry after losing the election, and are trying to 
do something nasty. They can't hurt Putin, so they are trying to hurt 
Yeltsin.''

The Communist lawmaker who sponsored the motion, Sergei Reshulsky, said he 
would gather signatures needed to send the appeal to the Constitutional Court 
anyway. Under the law, any group of at least 90 lawmakers can independently 
make an appeal to the Constitutional Court.

But even if the appeal reaches the court, chances are slim that it will rule 
against Yeltsin.

Alexander Kotenkov, the presidential envoy to the State Duma, said Putin's 
decree was in conformity with the law. The issue of immunity to former 
presidents isn't regulated by law, so Putin was free to fill the legal vacuum 
with his decree, Kotenkov said.

******

#7
Chicago Tribune
29 March 2000
[for personal use only]
HOLLYWOOD OVERSHADOWS PUTIN'S EVENT 
By Geneva Overholser 
Washington Post Writers Group 

WASHINGTON -- I wonder if you noticed that, on Monday morning in America, it 
was Vladimir Putin versus the Oscars. The Oscars won.

Not that you couldn't find Putin's election as president of Russia in the 
headlines: It was there--smack up against big photos of Hilary Swank and 
Kevin Spacey holding their Oscars. It was like one of those funny 
juxtaposition features where they reprint some poor newspaper's layout 
goof--a photo of two old homeless women dozing on a park bench confusingly 
abuts an unrelated headline: "Candidates brace for final lap in presidential 
race."

Anyway, we all know everyone looked at the Oscar stuff first. Which means it 
probably doesn't pay to go on too much about how, in the Big Scheme of 
Things, the Putin victory looms rather larger.

Still, it might be smart at least to note that Putin will have some 
considerable effect on the world. What will it mean for Russia--the 
leadership of this former KGB agent who led a brutal war in Chechnya, the 
seemingly non-ideological candidate who beat Communists, ultranationalists 
and pro-Western-style democrats alike?

Just as the Russian people have solidly embraced respect for the law and 
individual rights, a free press and democratic elections, will this new 
president move to recentralize Russian government? There have been hints 
Putin supports eliminating proportional representation for Duma elections. Or 
appointing rather than electing governors. Or extending the term of the 
president to seven years, from the current four. How, as he struggles to deal 
with rampant corruption and a devastated economy, will he treat democracy?

And what will Putin's election mean for the rest of us? Russian-American 
relations today are rockier than at any time since the breakup of the Soviet 
Union.

On all these open questions, American actions will have some impact. Should 
we make the preservation of democracy in Russia a precondition in our 
dealings with Putin? Should we be assisting those in Russia who are trying to 
strengthen civic organizations, the press, human-rights groups?

Decisions like these are better made in the presence of at least a modicum of 
public involvement. But how do you whip up a modicum? Why, for example, 
weren't the Russian elections compelling for us?

The Russian election had its drama. Some juicy negative-ad scandals. A "Nyet" 
campaign urging voters to select "none of the above" (which in fact came in 
sixth), the success of which would have caused a second round of balloting to 
the tune of $36 million. Then there was considerable consternation over 
turnout: The election would have to be declared invalid if less than 50 
percent of the electorate voted. (Now there is an interesting idea for 
Americans.)

The truth is that their election hadn't a prayer against our Hollywood night 
of nights. We simply don't care much about Russian news, and haven't for 
years. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press 
(www.people-press.org) keeps an interesting tally it calls "Public 
attentiveness to major news stories (1986-1999)." It ranks news stories 
according to how many respondents say they followed the story "very closely."

The highest position on that list for a story from Russia is number 52--which 
tells us that 47 percent closely followed the story of the breakup of the 
Soviet Union in October 1991. Compare this to the 54 percent who said they 
closely followed news of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s fatal plane crash last July.

Figures like that explain (but don't justify) why we're hearing so little 
about Russia in our own presidential campaign.

If Putin really hopes to be in the Western club, he'll have to raise his U.S. 
profile. His predecessors have gained our attention mostly by being 
warlike--or presiding over disaster.

But here's something peaceful he could do that would work much better anyway: 
Next Oscar night, he should don a tux and present one of the little fellows.

Vladimir Putin and the Oscars. Then we'd notice.

