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Johnson's Russia List
 

 

June 9, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4356  4357 4358 4359



Johnson's Russia List
#4359
9 June 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Putin lauds church role as patriarch marks 10 years.
2. Interfax: GORBACHEV FOUNDATION REPRESENTATIVE REFUTES REPORT ON GORBACHEV'S NEAR DROWNING IN COSTA RICA.
3. Interfax: PRIMAKOV TO ACCOMPANY PUTIN TO SPAIN AND GERMANY.
4. gazeta.ru: Gerashchenko Criticizes Government.
5. Itar-Tass: Book about Vladimir Putin Published in Germany.
6. RFE/RL: Bruce Pannier, Central Asia: Assessing Rising Tension.
7. The Economist (UK): Russia and the United States. Best of foes.
8. Michael Intriligator: Joint statement of Russian and American economists on a new agenda for economic reform in Russia.
9. Times Literary Supplement (London): ARCHIE BROWN REVIEW OF ARON, YELTSIN, AND GORBACHEV.]
******


#1
Putin lauds church role as patriarch marks 10 years

MOSCOW, June 9 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin praised the Orthodox 
Church on Friday in a message congratulating its head, Patriarch Alexiy II, 
on the 10th anniversary of his enthronement. 


``The Russian Orthodox Church plays an enormous role in the spiritual 
unification of the Russian land after many years of life without faith, moral 
degradation and atheism,'' said Putin. 


``The church is recovering its traditional mission as a key force in 
promoting social stability and moral unity around general moral priorities of 
justice, patriotism, good works, constructive labour and family values,'' he 
said. 


``Although it fell to you to lead the church in a difficult and confusing 
period, the past decade has become a unique time for the real regeneration of 
the moral foundations of society.'' 


The church suffered persecution and harassment for decades under the 
atheistic Soviet regime. But since the demise of Soviet communism in 1991 the 
church has seen a big revival in its fortunes. Many churches and seminaries 
have reopened and clergy are often present at major public occasions. 


Putin himself, a former KGB spy, has been baptised and wears a crucifix 
around his neck given to him by his mother. He dutifully attends important 
church celebrations like Easter. 


Alexiy, 71, attended Putin's inauguration as president on May 7, though 
Russia is defined by its post-Soviet constitution as a secular state where 
all confessions are equal. 


******


#2
GORBACHEV FOUNDATION REPRESENTATIVE REFUTES REPORT ON GORBACHEV'S NEAR
DROWNING IN COSTA RICA


MOSCOW. June 9 (Interfax) - Head of the Gorbachev Foundation's
service for international relations and contacts with the press Pavel
Palazhenko has refuted mass media reports stating that former USSR
President Mikhail Gorbachev "nearly drowned the other day off the coat
of Costa Rica."
Gorbachev has indeed just visited the United States and Costa Rica,
Palazhenko confirmed in an interview with Interfax on Friday. Palazhenko
accompanied Gorbachev on this trip.
In Costa Rica, the president of the country invited Gorbachev, who
is president of the International Green Cross, to visit the Earth
Institute, an educational institution that trains specialists in
agriculture. He participated in institute's 10th anniversary
celebration.
"Mikhail Sergeyevich also visited the coat of the Caribbean Sea,"
Palazhenko said. "But of all the information distributed by mass media,
only one thing was true: he did swim," he said.
"Mikhail Sergeyevich did not swim far into the sea. A Russian
Federal Security Service employee was always at his side. While coming
out of the water - and that part of the coast was very stony - Mikhail
Sergeyevich stumbled and scratched his knee. A Costa Rican rescuer
happened to be near him. However, there was no need to save him - only
those who are drowning can be saved," said Palazhenko, who was an
eyewitness to it all.
"Everything else is the fruit of journalists' imagination," he
said.


******


#3
PRIMAKOV TO ACCOMPANY PUTIN TO SPAIN AND GERMANY


MOSCOW. June 9 (Interfax) - Leader of the "Fatherland-All Russia"
Duma faction Yevgeny Primakov will accompany Russian President Vladimir
Putin during his upcoming visits to Spain and Germany, sources from
Primakov's inner circle have told Interfax.
The sources say Primakov and Putin have met more than once
recently. "The last such tete-a-tete took place this Wednesday," one of
the sources said.
Interfax has not received any confirmation from the Kremlin as yet.


******


#4
gazeta.ru
June 9, 2000
Gerashchenko Criticizes Government 
By Andrey Stepanov 
Speaking at a bankers’ forum in St.Petersburg on Thursday evening, Viktor
Gerashchenko expressed disapproval of German Gref’s economic program. The
Central Bank’s Chairman is convinced that Russian economic indices have
been growing steadily for over a year thanks to the CB’s policy, and not
Yevgeniy Primakov or German Gref. 
Viktor Gerashchenko singled out three points of the economic development
program designed by the Strategic Research Center, headed by Gref, for
criticism. 


Firstly, he said that the program lacks specific parameters for the
country’s economy growth. Secondly, the program is critical of the Bank of
Russia (i.e. Central Bank) and the ways Central Bank exercises its
supervisory and control functions. 


