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From: "larisa glad" <lglad@voanews.com>
Subject: Interview with Boris Fedorov
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004

Interview with Boris Fedorov, Former Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Finance and Former member of Duma of the Russian Federation
Larisa Glad
Russian Service
Voice of America
Translated from Russian by LG

LG: Mr. Fedorov, you were a member of the Communist Party of the USSR up till 1991, and probably were a true believer in communism. But ultimately you became known as a “Westerner” with global vision. Was this an evolutionary metamorphosis?

BF: Well, you could say that I was quite a cynical person who never believed in communist ideals, and for the great majority of the people in the USSR the membership was simply a career engine. If you weren’t a member you couldn’t get a job, for instance, in the Currency Department of the Central Bank. So my personal opinions have not changed; they developed even during my school years when I listened to the Voice of America, the BBC and other so called “hostile radio stations.” So for me it was quite a natural process. Although I must say I never expected the Soviet Union to collapse and everything to change so quickly, but nevertheless it was an easy transition for me compared to the older generation, which truly believed in communism.

LG: You have an enviable command of English. Where did you learn it?

BF: In Moscow. I attended a school where English was among the important subjects.

??: … a so called special school?

BF: Yes, a special school. By the way, they almost kicked me out because my English was bad. But later in college, when I studied at the Moscow Finance Institute, it became clear that all those weird things that we were learning wouldn’t be useful in life, so for me English became one of the most important subjects. I read tons of books in English. I never missed an original movie in the “Illusion” Movie Theatre, and I must say it helped me a lot in life.

LG: Who do you think was the driving force of contemporary Russia?

BF: To be honest, I don’t think we are yet in contemporary Russia. We are still….

LG: …I mean the country as it is now, at this stage…

BF: Well, the big changes started under Gorbachev… notwithstanding the fact that he is extremely unpopular in today’s Russia. As someone who worked for him and met him many times before the collapse of the Soviet Union, I personally am grateful to him. Even if he might not have comprehended what he started and I think he didn’t fully he opened up a lot of opportunities. We could say what we wanted, write what we thought. So for me 1985, 1986 and 1987 were the beginning. It all emerged in different shapes and forms of course. And other persons contributed later to the process. But it all began with Gorbachev, I think.

LG: When Mr. Putin started his first term you said that the West was idealizing him, that although he is definitely better than Mr. Yeltsin but one should not expect too much, and to call him a “reformer” would be stretching the truth. Have you changed your opinion about him since then?

BF: Well, I don’t thing my opinion has changed drastically … because it’s obvious that our President is not a radical reformer. He is very cautious and if you look at his first term you’ll see that the important reforms took place in his first year, and the last two were uneventful. Now we have lots of promises, so a more radical situation may be on the horizon after all. Still, I see it as a continuation of what we call the “transitional period” at least as compared with the Yeltsin era of chaos and extreme instability. Now government is moving in more or less right direction, even though there inevitably remain elements worth criticizing.

LG: What key reforms Putin should carry out first in your opinion?

BF: Well, aside from obvious economic aspects like tax reform I still think that the key reforms are not economic but in fighting against corruption and for the rule of law. These are not exactly pure politics, like the conduct of elections, because it is clear that you cannot expect ideal democracy in a country that never knew democracy in the first place.

LG: …especially overnight…

BF: Well, I would say even in twenty years. Because as a person who ran in several elections and met tens of thousands of people I can confirm that for the majority of people, traditionally liberal values are still far away. Everyone is worried about how to earn a living. However I think that the main issues are not economic or even purely political they are, whether we will have real courts or you can just make a call and bribe the politicians, whether the police will protect us or try to make money on us, whether the officials work for the state or continue to enrich themselves while drawing small salaries. These are the principle issues. No progress has been made on these issues in the last 15 years and we do not know right now if the declarations and the promises we heard are serious. There is as yet no serious evidence to that effect.

LG: Some still talk about reversibility of the democratic process in Russia pointing to Putin’s resume and his team. Do you agree?

BF: No, I don’t think anything can be reversed… maybe we’ll have so called “managed democracy,” which is already managed in fact. But nevertheless I can say what I want, I can open an Internet site and criticize anyone, I can publish a book and distribute it, and so on and so forth. With a lot of money it is possible to launch a TV channel although it’s quite costly. So I do not think that people want to go back…. And if a country is in transition, lawlessness sometimes takes over instead of democracy, like what we witnessed under Yeltsin… but it is subsiding now. So I can say that some aspects are cause for concern but the return is I think absolutely unreal especially when you see that the market economy and capitalism are being developed in Russia, and that means that the political process can not be reversed. I think that we passed the turning point in 1996, after which we can’t go back to old times. Of course government could be more authoritarian or less, more liberal or less, but there is no return.

