Johnson's Russia List #6004 4 January 2002 davidjohnson@erols.com A CDI Project www.cdi.org [Note from David Johnson: 1. AP: Many Factors in Russia Hypothermia. 2. Christian Science Monitor: Fred Weir, Russia remains skeptical of paperless disarmament. Moscow hopes for a new document this year to replace the discarded ABM Treaty. 3. Reuters: Putin fires Russia's besieged railways minister. (Aksyonenko) 4. Asia Times: Sergei Blagov, Russia's economic boom may herald a bust. 5. Dale Herspring: Russia and NATO. 6. John Danzer: Getting Rid of NATO. 7. Lois DuPey: re 5609-Kramer/Russian Realignment. 8. Keith Porter: Over 125 Public Radio Stations Will Air Russia Documentaries. 9. www.russiaproject.org radio series: Whatever Happened to the Soviet Dissidents? 10. PONARS: Georgi Derluguian, What Happens When Russia is the West's Ally? Some Historical Geopolitical Regularities. 11. BBC Monitoring: Russian Communist leader: 2001 was year of capitulation to US party of war. (Zyuganov) 12. gazeta.ru: New Year Brings No Reconciliation to TV-6 Shareholders. 13. BBC: The new battle for 'Stalingrad' 14. www.theglobalist.com: Mr. Putin: Super-Democrat. ******** #1 Many Factors in Russia Hypothermia January 3, 2002 By SARAH KARUSH MOSCOW (AP) - ``Don't sleep, you'll freeze,'' Russians often say in a metaphoric admonishment against complacency. For people living on the street during the long, icy winter, the warning should be taken literally. Every winter in major Russian cities, the cold lulls hundreds of people into a slumber from which they never awake. Though killed by the sheer force of nature, few would succumb were it not for two human factors: affinity for alcohol and indifference. The majority of Russia's hypothermia victims are drunk, doctors say. The alcohol provides a deceptive warmth, making a pile of snow seem like a down quilt or an unheated attic a cozy spot for a nap. Then there's the apathy of passers-by, most of whom walk by bodies on the street without calling an ambulance. In a sign of official indifference toward the problem, the Health Ministry says it has no national statistics on cold deaths, despite alarming numbers reported by individual cities. The Moscow Ambulance Service picked up the corpses of 190 hypothermia victims from Jan. 9 to Dec. 23, 2001. Some 1,895 people, including two children, were hospitalized with hypothermia. In Yekaterinburg, an industrial city in the foothills of the Ural Mountains, 269 people had died of hypothermia as of Dec. 21, according to the city morgue. Possible factors in the varying cold deaths: Yekaterinburg's generally tougher winters and comparatively poorer social services for its 1.3 million residents. Moscow's population is 8.7 million. ``Dealing with hypothermia victims is left to the ambulance service and the police,'' said Leon Akopov, chief of Moscow's central ambulance station. ``But this is a social problem.'' The root of the problem is the government's unwillingness to confront homelessness, critics say. Though not all those who freeze to death are homeless, most people assume they are. Anybody lying on the ground - whether drunk or otherwise incapacitated - is likely to fall victim to society's prejudice toward bomzhi - the Soviet acronym for people ``without a definite residence.'' One October night, a reporter for the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets lay down on a piece of cardboard in front of his apartment building. The temperature was 28 degrees - mild by Moscow standards but cold enough to cause hypothermia. Over the next 90 minutes, many people walked by but no one stopped to see if he needed help, the newspaper reported. Homelessness is no longer a punishable offense as it was in Soviet times, but in many ways, the official approach has changed little. ``We don't have homelessness,'' said homeless advocate Alexei Nikiforov, mocking the official attitude. ``We have 'vagrancy and begging.''' Homeless people are sometimes rounded up by police and sent to holding centers on the edge of the city. They are held for 10 days in dark, foul-smelling cells while police determine whether they are wanted for any crimes. If not, they are sent back to the streets. Voluntary shelters exist only for people who can prove that they had a legitimate address in Moscow. The city runs eight homeless shelters with room for 1,500 people. But only 15 percent of the estimated 100,000 homeless seen across the city are from the Moscow area, said Nikiforov. Many of the ``former Muscovites'' stay with friends and relatives, meaning shelters are often half-empty, while out-of-towners are turned away, he said. Nikiforov is coordinator of homeless programs in Moscow run by the Belgian branch of Medecins Sans Frontieres. At the group's outpatient clinic for the homeless, frostbite and burns caused by dubious sources of heat are among the main complaints. Nikolai Ivanov, a patient, said that since he was evicted from his rented room, he has been spending nights huddling next to municipal heating pipes. If police catch him, they use their nightsticks to kick him out, he said. In an underground pedestrian tunnel, Yuri, a 66-year-old homeless man with thick glasses and a bushy gray beard, has only a few old coats, some cardboard and a puppy to keep him warm. ``I'm not afraid of freezing. I'm dressed warmly,'' he said on a recent evening as the temperature hovered around 5 degrees. ``I'm more afraid of the drug addicts and hooligans.'' A few months ago, Yuri contracted pneumonia and was hospitalized. He was lucky: Moscow hospitals rarely comply with a city government decree to treat the homeless. ``I once saw a bomzh kneel before a guard at a hospital in the middle of winter and say, 'I beg you in the name of Christ, let me in,''' recalled Akopov of the ambulance service. ``And he said, 'The doctor said you're healthy, so get lost.''' ******* #2 Christian Science Monitor January 4, 2002 Russia remains skeptical of paperless disarmament Moscow hopes for a new document this year to replace the discarded ABM Treaty. By Fred Weir Special to The Christian Science Monitor MOSCOW - Russia's relations with the US are warmer than at any time since World War II, but experts here are warning that the new partnership could easily founder upon a piece of paper - or the lack of one. As Washington sketches out its terms for a new world security order, Kremlin leaders are anxiously waiting to see where Russia fits in. President Vladimir Putin has signaled to George W. Bush that he may be prepared to accept America's leadership and even much of its global agenda. But everything hinges on an as-yet unresolved debate. Russia expects to receive a seat at the Western table, one rooted in solid documentation, whereas the US has indicated a preference for ad hoc relations unencumbered by the ponderous legal protocol of the past. "So far there are just two presidents who have talked pleasantly together, which is a very good thing," says Oleg Naumov, a member of the foreign affairs commission of the state Duma, the lower house of parliament. "But presidents come and go. Treaties last. Today there is a legal vacuum in the world, and it must soon be filled with something reliable." Late last year, the US announced its unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Russia has always regarded as the keystone of nuclear stability. Mr. Bush has argued that the accord was a "cold war relic" binding America's hands in a time when terror threats underscore the need for missile defense. In general, the Republican administration believes that arms-control treaties are unnecessary impediments between friendly nations. Kremlin view Instead of an anticipated storm of displeasure from Moscow, Mr. Putin reacted calmly to the US announcement, calling it "a mistake" but agreeing that it does not immediately compromise Russia's security. "Putin is very flexible, and he reflects a willingness to come to a whole new deal," says Alexander Kaladin, an expert with the semi-official Center for Disarmament Issues in Moscow. "But