Johnson's Russia List
#6082
17 February 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org
[Note from David Johnson:
1. AP: From Russia with a kiss.
2. Washington Post: Timothy McDaniel. To Each According to His Greed.
(review of 'The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia' by David
Hoffman)
3. Washington Post: Richard Pearson, John Erickson Dies; Writer, Military
Historian.
4. RosBusinessConsulting: Russians doubt media objectivity.
5. Itar-Tass: Russian poverty rate falls.
6. Reuters: Rampages ignite Russian debate on army reform.
7. Toronto Star: Tim Harper, Russians call us sore losers.
8. The Independent (UK): Heather Tomlinson, Rock in a hard place: Rank
joins
Russia bun fight.
9. Moscow Tribune: Stanislav Menshikov, BIG BUSINESS WANTS REFORM But
starts
at the wrong end.
10. Interfax: Gorbachev reminds US of Russian support following 11
September
attacks.
11. CNN: Ryan Chilcote, Russian young try to dodge army.
12. The Times (UK): Revealed: Al-Qaeda’s arms dealer.
13. Boston Globe: Ellen Steinbaum, Newcomers among us, with many things
to say.
14. Los Angeles Time: John Daniszewski, Ice Sculpting Comes In From the
Cold
in Russia.
15. RFE/RL: Francesca Mereu, Russia: Local Afghans Don't Feel Part Of
Homeland's Peace Process.
16. Matt Bivens: Re: 6078/Aslund.
17. Don Jacobsen: Aslund's critique of Reddaway.]
*******
#1
From Russia with a kiss
February 16, 2002
MOSCOW (AP) — Clutching balloons and each other, thousands of couples lined
up on a Moscow bridge Saturday, faced one another and, then, puckered up —
setting what they hope is a new world record.
Some 2,226 people — mostly young Russians — gathered on Moscow's Kievsky
pedestrian bridge for a simultaneous kiss.
Alexei Svistunov, president of the PARI information agency which organized
the event, said he thinks the kiss-off should earn a place in the record
books. According to Svistunov, the previous record — 1,400 people kissing
simultaneously — dates from 1996 and is held by the United States.
The event was held as part of the continuing St. Valentine's Day
celebrations in the Russian capital
*******
#2
Washington Post
February 17, 2002
Book World
Russia
To Each According to His Greed
'The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia' by David Hoffman
Reviewed by Timothy McDaniel
Timothy McDaniel is a professor of sociology at the University of
California at San Diego and the author of "The Agony of the Russian Idea."
THE OLIGARCHS
Wealth and Power in the New Russia
By David Hoffman
Public Affairs. 512 pp. $30
Konstantin Pobedonostsev, a reactionary Russian state official under
Nicholas II, had an unusually dim view of human nature. Men in general were
weak and vain -- unthinking reeds. Russians were even worse than the common
lot, characterized, in his unflinching terms, by "decomposition and
weakness and untruth." Russia was "an icy desert and an abode of the Bad Men."
In his devastating portrait of the so-called Russian oligarchy, that small
group of evildoers who came to power in the time of economic and political
chaos after the collapse of the Soviet Union, David Hoffman eschews such
philosophical conclusions. One is only led to speculate on what his years
in Russia did to his perspectives on human nature. Czeslaw Milosz wrote in
his memoirs that there is a significant divide in human experience between
those who know Russia firsthand and those who do not. Certainly it has been
one of the curses of that great and sad country to provide cautionary
lessons in abundance to the rest of the world. And without exactly telling
us what these lessons are, Hoffman's exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting)
account provides us with more than its share of instruction.
We see, for example, how fragile human societies are, despite superficial
appearances of permanence. They can change form or even disappear quite
independently of the participants' awareness and intentions. When, after
all, did people know that the Roman Empire had fallen? In one sense, the
end of the Soviet Union can be dated precisely, with the resignation of
Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1991. But even before that landmark event,
many people were able to act and think in new ways that undermined the
system without their knowing it.
Through the device of collective biography, tracing the lives of six people
who shaped the new Russia from the last years of communism through the rise
of Putin, Hoffman brilliantly shows how seemingly halting and insignificant
acts finally culminated in changes in a whole society: Minor party boss
Yuri Luzhkov, later to be potentate of post-communist Moscow, tells workers
in vegetable storage warehouses that they can sell half of what they save
from spoilage for their own private profit; obscure young students of
economics like Anatoly Chubais and Yegor Gaidar read Hayek and come to
worship the price mechanism; street-smart kids like Vladimir Gusinsky,
later to be a major banking and media mogul, learn how to produce and sell
on the black market, using connections in the Communist Party who were
willing to betray official proscriptions.
In normal times, such small steps could have been absorbed. But with the
uncertainties of the transitional period, new patterns of action gave rise
to unexpected consequences that reinforced the search for new horizons. In
Hoffman's often understated chronicle, we follow the careers of four
oligarchs -- Alexander Smolensky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky
and Vladimir Gusinsky -- who constantly tested the limits of what was
possible, and to their surprise almost always received a green light.
As they were emboldened, their arrogance, greed and ambition became
limitless, and the violent, unsavory tactics they employed would have made
John D. Rockefeller cringe. In the context of a collapsing economy and
desperate need, all too visible in the streets of Moscow, where pensioners
were selling their household possessions in order to survive, Khodorkovsky
and a colleague announced a credo shared by all of the oligarchs:
"ourselves for ourselves." The representatives of the faltering Russian
state, themselves no strangers to ruthlessness, had their own motives for
encouraging the oligarchs' rapacious manuevers, whether personal greed or
the desire to destroy the remnants of communism (always a useful phantom)
no matter what the cost.
In this "embrace of wealth and power," as Hoffman calls it, one outrage
followed another. For example, in the notorious "loans for shares" scheme,
the Russian government received cash loans from the oligarchs in exchange
for shares in resource-rich state enterprises -- both sides fully aware
that when the loans were not repaid these "crown jewels" of the Russian
economy would fall into the oligarchs' hands for what was in effect a
pittance. There are no heroes in this tale.
Yegor Gaidar, for some inexplicable reason named by Hoffman as "the best
and brightest" of his generation, was, as theorist and early initiator of
the economic reforms, politically inept and morally obtuse. Observing, for
example, the masses of people selling their often pathetic possessions on
the winter streets of Moscow -- he himself called them "desperate sellers"
-- he exulted in this proof that people, even Russians, will respond to
incentives. Disdaining politics, he and his team worked in secrecy,
unwilling either to receive or transmit information from the public at
large. It was all a matter of technical economics.