*******

#8
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 
From: vlad@polyconomics.com (Vlad Signorelli) 
Subject: DIFFERENT ANGLES ON THE NEWS

DavidHere's an excerpt from a client letter, "DIFFERENT ANGLES ON THE NEWS"
that
Jude Wanniski wrote. You can share it if you wish.
Regards,
Vlad Signorelli
(vlad@polyconomics.com)
Polyconomics, Inc.
http://polyconomics.com
(877) 879- 7659

---

Jude Wanniski
Polyconomics, Inc.

RUSSIA: The major media, led by the NYTimes, have been plain awful in
covering the politics of Russia. The NYT insists Vladimir Putin squeaked to
victory in Sunday's voting, defeating his nearest rival in a field of ten,
the "Communist" candidate Gennady Zyuganov, by only 21 percentage
points!!! -- The headline in the NYT: "Putin Garners Only Slender Majority
as Russian Voters Show Independence." The rest of the U.S. media dutifully
fell into line, sniffing at Putin's KGB credentials as evidence there soon
would be a crackdown. You had to get the Financial Times to realize what a
solid victory it was for Putin. The darling of our Political Establishment,
Grigori Yavlinsky, a "liberal reformer" who is nothing more than a bag of
wind, got 6% of the vote, which the WSJournal did not mention in its
editorial complimenting him for "performing decently." In its news columns,
the NYTimes now cites Chechnya as an example of "Russian aggression." The
WSJ this morning headlines: "Foreign Investors Are Divided on Outlook for
Reform Under Putin," although it is forced to note that the RTS stock index
climbed 40% in the last month as Putin laid out his supply-side economic
plans, with a TOP income-tax rate of 20% and a philosophy geared toward
entrepreneurial capitalism. If there had been a runoff between Putin and
Zyuganov, Putin would have gotten two-thirds of the vote, and even that
wouldn't have told the full story of his victory. The Communist Party is a
positive force in Russia's national political economy and will support
Putin's programs to clean out the corruption that piled up when Moscow took
the "shock therapy" advice of the NYTimes and WSJournal. We only await
Putin's pick for Finance Minister to assess the breadth and depth of reforms
that could make Russia the fastest-growing economy in the world in the
decade ahead.

*******

#9
smi.ru 
Russians Demand a Change of Political Course 
March 29, 2000

As reported by INTERFAX, nearly half Russians (49 per cent) believe that, now 
that the "Yeltsin era" is over in Russia, a complete change of the country's 
political course is necessary. 34 per cent Russians think that a more urgent 
need for the country is efficient leadership, while the present political 
course should be preserved. 17 per cent found difficulty in replying. Such 
are the results of a highly representative opinion poll/interview conducted 
by the Agency for Regional Political Studies (Russian abbreviation ARPI), in 
which 1600 respondents were questioned at their place of residence. The 
survey was carried out March 23-25 in more than 90 urban and rural 
settlements in 49 components of the Russian Federation, representing all of 
its economic-geographical zones. According to an estimate by the ARPI 
sociologists, the statistical margin of error of the poll equals 2.5 per cent.

Comment: The results of the ARPI poll are a very good indication of what the 
popular masses are expecting of the new President. And the "wishes" are not 
limited to just changing the political course. According to the same poll, 42 
per cent Russians believe that the people always needs a "strong hand" and 30 
per cent of the respondents event think that the entire state power should be 
concentrated in one hand. In the opinion of 17 per cent Russians, such a 
concentration of power will only do harm to Russia, whereas 10 per cent find 
difficulty in replying. In the assessment of 10 per cent participants of the 
poll, the economic and political reforms of the past decade in Russia has 
done good to the people. 68 per cent respondents hold the diametrically 
opposite view, thinking that the reforms have done only harm. 22 per cent 
were unable to give an answer.

According to the poll data, the first place in the list of the most important 
social problems is still occupied by the growth of prices, although, as 
compared to late 1999, this problem has, in the opinion of Russians, lost 
some of its acuteness. The problem of the war in Chechnya has also become 
less burning during the past month, whereas the problem of the weakness of 
state power has, on the contrary, started worrying a slightly greater number 
of Russians.

