November 23   
This Date's Issues: 3639 •3640  • 

Johnson's Russia List
#3639
23 November1999
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: POLL-Russian parties ahead of December election.
2. Itar-Tass: Veshnyakov DOESN'T Worry about Outcome of Duma Polls.
3. Moscow Times: Boris Kagarlitsky, Grozny's 1812 Overture.
4. Reuters: Russia will manage with or without the IMF.
5. AFP: Spy trial of Russian environmentalist resumes. (Nikitin)
6. The Independent (UK): Patrick Cockburn, Russia plans to lay siege to the 
Chechen capital.
7. Newsday: Michael Slackman, War Through Russian Soldiers' Eyes.
8. Obshchaya Gazeta: Interview with Ruslan Aushev, We Have Driven Ourselves 
Into a Corner. (Ingush President Aushev on Yavlinskiy's Chechnya Proposal)
9. Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Aleksandr Potapov, Natural Economic Order, or 
Vladimir Putin's Third Way. (Keynsian Model Proposed for Putin Policy)] 


*******


#1
POLL-Russian parties ahead of December election


MOSCOW, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Following are the latest
standings of main Russian parties and blocs contesting the
election to the State Duma lower house of parliament on December
19, as supplied by three leading public opinion poll agencies.


The Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) and the ROMIR
independent research centre conduct their polls on a weekly
basis and the VTsIOM agency releases its surveys once a month.


The figures quoted denote percentage of the total number of
respondents. Error margins are between two and four percent.


FOM ROMIR VTsIOM average


Nov13-14 Nov13-14 Nov5-9 


The Communists 22 21,0 27 23,3


Fatherland-All Russia 14 16,0 14 14,7


Yabloko 8 9,8 9 8,9


Yedinstvo 9 8,9 7 8,3


Union of Right-wing Forces 4 5,3 5 4,8


Zhirinovsky's bloc (LDPR) 4 4,0 3 3,7


Women of Russia 3 - 3 3,0


Our Home is Russia 2 2,3 1 1,8


More than a dozen other minor parties and blocs are also
registered for the poll, but they stand virtually no chance of
collecting the five percent of votes needed to enter the Duma
and do not feature on the list.


Most parties contesting the Duma election are headed by
presidential hopefuls. Political analysts believe a good result
in December will be used as a launching pad for presidential
bids in 2000.


The following figures, supplied by the same agencies,
indicate how Russians would have voted in a theoretical
presidential election held on the day following the day of the
opinion poll.


FOM ROMIR VTsIOM average


Nov13-14 Nov13-14 Nov5-9 


Prime Minister Vladimir Putin 41 37,6 31 36,5


Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov 15 13,3 22 16,8


Ex-premier Yevgeny Primakov 9 9,5 14 10,8


Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky 4 3,5 8 5,2


Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov 3 3,3 3 3,1


LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky 2 3,8 3 2,9


Regional governor Alexander Lebed 3 1,8 1 1,9


Primakov and Luzhkov head the Fatherland-All Russia list in
the parliamentary election. Putin is not known to have a party
affiliation. Lebed heads his own Honour and Motherland party.


Polls conducted by VTsIOM canvass 1,600 people across
Russia, and FOM and ROMIR 1,500. VTsIOM and ROMIR poll those who
say they are committed to take part in the election, while FOM
surveys also include non-committed voters.


VTsIOM and FOM ask respondents to choose from a given list
of candidates while ROMIR asks respondents to give any name.


******


#2
Veshnyakov DOESN'T Worry about Outcome of Duma Polls.


MOSCOW, November 22 (Itar-Tass) - Central Electoral Commission chairman 
Alexander Veshnyakov said he is not worrying about the results of 
parliamentary elections slated for December 19. 


"I am not worrying for the outcome of elections," Veshnyakov told journalists 
on Monday after a meeting of the Central Electoral Commission which changed 
its mind and registered the Russian Conservative Party of Entrepreneurs 
(RCPE). 


On November 3, the Central Electoral Commission denied the party 
registration. However, the decision was challenged by the Supreme Court's 
judicial and appeals boards. 


On Monday, the appeals board passed a ruling obligating the Central Electoral 
Commission to register the party. Twelve members of the commission voted for 
registration and two abstained. However, the RCPE said it will demand that 
the commission redraw lots to change the party's position at the bottom of 
the list of blocs to appear on the ballots. 


At the same time, Veshnyakov said "we cannot adopt a different decision now". 


He said commission members will soon travel to regions to check on 
preparations for elections. They will visit Bashkiria, Tatarstan, the Saratov 
and Moscow region, and the Republic of Mari-El. 


The Central Electoral Commission has also sent nine videotapes to major 
Russian television and radio companies to explain to them the procedure for 
using absentee ballots on election day, the rights of observers at polling 
stations, how the ballot should be filled out and other relevant information. 


Veshnyakov did not rule out that "already today TV viewers may for the first 
time familiarise themselves with this information concerning elections to the 
State Duma slated for December 19. These videotapes will be played on 
television up to December 18, that is the eve of election day". 


He expressed the hope that these tapes will be played "at the reasonable 
time", adding that one more tape will be prepared within the next 10 days. It 
will be devoted to the vote counting procedure at polling stations. 


*******


#3
Moscow Times
November 23, 1999 
Grozny's 1812 Overture 
By Boris Kagarlitsky 
Boris Kagarlitsky is a researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences 
Institute of Comparative Politics. He contributed this comment to The Moscow 
Times. 