Chubais, the handmaiden of the "reforms," comes off even worse in this
account. Unwittingly taking his cue from revolutionary Bolshevism, he had a
slash-and-burn vision of social change: Destroy first, and then create.
Under the leadership of these men, Russia entered the world of modern
capitalism, producing almost nothing but raw materials and relying on
private, governmental and foreign speculation. Hoffman repeatedly draws the
lesson, obvious now (and obvious then to all but the legion of ideological
Western economists who flocked to Russia to give their toxic free-market
advice): Economies and the societies in which they are embedded need rules
and laws, which in turn require state authority.
Which brings us to perhaps the grimmest figure of all in this cavalcade of
scoundrels: Boris Yeltsin himself. Hoffman gives us no sustained portrait
of this figurehead president, but the elements are all there. Vain, jealous
and paranoid, concerned above all else with his own personal power and
survival, he knew nothing of democracy except the word. Shaped by his
communist experience, Yeltsin rose from the world of palace intrigues,
manipulation and revenge, and so proved impatient (to put things mildly)
with social movements, political parties or open communication with an
organized public. Even though the emergence of this parasitic economic
oligarchy contradicted all the hopes of the democratic movement that
brought Yeltsin to power, he was ready to sacrifice everything for the sake
of his own narrow electoral prospects. Under his leadership, Russia indeed
turned into something like an "icy desert."
Hoffman's grueling chronicle ends with the elevation of Vladimir Putin,
whose commitment to democracy is uncertain at best. The lesson here is the
same as that taught by the tragic history of Soviet communism: Means and
ends are interconnected. To separate them is to create contrary forces that
threaten the ends themselves. Is it too much to hope that Vladimir Putin
will have more wisdom than the impetuous men who preceded him?
*******
#3
Washington Post
February 17, 2002
John Erickson Dies; Writer, Military Historian
By Richard Pearson
Washington Post Staff Writer
John Erickson, 72, a gifted writer and brilliant British historian of
foreign and military affairs who won the admiration of academics and
political and military figures on both sides of the former Iron Curtain,
died Feb. 10 at a hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland. The cause of death was
not reported.
He may be best remembered for his two-volume history of the epic World War
II struggle between the Soviet Union and the Axis forces. The first volume,
"The Road to Stalingrad," was published in 1975, and it was followed by
"The Road to Berlin" in 1982.
Mr. Erickson, a University of Edinburgh professor, had his work published
to all but universal acclaim. Reid Beddow, writing in The Washington Post's
Book World, hailed Mr. Erickson as having "written the outstanding history
of the Soviet-German war in English, or, for that matter, any language."
The legendary and often cranky British historian AJP Taylor said that Mr.
Erickson's "two volumes are in a class by themselves, books of the first
importance."
Another measure of their popularity was that after the first volume was
translated into Russian, Mr. Erickson found himself autographing it for
Soviet diplomats and generals.
The books were hailed not only for their vivid, un-professor-like prose,
but for the obvious research that went into them. Mr. Erickson had managed
not only to delve into the wealth of captured German war documents (and the
Soviet documents the Germans had captured during the war), but also gained
unprecedented access to Soviet sources.
Mr. Erickson, over the years, had been given access to Soviet documentary
resources never before given to a Westerner, and had struck up friendships
with Soviet generals and some of the legendary Red Army marshals of the
"Great Patriotic War."
This may have come about in a story told in the London Telegraph's obituary
of Mr. Erickson. The historian had traveled to the Soviet Union as a
researcher for Cornelius Ryan, the American who had written the immensely
popular D-Day history "The Longest Day." Ryan was working on another World
War II book, "The Last Battle," and the Soviets had decided to help the
popular historian.
However, in interviews with marshals Zhukov and Koniev, it became obvious
that it was Mr. Erickson who was asking all the right questions, not Ryan.
The two Western historians and the soldiers hit it off, with interviews
scheduled for a couple of hours stretching to days as the war horses
relived their days of glory.
Then Mr. Erickson began pressing the old soldiers for sensitive material
about Red Army mistreatment of German civilians, material the Soviets did
not wish to reveal, feeling that it was for Western propaganda.
At this point, Mr. Erickson firmly told them that he was a historian, and
just what that calling entailed. Mr. Erickson later recalled, "I went white
with anger and told them that my wife [from Yugoslavia] had been liberated
by the Russians and that I was a historian who would not dream of being
prejudiced."
The Soviets obviously checked this out, discovering its truth. They also,
no doubt, had come across Mr. Erickson's early writings, such as his first
book, "The Soviet High Command," and were impressed. What grew from this
was permission to research in Soviet military archives and friendship with
Soviet military officers.
Mr. Erickson, who also interviewed many of the leading German soldiers of
World War II, became uniquely qualified to write about the Eastern Front.
The Soviets, who long felt that the West had downgraded their efforts, saw
Mr. Erickson hail their efforts as the decisive actions of the war.
The Germans, at Stalingrad, met massive and total defeat in battle for the
first time in the war, with an entire German army and a field marshal dying
or marching into captivity. In a war in which the United States, for
example, fielded fewer than a hundred Army and Marine divisions, the Red
Army smashed more than 600 Axis divisions, inflicting more than 10 million
casualties on the enemy. The Soviet casualty list is estimated at more than
20 million.
Mr. Erickson, in relating what the Soviets thought told their story for the
first time, said that the Soviets tried to recruit him as an intelligence
agent and that it is believed he was investigated by Western intelligence
organizations. But he was not an agent; he was a historian.
Mr. Erickson became an open consultant to NATO, the British Defense
Ministry and the United Nations and was considered by many to be the
leading authority on Soviet military history who also knew about the
current Soviet forces and its leaders. He also was an authority on nuclear
warfare defense grand strategy who worked to lessen international tensions.
He used his standings with both camps to start in the 1980s what became
known as the "Edinburgh Conversations," a kind of diplomatic back-channel
between the Soviets and the West. He managed to informally bring the
contending parties together, with Soviet Army generals and an editor of
Pravda among those who showed up to meet informally with the British
professor and Allied authorities on issues ranging from arms control to the
environment.
Tam Dalyell, a Labor member of the House of Commons, said after learning of
Mr. Erickson's death that the Edinburgh Conversations "singlehandedly kept
open contact with the Soviet high command and the Soviet military when
times were at their most edgy."
Mr. Erickson studied history at Cambridge and Oxford universities and was a
veteran of British Army intelligence. He taught at Oxford, St. Andrews and
Manchester universities in Britain before joining the University of
Edinburgh in 1967. He had taught politics, history and defense studies.
From 1988 to 1996, he was director of the university's Center for Defense
Studies.