*******

#10
The Boston Globe
29 March 2000
[for personal use only]
Politics, Russian Style
By Marshall I. Goldman (goldman3@fas.harvard.edu)
Professor of Russian Economics, Wellesley College
Associate Director, Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University

MOSCOW

Just before Sunday's election, everything on the surface in Moscow looked
calm and orderly, or, as the Russians say, "normalno." But underneath, for
a surprisingly large number of Moscovites, there was anxiety and anger.
For some, there was even anguish.

This is not what I had expected to find. After all, a free and contested
election was something my Moscow friends had dreamed of for many years.
Yet none of them said they would vote for Vladimir Putin, the man
designated by Boris Yeltsin as his successor. Of course, this was Moscow,
which regards itself as superior to the rest of the country. It's like
someone voting Republican in Cambridge. When we went to Klin in the
provinces, we did find many voters who proudly reported they had voted for
Putin or Gennady Zyuganov, the Communist Party candidate.

By contrast, many in Moscow insisted that they would not even vote. They
explained that if 50 percent of those eligible to vote stayed home, the
election would be declared invalid and there would have to be another
election. The hope was that new candidates would decide to run.

Indeed, Putin's advisers began to worry that since he looked like a sure
winner, many supporters might not bother to vote and the turnout would fall
below 50 percent. This would leave open the question as to whether Putin
had a strong mandate. My friends hoped this would serve as a bit of a
restraint on a man some were convinced needed restraint.

Presumably, those concerned about Putin could have accomplished much the
same thing simply by voting for an opposition candidate. The problem was
that they could not find anyone else who seemed acceptable. In the last
few days before the election, Grigory Yavlinsky, a morally upright but
perennial candidate, sought to set aside past feuds and ego tantrums in
order to form a responsible coalition among those supporting market reforms
and democracy.

For a time it looked as though his effort might bear fruit and that, with
an enormous effort, there was a slight chance that he might take some of
the votes originally expected to go for Putin. If Putin were to win less
than 50 percent, this would also necessitate a runoff election.

To ward off that possibility, the most widely watched TV network launched a
savage attack on Yavlinsky. It accused him of taking money from foreign
donors, something forbidden under Russian law. It reported that Yavlinsky
had had a face lift. It also reported that Jewish leaders and rabbis as
well as gays were promoting his cause - in a blatant smear campaign to
discredit him among those who were considering voting for him.

A similar campaign (what the Russians call "kompromat") was recently run
against former prime minister Evgeny Primakov and Moscow Mayor Yuri
Luzhkov. Even though no proof was ever presented, Primakov's and Luzhkov's
standings in the polls were so badly damaged that both men withdrew from
the race. The state TV was doing its best to slander Yavlinsky in the same
way.

Tactics of this sort from supporters of Putin were the source of my
friends' anger and bitterness. As one of them put it, "The authorities
controlling the main TV channel are manipulating us almost as much as they
did in 1937. We had such high hopes after the coup failed in August 1991.
Why haven't we done better?"

For the time being, it is more the process than Putin that is disturbing.
That is because no one seems to know just what kind of president Putin will
be. He has made some encouraging noises about economic reforms, including
simplification of the tax code and a commitment to reduce corruption. At
the same time, however, his refusal to campaign openly or advertise or
debate other candidates weakens already fragile democratic procedures. Nor
is it encouraging when he issues homilies such as "The stronger the state,
the freer the individual," or "Democracy is a dictatorship of law".

For sure, after 10 years of Boris Yeltsin, Russia needs law and order, but,
as Russian history has shown, there can be too much of a good thing.

Given the mixed signals, most of the Moscovites I have seen continue to
treat Putin as a black box - at this point they still don't know what is
inside. One Russian put it this way - "If only we had a choice between two
viable candidates like you - even George W. Bush and Al Gore would be
better than what we have. Having to choose between a bore and boring would
be better than having to pick between a scare and scary."

*******

#11
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 
From: "Philip Waring" <pbwaring@mediaone.net> 
Subject: Open and closed societies

Below a reply/response to George Soros in the NY Review of Books, Who Lost
Russia?

