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JRL Research & Analytical Supplement -
JRL Home POLITICS
POLITICS 1. PUTIN'S COURT SOURCE. Olga Kryshtanovskaya and Stephen White, "Inside the Putin Court: A Research Note," Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 57, No. 7, November 2005, pp. 1065-75 Who belongs to the top power elite in Russia today? How do they make decisions? What are their attitudes and policy orientations? Dissatisfied with the "limited empirical foundations" of the existing literature on these matters, the authors base their account on interviews with 150 members of the elite (1) or those closely associated with them and 50 highly placed informants. They also "used [their] own access to elite circles to refine [their] understanding." To demarcate a "strategic elite," the composition of all meetings in which the president participated directly was analyzed and an inner circle was identified of people who took part in practically all of these meetings. Three overlapping sets of officials meet frequently with Putin: (1) Selected members of the government meet with Putin on Mondays in one of his Kremlin offices, with members of the PA in attendance. These meetings are reported in the media. There are 11 regular participants in the Monday meetings: Fradkov prime minister Zhukov deputy prime minister Gref minister of economic development and trade Zurabov minister of social welfare and health Naryshkin head of government apparatus Medvedev head of PA Sechin deputy head of PA S. Ivanov defense minister Lavrov foreign minister Nurgaliev interior minister Illarionov presidential adviser (2) Other ministers (e.g. agriculture, industry and energy, natural resources, transportation) participate occasionally, depending on the agenda. The PM conducts a separate full meeting of the cabinet, also on Mondays, without Putin. (2) Selected members of the Security Council (SC) meet with Putin on Saturdays. There are 8 regular participants: Fradkov prime minister S. Ivanov defense minister Lavrov foreign minister Medvedev head of PA I. Ivanov secretary of Security Council Patrushev Federal Security Bureau Nurgaliev interior minister Lebedev foreign intelligence Again, the Saturday meetings are distinct from formal meetings of the SC, although some members of the SC do not normally attend even these. (3) A "tea-drinking" group of personal friends of Putin meets informally at his official residence. Almost all members of this group were born in Leningrad/St. Petersburg or at least studied there. The authors identify 8 "tea drinkers": defense minister Sergei Ivanov, economics minister Gref, head of PA Medvedev, deputy head of PA Sechin, head of federal narcotics agency Cherkesov, presidential envoys Kozak and Poltavchenko, and presidential aide Kozhin. Only two individuals are central to all three groups: Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov. They should accordingly be regarded as Putin's closest associates. PM Fradkov comes third. The authors confirm the existence of two informal "Kremlin clans" that can be labeled "siloviki" and "liberals." However, this simple division is complicated by subgroups within each clan and by cross-cutting allegiances. Moreover, the term "liberal" must be understood in a qualified sense, as the "liberals" too support an authoritarian state on the grounds that the population is unready for democracy. The "siloviki" subdivide into those concerned with domestic affairs, grouped around Sechin, and those focused on international security, led by S. Ivanov. The key figure in the "liberal" clan is Medvedev. The main area of disagreement between the clans concerns economic policy: the "siloviki" are more willing to revise the results of privatization and seek to return "strategic" enterprises, especially in the energy sector, to state control. They are also ideologically distinct from the "liberals" in their attachment to Russian nationalist ideas. There is a big overlap between top Kremlin officials and the top managers of state-owned companies. Thus Medvedev and Sechin chair the boards of Gazprom and Rosneft respectively. Thus the "clan" division extends to state industry and the state media, with the "liberals" gradually losing ground. Assessment Of course, most of what the authors say was already widely known from the rumor mill. Their contribution is to fill in the picture and place it on a solid empirical foundation. Their most striking point is not even mentioned in the text of the article but is implicit in the title: i.e., the parallel between the Putin regime and a kingly court. One criterion of democracy in any sense is surely the existence of rules and procedures that constrain the power of a leader, and in particular of formal bodies the membership and prerogatives of which cannot be changed at the leader's whim. On THIS criterion, Putin's regime is even less democratic than the Soviet system was at those periods when bodies like the party Central Committee and its Politburo and Secretariat were functioning, and is comparable only with the courts of the tsars and the "court" of high Stalinism. (3) NOTES (1) Including 20 in the PA, 22 in the Duma, 11 in the Federation Council, 53 in the force ministries, and 27 in other parts of the government apparatus. (2) Now resigned. (3) Stalin also relied on informal meetings with shifting subgroups of top officials. To avoid being misunderstood, let me emphasize that my argument pertains to this particular criterion. I am not arguing that Soviet Russia was more democratic than contemporary Russia OVERALL. For instance, Putin is still much more willing than any Soviet leader was to tolerate opposition activity, provided that it does not threaten to become effective.
POLITICS 2. THE YUKOS AFFAIR AND PUTIN'S KANDIDAT DISSERTATION SOURCE. Harley Balzer, "The Putin Thesis and Russian Energy Policy," Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 21, No. 3, July-Sep. 2005, pp. 210-25 In the last issue of the RAS (No. 32) I reviewed a couple of recent scholarly analyses of the Yukos affair, but overlooked this very illuminating article by Professor Balzer of Georgetown University. (1) The author argues that the removal of Khodorkovsky and the seizure of Yukos assets reflected a firm policy of maintaining state control of the "commanding heights" of the energy sector. Plans to sell a major stake in Yukos to a foreign oil company threatened that control, and we can expect an equally decisive response to any similar challenge in the future. This policy has its origins in the 1990s, when Putin was responsible for international economic relations in the St. Petersburg city government of mayor Sobchak. Putin consulted closely with the Mining Institute on natural resource policy, and this led to him defending a Candidate of Sciences degree in economics there in 1997. The dissertation that he presented dealt with the role of natural resources in the development of the economy and St. Petersburg and Leningrad Province. (2) The dissertation is held in the Mining Institute library, but access to it is restricted, especially for foreigners. It was probably made secret in 1999, when Putin became prime minister. (3) Putin himself has never made public reference to it, although he has talked about a different dissertation that he never completed. However, it is possible to summarize the contents of the dissertation on the basis of indirect sources. The most important of these is an article by Putin on mineral resources in Russia's economic development strategy that appeared in the house journal of the Mining Institute in 1999. (4) In these works Putin emphasizes the centrality of mineral resources to the country's economic and geostrategic revival, asserts the primacy of state interests, and advocates securing those interests by means of mixed forms of ownership and large, vertically integrated "national champions." To illustrate the tension between state interests and commercial considerations, Professor Balzer points to the issue of choosing a route for an oil pipeline in the Russian Far East. In 2002 Yukos defied the government, which at that time preferred a pipeline to the Pacific coast to supply Japan, by signing an agreement to build a pipeline connecting Angarsk in Siberia with Daqing in northeast China. In 2005 the Daqing route returned to favor following a shift in the government's foreign policy orientation. NOTES (1) The January 2006 issue of "Europe-Asia Studies" contains an important analysis by Rudiger Ahrend (OECD) of the implications of the Yukos affair for economic growth. I'll review it in RAS No. 34. (2) Although the city of Leningrad has been renamed St. Petersburg, the surrounding province has kept its old name. (3) It appears from JRL 2006-35 (item 1) that the thesis is no longer secret. (4) Zapiski Gornogo Instituta, No. 144, pp. 3-9.