His wrote and edited a number of widely admired books, including "Soviet
Military Power," published in 1971. His last book, written with his wife,
"The Eastern Front in Photographs 1941-1945," was published last year.
Mr. Erickson, who spoke Russian, German, Polish, Czech and Serbo-Croat, was
a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy.
Survivors include his wife, the former Ljubica Petrovic, whom he married in
1957, and two children.
*******
#4
Russians doubt media objectivity
MOSCOW - A survey conducted by the foundation Public Opinion on February
10, 2002 showed that fifty six per cent of the Russian people consider that
television reports do not cover events in the world fully enough. 1,500
respondents from urban and rural areas took part in the poll. Thirty two
respondents said TV reports provided enough information on what was going
on in the world, and twelve per cent were undecided.
According to the survey, sixty nine per cent of the Russian people watch
TV, listen to the radio and read newspapers regularly. Sixteen per cent do
it three or four times a week, eight per cent - once a week, and four per
cent - more rarely. Only three per cent of respondents said they were not
interested in news reports, and one per cent were undecided.
Eighty two per cent said they were interested in information and news
programs, while thirteen per cent said they were not interested in such
programs, and five per cent were undecided. Only forty three per cent trust
the objectivity of TV reports, while thirty nine per cent said the
information often lacked objectivity. Seventeen per cent were undecided.
/RosBusinessConsulting/
*******
#5
Russian poverty rate falls
ITAR-TASS
Moscow, 15 February: The rate of Russian citizens whose per capita income
is smaller than the subsistence minimum declined from 39.4m in the third
quarter of 2001 to 34.8m in the fourth quarter of 2001. Their proportion in
the total population of Russia declined from 27.2 to 24 per cent, says a
report of the State Statistics Committee obtained by Prime-TASS on Friday
[15 February].
The average subsistence minimum in Russia was set at R1,574 per capita in
the fourth quarter of 2001. The subsistence minimum is the minimum set of
foods, non-foods and services, as well as obligatory payments.
*******
#6
ANALYSIS-Rampages ignite Russian debate on army reform
By Jon Boyle
MOSCOW, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Murderous rampages by absconding soldiers have
aroused growing concern about the parlous state of Russia's military,
igniting debate about conscription and a bold liberal blueprint to overhaul
the country's armed forces.
In recent weeks Russia has witnessed a depressing series of incidents
involving heavily-armed deserters leaving in their destructive wake a trail
of bodies of innocent bystanders.
The most deadly episode involved two paratroopers, traditionally among
Russia's best-trained troops, who this month shot dead nine people after
deserting their Volga region base.
"There is rising concern about the level of crime within the armed forces,"
Vadim Solovyov, managing editor of the weekly Nezavisimaya Gazeta Military
Review, told Reuters.
"There are some interesting figures which show that about a quarter of all
cases before the military prosecutor are linked to violence inside the
barracks."
Russia's armed forces have inherited from the Soviet Red Army an unenviable
reputation for violent hazing of recruits. The Committee of Soldier's
Mothers of Russia estimates 3,500 conscripts die each year from beatings,
malnutrition and disease.
Defence analysts say violence is bound to occur in a system that recruits
men with criminal records, acute psychological problems and the
educationally sub-normal.
"I think we are at a crucial moment because we can see how the old
(Soviet-era) system is collapsing," said Alexander Golts, a Moscow-based
independent defence analyst.
ALTERNATIVE SERVICE
Reliable statistics are hard to come by, but the increase in reported
incidents appears to indicate a groundswell of public concern which has
been mirrored by the debate over conscription.
Late last week the government published its much-awaited "alternative
service" bill, which some say could help stem rampant draft-dodging.
Students and those with health problems can avoid the draft, while others
pay bribes of $2,500 to $10,000 for exemptions, says the Committee of
Soldier's Mothers. "Only those who cannot pay or who are not smart enough
end up serving," says Golts.
Boris Nemtsov, leader of the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS), says that in
the wealthy Moscow area only 7,000 of the 150,000 men of draft age (18-27)
were called up last time.
The government draft allows conscientious objectors and ethnic minorities
living traditional societies, to complete national service in hospitals,
the fire service and other state bodies instead of the armed forces.
They may remain in their home districts and engage in studies, a clear snub
to the General Staff. But the cabinet did back the generals' demand that
alternative service be twice as long as the two-year military draft. Some
fear that will make alternative service a dead letter.
Underlying the alternative service debate is a deeper struggle to force a
reluctant military to speed up the sluggish reform process. Solovyov says
the military oppose personnel cuts which could see the servicemen who
remain secure better pay, because they still want Russia to act as a world,
not a regional, power.
BOLD BLUEPRINT
Vitaly Tsymbal and his research team at the Institute of the Economy in
Transition, a liberal think-tank, have drawn up a bold military reform plan
for the SPS which, he says, has broad support in military and government
circles.
With detailed costings, it provides for a five-year transition to a
volunteer regular army of 400,000, with a 160,000-strong reserve of
conscripts serving just six months.
That, he says, would help stamp out hazing.
Paring down Russia's 1.2 million military would finance an increase in a
soldier's basic pay to 3,500 roubles ($100), well above the current levels.
"Our current military budget would increase by two percent. So we are not
talking about astronomical sums of money."
But the reforms would decimate senior ranks, including the army's estimated
2,000 generals. Golts says Russia has as many colonels as lieutenants,
"which is why these people are fighting for the status quo."
President Vladimir Putin's view remains unclear, though his inclusion of
senior SPS figures at a cabinet meeting on reform last autumn signalled he
is unhappy with the pace of change.
Despite a threefold rise in the defence budget since 1999 to $9.6 billion,
the military remain as cash-strapped as ever.
Analysts note the cabinet is unlikely to have rejected the General Staff's
hardline alternative service plans without a green light from the Kremlin.
The battle over the 2003 starting date for the SPS plan could come to a
head at a March 15 cabinet meeting. The military want change put off until
2010, preceded by pilot schemes.
Tsymbal says Nemtsov will seek to persuade Putin at a meeting on Monday to
make a firm commitment to the 2003 start date in his state of the nation
address, due next month.
"If the president says that the reforms will start at the beginning of
2003, then that will be a victory for us."
*******
#7
Toronto Star
February 17, 2002
Russians call us sore losers
Tim Harper
Ottawa Bureau Chief
ZVEZDNY GORODOK, Russia — While figure skating justice was being hailed at
home, Russians — from senior politicians to citizens strolling in Red
Square — were voicing outrage over an Olympic compromise they viewed as
Olympic robbery.
Canadians were being accused here yesterday of being sore losers, unable to
accept defeat with grace.