They say in the East: "Don't brag when going to battle." Boris Yeltsin's 
generals think otherwise. No important battles have been won yet in Chechnya 
yet, nor has any serious fighting taken place. But Russian media are 
overflowing with bravado from military authorities. This new war in Chechnya 
has been heralded by a storm of propaganda and incantations from the military 
that "we won't make the same mistakes that we made in 1994." Nobody, however, 
has explained what those mistakes actually were. 


General Pavel Grachev's strategic scheme in 1994 was to invade Grozny - in 
one swift thrust of ordinance - and defeat the Chechens before they could get 
their guerrilla forces organized. His plans were neither reckless nor 
criminal, as they were labeled at the time, but simply the only ones that 
made sense from a military point of view. 


Their implementation, however, was beneath contempt: The Grozny invasion 
failed and a lingering siege of the city gave President Dzhokar Dudayev the 
needed time to set up a political and military base in the mountains of 
southern Chechnya. 


The plans of Grachev the general, however, were ruined because Grachev the 
politician had humiliated and demoralized the army by proffering it as a tool 
for whomever could make the best offer during the averted coup of 1993. A 
year later, most soldiers perceived their actions in Chechnya as a 
continuation of the civil war that started on the streets of Moscow. 


The 1994-96 mountain war was a lost cause. Afterwards, the generals persuaded 
both themselves and the politicians that the war had been lost because of 
inconsistent policy from Moscow and negative public opinion. 


The moral they drew from the story was that, prior to launching a military 
assault, they need unanimous support from political elites and they need to 
shut up dissenters. As the new war began, Russia's Joe Public was hit by a 
wave of propaganda. Opponents of the war either can't get on the air or are 
afraid to go against the grain. The generals have a free hand. 


This sets the scene for a serious defeat rather than a triumphant crusade. 
The army is advancing slowly without engaging in any serious combat. Chechen 
soldiers are squeezed out of their positions by artillery and air attacks. 
After every such strike - and more often before - Russian soldiers retreat. 
Then, they report a victory and advance by a couple of kilometers until they 
again face resistance. 


These tactics suggest a mortal fear of the enemy. Though our generals may 
have missed reading the works of Mao Zedong and Che Guevara on guerrilla 
warfare, they surely would be familiar with the War of 1812, when the 
Russians routed Napoleon. Aslan Maskhadov, a graduate of a Soviet military 
school, would certainly recall the lesson. 


In 1812, the French were slowly advancing deep into Russia, with Russian 
troops, led by Mikhail Kutuzov, on the retreat. But when the French took 
Moscow and declared victory, partisan warfare broke out throughout the 
occupied territory. This instance differs from the Chechen campaign in that 
Napoleon tried to force a decisivebattle on Russia. The Russian generals in 
Chechnya are not trying to do that. 


Maskhadov will not surrender Grozny without a fight - just as Kutuzov 
wouldn't have parted with Moscow without a fight. But - recalling the 
half-hearted defense of Moscow in 1812 - the Chechens won't fight for Grozny 
with all means at their disposal. Their only task is to wound the advancing 
Russian army as badly as possible. 


Because of this, the Russians will be forced into an all-out assault on the 
city and the intensity of the assault will be their proof of victory. But 
taking Grozny will have very little effect on the course of the war. Since 
Russian troops are moving so slowly, there is no need for Chechens to defend 
Grozny. They will mount their defense in the south. Any resistance they put 
up for Grozny is purely symbolic - like Kutuzov's strategy in the battle of 
Borodino. 


What comes next is easy to predict. The Russian army for some reason has the 
impression that it will be hard for the Chechens to sit out the winter in the 
mountains. But nobody has considered whether the same thing will be difficult 
for the Russians. Lines of communication are in poor shape and the ruins of 
Grozny after the invasion will be an unsuitable command post. 


Three years of quasi-independence has disappointed the Chechens. What they 
have been left with is poverty, religious extremism and uncontrollable, 
corrupt field commanders. 


The Kremlin assumes the Chechens will make the comparison and opt for Russian 
rule. But the chaos wreaked by Russians at refugee border checkpoints, 
coupled with the corruption and racism rampant in both Russia's civil and 
military authorities, appalls even Chechens who sympathize with Russia. 
Chechen soldiers, on the contrary, will look like heroes. 


All of these failures will be obvious as spring approaches. Possible 
consequences range from lasting warfare with invisible guerrillas to a 
general retreat and total decay of rule, as occurred with the French in 1812. 
Lost wars have always been at the core of Russian revolutions and reforms. In 
this sense, the Chechen crusade may trigger new upheavals within Russia 
itself. It is this seemingly unanimous support for the war that ensures a 
profound crisis if the war is lost. Meanwhile, Yeltsin's generals are walking 
cheerfully into the traps prepared for them. But it is the soldiers who will 
pay. 


******


#4
ANALYSIS-Russia will manage with or without the IMF
By Peter Henderson

MOSCOW, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Russia's booming oil and commodities export 
revenues will support its budget next year even if the International Monetary 
Fund does not, but Western leverage could fade, economists said on Monday. 


Most said the IMF would and should send money next month or risk Russia 
turning a cold shoulder. "The IMF would have to stay involved to get its 
money back," said Erik Nielsen, head Emerging Europe economist for Goldman 
Sachs investment bank. 


