#10
Novaya Gazeta
No. 43
June 2002
CHEKISTS IN THE MARKET
Consequences of the dominance of the secret services in Russia
Author: Boris Kagarlitsky
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

SECRET SERVICES PEOPLE ARE A PRIVILEGED CASTE IN PUTIN'S RUSSIA. THEY ARE PROMOTED INTO THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT; THEY CONTROL MILITARY OPERATIONS AND MANAGE TELEVISION NETWORKS; THEY ENJOY LEADING POSITIONS IN BUSINESS. TECHNICALLY, THEIR POSITION NOW IS EVEN BETTER THAN IT WAS IN THE SOVIET UNION.

Online journalist Anatoly Baranov describes the contemporary secret services in Russia as "Beria Lite". Indeed, the chekists are like cigarette companies - on the one hand, they promote their products, but on the other, they can't avoid knowing that these products are harmful. That is why their advertising explains that new cigarette brands are as pleasant as the old ones, but less harmful. The chekists also take pride in their past, while being slightly ashamed of it.

The chekists are a privileged caste in Vladimir Putin's Russia. They are promoted into the highest levels of government; they control military operations and manage television networks; they enjoy leading positions in business. Technically, their position in Putin's Russia is even better than it was in the Soviet Union. Secret services were controlled by the party then. They do not have any controllers nowadays.

No matter how much liberals may complain, the regime of secret services in the early 21st century is not reminiscent of the all-out terror of the 1930s. Attempts are made to intimidate, but the effect falls rather flat. People do disappear, but only in Chechnya. Newspapers are shut down, but not all of them. Criticizing the regime is not entirely safe, but not impossible. The trouble and problems Beria Lite may cause you now cannot be compared with what their predecessors could do six decades ago. In short, some softening is undeniable.

Some communists and liberals thought that the rise of Beria's successors would mean a return to the past. Their naivete is staggering.

No matter how important state security structures may be, or what influence they may wield, they themselves do not determine the nature of the regime. They protect and defend the existing system. The economic power of corporations needs protection as much as the privileges of the party bureaucracy did. Guaranteeing oligarchs the ability to manage their capital as they think best means keeping everyone else under control.

Two years of chekist administration have been tranquil, but the elections are coming and the regime feels insecure. The political situation is under control, with chekists in all key positions. The economy is on the brink of collapse, but nothing too horrible has happened yet. In other words, there is no reason for panic. All the same, the Kremlin is launching a cleanup operation against the opposition, lashing out in all directions. The liberal Obschaya Gazeta newspaper is no longer circulating. Communists in the Duma have been driven from their leadership positions. Oppositionist regional leaders are given the message that they had better become moderate or face the consequences.

Everything is being done peacefully, with courts available to back up the required decisions. There are problems with independence of courts, of course, but the harassment is fairly liberal on the whole.

The objective is quite clear. No one threatens freedom of speech as such. This freedom is to be under control and within reasonable limits. Let there be oppositionist newspapers. No one is so naive nowadays as to fight the samizdat anymore. A newspaper with a print run of 5,000 copies may criticize the regime every day, but the major national newspapers should be "respectable". The same goes for the opposition. The regime is not aiming to do away with the Communist Party for ideological reasons. The Communist Party should be destroyed because it still takes up too much space in the existing political system. As soon as the party crumbles under the onslaught of the determined Kremlin with its special operations, it will be left alone.

The same will happen to the Novaya Gazeta newspaper. We will probably survive the attack currently underway, and the regime probably knows it. The question is what will happen afterwards. The newspaper had better learn its lesson and behave itself; then it won't be bothered anymore.

It seems that the Kremlin wants the cleanup operation over by winter. When all the special measures are taken, Russia will have a multiparty system and free media. But all parties and newspapers will be controlled. None will have to be banned or shut down. At worst, some publications will get new editors and shareholders.

Hungarian historian Tadasch Kraus wrote that the Soviet Union had to be hypocritical, because it justified itself using humanity's highest ideals. The current Russian regime does not promise the people power or property.

Whether or not "Beria Lite" achieves its strategic goals remains to be seen. The special services cannot formulate the tasks and priorities to be performed and serve the ruling elite. They cannot solve economic and social problems either. This is beyond them.

We can urge the government to formulate "more ambitious plans" or "speed up economic growth" all we like, but the only result will be impossible optimistic promises with false figures to support them. The regime is only displaying its impotence by responding to social and political problems with special services measures. Two years of the war in Chechnya have led to a new generation of separatist resistance ringleaders arising, even more dangerous than their predecessors, according to the Russian military.

Most probably, the political cleanup operation of 2002 will end in something similar.

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