#7
THE JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION PRISM
A MONTHLY ON THE POST-SOVIET STATES
DECEMBER 2000 Volume VI, Issue 12 Part 2
THE GENERALS HAVE TAKEN POWER IN RUSSIA: WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM THEM?
By Aleksandr Tsipko
Aleksandr Tsipko is senior associate at the Russian Academy of Sciences'
Institute for International Economic and Political Research and a columnist
for Literaturnaya gazeta.
Russia's political analysts have one notable weakness. On the whole they
are incapable of self-criticism, unable to acknowledge their mistakes and
sometimes glaring miscalculations. In order to appear sound and convincing
in their own eyes, they are forever adjusting and manipulating actual
trends in public opinion to square with their own belated and often forced
insights. For example, our political commentators are wont to link the
collapse of the population's liberal hopes with the default of August 1998,
when in fact Gaidar's shock therapy of 1992 exploded many romantic
perestroika-era illusions about both the West and market reforms.
And the longer our experts manipulate and tinker with the facts they don't
like, the greater the time lapse between the actual tectonic shift in
public opinion and our political scientists' official interpretation of it.
As early as 1990, there were people who said that there was no future for
our antistate, antipatriotic democracy, which associated itself with the
idea of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the destruction of a country
which had been formed over three centuries; our defeatist and unpatriotic
democracy was doomed. People were saying then that the best way forward for
our new democracy would be to take on board traditional Russian liberal
patriotism, and to link ideas of freedom and market reform with patriotic
values from the outset. Yet, for some reason, current received wisdom has
it that ideas of enlightened and liberal patriotism have only now reached
maturity--now that Putin's team has taken them on board.
Our political scientists tend to associate the shift in public opinion away
from the personality and towards the country and the state with the late
Yeltsin period, after he eventually decided to "look after Russia."
But it was during the crisis of 1992-93, not in 1999, that the whole of
society focused itself on statist values, national honor, authority and
order. And if it had not been for the stubbornness and self-confidence of
the reformers, who already had no desire to retreat, the bloodshed of 1993
would not have happened and the autocratic regime of Boris Yeltsin would
not have subsequently dug itself in.
Instead of a real history of postcommunist Russia, with its genuine
conflicts and insights, a mythologized, apologist picture is being created
of the political process of recent years. In this way, the idea is being
planted in the public consciousness that there is no alternative to our
post-communist Russia, that the changes in the public mood which led to the
arrival of Putin's team--that is, people from the "power" structures--are
only a recent phenomenon. At the same time, the idea is being planted that
the mission to save Russian statehood and restore authority could not have
arisen earlier--not until both liberal romanticism and the belief that "the
West will help us" burnt themselves out (that is, until Chubais became a
liberal patriot). But in fact there was every chance that our
democracy--like those in other Eastern European countries--could have
combined liberal values with the task of restoring and strengthening
national statehood from the outset.
The trouble with this forgetfulness on the part of our political
scientists--be it conscious or unconscious--is not just that it robs us of
the opportunity to assess our past, and distinguish unavoidable mistakes
from criminal negligence. The trouble is also that without a realistic and
accurate picture of what we have lived through in the last decade, we
cannot understand what is happening to us now; we cannot understand the
meaning and substance of the changes brought about by the rise of the
military to power in Russia.
This has direct bearing on the problem of the rise of the military to power
in Russia. Official political analysis has it that current changes among
the political elite--that is, the capture of key positions by the
military--are Putin's doing, the president having supposedly decided to
return to authoritarian times. In much of the liberal media it is claimed
that "Yeltsin was a democrat," whereas Putin, on the contrary, is relying
on the authority of soldiers in civilian suits.
But this is all untrue. The whole problem is that the political regime
which was established after December 1991--that is, after the break-up of
the Soviet Union--relied from the outset on the strength and loyalty of the
power structures. This went unnoticed both in the West and here in Russia.
This is the only reason why many people are now surprised that real power
and key positions on the political scene are in the hands of soldiers.