There was also an unmistakeable sense here that the International Olympic
Committee decision to award a second gold medal to Canadians David
Pelletier and Jamie Sale tarnishes Russian superiority in the pairs skating
event and is a product of anti-Russian sentiment in Canada, the United
States and in the North American media.
The bitterness erupted during Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's Team Canada
trade mission and, try as he might to quell the controversy, he was
relentlessly pursued by international and Russian television crews seeking
official Canadian perspective on the scandal.
Yesterday, the official news agency, Izvestia, said the IOC had no right to
make such an arbitrary decision and "diminish the excellent victory of our
compatriots."
"No foreign athlete has ever achieved or will ever achieve what our
sportsmen did," it said on its Web site, referring to the performance of
Russian skaters Anton Sikharulidze and Elena Berezhnaya.
Following a tour of the Russian space complex at Zvezdny Gorodok, a Russian
television reporter challenged Chrétien.
"There is an opinion in Russia that it was a political decision to give
Canadian figure skaters a gold medal," Yevgeny Ksenzenko of Russia's NTV said.
"I watched it and I thought the Canadians had won," Chrétien retorted.
"It's not the first time that there was a revision of a decision at the
Olympics," the Prime Minister continued, "and it's a good finish with
Russia getting a gold medal and Canada getting a gold medal, while Canada
was in Moscow.
"Great."
One regional daily newspaper said Russians won on the ice and Canadians won
in the bureaucratic corridors.
The president of the Russian Skating Federation, Valentin Piseyev,
concluded that Canadians are sore losers.
"We have not lost at the Olympic Games in pairs skating since 1964," he
said. "This irritates many people.
"You have to be able to honourably accept defeat," Piseyev added. "And if
you haven't learned it yet, then learn it."
******
#8
The Independent (UK)
17 February 2002
Rock in a hard place: Rank joins Russia bun fight
By Heather Tomlinson
As investing in Russia is back in vogue, leisure company The Rank Group is
taking the plunge with the opening of Hard Rock Cafes in Moscow, St
Petersburg and Riga in Latvia. Last week Scottish & Newcastle also looked
eastwards and bought Finnish brewer Hartwall, which owns 50 per cent of
Russia's leading beer maker, BBH.
Rank Group has entered into three revenue-sharing franchise agreements with
Doug Steele, a Canadian entrepreneur who owns several bars and clubs in
Russia. In Moscow, a three-storey bar and restaurant is being built and
will be one of the largest Hard Rock Cafes in Europe when it opens later
this year. Mr Steele has also signed a franchise agreement for St
Petersburg and Riga in Latvia.
After Boris Yeltsin's tumultuous, alcohol-fuelled presidency in the 1990s,
and the Russian financial crisis in 1998, investors had been wary. But a
period of unusual political stability under President Vladimir Putin and a
crackdown on corruption has prompted growth in gross domestic product of 15
per cent during 2000 and 2001, and foreign investors are again entering the
region.
Last week the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
described the Russian economy and government as "successful". But the OECD
did sound a warning note: "While Russian entrepreneurs struggle with many
of the same problems as small businesses in other countries, one striking
characteristic of Russian small business surveys is the number of
complaints of harassment or extortion by various state organs."
*******
#9
Moscow Tribune
February 15, 2002
BIG BUSINESS WANTS REFORM But starts at the wrong end
By Stanislav Menshikov
The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP is the Russian
abbreviation) represents Big Business. It includes some oligarchs, leaders
of large companies and big banks. When President Putin wants to consult
business leaders, he invites a RSPP delegation to the Kremlin. Their last
two meetings ran smoothly. But recently the oligarchs have become restive.
One reason is concern about arrests of a few company executives accused of
asset stripping. Another is dissatisfaction with government economic policy.
According to the RSPP economic growth has stopped, industrial output is
declining. Even if the current stagnation ends soon, medium-term growth will
be too slow - an unacceptable 2 percent per annum. That is if economic
modernisation does not come fast. The present government is not up to that
task. The old Gref economic program does not seem to work. The country needs
a new program and the RSPP is willing to provide it.
While details are being drafted the principal directions of the new program
have been made known. These are transforming savings into capital investment
and the "elimination of the non-market sector subsidised by the natural
monopolies". In plain language that means raising prices of electricity, gas
and transportation in order to make those industries attractive for
investors. The person behind these proposals is Yevgeny Yassin, former
Economics Minister (under Yeltsin) and currently head of the High Economic
School in Moscow.
Yassin's main idea is to orient future growth more towards the domestic
market. The idea is not new. In the last three years most of Russia's
economic growth was based on internal demand, mainly personal consumption
and capital investment. Of late investment is stagnating. The government is
doing little to revive it. When it reduced the tax rate on profits last
year, it also eliminated the crucial provision for deducting investment from
taxable revenue.
That killed off the intended stimulus of lower taxes.
Inadequate investment is not caused by low company savings. National saving
runs at 32 percent of GDP while capital investment is only 17 percent. Most
of the difference leaves the country in capital flight. Failure to stop this
haemorrhage has been long a major point of criticism from various quarters,
but not so far from Big Business, which is the main culprit and insists on
freeing capital transfers abroad altogether.
Yassin suggests curing this malady by raising the capitalisation of Russian
banks and increasing their capacity to loan money to the real sector. He is
less certain about bringing life into domestic stock markets. But the
question is where will more capital for the banks come from? Today Russian
companies prefer keeping their savings in offshore banks. Unless they change
this practice and bring more assets home, domestic banks will be kept on a
hunger diet. But even if the capitalisation issue is solved banks will never
become the main source of long-term investment. In major industrial
countries this is the job of insurance companies and pension funds, which in
Russia these are still in their infancy.
Yassin also wants to raise prices for electricity by 2-2.5 times, prices of
gas threefold, and to make people pay the full cost of housing services. He
also wants pensions and wages to rise accordingly so that they fully
compensate for skyrocketing costs of living. However, he does not say how
this can be done. In the long run, it may well happen as a result of steady
economic growth. Trying to do it in a series of big shocks will only cause
major social disruption. Even slow changes could be destructive by
undercutting competitive power of domestic industry. Increasing investment
attractiveness of today's natural monopolies by raising their prices may end
up in ruining a large part of the Russian manufacturing industry.
The problem with these new proposals is that they state real problems but
give no convincing answers as to how to resolve them. The suggested recipes
sound like another exercise in wishful thinking. If only Big Business
invested its savings at home, there would be no problem of capital flight.
If only the population was not so poor, one could bill it for electricity,
gas and housing at West European prices.
Circles are squared by taking on critical barriers first. Today the main
barrier to fast growth is widespread poverty and fiscal stinginess. It is
useless to talk about raising monopoly tariffs if half the population or
more cannot afford even the current lower ones. It is meaningless to boast
about low profit taxes on profits if companies are penalised for making
capital investments.