FEDERAL-REGIONAL RELATIONS 3. REVIEW Peter Reddaway and Robert W. Orttung, eds. The Dynamics of Russian Politics. Putin's Reform of Federal-Regional Relations. Volume 2 (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2005) This is the second of two volumes of what will surely come to be regarded as the definitive study of the reform of federal-regional relations associated with the creation by Putin of 7 "super-regions" or federal districts (FDs). Volume 1 analyzed the conduct of the reform in each FD. (1) This volume considers its overall impact on Russia's political institutions, on business, and on various policy areas at federal and regional level. Below I summarize the conclusions of those chapters that deal directly with federal-regional relations. (2) Ch 2 -- Security dimension of the federal reforms (Nikolai Petrov, RAS Institute of Geography) This author considers security the most important dimension of the federal reforms (or "federal-security reforms"). The FSB plays a key role in supervising the reforms and providing personnel for the FDs. The goal has been "not so much to build a truly efficient state as to set up an effective system of supervision and control over state and society, to make the state governable, and to strengthen the power ministries" (p. 26). Ch 3 -- How have the presidential envoys changed the administrative-political balance of Putin's regime? (Petrov) Petrov sees the presidential envoys and FDs as part of a broad strategy to weaken all institutions apart from the presidency and the power ministries (directly under the president) and replace them by functionally similar bodies that lack independent legitimization and are tied to the president. Other examples of such substitutes are the Security Council, the State Council, Gref's Center for Strategic Research, and the Kozak commission. Within this context the envoys undermine the autonomy not only of regional governors but also of federal agencies that are under the PM. They also serve important intermediary and supervisory functions. However, their tasks are tactical rather than strategic. Thus they have not been given legal status. Ch 4 -- Russia's regions and law enforcement (Brian D. Taylor, Syracuse University) Professor Taylor concludes that the federal reforms have had considerable success in centralizing control over policing, including budgets, appointments, and relevant local and regional legislation. However, this has not made law enforcement structures less corrupt: the ideal of the "law-governed state" remains as remote as ever. Ch 5 -- Courts and federalism in Putin's Russia (Alexei Trochev and Peter H. Solomon, University of Toronto) The envoys have helped coordinate the work of courts and other law enforcement agencies and bring regional laws into conformity with federal law. However, the unclear division of powers between regular, constitutional, and arbitration courts ("judicial hyper-pluralism") gives both federal and regional government scope for maneuver. Many court decisions go against the Center -- but the big problem is getting them enforced. Ch 6 -- The regions' impact on federal policy: the Federation Council (Darrell Slider, University of South Florida) "The record of the Federation Council in defending regional interests is extremely modest." Senators frequently voice regional concerns, but are unwilling to use their veto power. Ch 8 -- Party development in a federal system: the impact of Putin's reforms (Henry E. Hale, Indiana University) Professor Hale concludes that the reforms are conducive to the long-term development of political parties, albeit under close state supervision. Ch 9 -- Big business in Russia's regions and its role in the federal reform (Natalia Zubarevich, Moscow State University) Professor Zubarevich finds that big business has now become a major influence on regional as well as federal government. It may support a regional government in its conflict with the Center or vice versa, depending on its interests in each specific case. The federal reform has had a mixed impact on the position of big business, easing its expansion into new regions but diluting its power in regions where it is strongest -- that is, it has made relations between big business and regional government more uniform. Weakened governors will no longer be able to play the role of arbiters between rival business interests. Inter-business conflicts will therefore become more acute, with each rival seeking direct control over regional government. Ch 10 -- Small business and Putin's federal reform (Vladimir Kontorovich, Haverford College) This author concludes that the federal reform will not assist small business. That is not one of its purposes. Ch 12 -- Federalism with a Russian face: regional inequality and regional budgets in Russia (Philip Hanson, University of Birmingham, UK) Professor Hanson thinks that Putin's re-centralization of government economic power ("insofar as it really works") may reduce corruption and petty interference in the economy, thereby enhancing market competition. He argues that in Russia there is a case for federal control over regional budgets, especially because extreme economic inequality among regions necessitates large budgetary transfers in the interests of socio-political cohesion. Ch 13 -- Corruption in Russia, 2000-2003: the role of the federal okrugs and presidential envoys (Boris Demidov, Legal Resource Center, formerly Transparency International, Russia) In contrast to Hanson, Demidov does not think that Putin's reforms can reduce corruption. That would require a stronger civil society, while the reforms tend, if anything, to work in the opposite direction. The creation of the FDs may even increase corruption