Russian Central Bank Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko, who has criticised the IMF 
for imposing new terms on a loan tranche first expected by Russia in 
September, was quoted by RIA news agency as declining to rule out getting 
funds in December. 


That was a subtle shift from Finance Ministry statements that the $640 
million tranche would be sent this year, though Gerashchenko also said Russia 
had met IMF loan conditions. 


Russia has appeared to be on the verge of getting the funds for months, 
buoyed by regular vocal support from IMF officials. 


But fears Russia's fight in Chechnya could stop lending have been fanned by 
mixed messages from the United States. 


The clearest signal from Washington is to keep lending. But one official 
declined to rule out linking policy on IMF lending and Chechnya, where Russia 
says it is fighting terrorists, in a battle the West has condemned. 


Without IMF funds soon, the government may use central bank foreign reserves 
to pay its debts, Gerashchenko said. 


ECONOMIC GROWTH FUNDS DEBT PAYMENTS 


Backed by stronger world oil and commodity prices, industrial growth and debt 
deals finished or expected with other borrowers, Russia can repay foreign 
debt due next year, even without nearly $4 billion expected from the IMF, 
analysts say. 


It owes the Fund $4.2 billion of the $9-10 billion it intends to pay to 
service foreign debt next year. 


Peter Boone, director of research at Brunswick Warburg investment bank in 
Moscow, said the budget could reap an extra $3 billion next year if benchmark 
Brent oil prices remained around $24 per barrel, versus the government's 
forecast of $17, and natural gas and commodity prices also continued strong. 


"At the current exchange rate and the current policies, it doesn't look that 
important that they get (IMF) funds," he said. 


Even with a less optimistic scenario, the government would be able to tap 
central bank reserves, although the rouble, already worth less than a quarter 
of its August 1998 value, would weaken as the bank printed roubles to buy 
dollars. 


"The more you repay the Fund, the more you weaken the rouble, and the harder 
that is on pensioners and other people who have limited incomes in rouble 
terms," he said. 


WEST RISKS LOSING LEVERAGE 


The main problem if the IMF stopped loans would be a risk of disengagement, 
analysts said, predicting a tranche this month. 


The West has already pushed Russia further than it had agreed to in July, 
when it signed a $4.5 billion loan deal. 


Russia fulfilled most of the conditions for the next loan tranche, but the 
IMF, urged on by Group of Seven industrial nations, has asked for more fiscal 
transparency measures, reacting to a U.S. money laundering probe, among other 
things. 


"I think that there is some justification to the Russian concern. It is not 
quite that conditions are added on, but it is awfully close," said Nielsen. 


Russia has met most of the new demands as well, leading an IMF mission about 
a week ago to say most questions had been agreed and it expected the 
remaining ones to be worked out soon. 


Goohoon Kwon, a senior economist at ABN Amro in London, said more delay would 
be seen as a change of relationship rather than a continued disagreement over 
details and spell trouble. 


"If IMF money is not received by February, no matter how it is described, it 
will be seen as suspension of the IMF programme," Kwon said. 


"If that happens the crunch will be real, not apparent. That cost will be 
very high. Not only for Russia but also for the IMF and the G7," he said. 


******


#5
Spy trial of Russian environmentalist resumes


SAINT PETERSBURG, Nov 22 (AFP) - 
The espionage trial of a former Russian navy captain who went public with 
details about nuclear pollution by Russian submarines resumes here Tuesday.


It has been delayed nine months to give the prosecution time to build its 
case against Alexander Nikitin, accused of leaking state secrets on 
environmental hazards posed by Russia's northern-based submarine fleet.


The court suspended the trial in 1998 after the original charges were 
dismissed, but then granted the prosecution more time in February. The 
authorities had been forced to change the indictment six times during earlier 
court hearings.


A former submarine officer, Nikitin, 45, was arrested in February 1996 as 
part of a probe by security services into the activities of the Norway-based 
environmental group Bellona in the Arctic Circle port of Murmansk.


Russian investigators accused Nikitin, a former Bellona staffer, of using his 
officer's identity card to gain access to a military unit stationed in Saint 
Petersburg, where he allegedly consulted top secret documents.


Nikitin said he hoped that holding some of the hearings in public would 
ensure the transparency of the trial and added he was "ready to respond to 
all of the questions that could be asked during the trial."


The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in July asked 
Russia to drop the case, stating that Nikitin was "victim of an unfair 
judicial process."


Environmentalists warned that the trial would be crucial in the fight against 
nuclear pollution by the Russian military.


"We must absolutely win this trial," Bellona director Frederic Hauge told a 
news conference Monday. 


"If we lose, we will never get the international financing we need. And we 
need people who are capable of dealing with nuclear questions without fearing 
they will be thrown in jail for espionage," he added.


******


#6
The Independent (UK)
23 November 1999
[for personal use only]
Russia plans to lay siege to the Chechen capital 
By Patrick Cockburn in Moscow 


The Russian army said yesterday that it plans to encircle the Chechen capital 
by early next month but will not try to storm Grozny. 


General Anatoly Kvashnin, the Russian chief of staff, said there would be no 
ground attack on Grozny, but local people "will sort it out with the bandits 
and we will help them do so". Ever since invading Chechnya eight weeks ago, 
Russian forces have advanced behind a heavy air and artillery bombardment to 
keep their own losses low. 


The military says that Grozny, the scene of savage fighting in the last 
Chechen war, is already 80 per cent surrounded. 


