A Bad Case of Humbugama
By Sergei Roy
Editor, guardian-psj.ru

It’s been ages – well, make it a few decades – since I last opened John Galsworthy’s The Island Pharisees. First published in 1904, it still holds a few eye-openers for anyone reading or rereading it. One is struck by, first, the fiction writer’s rare perspicacity as a sociopolitical thinker; and, second, the ingrained, unalterable, one is tempted to say mossy nature of some elements of Western sociopolitical thought as espoused by characters very much in the limelight at this very moment.

Consider this query by the novel’s main character: “Why should we, a small portion of the world’s population, assume that our standards are the proper ones for every kind of race? If it’s not humbug, it’s sheer stupidity.”

American-style democracy bearers should do well to read up on their Galsworthy (if they have heard of the guy, of course). As I was reading Barack Obama’s statement on the March 2 presidential election in Russia, I had some real trouble deciding what its core element was, humbug or sheer stupidity – or maybe there was a third ingredient involved, politely to be referred to as effrontery.

From all accounts, stupid Mr. Obama is not; on the contrary, he is billed as almost impossibly bright and too clever for his own good. Could he be playing up to the stupider sections of the electorate? I don’t know. If so, then indeed the tenor of the statement is pure, unadulterated humbug.

Obama’s critical comments on Russia’s elections represent such a typical, condensed version of the platitudes regarding Russia that have gained currency in the West in the last few years that they will have to be taken one by one, practically sentence by sentence.

(1) “Against the backdrop of Russia's more recent experiment with democracy, this election was a tragic step backwards.”

Either Mr. Obama does not know the first thing about “Russia’s recent experiment with democracy” and is thus talking through his turban, or else he has some more accurate knowledge of that “experiment” but keeps the knowledge to himself while saying what is expected of him if he wants to win the Democratic nomination. In true humbug fashion.

As no Democrat or, for that matter, Republican in the current campaign had a kind word for Vladimir Putin – or George Bush’s Russia policy, what there is of it – the “democratic experiment” Mr. Obama refers to must have something to do with the Yeltsin era or, as we Russians prefer to call it, the accursed nineties. This is received wisdom of the Western political/media establishment: under Yeltsin, Russia went through a period of efflorescence of democracy, while under Putin it has been sliding toward autocracy, “democratic erosion” (Obama’s words), imperialist tendencies, etc. etc. In short, Yeltsin good, Putin bad.

Now, let us recall some salient points of that efflorescence of democracy under Yeltsin. Take the year 1993. Yeltsin issues a ukase to dissolve parliament, a ukase instantly pronounced unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court – as if its unconstitutionality were not obvious to every street urchin, let alone democrats like myself who say “Damn the Constitution!” and, Molotov cocktail in hand, are prepared to defend “democracy” as we see it. The parliament refuses to dissolve. Yeltsin gives orders to bombard the parliament building, and tanks open fire on it, in true democratic fashion, while we democrats applaud (literally; I was there and did some of the applauding). In a couple of months, Russia has a new parliament and a new Constitution, exquisitely tailored to suit Mr. Yeltsin.

It is hard to believe that if any American politician gave orders to bombard Capitol Hill, his tactics would be adjudged democratic by any sentient human being in America or elsewhere. In Russia’s case, it’s a nice “democratic experiment,” or so Mr. Obama seems to believe. Vladimir Putin never gave any such orders, so his credentials as experimenter with democracy are open to doubt, in the Obama scheme of things.

Consider another “experiment with democracy,” in the year of grace 1996. Early in that year, some four months before the next presidential election, President Yeltsin’s approval rating hovers over two or three percent, as reported by opinion pollsters well-disposed toward the Kremlin (there weren’t any other). Opposing him are the Communist Gennady Zyuganov, head of the only genuine and really powerful political party in the land, and the hugely popular General Lebed of somewhat nationalistic views and Neanderthal visage.