by making the structure of government more complicated and less effective. Ch 14 -- Reforms in the administration of the regions and their influence on ethno-political processes in Russia, 1999-2003 (Emil Pain, Center for Ethno-Political and Regional Studies, Moscow) Emil Payin is alarmed at the growing strength of ethnic Russian nationalism, which finds expression in intolerance of and discrimination against ethnic minorities. He points out that some of the individuals appointed as presidential envoys (e.g., Kazantsev in the Southern FD and Poltavchenko in the Central FD) have themselves taken strong Russian nationalist stances. Ethnic policy is not regarded as an important aspect of the reform and this gives rise to significant regional variations. Ch 15 -- The Chechen war as the prelude and model for federal reforms in Russia (Pain) Here Pain points to the seminal role of the Chechen war in motivating and prefiguring the federal reform. One link is the fact that two of the men initially appointed as presidential envoys (Kazantsev and Pulikovsky) had led military operations in Chechnya. Ch 16 -- Health care under the federal reforms (Judyth L. Twigg, Virgina Commonwealth University) The involvement of the FDs in healthcare dates from 2001, when the Ministry of Health created coordinating councils for healthcare in each FD. The official functions of these councils are to collect and analyze statistics, to oversee personnel policy in the healthcare system, and to take part in the preparation of programs, measures, and legislation in the health field. They also publish a journal on healthcare in each FD. However, Professor Twigg casts doubt on the real accomplishments of the coordinating councils. As in other spheres, the purpose of the federal reform is the imposition of "minimum administrative order" and not the solution of substantive problems. Moreover, health comes very low on the priority list of presidential envoys. The author even speaks of the FDs' "near irrelevance to the quality of the health system." Ch 17 -- Implications of the federal reform in three regions: Sverdlovsk, Smolensk, and Voronezh (Lynn D. Nelson and Irina Y. Kuzes, Virgina Commonwealth University) These authors studied the effects of the first 3 years of the presidential envoys' work in 3 provinces. SVERDLOVSK: a success story By mid-2003 Urals envoy Latyshev and the independent-minded Sverdlovsk governor Rossel had achieved a fairly stable modus vivendi, though tension between the two levels remained. Attempts by Latyshev to unseat Rossel failed, although Rossel's control over territorial agencies of the federal government was substantially reduced. Both Latyshev and Rossel have business support. The regional economy has done well and (in the authors' judgment) corruption and violence are on the decline. VORONEZH: hopes disappointed The replacement of incumbent Shabanov by Kulakov as governor in December 2000 inspired hopes of an economic upturn and improved relations with Moscow. These hopes have been disappointed. The continuing ability of the region's elite to resist the reform is demonstrated by the success of their lobbying to get the Chief Federal Inspector for Voronezh (Khoroshiltsev) replaced. Khoroshiltsev had been highly critical of the Kulakov administration. SMOLENSK: promising The new governor Maslov is on good terms with Moscow and has a close working relationship with envoy for the Central FD Poltavchenko. The FD procuracy has started criminal investigations against members of the old political elite. However, criminality remains "a huge challenge." On the basis of these case studies, Nelson and Kuzes draw cautiously optimistic conclusions about the federal reform. The scope of the envoys' activity has been expanding and diversifying, and the FDs are gradually becoming centers of economic development. Progress in improving regional government and strengthening the "power vertical" has been palpable albeit very uneven. Ch 18 -- Conclusion: the overall impact of the reforms PLUS Spring 2005 postscript on the new federal reforms launched in September 2004 (Orttung and Reddaway) The conclusions of the editors are highly uncertain. "On the one hand, the reforms have achieved only some of their goals, and most of these only to a limited extent." In many policy areas there has not even been a real attempt to achieve a significant impact. The envoys lack legal powers, their funds cover only staffing costs, and their caliber and political status have declined over time. They may be Moscow's eyes and ears, but they are not its hands. On the other hand, the editors expect Putin to continue pursuing the broad authoritarian strategy of which the federal reforms are one part. "It seems unlikely that he will rely less in the future on such a convenient instrument of authoritarian control as the envoys and the okrug (FD) structures." So is the glass of water half-empty or half-full? To a large extent it depends on your perspective: what you regard as more important and what you regard as less. A vast administrative rationalization is clearly well underway. What difference that will make to the basic socioeconomic realities is another matter. Here there are ample grounds for skepticism. NOTES (1) The Russglish term is "federal okrug." For my review of the first volume, see RAS No. 25 item 4. The FDs are also discussed in RAS No. 10 items 4 and 5 and in No. 18 item 4. (2) This is not to underrate the value of those chapters which deal with other issues, such as Ch 7 on local government reform (see RAS No. 16 item 3) and Ch 11 on reform of the electricity industry. Of course, anyone seriously interested in regional affairs is strongly recommended to read the volume itself.