It's just too neat. We, the West, lost Russia. Why? Because we did not
actively and substantially support a fledgling "open society" in the new
Russia of Boris Yeltsin. Soros says that the collapse of the Soviet empire
in 1989 and of the Soviet Union in 1991 "offered a historic opportunity to
transform that part of the world into open societies, but that the Western
democracies failed to rise to the occasion." Do you believe it? I don't.
I would ask Soros if ever in the history of the world a closed society has
become an open society by the actions of forces external to that society.
It would seem to me that societies, like plants, open up by forces from
within. Forces from without can only keep them from opening. On the other
hand, myriad societies have been destroyed, let alone closed, by external
forces. Everywhere one looks one can see examples of destruction from
without, be it pre-Colombian Indian communities in the Caribbean, be it
advanced civilizations in Rome, China, and India, collapsing before Western
"barbarian" invasions.

Fundamental to the issue before us is Soros' borrowing of Karl Popper's
distinction between open and closed societies. In Soros' handling of the
distinction he begs the question. He assumes that the Soviet Union was
closed, and bad, and that the West is open and good. The West had only to
give from what it had. That granted, it follows that in those heady years
after the tearing down of the Wall the West had only to make Russia open
like itself, and it could have done so by following the example of George
Soros, but on a much larger scale. Soros tells us over and over again that
what he did was just the right thing, and that the failure of the West was
not his failure, but the failure to do as he did. According to Soros the
West failed to make openness the major goal of its aid efforts to Russia,
and instead entirely relinquished its responsibility for doing anything at
all to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The aid of these
organizations was, of course, based on inadequate economic assumptions and
theories, rather than on the fundamental open, closed society distinction of
George Soros.

Most of all Soros writes as if he were unaware of the history of first
Russia and then the Soviet Union. Russians have been living under Czars and
Communist dictators for centuries, most recently under some seventy years of
Soviet communism. This way of "life" has not prepared them even to grasp
the difference between open and closed societies, let alone readied them for
participation in liberal, open, democratic, market oriented societies.
The failure of the West!? When was it ever shown that the effects of
centuries of oppression on the minds of men and women could be undone in
just a few years? Who would ever expect to see in place, after just ten
years, the societal and governmental structures and infrastructures
necessary for "normalcy." And why would anyone or anything except centuries
of previous history be blamed for these structures not being in place?

Sure, there have been mistakes made, but these are not the reasons for the
failed society of the present. Who is to blame for a failed life, let alone
a failed society? Not easy to determine. Whose failure is it that in the
Indian subcontinent some 40 percent of the inhabitants still live in squalor
and abject poverty? Whose failure is it that in sub-Saharan Africa
life-expectancy is some half that of the Western European countries? Closer
to home whose failure is it that poor children in the schools of our inner
cities fail to learn basic word and number literacy skills? These problems,
as those of present day Russia, will not be solved by, nor will they be the
failures of, Western leadership. There is no Santa Claus. There is no
magic wand that one has only to wave about. Soros should stick to
philanthropy, which he does better than most. I would agree that his kind of
charity has not been a failure. However, Russians, little by little, over
long periods of time, if no outside forces come again to overwhelm them in
their homes, will better their lot by their own efforts. Finally, in regard
to open and closed, Russians will, like us, become more open to some things,
which is happening right now in respect to their growing participation in
the World Wide Web, and they will rightly choose to remain closed to other
things, as we also, such as the betrayal their own language, culture and
traditions.

*******

#12
Financial Times (UK)
March 29, 2000
COMMENT & ANALYSIS: A journey into the unknown: As the world waits to see how 
Vladimir Putin will perform, the west must be careful to keep its distance
[by John Thornhill?]

The Russian people have, as expected, elected their riddle wrapped in an 
enigma. Vladimir Putin, formerly of the KGB, now controls the exceptional 
powers of the Russian presidency. But Mr Putin is the elected tsar of a paper 
empire. The challenge that Russia confronts can be defined by what he is - 
and is not - able to do: he can rule his country by decree, but cannot be 
confident of obedience; he can devastate Chechnya, but cannot pay his 
country's doctors. A civilised country has a law-governed and effective 
state. Russia is the antithesis. 

Consider two aspects of its weakness. First, there are the "oligarchs", those 
masters at using and abusing the state for their own ends. As Lee Wolosky of 
the Council of Foreign Relations writes in the March/April edition of Foreign 
Affairs, "the oligarchs dominate Russian public life through massive fraud 
and misappropriation, particularly in the oil sector". The business model 
that they have employed is privatisation of public assets. In enterprises 
they control, no outsiders are safe. Before their wealth, the law is 
impotent. This is plunder masquerading as free enterprise. 

