April 1, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4215 • 4216 • 4217

Johnson's Russia List
#4217
1 April 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson: 
1. The Russia Journal: Andrei Piontkovsky, The doomed city.
(re apartment bombings)
2. Reuters: Gorbachev says Putin should break with Yeltsin.
3. Reuters: Putin, NATO steal Russia April fools show.
4. Boston Globe: Brian Whitmore, Claims of atrocities in Chechnya 
mount.
5. The Russia Journal: Ekaterina Larina, A ‘symbolic’ inauguration.
6. Jonathan Kells Phillips: Optimist-Pessimist.
7. Kitty Dolan: re: Coalson and Mendeloff (JRL 4213). (re freedom
of expression)
8. Ira Straus: Arbatov on Putin in NATO (JRL 4216).
9. Alexander Lukin: Re: 4215-The Young Putin.
10. Novaya gazeta: Mikhail Krugov, The Tsar Has Turned the 
Country Over to His Guards. (re criminalization of society and
politics)
11. New book "Russian Crisis and its Effects" from the BOFIT 
Institute for Economies in Transition, Bank of Finland.
12. New York Times: Vladimir Voinovich, Russia's Blank Slate.]

*******

#1
The Russia Journal
April 3-9, 2000
The doomed city
By ANDREI PIONTKOVSKY
(Andrei Piontkovsky is director of the Center of Strategic Research in 
Moscow.)

˜What? We blew up our own houses? Nonsense! Total rubbish! There are no 
people in the Russian secret services who would commit such a crime against 
their own people. The very suggestion is amoral and fundamentally nothing 
more than part of an information war against Russia" - such was President 
Vladimir Putin's wrathful reaction to speculation that his secret services 
had a hand in the apartment block bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk. But this 
anger seems to me put on and late in coming. Did the president not read half 
a year ago an article by the editor of Nezavisimaya Gazeta Vitaly Tretyakov, 
an ardent Putin supporter and backer of the Chechen war (NG 12. 10. 99)?

The article said more about the nature of the war and the state of the 
Russian "political elite" than anything else to date. Or rather, it's not so 
much what the article said as what it let slip. The article isn't about 
Chechnya, it gives a long and tedious examination of the latest information 
wars between the oligarchs. 

The whole thrust of the article is to prove that oligarch B., who is 
spiritually close to Tretyakov, has less shit on his snow-white suit than his 
competitors. Absorbed in these highly valuable thoughts, Tretyakov touches on 
Chechnya only in passing, giving it one paragraph where needed to help 
develop his main argument. But that one paragraph is worth being quoted in 
full:

"It's perfectly clear that the Chechens were lured into Dagestan and allowed 
to get involved there so as to have a legal pretext to restore federal 
authority in the republic and begin the active phase of the fight against 
terrorists gathered in Chechnya. This was clearly an operation planned by the 
Russian secret services (don't confuse it with the apartment block bombings) 
and was approved at the very top."

Let's look more closely at this text, invaluable for historians, 
psychiatrists and lawyers in the way it opens a little window onto the sickly 
conscience of Russia's "political elite." 

Tretyakov doesn't clothe his words in journalistic speculation. He writes 
about the secret services organizing Shamil Basayev's raid on Dagestan as 
indisputable fact, something obvious to his well-informed readers. 

The speculation, which prompted Tretyakov to write the article in the first 
place, begins further down and consists in the idea that patriotic oligarch 
B. also had a hand in organizing this brilliant operation. Thus, the "Russian 
political elite" takes it as a fact that Basayev's attack, which led to the 
deaths of hundreds of Russian soldiers and Dagestani civilians and left 
dozens of villages in ruins, was organized by the secret services and 
"approved at the very top." 

And all of this was done with one sole aim - to "give Moscow a legal pretext" 
to launch a full-scale bloodbath in which, as in 1994-96, thousands of 
soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians would lose their lives.

But if this is the case, then in what way are the president and prime 
minister, who approved the operation, the oligarch who actively participated 
in it, and the editor who proudly wrote about it any different to the 
international terrorists and murderers Basayev and Khattab?

Tretyakov, faintly aware that in becoming so carried away with white-washing 
his favorite oligarch he was carelessly spilling the beans, stuck the 
parenthesis in to fix things a little - "(don't confuse it with the 
apartment block bombings)."

But why not confuse the two events? Basayev's raid on Dagestan and the 
bombings in Moscow both served to reinforce in the public opinion a single, 
simple chain of conditioned reflexes - Chechens - terrorists - liquidate, 
wipe out in the toilet.

It was precisely the explosions in Moscow that definitively put the last 
piece in this triangle. And if in the name of such absolute values as 
"geopolitical interests in the Caucasus," "consolidation of the political 
elite" and "the greatness of Russia," presidents, oligarchs and editors can 
sacrifice hundreds of lives in Dagestan without their hands so much as 
shaking, then what is to stop them sacrificing human lives in Moscow?

A city with rulers like these, and especially rulers with thoughts like 
these, is a doomed city. 

*******

#2
Gorbachev says Putin should break with Yeltsin

ROME, April 1 (Reuters) - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev gave 
Vladimir Putin his vote of confidence on Saturday, but said the 
president-elect should distance himself from his predecessor if he wanted a 
successful tenure. 

``Putin has the ability to make the right moves. Of course, to make them he 
will have to split decisively with the past and establish a necessary 
distance between Russia's interests and the interests of those who backed his 
rise to power,'' Gorbachev was quoted as saying in an interview with la 
Repubblica daily. 