General Kvashnin said that his troops had reached Gudermes, the second city 
of Chechnya, in early November, but had successfully relied on local people 
to persuade Chechen guerrillas to depart. 


The snail's-pace Russian advance through the heavily populated central plain 
of Chechnya below the Caucasus mountains is now following a well-established 
pattern. First comes an indiscriminate bombardment of Chechen towns and 
villages, followed by negotiations with local leaders about the entry of 
Russian forces and their treatment of civilians who have not fled. The 
Russian immigration service yesterday put the number of Chechen refugees at 
222,000, or about one-quarter of the population. 


Local Chechen leaders are eager to stop the Russian bombardment of their 
districts and also to limit the number of people arrested in subsequent 
mopping-up operations. In the last Chechen war in 1994-96 many Chechens died 
or disappeared in "filtration" camps established to weed out guerrillas and 
their sympathisers. 


The Interfax news agency reports that last week General Vladimir Shamanov, 
the commander of Russian forces in western Chechnya, negotiated with local 
leaders in Achkhoy-Martan, west of Grozny, to make sure "that no militants 
remained in the town and the so-called 'mopping-up' operation was avoided". 


This approach has succeeded in reducing Russian casualties in the war, which 
has seen only limited close-quarters fighting. But it leaves the Russian 
commanders with the possibility that the guerrillas may return. General 
Stanislav Karun, the deputy commander of Russian Interior Ministry troops, 
said yesterday that his men had already cleared 60 Chechen communities of 
guerrillas. 


General Karun added that "repeat clear-ups are necessary to absolutely 
guarantee that sudden militant attacks or acts of sabotage do not occur". He 
said his men were ready to clean up the villages of Argun and Bamut, which 
were already surrounded. 


Not all Chechen towns and villages are likely to be surrendered easily. 
Urus-Martan, west of Grozny, is defended by 3,000 men under Ruslan Gilaev, a 
seasoned guerrilla commander.Villages already taken have to be heavily 
garrisoned. 


The Russians will also have problems trying to establish control over the 
rugged mountains and deep valleys of southern Chechnya, which are natural 
guerrilla strongholds. 


Meanwhile Georgia, to the south of Chechnya, has protested that on 17 
November three Russian helicopters attacked two Georgian villages, Shatili 
and Georgitsminda, 10 miles from the border. Interfax says that Russian and 
Georgian experts have found evidence that the claim is correct. 


******


#7
Newsday
21 November 1999
[for personal use only]
War Through Russian Soldiers' Eyes
By Michael Slackman. MOSCOW CORRESPONDENT