the bottom line is that we expect the ABM Treaty to be replaced with something that is suited to the new times. Russia is waiting." The Kremlin hopes to nail down at least two new treaties this year, experts say: First, the verbal deal between Putin and Bush to slash strategic nuclear missile forces to about 2,000 warheads should be codified as a set of mutual legal obligations, complete with a mechanism for verification. Second, the Kremlin wants a new document regulating the relationship between offensive and defensive weapons, to replace the ABM treaty, perhaps by the time of Bush's planned mid-2002 visit to Russia. "If the old treaties were outdated, then let's replace them with relevant ones," says Mr. Naumov. "But we must have firm controls on the number of strategic weapons, and that must be clearly balanced with the development of antimissile weapons. You cannot assure global stability just on the basis of a handshake." Many Russian experts recall an earlier period of flux in big power relations in the mid-1980s, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was calling for sweeping reductions in nuclear arsenals and an end to the 40-year cold war standoff. At the time, US President Ronald Reagan rebuffed Soviet disarmament fervor by citing the old Russian proverb, "Doveryai no proveryai" - trust, but verify." "That was just straight wisdom, which applies at all times," says Sergei Kazyonnov, an analyst with the Institute of National Security, an independent Moscow think tank. "People in Moscow are sure the U.S. will reassess its own interests, and we will get a new process of arms control." Russian leaders fear that once the international war on terrorism winds down, the US may lose interest in negotiating with Russia. But an even bigger worry is that Russia's military brass, political elite and public will turn against Putin's Westward-tilting policies if they see no solid results. "Russian propaganda and diplomacy have been shouting for years that the ABM treaty was untouchable," says Andrei Piont-kovsky, an independent political analyst. "Putin has made a brave U-turn and taken a new course. But to the people it looks like a betrayal of Russia's national interests and values, because that's what they've always been told." Ties with the West In the long run, Putin hopes that by drawing Russia into the Western system, it will become linked by a million threads of commerce, investment, shared perceptions, political cooperation, and personal relations. But his policies may need help to survive in the short haul. "Bush always makes the point that the US needs no arms control treaties with Britain, or France, because they are friends. But this argument cannot work when we're talking about Russia," says Alexander Konovalov, director of the Institute of Strategic Assessments, an independent think tank. "For Russia, the strategic relationship is not just a cold war relic. It remains the basic way we define our position in the world. Without giving it a reliable new legal shape, we'll continue to have trouble integrating with the West in every other way." ******* #3 Putin fires Russia's besieged railways minister MOSCOW, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin sacked Railways Minister Nikolai Aksyonenko on Thursday after prosecutors charged him with abuse of office. The Kremlin said Putin had signed a decree relieving Aksyonenko of his duties at a meeting with Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. Kasyanov met Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov beforehand, television said. The government press service said Aksyonenko had tendered a resignation letter in which he acknowledged "moral responsibility" for problems in his ministry. The minister had been heatedly fighting charges of corruption. Aksyonenko, 52, has been widely credited with keeping Russia's massive railway network from falling apart as the Soviet Union's demise sent most industries into a tailspin. Known for his military management style, Aksyonenko was seen as close to former Kremlin chief Boris Yeltsin, whose proteges Putin has been steadily pushing to the sidelines. His career culminated during Yeltsin's last years in power, when he became deputy prime minister and was rumoured to wield more power than his boss, Sergei Stepashin, who was then prime minister. Aksyonenko was dismissed as deputy prime minister but retained his ministry after Putin came to power in 2000. Stepashin, soon after being appointed head of an auditing body keeping tabs on the state budget, led an in-depth investigation of the transportation ministry and last year handed incriminating figures to the prosecutor's office, which opened a criminal case. Aksyonenko, charged with overspending on his staff, has said accusations against him were politically motivated and made no regard for his ministry's unique status, which allowed it to combine state functions with commercial activities. Russian parliamentarians said Aksyonenko's dismissal conformed to Putin's strategy of cleansing the old guard and suggested that Aksyonenko had been sweet-talked out of his chair with the Kremlin's usual mix of a stick and a carrot. ******* #4 Asia Times January 3, 2002 Russia's economic boom may herald a bust By Sergei Blagov MOSCOW - Russia's economy has picked up after a decade-long decline, but economists have warned that a lot still needs to be done to secure sustainable development. The year 2001 was a successful one for Russia, President Vladimir Putin said in televised remarks on December 24. By the end of 2001, Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) growth is expected to reach 5.5 percent before dropping to 4 percent in 2002, according to Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin. Tough reforms by the Kremlin include the introduction of a 13-percent flat tax on incomes, new labor and land codes, as well as the restructuring of the country's pension system. Some former Soviet states reported even better results. Kazakhstan, for example, has recorded 10 percent, and Ukraine 7 percent, GDP growth rates in 2001. According to Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Maviyenko, in 2001, all sectors of Russia's economy have grown. Agriculture has recorded 6 percent growth due to an unprecedented harvest of 83 million tonnes of grain, she said. "Positive trends of the past two years in terms of economic growth will continue in 2002," Maviyenko said. Putin said that the average Russian will "be happy" by 2010. Interestingly, the Russian leader mentioned a deadline well after the expiration of his presidential term. Riding on top of commodity exports, government officials paint a rosy picture of the country's booming economy. However, experts warn that continued over-reliance on oil and gas exports might eventually push Russia into a vicious circle of debt crises, and increasing dependence on international commodity prices, a pattern well known in developing countries. In 2001, Russia expects its foreign trade surplus to exceed US$40 billion - still lower compared to $65 billion in 2000. Correspondingly, the nation's gold and hard currency reserves rose to nearly $35 billion, almost tripling the 1998 level, according to the Central Bank of Russia. Russia's financial health has improved significantly since the 1998 crisis, largely due to high world market prices for its energy and commodity exports. Another potential challenge to the sustainability of Russia's development is the country's foreign debt of about $150 billion owed to Western governments, banks, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This debt represents roughly four-fifths of the country's GDP, or $1,000 per citizen. About two-thirds of that debt was incurred by the Soviet Union, and Moscow has agreed to repay it. Following the 1998 economic crisis, some Russian government officials, including former finance minister Boris Fedorov, invited Argentina's Domingo Cavallo to advise how Russia could service its sovereign debt. Later, Moscow declined Cavallo's "currency board" advice. Now Russian officials pride themselves as having avoided Argentina's scenario. Both Russia's 1998 economic crisis and Argentina's current troubles were caused by the IMF's structural adjustment program, argues Mikhail Meredov of the Upper House of the Russian parliament. Russia has refrained from further borrowing, he said. Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said a repetition of Argentina's scenario is "impossible" in Russia. Russia is sitting on world's richest natural wealth, priding itself with an impressive ranking in the oil and commodity ratings. It is the world's biggest natural gas producer and exporter, producing some 550 billion cubic meters a year and pumping over 200 billion cubic meters abroad. With the country's 12 billion metric tonnes of proven oil deposits, Russia is one of the world's biggest oil producers, at some 7 million barrels per day. Much of Russia's oil and metal industries were sold to well-connected tycoons at cheap bargains. Oil and metal magnates have opted to siphon out their cheaply acquired assets via obscure offshore entities instead of investing in production. Economists estimate that the Russian oil corporations currently invest at home roughly a third of their revenues, while the rest remains abroad. Despite the rosy macroeconomic picture, there have been some warning bells recently as Russian oil hovered well below $20 per barrel. Russia's slowing economy may entail disastrous devaluation of the national currency (ruble) between 2003 and 2005, argued Mikhail Delyagin, head of the Institute of Globalization Problems, a Moscow-based think-tank. The next economic crisis may also turn Russia into a police state, he warned. (Inter Press Service) ******* #5 From: "Dale Herspring" Subject: Russia and NATO Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 I would like to pick up on Hank Gaffney's comments on Russia and NATO. My experience, including an official visit to the Russian miltiary last summer, suggests to me that the problems of familiarity lie not only with civilians (and I am not especially impressed by Rogov to be honest), but it is an even more serious problem with the military. We have a problem -- what to do with the Russians at a time when Putin is doing everything we want while pushing Russia closer to the West. My proposal is that we suggest to NATO increased military to military contacts -- in the form of permitting Russian officers to spend three to six months with a variety of NATO militaries. I have in mind a wide variety of functional positions. I would put them in line positions as well as recruit depots. I would let them spend some time working with press liasion, as well as with legislative affairs. Spending some time dealing with the Italian Parliament would probably send them home grateful for the rationality of the Duma. The key point to remember is that this would give them a first hand opportunity to see how democratic militaries work (or don't work). This kind of a process could last for 5-6 years. It would not only give us a breathing space, it would show our Allies that we were not trying to go it alone, and it would have a major impact on the Russian military at a time when it is more susceptable to outside influence than at any point in the last 70 years. ******* #6 From: John Danzer (Telos4@aol.com) Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 Subject: GETTING RID OF NATO Russia needs to do the world a favor and collapse NATO. The argument can be made that NATO is just as much a relic of the cold war as the ABM treaty. As long as NATO exists Russia is a delinquent on probation. Putin had two rational requests. 1. Negotiate a way for the ABM treaty to accommodate the security needs of the US,Russia and the world. 2. Stop the expansion of NATO into lands bordering on Russia. In the tit for tat world of negotiations, reciprocation ought to be made to those who take risks and show initiative. Putin has cooperated with the US in the fight against terrorism. Additionally he has pulled out of Cuba and Viet Nam. Putin has also made a strong argument against a missile shield as a defense against rogue states and terrorists organizations. Putin went out on a limb and received nothing in return. His reward was Bush's unilateral withdrawal from the ABM treaty. Putin doesn't have the political capital to lose on NATO expansion. Even though the Soviet Union Withdrew from Eastern Europe over 10 years ago NATO remains. It is a military organization and Russia sees it moving to its borders. Putin is being left with no other alternative than to call NATO's bluff. At some point Russia has to prove to NATO that NATO has lost the will to defend its new members. If Russia invades the Baltics before or even shortly after they become members of NATO it is hard to believe that NATO will react militarily. The purpose of such a strategy would not be imperialistic but simply a demonstration that NATO has outlived its usefulness. Russia would withdraw when NATO backs down. NATO has been a useful saddle for the US to ride Europe. Europe would gladly rid themselves of this burden when it sees that it can no longer give protection to all of its members. ******** #7 From: "Lois DuPey" Subject: re 5609-Kramer/Russian Realignment Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2002 I would like to request the opportunity to respond to the article by Franklin D. Kramer, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in your December 20, 2001 circular (originally published in the Washington Times.) Mr. Kramer states that "Russia could become fully aligned with the West" and refers to the "current grand Russian realignment". It would be appropriate to enlighten such analysis with a more balanced perspective. It is dangerous to engage in the practice of what is known in the field of Psychology as projectionism. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Putin's long term strategy and intentions as a Eurasian power were clearly elaborated in his speeches in the summer of 2000 at the Baikal Economic Forum. These strategic objectives have not changed and should not be expected to change. They are merely being fulfilled at the present time. Russia's intention to engage the West is no less important that its intention and responsibility as a Eurasian power to engage the East. It is not at all likely that Mr. Putin will turn his back on the Shanghai Cooperation Agreement reached in June of last year. That he seeks to move Russia closer to the West is indicative of his implementation of a previously defined strategy. Simultaneously, he is also fulfilling his goals with respect to the East. He is simply realizing the larger vision of Russia as a bridge between East and West in a predictable way. This does not at all pose a threat to the West. If we misrepresent to ourselves the goals of Russia's engagement with the West as some kind of realignment at the expense of her engagement with the East, we are setting ourselves up for a misunderstanding. It will be clear in the coming months that Russia is also acting strongly to fulfill its obligation as a stabilizing power in the East pursuant to the conventions that it has agreed to be bound by. Soon this aspect of Russian policy will also become paramount, as would be expected. Engagement by Russia of the East should not be misunderstood anymore than engagement of the West. Again, the policy was clearly enunciated from the start both to Mr. Putin's domestic constituency and to world leaders who's analytical communities were listening. The correct understanding, and the one that will benefit U.S.