Putin won last Sunday's elections in Russia, succeeding his mentor Boris 
Yeltsin who stepped down on New Year's Eve. 

Yeltsin set off Putin's meteoric rise to power last August when he picked the 
then obscure head of the FSB domestic security service to be prime minister 
and then named him as his preferred successor. 

Asked whether he thought Putin had to break his ``pact with the Yeltsin 
family,'' Gorbachev said: ``It will not be easy for him to free his hands so 
he can operate independently. But I have few doubts that he realises he has 
to do this.'' 

``He has to draw up policies that respond to the interests of 90, not 10 
percent of the population. I am convinced doing it any other way would defeat 
him, stripping him of his following as fast as he gained it,'' added 
Gorbachev, who is visiting Rome. 

Gorbachev, who recently said Putin had a worrying authoritarian streak in 
him, also softened his stance, saying concerns the former KGB chief would 
vest too much power in the military were overblown. 

``(Russia) needs a strong government in order to come out of its crisis. And 
one must not be afraid of a certain dose -- just a dose -- of 
authoritarianism,'' he said. 

``Only irresponsible people can today affirm Russia poses a threat for the 
security of other countries,'' he said. 

Gorbachev has played only a marginal role in Russian politics since leaving 
power when the Soviet Union broke up at the end of 1991. A 1996 presidential 
bid was a flop, earning him only about one percent of the popular vote. 

As part of his visit to Rome, Gorbachev is due to meet Italian Prime Minister 
Massimo D'Alema on Saturday. 

********

#3
Putin, NATO steal Russia April fools show
By Patrick Lannin

MOSCOW, April 1 (Reuters) - April Fool's Day in Russia brought sombre reports 
that last week's presidential election was void and Belgian public toilets 
masked a NATO threat. 

``Today at two o'clock the election for Russia's president will be declared 
invalid,'' Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda said, six days after Vladimir 
Putin scored a first round win. 

The daily said a new election would be held in September. 

Newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta said it had secret information about Putin's 
plans for his cabinet, after the media spent most of last week trying to 
predict who would be in the government. 

But it tested the bounds of possibility with a report that Communist head 
Gennady Zyuganov would serve alongside arch foe Boris Berezovsky, one of 
Russia's best known businessmen. 

``The most fantastic forecasts of various politicians which were heard last 
week have turned out to be true in one way or another,'' the newspaper said. 

News agency Interfax tried to convince its clients that Russia and Norway had 
agreed to form an organisation of oil producers to rival OPEC. 

Tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets tried to cheer up soccer fans with a report 
that Russia would play in the European championship finals in Belgium and 
Holland after governing body UEFA kicked out Yugoslavia as part of United 
Nations sanctions. 

Commercial NTV television went for toilet humour in a report from a seaside 
resort in Belgium. It said a new kind of automatic toilet had been launched 
which examined a user's urine and gave a complete assessment of health and 
physical condition. 

However, it said Russian diplomats were worried that the new toilets were 
part of a radar network launched by NATO, whose headquarters are in the 
Belgian capital. 

Neighbouring Ukraine also got in on the April 1 act, although a story about 
new dollar bills with portraits of former Soviet leaders stretched the 
imagination. 

********

#4
Boston Globe
1 April 2000
[for personal use only]
Claims of atrocities in Chechnya mount 
By Brian Whitmore, Globe Correspondent

MoSCOW - As more allegations of atrocities by Russian troops surfaced 
yesterday in Chechnya, United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson 
arrived in Moscow to investigate allegations of abuses in the rebellious 
region.

She arrived amid new reports that Russian soldiers committed summary 
executions in a Chechen village, and just days after a Russian Army colonel 
was arrested and charged with raping and killing a Chechen teenager.

The arrest marked the first time in Russia's six-month war in the breakaway 
republic that Moscow has prosecuted one of its soldiers for crimes against 
civilians. Human rights groups in Russia welcomed the move, but said Moscow 
has still done little to stop widespread atrocities by its military.

The Kremlin calls its military campaign in Chechnya an ''anti-terrorist 
operation'' aimed at protecting Chechnya's civilians from ''bandits.'' But 
persistent reports of rape, looting, torture, and executions have made it 
look to many like a brutal war against the Chechen people.

''It is important that allegations of human rights violations be followed up, 
investigated, and that there be no impunity,'' Robinson said. ''This will 
require a very big commitment, and I will be looking for that commitment.''

The Kremlin may have been trying to show such commitment with the arrest 
Wednesday of Colonel Sergei Budanov, who has been accused of the rape and 
murder of an 18-year-old woman.

The case had been documented by the New York-based group Human Rights Watch, 
which has sent observers to the region. The group quoted eyewitnesses as 
saying the woman was home on Sunday night when Russian troops marched into 
her village, Tangi-Chu, south of the Chechen capital of Grozny.

The witnesses said soldiers went to her house and said they would ''take the 
prettiest woman.'' They took her with them to the mountains outside the 
village. Her mutilated body was found Tuesday.

Despite widespread allegations that such attacks are common, military 
officials said the rape was an isolated event. Anatoly Kvashnin, the Russian 
Army's chief of staff, said the crime was an ''extraordinary case.''

Rights advocates, however, said that it was part of a pattern of violence 
that has prevailed since Russian troops entered Chechnya to crush separatist 
rebels in late September.