Thirdly, the program was drawn up with the help of experts from various
fields, including the IMF specialists, whereas the Central Bank was not
consulted. 


Indeed it is strange that a program for Russia’s economic development has
been elaborated without the participation of the Finance Ministry and
Central Bank, the institutions that have for the past year and a half
guided the economy and provided for economic growth without any assistance
from the government, the Economy Ministry, and definitely without any help
from the Strategic Research Center, which nobody had even heard of before
Autumn 1999. 


Besides, the Central Bank and the Finance Ministry have evidently
succeeded; the ruble rate has stabilized, the state budget has been
executed almost flawlessly. But Gref’s center that the Central Bank and the
Finance Ministry give their own, biased version of the positive economy
growth of the past 18 months. 


However, Viktor Gerashchenko was most indignant about Gref’s program’s
position towards the Bank of Russia directly, which talks of “weakness and
inconsistency” of banking regulations in recent years and of the “CB’s
purely formal attitude towards drawing up its account reports” and towards
the professional level of the CB’s employees. 


Even if those allegations are true, why should German Gref include them in
the forecast for the state’s economic development till 2010? 


Besides, the Strategic Research Center’s experts should have been well
aware of the fact that the reorganization of the Central Bank might be
implemented only on basis of a specially adopted law that would radically
change the whole system of supervision and control over the banking sphere. 


The suspicion arises that German Gref’s team’s attack upon the Central Bank
was initiated with the sole purpose of spoiling Viktor Gerashchenko’s mood. 


It is still too early to say if a real conflict has arisen between Viktor
Gerashchenko’s Central Bank and Mikhail Kasyanov’s government members.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the recent rumors about the Central Bank
Chairman’s imminent retirement were connected with Gref’s program. 


Many factors will be determined by the extent of differences between the
government and the Bank of Russia. For instance, unlike the government,
Viktor Gerashchenko is opposed to the idea of devaluating the ruble; he
considers the ruble rate should be based on its real value, determined by
competitiveness of Russian consumer goods and by the debt burden on the
Russian economy. 


As for the government, many government members are calling for the further
devaluation of the domestic currency in the interests of the raw material
producers. 


So far Gerashchenko is not inclined to dramatize the state of affairs and
has offered to cooperate with the authors of Gref’s program. He stressed
diplomatically that the Central Bank has its own concept for economic
growth. In Gerashchenko’s words, Gref’s program which provides for 5% GDP
growth per annum over the next 10 years to underestimates Russia’s
potential, and only the CB knows how the higher tempo could be achieved.
Gref will have to abide by that. 


Apart from the high oil prices that have provided the unprecedented inflow
of foreign exchange in the past year, one might see that the successful
economic growth has resulted mainly from the CB’s policy. 


And, it is quite possible that Vladimir Putin who once said that he dreamt
of a 10% annual growth of GDP per annum might prefer the Central Bank’s
recommendations to those of German Gref’s Center. 


******


#5
Book about Vladimir Putin Published in Germany. .


BERLIN, June 9 (Itar-Tass) - A book about Vladimir Putin appeared on sale in 
book shops of Germany on Friday. The first German-language biography of the 
Russian president has pbeen put out by the Universitas Verlag publishing firm 
on the eve of Putin's forthcoming visit due to be made on June 15-16. 


The monograph is authored by Alexander Rahr, a promiinent German political 
scientist, who has pointed out in an Itar-Tass interview that when compiling 
the book he used numerous sources, including various materials from German 
and Russian archives. 


According to estimates by local critique, the edition contains a large number 
of interesting episodes which enable the reader to get an in-depth knowledge 
of Russia's post-Perestroika processes in the economy, politics, and the 
formation of a new society. 


*****


#6
Central Asia: Assessing Rising Tension
By Bruce Pannier


Tensions have been rising in Central Asia since early April, when Russian 
officials began threatening attacks on alleged terrorist bases in 
Afghanistan. This week, a group of RFE/RL Central Asian specialists held a 
round table to discuss the Russian threats and their effects in the area. 
RFE/RL correspondent Bruce Pannier reports on the panel's conclusions.


Prague, 8 June 2000 (RFE/RL) -- Ever since Russian officials started 
threatening preventive strikes on terrorist bases in Afghanistan two months 
ago, tensions have been on the rise in much of Central Asia. 


There are at least two major focuses for the tensions. For one thing, if 
Russia carried out its threats of anti-terrorist strikes, that would place 
two of the five Central Asian states, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, directly on 
the front line of hostilities. The Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement has 
threatened to retaliate against them for any Russian strike.


For another thing, security services in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan say that 
members of the armed Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, or IMU, are currently in 
Tajikistan. These militants have already left a violent mark on the area. 
Last summer, hundreds of IMU militants invaded southern Kyrgyzstan, staging 
hit-and-run attacks in a much-advertised attempt to overthrow the Uzbek 
government. Many in Central Asia fear that this summer, the IMU will renew 
its attempt to overthrow the Uzbek government.


These and other Central Asian issues were discussed by a panel of RFE/RL 
specialists at a round table in Prague yesterday. 