Seven nouveaux riches “oligarchs,” dripping billions from freshly “privatized” (for which read stolen from the people) assets, decide that that will not do. They buy up the media wholesale, ditto votes, ditto politicians, ditto showbiz people; they invite a US PR team to advise them on the best way to bamboozle the electorate; they scare the whole nation with the horror of the Communists returning to power; they go through a rigmarole of wooing General Lebed, who is bought off with the post of Security Council secretary between two rounds of voting and kicked out of that post a couple of months after the election – and still, according to numerous accounts, they lose the election for Yeltsin but fix it with some judicious ballot stuffing. And believe you me, Mr. Obama, I know what I am talking about, as I was among those scared of the country’s possible reversal to Communism and, as editor in chief of Moscow News, did my best to wage a campaign against Zyuganov and – while holding my nose – for Yeltsin.

That election was followed by the acme of the Yeltsin, Clinton-approved brand of democracy in Russia – the rule of an oligarchy stealing the country blind, firmly leading it toward the sovereign default of 1998, and turning it into a collection of fiefdoms run by absolutely self-serving, itchy-fingered politicians-cum-businessmen whose prime concern was filling their foreign bank accounts with stolen lucre prior to vamoosing westward. The new KGB, Khodorkovsky­Gusinsky­Berezovsky, that was the face of Russia’s “experiment with democracy” so dear to Obama’s heart. Well, he can have it. We may not exactly adore the current setup, but under it Russia is at least surviving, not disintegrating to fulfill Mr. Brzezinski’s dream of a Russia split into a bunch of Western colonies.

Just how Mr. Obama equates oligarchy – the rule of a few unelected individuals with power to appoint anyone they please to any office they care and pushing through a venal parliament any laws that suit them, while breaking with impunity even those same or any other laws – with democracy, is anyone’s guess. Oh, pardon me, I quite forgot. Oligarchy, that’s just Russia’s “more recent experiment with democracy.” Please, Mr. Galsworthy who art in heaven, is this sheer stupidity or does it rank as idiocy already? Or is it just a bad case of humbugama?

(2) But let’s go for another piece of received wisdom from Mr. Obama’s statement. “Medvedev won easily in part because a very popular Putin selected him...” Look, man, haven’t you heard tell that Medvedev’s popularity was higher than Putin’s in the run-up to the election? Haven’t you heard that Medvedev was nominated for candidacy by four political parties, not just one single individual, however popular? And who are you to insult the intelligence of 70 percent of Russia’s voters, as if they were all incapable of making up their own minds, without a popular hero telling them what to do? Would it not be fairer to say that that popular hero guessed correctly who the electorate would be prepared to vote for, and acted accordingly? One could go on asking these questions ad infinitum – except that it would take someone with a bit of intellectual dignity, not a humbug of an American politician, to answer them honestly.

(3) Medvedev won easily, Obama’s statement goes on to say, because “genuine opposition candidates were not allowed on the ballot.” Oh, give us a break, Mr. Obama. Who are those “genuine opposition candidates”? The foreign national Vladimir Bukovsky? Do we change the RF Constitution just to please Bukovsky, Obama and whoever else, and put him on the ballot for his beaux yeux and his well-attested hatred for all things Russian? The Central Election Commission would be immediately found in breach of the Constitution and be punished accordingly.

Or was Misha Two Percent Kasyanov a “genuine opposition candidate”? If he were, he would have been able to scrape up two million signatures in his support, stipulated by law, without resorting to the services of less than ethical, paid signature collectors who, instead of collecting those precious items, just sat down, forged signatures by the thousand (more than 13 percent of the total number) and were duly found out. Again, if the Central Election Commission had ignored those forgeries, they would be open to charges of negligence or worse by the other contesters, with all that that would entail.