-Russia relations the most is acceptance of the fact that Russia intends to realize its capacity to become a stabilizing force in the East - West equation. Nothing else will better serve its geopolitical and geoeconomic goals. For the U.S. this is a powerful opportunity that should not be missed. Assuming that Mr. Putin maintains his control on power in Russia, such a bridge as Russia can offer would be a vehicle for more effective negotiations with state players in the East. To miss this historic opportunity in partnership with Russia would be a terrible mistake for U.S. policy. Consolidating this window of opportunity would best be served by assisting Russia to become an economically functional Eastern power. The risk of destabilization of the current Russian regime due to the malfunctioning economy is at a historical high point. It is critical that Russia weather this period. Perceived threats of NATO expansion or other perceived threats could serve to empower the destabilizing forces hard at work in Russian society today that threaten the current regime. Those are the forces that truly represent a threat to U.S. security. Thus, our most critical short term objective lies in empowering Mr. Putin's policy of peace and rapprochment with both the West and the East, through a stabilizing process of economic development. Lois DuPey is a private analyst based in Seattle. She specializes in Russian business development. She may be contacted at ldupey@oz.net. ******* #8 From: Keith Porter [kporter@stanleyfoundation.org] Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 Subject: Over 125 Public Radio Stations Will Air Russia Documentaries Dear Friends, We have had tremendous response since we announced our two-hour documentary on Russia last month. Over one hundred and twenty-five stations, including the top markets in the U.S., have made room in their regular broadcast schedule for this program. And thousands of people have come to the www.russiaproject.org Web site. Thank you for letting your readers, visitors, and clients know about this event. A revised press release is attached below. Please let me know if you have questions. KEITH Keith Porter kporter@stanleyfdn.org ============================================ Over 125 Public Radio Stations Will Air Documentaries About Russia; Walter Cronkite Hosts In-Depth Look Ten Years After the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Contact: Ken Mills, for the Stanley Foundation, 763- 513-9988 SAN FRANCISCO, January 3 -- Will Russia become one of America's most important allies in the war against terrorism? What is life like in today's Russia? What has happened to former Soviet dissidents and communists? These and other key questions about Russia are explored in depth on two public radio documentaries, part of the Russia Project, that are now airing on public radio stations across the United States. Veteran CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite hosts both documentaries. More than 125 public radio stations have committed to airing the "Russia Project" documentaries, including stations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, and other major markets. Thousands of visitors have already found the project's companion Web site at www.russiaproject.org. In one documentary, titled "Russia: Can This Be Democracy?," Cronkite hosts correspondents' reports on the role of hard-line Islamic political forces in Chechnya, looming nuclear and environmental disasters, chaos in the Russian military, the fate of Soviet dissidents, and how some in Russia are cloning the extremes of American culture. Also, Cronkite and Russian journalist Vladimir Pozner compare press freedom in Russia and the United States. In the other documentary, "Russia: Ten Years After the Soviet Collapse," listeners meet five ordinary Russians whom producer Reese Erlich first interviewed in 1990, and learn how, ten years later, their lives have paralleled the achievements and disasters of the new Russia. Plus, Walter Cronkite hosts and reflects on his years as a foreign correspondent in Moscow. The two documentaries are part of the Russia Project, a radio and Internet project made possible by the Stanley Foundation. Bay-area journalist Reese Erlich, in association with KQED Public Radio, San Francisco, produced the radio documentaries. The Stanley Foundation previously made possible the Iran Project, a public radio documentary and Internet initiative. The foundation also made possible the NPR/American RadioWorks'(tm) documentary "Revisiting Vietnam." The foundation also produces Common Ground (www.commongroundradio.org), radio's weekly program on world affairs, and publishes World Press Review (www.worldpress.org), the only English-language monthly magazine focusing on global issues through the prism of the international press. Learn more about the foundation at www.stanleyfoundation.org. KQED Public Radio, San Francisco, is one of the nation's leading public radio stations. Learn more about KQED Public Radio at www.kqed.org/pressroom. The Ken Mills Agency (KMA) is distributing the documentaries worldwide. For more information about KMA, go to www.kenmillsagency.com. ******** #9 www.russiaproject.org Radio series transcript Whatever Happened to the Soviet Dissidents? Reported by Reese Erlich, Producer, the Russia Project WALTER CRONKITE: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Sakharov, Roy Medvedev [med-vay'-dev]. These and other Soviet dissidents became well-known in the West for speaking out against Soviet repression. Many Americans thought the dissidents represented a significant movement for freedom and democracy inside the Soviet Union. But today virtually none hold positions of political influence. Russia Project producer Reese Erlich tracked down some of the old Soviet dissidents to find out why. REESE ERLICH: In 1975 17-year-old Alexander Tarasov joined a small Marxist organization that thought the Soviet Union wasn't socialist enough. He was arrested, and without a trial, thrown into a mental institution under the control of the KGB. ALEXANDER TARASOV: (Via Translator) I was told that my views alone are proof of the fact that I am mentally disabled. ERLICH: He was given electroshock ten times. Doctors also induced insulin comas. TARASOV: A person is injected with insulin and then he gets into a coma and is very close to death. At the right time he is injected with glucose to save his life. [Sound of prison door opening] ERLICH: Tarasov was released after a year and today lives in Moscow. He was one of thousands of Soviet political and religious dissidents who faced arbitrary arrests, brutal prison conditions, and sometimes torture in the post-Stalin era. Many in the West thought dissidents such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Sakharov, and Natan Sharansky were leaders of a significant movement for democracy. [Natan Sharansky rally—"I would now like to introduce Natan Sharansky" Shouts of "Yeah!"] ERLICH: If the dissidents really had led a major movement, one would expect former dissidents to hold political office in the new Russia, or at least to exercise political influence—they don't. Today the former dissidents are largely ignored by politicians and the public alike. And that was true even back in Soviet times, according to well-known dissident Larisa Bogaraz. LARISA BOGARAZ: (Via Translator) The Soviet authorities would reproach us that the dissidents weren't representing anyone. We wanted the situation to be just like that. Each dissident could represent himself. ERLICH: Boris Kagarlitsky spent 13 months in prison during the Brezhnev years. He says Western countries, and the US in particular, knew that the dissidents had little popular base of support, but used their cases for political purposes. BORIS KAGARLITSKY: They saw the dissident movement as a temendous propagandistic asset in Cold War discussions, especially outside the Soviet Union. The irony is that, I think they were not so much interested in dissidents as the dissident voices inside the Soviet Union because they didn't—at that moment, at that stage—they didn't consider the dissident movement as a force capable of changing things within the Soviet Union. They actually wanted these voices to be heard around the world as a kind of ideological and psychological deterrent against the spread of communism. [Music from Soviet period] ERLICH: Some dissidents