The participants agreed that Russian threats to attack terrorist camps in 
Afghanistan were meant to serve Moscow's interests in two ways. First, 
panelists said, they were intended to help Moscow in its campaign against 
Chechen separatist rebels, suspected of having training camps in Afghanistan. 
Second, the threats could also promote Russian interests on the ground in 
Central Asia's five former Soviet republics, where Moscow lost considerable 
influence during the nearly nine years of Boris Yeltsin's presidency. 
Panelists noted that not only has Russia said it may attack terrorist bases 
in Afghanistan, but it has also offered military help to the CIS Central 
Asian states now facing threats from the IMU. 


But Smagul Yelubayev of RFE/RL's Kazakh Service said he believes a Russian 
attack on Afghan territory would lead to dire consequences: 


"In this kind of war, there will be no winner. It would be the start of 100 
years of war in Central Asia. If the Russian government attacks Afghanistan 
and this is backed by the leaders of neighboring states like Uzbekistan and 
Tajikistan, then on that very day the leaders of Russia, Uzbekistan, and 
Tajikistan will be terrorists numbers one, two, and three in the eyes of 
Afghanistan."


Salimjon Aioubov of RFE/RL's Tajik Service questioned whether Russian claims 
to be fighting international terrorism are really sincere. He noted that the 
IMU militants have bases in Tajikistan, and that twice within less than a 
year they have been deported across the Tajik border into Afghanistan. 
Russian border guards, he pointed out, police the Tajik-Afghan border. 
Aioubov said: 


"Russian border guards are in command on the Tajik-Afghan border. Russia 
talks about the battle with Islamic terrorism, with international terrorism. 
But if the Russians really want to fight Islamic terrorism, how can they 
allow the IMU militants to cross the border into Afghanistan, then return to 
Tajikistan, then once again cross into Afghanistan, and then yet again -- if 
the information of Kyrgyz security chief Bolot Januzakov is confirmed -- 
return to Central Asian territory?"


The panel agreed that -- if Central Asian states were willing to cooperate 
with one another -- they probably would not need Russia's help to defeat the 
Uzbek militants or to secure borders with Afghanistan. But they also agreed 
that such cooperation has seldom been characteristic of the region. Zamira 
Echanova of RFE/RL's Uzbek Service commented:


"If we look back at our history, when there was the first incursion by 
Tsarist Russia, there was a similar fragmented situation in the region. The 
local chieftains and the states over which they presided could not agree 
among themselves. Each of the chiefs considered his main task to be the 
defense of his own, often small, territory, and believed that whatever else 
happened was not his concern."


The main conclusion of the RFE/RL round table was that Russia's threats to 
hit terrorist bases in Afghanistan have served to aggravate what was already 
a tense situation. Today, Central Asia appears less, not more, stable than it 
was before the Russian threats began in early April. And, adding to the 
danger, Central Asian governments seem no closer to achieving the level of 
cooperation needed to deal with what is clearly a common problem. 


(Tengiz Gudava of the RFE/RL's Russian Service and Naryn Idinov of the Kyrgyz 
Service also participated in the round table and contributed to this report.) 


******


#7
The Economist (UK)
June 10-16, 2000
[for personal use only]
Russia and the United States
Best of foes 
Last weekend's summit helped clarify differences--without resolving them 
AFTER the fall of communism, Russian policy towards the West seemed to 
oscillate between two poles. When Russia was feeling weak, it would cling 
eagerly to whatever remained of the old "superpower" relationship--especially 
the fanfare of summit meetings with the American president, and good 
old-fashioned talk about arms control. Whenever it was feeling a bit more 
bullish and self-confident, it would make anti-American noises and woo 
Western Europe with talk of a common European home. 


To judge by his first set-piece meeting with Bill Clinton, the new Russian 
president, Vladimir Putin, is capable of playing both games almost at once. 
Mr Putin does it, though, with less panache than his predecessor and more 
cold-eyed realism about the limits of his country's room for manoeuvre. 


With no pretence to personal warmth, Presidents Clinton and Putin artfully 
finessed their differences over strategic issues, especially anti-missile 
defences, in a way that enabled each to claim success and look good at home. 
But the gap between American and Russian views remains wide; the prospect of 
a diplomatic collision still looms under the next American administration, 
which takes office next January. 


In a speech to the Russian Duma, Mr Clinton tried hard to persuade the sullen 
legislators that he had their country's best interests at heart, and would 
not dictate to them--in too much detail, anyway--how to pursue those 
interests. The speech drew only scattered protests, but not many plaudits 
either. Among many Russians, by no means all of them Communists, suspicion of 
American motives runs too deep for even a finely-crafted oration to root it 
out. 


As for the issues in dispute, Russia remains unwilling at this stage to 
accept America's fairly modest amendments proposed for the Anti-Ballistic 
Missile (ABM) treaty of 1972, though it now accepts some treaty changes may 
be needed. (The treaty sought to preserve cold-war stability between the 
superpowers, and avoid the temptation of a first strike by dissuading each 
from building defences that could fend off a counter-strike by the other's 
long-range nuclear missiles.) America now wants to amend the ABM treaty to 
build a "limited" defence against attacks on its soil from such rogue 
countries as North Korea. 