The humor of the current situation lies in the fact that those who are
making most noise about the danger and risk attached to the rise to power
of the military and, particularly, ex-KGB men, are the very same
politicians and journalists who called on KGB generals Korzhakov and
Barsukov to lead the attack on the White House on October 4, 1993. The
question must be asked: "Could Yeltsin's unpopular regime have survived its
last years without the support of the power structures?" The answer, of
course, is no. It follows from this that the buttress of the Yeltsin
regime, at least from 1993 onwards, was not the Constitution but the army.
The influence of the siloviki [people from the "power structures"] in the
country is the other side of our elective autocracy.
If we recall all the actual "heroes" and "architects" of Yeltsin's
autocracy, there are no grounds for indignation at the fact that the
siloviki are supposedly itching to get their hands on power. Yes, elated by
the political success of KGB colonel Putin, the siloviki are showing more
taste for public politics. In the list of candidates for governor in the
elections taking place in thirty Russian regions, journalists have
identified dozens of people from the power structures. In November, the
commander of the Baltic Fleet, Admiral Yegorov, won an easy victory over
his opponent in the gubernatorial election in Kaliningrad. It transpires
that the inhabitants of this westernmost part of Russia attach great hopes
to his election as governor.
The transition from a parliamentary, democratic path of development to an
autocratic presidential one took place not when Yeltsin handed power to
Putin, but in September 1993, in other words when Yeltsin revoked the
constitution and issued his decree dissolving the Russian Congress of
People's Deputies. But the whole problem is that, as a rule, it is those
intellectuals now accusing Putin of disowning the democratic past who
initiated and masterminded the stifling of our parliamentary republic. What
is only now becoming evident and public has always in fact been the basis
of Yeltsin's power. From 1991 onwards, the military have represented the
main force in postcommunist Russia.
I cannot comprehend why the desire of Chechen war hero General Shamanov to
become a governor is seen to presage the downfall of Russian democracy,
while the desire of Afghan war hero Colonel Rutskoi to become vice
president of Russia was a manifestation of democratic freedoms.
I don't know how much of all this wailing about the rise of the military
and the increasing popularity of men in uniform is cunning and how much is
naivety. In all our postcommunist history, has there been even one serious
event in which the siloviki did not play a decisive role? It could not have
been otherwise, for at the fateful moments--during the 1991 coup, the
Belovezh conspiracy, and the armed standoff between Yeltsin and the
Congress of People's Deputies--the people have been silent. Under these
circumstances, the result of the struggle always depended on which side the
generals came down on.
>From the outset, our democracy was begotten of militarism, linked to the
so-called "third force;" it owes its rise to power both to the military and
to the traditional Russian love of a man in uniform.
On two occasions, in 1990 and 1991, "democratic" Russia played the "Rutskoi
the Afghan war hero" card, both in the struggle for the Supreme Soviet of
the RSFSR, and in the battle for Yeltsin's presidency. The population's
faith in a general--on this occasion the authoritative General Lebed--was
used again in 1996, this time in the presidential elections. If Lebed had
not called upon his supporters to vote for the unpopular Yeltsin, then they
would probably have had to have resorted once again to unconstitutional
methods to hold onto power, as happened in October 1993. The spontaneous
statism of the siloviki, about which so much is now being written, and
which is being linked to Putin, has been a factor of the ideological battle
throughout the history of postcommunist Russia. What is only now becoming
evident and public has in fact always been the basis of Yeltsin's power
since August 1991. The force that we have referred to as the "third force"
since Lebed's arrival in the Congress of Russian Communities in 1995 has in
fact always been the first force; in resolving serious problems, it has
always pushed both democrats and communists out of the way. Yeltsin would
never have been able to make Putin his successor if his regime had not
relied primarily on the siloviki. Everything else was purely a matter of
election technique.
It would be appropriate here to discuss events which are usually glossed
over in specialist research.
Yeltsin and his team came through in August 1991 primarily because Alpha,
the KGB elite unit, did not want to arrest Gorbachev's main rival, and
because generals Shaposhnikov, Kobets, Deineka and Grachev decided to back
the Supreme Soviet. Much as he might have wanted to, Gorbachev could not
arrest Yeltsin and the other participants of the Belovezh coup in December
1991, because Shaposhnikov once again aligned himself with the president of
the RSFSR.