''The Russians have made a big show of arresting this colonel and acted like 
his case was an exception, but it is not,'' said Malcolm Hawkes of Human 
Rights Watch's Moscow office. ''We welcome the fact that the Russian 
authorities are prosecuting this case. But to pass this off as an isolated 
incident is disingenuous.''

Human Rights Watch says it has documented numerous rapes and other abuses in 
Chechnya since the war began. 

The group has accused Russian soldiers of committing rapes in Shali, 16 miles 
southeast of Grozny, in Alkhan-Yurt, just southwest of the capital, and at 
the Kavkaz military checkpoint near Chechnya's border with Ingushetia.

In a report issued yesterday, the group alleged that Russian troops executed 
seven men in the village of Gekhi-Chu, about 20 miles south of Grozny. It 
said the executions took place in early February after Russian troops had 
driven about 3,000 rebel fighters from the town.

''The Russian authorities have done little to solve any of these cases,'' 
Hawkes said. ''This culture of impunity must change.''

Hawke suggested that Russian authorities might have arrested Budanov to try 
to persuade Robinson and other international observers that they were doing 
something about rights violations.

Robinson's tour is to include a visit to detention facilities in Chechnya, 
where the Russian military has been accused of torturing civilians. 

''I am aware that there has been violence on both sides. There has also been 
Chechen violence, and the background is quite a complex one,'' Robinson said.

*******

#5
The Russia Journal
April 3-9, 2000
A ‘symbolic’ inauguration
By EKATERINA LARINA 

When Boris Yeltsin was inaugurated in 1991 as the first democratically
elected president of Russia, the ceremony was dramatic in its display of
defiance toward the Soviet leadership

When Yeltsin was re-elected in 1996 and again inaugurated, the drama
centered on whether the ailing president could make it through the
shortened ceremony without collapsing.

In May, Vadimir Putin will be inaugurated as Russia's second post-Soviet
president in a historic legal and democratic transfer of power in Russia —
a transfer seen by many political analysts as significant for its legal
symbolism, rather than the drama of the previous two.

"We seriously need the succession of power that is so valued in all
democratic states," said Georgy Satarov, a former Yeltsin adviser and now
head of the INDEM research institute. "That aside from the fact that an
inauguration is always a very significant event celebrated all over the
world." 

But the Kremlin Department of Protocol was showing little interest in the
ceremony when contacted by The Russia Journal.

"We have so many vital events and visits to think about at the moment, and
this ceremony is quite distant – all the more so since the date for it has
still not been set," a Kremlin spokesman said. "We are aiming for May 5, as
[Central Election Commission head Alexander] Veshyakov promised to announce
the official [election] results on April 5," he added.

According to the constitution, a new president must be sworn in within a
month after the announcement of final election results.

But the CEC is still refusing to confirm the final date. CEC spokesman
Alexei Kuznetsov explained that the commission preferred not to name the
specific date until its office had received all of the election results.

"The official announcement requires 100 percent of the ballots, and it is
impossible to say exactly when all of them will be in," Kuznetsov said. "At
the moment, the main impediment is the wait for the results from Chechnya
and a few remote districts."

Whatever the exact date, one of the more important guests will be the
Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Alexei II. He has participated in the
previous two inaugurations, with the first being particularly significant,
as it represented the church's return to official status.

"This does not signify the Orthodox Church penetrating state activity, but
rather it is recognition of the historical significance of the Church. So
the Patriarch will bless the president," said Viktor Malukhin, head of the
Moscow Patriarchy Press Office.

He added that representatives of all the faiths historically represented in
Russia would attend, but he defended the leading position of the Orthodox
Church.

"It relates to historical tradition and statistics [the number of people
who classify themselves as belonging to a religion]," Malukhin said. "And,
as I understand it, all [the faiths represented] have agreed that the
Patriarch's blessing will be taken as a sort of blessing on behalf of all
believers in Russia."

As to Putin's professed Orthodox belief and the Patriarch blessing him at
the inauguration, Malukhin dismissed suggestions that Putin might be
excluding a large portion of the population, saying the president's faith
only added to the occasion.

"It is common knowledge that he [Putin] is an Orthodox believer. He even
came for the Patriarch's blessing," he said. "That wasn't to some
commentator’s taste. They argue that Putin should be president of all the
people and not just Orthodox believers."

"But that is just demagoguery," Malukhin added. "A president should be
sincere and honest, and if he is Orthodox as well, that's very good, too."

Spiritual matters aside, in democratic states, an inauguration officially
marks the legal transfer of power, and to INDEM's Satarov, this is its
primary significance, especially in a young democracy like Russia's.
Pageantry aside, he says there are a couple of essential elements to the
inauguration of a president.

"First and essential is the presence at the ceremony of the representative
of all of the branches of power – executive, legislative, judicial and so
forth," he said. "The second important issue is that the ceremony be
accessible for the public. Everybody should have the opportunity to see the
new Russian president being sworn in," he added, referring to the "sense of
ownership a people should have for its democratic government."

This will be in slight contrast to Yeltsin in 1996, Satarov, then a
presidential adviser, said. At that time, the overriding preoccupation was
whether Yeltsin would make it through the ceremony.

"Boris Nikolayevich was seriously ill. He had to go to hospital soon after
[the inaguration] to prepare for his operation, and everybody was more
anxious about whether he would make it through the ceremony than they were
about the event itself. He said he believes this time it will be more about
the development of institutions, and added that Yeltsin's attendance at the
ceremony would further enhance that.