Their disagreements laid out, Mr Clinton flew home via Ukraine, where he saw 
lots of American flags but little sign of an economic take-off. Mr Putin 
headed for Italy, where he and Giuliano Amato, the prime minister, readily 
agreed that, as good Europeans, they must work together to stop the Americans 
doing anything rash about their plans for an anti-missile shield. Mr Putin 
also reiterated his vague, if superficially enticing, proposal for an 
international effort to build regional anti-missile defences, with the aim of 
knocking out rogue rockets soon after their launch. 


Neither Italy nor any other West European power is likely to approve this 
idea in defiance of the United States. But for Russia, such proposals win 
moral and political points, if only because they provide extra ammunition for 
critics of the current American approach to missile defences, outside the 
United States and inside. 


Indeed, the debate about missile defences looks likely to hot up in America 
as the November presidential election approaches. The most important piece of 
paper agreed on in Moscow was a list of 16 "principles of strategic 
stability" which, Mr Clinton said, deserve to be studied closely. 


>From America's viewpoint, the biggest advance was Russia's cautious 
acknowledgment that wildcat proliferators do exist--some, indeed, aided by 
sales of Russian technology. The document of principles accepts that the 
world "faces a dangerous and growing threat of proliferation of weapons of 
mass destruction and their means of delivery" and that this marks a 
"significant change" in the global balance of power. 


But the Russians had grounds for satisfaction too: another agreed axiom is 
that the ABM treaty, which many American Republicans are eager to scrap, is a 
"cornerstone of strategic stability" that has enabled America and Russia to 
cut their strategic arsenals. By assenting to this principle, Mr Clinton has 
probably made it harder for himself or his successor to pull out of the 
treaty, as either side may legally do, with six months' notice. 


No less controversial, in terms of America's domestic security debate, will 
be the assertion that "offensive" strategic weapons and defensive ones 
cannot be treated in isolation from one another. Once the theology is 
decoded, this can be seen as an American offer to Russia: we will accept 
deeper cuts in our strategic arsenals, something you need more than we do, 
but only as long as you allow us some freedom to build anti-missile defences 
by agreeing to amend the ABM treaty. 


But this principle also implies a veiled warning from Russia to America: 
don't expect us even to consider ABM treaty changes until we know how many 
long-range rockets we will be facing, and how many we will have to deploy 
ourselves. 


Ideally, America's defence chiefs would like an unrestricted choice as to 
what sort of anti-missile defences to deploy, and what size of offensive 
arsenal to keep. By acknowledging that America cannot expect to have complete 
freedom on either of these fronts, Mr Clinton may have narrowed the range of 
policy options for the future. But that will soon be some other president's 
problem. 


******


#8
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 
From: "Michael D. Intriligator" <intriligator@econ.ucla.edu>
Subject: Joint statement of Russian and American economists on a new
agenda for economic reform in Russia


Dear David,
Below is a joint statement of Russian and American economists, including
several Russian Academicians and American Nobel Laureates, on a new agenda
for economic reform in Russia that was published on June 9 in Nezavisimaya
Gazeta. It should be of interest to your readers. 
Best regards, Mike 


A NEW AGENDA FOR ECONOMIC REFORM IN RUSSIA


Despite predictions of doom, the devaluation of the Russian ruble and
favorable conditions on the world market have stimulated Russian
production. These are temporary phenomena, however, and the immense
challenges of recovery, transition, and development remain. We, Russian and
American economists, agree with Russia's new President, Vladimir Putin,
that the state must be strengthened in order to play a more active role in
the economy. We would also emphasize that not only the quality of Russian
life but also the prospects for economic recovery and growth depend on
ensuring civil liberties, a free press, and a democratic system of government.


Economic reforms in Russia need a fresh start to create a more favorable
environment both for entrepreneurs and employed labor, as well as for
consolidating of society and unleashing its energy. That is why we wish to
propose a five-point economic reform agenda for the consideration of
President Putin, the Russian government, the Federation Council, the State
Duma, and the Central Bank:


1. Institutional infrastructure. The government has a responsibility to
eliminate deep distortions in the market mechanism and to establish and to
maintain the institutional infrastructure of a genuine market economy. It
is imperative that the federal government, along with local governments in
the 89 regions of Russia, rationalize property rights, reorienting large-
and medium- size enterprises from asset stripping to net-worth
maximization, and introduce modern systems of accounting, finance,
insurance, and other needed market functions. It should create conditions
for banks that serve the role of channeling savings into investment and
oversee private financial institutions in conjunction with the central
bank. Doing away with the overdue mutual debts of all economic agents
(including the government) is also of utmost importance for the proper
functioning of the market mechanism.


2. De-criminalization. Criminals have filled the institutional vacuum with
corrupt officials and mafia control. As President Putin has emphasized, the
rule of law must be solidified in order to increase allegiance to standards
of ethical behavior and to provide a stable business climate that would
stimulate investment and production. Extortion and bribery should be
rigorously prosecuted irrespective of the position or political views of
the officials involved. Penalties for extortion and bribery should be
severe, and government policies should be tailored to mitigate economic
causes of corruption such as extremely low pay for public officials, a
tremendous increase in transaction costs, and a Byzantine tax system, which
deprives the production sphere of the stimuli for growth. It is urgent to
upgrade the ability of the Russian government to fashion and implement
economic policy. Measures should be taken to ensure proper standards of
recruitment of government officials, as well to insulate government hiring
and promotion from politics.