AGRICULTURE 4. RUSSIAN AGRICULTURE DOWNSIZED SOURCE. Grigory Ioffe, "The Downsizing of Russian Agriculture," Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 57, No. 2, March 2005, pp. 179-208 This masterly analysis of the plight and prospects of agriculture in Russia draws on statistical information and media reports, but above all on extensive fieldwork conducted by the author in collaboration with Tatyana Nefedova, Ilya Zaslavsky, and other Russian colleagues. (1) State support and regulation of agriculture was withdrawn abruptly in January 1992, exposing Russia's completely unprepared rural population to market forces much "wilder" than those faced by American or European farmers. Some state intervention has returned since 1999 in the form of import quotas on food, state grain purchases, and farm subsidies. The downsizing of Russian agriculture is dramatic, on a scale comparable only with historical disasters like forced collectivization under Stalin: * In 2001, despite some growth since 1999, output of grain was only 73 percent of the 1991 level, eggs -- 74 percent, milk -- 59 percent, sugar beet -- 45 percent, meat -- 41 percent, wool -- below 20 percent. * Between 1990 and 2002 head of cattle fell by 54 percent (pigs -- 60 percent, sheep and goats -- 75 percent). * Average grain yield per hectare was 1.5 tons in 1999--2001, roughly a half of the yield in Canada and a quarter of that in the EU. Average milk yield per cow in 2000 was just over 2 kg in Russia, compared to 6 kg in the EU and 7 kg in Canada. The author says he has seen yields as low as under one ton of grain per hectare, barely enough to recover the physical mass of the seed, and under 1.5 kg milk per cow. You can get that much from a couple of well-treated sheep! * According to various estimates, 20--30 million hectares, constituting 14--20 percent of all arable land, has been abandoned. (2) The author suspects the true figure is higher. Much of the abandoned land is situated in the most fertile regions. * In 1965--85 agriculture received 28 percent of total investment in the economy. In 2001 it got under 3 percent of a vastly diminished total. Only a tiny fraction of outworn agricultural machinery is being replaced: e.g., in 2002 about 200,000 old combines were written off but only 8,500 new domestic ones bought (4 percent). Professor Ioffe emphasizes that the recovery of recent years is "structurally and spatially selective" -- i.e., limited to a few "islands in a sea of stagnation and decay." Areas that have done relatively well are: -- grain crops in the Kuban (except for the more arid soils) -- grain AND cattle in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan (3) -- Moscow and Leningrad provinces, thanks to the proximity of big city markets -- the areas closest to provincial centers The dominant type of farm remains the collective farm and its successors, with 82 percent of total farmland. (4) Household farms (what used to be called "private plots") account for 11 percent of land, and registered family farms -- once touted as the wave of the future -- for 7 percent. (5) One researcher has divided collective farms into the following four categories on the basis of their economic position: * viable market enterprises (5 percent) * farms that could be made viable by means of reorganization (15 percent) * farms that are bankrupt de facto (they are unable to repay their debts) though not de jure (25 percent +) * farms that are bankrupt de jure (50 percent +) Farms in the last category are unable to buy fuel, lubricants, and other supplies because their bank accounts have been frozen. This puts them at the mercy of ruthless middlemen ("treidery") who provide supplies in exchange for future crops on highly unfavorable terms. These middlemen make by far the highest profits in the whole food business. As the author remarks, the rise in food retail prices resulting from the imposition of import quotas (6) benefits middlemen and retailers, not farmers. The most successful collective farms are those that have been bought by, or otherwise taken under the control of, agro-industrial corporations. The technological modernization that has occurred in Russian agriculture has been mainly at these farms, which account for some 3 million hectares or 2.5 percent of total arable land. The largest corporate groups at the national level are APK Agros (a branch of Potanin's Interros), RusAgro, Razgulyai-Ukrros, Planeta Menedzhment (a branch of Sibneft), and APK Cherkizovsky. There are also 190 similar corporate groups at the regional level. However, even these ventures face daunting problems. Managerial costs have proven higher than planned. The managers sent in to run the farms tend to think in a "technocratic" fashion and are not fully conversant with the practicalities of agriculture. The villagers view them as aliens and do not willingly cooperate with them. Skilled workers are in short supply. And above all else -- alcoholism. As alcohol consumption is part of respectable mores, we tend to see alcoholism as a less serious problem than, say, heroin addition. Yet alcohol is also an addictive drug, and its consequences can be just as devastating -- from the effect on labor output to poisoning by moonshine made from glass-cleaning liquid and the high proportion of mentally retarded children. Between a third and a half of rural adults are chronic alcoholics. The rampant theft in rural areas is mostly for the purpose of supporting alcohol habits. Professor Ioffe recounts the following astonishing episode. In Pskov Province in summer 2000 villagers repeatedly pulled down electricity transmission lines to sell as scrap metal in order to buy alcohol. About 800 people got themselves killed in the process, and the electricity supply to dozens of villages was cut off. Some of the methods used by farm managers to combat alcoholism are only a little less astonishing. For example, some skilled workers, whose incapacitation at critical junctures would be particularly inconvenient, have been forced to accept surgical implants that produce a severe reaction to the presence of even a small amount of alcohol. The author stresses that, on top of everything else, Russian agriculture has to cope with severe climatic and geographical handicaps -- factors that liberal economists prefer to ignore. For instance, "a cowshed has to have thicker walls and be heated for a longer time" than in most other countries. Growing periods are shorter; markets are more distant. He agrees with Allen Lynch's thesis concerning Russia's "illiberal geography." (7) In conclusion, Professor Ioffe predicts that Russia's planned accession to the WTO will make matters yet worse. While the Ministry of Agriculture favors food protectionism in the form of tariffs, subsidies, and quotas, the more influential Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (8) is reportedly prepared to sacrifice agriculture in the accession talks. WTO accession "may finish off what little remains of Russia's mechanized commercial agriculture, although some grain producers in the South and some suburban dairy farms will probably survive." NOTES (1) The author observes that while conditions in agriculture have become more diverse statistics on agriculture have deteriorated and media coverage has declined. For commentary on an earlier analysis by Ioffe and Nefedova, focusing on spatial differentiation in agricultural productivity, see RAS No. 4 item 3. See also RAS No. 10 item 2 on Putin's agrarian policy. (2) The area abandoned in Russia equals roughly one third of all the arable land in the European Union (pre-2004 enlargement). (3) The author attributes the good performance of agriculture in these republics to financial support provided from regional funds, and also to healthier rural demographics than in the Russian provinces. (4) Formally collective farms have been replaced by new legal-commercial entities, but everyone continues to call them collective farms. (5) The garden plots of urban residents are not officially counted as agricultural land, although their output is substantial. (6) Import quotas were first imposed in 2002 (on sugar). In January 2003 quotas were imposed on meat and poultry. (7) See RAS No. 6 item 5 and RAS No. 31. (8) The minister of economic development and trade is a regular member of Putin's "court." The minister of agriculture is not. See item 1 above.