"I can suggest he will be there but, of course, it will depend on his
health," Satarov added. "But if he manages to come, it will be very
important, as it will strengthen the sense of ceremony and the significance
of the fact that this is legal transfer of power in a democratic Russia."

But will Russia's first president, who has only appeared in public a couple
of times since his resignation on New Year's Eve, make it to the ceremony?

"I think Boris Nikolayevich [Yeltsin] will participate in the inauguration.
Why not?" said Dmitry Yakushkin, press secretary to Russia's first
president. "All the more, his presence at the ceremony will be very
significant. 

"But, frankly speaking, I haven't thought about it yet," he added.

******

#6
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 
From: Jonathan Kells Phillips <jphillip@fas.harvard.edu>
Subject: Re: 4216-Kasier/Optimist-Pessimist

Can't resist adding my own personal favorite to the list of
"optimist/pessimist" anecdotes from Russia: 

The Russian pessimist says: "Things can't possibly get any worse..."
To which the optimist replies: "No, no!! They WILL, they WILL!!!"

******

#7
From: "Kitty Dolan" <dolan@aibec.org>
Subject: re: Coalson and Mendeloff (JRL 4213)
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000

"The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by when any defense would be necessary
of the 'liberty of the press' as one of the securities against corrupt or
tyrannical government," said John Stuart Mill blithely in 1859 (On Liberty).

Those hopes, if any of us still had them for Russia, were dealt another blow
by the data Robert Coalson presented (JRL #4213) concerning the almost
total lack of "pluralism and diversity" of the press in much of the Russian
Federation, the comments to the contrary of the OSCE notwithstanding.

Writing on a similar theme David Mendeloff (also JRL #4213) gives us an
equally discouraging, if not downright depressing, view of the situation
regarding history Russian textbooks - that although they may have been
rewritten, they have not been fundamentally revised since the end of the
Soviet period, despite a greater degree of freedom to do so.

I have on many occasions lamented the apparent lack of interest in the issue
of freedom of expression on the part of many Russians, and last year in the
course of one of my classes at AIBEc I came across a wide-spread attitude
that may offer some insight into it. I had assigned an article, written by a
Russian, on listening skills and what should be done to improve them. The
author listed four levels of listening, and I suggested to the class that
the same four could be applied to reading. The first two hardly count -
non-listening, and only pretending, through gestures, to listen. But level
three was interesting. The author said that many people listen selectively,
only hearing those views that support the ones they already hold. Fine,
nothing new about that. But he went on to say that the reason they do that
is that they are afraid of hearing other views lest they be influenced by
them to change their views. I asked the students if they thought this was
really true. Most of them said they did and gave me examples of such
situations in their lives.

It was then and is now totally incomprehensible to me that somebody would
knowingly nurture and protect an opinion from exposure because they were
afraid that logic or reason or persuasive force might compel them to change
it. We all know people who project the confident attitude "don't bother me
with the facts, I've already made up my mind." But this seems quite
different from a fear of receiving other views. The latter suggests a deep
insecurity that by its nature is at odds with the idea of free expression.

If this attitude is widespread, as long as it continues to exist neither
diversity and pluralism in the press nor a substantive rewriting of history
textbooks is likely to come about. Perhaps instead of reading slightly
rewritten textbooks Russians could take courage from reading John Stuart
Mill's On Liberty. Consider the following question Mill poses: " When we
consider either the history of opinion or the ordinary conduct of human
life, to what is it to be ascribed that the one and the other are no worse
than they are?" His answer is that man "is capable of rectifying his
mistakes by discussion and experience. Not by experience alone. There must
be discussion to show how experience is to be interpreted.Very few facts are
able to tell their own story, without comments to bring out their meaning.
The whole strength and value then, of human judgment depending on the one
property, that it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed
on it only when the means of setting it right are kept constantly at hand."

Mill then asks how a person's judgment has become really deserving of
confidence. His response: "Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of
his opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all
that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and
to expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what was
fallacious. Because he has felt that the only way in which a human being can
make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject is by hearing what can
be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion and studying all
modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind." In other
words, "The steady habit of correcting and completing his own opinion by
collating it with those of others, so far from causing doubt and hesitation
in carrying it into practice, is the only stable foundation for a just
reliance on it."

In fact, then, Mill believes that so far from avoiding hearing or reading
others' opinions, we should seek them out: "If there are any persons who
contest a received opinion, or who will do so if law or opinion will let
them, let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen to them, and
rejoice that there is someone to do for us what we otherwise ought, if we
have any regard either for the certainty or the vitality of our convictions,
to do with much greater labor for ourselves."

The trouble is that if Russians regard free expression with fear rather
than favor, they will not support those few journalists and historians whose
practice brings to light facts and views that the government, and perhaps
most of the people too, would just as soon ignore.

Kitty Dolan
American Institute of Business and Economics
Moscow

******

#8
From: IRASTRAUS@aol.com (Ira Straus)
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000
Subject: Arbatov on Putin in NATO (JRL 4216)

Alexei Arbatov has given far and away the most accurate and perceptive 
comment yet on the meaning of Putin's comment on joining NATO. Arbatov says 
that Putin "burned his fingers" on this: 

"he will act in a circumspect manner and he will be careful not to improvise 
as he once did over possible accession to NATO. He badly burned his fingers 
on that and I think the lesson sank in to him. He is a young man and he has 
an alert brain. Unlike Yeltsin he will learn these lessons instantly and will 
never repeat such things." (March 29 interview)

Arbatov knows whereof he speaks. He himself burned his fingers in 1997 when 
he suggested that Russia apply to join NATO. Primakov, who was then Foreign 
Minister, beat him down with the comment that that would be a bad mistake, 
because NATO would pocket the application and postpone it indefinitely, but 
exploit it as an excuse to let everyone else join. Arbatov took the point so 
much to heart that he was soon repeating it, and using it to beat down any 
suggestion of a Russian overture on the subject. He has been careful not to 
fall into the trap again, and to say that the West must take the initiative 
if anything is ever to be done in this regard. 