Vladimir Putin is right in raising pensions and salaries of low-income
workers. His bureaucracy is creating problems in finding budgetary sources
for those rises. Curbing bureaucratic stinginess is another critical
starting point. But the president is not consistent when he insists on
simultaneously raising prices for housing services. That is starting from
the wrong end. The right way is to start with improving those services so
that people understand what they are paying for. Otherwise, these and other
reforms will never succeed.
******
#10
Gorbachev reminds US of Russian support following 11 September attacks
Interfax
Moscow, 17 February: Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has urged
the US not to forget the support given to it after the terrorist attacks in
New York and Washington. "At that dramatic and difficult moment, [Russian]
President Vladimir Putin was one of the first leaders to have held out a
friendly hand to the partners. His example was followed by others,"
Gorbachev has told Interfax.
But following the successful operation against the Taleban regime in
Afghanistan, the US is becoming increasingly oblivious of the solidarity
that was demonstrated, he said. "It cannot get rid of its euphoria.
Whenever it gains a victory it falls into euphoria and starts forgetting
its friends. I think our American friends should think of their partners
not only when the weather is bad and stormy, but also when things
straighten out and when successes are achieved," Gorbachev said.
"But now that [US] President George Bush's visit to Russia is approaching,
our relations have again become more businesslike and matter-of-fact. This
has to do with relations in the security and business spheres, relations
between Russia and NATO, and many other things," said Gorbachev.
*******
#11
CNN
February 17, 2002
Russian young try to dodge army
By CNN's Ryan Chilcote
YAROSLAVL, Russia (CNN) --Russia's military is facing growing dissent among
its conscripts who would rather work at home than fight in battles they do
not comprehend
Better to do your time in jail, than in the Russian army, they say.
Now Russia is close to passing a law creating an alternative service for
Russian men who object to the country's mandatory draft.
The bill is currently in the parliament for consideration, but a few
regions have gone ahead and started hiring draft-age men for public service.
Would-be conscripts are choosing to sign up as prison guards, instead of
serving the mandatory two years in the armed forces.
The draft, the men say, is to be avoided at all costs.
One conscientious objector, called Andrei, said: "People are dying in
Chechnya and they don't even know what they're fighting for, or dying for.
"Here at least you know you're defending the people outside the jail."
Images from that war, and of violence within the army's own ranks, are the
main reasons young men do not want to be drafted.
Another Russian trying to avoid serving in the armed forces, called Sergei,
said: "The majority of the draftees don't want to serve in the army because
of the hazing, the awful attitude towards them... In general, there's chaos
in the army, and I don't think you can pick up anything particularly useful
there."
Until now the only alternative to the draft was to evade it, something that
four out of five young Russian men succeed in doing.
But Andrei and Sergei say the constitution gives them the right to a legal
alternative. The military disagrees, and has taken them to court.
The prison job carries little romanticism.
The young recruits frisk, search, and watch some of Russia's most hardened
criminals.
The music is cranked up to full blast to keep the inmates from talking to
one another, and the job pays just two dollars a day.
The new guards, their supervisor says, are still a little green, but it is
good to have fresh blood.
Even as parliament debates changing the conscript law the army is lobbying
for tough sentences for draft dodgers.
It wants the alternative to military service as unattractive as possible,
asking that objectors should face a four-year term --or twice the length of
the draft.
******
#12
The Times (UK)
February 17, 2002
Revealed: Al-Qaeda’s arms dealer
A FORMER Soviet air force officer has been named as the chief supplier of
arms and equipment to Osama Bin Laden’s network in Afghanistan. Victor
Bout, a mysterious Russian whose air freight firms are accused of flouting
United Nations sanctions across Africa and Asia, is alleged by intelligence
sources to have operated flights to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda until just
days before the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Last week an international arrest warrant was issued and will shortly be
circulated worldwide by Interpol.
Controlling one of the world’s largest fleets of former Soviet cargo
planes, Bout brought in arms and ammunition, as well as bulk supplies, and
helped Al-Qaeda militants to enter Afghanistan in breach of a UN arms
embargo.
The most damning evidence has been collected by Britain’s intelligence
service, MI6, which launched a campaign two years ago to monitor his
activities. British intelligence has been tracking Bout’s arms shipments
and monitoring his communications, as well as interfering with his attempts
to buy weapons in eastern Europe. The disruption included the seizure of a
helicopter gunship.
A Whitehall official said: “The evidence assembled is persuasive. He has a
go-anywhere, supply-anything outfit that fuels war and terrorism.”
Britain’s action has followed a campaign by Peter Hain, the Foreign Office
minister, who accuses Bout of illicitly supplying guns bought in eastern
Europe to rebel groups in conflict zones, such as Angola and Sierra Leone,
in return for contraband diamonds. Last week Hain refused to discuss
intelligence matters but confirmed Bout’s connection to Bin Laden.
“Bout is a merchant of death. He supplies rebel and terrorist forces with
arms in return for diamonds,” Hain said. “He was also supplying the Taliban
and Al-Qaeda. He must be put out of business.”
Hain said the firms involved in supplying Bin Laden were based in the
United Arab Emirates (UAE). The gun-running continued even after sanctions
were imposed on Afghanistan in January 2001.
Belgian state prosecutors are leading attempts to bring Bout to justice.
The arrest warrant accuses him of involvement in the use of counterfeit
currency and follows the arrest of key associates. One was found with a map
detailing military facilities in Afghanistan.
******
#13
Boston Globe
February 17, 2002
Newcomers among us, with many things to say
By Ellen Steinbaum, Globe Correspondent
Her friends tell her no one could be more Russian. Indeed, Katia Kapovich -
intense, chain-smoking, flame red hair against her black outfit - looks
precisely like the Russian poet she is. Yet it is Cambridge, where she has
lived for the past 10 years, that feels like home. And two summers ago,
when she traveled back to Russia to teach a two-month literary seminar, it
was Cambridge she was homesick for.
Across the river, Charlot Lucien, sipping Starbucks hot chocolate, trim in
his olive shirt and wire-rimmed glasses, looks comfortably part of his
surroundings. But Lucien, a writer who moved to Hyde Park from Haiti in
1990, lives balanced between his two worlds of here and there.
The classic Boston image is one of generations-old families, but the truth
is we are a gathering-place of newcomers. We arrive from other states or,
like Katia Kapovich and Charlot Lucien, from other countries, to take our
place alongside Cabots and Lodges. We embrace the city wholeheartedly or
feel the pull of places reluctantly left. But all of us, bit by bit,
re-shape the city as we make it our home. And it, in turn, alters us.