AGRICULTURE 5. END OF THE PEASANTRY? SOURCES. Two papers from Vorozheikina 2004 (see source for RAS No. 31 item 4): (a) V. G. Vinogradsky and O. Ya. Vinogradskaya, "Obnaruzhivayetsya li kapitalizm v rossiiskoi derevne nachala XXI veka?" [Is Capitalism To Be Found in the Russian Countryside at the Beginning of the 21st Century?], pp. 71-80; (b) I. Ye. Shteinberg, "Konets krestyanstva ili krizis identichnosti? (sotsiologicheskii analiz vnutrennogo kadrovogo potentsiala sela)" [End of the Peasantry Or Crisis of Identity? (A Sociological Analysis of the Internal Personnel Potential of the Village)], pp. 262-8 Vinogradsky and Vinogradskaya (1) question whether the privatization of land has led to genuine capitalist relations in the Russian countryside. At the beginning of the 1990s, land plots were allocated to former collective farmers and state farm workers on the assumption that these plots would have exchange value and serve as a basis for the formation of productive capital. However, family labor alone does not suffice for capital accumulation and the development of production. An adequate and regular supply of wage labor is needed, and the conditions for ensuring this do not exist. As people can always fall back on their small plots of land for subsistence, they don't have to rely on earning wages. Wants are modest, so there is no incentive for regular wage labor. Paradoxically, farmers try to keep their laborers by paying them little. On Saratov Province farms in 2003 the average daily wage was 40 rubles, compared to a subsistence minimum of 60 rubles. One of the authors' respondents (2) told them: "We pay little. But not out of greed. If we paid more they would work for a couple of days and then even with dogs you couldn't find them." Farmers see themselves as "slaves" (although they have no masters). Their life is much harder than it used to be when they worked on collective or state farms, and harder than that of their laborers, as they have constant worry and there is no limit to their hard labor. (3) If the province authorities do not allow them enough water the harvest will fail. Under a third of those registered as "farmers" really have their own farms. The rest have given their land and equipment to the joint-stock societies that out of inertia they still call "collective farms." City middlemen buy up their produce at low prices, and they receive pay in money or in kind at sub-subsistence level. (As in the old days, they survive thanks to their garden plots.) There are also the hidden rural unemployed who own plots of land but are unable to cultivate them because they are too far away from home or because they don't have the equipment. The fact that they own land prevents them from registering as unemployed and applying for benefits. Unlike Vinogradsky and Vinogradskaya, who see no prospect of genuine capitalist development in the countryside, Shteinberg expects that a new capitalist agrarian sector based on wage labor will eventually emerge and that the peasant will survive (as in most European countries) only as "an exotic personage in tourist brochures." But are the people who live and work in today's Russian countryside "peasants"? City people are not sure, and country people themselves doubt whether they can rightfully be called peasants. The word "peasant" is associated with traditions that existed before collectivization, and recent attempts to revive these traditions have not succeeded. Except for a few "points of growth" that attract outside investment, the author observes, the countryside is slowly dying. Instead of transformation and development, there is only reproduction of the material and spiritual poverty of natural subsistence economy. Shteinberg cites data from a questionnaire survey conducted in 2003 by his institute (the Institute of Agrarian Problems) in six villages of Saratov Province where a similar survey was held in 1993. (4) In the intervening decade, the proportion of villagers who prefer to work in a cooperative (tovarishchestvo) or joint-stock society fell from 35.5 to 11 percent, while those preferring non-agricultural employment rose from 9 to 36 percent. In 1993 the idea of working for a private employer for wages was rejected by over 40 percent; in 2003 the idea was rejected by only 14 percent, while 57 percent found it quite acceptable. Dramatic changes have occurred in people's aspirations for their children and grandchildren: Question: "What would you wish for your children and grandchildren?" "To go to live and work in the city" -- up from 14 percent in 1993 to 33 percent in 2003 "To remain working in agriculture" -- down from 27 to 3 percent! "To become farmers" -- down from 7 to 2 percent (5) Children are motivated to do well at school by the prospect of leaving the village. Second grade children at a village school were asked: "What do teachers tell you to get you to study well and pay attention to lessons?" The most common response was along the lines of: "If you don't study hard you'll stay in the village and become an alcoholic" (alkash). "Of course," Shteinberg adds, "this school was not in the best village, but nor was it in the worst. It was in a typical village of the Volga region." Another important factor in the degradation of village life is the accelerated departure for the city of members of the rural intelligentsia such as teachers and agronomists. The author gives three reasons: * Specialists are no longer needed after the reorganization of the collective and state farms. * They have "personal problems with adaptation to the process of capitalization of the village" (whatever this may mean exactly). * Members of the intelligentsia have lost their special status in the eyes of their neighbors because now they live in the same way as everyone else, surviving on the produce of their garden plots and personal livestock. NOTES (1) Of Saratov Technical University and the Institute of Agrarian Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, respectively. (2) They interviewed 83 farmers in Saratov Province. (3) They refer to "katorzhny trud" (convict labor). (4) Survey headed by P. P. Veliky. Sample size 600. (5) The most popular answer remains "the chance to get a higher education" (58 percent in 1993, 65 percent in 2003). "To start their own business" got 20 percent in 1993 and 21 percent in 2003.