And you know why Misha 2% was unable to collect those signatures? Because he was Russia’s prime minister for a number of years, and the Russian people know him kak obluplennogo, like an egg without a shell, as the Russian saying goes; they know him for a loyal servant of the Family, the much-hated Yeltsin clan; they know that he made promises to his Western admirers to sell Russian oil at $20 a barrel. No wonder Barack Obama would have liked to see him on the ballot, with oil prices firmly heading beyond the $100 mark. Only a fat lot of good would his name on the ballot have done Kasyanov: the joke in Russia now is that Kasyanov is no longer Misha Two Percent (his regular kickback on any deal that required his signature as premier) but Misha Under One Percent, for the share of votes his “party” gets in any elections. Medvedev could well have afforded to make Kasyanov a gift of that one percent or so.

(4) One more reason for Medvedev’s easy ride to presidency, according to Obama, is this: “Kremlin-loyal television networks flooded the airwaves with positive coverage of Medvedev.” Listen, what else could they have done, invented some negative coverage? There just isn’t any. He was not caught out wearing Islamic dress. Unlike Obama’s opponents, he did not make any racist remarks. Here in Russia, apart from a zillion of bloggers dealing exclusively in political chitchat, there is a site called kompromat.ru, entirely devoted to collecting sleaze on every politician and, in fact, on all public figures. Scour that site for anything untoward relating to Medvedev, and you will come up with a big zero. Look up his opponents, Zyuganov and especially Zhirinovsky, and you will be lost in all that muck for weeks. Besides, both these gentlemen (oops! wrong epithet) have run for the post of president for four or five times and in between have had TV exposure that would last Medvedev a dozen campaigns. If anything, by refusing to have public debates with his opponents, Medvedev was cutting back a bit on his own exposure. No, Mr. Obama is definitely out of luck when he tries to talk about Russian TV – which he obviously does not watch and prefers to rely on those same “genuine opposition candidates” for information.

(5) Yet another of Obama’s criticisms: “the entire state apparatus was mobilized to produce votes for Putin's candidate.” This is plain silly. Does Mr. Obama have a direct line into every department of Russia’s “state apparatus”? Does he have any statistics from any source whatever as to the number of votes the state apparatus can swing? Or does he simply repeat like a parrot what the losers and the also-did-not-runs are mouthing? Very clearly the latter.

(6) Lastly: “The election was the least competitive in Russia's post-communist history.” This is getting sillier and sillier. Has Barack Obama, or the lazy clerk who writes his communiqués, heard anything about the Russian presidential election of 2004? If he hasn’t, he should have. In that year, Putin’s popularity was so high and his bid so unchallengeable that even those eternal aspirants for the highest office, the Communist Zyuganov and the “Ultranationalist” Zhirinovsky, wisely withdrew from the contest. Zhirinovsky fielded his own bodyguard as candidate, ever ready with his fists in any political debate; and Zyuganov, a hopelessly tongue-tied rustic, both without a cat in hell’s chance of coming anywhere near Putin’s score. And you know what? Most everyone over here was happy with the result, because everyone, the also-rans perhaps better than most, knew that they would not be able to do a better job than Putin, not if they tried for a hundred years. No, Mr. Obama would definitely be well advised to get his facts right before he starts talking of “least competitive” elections in Russia.

It’s a sad situation all round. Barack Obama appears to me to be the best the American political environment has been able to produce for the role of that nation’s future leader. Most importantly, he stands for Change – or so he keeps saying. John McCain is obviously still feeling the hurt from being knocked out of the sky by a Russian-made missile. Hillary Clinton clearly cannot escape her memories of Boris Yeltsin clowning on the White House lawn for the benefit of his dear friend Bill, and she is prepared to shape her Russia policy accordingly; she will need to be tactfully reminded from time to time that the name of Russia’s president is Dmitry Medvedev, not Med-Whatever, and that Russia is still one of the world’s two mightiest nuclear powers.

One expected Barack Obama to be somewhat different. Alas, he isn’t, not from what we see in his comments on Russia, clearly borrowed to the last comma from Washington Post editorials. He should really take care, or he may catch a bad case of Russophobia from that source – in addition to his current ailment of humbugama.