3. Growth-oriented policy. Growth of production and investment should be
the primary goal of the government, rather than bringing inflation to near
zero levels. Overly zealous monetary and fiscal restrictions are
counterproductive. Concerted action should be taken against illegal capital
flight. Within economically justified limits, the government should bolster
purchasing power through payment of increased pensions and restoration of a
portion of the savings that were lost as a result of sustained inflation
and the financial collapse of 1998. It should pay more attention to
rebuilding social overhead capital. A substantial program to upgrade roads
and other physical infrastructure would boost demand for Russian goods
while enhancing the private sector's competitive potential. Cleaning
balance sheets of mutual overdue debts would greatly improve the financial
position of the real sector. To increase investment in new facilities and
technologies the government must help develop mortgages and create
conditions for industrial firms to pursue the policy of accelerated
depreciation. Judicious subsidizing of interest payments to help finance
private investment would also increase the rate of growth. 


4. Restructuring and Competition. It is important not to interfere unduly
with market discipline. Economic policy should encourage the growth of new
competing enterprises, including those with local government participation
and joint ventures drawing on foreign capital. However, government
leadership is needed for Russia to realize its potential in the information
economy, biotechnology, and some other high-tech spheres due to its
scientists, research institutes, and some productive capacities. This
implies careful elaboration and firm implementation of a realistic
industrial policy. Until steady growth resumes, selected temporary import
tariffs conditional on industrial performance could be introduced.
Government has to regulate the prices of basic commodities supplied under
monopolistic conditions and to ensure that regulated prices are market
clearing. It is important prior to conducting privatization auctions to
restructure enterprises and to overhaul their finances. Privatizations that
have been carried out in violation of the law should be reconsidered.


5. Social contract. Only government can ensure that the benefits of the new
economic order are shared. It is vital to improve the moral climate and to
fortify respect for democracy and social justice. Among the expected steps
in this direction could be implementation of a law on minimum subsistence,
providing low-income households with necessary guarantees (including
housing rents subsidies), while at the same time imposing substantial real
estate taxes on personal residencies with high market value. Pensions for
the elderly are meager and must not be allowed to lag behind inflation.
Health care, education and public services should be allocated more
resources. In order to reduce income differentiation and to mitigate social
tension, a well-enforced system of progressive taxation is needed. High
taxes on extractive industries would ensure that the Russian people are the
main beneficiaries of the export of natural resources.


The future of Russia depends on it having a realistic and balanced economic
program. Responsible action on this five-point agenda would ensure a
prosperous and equitable economy for Russia.
Signed by Russian economists, who agree with the principles of the
statement and its general outline without necessarily agreeing with every
detail:


Leonid I. Abalkin, Director, Institute of Economics, Russian Academy of
Sciences (RAS)
Gyorgy A. Arbatov, Honorary Director, Institute for Canada and U.S.
Studies, RAS
Oleg T. Bogomolov, Honorary Director, Institute for International Economic
and Political Studies, RAS
Victor V. Ivanter, Director, Institute of Economic Forecasting, RAS
Dmitri S. Lvov, Academician-Secretary, Department of Economics, RAS 
Valery L. Makarov, Director, Central Economic-Mathematical Institute, RAS
Alexandr D. Nekipelov, Director, Institute for International Economic and
Political Studies RAS and Russian Coordinator, Economic Transition Group 
Nikolai Ja. Petrakov, Director, Market Economy Institute, RAS
Natalia M. Rimashevskaya, Director, Institute for Socio-Economic Problems, RAS
Stepan A. Sytarian, Director, Center for Foreign Economic Researches, RAS


Signed by American economists, who agree with the principles of the
statement and its general outline without necessarily agreeing with every
detail:
Irma Adelman, Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley
Marshall I. Goldman, Associate Director, Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom Davis
Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University
Michael D. Intriligator, Professor of Economics, Political Science, and
Policy Studies, University of California, Los Angeles and Senior Fellow,
The Milken Institute
Lawrence R. Klein, Nobel Laureate and Benjamin Franklin Professor of
Economics, University of Pennsylvania
Franco Modigliani, Nobel Laureate, Professor of Economics and Finance, and
Institute Professor, MIT
Douglass North, Nobel Laureate, Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts and
Sciences, Washington University 
Marshall Pomer, U.S. Coordinator, Economic Transition Group 
Lance Taylor, Arnhold Professor of International Cooperation and
Development and Director, Center for Economic Policy Analysis, New School
University. 