ETHNIC RELATIONS 6. FINNO-URGIC PEOPLES SOURCES. Material from Estonian Institute for Human Rights, other reference sources The dominant language family in almost all of Europe, (1) as well as Iran and the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, is the Indo-European family, which is divided into Latin, Germanic, Slavic, and other branches. But scattered across the Indo-European sea you find a few islands -- local languages that bear no relation whatsoever either to the Indo-European family or to the dominant family of an adjoining region (such as Turkic or Semitic). The most extreme example is Basque, which is totally unlike any other known language. In eastern Europe there is (a) Hungarian and (b) Finnish and Estonian, which are closely related to one another. Over time a view has gathered force to the effect that Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, and a score or so of other languages spoken by smaller groups throughout Eurasia constitute a distinct language family -- the Finno-Ugrian or Finno-Ugric family. Most though not all of these groups have their homelands in the Russian Federation. Here is a regional breakdown: -- In the Middle Volga region of European Russia, three relatively large groups possess (at least formally) their own republics: Mordvinians, Udmurts, and Maris. (2) In Udmurtia there is another, much smaller group, the Besermans. -- In the North of European Russia, two relatively large groups have their own republics: Komis and Karels. In addition, there are three smaller groups: Vepps, Ingrians, Votians. -- In Siberia, three groups have autonomous regions (okrugs): Nenets, Khantis, Mansis. (3) Three other small groups are the Selkups, Nganasans, and Enets. -- In the north of Scandinavia there are two non-state groups: the Saamis (also known as Lapps) and the Kvens. The Kvens, who live in Norway and speak a language close to Finnish, have in recent years acquired minority rights. -- In Estonia there are also two non-state groups: the Setos (some of whom also live in Russia's Pskov Province) and the Voros. -- Finally, in Latvia there is a small non-state group, the Livonians. The Livonian language is now spoken by only about 20 people and (like some other Finno-Ugric languages) is on the verge of extinction. The peoples speaking Finno-Ugric languages increasingly view themselves as members of a single cultural community. The three independent "Finno-Ugric" states -- that is, Finland, Estonia, and Hungary -- have begun to assume the role of patrons and protectors of the smaller peoples that lack states of their own. These countries provide bases for international protest against violations of the rights of Finno-Ugric minorities in the Russian Federation. Currently there is a campaign in defense of Mari rights (see following item). Four World Congresses of Finno-Ugric Peoples have now been convened, at four-year intervals: * 1992 in Syktyvkar, capital of the Komi Republic in the Russian Federation * 1996 in Budapest, Hungary * 2000 in Helsinki, Finland * 2004 in Tallinn, Estonia (under the official patronage of President Arnold Ruutel) According to the principle of rotation, future congresses should be hosted by Finno-Ugric peoples in Russia, but under prevailing political conditions it is unclear whether this will prove feasible. NOTES (1) I exclude the Caucasus. (2) The Maris are divided into Highland or Forest Maris and Lowland or Meadow Maris, who speak two different, mutually unintelligible languages. (3) However, these territorial units will soon disappear. See RAS No. 30 item 5.
ETHNIC RELATIONS 7. MARI RIGHTS UNDER THREAT? SOURCE. Executive Summary of Report by the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and the Moscow Helsinki Group "The Human Rights Situation of the Mari Minority in the Republic of Mari El" (February 2006). I shall be glad to forward the document on request. The Republic of Mari El officially grants special rights and protection to the titular Mari, a Finno-Ugric people (see preceding item). However, the future of the Mari is in grave doubt. The president of Mari El, Leonid Markelov, was elected in 2000 and again in 2004 with Kremlin support despite his background in the LDPR and his open advocacy of abolishing the special status of the Mari in the republic. Since his assumption of office, the political climate has become increasingly repressive and critics of the regime have been harassed and assaulted. Among the victims of this repression are Mari activists, who are portrayed in the dominant official media (1) as subversive nationalists. The Mari language and culture still enjoy a certain amount of official support, although this support is being gradually whittled away. There is teaching of Mari (and even a little teaching IN Mari) in the schools, but the special educational department for Mari education has been closed and old textbooks are not being replaced. Moreover, most Mari teaching is in the countryside, and is jeopardized by the closure of small rural schools. The public use of Mari is limited, in large part because government officials are not required to know the language. There is substantial radio broadcasting in Mari, but Mari television broadcasts, which have greater impact, are being reduced. So is the number of theatrical productions in Mari. Finally, anti-Mari prejudice is often expressed in public as well as private. Leading officials have been reported as making "condescending remarks" about the Mari. NOTE (1) Only one independent newspaper survives.
RUSSIA AND THE WORLD 8. DEFINING NEW PRIORITIES IN RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA Dr. Irina Isakova Note on the author: Dr. Isakova is an independent researcher and an Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institution (London). She has also been a Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Defence Committee. She is the author of "Russian Governance in the Twenty First Century: Geo-Strategy, Geopolitics and Governance" (Frank Cass, 2005) -- a detailed analysis of recent systemic change in the functioning of the Russian state and in its foreign policy and military-strategic orientation. (1) Presently the main focus of attention in relations with Russia is on developments within the framework of traditional alliances and institutions (NATO, the OSCE, the EU and the G8) concerning such issues as co-operation against terrorism, energy security, and healthcare and pandemic prevention. However, several important trends have gone almost unnoticed. In particular, Russia has been developing relations within newly established formats like the G3 (Russia, China, and India), BRIC (Brazil--Russia--India--China),and the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), as well as pursuing rapprochement with Islamic international institutions. BRIC (Brazil--Russia--India--China) By 2025 the BRIC economies could account for over half the size of the G6, according to The Economist (Jan. 30, 2005). Of the current G6, only the US and Japan may remain among the six largest world economies in US dollar terms in 2050. The foreign policy goals of these four countries are the ability to conduct an independent foreign policy and at the same time maintain good pragmatic relations with the USA. Russia, unlike the other members of the BRIC club, is not keen to publicise the increasing contacts within this new international forum, though it fully appreciates the potential of such institutional arrangements. Moscow is actively promoting trilateral co-operation with China and India within the G3 meetings of the new Asia-Pacific states. These meetings are seen partly as a regional contribution to the future global institutionalisation of the merging economies. In earlier years informal trilateral meetings took place on the fringes of high profile political events like the UN General Assembly (2002 and 2003) and