such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn were anticommunists. Some, such as Sakharov, were advocates of Western-style political systems, and others, such as Tarasov, were Marxists. But they all faced harsh government repression. Larisa Bogaraz says some dissidents asked the Western press and Western government radio networks to publicize their cases. [Radio Liberty station ID] BOGARAZ: Western radio stations like Voice of America and Radio Liberty had a huge effect on our society. Their support was crucial for the dissidents in Russia. ERLICH: Kagarlitsky says the increased contact with Western media and governments impacted the thinking of some dissidents. KAGARLITSKY: So, I think the American political apparatus tried to influence these people politically. It was very much about manipulating people. For example, if we take the late academician Sakharov; he started as democratic socialist. And then, the longer he dealt with their international apparatus, the more he was shifting to the right politically, including saying the Americans did it right bombing Vietnam, and so on, and so on. ERLICH: During 1960s and 1970s dissidents fought a hard, if lonely, battle for political rights. Then in the late 1980s, under Gorbachev's administration, a few gained political prominence. Shortly after Boris Yeltsin took power in 1991, however, the former dissidents fell out of favor. The new rulers didn't want to be criticized for human rights abuses. And the dissidents failed to attract mass support because they offered no practical solutions for the problems in the new Russia. Historian and famous dissident Roy Medveyev [med-vay'-dev] explains. ROY MEDVEYEV: (Via Translator) They were dissenting against the authorities from a moral point of view. They never developed a goal to be political leaders. That's why there are few dissidents who are political leaders. ERLICH: Many of the former dissidents say that human rights violations continued under Presidents Yeltsin and Putin, although not on the scale of the old Soviet government. Ludmila Alexeeva chairs the Moscow-Helsinki human rights group. LUDMILA ALEXEEVA: It's a mass phenomenon in all parts of our country. But what is the most painful is our trials. Of course, we have no independent judicial system. ERLICH: Boris Kagarlitsky, who now leads a small, social democratic party, agrees that human rights violations still abound in the new Russia. KAGARLITSKY: Russia is a kind of democracy guided through electoral fraud. We are free to speak, we are not free to choose. Those who are in power stay in power, no matter what. ERLICH: Today's dissidents find themselves in a similar political dilemma as during Soviet times. They don't face long jail sentences. But their protests against human rights violations are ignored by the authorities. The difference, this time, is that they are largely ignored by the West as well. For the Russia Project, I'm Reese Erlich, Moscow. © 2001 by The Stanley Foundation ******** #10 PONARS Center for Strategic and International Studies http://www.csis.org/ruseura/ponars/index.htm What Happens When Russia is the West's Ally? Some Historical Geopolitical Regularities By Georgi M. Derluguian Northwestern University December 2001 PONARS Policy Memo No. 225 Prepared for the PONARS Policy Conference Washington, DC January 25, 2002 History The geopolitical history of balance of power suggests that Russia is simply too big to be the West's ally in normal times. In a pattern that has held for more than 300 years, Russia has been an ally to the West only in times of serious trouble in world governance: · In the early 1700s Peter the Great attacked expansionist Sweden, to the delight of many Europeans. · In the world-wide conflict known in the United States as the French and Indian War and elsewhere as the Seven Years war, the Russian armies took Berlin for the first time and were briefly the wonder of Europe. · Western Russophilia reached its apex during the Napoleonic wars, when the Cossacks were admired as the romantic liberators of Paris. Between these brief instances of military cooperation, Russia always receded into reclusion. The first "cold war" between Russia and the West dates back to the 1820s-1880s. For Europe, this was a period of long peace under British hegemony (Pax Britannica). Geopolitical rivalry was safely pushed into the spheres of ideology (as Russia became regarded as the despotic Bear) and symbolic confrontations in the contemporary Third World, namely Russo-British wrangling over the frontiers of Inner Asia (including the buffer zone of Afghanistan.) Toward the 1890s, however, with Wilhelmine Germany rapidly overcoming Britain in industrial and military prowess, Russia once again became a dear ally. · 1890s-1918, under the new entente cordiale, France and Britain invested heavily in the railways and industry of the Russian empire hoping to bolster its less developed but militarily significant ally. Germany did the same for its Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman allies. In the end, the two opposing alliances ground each other into rubble. The result was global chaos that created opportunities for a long series of revolutions, starting with Russia in 1917 and continuing after 1945 and into the 1970s when the last European dependencies in Africa gained their independence. · In the 1920s, a new cold war developed when the Bolshevik USSR becomes a rogue state alongside Kemalist Turkey. · 1932, the reversal: Hitler takes power in Germany, and the United States establishes relations with Moscow. Washington begins, at first tacitly, to participate in the development of Soviet military industrialization. (The famous T-34 tank grew from Ford's technology.) During 1941-1945, U.S.-Soviet cooperation was overt, more massive in material terms than one might assume, and reached deeply into popular friendly perceptions. Then after some initial uncertainty as to the direction of relations in 1945-1946, Russia's relations with the West again turned to hostility: · 1946-2001, the Cold War. Marking the ending year of the Cold War as 2001 is deliberate. The Cold War could fairly be said to have continued until then despite Moscow's repudiation of communist ideology and the demise of the USSR. Geopolitical concerns, not ideological ones, still defined relations through the end of the Cold War. This is another example of the continued importance and relevance of geopolitics. The New Global Threat In 2001 an unprecedented situation developed when for the first time ever capitalist hegemonic power was challenged not by an alternative state intent on imperial conquest-like Habsburg Spain in 1557-1648; France in 1795-1815; Germany in 1914-1945-but by an international revolutionary nonstate actor. The centerpiece of Marxist strategy was the rejection of terrorism in favor of organizing and reconstituting states along activist and socially redistributive lines. (This is why George Kennan saw the possibility of peaceful containment.) By contrast, Al Qaeda, like all militant anarchists, seeks to bring down the existing order by committing what in the 1860s Count Mikhail Bakunin annunciated as "propaganda of the deed." The attacks of September 11 marked a new historical epoch, but were nothing new in the social and psychological background of revolutionaries or their choice of subversive strategy. The first response of the United States was not new either. After suffering on September 11 a major loss of what Max Weber called the state's power-prestige (Machtprestige), the sole remaining superpower was forced to do something quickly and demonstratively. This is exactly the response that Al Qaeda sought in order to transform U.S. hegemony into visible military domination and thus to create targets and psychological incentives for further terrorist attacks. A century earlier the Russian empire acted identically when the radical wing of narodniki unleashed their long campaign of demonstrative assassinations. The reprisals by Russian secret police were ruthless and tactically