******


#9
From: "Archie Brown" <archie.brown@st-antonys.oxford.ac.uk>
Subject: REVIEW OF ARON, YELTSIN, AND GORBACHEV
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 


ARCHIE BROWN REVIEW OF ARON, YELTSIN, AND GORBACHEV
Times Literary Supplement (London), June 9, 2000


Leon Aron
BORIS YELTSIN
A Revolutionary Life
Xxiii + 934pp. HarperCollins. £29.99.
0 00 255922 6


Mikhail Gorbachev
GORBACHEV
On My Country and the World
Translated by George Shriver
300pp. Columbia University Press. £19.00
0 231 11514 8


How surprised should we have been when Boris Yeltsin announced his
resignation from the Russian Presidency on the last day of 1999 and
confirmed as his chosen successor a former KGB officer who still holds that
organization in the highest regard? If we had only Leon Aron's lengthy and,
in some respects, useful biography of Yeltsin to rely on, we would probably
have been unprepared for such a turn of events. Yet Yeltsin had long shown
little concern for either a rule of law or the procedural aspects of
democracy, and latterly was intent, above all else, on finding a successor
who would protect his reputation and the material interests of those close
to him. The fact that some of Yeltsin's erstwhile supporters, such as
Sakharov's widow, Elena Bonner, saw the annointing of Vladimir Putin and
the bending of the Constitution to facilitate his early election as a
serious step backwards did not seem to trouble the former Russian President.


Yeltsin was not the worst leader Russia could have had in the 1990s and he
deserves credit for being willing to fight elections, even if he was also
all too ready to benefit from electoral fraud in a number of Russian
republics in which local despots were treated with benevolence provided
they rallied to the presidential cause. He also tolerated a diversity of
views in the mass media, though state television coverage of the second
Chechen war, already in full cry during Yeltsin's last months in office,
presented a far more one-sided version of events than it had in 1994-96,
and even the independent channel, NTV, found it prudent to exercise
somewhat more self-censorship. 


The fact that scores of books in English alone have been written about
Gorbachev and not much more than a handful about Yeltsin is a fairly
accurate reflection of their relative historical significance. Yet Yeltsin
clearly was an important political actor in the last years of the Soviet
Union and, his illnesses and absences notwithstanding, throughout the first
decade of post-Soviet Russia. Leon Aron has, therefore, filled a gap in
producing the most substantial biography of the former Russian President
thus far. As well as drawing on the published accounts of those who served
Yeltsin, Aron interviewed a number of them. While the book contains nothing
dramatically new for those familiar with the memoirs and interviews that
have appeared in Russian, it presents a lot of this information for the
first time in English.


Some of the freshest material comes from Yeltsin's years in the Urals when
he was First Secretary of the Communist Party organization in the
Sverdlovsk region. The pattern of working hard, playing hard, and being a
hard taskmaster was already well established, and it remained
characteristic of Yeltsin until failing health in the last years of his
presidency drastically reduced his energy and work-load. Moreover,
throughout the greater part of his career, Yeltsin did not lack courage. As
Aron makes clear, that was evident in 1987 when Yeltsin first defied the
party leadership. If his critical speech at a plenary session of the
Central Committee turned out in retrospect to have been an astute career
move, it looked more like political suicide than political opportunism at
the time. In 1988 Yeltsin was back on the attack, demanding to know why the
Party Control Committee was so afraid of holding leaders of republics
responsible for bribe-taking and was willing to investigate only petty
offences. This, however, raises the question, which Aron does not really
address, of why Yeltsin accommodated himself to out-and-out corruption, and
in even higher places, when he himself presided over Russia in the 1990s. 


In contrast with such omissions, Aron claims more for Yeltsin than he is
due. Even his sympathetic biographer cannot make a convincing case for
Yeltsin as a thinker. He attributes some significance to Yeltsin using the
term 'glasnost' positively (in a quotation from Lenin) during Andropov's
leadership of the Soviet Union. However, not only was Gorbachev using the
term a decade earlier, but even the Soviet Constitution of 1977 invoked
glasnost. What mattered was not the occasional and largely fruitless use of
the word but its adoption in the perestroika years as a key concept and,
still more, the practice of glasnost by the mass media as censorship and
self-censorship were relaxed and then withered away.


Aron's discussion of the relationship between Gorbachev and Yeltsin suffers
from a one-sided use of sources. In his extensive bibliography he finds
room for a number of works on France and even for Boswell's Life of
Johnson, but he overlooks revealing memoirs by important political actors
who, as it happens, are generally supportive of Gorbachev and critical of
Yeltsin. Among them are the books by Anatoly Chernyaev, Andrei Grachev,
Vadim Medvedev and Georgy Shakhnazarov. Aron cites Tatyana Tolstaya's
criticism in 1991 of Western support for Gorbachev rather than for Yeltsin,
but not her later highly positive re-evaluation of Gorbachev and her
devastatingly critical and amusing appraisal of Yeltsin when reviewing his
memoirs in the New York Review of Books.