The military nature of the regime was not so noticeable before, because
Yeltsin skillfully camouflaged it, generally only permitting democrats and
reformers to perform in public, and also allowing them to control the
media. Even when it seemed that the democrats and their public policies
genuinely had the upper hand--when, for example, Chubais managed to remove
Korzhakov from the Kremlin team in June 1996--the military nature of the
regime did not change. It was only after the default of August 1998 that
Yeltsin stopped playing complex high-risk games designed to secure western
support, and began appointing siloviki, one after the other, to key posts,
starting with Bordyuzha, then Stepashin, and then Putin. It has now become
clear, after Yeltsin's "presidential marathon," that he never even
entertained the thought of transferring power to anyone but the siloviki.
It seemed to him that no one else could hold on to power in Russia: Not
Chernomyrdin, not even Primakov.
All that has happened under Putin is the personification of the military
nature of the regime. In the final analysis, this was the logical
conclusion not just of the nature of our elective autocracy, which relies
on the siloviki, but also of the drift of public opinion. Effectively since
1992, following disillusionment with the results of shock therapy and
discontent at the foreign policy of Kozyrev (dubbed "Mr. Yes"), there was a
rapidly growing desire both for the restoration of national honor and for
authority, in other words the sentiments which brought Putin to power.
Disillusionment with the liberal reforms and the democrats, it is now
clear, did not so much expand the social base of the communists as
accentuate the need to bring the siloviki into politics.
In the final analysis, paradoxical as it may seem, this turn of events also
conformed to democratic norms. In a democracy, it is the most popular force
which comes to power--the one the majority of the population attaches its
hopes to. Thus in selecting Putin--an ex-KGB man--as his successor, Yeltsin
was acting like a democrat, in the sense that he was satisfying public
demand in our transition period. I would even venture to assert that the
current political changes--the determination of the siloviki not only to
wield power but also to become the object of public attention--do not
render our country any less democratic than it was before. In a sense, when
Putin's team came to power, the current political regime became even more
democratic, because it now has a broader social base. In any event, a
return to communism--a left-wing comeback, which was the subject of so much
debate in the mid-1990s--is no longer possible.
I do not think that the reformers who dominated public politics gave a
silent Russia more rights and personal freedom than the generals now coming
to power. That freedom was indeed a great achievement against the
background of communist totalitarianism, but it was freedom primarily for
those who owned and controlled the media. It should not be forgotten that
until recently--until Putin came to power--our left-wing opposition, which
is still supported by one third of the population, did not have direct
access to television. Zyuganov and Anpilov were only allowed on television
when election rules allowed it. By its very nature, the regime which grew
out of the little civil war of October 1993 could not be democratic in the
real sense of the word. When the media belong to politicians who are not
generally popular, they are bound to be aggressive and intolerant of other
viewpoints.
Naturally, the change in Russia's political elite, and the replacement of
those who emerged from the democratic revolution by military men, will have
far-reaching consequences. This change in the political elite is already
manifesting itself in Russia's foreign policy.
The Kremlin's rejection of the Gore-Chernomyrdin deal, and of its
commitment not to supply conventional weapons to Iran is a turning point
not just in Russia's foreign policy, but also in domestic policy. Unlike
Yeltsin's government, Putin's government is no longer worried about the
reaction from the "Washington party cell," for the simple reason that it is
no longer concerned about the opinion of its friends in Russia.
To be fair, it should be acknowledged that Yeltsin was directly involved in
this "anti-Western" counterrevolution. When he and, particularly, Tatyana
Dyachenko realized in January 1998 that the "NTV Party" had betrayed them
and that the West only provides "protection" for our liberal democrats, not
the Family, they started banking on the siloviki, those who "do not need
the Turkish coast."
The second Chechen war helped finally to refocus public opinion on national
interests and restore the prestige of the military and the generals--those
who are forging Russia's long-awaited victory (although during this war
power in Russia has transferred not to the army but to Putin's KGB friends).
This change of elite--the people who formulate Kremlin policy--became
possible also due to a split between the "national privatizers" and the
"international privatizers", thanks to the fact that Berezovsky's group did
not want total transparency in the Russian economy, hoping that under Putin
it could to sell to itself any remaining state property as cheaply as
possible.