Second, there is the de-monetisation of the economy. As the most recent 
economic survey of Russia from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and 
Development notes, non-cash receipts at 200 industrial companies peaked at 
over 50 per cent of the total in August 1998, before falling to 43 per cent 
in April last year. For 2,000 large enterprises and natural monopolies the 
share of non-cash receipts was more than 50 per cent in early 1999. 

What makes the Russian non-cash economy extraordinary is that, as the OECD 
remarks, "the barter and offset prices of a commodity are typically close or 
equal to each other and roughly 40 to 50 per cent higher than cash prices". 

Why should organisations prefer to avoid cash? A part of the answer is that 
non-cash transactions disguise subsidies, mostly for energy. As important, 
these transactions are a way for regional and local governments to cheat the 
federal authorities by operating without bank accounts. 

The dominance of the oligarchs and de-monetisation are both consequence and 
cause of today's distorted, semi-market economy. Behind them, however, lies 
the collapse of the state. As Vladimir Mau, director of the Russian 
government's Working Centre for Economic Reform, notes in a pamphlet 
responding to western critics of the reforms, "the fundamental feature of 
Russian post-communist reforms is that they were implemented at a time of 
weak state power".* Radical transformation under a weak regime is the 
definition of revolution - a process that nobody controls. 

The collapse of the Soviet Union was the end of a state, an empire and an 
ideology. Only coffee-house intellectuals can imagine that this could be 
managed smoothly. As Mr Mau argues, "an economic policy in a society torn 
apart by social struggle cannot be stable and consistent". Least of all can 
it be these things when the head of government is the ignorant, shrewd and 
compulsive Boris Yeltsin. 

Mr Putin is no Yeltsin. But what is he? And, whatever he is, can he hope to 
rectify a disarray that is more the fruit of 80 years of communism than of 10 
years of failed reform? The president's intentions and capacities are 
unknown. What is clear is that he is either the lucky survivor of Mr 
Yeltsin's game of musical ministerial chairs or the beneficiary of a cynical 
plot to preserve the elite's pre-eminence by exploiting an "anti-terrorist" 
war. 

Given this, hopes for significant improvement must be dim. Already, Boris 
Berezovsky, among the most successful exploiters of post-communist chaos, has 
warned that the influence of what he calls "big capital" can only grow 
further in Putin's Russia. If so, the chances of turning Russia into a 
country governed by law, with a monetised economy, an effective public 
service and a functioning federalism must be slim. 

The task can at least be defined. The government must reappropriate the 
country's resource wealth. It must cut the oligarchs down to size. It must 
raise enough taxes and pay its servants enough to reduce corruption. It must 
establish an effective legal system, with workable property rights. It must, 
in the process, create a normal cash-based economy and harmonious relations 
with lower levels of government. This is a very tall order 

Yet if he wants to attempt any of this, Mr Putin starts with some advantages. 
His personal authority is at a maximum. The powers of his office are, on 
paper, more than adequate - indeed, inordinate. The economy is buoyed up by 
the benefits of the post-August 1998 devaluation and high oil prices. As 
important, in spite of fears to the contrary, the financial crisis did not 
destroy macro-economic stability. The consensus on price stability is the 
clearest economic gain of the 1990s, just as the elections, however 
manipulated, remain the decade's most important political advance. 

It is now up to Mr Putin to use the opportunity he enjoys. On some points, he 
may be successful. But whether a scion of the KGB - an organisation dedicated 
to the ancient Roman proposition that the safety of the state is the supreme 
law - can have any notion of freedom or legality must be doubted. For this 
very reason, it behoves the west to remain, albeit in a friendly way, at a 
distance. 

Outsiders must wish the victims of one of the 20th century's most cruel and 
stupid ideologies success in their attempts to overcome its legacy. But the 
time when imaginative, bold and enthusiastic western assistance might 
conceivably have made a difference to the speed of transition was back in 
early 1992. That brief window of opportunity is long closed. Now, instead, 
the west confronts a resentful country and a suspicious elite presiding over 
a dysfunctional state and a distorted economy. 