Rostov-on-Don, Russia-After spending his day flooding the forest
with machine-gun fire, Andrei Ustuzhaninov stepped from his tent into
the cool Chechen night to smoke a cigarette. In the instant that his
match flared, a sniper's bullet whizzed through the dark, slamming into
the soldier's gut, burrowing down through his body, shattering histhigh.
After more than a month in Chechnya, that was the first contact the
slight 20-year-old had with guerrillas.
"No, I never saw a guerrilla," Ustuzhaninov said from his bed in a
military hospital, where he spends much of his day curled on his side,
trying to ease the pain.
Russia says it is after terrorists, what it calls Islamic
guerrillas, and is waging a fierce military campaign aimed at
annihilating them. For weeks, it has dropped hundreds of bombs and fired
artillery shells, leveling villages, forcing hundreds of thousands of
people to flee and killing hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians
throughout the breakaway republic of Chechnya. The Russian public is
visibly joyful, uplifted by its military's command performance, its
leaders' steely resolve and a chance to flex its atrophied nationalpride.
But Russian soldiers who have seen combat tell a far murkier story
than the one being portrayed by the government, or the flag-waving
Russian media. In interviews with a dozen soldiers at military hospitals
here and in the Volga River city of Samara, and with one officer
recently returned to Rostov from Chechnya, the military operation
appeared less successful, the military less shining and the long-term
prognosis less promising than protrayed by the nation's leadership.
Those interviewed said Russia's offensive has managed to destroy
everything in sight-except large numbers of guerrillas, who the soldiers
said move relatively easily through a terrain they know far better than
their opponents. Russian soldiers fire their rockets, guns and artillery
shells blindly into open fields, villages and forests. One officer said
the official government estimate of thousands of guerrillas dead is, at
best, an exaggeration, an analysis supported by the soldiers who said
they saw very few, if any, dead guerrillas.
"We have accomplished nothing," said Lt. Col. Alexander Tolmachyov,
who works as a military journalist and spent several weeks in the combat
zone. "There are thousands of terrorists there, but by bombing we don't
reach any result. We have dropped enough bombs to destroy five armies,
and still, we accomplish nothing." Russia says it is in control of the
northern third of the country. The soldiers say that is technically
true, but not at night, when they sit nervously in trenches or tents,
fearful they will be picked off by snipers, afraid even to light a
cigarette. Russia's military is superior to the guerrillas', with planes
and helicopters and expensive rockets, but the soldiers say there is
little to eat, except the watery porridge they are served or the meat
they butcher from cattle stolen from Chechens. They also are short of
gloves, hats, blankets and other warm clothing.
On the world stage, Russia's leaders are defiant of Western
criticism toward their campaign, and resolute in their determination to
press on. But the soldiers depict a scene of uncertainty, with the
military unsure of which way to go next, whether to press on, dig in or
pull back.
"The Chechens are well equipped and ready for combat," said Nikolai
Diyanov, a 19-year-old member of a special reconnaissance unit who was
hit by shrapnel from a grenade during a firefight. "They have very
powerful weapons. It is dangerous to send soldiers in. I think they
should give peaceful civilians two days to get out then bomb the rest.
Just go into the air and press the button." When Russia invaded Chechnya
in 1994, it waged a conventional war, going head to head with the
guerrillas. It was a tactic that left tens of thousands dead and helped
turn public opinion in Russia against the assault. This time, the
military is avoiding close combat with the guerrillas and instead
relying on bombs to do most of the work, sparing soldiers lives. It is
hard to tell exactly how many Russians have been killed, because the
military lists only those who expired on the battlefield. Anyone who
dies in the hospital remains listed as injured in action. The military
also does not reveal the number of interior ministry forces who have
been killed. Officially, Russia says 462 soldiers have been killed and
1,486 injured. Misha Kireyev is one of those wounded in action.
He is a short, boyish looking 20-year-old, who had hoped to be an
electrician but was plucked from technical school and turned into a tank
commander. For a month, he guided a tank through Chechnya, first
supporting paratrooper units, then the infantry. At night, sniper fire
often would pin down the soldiers, coming sporadically, yet consistently
enough to force those guarding the tanks to keep their heads tucked down
in their trenches. In the morning, when the sun would come up, the
Russians would aim their tanks in the direction of the sniper fire, then
blast away, fairly confident any guerrillas there the night before had
already left, but following orders, just the same. Kireyev was injured
when his friend stepped off the tank and detonated a land mine. The
friend died, instantly, and Kireyev's arm was injured in a spray ofshrapnel.
Nikolai Artumov is a 20-year-old sergeant who spent his tour in
Chechnya working with an infantry unit responsible for "liberating"
villages from terrorists. First, he said, his unit would arrange a
meeting with the elders of the village and encourage them to leave
before the shelling began. Then, after a short time, he said, they would
open fire with artillery, sometimes backed by aerial bombing. When the
smoke cleared, they would move into town.
"There was never any opposition," said Artumov, his hands still
brown from Chechen soil, his leg, stomach and arms pitted with wounds
incurred when the armored car he was in rode over a mine. "It seems
strange. It was too quiet. It was suspicious." Everyone is surprised at
how little opposition the guerrillas have shown so far, leading some to
think they are lying in wait.
Artumov shared his hospital room with four other injured soldiers,
including Yevgeny Kusov, a 21-year-old from the region of Tatarstan, the
only one of the young men here to find himself in direct combat with the
guerrillas. He said his infantry unit was trying to take a village, when
suddenly they were surrounded by gunfire. An officer was killed
immediately, and many of his colleagues around him went down. The unit
fired back, he said, but they never found bodies of guerrillas and he
was unsure if any were hit. Early one morning some days later, a
sniper's bullet tore into his thigh, landing him in the hospital.
In the hospital in Samara, Alexei Melchukov, 19, was recovering
after being shot in the arm while storming a village with Tank Regiment
106. He had hoped to be working for the railroad but instead found
himself living in Chechnya, terrified every time it grew dark outside.
"They shot at us at night, but they never encircled us," he said.
"We don't know the area very well, but they do. There were many cases at
night when someone lighted a cigarette and the snipers started
shooting." Nineteen-year-old Alexander Yudin was a farm worker before he
was called into action. He is in the hospital now, the lower half of his
right leg blown off by gunfire, his right elbow shattered by a bullet.
Yudin worked with an artillery unit, first helping to load the weapons
until he volunteered for the more dangerous work of reconnaissance.
"It was our task to find groups of guerrillas," he said, adding that
it was nearly impossible, unless they were holding weapons, to
distinguish between civilians and guerrillas. He said that his unit was
often short of bread and water, but that he supported his nation's
effort to stamp out terrorism.
"I am calm about what happened," he said in a breathless whisper.
"You know you cannot bring anything back. I am happy I was able to stay
alive." His father, standing over his bed, arms folded, eyes red, was
less philosophical. Bending over to gingerly cover his son's bandaged
stump with a sheet, he said over and over, "For what? For what has this
happened?"


******


#8
Ingush President Aushev on Yavlinskiy's Chechnya Proposal 


Obshchaya Gazeta
18 November 1999
[translation for personal use only]
Interview with Ruslan Aushev by Irina Dementyeva; place and date not 
given: "We Have Driven Ourselves Into a Corner" 