''I'm at home here more than anywhere else,'' says Kapovich. ''In Russia,
people touch you, they ask you for money, for cigarettes. It's a socialist
universe. You are part of others - a finger, a nail - and you have to
function in accordance with the other members of the body. When I came
here, it felt calm, like a little space shuttle, just floating, with no
obligation to go down to walk on two feet.''
Of her first American days, she wrote, ''I barely remember my own name.''
One memory, though: the sudden nostalgia she felt hearing a Russian melody
from a Harvard Square violinist.
While writers feel as much disorientation as anyone else when they move,
the sense of displacement can bring a new dimension to their work.
Kapovich said, ''My soul speaks in Russian, but I can write about some
things more easily in English. It gives me distance. It's important for a
writer to have distance. You can't write about something and be in it at
the same time. It's like being underwater. Reality has qualities of salt
water. It pinches our pupils and makes our eyes red. We need a mask in
order to see clearly.''
Lucien also strives to maintain a certain distance, even as he settles into
his adopted city.
''Now I'm at peace with the idea that I have a life here. But, as a writer,
I make a conscious choice not to fully embrace all the issues America has
to offer so my mind can remain free to work on issues pertinent to the
Haitian experience. That's my only chance to provide a more authentic
testimony of the Haitian experience to others.''
Lucien's short stories are written in Creole and speak of the tension
between Haitian life in America and in Haiti.
''I see our lives here as an extension of our reality there. I see myself
as part of, but distinct. For me it's a safety issue, because once I become
part of the Boston mindset, my independence as a writer is compromised.''
*******
#14
Los Angeles Time
February 17, 2002
Ice Sculpting Comes In From the Cold in Russia
Europe: The art is regaining popularity after having been neglected during
the Soviet years.
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI, TIMES STAFF WRITER
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- As winter's dim sun rose over this city's golden
towers and palaces, tens of thousands of people gathered on the banks of
the half-frozen Neva River, braving the chilly wind whipping in from the
Gulf of Finland.
Drawing the crowd was a collection of ice sculptures, blue and shimmering,
that slowly melted under the brunt of an unusual February thaw. Although
transitory, the show marked something more permanent: Russians' rediscovery
of the art of ice carving, which is gaining in popularity each winter.
There is something magical about sculpting in ice, like cutting
transparency and light itself, said Alexander Ignatyev, a carver from
Yakutia, a region of Siberia that has produced some of Russia's best
sculptors. Ice carving in Russia goes back at least 260 years, said Viktor
Chernyshev, president of the Russian Assn. of Ice, Snow and Sand Sculptors.
Around 1740, Empress Anna ordered an ice palace built along the Neva,
complete with a four-poster bed made of ice. (She had a sadistic streak
too: To humiliate a nobleman who displeased her, she ordered him to marry a
homely peasant and, after a procession led by farm animals, to consummate
the marriage in the ice palace.)
Trained as an engineer, Chernyshev took up ice sculpting 15 years ago.
"There is nothing more fascinating [than] an ice sculpture for me. An ice
sculpture has a very strong energy--it does not live long, and just like
all transitory things, it tries to share its energy with the world it lives
in," he said. "In that respect, ice is like fire: It is very short-lived,
and it is so beautiful, one can hardly take his eyes off it."
More than 50,000 people streamed down to the banks of the Neva this month
for the city's first International Ice Sculpting Festival. A total of 48
artists in 16 teams took part, creating confections ranging from a small
but elegant mermaid to a replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa 13 feet high.
Russia has about 1,000 ice sculptors, Chernyshev said, and a majority of
the nation's northern cities hold such exhibitions every year. But ice
sculpting has seen a relatively recent resurgence; for whatever reason, it
was not encouraged in Soviet times.
"The [Communist] Party had lots of other things in its hands and never
found the time to pay attention to ice and snow sculpture," Chernyshev
said. "No one must have thought of it before Boris Yeltsin."
Before Yeltsin became Russia's president in 1991, he was the Communist
Party leader in the Siberian city of Sverdlovsk, where he encountered ice
sculpting. In 1986, when he had become party boss in Moscow, he ordered
that snow sculptures be built for the New Year's holiday all around the
capital. But unlike sculptors in Sverdlovsk, now Yekaterinburg, which had a
hard freeze and generally clean snow, Muscovites used gray, dirty, damp
snow scraped off the streets. City workers would paint it white so that it
looked right.
"Kids who had the misfortune to slide down the ice hill made in the shape
of a dragon in Gorky Park would have to go to the director's office, where
a jar of acetone was kept to get the white paint off their clothes,"
Chernyshev recalled with a laugh. "But as all this was new to Moscow, no
one complained."
Chernyshev became fascinated with ice sculpting when he read an article
about it in a then hard-to-get magazine called Photos of Japan. There were
four subscriptions in Moscow, and he had one of them.
"I can still recall those photos--it was so picturesque," he said. "That
was it for me and ice sculpture, and there has been no stopping me since."
Only since Russians became more free to travel in the 1990s have
enthusiasts like Chernyshev been able to go abroad to learn the techniques
of ice sculpting and visit famous ice festivals in Sapporo, Japan, and
Fairbanks, Alaska.
He says each piece is unique, and he recalls with pleasure visiting an ice
festival in Zurich, Switzerland, for three years in a row and each time
seeing replications of the same work by Auguste Rodin. "The first time, I
was impressed. The second time, I was enraptured. And the third time, I was
moved. It was great," he said.
"Ice is like diamond--it sparkles and scintillates and appears different
depending on the angle of the light," he said. "The color spectrum of
ordinary ice is truly amazing, especially if it is illuminated in the dark."
There are vistas for Russia to conquer in ice, Chernyshev said.
"We Russians have always been explaining that Russia is a northern country
and that it's the source of many of our problems," he said. "But if Russia
is a cold and snowy country, with an abundance of ice, then we should put
it to good use. Let's try to lead. We have a great potential to make Russia
No. 1 in the world as far as ice sculpture goes."
As it happens, some of the best Russian carvers are from Yakutia, part of
the permafrost belt in Siberia, where many also specialize in making
figurines from the tusks of ancient mammoths that have been preserved in
the frozen tundra.
"In Yakutia, we say it is cold three months of the year and the rest of the
time very cold," a carver on the Yakutia team in St. Petersburg joked.
The team took five days to create a sphinx reached by an ice bridge. It
required about 400 blocks of ice, which had been cut from a lake. Each
block was about the size of a small desktop: 3 feet long, 1 1/2 feet wide
and 10 inches thick, weighing about 150 pounds. The team's tools included
electric grinders and saws, chisels with high-quality steel tips, scrapers
and a hair dryer.