(And, so as not be to evasive, I ought to confess here that I burned my 
fingers on trying to get Arbatov to take a new initiative, even though it 
would have been a much more careful one than what Primakov had beaten him 
down for.)

The West isn't taking the initiative. George Robertson, secretary general of 
NATO, put down Putin's overture with the comment that Russian membership in 
NATO isn't on the agenda. That is likely to become a self-fulfilling 
prophecy. If NATO won't put it on the agenda, and Russian politicians can't 
afford to make the insistent effort that is evidently needed for getting it 
there either, then there's no way for it to get there.

Arbatov is probably right about the price to be paid with Putin. It will be 
higher than it was with Yeltsin, who tried and tried again to raise the 
question of joining NATO until about 1994, and let his deputies try and try 
again until 1998, before growing tired of getting put down by the West. 

The price may be limitable. Putin's more vague overture for closer 
integration with NATO remains open, although putting flesh on the bare bones 
of that phrase will remain a very difficult matter as long as the actual 
question of NATO membership remains off the table. In the event of the likely 
failure to put much flesh on it, other events could lead, as Arbatov 
speculated later in his comment, to a sharp deterioration in relations.

If NATO should ever arouse itself to take the initiative on integrating 
Russia as a member of the alliance, Putin would probably still be interested. 
As yet NATO has not prepared itself intellectually for taking the initiative. 
Rather, it has filled its collective mind with obstacles to doing that, in 
the form of a whole slew arguments against including Russia. It has on the 
whole moved backward in its readiness to face the question since the day when 
Yeltsin first broached it in December 1991. It paid a high price for this in 
the Yeltsin years, but Thomas Friedman has pointed out, Yeltsin personally 
absorbed the worst part of it and protected the West from paying the full 
price. Arbatov makes a strong point when he says that Putin is in no position 
to do the same.

Ira Straus
U.S. Coordinator,
Committee on Eastern Europe and Russia in NATO

******

#9
From: "Alexander Lukin" <alukin@cityline.ru>
Subject: Re: 4215-The Young Putin
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2000 

Your list 4215 has a AFP interview with "Jean-Claude Leck-Lochet, a
Congolese now living in Blois" which says: "During 1974-1979, Lecko-Lochet
shared a room at the Lomonossov law faculty in Moscow with Putin, then a
reserved young man aged 22 known by his nickname "Volodia".
The only word here that can be true is that Putin was 22 in 1974. It is a
well known fact that Putin from 1970 to 1975 studied at the Law Faculty of
Leningrad State University, not from 1974 to 1979 at Moscow Lomonosov State
University. In 1975 he began to full-time work for the KGB and possibly (it
is a common practice for KGB agents) studied at the high school of KGB which
is situated in Moscow (although this fact cannot be found in his
biographies). This was the time when a student could share a room with him
in Moscow.
AFP is of course notorious for providing wrong information about Russia. But
this one is a bit too much.

******

#10
March 27, 2000
Novaya gazeta
Mikhail Krugov
The Tsar Has Turned the Country Over to His Guards
[translation for personal use only]

"These days, we must watch very seriously: who is going into government, who
aspires to achieve power." Vladimir Putin

A years ago I wrote that Yeltsin would bring intellingence agencies to power
in Russia. Today, my forecast has become reality. Therefore, it is only
natural for me to turn to the next one: what will the takeover by
intelligence services lead to?
But first, we need to figure out what do intelligence agencies represent at
the moment.
One ought to start this analysis with the problem of the criminalization of
society. <...> The nation which entrusts itself to representatives of
security agencies, hopes first and foremost that they will clip the wings to
the arbitrary rule of criminal authorities.
<...> It is worth noting that the description and analysis of the
criminalization of society in our media ends at the level of organized
criminal groups. It is a paradoxical picture - as if the criminal evolution
has stopped at this level and even apparently began a retreat. There is
little that we hear these days about the once famous criminal gangs - the
Solntsevo gang, the Tambov gang, the Kurgan gang...As if they quickly
declined and disappeared from public view. Meanwhile, there has been no
mention of a single important victory of the authorities over these criminal
communities. It seems as if someone has driven them underground without
extra noise, and they continue to exist there without getting into the
spotlight.
What then was the obstacle that interrupted the rapid evolutionary
development of these pioneers of organized crime? It appears that the only
obstacle to be found was the downward wave of criminalization that was
descending from the heights of government onto the society.
On any given pasture, there is place for only a certain number of cattle.
And if there will be a competition, those with bigger horns will prevail. In
our society, by mid-1990s there were no pastures that hadn't been taken over
by the criminal world. Then, the bulls of government crime confronted the
rams of the organized societal crime. Soon afterwards, the rams disappeared
from the public scene and from the pages of the news media.