effective (recall the fate of Lenin's elder brother, Alexander). Nevertheless, between 1883 and 1914 the Russian boeviki waged one of the most protracted terrorist campaigns in history, killing eight thousand "servants of Tsarism", from Tsar Alexander II down to street policemen. And that was without airplanes or weapons of mass destruction. Contours of the Global Future A world-wide war has just begun. Like all wars, it started with military action. Like all wars it will have to end with a set of new international institutions, as happened in the past great wars: in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia; in 1815 with the Concert of Europe; in 1945 with the United Nations. If the past is any lesson for the future, then it should be clear that coercion alone will not achieve a durable peace. Then what? The sensibilities of human rights or global media did not constrain the nineteenth-century repression of revolutionary terrorism. The Russian, Austrian, or German police saturated the revolutionary underground with double-agents and spies. Yet this strategy failed on all counts. What really contained the terrorist wave of the late nineteenth century was the major redistribution of welfare and democratization. It was, after all, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck who initiated Staatssozialismus. The parliamentariazation of protest channeled the grievances into a more constructive mode and the recognition of social movements and the social reforms gave hope to masses. Can we replicate this historical success at a global level today? Immediately the question arises as to what could be the political agency of global reform. War is better waged unilaterally. From a purely military standpoint, military action is better executed by one line of command than many. Today Russia is at best a redundant ally to the U.S. military. Consider tomorrow's policing however. It will have to be global and indeed very multilateral if it is not to appear a superpower regime of naked domination, as Osama Bin Laden evidently hopes. It must be not just a broad coalition but a durable and permanently functioning security system including the European states, Russia, and pivotal states like Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, China, or India. This idea is, frankly, a utopia. Today most of these states present a combination of rampant corruption with some degree of clientilistic authoritarianism, which forms a vicious cycle with low legitimacy and overall inefficiency. The Russian army and police in Chechnya are so brutal not because uniformed brutality is a Russian monopoly or because presumably a cultural chasm exists between the Russian occupiers and the predominantly Muslim population. It is because the Russian servicemen, from generals to soldiers at roadblocks, have been utterly deprofessionalized, demoralized, frustrated, and often they have come to regard their mission as a private, profit-making opportunity. And Moscow seems wary of confronting these ills. Recently yet another military prosecutor was killed by the soldiers whose misdeeds he had been apparently investigating. Democratize in Order to Discipline In our arguments for democracy, we put perhaps too much stress on liberal values and not enough on the disciplining powers of public dialogue and popular democracy. A functioning democracy means a multiplicity of controls: state, public, and, increasingly, international. Enough information must be available on an ongoing basis to give warning when outrages occur-whether corruption, police brutality, crime, or bureaucratic mishaps. The biggest achievement of the post-Soviet period was the creation of such conditions, or glasnost (at least until they were recently rolled back). However public uproar, domestic and international, will end in frustration unless institutional recourse and the possibility of punishing the wrongdoers exists. This is the key battlefront. Let me reemphasize the main point. Russia is not a valuable military ally. Generally, the traditional military-diplomatic enterprise of gathering together a wartime coalition will not achieve the ultimate goal of reinstalling world security. This war must end with the creation of durable and democratically accountable international policing. In this strategy Russia will be a crucial ally. To achieve that, however, Russia must first transform itself from a decaying superpower, a worthy goal supported by the long series of historical precedents. One way or another, the West has always played a major role in Russia's internal transformation. This time it must be not a circumstantial alliance that merely punctuates periods of Russian isolation and hostility to the West, but a durable alliance. ******* #11 BBC Monitoring Russian Communist leader: 2001 was year of capitulation to US party of war Text of report by Russian newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda on 29 December: subheadings are the newspaper's own Gennadiy Zyuganov, chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation [CPRF] Central Committee, spent over an hour on the CPRF Internet site talking to visitors to the world wide web. During a live videoconference, anyone who wanted to could not only put questions to the leader of the country's Communists but also immediately see and hear his replies "live" on their monitor screens at home. Here are G. Zyuganov's most noteworthy replies to questions from visitors to the kprf.ru site. 2001 - the Year of Putin's capitulation The Kremlin is increasingly becoming a St Petersburgers' club. The Duma has been turned into a rubber-stamping shop that puts its stamp on any antipeople law. The Federation Council has become a place of honourable exile, and the entire presidential vertical power structure works in the interests of the oligarchs. If 2000 was the year of lost opportunities, 2001 was the year of capitulation to the American party of war and to our own oligarchs. About Putin's rating Ratings are created by the Kremlin's "PR children". You only have to look at the regional elections. The propresidential Unity party has not obtained mass support in the campaigns that it has taken part in recently. Dialogue with Putin is unproductive We have presented the president with our own programmes, projects and specific proposals on issues ranging from the problems of missile technology to support for veterans and children and the preservation of the nation's physical and moral health. He agrees, but acts differently. For example, [Boris] Yeltsin is awarded a medal for a decade spent destroying the country. [Gennadiy] Burbulis - Yeltsin's main accomplice in the dismemberment of the Soviet Union - is assigned to work in the Federation Council. [Boris] Nemtsov and [Yegor] Gaydar, who have not served a single day in the army, are promoting their version of military reform, which is destroying our armed forces. The last concessions for servicemen, the elderly and children are being cut. This disparity between words and deeds has now become particularly obvious and intolerable. What lies behind the smokescreen of the fight against terrorism? Russia, trailing behind the American party of war, will be expected in the new world order to play the role of supplier of manpower, a sort of special forces for new provocations and military conflicts with the Islamic world and, possibly, for hostility with China. And Russia will, of course, retain the role of raw-materials quarry for the Western economies. Putin is fulfilling American instructions irreproachably. The party of power and the opposition The party of power is not capable of offering the public a coherent ideology. It unites around two values - those of the leadership post and of the moneybag of the budget. Only the CPRF and the people's patriotic forces have a real programme of bringing the country out of the crisis. Thanks to this, in 2001, 90 per cent of food was produced in the "red belt" [several regions in central Russia with Communist majority]. There the