the conference on co-operation and confidence building measures in Asia (Almaty 2004). On June 2, 2005, for the first time the G3 meeting was held as a separate event in Vladivostok in the Russian Far East. The next trilateral business summit is to be hosted in India at the end of March 2006. The G3 addresses issues related to: * trade and economic relations, with a special focus on bilateral and trilateral projects * co-operation in the energy sphere, with a special focus on promising new infrustructure projects, R&D, and the production and transportation of energy resources * the fight against terrorism Over the last several years Russia has increased co-operation with another member of the BRIC group, Brazil. There are different formats of contacts, bilateral and within the Brazil--India--South Africa framework of emerging economies, as well as within regional Latin American institutions. Diversity and many-sidedness of ties are becoming essential elements of Russia's strategy to strengthen its position and assertively advance its national interests during the country's negotiations on accession to the WTO. However, all these formal and informal contacts were also placing Moscow in the center of regional politics and making it part of the emerging new power pole. Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation emerged as a multilateral framework for the regulation of relations between China, Russia, and the states of post-Soviet Central Asia. Russia has successfully lobbied to turn the SCO into a full-fledged institution for regional security and development. On July 5, 2005, the SCO extended its mandate beyond Central Asia by giving "observer status" to India, Pakistan, and Iran. Before this only Mongolia had been granted such a status. The organisation is becoming a major player in the regional political arena as the importance of the North-South transport/ trade corridor, security relations with Iran, and the success of the international operation in Afghanistan turn the attention of the international community to the South/Central Asian and Asia-Pacific regions. Relations with Islamic institutions Russia's new policy toward its own Muslim community was forming in an atmosphere of intensified tensions between the Muslim and non-Muslim population, expanding areas of proclaimed jihad in the Northern Caucasus, and increased pressures on the Russian authorities over their behaviour toward Russia's 20 million Muslims. Nevertheless, Moscow has demonstrated a growing interest in strengthening its relations with the Islamic international community on both a bilateral and a multilateral basis. Russia has successfully sought observer status in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and confirmed its interest in intensified political dialogue with the League of Arab States. It has also established business relations with the Islamic Development Bank, which is an integral part of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference network. Rebuilding relations with Russia An analysis of the balance of Russia's interests on each separate and specific occasion is needed in order to be more precise in finding new channels and ways of communication and engagement with Russia. Such an approach is becoming essential if new windows of opportunity are to be exploited effectively and with long-term impact. This could help not only to modify positively the relations between Russia and the international community, but also to facilitate democratisation processes inside the country. Russia is again becoming a strong international player in the political, and potentially in the economic, sphere. If the process of "vertical consolidation" in Russian domestic politics gives rise to concern about the future of civil society and the fate of democratic reform, then the response should be not to isolate Russia but, on the contrary, to integrate it even more deeply into the world community. In the history of international relations we find cases of the transformation of highly confrontational relations into long-term strategic partnership, such as the change in Franco-German relations in the course of the 20th century. The most effective channels for future integration could be the following: -- In the field of education Among the areas of further integration could be the promotion of exchanges between academic institutions and expanding co-operation with private educational institutions, speeding the unification of diploma certificates. The necessity of reversing the continuing "brain drain" from Russia and replacing it by a "brain bank" is pushing the Russian authorities toward intensifying foreign involvement in scientific research and admitting a possibility of privatisation of research institutions in Russia. Andrei Fursenko, Russian Minister of Education and Science, has announced the possible privatisation of Russian research institutions as part of the systemic modernisation of the Russian R&D complex in an attempt to curb the brain drain. (2) The process is bound to take several years, since prior to privatisation the issues of intellectual property rights have to be resolved. -- In the field of professional training and management Increasing exchanges and development of training courses are providing a better opportunity of communication and engagement with the Russian business community. -- In the field of business ties and integration In 2006 it is becoming obvious that Moscow will be relying even more decisively on the assistance of the business community in pursuing not only its foreign economic policy objectives but also administrative reform. For instance, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs is activeely involved in the formulation and implementation of development programs for the Russian North, the North Caucasus, Siberia, and the Far East. Another example of co-operation is the forthcoming public inauguration of a joint program for business development of the regions on the basis of elimination of administrative barriers and creation of a favorable business environment in the whole Southern Federal District. (3) It was prepared by the Agency of investment Development (AID) and federal authorities of the Southern Federal District. New networks like the Associations for Advancement of Business were established to promote a commercially-friendly environment in several regions. The importance of business community input to the realisation of reforms (administrative reform, introduction of a new management system of governance, etc.) is becoming more evident in Russia. Large-scale development projects and social security reforms depend to a large extent on private investment. On the other hand, the federal government is increasingly being lobbied by the business elite to assist in opening up access for Russian companies to national and international markets. Considering Russia's growing foreign policy activity, it makes sense for its Western partners to lobby for maximum access to domestic Russian markets and to promote similar opportunities for Russian business abroad, with the greatest possible cross-sectoral engagement, and also to increase investment in the Russian economy, thereby assisting the restructuring of sectors of the economy. It could also become important to intensify their engagement and membership (associate membership, observer status) in new international groupings such as the SCO in order to activate engagement with Russia on every field that it plays. I have analysed the underlying factors and changes that make it possible to use these channels and opportunities in my book "Russian Governance in the Twenty First Century: Geo-strategy, Geopolitics and Governance" (Frank Cass, 2005). (4) NOTES (2) July 5, 2005 (3) February 2006 (4) In the book I also assess the long-term evolution of Russia's relations with Western institutions.