In a recent pamphlet, my former colleague John Lloyd comes to the conclusion 
that the west must engage Russia in a two-way dialogue on security.* But 
economic reform is Russia's task. Some help should be given to a government 
both determined and able to do the right things. But never again should the 
west give its approval to a regime as ineffective and rife with corruption as 
that of President Yeltsin's latter days. Above all, westerners must be 
modest: Russia was never the west's to lose; it is not the west's to win 
either. 

* Russian Economic Reforms as Seen by an Insider: Success or Failure? London, 
Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2000, www.riia.org ** Re-engaging 
Russia, London, Foreign Policy Centre, www.fpc.org.uk. martin.wolf@ft.com 

*******

#13
Jamestown Foundation Monitor
29 March 2000

...WHILE BEREZOVSKY-CONTROLLED PAPER ATTACKS 
OLIGARCHS. Meanwhile, in an article published in Nezavisimaya 
gazeta, political scientist Andranik Migranyan, formerly a 
presidential adviser and a frequent contributor to the paper, 
predicted--approvingly--that Putin would force the oligarchs out of 
the corridors of state and governmental power. What was 
particularly intriguing about Migranyan's article was that he openly 
called on Putin immediately to consolidate state control over its 
"media resources," including Russian Public Television (ORT), the 
country's main television channel, which is 51-percent state-owned 
but generally thought to be controlled by Berezovsky. Migranyan 
said that if Putin is unable to take ORT under control now, in the 
immediate aftermath of his first-round election victory, the forces 
opposing such a move will make it much more difficult to do later. 
Migranyan predicted that both Berezovsky and his arch-rival, United 
Energy Systems chief Anatoly Chubais, would lose influence under 
Putin as a result of the president-elect's drive to "deprivatize" the 
state.

What is striking about Migranyan's piece is that Nezavisimaya 
gazeta is, like ORT, part of Berezovsky's media empire. This would 
suggest either that the paper has rebelled against its owner, or that 
Berezovsky is playing some sort of clever game. Earlier this year, 
Russia's Press Ministry announced that ORT and TV-Tsentr, the 
television channel owned by the Moscow city government, would not 
automatically have their licenses renewed, but would have to 
compete for them in an open tender set for May 24. The Press 
Ministry's ostensible motive for this was that both channels had 
received warnings for political mudslinging during the State Duma 
election campaign late last year. One suggestion is that ORT, which 
has a license to broadcast on the state's first television channel, 
could be switched over to the state's second channel, which is 
currently used by RTR state television but whose signal reaches 
less than half of the country. Another is that ORT could be merged 
with the All Russian State Television and Radio Company, RTR's 
parent company.

Both scenarios would deal a serious blow to Berezovsky's influence. 
On the other hand, some observers have put forward still another 
scenario: that ORT, which relentlessly boosted Putin and attacked 
rival candidates during the presidential campaign, will "lose" the May 
24 license tender to a new, unknown company which also happens 

to be controlled by Berezovsky-controlled shell companies. Indeed, 
the fact that one of Berezovsky's own newspapers today published 
what was in essence an attack on his control of ORT suggests that 
he might pull a fake disappearing act from the world of Russian 
television. By maintaining a lower profile, Berezovsky would be able 
to take the heat off himself and allow Putin to claim a major victory 
in the war against the oligarchs.

On the other hand, Berezovsky has shown no signs lately that he 
plans to lower his profile. He has been very active in granting 
interviews, including to ABC News's "Nightline" program and the 
BBC. In another interview last week, just prior to the presidential 
election, Berezovsky said that Putin's promise to distance the 
oligarchs from political power was "normal" and "absolutely right," 
but that it would "never happen." Berezovsky said that Putin's words 
were right--"for the voters." Indeed, the tone of Berezovsky's 
comments toward Putin was paternalistic, almost condescending 
(Vedomosti, March 24). Thus it may be that companies under 
Berezovsky's control have already been promised a victory in the 
putatively competitive May 24 license tender, and that the tycoon 
will be even more open about his leading role at the state television 
channel once the tender is over. Last year, after playing coy about 
reports that he had taken over the newspaper Kommersant, 
Berezovsky openly admitted that he was behind the obscure 
American investment company which bought a controlling stake in 
the paper (see the Monitor, July 2, 8, 1999).