authorities are working for the people, not for their own pockets. About the Federation Council It contains almost nobody connected with the regions. The composition of the Federation Council grossly breaches the ethnic and cultural proportions of representation. I can see that the authorities regard the current Federation Council's main task as pushing through a constitutional amendment increasing the presidential term of office. With its current composition, the Federation Council is incapable of pursuing other goals or objectives. Who should be named person of the year 2001? Several key figures can be singled out from the past year. Among the governors, there are [Orel Region governor Yegor] Stroyev and [Tula Region governor Vasiliy] Starodubtsev. Orel Region harvested 2 tonnes of grain per capita - a result that any European country could be proud of. And Starodubtsev raised the most difficult central Russian Region from the depths of ruin. Among scientists, my nomination for person of the year would be Sergey Glazyev, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. With his scientific school, he has prepared a real programme for the socioeconomic regeneration of the country. You will see: This programme will be implemented; when all the current mafia surrounding the regime gives way definitively, our programme will be implemented. This is the only way to save the country. Among writers, Aleksandr Prokhanov should be named person of the year. His new novel "Mr Geksagen" reveals the essence and subtext of what is currently taking place in the country. Among newspaper journalists and publishers, the person of the year is undoubtedly Sovetskaya Rossiya editor-in-chief Valentin Chikin. Valentin Vasilyevich [Chikin] has made his publication a genuinely people's newspaper. No mass medium prints so many readers' letters or so much wise analysis. In terms of the level of its international journalism, the newspaper is currently unequalled. In the international arena the person of the year is undoubtedly Slobodan Milosevic, who has not cracked or caved in, remaining true to his ideals. As for negative figures, [US President George] Bush and Bin Ladin could be said to symbolize the year. They are both destroyers. ******* #12 gazeta.ru January 3, 2002 New Year Brings No Reconciliation to TV-6 Shareholders The New Year Holidays were marked by a new series of mutual attacks between the management of the TV6 television company and the minority shareholder Lukoil-Garant. Lukoil-Garant, owned by Russia’s oil major Lukoil is believed to be acting by orders of the authorities and the TV-6 is now sheltering the team of journalists forced to leave what was once the only independent national broadcasting network – the NTV. On Thursday, January 3, the Moscow Arbitration Court plans to examine a claim filed by Lukoil-Garant to discharge Yevgeniy Kiselev from the post of the general director of TV6. Yevgeniy Kiselev’s team came to the TV-6 channel in spring 2001 at the invitation of Boris Berezovsky, who is said to control 75% stake in the TV-6, whereas Moscow government holds 10% and Lukoil-Garant, Russian oil major’s private pension fund owns 15%. Berezovsky has gained controversial reputation: this one-time Kremlin insider is believed to mastermind the creation of Russia’s leading Unity party and victorious election campaign for President Putin. However, currently Berezovsky is out of grace and wanted by Russian prosecutors on fraud and money-laundering charges. Staying abroad, the tycoon has launched a large-scale media and political campaign criticizing the authorities and first of all President Putin and seeking to regain influence and, probably take revenge for what had happened. The TV-6 channel with Kiselev’s team of most professional journalists in Russia is sure Berezovsky’s main weapon in this struggle. The weapon, which he may lose now because of the Lukoil-Garant’s relentless attacks. Lukoil-Garant has asked the court to invalidate the decision of the extraordinary meeting of MNVK (Moscow Independent Broadcasting Corporation – the company that broadcasts on the channel) shareholders held on May 14, 2001. At that meeting Yevgeniy Kiselev was elected director general after his dismissal from the similar position by new owners of NTV. Lukoil claims Yevgeniy Kiselev was elected in violation of the company’s charter and Russian legislation on joint stock companies. The suit was filed by Lukoil-Garant in June 2001. However, proceedings were put on hold pending the ruling on the related case. As a reminder, at the same time Lukoil demanded closure of the company due to poor financial performance. And on the first working day of January the Arbitration Court of Moscow resumed proceedings. That happened almost immediately, after on Saturday, December 29 the Federal Arbitration Court of Russia reviewed and upheld TV6’s protest against the ruling by the Moscow Arbitration Court ordering liquidation of the company. Thus, the Federal Arbitration Court satisfied the claim and annulled the rulings passed earlier by the courts of the 1st and 2nd instances and sent the case back to the Moscow Arbitration Court for further consideration. As a reminder, the Arbitration Court of Moscow on September 27 satisfied Lukoil-Garant’s suit and ordered the liquidation of the company. On November 26 the appellate instance of the Moscow Arbitration Court left the ruling in force, whereupon TV6 lawyers took the matter to the Federal Arbitration Court. Throughout the months of litigation the parties in a conflict incessantly attacked each other in press. TV6 team, and, of course the major owner of the channel insisted that Lukoil’s moves to close the company were a part of the Kremlin-orchestrated attack on the freedom of press. Lukoil said it considered the dispute to be purely of economic nature, claiming there was no politics behind it. On Saturday, after the Federal Arbitration Court passed its ruling, Yevgeniy Kiselev said in an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio station that he was very satisfied. He also expressed confidence that there was no need for the company to worry about the outcome of further rulings. A day later, speaking in his Itogi programme on TV6 Kiselev praised the judges of the Federal Arbitration Court for not succumbing to the pressure from the authorities. “And I know that the pressure was very strong,” Kiselev said. On his part, commenting on Saturday ruling Boris Berezovsky told Ekho Moskvy that in his opinion for the fist time in the past two years the authorities have faltered and will now have to take the public opinion into account. ******** #13 BBC 3 January 2002 The new battle for 'Stalingrad' By the BBC's Ray Furlong in Volgograd A campaign is under way to change the name of the Russian city, Volgograd, back to its earlier name of Stalingrad. The city, renowned as the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War, was renamed Volgograd in 1961, after the former Soviet dictator, Josef Stalin, was disowned by his successor, Nikita Khrushchev. The campaign is being led by a group of veterans, with the support of the communist regional governor, who plan to exploit a Yeltsin-era law often used to reinstate Tsarist-era names. I had hardly managed to introduce myself to 78-year-old Suren Mirzayan, before he began breathlessly explaining his mission. "The battle of Stalingrad liberated the world from fascism!" he said, waving his arms with passionate energy. As he spoke, a row of medals jingled on his chest and his left eye glistened with emotion. His right eye did not move - it was hit by a bullet in the war and still bears the disfigurement left by crude battlefield surgery. Million dead Over a million soldiers were killed in bitter hand-to-hand fighting at Stalingrad. Others perished of cold, hunger and disease. The conditions were so bad that the Germans called it "Rattenkrieg" - rat warfare. So it is not surprising the battle still engenders strong feelings in the survivors. "The name Stalingrad is the