RUSSIA AND THE WORLD 9. REVIEW Moises Naim. Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats Are Hijacking the Global Economy (Doubleday, 2005) Especially as the communist era and its legacy gradually but surely recede into the past, many of the most serious problems facing Russia are no longer specific to Russia or even to the post-Soviet and post-communist regions. They are the same as the problems facing other countries and the world as a whole. So I hope for your forbearance if occasionally I review an important book on one of these problems, even if it doesn't say an awful lot about Russia specifically. Illicit trade -- trade in such commodities as cocaine, nuclear weapon technologies, hazardous waste, pirated movies and CDs, counterfeit documents, slaves, human body parts, stolen art, and endangered species (to name a few) -- is essentially a problem at the global level. Moises Naim, editor of the US magazine "Foreign Policy" and former minister of industry and trade of Venezuela and executive director of the World Bank, is clearly a very well-informed analyst of the phenomenon, able to illustrate his argument with examples taken from every part of the world. Naim concludes that the image of illicit trade as a series of specialized criminal businesses run by tightly disciplined hierarchical organizations like the Mafia is misleadingly out of date. He portrays an intricate decentralized network within which different illegal and legal trading operations are flexibly combined and operators specialize not by product line but by function(e.g., brokers, transporters, money launderers). Illicit trade, he cogently argues, is best understood not as a moral phenomenon (a species of "crime") but as an economic one -- that is, as profit-driven business adapted to the special conditions of illegality. The weakest part of the author's case is his policy prescriptions. True, he makes quite a few suggestions, and they seem very sensible, but nowhere does he demonstrate that they add up to a strategy capable of defeating illicit trade. Given the vast wealth, and therefore the vast power, of the hydra, I doubt that anything short of really drastic changes in the world order will have a decisive impact. But Naim does not discuss such changes even hypothetically -- because, it seems to me, he accepts a fairly narrow interpretation of what is "politically realistic." Like many others, for example, the author advocates legalizing the trade in certain products (e.g., marijuana) in order to concentrate efforts on stopping the trade in more dangerous products (e.g., hard drugs). This does not mean giving up efforts to combat use of the legalized products by educational and other means. It simply means recognizing that making things illegal may be ineffective or even -- inter alia, by raising profit margins -- counterproductive. That lesson could have been learned from the experience of Prohibition in the US. And yet doesn't the same logic apply to the more dangerous products as well? How would the situation be affected if trade in all commodities were made legal? This question needs to be raised, if only as a thought experiment to clarify the range of alternatives. It may be objected that trade in certain commodities is for one reason or another intolerable and has to be prevented at all costs. I would be surprised if even the most zealous advocate of the free market were to argue in favor of re-legalizing the slave trade, and few people would be prepared to accept the risks of unrestricted trade in plastic explosives, nuclear weapons, plague germs, and poison gas. There is a glaring discrepancy between this nearly universal rejection of "free trade in everything" and our dominant "liberal" economic theory. This theory substantiates the advantages of trade on the assumption that all commodities are "goods" -- that is, of value (utility) to those who buy them and therefore to society as a whole. But most of those who pay lip service to the theory don't really believe this assumption. They consider certain commodities to be not "goods" but "bads" -- so bad, in fact, that they are prepared to expend enormous resources trying, mostly without success, to keep them out of the hands of those who want to buy them. The impression I gain from Naim's study is that trade in "goods" is so tightly interwoven with trade in "bads" that it is impracticable to suppress the latter. Attempts to do so merely drive it underground and make it more violent and more lucrative than it need be. Business is business: where there is (effective) demand there will be supply. There is a single profit-driven global economic system, and the only really logical stances are to accept it, warts and all, or else reject it, despite its evident achievements. Which stance you take presumably depends on whether you think the "goods" outweigh the "bads" or vice versa, as well as on what alternatives you are able to envision.
FOLLOW-UP 10. EXORCISING THE "SIBERIAN CURSE" Readers will recall RAS No. 31 (October 2005), a special issue about to the book by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy, "The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold" (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003) and the reaction it evoked in Siberia itself. At that time I was aware only of the critiques of the book published in the Novosibirsk economics journal EKO. Soon after the dissemination of RAS 31, however, I was surprised to receive a Fedex package from Margarita Senkevich, editor and general director of another Novosibirsk periodical -- Sibirskaya Stolitsa (Siberian Capital), containing two copies of their September-October 2004 issue, wholly devoted -- some 70 pages -- to the Hill-Gaddy book. Despite its subtitle "Information-Analytic Journal," Sibirskaya Stolitsa is a glossy magazine with a print run of 4,500 and lots of photos, many of them very beautiful. The issue contains a lengthy summary of "The Siberian Curse," followed by a dozen ripostes in article or interview form. Among the luminaries mobilized to defend Siberia from the Hill-Gaddy provocation we find: * Sergei Samoilov, adviser to the President on questions of federalism and local self-government; * Simon Kordonsky, senior reviewer (referent) of the President; * Professor Yuri Tychkov, Doctor of Technical Sciences; and * top officials of nine Siberian cities, including a number that figure prominently in the analysis of Hill and Gaddy -- notably, Vladimir Gorodetsky, mayor of Novosibirsk and also chairman of the Association of Siberian and Far Eastern Cities; Yevgeny Belov, mayor of Omsk; and Valery Melnikov, head of the unified municipal formation of Norilsk. The critiques do not differ greatly in content from those in EKO. No one has a favorable opinion of the book under consideration, but there is a certain difference of tone between those who regard Hill and Gaddy simply as loudmouths who know hardly anything about Siberia and those who see them as willing or unwilling tools of sinister conspiratorial forces. Gorodetsky even implies that at a purely theoretical level Hill and Gaddy may have a valid case, though the practical realities render it irrelevant: "I think that the concentration of the population of Siberia in large agglomerations is an objective factor arising from economic realities, and therefore the assertion that in contemporary conditions Siberian cities with populations of a million or more are ineffective seems to me in many respects farfetched. The experience of such countries as Canada and Norway, which have long-established market economies, is little applicable to us. We have our own history and reasons. The Soviet Union having made for decades enormous capital investments in the development of these cities, they will now attract population and capital all the same..." I wonder: 1) Isn't this overkill? Is "The Siberian Curse" really a book of such importance and influence as to merit reams of criticism and the attention of very busy people? And do those who rail against it sincerely believe that it represents a serious threat? 2) Isn't the attention given the book in itself an admission that the problems it raises are real ones, whatever arguments may be marshaled to refute it? 3) Might the campaign against Hill and Gaddy be serving ulterior political purposes, such as that of forging a new "enemy image"? And if so, haven't Hill and Gaddy, by producing a work that lends itself so well to such use, had an impact directly opposite to the one they presumably intended?
FOLLOW-UP 11. HIZB UT-TAHRIR: VICTIMS OF PERSECUTION? The SOVA Center for Information and Analysis (http:///sova.center.ru) have issued a paper by Alexander Verkhovsky entitled "Is Hizb ut-Tahrir an Extremist Organization?" Hizb ut-Tahrir (or Hizb for short, also known as the Islamic Liberation Party) is a Moslem fundamentalist (salafiya) organization that is active in Russia as well as Uzbekistan and other post-Soviet states. Its goals have been analyzed in RAS No. 19 item 9. The RF Supreme Court has classified Hizb as an "extremist" and "terrorist" organization, and its members have been charged under various laws on the basis of nonviolent political activity. Verkhovsky disputes these classifications. He points out that although Hizb does not exclude violence in all circumstances it does not have a policy of using violence in Russia at this stage of its struggle and "will not seek to overthrow Russia's constitutional system in the foreseeable future." It should therefore be tolerated. I shall be glad to forward the paper on request. |
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