The 'new thinking' of the Gorbachev era was the product of a group of
people who had been developing heterodox ideas over a lengthy period. That
a new General Secretary was prepared to listen to them (even before he
acceded to the top post) and use his institutional power to give effect to
these ideas led to the crucial breakthroughs both within the Soviet Union
and in its relations with the outside world. The most decisive single
turning-point was the Nineteenth Conference of the Communist Party in the
summer of 1988. Yeltsin at that time was formally a member of the Party's
Central Committee but under a cloud and took no part whatsoever in policy
formulation.
Yet, crucially, Gorbachev pushed through that Conference - in defiance of
the misgivings of a majority of central and especially regional party
officials - the decision to hold contested elections for a new legislature.
There was, indeed, competition between candidates in a majority of
constituencies the following spring. Gorbachev's acceptance of the
legitimacy of political argument and electoral contestation, and his taking
the first steps towards their institutionalization, changed the Soviet
Union irrevocably. From now on deputies were accountable to their local
electorates and not merely, or even primarily, to the party leadership in
Moscow. With all its imperfections the new legislature was able not only to
criticise the executive but also to reject nine of Prime Minister Ryzhkov's
nominations for ministerial posts. 


The pluralization of Soviet politics, the conceptual revolution which
turned much of Marxism-Leninism on its head, freedom of speech and of
assembly, religious tolerance, the abandonment of the use of force to
maintain the division of Europe, and the end of the Cold War were the
achievements of Gorbachev and his allies. That much was clear to Western
politicians in 1988-89 - and, indeed, to the Russians themselves. Contrary
to widespread mythology, it was as late as May 1990 (according to VTsIOM,
both then and now the leading survey research organisation in Russia) that
Yeltsin overtook Gorbachev as the most popular politician in Russia and the
Soviet Union.


Yeltsin played a prominent part in giving greater substance to political
pluralism in the last years of the Soviet Union. He made a major
contribution to breaking up the USSR, though no part at all in the
decisions which led to the independence of the Warsaw Pact countries in
1989. His support for the dissolution of the Soviet state owed much to the
calculation that with no Union there would be no Gorbachev in the Kremlin.
Some parts of the Soviet Union which became independent states had
experienced a symbiotic, and not entirely colonial, relationship with
Russia over centuries. The post-Soviet leadership's very different policy
towards the nineteenth century imperial acquisition of Chechnya casts doubt
on Aron's conclusion that Yeltsin 'dissolved the Russian empire'. 


Yeltsin, having been in the construction industry in his early years and
then a 'builder of socialism' as a regional party boss, can also lay claim
to a major role as a builder of capitalism. He took the political risk of
allowing Yegor Gaidar to free most prices in January 1992 and subsequently
presided over a form of privatization which, though about as far removed
from market principles as it was possible to get, established a capitalist
economy of sorts - a crooked capitalism which has attracted justifiable
condemnation from such involved observers (and hardly closet socialists) as
George Soros and the former Chief Economist at the World Bank, Joseph
Stiglitz.


In the earlier part of his Yeltsin biography Aron tells the familiar story
of Yeltsin's growing popularity as he inveighed against the privileges of
the party nomenklatura, against officials who contrived to get their
children into the elite higher educational institution, MGIMO (the Moscow
State Institute of International Relations), and against inequality more
generally. He quotes Yeltsin saying in 1990 that 'in the depth of [his]
soul' he was a 'social democrat'.
What Aron omits to add is that Yeltsin was a humbug. The man who was
against price increases presided over a price rise in 1992 which wiped out
people's savings. The person who, Aron tells us (as did Yeltsin himself),
was prepared to live modestly, proceeded to enjoy a substantially more
lavish life-style than his predecessor. Boris Yeltsin's grandson, who bears
his name, was sent to an English public school hardly less exclusive,
though more exotic, than MGIMO. Yeltsin's 'court' - and it is no accident
that some of those who worked most closely with the former Russian
President used the term, 'court', to describe his extended entourage - have
acquired riches beyond the dreams of workers in the old Central Committee
apparatus. Their rewards have not been those produced by the market, but
rather from the absence of a market - often from bribes but, more
generally, from the total failure of Yeltsin to separate public office from
private profit. Quite the opposite has occurred. The cosy relationship
between financial institutions and extractive industry, on the one hand,
and the holders of political office, on the other, has been to the benefit
of both sides and of scarcely any assistance to the long-suffering average
citizen. The 1999 Transition Report of the European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development, using a variety of indicators, placed Russia fourth from
the bottom of twenty post-Communist countries in Eastern Europe and the
former Soviet Union for 'quality of governance'. 


The EBRD Report also noted the extreme rise in wealth and income inequality
in post-Soviet Russia. On income inequality alone Russia was by 1997 on a
par with Colombia. A remarkable achievement for a social democrat 'in the
depths of his soul'.


In contrast with Yeltsin, Gorbachev did evolve from relatively orthodox
Communist to Communist reformer - which he already was by 1985 - to social
democrat. He had reached that last position while he was still General
Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and was understandably, therefore,
attacked by orthodox Communists such as Yegor Ligachev for having abandoned
Marxism-Leninism in favour of social democratism. Conversations with Willy
Brandt and Felipe Gonzalez, as well as with some of his advisers, and the
evidence of his own eyes on his forays into Europe, played an important
part in the evolution of Gorbachev's social democratic views. His adherence
to such an outlook and political disposition has been consistent throughout
his years of enforced elder statesmanship, and it emerges clearly in his
latest book, On My Country and the World. Many of the familiar Gorbachevian
themes are there - support for the United Nations, the interdependence of
states in meeting the challenge of global problems, the validity in its
time of the new thinking of the perestroika years, and the evolutionary
openness (as distinct from end) of history.