[Dementyeva] Ruslan Sultanovich, what is your view of the six 
conditions for Maskhadov formulated by the Yabloko leader? 
[Aushev] Positive. 
[Dementyeva] Do all six conditions seem to you practicable? 
[Aushev] In varying degrees. But this is for Maskhadov to judge. I was 
meaning something else. I would take these proposals as a basis of the 
upcoming process of a political settlement. We need for a start, after 
all, to hear what Maskhadov thinks, see how he reacts. The most useful 
thing in these proposals, as I understand them, is that they do not 
reject Maskhadov and other Chechens who are not involved in banditry but 
attempt to make them allies fighting together. 
[Dementyeva] Events have gone so far, you will agree, that it is now 
difficult for the ordinary citizen to figure out who is a bandit, who, a 
soldier of Maskhadov's army, who, a Wahhabis, who, a member of the 
volunteer defense corps--official information today employs terminology 
that averages out and blurs the differences. 
[Aushev] Yes, the news media have done their work. In the Russian 
Federation today Chechens are in principle seen as a bandit people, 
although no such peoples exist. Any nation has its bandits, terrorists, 
rogues. The percentage of them among Chechens is no higher than among 
others, but the prerequisites for a growth of crime are somewhat greater. 
Yes, he should have taken the situation under control by stiff 
measures--he was unable. He governed inadequately. That's all true. But 
his possibilities under those conditions were poor also. There was no 
support. No allies either outside of the Federation or in the federal 
center. He was left to face the opposition on his own. And, which is even 
worse, his own people on his own. What could he have offered his people? 
There are no funds, the economy is wrecked, there is nothing, no one is 
doing anything. Pensions were granted, but they were paltry.... 
[Dementyeva] The payment of sums of compensation and the repair of 
homes began under Zavgayev.... 
[Aushev] Under Zavgayev! The infusions then flowed like a river, 
trillions.... But this is what the policy of the center is like, dividing 
us into "loved" and "unloved," "ours" and 
"others'".... There is nothing new in this, you know, it was 
always this way in respect to the Caucasus. We were taken and brought 
closer, then accused and jailed, and then suddenly pardoned, like 
Gantemirov, they used, confiscated.... It was all that simple. An ally 
for an hour, six months, a year.... Then this is forgotten. Someone else 
is once again found, someone is abandoned. No one here believes, 
therefore, that we can be friends for long. Today, say, the Khasavyurt 
agreements are considered a betrayal of Russia's interests, just about. 
Everyone has suddenly been afflicted with a short memory. It has been 
forgotten what was done in Groznyy at that time: blockade, the 
elimination of individual detachments.... All that could have been 
squeezed out of the situation in favor of the federal forces was squeezed 
out. Both the politicians and the generals, saying that these agreements 
were signed "to the dictation of the Chechens," they simply 
have not read them (there was nothing there of what is being ascribed to 
them). But the treaty of Yeltsin and Maskhadov, which declared an end to 
the four centuries of opposition, should be read--it confirms all that 
was done in Khasavyurt. Then, who betrayed whom? 
[Dementyeva] It would seem that the army is becoming a substantial 
political force here? 
[Aushev] It has already become such. And it is setting its own 
conditions. And, this is how I see it, these conditions will be met since 
the Russian leadership has no good will for peace left, it would seem. 
And after what happened in Moscow and other cities, after the evaluation 
of these terrorist acts in the press, society is prepared to perceive any 
casualties that Chechnya sustains in this war as its due. This is what 
the upper strata want, this is what the masses want, as they say. 
[Dementyeva] But the criminals have still not been found, the 
complicity has not been proven, and there is, finally, the law.... 
[Aushev] Who in Russia is concerned for execution of the law! There is 
an even more neglected problem--the attitude toward the individual and 
human life and its devaluation. The Americans in Yugoslavia lost 
virtually no one, one or two, probably. We? We are proud, just about, 
that "only" 200 soldiers have died since the start of the 
combat operations. Yet these are 200 young lives, 200 weeping mothers! By 
what sort of benefit can this be measured? All have managed to drive 
themselves into a corner: the federal government, the army, the militants 
fighting on the other side, and society as a whole--each has his own 
corner, from which there is no escape on one's own. A new generation will 
have grown up in five years' time, there will be other people, and once 
again they will begin to tackle the problems that we have failed to 
resolve.... Deadlock. It remains only to observe and to channel all 
efforts into aid for the refugees and to ease and alleviate the situation. 
[Dementyeva] Returning to Yavlinskiy's proposals: do you allow of a 
practical result? 
[Aushev] It is never too late to negotiate. The proposals themselves, 
if they are only somewhat supported, are already a result. It is known 
that Maskhadov has counterproposals, some coincide on both sides. There 
are practically no possibilities--information, ethical, material--of 
their implementation as yet. But mutual understanding could be reached, 
this is in itself something, without which the losses not only for 
Maskhadov but for Russian society also could prove catastrophic. Who will 
help us if we do not help ourselves? 
[Dementyeva] Who, then? Winter, Barklay, or the Russian god? 
[Aushev] Exactly! 


*******


#9
Keynsian Model Proposed for Putin Policy 


Rossiyskaya Gazeta
16 November 1999
[for personal use only]
Article by Aleksandr Potapov: "Natural Economic Order, or Vladimir 
Putin's Third Way" 


Keynes demonstrated the conceptual bankruptcy of classical economic 
theory under the new conditions. 
The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, Keynes's major 
work, was published in 1936, on the eve of World War II and soon after 
the first global crisis in the history of mankind, which struck the 
Western economy at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s. 
Keynes's theory became the scientific basis that enabled the countries 
of the anti-Hitler coalition, above all the United States, to switch 
their economy to a military basis very rapidly and, after World War II 
was over, to develop an effective strategy for restoring the destroyed 
economy. In particular, the so-called Rhine-Nippon model was built 
completely on Keynesianism. It was because of it that postwar Germany 
and Japan achieved such high rates of industrial growth that it seemed to 
be an economic miracle. 