The criminalization of the supreme authorities began with the legalization
of all sorts of financial schemes and ended with the privatization campaign.
Having taken away the citizens' property and having stripped them of all
their possessions, the governing community mutated into a criminal one. It
even borrowed the slang of the prison world. The organization process of
putting together government-connected criminal groupings, as the top section
of the criminal pyramid is close to its final stage. The raw material
groupings - controlling gaz, oil, electricity, metals, chemicals - were the
first to coalesce into organizational structures. "Power agencies" - the
army, prosecutorial offices, FSB, the Interior Ministry, the Communication
and Information Agency (FAPSI), the Ministry of Emergencies, the customs,
the tax police - followed in their heels. They only finalized the
establishment of a unified criminal community a couple of years ago. And
this one became the strongest.<...>
The formation of regional power groupings is gathering steam. Among them,
there are already full-blown territorial criminal communities - in Primorye,
in the Sverdlovsk oblast, in St.Petersburg, in Bashkortostan, in Dagestan.
They are headed by respective governors and so far they failed to coalesce
at the federal level. But this is only a matter of time.
A year ago, I figured out the coming takeover by intelligence agencies on
the basis of weighting the relative strength of different criminal
communities. It was already clear that the struggle for the presidency will
take place among these government-related criminal groupings that had
dwarfed the decaying political parties and movements. This is well
corroborated by the gap in the ratings between Putin and all the candidates
from among professional politicians. <...>
Unlike the raw materials' barons and regional governors, security services
have remained relatively hungry and therefore more motivated and more
capable for action. In addition, they are naturally united into rigidly
organized armed corporations. Over the past two years, representatives of
security agencies have virtually occupied the key apparat offices in the
Kremlin and the cabinet of ministers.<...>
What then are we to expect from their victory over their rivals? <...>
Experience shows that people are not inclined to adapt themselves to the
system which they came to control - on the contrary, they usually modify the
system so that it fits themselves and their ideas about its mission. Thus,
intelligence and security agencies will begin to "modernize" the system in
conformity with their needs. The only likely result will be a police state.
<...>
Security services are the least cultured in the bureaucracy - in comparison
with political, economic bureaucrats, managerial elite, bureaucrats in
science and the arts, that is, those bureaucrats that had been governing our
society in the past three decades. <...>
What did security services learn over the years of liberal reforms? Over the
past eight years, they were left to themselves, and the employees of these
agencies used their rights and opportunities available to them on their
discretion.
They began with setting up the "kryshas" (protection squads). As "krysha"
owners, they took part in the informal settling of accounts among
businessmen, which involved violent activities. Step by step, they
integrated themselves both in the business world and in the criminal world,
where they acquired stable partners.
To put it otherwise, security services had gone wild.
What then will occur after Putin brings this pack of wolves to power?
The first major event with be a nationwide settling of accounts with all
those who had antagonized the security services over the past ten years.
Naturally, this will b e disguised as "an attack on the criminal world". A
redistribution of property on a continental scale will be the logical
outcome of this operation. Most of the economy will change owners and will
be directly governed by security agents. This will be simplified by the fact
that these days most of the owners of enterprises of any value have a legal
status of anonymous offshore companies. Meanwhile, there no any protection
of rights of regular owners, not to speak of anonymous foreign-based
entities.
It is not by any chance that Lev Chernoy and his TWG companions hastily sold
all their aluminum business. These people have been known for their
far-sightedness. This suggests that the repartition of property will occur
without major upheavals - not a single oligarch will be able to withstand
the onslaught from the Kremlin Inc. Especially given that the West considers
all our economic chieftains to be thugs and will not move one finger to give
them support. <...>
Likewise, the rest of society has nothing good to expect - replacing one
type of parasytes with another is not a medical treatment. <...>
Developed countries are at an advanced stage of building a cordon sanitaire
around Russia. From now on, this process will go faster, and in a couple of
years we will have an iron curtain in reverse: if in the past we were not
allowed to leave Russia and go to the West, now the West will not let us in.
And this will enable the new rulers to put an end to democracy without much
noise.<...>
On the other hand, we will now have real prospects of quickly resurrecting
"Russia's greatness". Owing to our nuclear weapons, to our defense and air
space capabilities, we will have no difficulties to unite and lead the
criminal regimes and mafias all over the world. Of course, the purpose will
be "to fight neo-colonialism and the policies of Western robbers."
Judging upon the evidence, Russia's society is entering the final turn of
the spiral of its degradation. The cancer of criminalization has engulfed
the whole of society, beginning with top officials and down to those elderly
who receive pensions below subsistence levels and therefore can only survive
through some violation of the law.
Therefore the universal enthusiasm accompanying the ascent of the new leader
to power is merely a symptom of delirium in which the nation has plunged.

*******

#11
From: Saajasto Tiina <Tiina.Saajasto@bof.fi>
Subject: A new book "Russian Crisis and its Effects" 
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 

A new book "Russian Crisis and its Effects" 
by Tuomas Komulainen and Iikka Korhonen (ed.)
BOFIT Institute for Economies in Transition, Bank of Finland 

In 1998, Russia plunged in a financial crisis, as the ruble lost steeply
value, many debts were defaulted, and the banking system almost collapsed.
Only a year later, the economy was growing, though only at a modest speed.
To understand what happened as the Yeltsin era was ending and a new one is
beginning, both the general features of post-socialist economies and the
peculiarities of the Russian case need to be studied. This collection of
articles, written in 1999 by BOFIT economists, visiting researchers and
outside partners, offers valuable information and often surprising
insights into what went wrong, why, and what that implies for Russia and
the world. This is where to learn about the economic challenges of the
Russia of the XXI century. 