In his account of his years in office, Gorbachev provides some information
which, though already published in Russian, appears in English for the
first time, including extracts from Politburo minutes. There is also an
extended essay on the October Revolution and the issue of what kind of
system was built in the Soviet Union. In general, this is a wide-ranging
and interesting book, although Gorbachev's greatness remains as a
politician rather than as an author. He is at his most effective when
engaging and arguing with an interlocutor (as Margaret Thatcher, among
others, found out, though he also was influenced by her view of how Soviet
foreign policy looked from where she sat).


Occasionally, the reflexes of the former leader of the Communist Party, who
believed that he was winning the arguments within it, surface in
Gorbachev's book, as does a tendency to project on to the Lenin of the
early 1920s a more far-reaching commitment to reformism than Lenin
embraced. Gorbachev long ago ceased to be a Leninist, but he has found it
harder to withdraw all his traditional respect for the man as distinct from
the main body of his doctrine. 


It is illuminating to compare what Gorbachev claims for the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union with what Aron has to say about it. Gorbachev writes:


The fact is that the CPSU began the reforms when leaders who were adherents
of reform were in its leadership. Moreover, those changes would not have
begun at all if the initiative for them had not come from the CPSU. And it
is not just a question of the reform group at the head of the party. A
large section of the rank-and-file party membership favored change in our
society. In the last analysis, it was the Central Committee of the CPSU
that spoke in support of democracy, political pluralism, free elections,
the creation of a mixed economic system, reform of the system of federated
states, or republics, belonging to the Soviet Union, and so forth. In 1990,
at the Twenty-eighth Congress of the CPSU, all these changes were approved
by that body.


Aron, in contrast, maintains that the Soviet Communist Party 'until its
last hour remained both monopolistic and impervious to evolution'. In spite
of the fact that these statements radically contradict one another, both
contain an element of truth and yet both are misleading (with Aron the more
misleading of the two). It is perfectly correct, as Gorbachev maintains,
that the impetus for reform came from within the Communist Party (there
were, after all, few social scientists who were not party members) and that
getting radically reformist policies endorsed by the Politburo and Central
Committee was crucial to their introduction and implementation during at
least the first four years of perestroika. What Gorbachev's statement does
not bring out, though, is that it was always a minority within the
Communist Party apparatus which accepted far-reaching systemic change. For
a long time only a combination of Gorbachev's skilful manoeuvring, and the
hierarchical nature of the party which made it difficult to challenge the
General Secretary, allowed him to coax and prod reluctant officialdom into
going along with policies which they were fairly sure were against their
interests. It is true that in 1990 the Party Congress approved documents
which were more social democratic than Communist, but it is also the case
that a majority of the delegates did not truly believe in them. For
evidence of this one need look no further than the coup of August 1991. Not
only was it mounted by leading state and party officials, but neither at
the level of the Central Committee nor in the republics and regions did
party organisations resist it.
That last point draws attention to the element of truth in Aron's
generalisation. In general, however, it is more remarkable for its lack of
insight. Behind the monolithic façade of the Soviet Communist Party there
was real diversity of view, and a variety of unorthodox ways of looking at
the world were developing in private conversations from the Khrushchev
years onwards. A minority of officials within the Central Committee
apparatus - including, for example, Alexander Yakovlev, Anatoly Chernyaev
and Georgy Shakhnazarov - grew increasingly critical of much of official
Soviet ideology, as, crucially, did Mikhail Gorbachev, the only person open
to radically new ideas who had any chance of achieving the position of
supreme institutional power within the Soviet system. Inside the research
institutes and among the party intelligentsia a remarkably important
evolution of political views occurred, and one simply cannot begin to
understand the changes of the second half of the 1980s without taking
account of it.


Thus, all generalisations about the Soviet Communist Party should provoke
the question: which Soviet Communist Party? This far from homogeneous
organisation was a home to nationalists, conservatives, militarists and
even fascists, true-believing as well as conformist Communists - and
non-conformist social democrats. By the late 1980s these diverse viewpoints
among people holding party cards was out in the open, thanks largely to the
policies pursued by Gorbachev. 


It is one of the tragedies of post-Soviet Russian political developments
that the social democratic tendency, which latterly had the support of at
least a very substantial minority of Communist Party members, did not
solidify into a serious political party. If Gorbachev had taken the risk of
splitting the Soviet Communist Party earlier, putting himself at the head
of its social democratic variant, rather than attempting to paper over the
ideological cracks, a Russian Social Democratic Party capable of matching
the relatively unreconstructed Communist Party of the Russian Federation,
might have emerged. 


It is also possible, one has to admit, that the coup might then simply have
come earlier and even been, for a longer time, successful. As Gorbachev has
discovered, it is easier to write books - especially those pointing out,
with the benefit of hindsight, what should have been done - than to lead a
transition from Communism to freedom and democracy in a multi-national
state in which Communist rule had been entrenched for longer than anywhere
else. In retrospect, Gorbachev is able to reflect calmly on both his
achievements and disappointments, secure in the belief that future
generations of Russians, like those in the first years of perestroika, will
eventually give him his due. 


*******

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