The Communal-Liberal Political Kitchen 


In each individual case there is a special entity in power--a 
specially authorized agency, a group of lobbyists, a power structure, a 
press secretary, a regional governor, a political science center, a 
television host, an influential businesswoman, a fund, a deputy faction. 
The society's attention is focused on the purely external, kaleidoscopic, 
deceptive diversity, leaving outside the field of vision that internal, 
essential unity of power without which it could not hold the reins so 
confidently in its hands throughout an entire decade and so consistently 
implement the policy of Western liberal reforms. 
It would seem that the opposition--simply by its very 
definition--should have discovered the authority's secret long ago and 
shared this discovery with the society. But that did not happen. 
Nothing went beyond the constant standard accusations: from the 
"right"--against the "country's inept leadership" and 
from the "left"--against the notorious "anti-popular 
regime." Meanwhile, true, somehow functionaries from the opposition 
were able to get into power and now they personally bear a heavy 
burden--some of them in their cozy Duma seats and some of them in 
respectable ministerial offices. 
The "rightwing"--liberal--opposition contrived to include on 
their election lists all the former Russian premiers and many retired 
ministers, who immediately declared unanimously that they had always held 
the same views as their current political allies. And in fact an 
alliance like this does not come into being just like that. But this 
means that the "rightwing" opposition, so easily engaging the 
Russian premiers, up until quite recently--until the moment of the 
resignation of Sergey Stepashin's government--essentially controlled the 
executive branch in the country. In turn, the "leftwing" 
opposition completely took over the legislative branch after its victory 
in the last election when the "left" made up a majority in the 
Duma, although it is unknown whether they will be able to repeat their 
previous success when December rolls around. Perhaps only the third 
branch of state power--the judicial--has been left more or less free of 
direct control by members of the opposition. But this, of course, has 
not saved it from being lobbied. 
The opposition--both "left" and "right"--is made 
up of many parties. Taking advantage of the legislative and executive 
branches, it has tried to do everything in its power to turn the state 
into a bearer of its interests. Its obvious successes in this area mean 
that the multiparty political system in Russia has been supplemented with 
another construct--namely a multifactional party in power. It would seem 
that it would be difficult to combine the interests of both the 
"left" and "right" in such a political chimera and 
that it would not be able to avoid internal disagreements over 
fundamental issues. But the principle of a multi-factional party in 
power has never been questioned by any of the parties involved, which was 
clearly demonstrated with the formation of Yevgeniy Primakov's 
"right-left" government. 
Moreover this "right-left" principle corresponds precisely 
to modern Western models. In the United States, for example, the 
political structure is a liberal democratic one that combines, on the one 
hand, devotion to market ideals, that is, "right," and on the 
other hand, an orientation in policy toward human rights, freedom of the 
individual, social progress, and other "leftwing" social 
democratic elements. The contradictions of this kind of power structure 
are only apparent since modern social democracy and liberalism have 
common roots and are extremely similar, representing two versions of the 
same philosophical phenomenon--economism. 
As a purely economic philosophy economism cannot be manifested 
directly in politics. It always has to join in an alliance with one of 
the two political doctrines that reign supreme in the modern world: 
either democracy ("leftwing" progressives) or nationalism 
("rightwing" conservatives). 
In the event of an alliance of socialists and liberals with 
representatives of the "left" wing in politics, that is, 
democrats, we are dealing either with social democracy or, 
correspondingly, with liberal democracy: conservatives--"right" 
center; social democrats--"left." 
If this scheme is applied to Russia the following result obtains. The 
"right" center today is occupied by an alliance of rightwing 
forces--Just Cause, NDR [Our Home Is Russia]; and "left" 
center--Communist Party of the Russian Federation and its social 
democratic election bloc. The "absolute" center is occupied by 
Yabloko and OVR [Fatherland-All Russia]. And because of the 
"absoluteness" (pro-Western leanings) of their position they 
are the ones who can count on being guaranteed all-around support from 
the West. 
At the same time an analysis of the election campaign programs of the 
aforementioned centrist blocs, parties, and movements shows that a 
constructive and concrete, and not simply a declarative, part of all 
their programs moves exclusively in the orbit of socioeconomic 
transformations, where each party or bloc merely seizes and focuses on 
its own thing that somehow distinguishes it from its competitors or 
sector for attracting the votes of "its" constituency. 