Overview of the book

The articles in this book examine the Russian economic system, the recent
crisis and its effects by covering three main subjects. The first three
articles (Sutela; Stroutchenevski; Koch and Korhonen) describe the August
1998 crisis in more detail. The special characteristics of the Russian
economy, the main reasons for the crisis and the restructuring of Russian
debt instruments are tackled in these articles. The next three articles
(Mau; Ericson; Sutela) delve deeper into the peculiarities of the Russian
economic system. All three argue that, due to the peculiarities of the
Russian economy, the restructuring is extremely complicated and will take
long time before a modern market economy is reached. The two last articles
(Taro and Korhonen; Backé and Fidrmuc) detail the impacts of the Russian
crisis on Baltic and Central European countries. 

The August 1998 crisis was mainly caused by Russian fiscal policy. During
1992-1998, federal budget deficits ran between 5-12 % of GDP, which
rapidly increased the indebtedness of the country. Financial markets
rightly expected that Russia could not service its debt, increased the
interest rates on government bills. Ultimately the authorities had to
float the rouble. Pekka Sutela's article "Financial crisis in Russia"
describes these events before the crisis, but stresses that the Russian
economy has its own peculiarities such as low monetisation of the economy
and the fusion of economic and political decision-making, which were also
behind the crisis. 

The difficulties of the Russian authorities to simultaneously carry out a
fixed exchange rate policy and large budget deficits are discussed by
Anton Stroutchenevski in his article "Russia: virtual stabilisation and
real crisis." The article includes important and interesting information
from the Russian economy during 1995-1998. For example, during several
months in 1997 and 1998 the debt service payment for GKO -bills exceeded
budget revenues. Struotchenevski argues that the Russian crisis was caused
by an undisciplined budget policy and further points out that the
authorities could not convince the Russians to invest and save in their
own country. The financial resources of the country were exhausted, the
government couldn't finance the budget deficits and eventually the crisis
took place.

One critical consequence of the August 1998 crisis was the restructuring
of several Russian debt instruments. After long and apparently difficult
negotiations the financial community had to accept the restructuring of
GKO debts, Soviet era debts in Paris and in London clubs. On top of this
several Russian regions, banks and enterprises have defaulted or tried to
restructure their debt obligations. Unfortunately, this has had unpleasant
side effects such as rampant asset stripping by Russian banks. The article
"The aftermath of the Russian debt crisis" by Elmar Koch and Iikka
Korhonen illustrates these events. The authors argue, that although many
debts have now been restructured, Russia needs a comprehensive economic
package in order to gain the confidence of the investors, as this is vital
for the investment growth in the future. 

Since the August 1998 crisis, it has become quite fashionable to argue
that the Russian transition since 1991 failed mainly because of bad and
misguided policies. Vladimir Mau in his article "Russian economic reforms
as perceived by Western critics" assesses this criticism and answers some
of the critics. He argues that the restructuring of Russian economy is a
longer and even more difficult process than it appears to many external
commentators. He stresses that all the reforms since 1991 have been
implemented in a situation of weak state power. This - not som much the
reforms themselves - has caused many of the current problems and
weaknesses of the economy, like the low tax collection and low
monetisation of the economy. 

Richard Ericson in his article "The post-soviet Russian economic system:
an industrial feudalism" continues the examination of the present Russian
economic system. He compares the current Russian economy to the European
feudal system following the collapse of Roman Empire. At that time the
manors were the central economic institutions in a feudal system.
Governance and operational control was highly decentralised and personal
networks very important. Property rights were diffuse and savings were
absent. This well reflects the economic system currently present in
Russia, where industrial producers together with the regional governments
create the core of this Russian industrial feudalism. Mr Ericson further
argues that this industrial feudalism is inefficient for growth in
productivity and it can take a very long time before the proper
institutions are place so that a modern market economy could develop. 

In the next article, "Russia: the state and the future of the economy,"
Pekka Sutela argues that the nice growth in industrial production
witnessed in Russia since the August 1998 crisis, might not be
sustainable. The recent growth is based on low real exchange rate, higher
raw material prices and increased capacity utilisation. Instead, in Russia
the economic growth has to be based on investments to be sustainable.
Unfortunately, Sutela further argues, savings and investments cannot
develop in the current economic system. Like Vladimir Mau, Sutela raises
the restructuring of the state as the main policy remedy. All official
expenditures have to be reassessed, only money should be accepted for tax
payments and the state should stop hindering the growth of new private
enterprises. 

The Russian 1998 crisis had many effects around the world, but fortunately
the shock to the global financial markets proved to be quite short-lived.
However, for many countries in the Central and Eastern Europe Russian
crisis did produce large negative effects, which proved to be quite
long-lasting. For example, as the rouble lost 70% of its value and Russian
citizens lost 35% of their purchasing power, many enterprises in the
Baltic countries couldn't anymore export and transmit food, machinery and
luxury goods to Russia. Foreign direct investments to the Baltic countries
have also declined after the Russian crisis. Iikka Korhonen and Lauri Taro
describe these problems in more detail in their article "Effects of
Russia's financial crisis on the Baltic economies". However, as the
article shows, Estonia and Latvia have mostly overcome the difficulties
caused by the Russian crisis. They are now exporting more to EU. Fiscal
policies were tightened in the aftermath of the crisis to prevent deficits
spiralling out of control, and some troubled banks were also closed. Only
in Lithuania the Russian crisis continues to depress the economy. There
the current account deficit reached almost 11% of GDP in 1999, budget
deficit widened to 7% of GDP and total output continues to decline. 