The Yakutia carvers won third prize for their entry.
Carvers such as Ignatyev say sculpting in ice is extraordinarily difficult
because of its transparency--often a piece is shaped more by feel than by
sight. Only those who already have some skill in stone or wood sculpting
will be successful, they say.
"Ice is a medium one can cut and carve very quickly, but it does not
forgive mistake," said Alexander Zaborev of the Yakutia team. "One mistake,
and it is a spoiled work."
"The texture of ivory is smooth and hard, and it takes a long time to make
a figurine--maybe years," said team leader Piotr Markov, 54. "With ice it
is really miraculous. You have something in your head, and you can realize
it in an hour or in three or four days."
But the ice often melts just as quickly. The sculptors say they have
learned to take the disintegration of their masterpieces in stride.
"We don't really regret that the sculpture is gone, because we keep a photo
of it and the people go away with the awareness that it is never to happen
again in that same way," Zaborev said.
"They will hold them in their hearts and remember," Ignatyev said, "and
that makes us happy."
*******
#15
Russia: Local Afghans Don't Feel Part Of Homeland's Peace Process
By Francesca Mereu
There are more than 150,000 Afghans living in Russia. Most of them left their
homeland after Najibullah, the last communist leader of Afghanistan, was
overthrown by the mujahedin in 1992. The head of Moscow's Afghan diaspora
says his community comprises well-educated Afghans, including a number of
military specialists, who are all willing to take an active part in
rebuilding peace back home. But many Russian Afghans do not feel welcome to
return to Afghanistan, where they say the interim government looks at them as
still sympathizing with communist ideals. At the same time, Russia has little
to offer the Afghan exiles, many of whom live in the country with no rights
or privileges.
Moscow, 15 February 2002 (RFE/RL) -- In the decades of war that have ravaged
Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of Afghans have fled the country seeking a
more secure life. Today, after Palestinians, Afghans make up the largest
refugee group in the world.
Some 150,000 Afghans now live in Russia, a third of them in Moscow. Ghulam
Mohammed, the head of Moscow's Afghan diaspora, says many members of the
Afghan intelligentsia chose to move to Russia after Najibullah, Afghanistan's
last communist leader, was overthrown by the mujahedin in 1992. Many of them
had studied in the Soviet Union and were already fluent in Russia. Moreover,
Mohammed says, Russia was one of the few countries at the time maintaining
contacts with Afghanistan.
Mohammed, a former leader from Afghanistan's eastern Kunar Province, says the
Russia diaspora is home to some 100 former provincial leaders, government
ministers, and nearly 15,000 military professionals, including some 200 army
generals.
In Moscow, life in the Afghan community centers around the Sevastopol Hotel
complex -- four gray, Soviet-era buildings on the city's southern outskirts.
The Sevastopol complex functions as both a residence and a market, with many
of the hotel's small rooms transformed into shops selling everything from
jewelry and brightly colored tablecloths to a wide variety of Afghan spices
and rice. Many Muscovites visit the market, which is popular for its low
prices.
Televisions at the Sevastopol complex show 20-year-old video clips of famous
Afghan singers. Khazan Aref, a 44-year-old poet from Kabul, watches one such
clip, by Nagma, an Afghan singer who now lives in Canada. "Women at the time
were not forced to cover their face and body," Aref says, pointing to the
Nagma's low-cut dress as she sings "Life is an interesting game, when two
hearts come closer and become friends" -- "Something that's unknown to
Afghans now."
Mohammed says the Sevastopol Hotel complex is home to 6,000 Afghans
comprising all the country's ethnic groups. Mohammed says Pashtuns, Uzbeks,
Turkmen, Tajiks, Hazars, Nuristanis, Aimaqs, and Balochis have learned to
live together in harmony and refer to themselves simply as Afghans. He says
the Moscow community has been living under the 1964 Afghan Constitution --
recently re-adopted for Afghanistan during the December Bonn conference --
for five years already.
"No matter who we were in Afghanistan -- minister, general, governors, or
soldiers -- here we work to feed our families. All of Afghanistan's
[nationalities] live and work here in agreement. There are people from all
the Afghan provinces here. Now, for example, the interim government has
restored the [1964] constitution -- the constitution of [the former Afghan]
King [Zahir Shah]. [Moscow Afghans have always] understood that it was
impossible for us to unite under the constitutions of either the [communist]
revolution or the mujahedins, much less the Taliban. This is why we chose to
live under the [1964] constitution."
Poet Aref works at the Afghan Business Center, located in the Sevastopol
Hotel. In his spare time, he is the editor of an Afghan literary and cultural
magazine published in Moscow. He says that life in Moscow is very hard for
Afghan exiles, because Russia has refused to grant them refugee status. Aref
says that most people living in the Sevastopol work as vendors or porters,
but that their non-legal status makes things difficult.
"Many [Afghans] that work in the Sevastopol Hotel are business people. But
they have problems with the tax police, because we don't live legally. [By
that I mean] we don't have legal documents."
Without legal status, many in the Afghan diaspora have no access to
legitimate jobs, health care, or education. Mohammed says even women in labor
have been turned away from the city's hospitals. The Afghans' non-legal
status also makes them easy targets for the Moscow militia, who use bribes
from non-citizens to supplement their incomes. On any given day, the road
leading to the Sevastopol Hotel is lined with police officers.
Mohammed says many Moscow Afghans are homesick and ready to return to
Afghanistan. He notes that the well-educated Afghans who make up the majority
of the Russian diaspora have a lot of offer their country, but says they have
yet to be invited to return.
"We are ready to go back [to Afghanistan]. If other diaspora groups ask for
help from the government, we are offering the government our help. We can
offer well-educated people. After we left, the people [in Afghanistan] were
left without education. We are the only Afghan diaspora that has scholars,
military [officials]. This is the reason why we think [the interim
administration] should have asked us to come back. But so far we don't feel
[that they want to]."
This week, Afghan interim Defense Minister Mohammad Fahim traveled to Moscow
for talks with senior Russian officials. But he did not meet with the Moscow
diaspora or invite them to return to Afghanistan, despite his stated goal of
building a national army -- a task the community leader says his group, with
its 15,000 former military personnel, is well-equipped to aid.
Mohammed says the interim administration's call to Afghan citizens all over
the world to return home should extend to Russia's Afghans as well. But, he
adds, he believes the administration fears that because of its original links
to Afghanistan's former communist system, the Russian diaspora may organize a
new coup.