LG: Russia is called the richest poor country in the world. How much time do you think is required to approach Western democracy with a developed political system and economy and population that will enjoy its riches?

BF: I believe Russia is basically quite strong. It’s just that half of our economy is invisible, virtual, in a grey zone where people don’t pay taxes and where real figures are concealed… I think that with a really thought through economy Russia could not just double but triple or even quadruple its GDP and become a strong state where people would have solid incomes and which would be perceived by all as a normal market economy. This process is slow, and economic growth is now better than it was, but there’s no certainty that everything will continue to go on as smoothly as it is now. There is too much dependency on oil and gas, on natural resources and not enough structural reforms, productivity growth, effectiveness and organization. Besides we see that a much more authoritarian China is the beneficiary of substantially greater foreign investments than is Russia despite the lack of democracy there. That says something…. But I think it’s possible to turn things upside down within 10 years….

LG: Well, ten days sometimes is enough as we know… What do you think the richest and the poorest people in Russia should fear if at all?

BF: Well, it seems to me that the poorest have nothing to be afraid of because they are poor already and this should be resolved by the government and the individuals themselves… because, regrettably, the work ethic does not exist in Russia. Year after year people discuss what the government owes them, ignoring the vast opportunities that are already available. If, for instance, before the Bolshevik revolution people fought for land and used to say give me land and I will become rich we now have millions of acres of unused land and no one wants it. The Soviet state managed to kill initiative and entrepreneurship in very many people and created a government-gives-us-everything attitude. As for the rich if you didn’t steal sleep easy. After all, we understand that many of those young men who got on the Forbes list became billionaires not because they are so smart or worked hard or made some remarkable discoveries, but because they knew how to deal with officials and received huge assets free or for peanuts… But sometimes you have to pay a price for ill gotten gains.

LG: Should big business participate in politics?

BF: It should but only as in other countries. If someone tries to buy up all political power with big bucks that man is taking a risk. It is clear, for instance, that Khodorkovsky’s posture when he financed several political parties and many individual candidates could not help but engender a negative reaction on the part of government. I think that in any country a huge scandal is inevitable when a billionaire starts to buy up political parties. But if it’s done in a civilized and legal manner with contributions that are made openly and not in cash there’s nothing wrong with it. The most important thing is that it’s not as if the richest want to openly buy everybody the Duma deputies, for instance. During the last Duma, when many laws were passed not because they were necessary or because the legislators believed in them, but because certain businessmen wanted them.

LG: What do you think of American foreign policies in general and the war in Iraq in particular?

BF: I think that the war in Iraq was a mistake and my opinion in this regard has not changed at all. I watched with a lot of regret how America is being drawn into something which could become like Afghanistan for the Soviet Union. Everything went well there for us too at first: we marched in, planted trees, danced and sang… and then the killing started…. Now we read every day in the newspapers about American soldiers and civilians being killed, and there’s no end to it. Secondly, it turned out that there were no weapons of mass destruction. And thirdly, we now see that the main threat for all of us are not rockets or armies but a handful of invisible terrorists who are capable of bringing about colossal damages. It would have been better to concentrate on that and not try to impose your system, which is quite costly and almost always fails and cooperate with other countries to achieve real security. I think America would be safer under such a foreign policy. But instead we hear today America openly declaring: “if France and Germany won’t join us we’ll go alone.” That’s the wrong attitude, at least in my opinion.

LG: Do you believe that terrorism could be eliminated?

BF: I don’t think it’s possible to win against terrorism 100% and very quickly, just as corruption is a never-ending battle. But if instead of fighting terrorists, you address the causes of terrorism you could eliminate these threats. It is very important to look at all the events in a rational, cool way and without emotions. Because sometimes what is presented as war on terror today simply engenders more terror. And it’s a very dangerous situation. Cooperation on the part of all normal countries is the key element, I think. Instead, we sometimes see how potential terrorists who threaten one country are welcome in others, how today’s terrorists tomorrow become freedom fighters in State Department’s records and visa versa. We need fewer double standards and more cooperation.

LG: Do you have any presidential ambitions?

BF: Not for the immediate future. Right now I am busy with many fascinating things. I am very interested in history and have written a book about [tsarist Premier and Minister of the Interior] Stolypin. I am doing research on [tsarist nobleman Grigory] Potyomkin now. I am also planning to restore one old Russian estate. I deal with financial issues and I sit on the boards of several financial organizations. My son was born a year ago… so my hands are full. I am very happy and right now I have no intentions to return to big politics.

LG: Congratulations on your son. Good luck, and thank you very much.

BF: Thank you.