The gradual exclusion from major-league politics of those who emerged from
our last liberal revolution by people from the power structures and the
military is not yet complete. As yet the power of the Security Council and
the FSB have only been augmented by the power of five governor-generals
imposing order in the depths of the Russian provinces.
But there are grounds for supposing that the change in the political elite
that we are witnessing in Russia will not only lead to a change in
direction in foreign policy, but also in domestic policy, and above all in
the economy. The rehabilitation of state interests in foreign policy
presupposes a tougher and direct defense of state interests in the economy.
Whereas in the era of Kozyrev and Gaidar anything that consolidated the
growth of private ownership and the market was useful, now anything that
provides immediate budget revenue and boosts the economic resources
available for strengthening the power hierarchy will be useful.
I would venture to assert that Putin is establishing control over the
media, particularly television, in order to insure himself not against
public discontent with the new liberal revolution, but on the contrary
against the discontent of the new owners after the almost inevitable
renationalization.
Naturally, Putin will continue his policy of checks and balances between
the marketeers and advocates of dirigisme. But it is obvious that the final
rise to power in Russia of the siloviki will reinforce the position of
those who support a return to state intervention in the economy. It is well
known that those most dissatisfied with privatization are the military, who
have to support themselves on a tight state budget. Like the vast majority
of the population, they think that the natural monopolies should not have
been privatized, and that natural resources should have remained in the
possession of the state. The question of the renationalization of the
natural rent is becoming an increasingly relevant issue as the current
short-term sources of economic growth are running out. The longer Russia is
obliged to pay off its debts, and the greater the cost of our independent
foreign policy, the greater will be the temptation to take direct state
control of everything that brings a profit.
With key positions secured in politics and the media, key positions in the
economy will now also be secured. In the near future we will witness many
more significant events related to the military's rise to power.
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#8
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000
From: falka@ksu.edu (Dale Herspring)
Subject:
Generals in Power
I don't know how many have read Aleksandr
Tsipko's piece in Prism entitled, "The Generals Have Taken Power
in Russia: What Can We Expect from Them?"
To be quite honest, I was greatly disappointed by this piece.
Aside from being far too wordy, it does an excellent job of
confusing the key question -- Is the military taking over in Moscow?
To begin with, Mr. Tsipko interchanges former KGB generals with
their military and naval counterparts. I suspect he has more
access to these individuals than I have, but my own experience
with the Russian army and navy suggests to me that lumping
these two categories into the same bowl can be very misleading. I
don't think I ever heard as many complaints about KGB officers as I
did from army and navy officers. This was also the same in the
former GDR, a country I have worked on for years.
Second, Mr. Tsipko never defines what he means by the "military."
Are we talking about the military as an interest group? If so, then
we have to at least consider what that means -- generally, that
there is a sense of cohesion, loyalty to the organization, and a
willingness to put the organization's priorities above their own. I
know there are other ones, but the real problem is that all of them
assume that the military is a coherent, well-structured and
disciplined organization. I don't think anyone would suggest that is
the case in present day Russia.
So where are we left? I assume that what is bothering Mr. Tsipko
is the fact that a number of individuals (both KGB and military) who
wore uniforms are now showing up in positions of power. Does this
for-tell a military take-over? Hardly. It does probably mean that
individuals socialized in highly disciplined organizations will
attempt to replicate them in their new positions. They will probably
be more on the authoritarian than democratic side in their choice of
policy implementation -- unless, of course, Mr. Putin advises them
to act otherwise.
I also take issue with Mr. Tsipko's suggestion that these military
men replaced men dedicated to democracy. Is he talking about
Berezovskiy? Or Chubias? These are the oligarchs that helped
get Russia in its current unpleasant situation.
I suggest that we are not yet in a position to tell who is in charge in
Russia. I am becoming more and more convinced that Mr. Putin's
goal is a viable and stable Russia. If democracy works, fine, if not
that is OK too. As far as the appointments he is making, I think he
may be following a path similar to what George Bush, Jr., seems to
be following -- find the most competent individuals, ones he knows
and trusts, ones he believes will implement his policies. Who
cares what their ideological preferences are? If they have served in
the KGB or the military so be it. He is more interested in their
ability to implement policy than in their past careers.
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