"[The Moscow diaspora] is already a national army. It is not a group of
[ethnically] allied officers. They are people from all over the country and
representatives of all ethnic groups. Unfortunately, these people were linked
to the past period of revolution the world has chosen to refer to as a
'communist regime.' People think those who lived and worked in [Afghanistan]
at the time have been [ruined]. But communism doesn't exist anymore. When we
used to work in Afghanistan, we knew that it was an unreachable goal,
particularly in Afghanistan. We back the interim [government], since there is
no other way out. But the interim government shouldn't be afraid of the
intelligentsia. Now is not the time to be afraid of coups, since with the
presence of the international community the possibility is remote."
The United Nations and Afghanistan's interim administration have developed a
program to promote voluntary repatriation of qualified Afghan specialists to
help rebuild the war-torn country. According to the Moscow bureau of the
International Organization for Migration, only 46 Afghans have requested to
be repatriated to their country so far.
For the time being, Mohammed says, Russian Afghans are continuing to work at
building a better life in Moscow. In the Sevastopol complex, the Afghans have
their own mosque, doctors, and -- since last September -- their own school
and kindergarten. The school, opened with the help of a grant from the United
Nations, now teaches 106 Afghan children.
According to Lada Vekua, the school coordinator, children study subjects in
Russian as well as in Dari and Pashtu, the two main Afghan languages. The aim
of the school, Vekua says, is to give children a good knowledge of the
Russian language as well as the languages and culture of Afghanistan so that
they can easily return home in the future.
Bakhadur Khaledah used to teach Dari in Afghanistan, but came to Moscow in
1993 because of the difficult situation at home. Now she volunteers her time
at the school because, she says, she believes the future of her country
depends on its youngest generation.
"We are volunteer workers. We teach for free. We only get money for
transportation. [But] we teach these children with pleasure, since they are
our future. And the future of Afghanistan."
Shafik Lemar is a professional musician who arrived in Moscow in 1997. "Music
was forbidden under both the mujahedin and the Taliban, so I decided to leave
the country," he says. Now Lemar plays at the Afghan weddings in Moscow and
teaches ethnic Afghan music at the school. At one music class, the children
sing a song about their homeland: "Afghanistan, Afghanistan, it is our
nation, it is our country. We are the children of this country."
*******
#16
Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002
From: Matt Bivens
Subject: Re: 6078/Aslund
Re 6078 / Aslund on Reddaway:
The never-ending debate over wither Russia is a fine
thing.
But Anders Aslund's Valentine's Day attack on Peter
Reddaway and Dima Glinsky as closet fascists -- well,
that's not a debate. That's a smear, and a
small-minded and McCarthyist one. A gentleman would,
upon reflection, feel regret and offer an apology. Not
that it's any of my business whether Mr. Aslund sees
himself as a gentleman.
My own view of Russia after having lived there 10
years is that I love the place and wish it all the
best -- yet sadly for me, I share neither Mr. Aslund's
optimism, nor his cold rage at those who dare
disagree.
S Nastupayushim Dnyom Prezidentov,
Matt Bivens
mattbivens@yahoo.com
*******
#17
Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002
From: Don Jacobsen
Subject: Aslund's critique of Reddaway
Dear David,
I submit the following response to Anders Aslund's criticism of Peter
Reddaway, posted in JRL #6078.
Donald Jacobsen
The George Washington University
Anders Aslund demonstrates in his critique of Peter Reddaway and Dmitri
Glinski's The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against
Democracy (#6078) that he has either failed to read the entire book or has
failed to understand many of its key points. The "stated positions" which he
uses to attempt to align Reddaway with "red-brown heroes" are based on quotes
taken completely out of context.
For instance, Aslund posits that Reddaway and Glinski "laud" Igor Shafarevich.
The quote Aslund cites states only that Shafarevich well articulated
national-conservative ideology. In the paragraphs which precede this quote,
Reddaway notes that Shafarevich's views "turned out to be so disturbing for
most other opponents of the Soviet system that Shafarevich soon found himself
separated from the rest of the movement by a kind of intellectual barbed
wire." Far from "lauding" Shafarevich, Reddaway notes and condemns that
Shafarevich "viewed with alarm what he saw as the hyperactivity . . . of the
Jews, and even indulged in numerical calculations of the proportion of Jewish
membership in revolutionary parties."
Eduard Limonov is cited as an "enlightened radical" only in the belief that
"American conservatives were shaping and using Lebed's image to pursue their
own purposes." The only reference to Limonov outside of this very limited
context, about which he might well have been "enlightened," is on p. 79,
where
he is called one of the "enfants terribles of Russian postmodernism."
Overall, Reddaway and Glinski cannot be seen to have praised Limonov outside
of stating that he might have had some knowledge of the forces motivating
Lebed's image when other radicals were contrastingly unenlightened.
It is posited that a Zyuganov victory in 1996 would have been "marginally
better for Russia" only because Zyuganov "was almost a nonentity if viewed
apart from his party" who would have been "doomed to rule by coalition" and
forced to "give key governmental positions to forward-looking and
growth-oriented professionals" because of the "impractical character of [his]
own program." This certainly does NOT constitute an endorsement of Zyuganov
when viewed in context (the section is headed "Choosing the Lesser Evil");
rather, it is in character with Reddaway and Glinski's general argument that
Yeltsin's power had become unchecked and that the direction in which this
unchecked power was moving was harmful to Russia and most specifically to its
economy.
Far from being the conservative extremist rant that Aslund seems to imply
that
it is, The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms is extremely sympathetic to the cause
of democracy in Russia. This is very much in character for a scholar such as
Reddaway, whom, lest we forget, has written prominently on (and consistently
sympathetically to the causes of) Soviet dissidents and political prisoners.
The central theme of The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms is that in the aftermath
of the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia's leaders turned away from the
goals of the democratic movement (which they may or may not have ever
genuinely supported) and "have taken their country in a direction that --
predictably, in our view -- led to tragic consequences for the country and
its
people."
Anders Aslund has an excellent reason for wanting to paint Peter Reddaway as
an extremist: as a key adviser to the Russian Government under Yeltsin, he
was one of the people who helped Russia's leaders take their country in that
very direction. His repeated out-of-context cites to Reddaway and Glinski in
an attempt to support a blatantly ad hominem attack on Reddaway, to wit, that
he "can be nothing but disappointed by the failure of his red-brown heroes to
seize power," can only be viewed as both woefully inaccurate and extremely
self-serving.
I have spoken to faculty members at several institutions who are using The
Tragedy of Russia's Reforms as their main text for courses in post-Soviet
Russian politics at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The only
syllabus I've seen Aslund's book How Russia Became a Market Economy on is
that
of Peter Reddaway himself, who in addition to being opinionated is also very
fair-minded.
******
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