In the final article, Peter Backé and Jarko Fidrmuc study the impact of
Russian crisis on five Central European countries: Hungary, Poland, the
Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia. To these economies European Union
is even more important trade market than it is to the Baltic countries,
and correspondingly the overall impact of the Russian crisis was only
moderate. The authors found that among these countries the trade loss was
only significant to Poland, which had more export and special border trade
with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Among these CEE countries, only Slovak
had to give up its exchange rate peg. In other countries, the Russian
crisis had no significant impact on interest and exchange rates. It seems
that investors are learning to distinguish between these transition
countries. 

We hope that the book provides the reader with a possibility to study the
current economic system in Russia. This is what will limit the future
policies of the authorities and economic developments in the country.

Contents:
Pekka Sutela and Tuomas Komulainen: Introduction and overview 
Pekka Sutela: The financial crisis in Russia 
Anton Stroutchenevski: Russia: Virtual stabilization and real crisis
Elmar Koch and Iikka Korhonen: The aftermath of the Russian debt crisis 
Vladimir Mau: Russian economic reforms as perceived by western critics 
Richard E. Ericson:The Post-Soviet Russian economic system: An industrial
feudalism? 
Pekka Sutela: Russia: The state and future of the economy 
Lauri Taro and Iikka Korhonen: Baltic economies in 1998-1999: Effects of
the Russian financial crisis 
Peter Backé and Jarko Fidrmuc: The impact of the Russian crisis on
selected Central and Eastern European countries 

To order a copy, please contact Kikimora publication:
phone +358.9.191.24175 
fax +358.9.191.23822 
email kikimora-publications@helsinki.fi.

BOFIT, the Bank of Finland Institute for Economies in Transition, is a
leading centre for analysing economic policies and developments in Russia
nd the Baltic countries, as well as for studies in transition economics
more generally. As a part of the central bank of Finland, it provides
timely and objective monitoring and research, all available on the
homepage http://www.bof.fi/bofit.

******

#12
New York Times
March 30, 2000
[for personal use only]
Russia's Blank Slate
By VLADIMIR VOINOVICH
Vladimir Voinovich is the author of "The Fur Hat," among other works. Richard 
Lourie translated this article from the Russian.

MOSCOW -- Not knowing what to think of Vladimir Putin, their new president, 
Russians have endowed him with qualities that were the products of 
imagination and wishful thinking and were often incompatible. Suddenly they 
came to believe he could do anything -- wipe out all the Chechen rebels and 
bring peace, find work for the unemployed, raise teachers' salaries, double 
pensions, stop crime and in no time lead the entire country to prosperity. 

Ideas vary on how he'll do it. Some people think he'll rule with a firm hand 
and establish the order Russia lacks. Others believe he'll be a great 
liberal. Some foresee him eliminating the country's shocking levels of 
thievery while others hope that now theft will be easier than ever. 

Even before the election, people began elevating him higher and higher, 
comparing him before the fact to the most diverse historical figures, usually 
their own favorites -- Napoleon, Stalin, Stolypin, Pinochet, even Jefferson. 
Military men, business people, executives, governors fell in love with him at 
first sight, but no one more than the so-called creative intelligentsia: 
writers, artists and actors. 

They had been pining for a strong government; it had been quite a while since 
anyone had told them how to write, paint or act, or wined and dined them for 
their obedience. They rushed to declare their love for Mr. Putin in front of 
the television cameras. 

A well-known director said that he supported Mr. Putin and hoped he would 
return the favor; a popular actor expressed his passionate conviction that 
once Mr. Putin became president he would immediately pour money into the film 
industry. Others simply flattered the candidate to his face. A nationally 
honored singer declared to him that, along with the rest of the country, she 
loved him for his firm hand and clear head. A movie star told him that she 
very much liked the way he walked, saying it was the way a real man walked. 
After meeting Mr. Putin, another movie star gushed: "A man, a man! A real 
man!" as if he were the first she'd seen after a long stretch on a desert 
island. 

Just before the elections, the cult of personality around him reached unusual 
heat. A sight became familiar: Mr. Putin enters an auditorium; everyone 
rises, smiles ingratiatingly and breaks into stormy applause. 

The Russian people's love for their new president is great but will hardly be 
long-lasting. The greater it is today, the deeper will the disenchantment be 
tomorrow. Once they realize that he is only a human being, people will not be 
angry at themselves, but at him, because he can't simultaneously wage war in 
Chechnya, increase teachers' salaries and pensioners' benefits, feed 
everyone, rebuild the ruined Chechen cities, pay off the country's 
international debts, keep the ruble from falling and create a new Hollywood. 

And he has one other foe that will be harder to deal with than the Chechen 
rebels -- corruption. It must be combated, but it can't be defeated. Three 
hundred years ago Peter the Great decided to eliminate everyone who took 
bribes. But as his aide Aleksandr Menshikov pointed out: "If you do, your 
majesty, you risk not having a single subject left." President Putin has less 
latitude than Peter, who cut off the heads of the recalcitrant, something the 
Council of Europe will not allow Mr. Putin to do. And the corrupt people will 
remind him that he came to power with their help. 

Many people predict -- some with hope, some with fear -- that he will be a 
strong president. I think he has almost no chance of that. He faces problems 
that exceed the powers of a Jefferson whose time has yet to come in Russia or 
of a Stalin whose time has come and gone. This great love will inevitably end 
in great hatred, just as it did with Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin.

*******