*******

#14
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 
From: "andrew miller" <andrewmiller@mail.ru>
Subject:Neo-Soviet Russia, Week One

Topic: Neo-Soviet Russia, Week One
Title: Hep me, hep me! I been Putinized! David Lettermanski

Russian people have a nearly intimate familiarity with SOME LIKE IT HOT
starring Marilyn Monroe and with GONE WITH THE WIND featuring Clark Gable.
But they ve never heard of Humphrey Bogart s CASABLANCA or Katherine
Hepburn s PHILADELPHIA STORY.

Why is that? Well, think of the images of America depicted by the four
films. In SOME LIKE IT HOT America is depicted as a world infested by
gangsters, corruption and fundamentally hair-brained people. In GONE WITH
THE WIND it is a place where the African-American is oppressed and there is
a constant state of war among fundamentally aggressive and dangerous
people. But Bogie and Kate would show Russians a parallel universe
populated by intelligent, basically peaceful folks who do normal, human and
sometimes even courageous things. Both films would show individuals
standing up for themselves, more or less successfully, against the tide of
prevailing authority. This, of course, couldn t be stood for in the former
USSR.

Russians also know THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN by Mark Twain, who
once famously said that QUOTE It is a man with very little imagination who
can only spell a word one way UNQUOTE. However, in the USSR it was a man
looking to spend some time in a gulag who could spell a word more than one
way. Thus, where Twain s opening line of that novel was YOU DON T KNOW
ABOUT ME WITHOUT YOU HAVE READ A BOOK BY THE NAME OF THE ADVENTURES OF TOM
SAWYER, BUT THAT AIN T NO MATTER the Russians have translated it as YOU DON
T KNOW ABOUT ME UNLESS YOU HAVE READ A BOOK BY THE NAME OF THE ADVENTURES
OF TOM SAWYER, BUT THAT DOESN T MATTER (and the rest of Finn s immortal
vernacular, of course, likewise). This neatly renders Twain barren of his
linguistic edge (thus, just another light-witted American) and his
individualist penchant in one deft stroke of the pen. It comes with the
free bonus of allowing the Soviets to claim they d done a great service of
improvement to American literature.

But why then, it s hard to avoid asking, should Bogie and Kate and dumb
Mark still be absent from Neo-Soviet Russia, where in theory the censors
have been put on leash and popular attitudes have been relaxed and opened?
And why, following a similar vein, would Neo-Soviet Russians want to elect
a KGB field operative their second president (that is, a person trained to
lie and kill), someone who was totally unknown to them except for his
endorsement by the former President, someone they hate, someone who is
still waging a bloody war where 5,000 or so young Russians have died. And
why, opening the vein, would they want to give second place to the Soviet
party of power Gennady Zyuganov s Communist Party improved its share of
the party vote in the December Duma ballot, and improved even more in the
presidential poll, garnering nearly a third of the tally. In other words,
eighty percent of Russians, in a free and fair election, opted either for a
return to the past or a return to the past.

Why, however, is not a question we get to ask much in Neo-Soviet Russia,
and we never get it answered. By WE I mean Zamyatin s WE, that is the
people who didn t vote for Spymaster Putin, or who wouldn t have if we
could have, people who have been to Rick s and the Main Line and the Mighty
Mississip. After all, even if we re only one percent of the population
that s still 1.45 million of us after all.

But still, we can t help asking, why vote for Putin when the Russian
currency has lost one-fifth of its value after having been Putinized (one
ruble dropping in value from 4 cents when he was named PM to 3.3 cents
today). Why do it when an epic financial scandal is erupting over at the
Bank of New York, on the heels of FIMACO and Chubais and Berezovsky, when
defaults on pensions and wages continue essentially unabated, and when, to
beat a dead Chechen, the country is still mired in war. Why go there, when
Putin s one serious claim to fame is default on international financial
obligations which have finally produced something positive for Russia,
namely being cut off from its credit while the national debt was only equal
to a full year s GDP and not more (in the US, the debt is viewed as being
at a crisis level though it s only half of a year s GDP) this, one would
think the voter would concede, is a roundabout way of off-setting 5,000
deaths.