eternal pride and glory of our people!" Suren said, as he showed me the names of his fallen comrades on a monument in the centre of town. "The Volga is just a river." But it is not just a river. The name Volgograd, means "the town on the Volga" - and it is a fitting name. The city is a slither, just five kilometres wide but running 80km north and south along the banks of the Volga. It is an impressive, broad river - when I was there, birds sat on great chunks of ice floating on the water as they hunted fish. The city has a large port, and the Volga is a major trade route. There are also prosperous oil and petrochemical industries. So it really is a lot more than just a place where there was once a battle. Nevertheless, the memory of that battle still looms large over it. On the summit of the Mamaev Kurgan, a hill in the centre of town, the world's largest free-standing statue - a female figure brandishes a giant sword. Below, in a great swirling oval hall, a huge marble hand clenches an eternal flame. Stalinist past But there are also signs which tell of a different history. Take the Volga-Don canal, for instance - an impressive feat of engineering which connects the two mighty rivers and provides an important transport link for the region's economy. It was built with the slave labour of German prisoners of war - but also by Russian political prisoners. As such, it is as much a monument to Stalinism as any of the heroic statues that honour the true courage of Soviet soldiers. I met with one of the victims of Stalinist repression, Vadim Edelman. His Jewish name was perhaps the reason his father was shot by the secret police and his mother sent to a gulag. He was brought up by his grandmother - and branded by the authorities "a child of the enemy of the people". Not surprisingly, Vadim is strongly opposed to giving Volgograd back its wartime name. He said that even if all the monuments to Stalin were destroyed, the former leader would still cast a grim shadow over Russia. To restore the name Stalingrad, the campaigners would need to win a city-wide referendum - and there are signs that many ordinary Volgograders, especially the younger generation, are opposed to the idea. In this new battle for Stalingrad, Suren Mirzayan will need all of his vigour to win over the doubters. ****** #14 www.theglobalist.com January 4, 2002 Mr. Putin: Super-Democrat by theGlobalist Part 1 of 2 The presidents of Russia and the United States both currently enjoy approval ratings in excess of 80% among their voters. This is impressive since their countries are facing difficult economic and political challenges. Amazingly, the leader who has opted for greater direct exposure to his electorate is Russia's Vladimir Putin. And his U.S. counterpart, George W. Bush, is the one who operates in in the mold of the old Soviet leaders. A country in crisis For an unprecedented two-and-a-half hours, the ex-KGB man, whose instincts one would expect to be far less people-minded, fielded dozens of timely, tough questions. They were presented to him by e-mail, over the telephone, or asked directly on live TV by the inhabitants of 10 different Russian cities. Broadcast live by two Russian television networks, it was an astounding technological feat. The phone network for the call-in show spanned 11 time zones — almost half the globe — and handled hundreds of thousands of calls at a rate of 40 per second. But it was the questions themselves that made the event most newsworthy. Mr. Putin was bombarded with a variety of complaints having to do with plunging standards of living, crime and corruption, collapsing social infrastructure and lack of basic services, such as heat and education. Russia is undoubtedly a country in an economic crisis. The average salary is only a little over $100 per month, and pensions for retirees are considerably smaller. Moreover, government wages and pensions are paid irregularly — and often only after a long delay. The sprawling state bureaucracy is hopelessly corrupt and organized crime permeates many aspects of everyday life, especially business. Hence, the grilling administered to Mr. Putin before an audience of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Russians who wanted to know whether he is aware of the true economic situation in the country — and what he intends to do about it. Not just the economy any longer Of course, the United States is considerably more prosperous than Russia. And Americans are definitely not facing the kind of social breakdown that Russians have been experiencing for the past 15 years. Nonetheless, Americans are also starting to worry about their own financial future. The stock market collapse and the bursting of the technology bubble hit their retirement savings hard — at a time when the survival of the state-run social security system is by no means assured. The U.S. economy, which hummed for 10 years, has gone into reverse. Hundreds of thousands of American workers are facing layoffs and a period of protracted unemployment. The war on terrorism has gone well in Afghanistan, but the defeat of the Taliban regime has not appreciably bolstered the sense of homeland security in the United States itself. Now imagine President Bush adressing the kind of tough questions from randomly picked Americans on live national TV — as faced by President Putin. They would ask questions such as: Why is your administration advocating another tax cut for the rich, while so many ordinary citizens and their children do not have even basic health insurance? Or: Why did you not manage to provide extended unemployment benefits for out-of-work Americans? Or: How can we protect ourselves effectively against terrorism without a national ID card system? Shrinking Bush Hard to imagine, isn't it? Mr. Bush, in fact, has never done anything of the kind. Although he does weekly radio broadcasts on Saturdays, in the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "fireside chats," there is nothing chatty about Mr. Bush's performance. In fact, Mr. Bush has not taken questions from the nation at large since being elected President more than a year ago. Even the U.S. President's appearances in Congress tend to be painfully stage-managed events. Mr. Bush has mastered the art of delivering prepared remarks, but he continues to shun extemporaneous speeches of any kind. Press conferences at home and abroad mostly feature previously vetted questions from a rather tame press. And the President gets extremely annoyed whenever a reporter dares to deviate from the pre-approved script. Of course, for all its spontaneity, the Russian call-in show was also carefully stage-managed. It was a deliberate maneuver to promote Mr. Putin as an accessible, democratic politician. Bush = Brezhnev? Still, the questions were genuine — and the Russian president was often put on the spot. He managed to strut his stuff, responded impressively about all issues, took notes and wrote down names — and promised prompt follow-up. All of this was to prove that he is a true leader, even under direct pressure from his voters. Mr. Bush, by contrast, has chosen to present a more remote image, one that is unfortunately reminiscent of the Brezhnev era in the Soviet Union. Those old enough may remember Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev, who was active in Russian politics dating back to the 1950s and served as the Soviet Union's president from 1977 until his death in 1982. It was Mr. Brezhnev who set his country on the course of cooperation and détente with the West. In addition to this legacy, however, Brezhnev is unfortunately remembered for his long speeches, all of them read in a stumbling, semi-literate and monotone voice from typewritten sheets. A tailored image Obviously, it would be a mistake to overstate the resemblance between the public persona's of Mr. Bush and Mr. Brezhnev. All the same, by not speaking to his nation openly President Bush risks squandering his great popularity — a fate suffered by his father in the aftermath of the Gulf War. *******