Putin's Golden Mean 


But following the empty dogmas of economism in either its Marxist or 
its liberal version will lead Russia nowhere. This is a suicidal path 
that leads to an impasse. It is the shortest and most direct way to 
history's scrap heap. Paved with good wishes and IMF credit, it is a 
road that guarantees a loss of state sovereignty and leads the country 
along the path of separatism to a repetition of the fate of the USSR. 
It is my profound conviction that a model developed on the basis of 
the ideas of John Maynard Keynes (British lord and outstanding economist 
of the 20th century) could be the means of escape from the current 
economic-ideological impasse under the condition that we account for the 
actual political situation in the country and rely on the development of 
the social sphere. 
This model must take a differentiated approach to the idea of a free 
market. Strategic questions related to ensuring the country's national 
security (the military-industrial complex, the agrarian sector as the 
basis of food security, the high technology sphere, fundamental science, 
information systems, the basic sectors of industry that provide 
employment and raw material resources) must be entirely and completely 
under the jurisdiction of the central authority. Small and medium-sized 
production, the sphere of services, and the like, conversely, should 
develop with priority under the conditions of a free market, private 
initiative, and healthy competition. 
Keynes and his school have worked out in detail all problems related 
to state regulation and private initiative. All economists and 
politicians have to do is adapt the prepared formulas to concrete 
political conditions and the economic marketplace. And here one cannot 
help but ask the question why all the teams of Russian reformers mixed 
together have consistently pursued the liberal-Westernizing course and 
not once have they looked at Keynesianism even at the level of 
theoretical public discussion. What is this--elementary illiteracy of 
"eminent" economists who are only pretending to be scholars and 
seasoned practitioners? Or is this a well-considered move in the 
political survival game that is being made against Russia? There are no 
answers to these questions so far, and other, much more important 
questions are on the agenda: the situation in the country, the 
anti-terrorist operation in the Caucasus, the State Duma elections, 
relations with the IMF and the United States. The responsibility for 
resolving them lies with Vladimir Putin's government. 
After the official Kremlin decision to support the premier's candidacy 
in the forthcoming presidential election many political scientists 
hastened to write off his political future, and they made a mistake. 
Vladimir Putin's rating in the presidential race began to increase with 
each passing day, beating all thinkable and unthinkable records. The 
political scientists sounded the alarm because all of classical political 
science began to crumble before the eyes of the amazed public in exactly 
the same way as a half-century ago the stately and apparently unshakable 
edifice of the classical school of economism suddenly started reeling 
just from the light rustle of the pages of Keynes's The General Theory of 
Employment, Interest, and Money. As premier Putin radically changed all 
previous ideas about the nature of the executive power in Russia, turning 
toward the people for the first time in the years of the reforms. And, 
moreover, while previously the post of premier had always been held by 
economists (Ye. Gaydar), managers (Viktor Chernomyrdin, Sergey 
Kiriyenko), and power brokers (Yevgeniy Primakov, Sergey Stepashin), the 
current head of the government, for the first time in the history of 
modern Russia, is a politician or, rather, first a politician and then a 
power broker, manager, and economist. 
Russia at the end of the second millennium, having managed to 
experience all the charms of economism as practiced by both the 
"left" and the "right," has finally been given a 
historic chance for a natural economic order--namely natural, not 
"left" and not "right"! What is needed now is the 
political will and an unbending person who possesses that will. 
The "right-left" opposition has felt a strong threat to its 
existence and is beginning to demand ever more persistently that 
amendments be made to the Constitution concerning the so-called coalition 
government so that it will be made up of economists and not politicians, 
with all the consequences that ensue for the current premier-politician. 
The many-sided opposition party in power has rallied around a centrist 
platform: the left centrist coalition, the right centrist bloc, the 
centrist parties with liberal democratic orientation. All together they 
are denouncing, shouting, cursing, threatening with their fists, 
compromising materials, and sanctions, like some sea monster, a 
three-headed snake demanding that all the virgins be sacrificed to it or 
else the kingdom will burn down. 
And suddenly against this background of the "election campaign 
power struggle" it becomes clear that millions of simple people are 
prepared to cast their votes and entrust their fates to the chairman of 
the Russian government. And their numbers are growing with each passing 
day and hour. 
And nobody says anymore: We know how these ratings are made. Because 
in Putin's case nobody "made" them. People saw and felt the 
integrity of Putin's actions, his resolve to proceed to the end, the 
evenness and strength of his character, his devotion to his cause and not 
to some slogan. They trusted or, rather, they wanted Putin for the long 
term. And they let us know that in the ratings. 
The people are tired of temporary employees and want to see an 
authority capable of rising above the stormy sea of economic passions to 
the heights of Russian Truth. It is still too early to guess 
specifically who will receive this mandate from the people. But whoever 
it is he will have to justify the people's expectations and he will need 
a fantastic firmness and resolve to move forward. He must take the 
direct path and not go to the left or to the right. This is the Third 
Way, which leads to a natural economic order, the resurrection of the 
living Russian space, the revival of Russia's whole habitable globe, the 
restoration, along with the entire family of fraternal peoples, of our 
large and glorious common Eurasian home. Soon we shall see whose 
political will contributes to these steps. 


The Mystery of the Common Origin of Irreconcilable Antagonists 


Economism is a special area of philosophical thought that considers 
all problems of the human being and existence exclusively from the 
standpoint of economic expediency and also based on the purely material 
needs and egoistic impulses of some abstract individuum. 
Originating in England during the Reformation, economism was 
originally the province of marginal and atheistically oriented circles 
affected by the ideas of the materialist philosopher John Locke, the 
author of Essay Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1690. 
In Puritan England of those days Locke's ideas could not become 
widespread since they ran counter to the attitudes of the society and the 
tenets of the church. Only at the end of the 18th century, when the 
Reformation and the upsurge of religious consciousness were replaced by 
the hullabaloo over machine production and making money, were they 
embraced by a small group of economists. The bourgeoisie was ever more 
persistently demanding its rights to power. The first step was taken by 
Adam Smith, the Scottish economist and the main ideologist of the 
industrial bourgeoisie of the time. 
Locke's philosophical experiments found advocates not only among 
liberals but also among representatives of the so-called utopian 
socialism who, as we know, inspired the founder of scientific Communism, 
Karl Marx. Marxism with its concentration on the socioeconomic 
problematic, on the one hand, and its revolutionary content, on the 
other, became the direct antithesis to liberalism. 
It is important to understand that the doctrines of Marxism and 
liberalism remain mutually exclusive only in the economic but not in the 
political sphere! The hidden thread that binds Marxism and liberalism 
securely together is the mystery of their common origin--economism. 


*******