Yet they did. It cannot have escaped the notice of the JRL that Mr.
Zyganov, the communist, was more popular in this election than was Theodore
Roosevelt in 1912 or Stephen Douglas in 1860, and only seven percent less
popular than was George H. W. Bush in 1992. Mr. Putin was more popular
than Kennedy in 1960, or Nixon in 1968, or Truman in 1948.

As for the election itself, let me say as someone viewing it at ground zero
that it wasn t very pretty. Really, it wasn t.

On the Wednesday evening before the ballot, Acting President Putin launched
via state-owned (non-Casablanca-showing) ORT and (non-Philadelphia
Story-revealing) RTR television the most venal and revolting series of
political assaults I have ever witnessed upon the hapless person of Grigori
Yavlinsky (with one-sixth the support of Zyganov, Yavlinsky can at least
console himself with having doubled Zhirinovsky s total). Yavlinsky, who
had been until the week of the election as meek and silent as the worm in
an apple and who had as much chance of influencing the proceedings as I
had, was accused ad nauseam of overspending on his campaign and of using
ill-gotten foreign proceeds to do it. He was accused over and over again,
as if he were a former KGB spy in the process of undoing Russia s ignoble
experiment with pseudo-democracy and as such an enemy of the people.

Yavlinsky ran adds that showed him walking imposingly toward the camera in
front of a Russian tricolor with the slogan: Judgment. Independence.
Results. He showed a guy walking into church and saying he was a Yavlinsky
man. At the pinnacle of his frenzied eleventh-hour attack, he showed two
soldiers in a foxhole saying that war was bad and Yavlisky was good, and in
a second add some images of Soviet breadlines as an apparent slap at Zyuganov.

These adds were seconds in length. They were few and far between. In the
entire election cycle, I ve never seen a Yavlinsky canvasser here on the
streets of Piter, nor any serious posters or billboards, much less any
major speeches by the candidate himself. His campaign was as innocuous as
it could have been while retaining three dimensions but apparently, it
nonetheless scared the hell out of Vladimir Superspy. 

Putin himself voted early on Sunday and when asked what plans he had for
the rest of the day he said he was off to the country place to steep in the
sauna, then back to learn the results, then he had to hit the hay early
because he had a big day on Monday. Would that I were a poet, I would be
able to impress upon the reader the sickening finality which was to be
heard in Mr. Putin s confident tone.

I seemed to hear an equally confident, and far more sickening, tone in
comments which appeared recently in The New York Times from former U.S.
ambassador to Russia Jack Matlock, who wrote to give his appraisal of Mr.
Putin. His comments made no reference at all to Putin's KGB past or to
Putin's recently published autobiography, implying that these two facts are
irrelevant to a real understanding of Putin, such as the one he was
prepared to offer. What was relevant to such an understanding? Putin's
nanosecond on Nightline and an anomymous Yeltsin advisor who'd been
whispering in Matlock's ear.

Based on those two profoundly credible sources, and the fact that Matlock
doesn't live here and doesn't have to face the music, he said reassuringly
that QUOTE the changes in Russian society since 1991 would make it very
difficult for any leader to impose Soviet-style control UNQUOTE, implying
it was, in his view, comparably easy for the Soviets to do so after 1917
(though I seem to recall something about a minor civil war). And he
advised us to QUOTE congratulate the people on a peaceful and orderly
transfer of power UNQUOTE. As for a democratic transfer, or simply one
that didn't give a 30% mandate to the Soviet party of power? As for the
question of what Putin would have done if he'd lost? Matlock was content
to QUOTE learn soon enough whether Putin's supporters or his detractors are
correct UNQUOTE. Of course, if Mr. Putin's detractors are correct then Mr.
Matlock's polices while ambassador might be called into question, and why
do so before it's really necessary? 

Whatever we think about Russia going back to the neo-Soviet future, we can
hardly help noticing how quite possible it is for us to go back to Munich.
But those of us who live in Russia may become quite carsick if Mr. Matlock
or anybody like him is going to be our driver. Mr. Matlock, we'd like to
ask, have you ever looked into the eyes of a KGB officer who had power over
you, the ability to influence your life? Probably, that didn't occur when
you were ambassador - but maybe you were an expert on Russia before then,
maybe even had spent some time in an obshezhitiye. We wonder, because
we've seen the look in Putin's eyes before, you see. We recognize it. And
it makes us mighty nervous.

******